RotMG Survival Guide

How to survive in RotMG. I wrote core of this text after 1 month of playing, still being a noob. So yes, it's for noobs but experienced players may also find some tips useful.

Health

• Keep an eye on your HP bar all the time. Never ever lose a track of your health, no matter where you are, no matter what you do. Make it a habit.
• Play at full health. Or near full health. When your health drops below 70% be extra careful and make returning to full health your priority. Heal, drink a HP potion, escape to nexus or wait to regenerate. (For melee classes and experienced players this percentage may be lower).
• Less experienced players should play a healing class. Necromancer is the best one to start.
• Make sure you always have HP/MP potions. The easiest place to get them is Tutorial (type /nexustutorial or /tutorial to go there). Other places to get HP/MP pots easily: beach, Sumo Master, treasure chests, Undead Lair, Oryx Castle. Swap potions with some worthless item to carry more than 6.

Watch the enemies

• Use the mini map. Set the mini map zoom to one above the smallest and look for the red dots. You can see the enemies on the map before they appear in the game.

Escape to nexus

• Don't hesitate to escape to nexus. It's almost always better to lose loot than lose your precious character.
• When health drops below 40% - nexus. Don't wait until you start blinking (20%). There are exceptions - in a dungeon you may wait in a safe place to regenerate.
• When paralyzed by swarm of monsters (trench ponies, tomb scarabs, raging Nut) - nexus immediately, don't wait for your HP to drop because it may be too late.

Setup the controls

• Make the nexus key easily available. I use spacebar for nexus. Other popular choices are F, R, Tab, Caps Lock, Ctrl.
• Enable off-centered view and camera rotation. A must for ranged classes.
• Remap frequently used commands to keys around WASD.
• Move chat commands (Tab, G) away from WASD. You probably don't want to enter chat mode accidentally when playing. I mapped "begin tell" to \ and "guild chat" to ] (keys above Enter). 
• You may use ESDF or RDFG for movement instead of WASD. Then you can use A or Z for nexus.

Start slowly

• Check controls after the game starts, press the nexus key to make sure it works. Sometimes the controls get reset on their own (flash or browser update, new build, switching to steam client, etc.) and people die because their nexus key doesn't work. Make it a habit.
• After you started the game: move around midlands or godlands for 2 minutes, get into the realm mood first, concentrate. Don't do risky things right after you launched the game. That Skull Shrine can wait.
• Start playing with a less valuable character. Then switch to the main character.

Don't play when tired

• Don't play at 5 a.m. when you're half sleeping. You may die not even knowing how it happened. I killed some maxed characters this way.
• Never play after a sleepless night. It will be a disaster.
• Don't play when drunk or high. 
• Don't watch movies when playing.
• Take a 24 hour break after death. It's a bad day and more bad things can happen.
• If you feel you really must play - don't play your main character, start a new character or play a less valuable one (no fame, unpotted, no expensive items, etc).

Teleporting

• When teleporting be ready to nexus immediately. You may teleport into a swarm of bullets or monsters. Only a quick tap of nexus key will save you.
• Use voice communication (mumble, teamspeak) and ask a friend if it's safe to teleport.
• Don't teleport with very low health. Nexus instead.
• Don't teleport to rushers in a dungeon unless they reached the boss or they stay for a while in one place. You will land not on the player but in a place that player was a second ago. Most likely on top of monsters chasing him.
• Avoid teleporting to melees (knights, warriors, paladins) or be extra careful. They may sit on the Cube God or Skull Shrine right now. 
• Prefer teleporting to robe classes (wizard, sorc, priest), they most probably stay away from danger.
• Sometimes teleporting ends in instant death and there's nothing you can do. Such thing is very rare but it happens.
• Avoid teleporting in Mad Lab. There are too many things that can kill you instantly if you land on top of them.
• Beware of strangers that ask to teleport to them. Some people want put others to death and announce crystal in a bullet hell or close to monsters so you land on top of them.
• Avoid teleporting to low level players in godlands. They may stand on top of crystal, or wander deep into godlands on a suicidal mission. They have nothing to lose.
• Lock friends and good players and teleport to them, preferably to ranged classes. They should be in safe place. Also you can see their health and MP when hovering over their name. If a priest has protection tome and just used it - rather don't teleport.
• Be careful when teleporting to the boss so you don't land on top of him (or other deadly things like green potion). Teleport earlier when there is a small distance between boss and the person you teleport to.

Anchor

• Nexusing out of dungeon will make you lose chances to get loot. That's why sometimes instead of nexusing out it's better to teleport to another player. That player is called an anchor.
• To set up an anchor type /teleport PlayerName in the chat, then click somewhere else. Now pressing Enter key twice will teleport you to that player. First enter will activate the chat and second one will send the teleport command. Dont press other keys (like movement keys) between Enters.
• You may set up the begin chat key to something else than Enter to reach it quickly. Tab key may be a good choice.
• Teleport command will fail if your anchor is paused, cloaked or left the dungeon. 
• There is a 10 second cooldown between teleports. Trying to teleport earlier will fail. 
• Don't count on it to be 100% reliable like nexus key.
• Try teleporting to anchor a bit earlier than you would nexus. Be ready to nexus out immediately if teleporting failed.
• Sometimes there is a delay and you don't teleport immediately. Sometimes it makes a gravestone spawn on the teleport target instead of the place that someone died.
• Lock your anchor and click his name sometimes to check if Teleport option is still there, that means the player is not paused.
• If you pause in a tomb - announce it to warn players who might have chosen you as their anchor.
• It's best when the anchoring player is aware of anchoring and is your friend.

Away

• Use /pause command when away from computer. You're invulnerable when paused. Some evil people love to drag monsters to players who are away to kill them.
• To unpause type /pause again.
• A phone rings? Tap your nexus key first. Don't leave your precious character in unsafe place.
• Don't expect a cleared place to be always safe. Gods respawn and abyss demons sometimes appear in previously cleared areas.
• Don't expect other people to protect you when you're away. They may get disconnected. Pause is always safer.

Chatting

• Use voice chat (mumble, teamspeak, skype) if possible. Typing in the realm is somehow dangerous.
  
• Don't type in the godlands. Pause or teleport to the map edge first and then respond to tells.
• Don't type in the Abyss.
• Don't type at Sphinx. Horrid Reaper may jump on you and kill you instantly.
• Don't announce your loot if you're not 100% safe. You don't have to announce it at all. I saw many people dying in Wine Cellar or at events, killed by leftover minions because they started typing.

Misc tips

• Learn to move while confused. Practice in the Manor: leave a single bat alive and let it confuse you. "A" moves back (that's the most important one), "D" forward, "W" left, "S" right, camera rotation is reversed. You can bend your hand 90 degrees to use DWAS instead of WASD (that's the easy way to remember).
• Disable trade requests (and join guild requests) in options. Sometimes you want to reach the dugneon entrance surrounded by gods. Just when you want to click the "Enter" button a trade requests pops up. There were cases of people getting distracted by that and dying. 
• Be careful when exiting a hallway. The monsters may be there behind a corner but you don't see them partially. They will "appear" suddenly.

Prevent client-side lag

• Change the flash quality to low.
• Use stand-alone Flash Projector instead of browser. 
• Close other programs that may use up the network and processor.
• Don't download heavy files while playing.
• Turn the shadows off in game options.
• Restart your client (browser, projector) periodically.
• Reboot the operating system sometimes.
• Change your internet provider if the network fails.
• In game options assign a key to Performance Stats and use it sometimes. The memory usage grows steadily and when it exceeds 600 MB (or whatever value you start lagging at) - it's time to restart the client.
• Allow Unlimited storage for flash player.

Lags

• Don't open dungeons in a crowded nexus (or in a guild hall that belongs to the crowded nexus) because you will have a heavy lag. Find a nearly empty nexus.
• If the realm is lagging - exit and change the server. 
• If all servers are lagging - try rolling new characters or take a break instead of playing your main character. 
• Screen freezes may be caused by flash player's garbage collector - it stops the game for a moment to reclaim used memory. Restart the client regularly to avoid it. If it happens - nexus key doesn't work, so close the window - or better - disconnect your internet physically by pulling out the network cable.

"Oryx lag"

• When the realm closes and people go to the Oryx Castle - all people within the dungeons opened in that realm experience the lag. This lag may be deadly. 
• Probable cause is that server is busy generating the new realm in place of the old one. The castle itself is also affected by that lag.
• Oryx lag affects also dungeons opened with keys.
• If you have friends in that realm - ask them to tell you when the realm closes.
• When it starts, move quickly to a safe place and stay there. If there is no safe place and the character is precious - close the client or disconnect the internet.

Lost focus

• Disable right clicking if possible. Use a script, like autohotkey, or some software shipped with your mouse driver. Accidental right clicking pops up the flash player menu and makes you lose control over a character.
• Disable Windows key.
• If your browser or flash projector window is not fullscreen - don't keep another window behind the game window. Otherwise - if you accidentally click outside - another window will obscure the game.
• Don't play when Windows Update is active. It may cause lags or display popups.

Godlands

• Unless you're farming fame or leveling a new character - avoid big crowd in the godlands (so called "trains"). When you cannot see the enemy bullets and people lure the gods from all directions - perhaps it's time to play somewhere safer. Also, too big crowd rather reduces your chance to get potion drops.
• When caught in a crossfire in the godlands - nexus immediately. Stacked Medusa bombs and Ghost God's shotgun can kill even maxed character in a second.
• Gods respawn and previously cleared area may be full of enemies again. Move sideways (left-right) to dodge shots and circle around gods instead of retreating large distances. 
• Be very careful not to retreat into a Ghost God, when playing with uncentered view. Watch the mini map when playing uncentered and moving backwards.
• Ent God bullets pierce through other players, you must dodge them even in the crowd.
• This applies to players with unmaxed defense: When leftover cube minions, skulls and pentaract eyes roam through the godlands - exit and change the realm. They reduce your health and create additional danger but don't drop anything in return.

Mysterious Crystal

• Don't stand on top of the crystal. Don't walk through the crystal. It fires a "shotugn" of bullets periodically. Standing on top of crystal and taking the full shotgun will kill any character immediately.
• You may use EP to break the crystal but only right after the shotgun. Wait for shotgun and don't stay on the crystal for too long. Use EP only after you saw the shotgun yourself. Quieted people around might have been quieted by a sprite god, not by the crystal. Other people EP'ing crystal are no guarantee that shotgun won't happen, I saw some of them dying. If you decided to go and switch the class to bring EP after you saw the shotgun - wait for another shotgun when you return.

Buffing: Ghost King, Ent Ancient and Lich

• Why the Ghost King is sometimes so easy to defeat and sometimes it takes so long? Why the battle with Lich is sometimes long and dangerous and sometimes it's fast and easy?
• Lich, Ent Ancient and Ghost King have a buff phase in the beginning. The damage dealt during that buff phase will determine their strength in next phases.
• The buff phase lasts while the monster is flashing blue. If no damage is dealt - the monster will be very easy to kill. That's why people say "don't buff" or say "idiot" and "noob" when someone buffed the monster.
• Sometimes the mystic tries to prevent buffing by stasising the monster. It often makes things worse because the buff phase continues after stasis is gone but the monster no longer flashes. That makes players buff without knowing about that.
• Sometimes it's reasonable to buff. Buffing Ent Ancient makes him spawn green sprites and gives a chance to get Quiver of Thunder. 
• People often buff liches to give their friends more time to enter the realm, usually when the realm is full and Wine Cellar is planned to be hosted there.
• Ghost King becomes vulnerable after the "ghost master" has been killed.

Oryx Castle

• Keep a safe distance from breakable walls. There are monsters behind that may kill you after the wall disappears.
• Stay away from brutes, they sometimes "charge" - move very rapidly towards the player.
• Beware of lag, it often appears in the castle. Usually before third room.
• Never stand in the middle of Stone Guardian chamber. That's where the last guardian drops his sword. The sword almost always instantly kills the player.
• Before entering the Oryx Chamber check for sword. Sometimes the sword remains after the guardians died. Sometimes the last guardian throws the sword just before death.
• Red stone guardian heals less than blue one. Kill the blue first.
• Sometimes someone opens a Pirate Cave in the middle of the chamber just before the Stone Guardian's sword lands. Make sure the guardians are dead and there is no sword.

Oryx Chamber ("Oryx 1")

• Don't be a hero in the castle. Overdamaging Oryx is not rewarded with better item drops so do your soulbound damage in safe phases like artifacts or shotgun and then just back off.
• Skip "silent" and "dancing" phases at Oryx ("be silent!", "time for more dancing hahaha"). Bomb damage is calculated server-side, so you may die at full health if you're lagging.
• Don't approach Oryx shotgun (huge white bolts) with low health. A single shot may kill you when you're low on health so keep away until healed.

Wine Cellar ("Oryx 2")

• Watch for colorful stars ("shotgun") that Oryx is constantly shooting. They do heavy damage and it's easy to miss them in the crowd.
• If you get confused, press "A" (moves backwards when confused)
• Circle Oryx clockwise, that way you will start moving back if confused.
• A robe class (wizard, mystic, necromancer, priest, sorc) or assassin are a safe choice for the Wine Cellar.

Sprite World

• Robe classes (wizards, priests, etc.) may shoot the boss from safe distance during the turret phase - when the boss spawns turrets and sits in the middle. Then leave the boss area during "chase" phase and wait for the next turret phase. That way an unpotted (0/8) character can safely kill the boss.
• Keep constantly moving during the chase phase.
• Don't grab loot or move to exit if turrets are still alive. Bullet streams that cross over the loot/exit may hurt you.

Undead Lair ("UDL")

• Floor traps may instantly kill you. Destroy them from the distance or activate by moving close and dodge the shots. There are two types of traps - square (one direction) and circle (all directions).
• Respect the Brown Slimes.
• Respect the Vampire Kings. Nexus if both quieted and slowed by them.
• Septavius first phase (small armor piercing bullets): circle around Septavius in close distance and stay in the gap between bullets. Some people do it wrong and eat all the bullets while circling.

Manor

• Skip the bat phase by moving out of Ruthven's chamber. Watch the minimap to know when the bat phase is over.
• Standing on top of Ruthven, when he changes from bats to his normal state, is fatal.

Davy Jones Locker

• Davy becomes vulnerable for a very short period after all "lamps" surrounding him got lit.
• When soloing (on a low DPS class) you may weaken the lamps first. Move around and shoot them a bit. Then lit them all quickly on the second pass.
• Keep distance from the lamps so they don't paralyze you.
• If you got paralyzed by the lamps and Davy is approaching you - nexus out. Davy sitting on you is instant death.
• Kill big skulls for more ghost rum, they drop it sometimes.

Ocean Trench

• If you solo or all players are weak - clear the last room before boss. It will allow you to retreat and regenerate.
• Watch out for "ponies". Be careful not to move into a pony that may sit behind a corner.
• Nexus out if paralyzed by ponies, before you started taking damage. Otherwise it may be too late. Tricksters may teleport away.
• The correct riddle answer is: He lives and reigns and conquers the world. Copy that words to clipboard before starting a trench.
  

Mad Lab

• Avoid teleporting in this dungeon. Many things can kill instantly if landed on top of them.
• Proceed carefully. Surprisingly too many weekly legends died here when I last checked the legend list.
• Avoid this dungeon if it's your only maxed character. Getting wisdom potion in Undead Lair will be faster and safer.
• Keep a safe distance when breaking the walls. The monsters may swarm right behind the wall.
• Destroy all white towers to open the door to second boss. 
• Second boss must be lured into a green pool to be vulnerable. All people should stay behind the green pools.

Tomb of the Ancients

• Unexperienced players may die here. But there is no other way to get experience than playing. Be very careful, enemies are fast and do heavy damage.
• You may watch some youtube videos to prepare (I chose not to).
• Quicksand slows you. You will not fully drown or die by the quicksand itself. However being slowed makes you an easy target for monsters. Best way to exit the quicksand is teleporting to another player (or using a prism / planewalker).
• Bosses start unactivated. Hitting a boss activates him. Activating more than one boss will make the fight very difficult.
• Fight only one boss at a time. Be very careful not to hit other bosses before the current boss is dead.
• The usual order for bosses is: Bes (yellow fat guy), Nut (blue), Geb (green).
• Don't use offensive abilities (spells, scepters, traps, poisons, quivers) until Geb. Knights may use shields any time.
• Experienced players don't like "noobs" (especially archers) because they often "ruin tombs" (activate all bosses). If you have low level and poor equipment - there is a possibility that someone will want to get you killed. Be prepared for scarabs being dragged to you.
• Bes fires many orange armor breaking boomerangs. Keep away from the point where the boomerangs meet because it's a deadly shotgun.
• Be careful when moving from behind the pillar. You don't see monsters partially in this game, even when you should see the part of a monster from behind the 3D element (pillar, wall corner). If you're unaware of that, you may step on top of boss or artifact and get shotgunned.
• Bosses enter the "rage" phase just before they die. Use cloak or ghost rum to approach them safely and kill them. Keep two bottles of ghost rum just in case the tomb appears.
• Nut rage is especially dangerous because she chases players. Watch for Nut shooting two small black armor breaking arrows at once - that means the rage is near. Rage starts when Nut says: "This cannot be! You shall not succeed".
• Don't stay too close to Geb before rage. The sudden burst of artifacts and bullets may kill you.

Prepare to die

Expect to die. Don't get too attached to your characters when you are a newbie. And later too. Store another gear set in the vault (or mules), store potions for another character (or feed another one already) to be ready to quickly start again. Because... YOU WILL DIE!!!

You gain the best knowledge about the game from dying. People can give you a lot of tips but you really learn from your own stupid mistakes. When the Brown Slime appears in Undead Lair and people start being cautious - I know that they had at least once ran carelessly into it and died. I died there too.

Learn the patterns

• Every realm god can be destroyed easily. For example, single Medusas (and stacked ones too) can be safely circled around, Ent Gods can be tricked by moving repeatedly left-right. More enemies can be circled around with maxed speed.
• Every dungeon boss has its phases. There are phases when you are safer and can attack more efficiently. And there are phases which you may want to skip because the boss is invulnerable or especially dangerous.
• Lot of rich players (those with fancy dyes, pets and top equipment) waiting on the beach means that the Wine Cellar will probably be open. Switch your character to a class that can damage Oryx 2 safely (wizard, assassin) and stay in that realm.

Don't over-equip

Don't equip too good items on unpotted character. Usually the items that cost 1 spd (T8/T4) are enough. Staff of horror or gbow, illusionist/master or dhide, dsphere or magesteel, sup def ring. When all your gear is worth 4 spd or less, there is no regret after you die. This gear is enough until 4/8. Stash the better items or sell them and drink the stat potions instead.

Your main power comes from drinking att and dex pots, not from items. Especially T12/T6 items give no real advantage over previous tier except making you look cool and rich. There are exceptions however - some expensive items like Doom Bow or Helm of the Juggernaut work differently and are worth buying.

Skill is more important. Good aiming and dodging skills are worth more than expensive gear.

Don't drink (yet)

For newbies: don't drink pots too early. Store them safely and die at least 30 times first, be sure to visit all dungeons and participate in events (and die there). Explore the game with cheap equipment and unpotted. No big waste when you die.

Drink!

Don't hesitate to drink. Speed potions are cheap and maxing speed makes you much better at dodging and retreating. Maxing def is also a top priority. Drink spd, def and att you found in the godlands. You'll find the dungeons a lot easier and you'll quickly harvest dex and wis yourself.

Pot the second character first

Potted characters are more efficient farmers than fresh ones. If you have only one potted character, don't risk his life yet. Stay away from tombs, skulls, cubes, mad labs, castles and wine cellars for a while. Farm only godlands, pentaracts and easy dungeons for pots. First farm enough pots to pot another character to 4/8. That way you have always at least one potted farmer and recover faster.