When you say 5* do you mean have one 5* item, one complete load out?

I think it took me about two months to get my first 5* item, but I wasnt really a F2P player. I did purchase that 1600 CE package at one point, but that really isnt that much, and I spent a lot of CE making a whole bunch of 4* items to try them out (eg. I developed the Cobalt/defender for a bit before switching). This was back when CE was about 5-6000 crowns.

I still wouldnt call myself a 5* player since I still dont have any 5* armor or shields (although thats going to change as soon as I find the recipe)

Generally, I got to tier 2 as soon as I could, on the advice of a lot of people, although for a long time I played solo. I wasnt very good and as such never did any jelly runs to get crowns. Eventually, i started partying again, and i never looked back. Now I pretty much do FSC only, although Im still not too good.

I started broadly as f2p. I got a brute jelly helm and antigua from jelly runs so I didn't need to use energy to craft up to 3*. People give you stuff as they quit Spiral Knights, so I got ~500 energy from a friend to craft a 4* item. Also, I got lucky with drops and sold a 4* item, back before unbinding.

As a whole, going from 4* to 5*, the last hurdle, was less about needing any gear to survive, and more about finding recipes for the items you wanted. Back then, the prices for recipes were higher, as a lot of Steam players were raising the AH price. My first 5* was Shivermist, then Divine Mantle, and then I can't remember the rest.

I think reaching 5* took about 3-4 weeks. I never got very good at Vanaduke though, because I was playing with other people who hadn't faced him much. Anyways, having a DVS, antigua, shivermist, and venom veiler isn't the best loadout (I didn't have bomb ctr trinkets then, and people complained that they couldn't see the ground/debris indicators when I shivered).

As a whole I'm a fairly lucky player at the start. I crafted a vh ctr haze bomb after only 50 tries or so, got lucky equip drops, had friends who quit, and had a friend that stuck around that was a defensive, safe player like me. After I hit all 5*, I took a break from the game, then returned and now am going for... uh... completion I guess? I have become a p2p player tho. I first bought $2.50 to mark my account, then $10 later in Rose Regalia Redux. But I feel that this ce has not mattered much in the long run.

hi i nvest ~ 20 $ to this game (i buy 10$ e package by mistake, cause 3o change default offer from 3$ to 10$). i have 5* piercing, shadow, elemental armor sets with shields and many different weapons and trinkets, all slots unlocked.

i start playing shortly after official launch. first i got 2* cobalt armor (tok me about one weak) and start going jelly king. after ~ 1 moonth i craft volcanic plate mail and helm + grey owlite shield + viliance + combuster + levi and start going vanaduke.

just buy 100 ce after each jelly king or vanaduke run. trade all tokens for 5* items and sell it to vendor.

thats all. only think i boycot is shadow lair, but maybe now when price of shadow keys decrased i buy one;)

$20 is not "almost" free. Come on.

I got the game in june when it launched on steam, and it took me until Oct. 21 (about four months) to get the Stellar Set achievement which consisted of:

Volcanic Demo Suit
Mad Bomber Mask
Barbarous Thorn Shield
Nova Driver
Dark Briar Barrage

I pretty much just stuck with one armor, helm, and shield line but I had a large amassment of weapons. Now I have every achievement, nearly one weapon from every line, and every boss reward except for vanaduke's (and no shadow lairs yet) and it never cost me a single penny.

Upgrading boss sets saved a bit of money (2 star recipe + crafting cost for snarbolax, 3 star recipe + crafting cost for the others) and I never bothered with any of kozma's junk. I used to be able to sell blue shards on AH for 500cr too.

yeah I didn't even TRY getting uvs until I already had my main set. I just got lucky with one or two things. Now whenever I don't have time to play, I invest the ME for uv crafting.

Patience. It's better to get the recipes from Basil whenever possible. If he doesn;t have what you want, buy something other people want and auction it.

I don't really use sparks for mats, I get tons just from monsters, and I use the sparks for trinkets (for what little they really do)

friend AND guild. On top of that, NEVER start your own party if you want to save energy. Even if it means losing your vitapod/vials, it's generally better to leave at each subtown and rejoin a different group.

And yeah it's generally worth it to clear t1 and t2 first, that 500cr fee can add up quick, especially if you do a lot of boss runs.

http://i.imgur.com/ViRBr.png

I started around half of april, i didn't craft too many 4* items before the crafting cost rise, my playtime was generally limited. All people did back in the days was collecting a huge list to jump in the even stratums for huge profit. I haven't really concentrated on crafting 4-5* items because well, i could just make 3* items with the mist and everyone was saying that the raw crown output from T3 wasn't worth it so i kept at doing that. Every few days i wouldn't have time to play so i just ragecrafted Haze Bombs and once i got a CTR:High iirc, i sold it for messy 1800CE iirc, yes, puny. Man, was i naive back then. And then the crafting cost grew, i've had crafted a Wise Owlite Shield day before it but i didn't equip it, so i put it up to the Auction House for 80k CR (CE was around 5k cr back then) and it sold almost instantly, that was also a major messup on my side (i could get way more if i had waited some time), still, it took me only 350CE to craft so it was still well worth it, i've basically had earned to craft GOS by that.

A few days later i started crafting owlite shields and horned owlite shields, both of those were selling just about to get my crafting cost back, breaking even. And during that period that i've been crafting them, which was 1 month iirc i managed to get two Maxes, both sold for hefty sums, that got me covered too and after this iirc i got my first 5* set, Vog Cub.

And then, then came something amazing - the steam players came rushing. It was amazing, all the worthless/not worth wasting time on selling them materials suddenly sold for so much, i've managed to rack in ~15k CE on selling Green Shards, Swordstones, Gremlin Gizmos, Fine Fabrics. Nowadays i just run FSC with guildies because thats the fastest, surefire way to rack in crowns.

I haven't spent a cent on the game, never was gifted anything that had any value.

I think it took me a little over two months to get a 5* set (5 5* items total)... I personally like the pace and don't understand why people would be so eager to get it much faster.

I was f2p until tg Regali event. This was also when CE was 3k-4k, and you could craft 4* items and sell them, already unbound. So, I bought me an Ash Tail Set for 20k CR, a Wise Owlite Shield for 13k CR, a Silversix for 10k CR, and some guy just gave me a Flamberge, either 3 or 4*. So yeah, I was lazy. And yes, I got that all very cheaply, since it was before the Unbinding patch. (I could craft 4/5* items and not have to unbind them). Soon then I created Knights and Day... And did runs, found an Avenger recipe, etc. I got to 5*. Then shortly after I got 5*... "Rose Regalia event!". Not knowing much, I only bought 1 package and got a white tabard. Again, not knowing much, I bound it and found it meh on all of my gear. (o.\) I bought a red set then, with some of my CE an CE fromthe package, etc. I just need a White Chap, THEN I can quit the game. :-P

im entirely f2p and it took me about four months to get the majority of my gear to 5* (i say majority because in the gear i use, my gigawatt pulsar is 4*) my fsc armor consists of vog, a volcanic plate, a DA, a CIV, and a gigawatt pulsar. mainly, the only challenge i have faced is being patient, and watching fun stuff slip by like not being able to buy the chapeau you want, or that one accessory. if you just take your time, and save up your cr, its really not that difficult, and you get some wicked skills in the process. hope this helps!

I'm a f2p player since April.
Instead of going for all 5* stuff I went the collector's route. I have a 5* weapon and a 5* armor and 4* for everything else but that's because I use all my cr on recipe collecting and Basil runs dont give you much cr.
I have 38 sword, 31 gun, 26 bomb, 30 helm, 33 armor, and 27 shield recipes which would definitely total up to more than enough to make me full 5*

I was a 100% F2P player that ended up with something like two dozen 5* items and (the equivalent of) 50kCE. It is most certainly possible to do.

You can make far more per day from the AH than it is possible to get from the clockworks, even if you played in the clockworks 24/7. The problem with saying that all problems with F2P being hard is to just resell recipes, etc. is that if even 10-20% of F2P tried to do it, the profit margin for everything would drop to zero. As it is right now, you are up against people who have free ME to craft with, either because they have several paid accounts, or several computers, or elevator passes, or via means that are ToS violations.

If you do try crafting, you have to find items that are popular enough to sell, but not obviously popular. Things like wolver coats/caps attract far too many crafters and the profits drop to almost nothing even if the ME is free. I used to do things like the angelic and gunslinger 3* lines, but they got too crowded, so I switched to swiftstrike bucklers, until i switched to elite sword/bomb module trinkets.

Hmmmm.....on my previous account, it took about 3 weeks to make my first 5* item, Combuster. I basically did Roarmulus run to get catalyzer/pulsar (whichever was worth more at the time in AH), then did JK runs to get an Antigua (worth more than sealed usually). I would sell the catalyzer to make about 30k crowns, use that to get energy to unbind the Antigua, and then sell the Antigua for 50k-60k crowns. Then I would use that to buy the CE necessary after getting the recipe and everything. This was when I was in ash tail armor.

In 2 months, the 5* items I made were: Combuster, Hail Driver, Barbarous thorn blade (conveniently made it JUST before lockdown was introduced), Gran Faust, Iron Slug (regret making this to this day), Cold Iron Vanquisher, and furious Flamberge (made it because I found the 5* recipe for 13k at AH). I got lucky once and sold thebombhead mask for 93k crowns when it was first introduced.
Even though I made all these 5* weapons, I stayed in ash tail armor and the wise owlite shield I got for free. (Some extremely nice yet partially insane 5* person got it as a drop and gave it to me). I never saw the need to go 5* armor for some reason.
I deleted my previous account, because I wasted over 800k crowns. I ended up selling Hail driver, CIV, Iron Slug, Combuster, Furious Flamberge, all to make BTB and GF. I got bored, even though I did pretty good in PvP.

*** Skip here if you don't want to read the above
Stayed in 4* ash tail armorand shield, Made 5* weapons only, eventually sold most of them (except GF and BtB),
Took 2 months for the whole process.

Ways to make crowns:
Do JK/FSC runs; don't die and CE revive too much
Sell popular recipes (GF went for 40k last time I checked)
Craft 3* items and sell for profit (like Dusker: something popular)
Buy CE cheap: Sell for Lorre
Do solo pre- terminal runs in tier 3 for mats. (I was able to get 8 sunsilvers on one day when the emerald adis was available)
Sell boss token items: makes quick cash (Antigua and catalyzer take one day to sell 100% of the time)

***Remember, this ALL was pre-elevator/shadow key times. Who knows how the economy will do.....

Chrono-Chaos, stop spamming the Subject field. Nobody mentioned anything about the dark ritual.