Player guide

The Training Grounds

In short: A sparring yard of immortal targets, free of cost and risk, where skills and proficiencies are trained and every skill keeps casting on its own.

What: a sparring yard of immortal targets where you train skills and proficiencies without risk or cost. Who: level 20 and up. Where: any city Boxer sends you there for 1,000 silver; the Boxer at the yard's edge sends you home.

The targets

The yard is lined with Stakes and Scarecrows from level 20 up to level 125, stepping five levels at a time. Two rules decide which you can hit:

  • Your level must be at least the target's. A level-40 character can strike the Lv20-Lv40 targets and nothing higher.
  • A plain blow hits a Stake; a skill hits a Scarecrow. Swing a weapon at a Stake, cast Thunder or Scatter at a Scarecrow. The wrong pairing is simply refused, and the refusal tells you why.
  • A skill that fires by itself belongs to the Stakes. Rage, Phoenix, Seizer, Earthquake, Boom, FreezingArrow and the rest of the skills you cannot cast go off when your weapon lands a blow -- so you train them by swinging at a Stake, exactly as you train the weapon itself. They cannot be practised on a Scarecrow, because there is no blow to set them off.

The targets never die -- a blow can take one to a sliver of health, but never past it. What it does do now is stay wounded while you work on it and mend a few seconds after you stop, so the bar tells you what your blows are worth instead of quietly refilling behind them. Nothing you do there drops loot.

What you gain

  • Skill experience at a tenth of the field rate -- the yard is for the long climbs, not a shortcut past hunting.
  • Weapon proficiency, also at a tenth.
  • No character experience worth speaking of, and no mana or stamina cost for anything you cast there. The XP bar and cooldowns still apply.

Skills keep casting on their own

In the field an area spell (Tornado, FireCircle) and a weapon skill (Scatter, RapidFire, FastBlade) fire once per click -- a Tornado that kept firing by itself would pull half a map onto you. On the Training Grounds they repeat, exactly like Thunder does: click a Scarecrow with Scatter and the fan keeps sweeping it until you move, switch targets or press another skill. Stamina skills such as CruelShade repeat the same way.

Buffs, heals, Meditation, Roar and Dash repeat here too. Only a transformation, a resurrect and the XP-bar skills still go off once.

Tips

  • Stand still: any step ends the repeat, as it does in the field.
  • The level gate is on the target's level, so pick the highest Scarecrow you can hit; the yard pays the same tenth either way.
  • Being on the yard does not hide you from other players. Sparring between players is possible there, and a death there carries no field consequences.

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