As you dive into the world of Age of Wushu, you think nothing can stand in the way of you becoming the greatest martial artist in Jianghu. But your excitement is short-lived. Where you expected an immersive experience, confusion and chaos reign.
How should you build your character? Which events should you join?
Believe me, it’s a laundry list of questions. When I first started playing, I had no clue what to do. It doesn’t help that the game doesn’t explain the actual gameplay to you. Even worse, the official forums and guides are all down.
Well, although I can’t fit all the essential knowledge into one article, I’ve prepared this list of tips that will help you on your journey through Jianghu.
25. Consider buying a character instead of grinding
The first thing most veterans will tell you when you log in is to just buy an account. While this might be off-putting to some new players, it is a valid argument. In its current state, Age of Wushu doesn’t allow for effective catching-up. The older players will simply be much more ahead in terms of Meridian levels.
Buying an account is actually cheaper than spending money on building your own character from the scratch.
It saves a lot of time too. Even if you played this game 24/7, it would take you years to catch up.
However, it depends on how seriously you want to take this game. If you are a no-life gamer living only to outperform the rest of the player base, then sure, go for it. But if you just want a nice casual MMORPG where you can chill, you can build your own character.
24. Get VIP as soon as possible
Whether you take the game seriously or not, you MUST get VIP. Playing without it will severely slow down your progress. Jianghu VIP is similar to subscriptions in other games. It costs 30 gold which is about 10 dollars a month.
While subscription can certainly be more expensive in other games, it’s still a lot of money.
Fortunately, you can buy VIP from other players for in-game currency (Silver Taels). Right now, its price ranges from 500 to 750 Liangs. Making Taels as a non-VIP player can take ages. I recommend buying your first VIP yourself. Once you unlock the rest of the content, you’ll be able to make all the money you need for your subsequent VIPs.
But what exactly are the perks of being a Jianghu VIP? Well, without it, Wushu might feel like one of those obnoxious ‘farming’ games where you just wait forever until your buildings are complete. It’s even worse than that. Without VIP, you’ll level up so slowly that you won’t ever catch up to other players.
You also need it for most Life-skill profession. I will get into those later. For now, I’ll just say that without VIP, you can’t gather necessary materials to craft useful items in the game.
Lastly, VIP unlocks tons of new content for you. By participating in these unlocked activities, you’ll earn way more Taels and progress the game much faster.
Seriously, don’t bother playing this game without VIP. It’s just too frustrating.
23. Choose your school wisely
After you complete the tutorial, you’re next step will be choosing the right school. Unfortunately, the game provides you with no information about which school is the best. This makes a lot of new players join schools that are bad. While you can betray a school and join another it, it is a waste of your time.
So how do you know which school is the best one? Well, it depends on the attribute you choose.
For Taichi player, I suggest going to Wudang as it’s the best option right now. Yang players will benefit most from Royal Guards, though Shaolin is also a decent choice. As for Yin players, they have the most schools they can choose from. Scholars, Tangmen and Emei are all great schools that will benefit you a lot.
I suggest researching each school a bit to see if it fits your playstyle before deciding. Remember – betraying a school is a huge waste of time.
22. Get Perish Blade as soon as possible
I cannot stress this point enough. Perish Blade is the strongest PVE set in the game and almost everyone uses it to run instances.
Whether you plan to run solo or team content, the value this set brings to the table is immense. With its life and steal and damage stacks, you will shred through everything that comes your way, be it mobs or bosses.
One way to obtain this OP set is by joining the Wanderer’s Valley school. Although this allows you to upgrade the set all the way up to level 13, it’s really not worth. Wanderer’s Valley offers nothing else besides this set. You’re good to just buy it off the market.
Compared to most items in the game, it’s relatively cheap. And even though you can get it only up to level 5 (4 for some skills), it’s all you need.
Alternatively, you can participate in the script raiding event which takes place from Monday to Saturday at 7 PM server time. If the raided school is Wanderer’s Valley, you’ll be able to farm the whole set yourself.
Just keep in mind it will take you a lot more time to do it this way. But even if you do have the set, you should still join the event. Selling the pages is a good way to earn money.
However, getting the set is not the end of the journey. You will then need to purchase Twin Daggers, ideally of Jade quality. This will maximize your damage output. Additionally, you should farm weapon manuals to make this set even stronger.
21. Focus on meridians instead of inners
The common playstyle trap for beginner players is to level up your main inner up to the highest power level, Keep Your Own Counsel. While you do want to get there, the stats you get from unlocking meridian levels are far stronger. Thus, you should first level inner every schools’ first, second, and third inners to levels 25, 20, and 20 respectively.
You can unlock these inners easily by getting an alt. If you’re too lazy to do the hard work, you can buy them from other players. Getting the breakthrough pages is then easy – just farm Heroes daily and you’ll get there eventually.
The Hero event also gives you Wulin books. These can be exchanged at an NPC in Suzhou for cultivation pills for every school inner up to Tier 3. I strongly recommend using only these pills to level up these ‘trash’ inners. It’s more efficient in the long run since it allows you to focus on other skills.
Once you do that, level up your school’s fourth and fifth inner up to level 30. As for the sixth inner, you want to max it out. This will give you one full meridian which (usually) complements your school’s playstyle.
After this, things get a bit trickier. While there are many ways to get the other meridians, the most cost-efficient one is to use 5 Aggregates and Demon Subduing Items. For the sake of being as concise as possible, I will call them 5-Aggs throughout the rest of the article.
These item allow you to unlock almost any meridian in the game. However, it will cost quite a lot of cultivation points. So make sure you have enough of those before you attempt to unlock them!
As for Reverse Meridians, these are easy. Once you start travelling to subsect, you will get them one by one. I suggest focusing on those you plan on using first.
20. Learn how the gear system works
In most MMORPGs, the gear system is quite intuitive. However, Wushu throws reason into the wind with most of its features, including gear. To a new player, the entire system can be overwhelming.
But not to worry, it only takes a bit of knowledge (which the game doesn’t provide you, unfortunately).
Firstly, each gear piece can have one of the following qualities: Wood, Copper, Iron, Silver, Gold, and Jade. You’ll only ever want to buy Jade gear (Gold works too in PVE, if you don’t have money). The gear pieces also have a Class, the highest one being 7. I don’t recommend buying gear lower than C4.
To upgrade the class, you’ll always need a Black Jade Power (which costs roughly 150 Liangs) and a Binging Agent (which always costs 250 Liangs). To get your gear piece from C6 to C7, you’ll need 3 Black Jade Powers instead. As you can see, this makes upgrading it quite expensive.
Still, getting good equipment should be your primary goal. Save all money you get and use it to get C7 gear. Make sure the gear matches the attribute of your internal skills. Otherwise, you won’t get the additional stats.
As for the stats themselves, you should focus on those which are most useful to your build. External players will want Brawn while internal ones should go for Breath and Spirit. You can reroll these for free with Reset Tokens.
19. Focus on sets compatible with your inner
Apart from gear, your chosen attribute will affect which sets you’re going to use. Taichi users will get a 20% damage bonus when using Taichi skillsets and a 16% damage bonus if they use either Yin or Yang skillsets.
Yin or Yang users will get a 20% bonus when using sets of their respective attribute and a 16% bonus when using Taichi sets. If they use a set of their opposing attribute, they don’t gain any damage increase.
Thus, you should never use a set which has an attribute opposite to yours. The lack of 20% damage bonus will really show, whether in PVP or PVE.
This can be especially problematic if you are a Yang player. Perish Blade is a Yin set. I suggest you use Blood Blade Clan’s second set instead. It’s easy to get and has some healing in its kit.
As for PVP, people use mostly cash sets these days. All cash sets are Taichi unless you change their attribute. However, you don’t even need to do that. The 4% damage difference is minimal unless you are one of the top PVP players on the server.
18. Focus on only two weapon manuals at the beginning
Weapon Manuals are a great way to increase your damage output. You do these via Roaming the World interface. In the past, you had to play Taels to get bounties which give weapon manuals. Now, you get free tokens every day.
However, be prepared for a long grind. Even if you do all 7 runs (including the bonus run), it takes roughly 3 months to get to the max level.
But the huge grind-fest is just one of the reasons you should focus on only two weapons in the beginning. Another problem is cultivation points. After the breakthrough, each manual you use will consume cultivation points. To reach the max level, expect to waste a lot of them.
This can be problematic, since you need cultivation points to level your other internal skills and skillsets.
Since Perish Blade is such a strong set, the Twin Daggers manual should be your primary focus. The other one depends on which school you join. A Scholars player might go for either the Sword or Bare-Handed Manual while a Royal Guards player will want to invest in the Single Blade one.
17. Start collecting Jianghu inners as soon as you can
Jianghu inners are the strongest inners in the game. For PVP, almost everyone uses the Taoist Divination Skill. Thanks to its damage reduction and damage buffs, it beats every other inner in the game.
For PVE, I suggest using the Against Wordly Evil Skill. With its stackable damage bonus, it works exceptionally well with Perish Blade.
However, other Jianghu inners also have their uses. Sunset skill, for example, allows you to recover from CC. And every single one of them adds bonus stats to your Jianghu meridians. To be as strong as possible, you should collect them all.
Apart from buying them from other players, you can get them form the Tornado Event. This occurs either at 12 PM or 17 PM server time. Sadly, it’s RNG-based so it make take a while for you to get enough pages. Still, it’s the most reliable way you can get them for free.
16. Select your main inner early on and cultivate it to the maximum level
Once you get the hang of the basic mechanics, it’s time to choose your main inner. Sometimes, this will be your school’s 6th inner. Wudang, Tangmen, Emei, Shaolin, and Scholars all have great inners that you can main. If you chose any of those schools, focus on their respective inners.
However, other schools’ internal skills leave things to be desired. So how do you cope with that?
Well, that’s where subsects come in. Each school has its subsect which offers two inners and two skillsets. Their inners are often better than those from the original school.
If you joined Wanderer’s Valley, then you should definitely grab the 5 Immortal Sect’s internal skill. It’s easily the best free-to-play Taichi inner in the game. For Yang players, I recommend going to the Blood Blade Clan. Their inner is OP in both PVP and PVE. And finally, Yin players should consider the Ancient Tomb Sect. Their inner offers both offensive and defensive qualities.
15. Choose the right effects for your weapons and gear
As you upgrade the class of your equipment, you’ll notice that every piece of equipment has its special effect. In total, you can get up to three special effects. The gear is separated into three groups.
The first one consists of rings and your weapon. If they all have the same effect, it will activate. I suggest going with the one that adds extra damage. It’s reliable and it works in most scenarios.
The second group is just the chest piece. It activates by itself, so you don’t need to pair its special effect with any other equipment. The best choice here (at class 7) is the Treasure Cloak Protection, which absorbs 90% of damage for as long as it’s active.
Every remaining piece of your equipment affects the final effect. If you have at least 6 pieces with the same one, it will active. You should go for the Larva Cloak one for even more durability –as long as it is active, you won’t take damage.
14. Get the Buddha Heart Palm set
Buddha Heart Palm is a must-have Cash Shop set. It’s arguably the most used PVP set in the game. It’s ranged and deals stackable damage. Additionally, it has powerful support skills as well.
This includes CC immunity, Rage gathering, and HP recovery buffs. In the current state of the game, you practically can’t PVP without owning this set.
However, it’s no longer available in the Cash Shop. The only way you can get that is by becoming an S-VIP which is extremely expensive. Thousands-of-dollars level expensive. Fortunately, you can buy it from other players for 10 Dings. Alternatively, you can just buy a character that already owns it if you’re looking for cost-efficiency.
Once you get this set, your next focus will be getting 3 Bracers, each one having a 30% damage increase for one of the three offensive skills in this set. Getting them is very expensive since it involves a lot of RNG. But once you get there, you’ll win many more duels.
13. Consider getting useful inners from other schools
Getting available inners from other schools is always a good idea. Not only do they unlock new meridians for you but they also boost the stats of your Jianghu meridians. Some even have useful benefits when active.
The first and most important one is Mingyu Skill, the second inner from the Scholars. This inner boosts your movement speed by a whopping 33% at level 36. Movement speed is valuable for getting your dailies done as fast as possible and every player should invest into this inner as soon as possible.
Another strong internal skill is the Six Directions Canon, the second inner of Tangmen. Keep in mind that it’s useless below level 36. But once you do max it, you’ll be able to clear PVE content twice as fast. This is because of the debuff it adds on most mobs and bosses – they take additional damage from all sources. However, it doesn’t work on some of the new content.
Finally, consider getting the Flying String Feather Script. This is Emei’s third inner. It allows you to dash forward not just once, but up to 4 times consecutively. Paired with Mingyu skill, you’ll be able to dash across the map in a matter of seconds.
12. Get a house as soon as possible
Getting a house is important for one primary reason – the bonus 100,000 cultivation conversion you get every day. While your friends might invite you to theirs, it might not align with your schedule. Having your own house allows you to get a massive cultivation boost whenever you please.
Farming the tokens for it isn’t hard either. Just run a lot of low-tier instances and you can likely get one in two weeks.
In a recent update, you can also farm Black Jade Powders if you own the house. Simply unlock the Exploration building and try your luck every day. Though it’s not the fastest way to get this valuable material, it’s at least free!
A house also allows you to Teleport to the scene where it’s located. This can be useful for spying.
11. Buy Windrider with Wander points
It’s no secret that the grind in Wushu can be intense. One reason while daily/weekly activities take so long is because they are scattered across a huge map. To speed up this process, most people either buy mounts or Windrider.
While mounts are useful in some scenarios, they are quite expensive. Furthermore, you can’t use them in certain restricted areas. On the other hand, you can use Windrider wherever you please. Once you use it, you will run much faster.
If you have High-level flying skills, then you can jump over terrain and reach your destination even faster. Its only drawback is that you can’t use it in combat. Still, it’s far superior to mounts which can be very buggy sometimes.
So, how do you get a Windrider? Well, you can buy it in the Cash Shop for 45 gold. Other players tend to sell it for about 500 Liangs. In my opinion, this is a huge waste of money. You can get a 3-day Windrider for only 300 Wander points. You get 45 of these whenever you finish the Mind Demon daily event, for up to twice a day.
The Windrider package includes other useful items too, such as cultivation points and 5-Aggs. It amazes me how many veteran players don’t know about this option!
10. Collect 5 Aggregates and Demon Subduing Items
When you first enter the game, you'll be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of items you keep receiving every day. While some of them are useless, you'll want to farm other ones. 5 Aggregates and Demon Subduing Items are one such example.
Commonly referred to as 5-aggs, these allow you to unlock meridian levels without the need to level internal skills. Since your decision to join a school should be final, they are the best option for unlocking meridians from other schools.
But even if you already have them all unlocked, these items are still extremely useful – they allow you to unlock a Jianghu inner called Six Realms Lingxiao Supremacy. Although this powerful inner has the Yin attribute, it adds extra stats to your Jianghu meridians. This makes it a must-have for every player interested in the PVP.
Farming it is no small feat – it takes about 20,000 5-Aggs just to get it to the KYOC level. To go beyond that, it takes even more. It’s one of the hardest inners to obtain in the game but it’s very rewarding.
9. Collect Blood Plum Daggers
Blood Plum Daggers are incredibly important items and you should start collecting them as soon as possible. They allow you to unlock most Jianghu inners up to level 49. This means you don’t need to waste fragments on these lower levels.
You’ll also need for very high levels. And even if you don’t, they are always in demand. Thus, you can make a lot of money off them.
But how can you get your hands on these coveted items? Well, the most reliable instance to farm them would be the Uncontested Secret Area. Just keep in mind that this instance is tough to solo. But if you can do it, the spoils are all your own.
Desert Ghost Town is faster since you can do it in a team and still get your own Daggers. However, the drop rate is quite miserable.
8. Choose the right profession
Shortly into the game, you’ll be able to pick up multiple professions. Some of them can even add extra money to your pockets. Unfortunately, certain ones are just worthless.
They are split into four categories – Gathering, Manufacture, Culture, and Marketplace.
Let’s start with the Marketplace professions. While you don’t lose anything for taking them up, they are useless.
The Beggar profession allows you to beg from other players but most won’t give you anything. And even if they do, you only get a small portion of the money. The other one is Divinator. Just to level up, you’ll need a lot of Taels. This makes it useless.
Let’s move on to Gathering. These professions include Fishing, Mining, Woodcutting, Hunting, and Farming. Here, you can grab all of them without repercussions.
As for Culture professions, Weiqi Player and Musician are both splendid options. Weiqi players empower your arrays with buffs such as 25% more crit chance which is always useful. On the other hand, Musician is more defensive – it restores HP and IP for your teammates. Just keep in mind you can’t fight while you play music. Its passive nature might not be for everyone.
The other two, Scholar and Painter, have next to no use, so I won’t get into them.
And finally, we’ve reached the Manufacture professions. These are the most important ones in the game. At first, you can choose just one. Once you get it to level 9, you can add a second one. Since you can only get two out of the six options, you’d better choose wisely!
The first one is Chef. As you may expect, this allows you to cook meals. Basic meals will just restore your Nutrition value. However, more advanced dishes will give you powerful buffs. It’s all-around a great profession, although you won’t make that much money out of it. You can also enhance weapons.
The next one is Poison Maker. This allows you to create poisons and enhance equipment. However, the poisons have a very niche use and are generally not very useful – even though they buff you, they also apply a debuff. Worse still, they last for less than a minute. I wouldn’t recommend choosing this profession unless you plan to pair it with Tailor.
The Herbalist profession allows you to craft pills (essentially potions in other MMORPGs). Some restore HP while others boost your stats for an hour. As Herbalist, you can also enhance jewelry pieces. While some pills are always in demand, it’s not the most lucrative career choice in the game. Still, it beats Poison Maker.
The last three professions allow you to craft gear pieces. As a Tailor, you can make Headgear, Clothes, Pants, Bracers, Leggins, and Shoes). Craftsman allows you to create Rings, Earrings, and Necklaces. And Blacksmiths, as the name implies, allow you to make weapons.
Since new players always need gear, these professions are the most lucrative ones in the game. However, expect to deal with a lot of RNG. Most people won’t buy anything under Class 4. But to make Class 4 equipment, you need rare materials that drop in difficult instances. Then, you’ll need a worktable that has even poorer drop-rate.
Now, you might think it’s best to just buy all these items. Unfortunately, you can’t escape the clutches of RNG even then – it’s random whether you get Jade-quality gear or not! Despite this, I recommend choosing at least one of these professions.
7. Save your Monthly Sign-In Gift for cultivation points
As its name suggests, you receive a Monthly Sign-In Gift once every month. Most people use it to unlock new meridians early in the game. But once they unlock all the relevant ones, they forget all about this item.
Well, it has another use. You can exchange it for 3 million cultivation points at an NPC in Suzhou once a month. You always need cultivation points. Once they drop to zero, you won’t be able to level until you replenish them. This is one of the best ways to gain them for free.
6. Make sure you do all the important weekly events
A lot of players skip important weekly tasks. By doing so, they make their progression even slower than it would normally be.
For instance, you should run the 4-Family quests every single week. They give you a lot of family tokens which you can exchange into 5-Aggs. Once you hit 1,000 Tokens, buy any C6 Raw Jade and disenchant it into 5-Aggs. The weekly events are done in a team of six and they will never take longer than one hour (assuming you have good teammates).
Another important thing to do is to run at least 7 instances a week. While you can run more if you have disciples, the seven free ones are already a handful. The best instance to run is the Uncontested Secret Area.
Not only does it drop valuable Blood Plum Darts, but also expensive materials which you’ll have no trouble selling. However, it’s quite difficult to solo.
If you’re looking for a team run, consider Desert Ghost Town. It can drop rare items, although you’ll have to roll for them.
If you don’t have much time, then you can always just solo Qingyao Palace. This Forbiddance Instance drops Desolate Beast Stones and Demon Gate Tokens, both of which you need for every high-tier inners and skillsets. Each run should only take you 10 minutes.
Lastly, you should hit 1,000 Activity Points every week. The package boxes contain cultivation pills that will speed your leveling tremendously. If you do daily and weekly quests regularly, you shouldn’t have trouble hitting the last milestone.
5. Start a Mandragora flower garden
The Mandragora flower garden is a very obscure event. However, it gives amazing rewards, especially given how little effort you need to put into it. All you need to begin is 100 Family tokens which are quite easy to obtain. Then, you farm flowers until you unlock all 8 plots. Once you do, you just have to buy the 270-flower package to get 30 5-Aggs.
The package also gives some cultivation points and Travelling Tokens. These allow you to reset your teleportation cooldown whenever you want. The best part? They have no expiration date – you can hoard as many of them as you want.
4. Don’t kill too many other players at one time
As you grow in power, you may be tempted to try out PVP. I suggest trying friendly duels first. Though you can attack and potentially kill any player you encounter, doing so will increase your infamy. Once it reaches 2,000 points, your name will turn red.
If you die in this state – by any means – the game will automatically send you to jail. Bailing yourself out is very expensive and you’ll likely have to sit through it for as long as an entire day, depending on how much infamy you gained.
Sadly, the value reduces only while you are logged in. In other words, you’ll have to stare at your character until your jail-time’s over.
3. Join a guild
Every MMORPG has the option to join a guild. Wushu is no different. Even if you are not a social person, it provides you with many free benefits. For one, it will increase your maximum vigor value. Vigor is necessary to perform any lifeskill action. The higher the value, the more time you can spend gathering and crafting.
But the main appeal is the Guild Escort event. This will give cultivation pills and activity points. At certain milestones, you gain even more rewards.
You can also participate in Guild Task for even more rewards. However, you have to be VIP to reap these benefits. Some guilds also host their own events. For example, if you contribute to the guild in some way, the leaders will give you free items such as mounts.
In the beginning, you’ll want to join a PVE guild. PVP guilds in this game take their rivalry very seriously. If members of an enemy guild see you, they will attack you immediately.
2. Create alts
Alts are additional characters you can make besides your main account. In most MMORPGs, you usually don’t have a reason to do so. But in Wushu, having an alt or two can make life a lot easier for you.
For one, you can use alts to farm every other school’s inners up to the third. It takes two weeks of spying to get all three per school. While it may be time-consuming, it’s the most cost-efficient way to obtain them.
Additionally, alt can expand your storage space. Even with the best Bags in the game and the bank fully expanded, you’ll still have way too many items on your hands.
Well, alts can help you carry that burden – literally. Just dump every unbound item onto another account. It will truly feel as if a great weight’s been lifted off your shoulders.
Alts can also help you keep an Online Stall whenever you play. Just keep the other window running in the background at the lowest settings.
Lastly, Untapped Potential alts are a great way for you to farm Mind Demons – the boss will be so weak then you can solo it. This works even better if you make them into your disciples – you’ll get even more free stuff!
1. Have fun
Although it might seem cliché of me to place this tip on top of the list, allow me to explain. While you likely play every game to have fun, Wushu can become very taxing over time. Especially if you fall into the mindless grind-fest.
I’m not lying when I say that it has so many activities that you’ll never run out of stuff to do. Even if you play 24/7, you simply can’t get everything done. This can be very frustrating. I used to no-life this game for a while but I don’t recommend following (too closely) in my footsteps.
The sad truth is that most people spend thousands of dollars on this game just to build stronger characters. No amount of grinding will ever allow you to catch up to them.
The PVP aspect can also be frustrating for the same reason. You’re very likely to lose to players who spent this much money on the game. Thus, my advice is to approach the game casually. Just level up, do the dailies you like, and socialize with your guild. It’s a much healthier approach than trying to reach an impossible goal. Too many people take games way too seriously for their own good.
