General Gameplay Guide

[Shinobi Story 9]

  

The purpose of this guide is to help new and returning players familiarize themselves with available content, help them pick masteries, get their bearings in regards to locations as well as general gameplay advice for leveling and stat acquisition. What this guide isn't is a full-spoiler walkthrough that will tell you where to find items that are hidden around the map, quests that are worth doing, or a guide on specific boss mechanics: you will still need to learn these things yourself through exploration and trial & error.

Mastery synergies

Generally speaking, you'll probably want to play masteries that share the same scaling type. To see the scaling type of a mastery, mouseover its abilities ingame.

Here are a few examples of good mastery synergies + their playstyle:

Medical poison path (left) / Lightning or Earth / x: Lightning will be heavier on damage where Earth will be heavier on CC and survivability. The third mastery is to your personal preference. Sarutobi & Taijutsu provide hefty melee buffs that will affect Lightning and Poison's damage, making it a strong set of picks. All poison and lighting builds (like lightning/uchiha/swords or poison/earth/hyuuga) have an assassin playstyle.

Senju / Earth or Heal / Fire or Water: The first two are a great tanking combination. Senju and Earth are both heavy on tanking and CC while medic middle path would provide you some survivability, whereas fire is pure DPS with no CC.

Uchiha / Water / Fire: Heavy hitting caster. Either Uchiha path works for this. Water brings the CC and fire brings the damage while Uchiha provides some utility to mitigate cast times.

Water / Swordsmanship / x: Water being a hybrid means that it works well enough with swordsmanship, which is entirely AP focused. It provides some cc which makes swordsmanship work.

Lightning / Swordsmanship / x:  Assassin. The final lightning passive synergizes almost entirely with swordsmanship. Either swordsmanship path works, so it's somewhat to your preference, but the middle path provides more damage where the left provides more survivability.

Gen / Left Uchiha / Medic: A DoT heavy CC bot with either survivability (heal) or extra utility (poison).

Sarutobi / tai or ken / x: Sarutobi provides very stellar melee buffs, along with some support options. Paired with a mastery like genjutsu or earth, it could be a strong warrior.

Senju/Earth/Mid Swordsmanship: There's a build video for this combination here. It is solid for tanking and PVP.

General-oriented builds are also viable. If you go that route, you may benefit from Weapon Technique Specialist. You could

If you play a hybrid-specced build such as water/light/senju you will also benefit from Technique Specialist, which increases your ninjutsu power by 20% of your attack power.

 

Important NPCs & Locations

 ^ Buildings with this green banner outside are inns where you can set your Return Scroll to. ^

'Jin' is the generic name of all General Store NPCs. If you're in a town and need to buy cup ramen, just /tar Jin, right click the nameplate, select 'Squad Target Icon' and put an icon on the NPC to help you orient yourself to find the store more easily.

Rested spots (which let you gather a 2x EXP boost until the amount depletes): any major settlement.

Acquiring gear

Presently, most gear is cosmetic. The only items that you can get that have non-cosmetic use in any way are Ninja Scrolls, Ninja Tools, Shinobi Vests, Headgear, Necklaces and Weapons. On the left hand side, I've highlighted the scrolls and tools: they occupy the ring and trinket slots in the traditional WoW interface, and the weapons are at the bottom.

Ninja Scrolls come from a boss named 'Masked Man' found on the Konoha mountain, as well as the A rank bosses Kama and Raido.

Ninja Tools are frequent rewards from sidequests but can also be bought from vendors found in Konoha, Rogue Base or Port Hachou.

Weapons are divided into 3 tiers: T1, T2, T3, and they all have different stat effects depending on their name. Do sidequests for new weapons.

Vests are acquired by ranking up to chuunin, through crafting or obtained from cosmetic crates.

Headgear (mostly under the form of village headbands) are a frequent mob drop from creatures such as Moths, Bees and Robers, as well as a Kama & Raido boss drop, but there are also some better headpieces obtainable through the cosmetic crate.

Necklaces provide attack or spell power, and are dropped by Kama and Raido.

Shoulder items come from battleground reward crates or cosmetic crates.

If you're looking for more cosmetic options beyond the basic shinobi clothes, there's a vendor in Yokohama that has a number of different kimono in stock. Other cosmetics are available from bosses, others from the cosmetic crates that cost 135 koban, while some (such as the Akatsuki cloak I'm wearing in the screenshot) come from the donation store.

 

What weapon should I pick?

 

What weapon you should pick depends on a few factors: your main mastery, your secondary mastery, how many abilities you have unlocked in said masteries. To know what your masteries use, scroll to the top of the guide or ctrl+f your mastery.

For example, if you're playing lightning/kenjutsu, a good weapon to use is 'of the Rooster', because lightning benefits from attack and casting speed. PVPers frequently like 'of the Ox' as a defensive weapon option. Otherwise, weapon choice depends heavily on playstyle, personal preference, scaling type and mastery picks.

As a part of the weapon pick, you should also consider whether you want to single wield, dual wield, or use a two-handed weapon. Each has their own perks.

Single-wielding: 35% faster cast speed. Amazing for heavy caster masteries.

Dual wielding: 25% extra attack speed. Great early on in the game when you're autoattacking a lot, or playing melee masteries. Some lightning players play dual 'of the Rooster' weapons because the haste benefits autoattacks and cast speed as well and 2 weapons are needed to get the most out of static cutter.

2h wielding: 10% extra damage. Situationally good because of its stat budget. As an ice player, I alternate between 2h of the Snake and single wielding depending on whether or not I'm 1v1ing or playing with a dedicated support.

Stats & what they do

Strength: Directly linked to Attack Power (AP). 1 str = 2 AP. Increases damage of melee abilities and certain jutsu.

Lethality/agility: Increases crit chance and armor.

Stamina: Increases total health.

Intellect/Ninjutsu Skill: Increases total chakra + spell crit.

Jutsu Power: Increases spell damage and healing.

Spirit: Also known as chakra gathering. Increases chakra regeneration.

Attack Speed: Also known as melee speed. It's the speed of your weapon swings.

Crit Chance: Chance to land critical attacks.

Armor: Reduces physical damage taken.

Haste: Increases attack speed, cast speed as well. It also increases the amount of heal over time and damage over time ticks that happen over a duration of time.

Dodge: Chance to dodge attacks (a conditional damage reduction, stacking dodge means you have a higher chance to not take dmg = lower damage taken overall but it isn't a permanent reduction of damage taken).

Resilience/Toughness: Reduces chance to be critically hit + the damage of critical strikes, provides a flat damage reduction to all damage taken.

Defense Rating: So far doesn't seem to be increased with anything.

Leveling & improving skills

An example of a leveling path is as follows:

Leveling paths vary wildly based on whether you're leveling solo or not + whether or not you are chunin/jonin. I highly recommend doing whatever quests you find while exploring the world too — some of them have scaling EXP rewards!

Keep in mind that grinding lower level mobs does NOT provide any exp decreases or disadvantages. You can grind grey mobs to levelcap.

• 1-10 in/around Konoha. Stick with rats, ferrets, snakes and young black bears.
• 10-20 outside of Konoha+surrounds of Yokohama, kill robbers, crickets, criminal ninja, bees & moths, rebel thugs, and bears.
• 20-30, you can stick with weaker mobs or start moving onto creatures like giant moths, road ambushers, scorpions.
• 30-40, scorpions, hawks, boars, bats, are all options.
• 40-60, is entirely up to you. You can stick with high efficiency farming of lower leveling mobs, or graduate to: crocs, ravens, adders, FOD, Land of Waves and monkeys. The South Eastern peninsula of LOF is very good for leveling overall.

Quest path:

• Post-tutorial: Return to the academy and speak with Genin Maou to start his questline.
• 20+: Return to Konoha and speak with the Police Officer across the hokage building.
• 30+: Outside of Kikujo on the Southern road, speak to Old Man Aoi who offers a questline.

To focus on increasing skillpoints, however, there are 3 primary methods:

1. Spam sidequests in areas that have mobs which are convenient for your level.
2. Grind snakes/bees (low dif), hawks/Dead Scar/crocs/monkeys (Mid-high difficulty) or Land of Waves/Dead Scar (Mid-high difficulty & PVP).
3. Take advantage of boss runs. Boosts are a frequent drop from all the bosses. This isn't really grindable due to respawn times, but it's a nice change of pace.

 

Tips & Tricks

• Eat food to recover HP between fights. You can acquire basic food like rice and cup ramen from the Jin NPC. Food with buffs such as mushrooms (+1400 max HP and +900 chakra) and onions (+900 max HP and +1400 chakra) are available from the 'Traveling Merchant' NPC that wanders between Konoha and Yokohama.
• Buy food pills from the Konoha hospital: these allow you to heal for 200-350 over 1 minute30s.
• Kill robbers to get 6 slot bags that you can later upgrade with 35 koban to 12 slot bags.

Map

 

On bossing

There are a few primary bosses that are frequently killed by the playerbase. As a baseline, all bosses drop Gold Koban and Boosts. Some more rare world bosses not listed also randomly spawn — have fun finding them all!

Bee Boss: D-rank boss. Located just South-West of Yokohama. It drops Gold Koban frequently.

Yureigani/Ninja crab: C rank boss. Located South of Notchi on the beach near Oxes.

Onikuma/Bear Boss: C-rank boss. When you're leaving Yokohama to head towards Konoha, take the 2nd left (the path is marked by a skeleton against a tree). Daily boss.

Kazuo/Vagabond: B-rank boss. Located to the North of Kisaragi in the Mountains.  If you're at the castle, you've gone too far. Drops lots of rare cosmetics & a cool sword.

Masked Man:  B-rank boss. Located on the Mountain overlooking Konoha. Drops Ninja Scrolls, lots of Ninja Tools as well as some rare cosmetics. Typically lvl 25+ recruitment.

Raido/Lightning Boss: A-rank boss. Located in the bamboo forest near Inuzuka town

Onni/Bird Boss: A-rank boss. Located pretty much directly up the mountain from Raido.

Ao: A-rank boss. Located on the far South-Eastern peninsula on the beach, directly East of Tsuki's Rest.

Heikegani/Samurai Crab: A-rank boss. Located next to Port Hachou on the beach.

Kingusaizu/Tiger: A-rank boss. Located in Land of Waves.

Dagahara: A-rank boss, located in Forest of Death.

The usual loot rule is to need on everything that you want/need.

PVP

War Mode is a world-wide PVP mode which can be enabled or disabled by speaking to Captain Kanjiku in Konoha, Tanzaku or Land of Waves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Land of Iron battleground can be queued for by speaking with Lieutenant Shinji Hiraki from level 20 and beyond. They award a large amount of honor and a small amount of experience.

Click the spoiler tag for a guide on how to play it. WoW veterans familiar with Arathi Basin, you'll feel right at home!

Spoiler

A breakdown about Land of Iron battleground for the uninitiated

The map works! If you don't know where to go or what to do, press M to see where your teammates and the bases are. For those that aren't familiar with how to play them, the basics are as follows:

You can play blue (mist) or red (leaf)
You want to reach 1600 points before the enemy team does

The goal: Having and defending as many bases as possible to reach 1600 points. The first team to reach it, wins the match. How many points you get depends on how many bases you have capped. 5 capped (captured) means you get 30 points per second. 1 base capped nets you 1 point per second.

There are also 3 different types of PVP buffs in the battleground:

Green leaf: A heal and chakra restoration over time over 10 seconds.
Red face: Increases all damage caused by 30% and all damage taken by 10% for 10 seconds.
Boost boots: Increases run and swim speed by 100% for 10 seconds.

Arenas are also available, in 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5 formats. They operate based off the old WoW system and require members to sign a charter in order to create a team. Simply create a team, and queue up!

 

 

 

 

Professions

All professions; cooking, fishing, blacksmithing and tailoring can all be learned on the same character.

To learn cooking, complete the quest for Taro, the Ramen shop cook, available at Ichiraku Ramen right next to the Academy in Konoha.

To learn blacksmithing, speak with the Master Blacksmith in Konoha or Tanzaku.

To learn tailoring, speak with Asanda Kochinoue in Konoha or Tanzaku.

To learn fishing, buy a fishing book from the Jin general store vendor.

F.A.Q

 

What should I do after the intro questline?

Spoiler

Shinobi Story is a sandbox game, meaning that there's no firm direction that you need to follow. You're free to explore, level up, hunt down bosses, PVP other players freely.

That being said, I recommend that your first major goal be to achieve the chunin rank. For that, head to the hokage building, go to the 2nd floor, and take all of the blue questmark quests offered by NPCs.

How do I get another mastery token?

Spoiler

Mastery tokens are rewards for obtaining rank thresholds. They are available at genin, chunin, and jonin, meaning you'll have a total of 3 masteries per character.

How do I get A-B-C-D rank slips?

Spoiler

A/B/C/D rank slips are awarded from completing dailies, sidequests, and from the A/B/C/D rank boxes drop from bosses.

What are bones used for?

Spoiler

There are several daily buffs scattered around the world. As a baseline, they all last 2 hours increase your max HP by 2000. The Will of Fire buff is the most useful for new players, consisting of a 15% increase to EXP earned.

How do I become a chunin?

Spoiler

To become a chunin you need level 25 and 10 ryo for the chunin application form (sold by an NPC on the first floor of the hokage building).

There are two ways of becoming chunin: participating in the chunin exams which are hosted by staff, or progressing through dailies. The chunin recommendation slip can be purchased from the Elder NPC next to the daily npcs for 75 C rank slips and 125 D rank slips. Once you have the application form and the recommendation slip, you'll need 35 koban to complete the quests given by the hokage and his assistant.

How do I become a jonin?

Spoiler

Patch 34 will be releasing the much anticipated jonin update. To prepare yourself for jonin, this is what we know of the requirements so far:

- 250 ryo for the application slip

- 250 C rank slips, 175 B rank slips, 100 A rank slips.

How do I make ryo?

Spoiler

Killing mobs awards a small amount of money, but the mobs also drop items which can be sold to NPCs or players. If you obtain a bunch of bear meat, that's especially valuable to other players. Once you've gotten 15ryo to spend on the fishing skill and pole, fishing is a valuable source of money.

How do I get back to a place I return to often or set a hearthstone?

Spoiler

In every major settlement, there's a building with a green banner outside. Once you've located the building, speak with the innkeeper to set a homepoint. Once you've done so, you'll get a sort of Scroll of Recall. Once you use it, you'll teleport back to your homepoint.

How do I heal myself?

Spoiler

Unless your mastery is medical ninjutsu, most masteries have no way to self sustain (which is to say, they have no self healing) and depend on food. You can buy food from the Traveling Merchant, Jin, buy food pills from the hospital or ask a medical nin to give you their special food pills.

How do I use tools?

Spoiler

Under your character window, the last two slots on the right hand sight are for equipping tools. You'll want to click and drag tools into one of those two slots, or right click them and confirm that you want to bind them to your character. From there, keep your character window open, click the tool and drag it onto your bar at the bottom of your screen. From there, you'll be able to quickly and easily use your tools. For instance, my Weak Poison tool is set to ALT-5, so when I use the ALT-5 keybind it immediately uses the Weak Poison.

How do I find addons?

Spoiler

SS runs off a WoW 3.3.5 base. Any addons compatible with the 3.3.5 version of WoW are likely to work. You can browse relevant addons here:

https://wotlkdb.com/addons/

https://legacy-wow.com/wotlk-addons/

How do I install addons?

Spoiler

After downloading an addon that you like, you'll want to use 'extract all' or 'extract files' into the game's Interface/Addons folder. From there, restart your game.

Once you're back in, it's likely that the addon you downloaded had a command that you need to use to customize it, or it will put an icon on your minimap. Read the page of the addon that you downloaded to know how to set it up properly.

How do I get gold koban?

Spoiler

Do sidequests, bosses and dailies. Koban are also a relatively frequent drop from high level mobs.

What are the glowing spots on the ground? What's an Unsealing Scroll?

Spoiler

The golden spots on the ground are the game's treasure hunting. You can open up the golden spots using an unsealing scroll. Beware of having other players around you when you use it though: it has a long cast time.

How do I get help from other players?

Spoiler

Typically, you can just ask in the #questions channel on the SS discord. Otherwise, there's an in-game channel that you can join by typing '/join global' without the '.

How do I join in-game chat channels?

Spoiler

Do

/join (channelnamehere)

'Global' is the most often used chat channel. Be sure to join that one. Other channels may be created for you and your friends to use by simply joining a channel. Such as using '/join leafies' to create a Leaf-oriented chat channel. Be sure to only share such secret channels with trustworthy friends, though, lest someone you don't want in the channel infiltrate it!

 

How do I bug report and/or get GM assistance?

Spoiler

Create a thread on the forums: https://shinobistory.com/forums/27-bug-reports/. If your bug has made you stuck, use the #open-a-ticket channel on discord.

Can I play as a non-Konoha village?

Spoiler

Currently, no, you can only play as Konoha or as a rogue. There are plans to flesh out the entire map, however the other locations aren't available yet (which means you can't join the other villages either). To go rogue, you need to kill 15 other loyal Leaf players.

How can I support the project?

Spoiler

If you intend to buy lots of cosmetics from the shop at some point, I recommend getting 'Premium Ninja' from the Store first (https://shinobistory.com/forums/store/product/6-premium-ninja/), because it provides a permanent discount and gives you access to monthly giveaways & dev leaks. From there, I recommend that you get the inventory expansion and buy whatever cosmetics that you want.

You can also support the project through the discord subscription feature.

Credits & contributions

While I compiled the guide myself, it's only with assistance and contribution from other members of the community that it was possible to do so. If you have any suggestions or any information that you'd like to add, you can reply to this post or give me a heads up on discord. When the new patch drops on December 2nd, it'll be especially important (especially for the new masteries) to update the guide.

If you want to use any part of this guide to create a youtube video or something else, feel free.

 

Edited December 18, 2022 by Kizo

[Kizo 41]

Patch day is finally upon us. As a result, many updates to the guide will be needed. All contributions are welcome as we try to figure how shit works. Heavy spoilers unwelcome.

[Zoogie 4]

great guide!

[danylboone 2]

These are the maps I made for Konoha Village.