Initiation | Chapter 1 Quests The Technomancer Guide
Last update: 02 February 2017
You start the game by creating your own character. You won't be able to name it and the appearance can be customized from a set of pre-determined options. Afterwards, you will be selecting talents and attributes of your character. You should think about the direction you want your character to be developed in from the very beginning of the game. However, it won't have a significant impact on the gameplay during the introduction - classes are associated with styles of combat, and those can be selected at any moment, as can be learned from the optional combat practices that you can take part in. Details about the selection of points characterizing your character can be found in the Talents and attributes chapter. After finishing the tutorial your character should advance to the 4th or 5th level, allowing you to assign a point in both of the trees.
As soon as the game starts you will see a Workshop. It can be used to upgrade your weapons and armors. In order to do so you will need crafting materials, such as skin or metal. Crafting materials can be found randomly in the game, bought from a vendor, or gained from salvaging unwanted items. The issue of improvements installed via the Workshop is associated with character classes again. Each class uses different weapons / armors, which is why you should only upgrade those items that can be utilized by your character. However, during the introductory quests you can only assume the class you want to play with, as the final decision can be made later.
In the training room you will learn about the three classes: Guardian, Rogue and Fighter.
Guardian - the first one from the mentioned above focuses on powerful attacks, moves slowly and has a shield to defend against attacks. This class is quite bad at performing dodges and isn't the best choice when dealing with mobile bosses and large groups of enemies.
Rogue is a dynamic character, focused around attacks and dodges. Light weapon doesn't do much damage, but is fast. Additionally, a character of this class can finish off enemies with a firearm. Firearms can be further changed and upgraded to make them more effective.
Warrior is equipped with a staff, is extremely effective against clusters of enemies, but can't block attacks. When it comes to strength the Warrior is evenly matched with the Guardian, but is a lot more mobile than the latter.
The abilities of a Technomancer, ones associated with electricity aren't directed towards or connected with any of the classes. Starting abilities, such as the lightning attack and imbuing a weapon with electricity can be used with any of the classes. During the training, when you will need to use a lightning attack, select an icon from the quick-selection menu and assign any key to it. Afterwards, attack the enemy with the ability to continue the tutorial.
You will venture on your first mission with your mentor. The amount of health your trainer has can be seen on the left side of the screen. However, he can't die (like any other companion in the game). First enemies can be defeated with a few attacks. A good method is to use two, three attacks, then to do dodge / push enemy away with a shield (depending on the class) and afterwards repeat the process a number of times. Search through the corpses of your enemies to acquire interesting items - those can be also acquired from highlighted chests, piles of ground and dried corpses.
A second item that can be acquired from your enemies is Serum - the currency used on Mars. However, acquiring Serum from a defeated enemy causes him to die (normally the enemies are only knocked unconscious, although they won't wake up in your presence). Those murders affect your Karma, which in turns affect the way the people (and especially your companions) see you. Salvaging Serum from monsters has no impact on Karma.
After getting to the shelter the type of the enemy you encounter will change - this time you will be fighting with monsters. Those will die from 1-3 attacks and won't attack you much, but you won't gain any items from them, aside from Serum of course. The lightning ability is a good choice here - it attacks twice, meaning that if the first enemy struck is slain, the next one will be attacked afterwards. Go through the shelter and jump on an oval arena, where you will need to defeat a few more monsters...
At the end of the first quest you will be facing a boss. The key to victory is to hit the heart of the beast. Note that after an attack the enemy is most likely to perform a counterattack in front of it - if you are using a melee weapon to attack it, do a dodge each time you hit it. A better method is to use a lightning attack / firearm, wait for the enemy to counterattack and quickly get close to it to perform 2-3 swift melee attacks. Afterwards, the enemy will be performing an area of effect attack that must be dodged (which is quite difficult while playing with the Guardian class). In the meanwhile the small beasts you've encountered earlier will appear on the battlefield - you don't have to worry about them as the area of effect attack of the boss will get rid of them as well.
A quick method to end the fight is to use a staff and the "combo", the area of effect attack of your own. Shoot a lightning at the heart of the enemy, wait for it to counterattack, jump to it to perform your combinational attack and jump back again to avoid the next counter. Don't forget about keeping your health bar in check (it can be replenished by assigning one of the items in your inventory to a key), as well as imbuing your weapon with electricity.