This guy thinks that game is too easy, so please make up you mind people! ;-)

Anyway, a bit of advice (and warning) - better gear doesn't mean much if you won't improve your skills. Inexperienced player still will be mauled in Tier 2 and 3, even if he buy some fancy new sword from AH. Don't waste your crowns at AH. It's much cheaper to craft everything yourself. Also, when you are crafting everything by yourself your arsenal will expand at the same pace as your skills.

And getting help while doing missions is not bad thing either. That way you can make some friends or be invited to some decent guild. Plus you will probably learn a thing or two from more experienced players.

Also, I believe this thread should be moved to New Recruits.

If ye're making FSC worthless, then ye're making the danger missions worth better to farm instead of FSC.

It will take a while to get your stuff but eventually you'll learn how to get crowns easyer. 3* are about 15k a piece on the Auction house. You need 60k to be fully equiped, I'll asume you're not making that much crowns for now, around 5k out of your 100 Mist Energy I guess? It's only 12 days of grinding ;) Patience is the key, once you get used to the game and stuff up yourself to 3*, you will access more profitable missions, for instance, the Jelly Palace which will grant your 10k at least per 100 Mist, granted you only complete the two first levels and leave before the boss.

Good Luck.

My oppinion:
1st of all why I'm so addicted to 'polaris' guns, I'm trying to collect a set with VH damage UVs, still need slime.
I basically used my kilowatt pulsar blasted my way through most rank missions, I even shot wolvers and gremlins with it, time consuming but fun. I learned how to dodge, learned how to deal with different kind of monsters. Scarlet fortress was tough, harder than Jk IMHO.

After struggling through RT with my fixed 1bar, rockets smashing through my shield and getting dragged all the way through, finally I got 4* gigawatt, followed the same routine, blasting everything out of the way. Of course I solo'd most levels.

The real challenging missions to a new player imo are: Rise or fall, Built to destroy, the return of Ur, weight of darkness, the silent legion and of course the gauntlet. FSC was ok, trolled around with my new polaris, I find all candle levels rather easy so thats not a problem.

The best way I could think of is doing JK over and over again, along with mayb 1 rank mission everyday. Then go all the way to RT, back to JK, get DA and blitz first for vana later on. After doing all that you're fine to deal with vana now, more runs=more skills (I can't garantee no death JK but FSC I can.)

Easiest way to earn crowns will be sticking your head into AH, buying cheap items and resell them, ie i bought shock high wolver for 40k and selled for more than 200k. Some ppl just don't like setting starting bids.

If only you joined the game last year when CE was 3.5K per 100. It would of been very possible for you to play and craft the gear you need. Now you have CE at 8000+ per 100 making it near impossible for new players to craft gear without someone else helping them or throwing their money at Three Rings.