Guide for Beginners

= Guide for new Players = The information provided on this page is partially subjective, but is intended to help you create your own opinions about how to best play the game.

What to do first
There's a lot of information to absorb in Neverwinter, but don't worry if it seems confusing at first, it'll make sense in the end.

What you want out of the game
Before deciding on what you need to do next, it's worth taking a moment to decide on how you want to play the game.
 * Will you just play one character, or have lots of characters? If you're creating alts, consider why you want to. Storage space? Different playing styles? AD farming? Leadership / jewelcrafting / other farming?
 * Are you a casual gamer, or will you be gaming 8+ hours a day, every day? consider that the traditional random queues could be a couple of hours or more on its own.
 * What do you want out of your guild, and how much time would you want to spend on guild quests, guild events and general guild goals?
 * Will you be chatting primarily through text or voice? Get set up with that, and consider a USB keyboard or a keyboard controller add-on if needed. Collaboration and some basic communication, even (especially!) if you're not on voice chat will be vital.
 * Also consider whether you want to spend money on the game, it's not necessary, but can speed up your progression.

Character guides
Before worrying about how to best advance your character to access later content, it's worth taking a step back and planning your progression - no character will quickly advance from a fresh level 80 to an item level over 20,000 without spending a large amount of Zen and Astral Diamonds - either take your time or be prepared to buy Zen for real money.

Depending on your approach to the game, it is strongly recommended to read a few guides for your character class - this will help you plan what stats you need to concentrate on, and what equipment you should be aiming for in the long term (some guides will help with interim equipment too).

What every L80 should do regardless of class / race / playing style
There are some key pieces of advice that are always repeated to new players, regardless of their playstyle and regardless of their character:
 * Get VIP
 * Get Bonding Runestones
 * Join a Guild
 * Get a Wanderer's Fortune mount

These will be covered in more detail, but in brief:
 * VIP grants huge in-game benefits such as free Enchanted Keys, free Reroll Tokens and bonus Astral Diamonds. The bonuses get better with higher VIP ranks.
 * Bonding Runestones are generally considered a must for end-game activities, they will transfer a percentage of your summoned companion's stats to your character.
 * Being in a good guild is priceless, you'll have access to knowledgeable players who can provide further advice, access to decent mid-range gear, potential access to very good high end gear, and people to play with - amongst other benefits.
 * The Wanderer's Fortune Mount Insignia bonus will cause your character's kills to drop refinement stones. The amount is capped, so it's worth understanding the limitations before making a decision around this.

Equipment
As a fresh level 80 character, it's worth considering a few key pieces of equipment.

Before getting to any of this section of the guide, check with your guild! For one thing, more experienced players might be able to give you quick answers. For another thing, almost all guilds are set to make certain numbers of common items available for withdrawal from guild resources once a day. In this way you might be able to pick up a mount, experience boosters for companions, common 'starter' artifacts and many consumables.

Since the release of Module 16, the best way to begin gearing a new level 80 by far is through starting the Undermountain campaign and completing the introduction quest, An Important Invitation, which will reward you with a chest containing a set of gear complete with slotted enchantments. the rewards will provide a massive boost to character power and item level that will allow most players to jump right into the easier end-game content.

Weapons Sets
It's worth making sure your Main-Hand and Off-Hand items are up-to-scratch before going too far into the game. A decent set of weapons will increase your base damage, which in turn make everything easier in combat, in turn meaning you can complete content quicker. There's effectively only one weapon set to invest in on reaching level 80, the Primal Weapons. Unlike most best-in-slot items, these are available quickly and easily by trading in Seal of the Crown, gained from running epic quests, trials, some Heroic Events, and some skirmishes. Certain builds may favor niche weapon choices, but the Primal Weapons are the best of the general purpose artifact weapons.

Until you've farmed enough Seal of the Crown to get your Primal Weapons, you can make use of the free Vistani Weapons from the Vistani Rewards Box.

Armor
End game armor is obtained in two primary ways: Exchanging seals for specific armor pieces, and as random loot from hunts and drops. Start off working towards seals armor, but spend time working out which random drop armor is suitable for your class and work towards repeating that dungeon, skirmish, hunt or trial until you get that armor.

Primal Armor can be purchased using Seal of the Brave, which is obtained from a wide variety of places, including tier 1 level 70 skirmishes and dungeons. This armor is significantly better than any pre-Mod 13 level 70 armor, except certain hunt pieces. It can be further improved by collecting materials from the Cradle of the Death God trial and vivifying it, but that only results in a small increase for a great deal of time and effort.

Drowcraft Armor may be available sooner since it doesn't require running dungeons. It can be purchased using Demonic Ichor, which in turn can be earned from Demonic Heroic encounters in the Dread Ring, Icewind Pass, Dwarven Valley and Well of Dragons; alternatively it can be earned in the Throne of Dwarven Gods skirmish, Prophecy of Madness skirmish or Demogorgan trial. It's significantly weaker than Primal Armor, but is an example of a type of armor that provides a set bonus -- in it's case, bonuses that help against Demogorgon. Guild Armor can be purchased using Guild Marks, which is obtained by turning in goods to the Guild Mimic. It has been largely outdated for a long time as of Mod 14, though, and is dramatically weaker than freely available armor.

The best armor comes from running hunts and the most recent content. Barovian Lord's Armor can be purchased using Seal of the Crown, which is obtained from the Castle of Ravenloft dungeon, and offers marginal improvements over Primal Armor. Items from hunts (and random drops in Barovia) are often the best in slot gear choices.

You will likely want looted armor in the end, but the specific armor may be different for each class and build, and in some cases having switch-in armor like the aforementioned Drowcrafted Armor might be helpful in certain situations - so ask questions, read up on builds and work out what to aim for.

Artifacts, Belts and Neck pieces
It's worth thinking about Artifacts, Artifact Belts and Artifact Necks at the same time as you will want to plan ahead and make sure you get your choices right the first time - it can be very expensive and time consuming to change this equipment if you found you've made a mistake. The reason to consider these three types of equipment together, is because you may want to use an artifact set bonus.

The most efficient Refinement process will be covered later, but for now it's just important to pick the right artifacts, belt and neck, and to avoid wasting Refinement Points in gear that you won't be using later - especially as some artifacts cannot be used in refinement (for example class Sigils and the Heart of the Red Dragon).

It may be tempting to pick non-artifact belt / neck gear - however currently all non-artifact belts/necks have greatly reduced stats compared to Legendary artifact gear, so this is generally not a good approach for a first character.

If you haven't already done so, go to Protector's Enclave and complete the Vault of the Nine quest in order to get your class Sigil - in a lot of cases the class Sigil is one you'll want to use and keep, even if it can't be used for refinement.

Rings
Rings, like armor, are most easily available through Seal of the Brave trading. You can also acquire stronger rings with more unique effects from dungeons, trials, and skirmishes: Some of the easier ones include Throne of the Dwarven Gods, Prophecy of Madness, and Demogorgon. Later you will be able to obtain two-slot rings in Castle Never and Assault on Svardborg, but the iLevel requirements mean you'll have to gear up before trying to obtain these rings. There are also crafted two-slot rings available on the Auction House, but these are normally prohibitively expensive.

If your character is able to complete the Storm King's Thunder campaign (although not necessarily the Sea of Moving Ice part), then one of the in-campaign rewards is a two-slot ring (Makos' Ring). However since one of the slots is a utility-slot this is generally sub-optimal. Do not throw away this ring though, you'll need it for Quartermaster's Enchantments later. (The extra utility slot is good for having enough QM enchantments slotted when it comes time to open QM bags during double enchantment events - see the Enchantments section later in this guide.)

Shirt / Pants
Prior to Module 14, there were two good options for Shirt/Pants at the start of the end game: Gemmed Exquisite Shirt/Pants can be crafted with the right profession for your class, this can be expensive, time-consuming and annoying (due to the low chance of a rank 3 result) so many players will buy their Gemmed Exquisite set from the Auction House to remove the random chance involved in crafting your own. The alternative is to obtain a set of Drowcraft Shirt/Pants with Demonic Ichor, however the resulting gear is of a lower iLevel. The Vistani Rewards Box received for starting the Ravenloft Campaign includes the Vistani Shirt/Pants, making them the easiest (and highest item level) choice for new players.

Enchantments
For enchantments it becomes very useful to read a class guide for your character - that will contain specific information about which enchantments are best for your character, both on your equipment and on your companion's equipment (this will usually be different). It is relatively quick and easy to get all your enchantments to rank 7, so aim for that first, but preferably rank 8. Try to rank up your enchantments evenly.

Refinement tips
Before investing time, AD and refinement points in enchantments, it's worth checking the Auction House to view the enchantments you want - most fresh level 70 players won't be able to afford the Astral Diamonds for particularly high ranks of enchantments. Rank 7 and 8 enchantments can be particularly cheap and will often work out cheaper than creating the same enchantment yourself when factoring in the cost of refinement points and refinement marks. Also note that the cost of enchantments fluctuates depending on the calendar events - for example "double enchants" will temporarily drop the price of many enchantments.
 * During double refinement events you may want to put as much refinement as possible into 3 bonding stones for your main summoned companion, and/or into your 4 artifacts, before refining individual enchantments past about rank 8.
 * When it comes time to refine enchantments past rank 8, research whether it will be cheaper in time and/or AD to buy higher level enchantments outright than to refine. Remember that going from r7 to r8, r8 to r9 and r9 to r10 generally requires two of the enchantment. E.g. getting one rank 7 to rank 8 requires 2 rank 7s. It's still overall cheaper to do it yourself most of the time, but don't get surprised by needing to go buy another enchantment.
 * When buying from the auction house remember to look for enchantments that already have some refinement put into them, and see if those are worth picking up instead of the slightly lower price of getting one that has no refinement in it.
 * Stock up on preservation wards whenever possible. A stack of pres wards will often be cheaper for most refinement than saving up for a coalescent ward. It's debatable whether this applies to chances of success lower than 10%; some people have had good luck trying out a stack of preservation wards on a 1% first, other people just resolve to never refine anything with a 1% chance unless they can use a coal ward on it.
 * Stock up on GMOPs and SMOPs whenever coupons, events and/or VIP rank gives you discounts. Try to avoid buying refining stones from the Auction House around the time of double refinement events since the prices often go up.

Utility Slots
There are a few utility enchantments that are universally wanted:
 * Dragon's Hoard Enchantments are available through the Tyranny of Dragons campaign or the Auction House and provides a number of refinement stones from kills - be aware that there is a "cap" on the number of stones you'll receive.
 * Fey Blessing Enchantments are available from the Sharandar campaign or Auction House and will provide a chance of an enchantment dropping after a kill - these enchantments scale with the level of the enemy, giving rank 5 enchantments at best when killing level 70+ enemies.
 * Quartermaster's Enchantments are available through participating in the Siege of Neverwinter event - these provide "bags" of treasure after a kill, which can contain rewards from simple potions to rank 7 enchantments, depending on the "rank" of the bag you open, and the total % drop chance you have across all of your Quartermaster's Enchantments. Because the chance of getting enchantments and the rank of the enchantments is affected by the total % drop chance you have, it is recommended to not open any bags that drop from Quartermaster's Enchantments until you have 10.5-11% total drop chance, and even then only on a "double enchants" event. To understand this in greater detail, check out a more comprehensive guide on the subject.

Companions
The primary aim for your companion is to get a decent active companion that works well with your class, and to put three Bonding Runestones|Bonding Runestones on it as soon as possible. The higher your companion's rank, and the high the rank of the Bonding Runestones, the more benefit you will get out of your companion. As a minimum, you should aim for three rank 8 Bonding Runestones. There is lots of information on which companions work best with each class, and which companions are good for solo play vs. providing benefits to groups, so again refer to a class guide.

Remember that while you can only have one summoned companion at a time, and they're the one fighting / healing alongside you, you can have 5 or 6 companions active. Their active bonuses will apply whether they are summoned or not, and some of those bonuses complement each other.

Also pay close attention to gear and enchantments. Some gear, and especially the overload enchantments, are player-only or companion-only and have no effect otherwise. That said, if you're running low on storage space, you could stash some enchantments and gear on companions with free slots available, especially within your stable of inactive companions.

If you're having trouble in the post level 70 campaigns, it can be worth investing in a healer or defender companion to use as your summoned companion whilst running content solo - however there are two things to be aware of:
 * Don't invest too many Astral Diamonds or Zen on a companion that you will later regret, so plan ahead and read a guide for your class to what recommended companions choices are available and don't spend too much on a companion that doesn't match your build.
 * Defender companions can cause troubles in epic group content as they will distract the enemies to focus on them instead of on the tank character - be prepared to swap to a non-defender companion when playing through content with a tank (this doesn't apply so much if your character is a tank, but is still worth bearing in mind whilst running group content).

Mounts
As mentioned before, there are strong advantages to having a Wanderer's Fortune mount, but when purchasing one consider how many characters you are planning to have. Mounts bought from the Zen store are available to each of your characters, whereas mounts bought from the Auction House will only be available for the purchasing character.

Ideally you want each character to have at least an Epic mount (for the extra movement speed), and potentially have access to Wanderer's Fortune too. Assuming you have these two boxes ticked, check your class guide for which additional mount insignia bonuses work best for your class. Remember that mount powers are separate from the mount itself. Once you have a mount in your stable that gives you, e.g. 110% speed, you can have that ability available regardless of which mount you're riding. Other mount powers come into play at that point. Note that mounts that provide extra kinds of attacks are relatively rare and fairly expensive.

Regardless of which mount insignia bonuses, you should aim for an Epic mount as soon as possible/affordable, not only will the equip power boost your stats (and iLevel), it will help you get around much faster, helping you complete content quicker. It's worth noting that the Summer Festival and Siege of Neverwinter events now offer free Epic mounts just by using event currency that is obtainable each day.

Ensure that you have all of your insignia slots filled in, and aim for useful stats for your class (as opposed to placing insignias just to fill the space). Be on the lookout for blue or purple insignias from various drops and swap them in to replace green versions of the same.

Campaigns / Boons
Campaign progression has various benefits, the most obvious is the extra stats and abilities gained from boons, but some campaigns provide other advantages such as the River District Weapons Sets from the Cloaked Ascendancy campaign or Makos' Signet from the Storm King's Thunder campaign.

As a fresh level 70 character, the most likely campaigns you will have progressed in are Tyranny of Dragons, Maze Engine, Elemental Evil and Sharandar - if you haven't, then it's time to go and start progressing in them. For each set of boons, check in advance which ones you want for your build, work towards getting those as soon as you can and then proceed with the remaining ones in your own pace. For example the 6th and 7th boons in the Tyranny of Dragons campaign can take months to complete without grinding the Tiamat trial 80 times; however these two boons provide a relatively small benefit in comparison to the effort/time required to gain them.

As well as the pre-level 70 campaigns, you'll now have access to all of the level 70 campaigns - whilst you can start all of them now, unless you have help from other players you'll struggle with the later campaigns until you're more geared up - for now start the Dread Ring and Underdark campaigns. Feel free to start the Storm King's Thunder, Icewind Dale and The Cloaked Ascendancy campaigns, but don't worry about progression in those campaigns until you're able to complete their daily quests at a rate you feel comfortable with.

The most recent campaign, Ravenloft, is higher in difficulty than the earlier campaigns like Sharandar, but it's worth completing the introduction quest in order to earn a set of IL 460 gear and rank 8 enchantments.

Tyranny of Dragons Campaign
The idea is to start this campaign as early as possible, preferably at level 30, as campaign progression is time-gated (i.e. there will be points where you must wait until the next day to progress with the campaign). Definitely complete the first three boons, they are relatively easy and well worth the effort.

When you reach the 4th and 5th boons, be prepared to either buy the necessary books Haarl's Treatise on Dragonkind and Breyer's Draconic Investigations from the Auction House, grind the necessary campaign currency to buy the books in Protector's Enclave, or grind Shores of Tuern / Lair of Lostmauth for a chance to get the books as a loot drop (note that you must have the matching campaign key, the books will not appear in the free chest / epic chest.

In order to get the last two boons you will require multiple Linu's Favors, these are obtained from the Tiamat trial (Dragon Queen's Key is required), donating campaign resources in the Well of Dragons or fishing during the Winter Festival - the latter is the easiest and quickest method, but is only available a few weeks per year.

Maze Engine Campaign
This is a very simple campaign to complete, however it does take weeks due to the daily time-gated quests. All four boons are useful for most classes, and as the daily quest is quite quick there's no reason not do complete this campaign as soon as you can.

Sharandar Campaign
This campaign is relatively straight forward to complete, but the boons will take a couple of weeks to complete. The first three boons are straight forward enough to get and provide universally useful bonuses, the last two are still worth getting, but there's less need to hurry for them.

Another reason to continue with the Sharandar campaign is it provides a non-random source of Power Points which are used to increase your Powers' ranks, even after reaching level 70. You may want to consider, once you've been L70 for a while, visiting each of the 3 regions of Sharandar a day and doing the 3 quests from each region that give campaign currency. By doing this, you can get enough of these 3 currencies to buy another power point about once every 3 to 4 days. So if you can spare about a half hour a day this can also be a good source for improving your character. For example, doing this once a day for about 3 weeks can get you 2 new powers all the way to max level from scratch.

Dread Ring Campaign
If you've followed the rest of the advice above you should be able to successfully work through the Dread Ring Campaign without additional support from other players. This is another straight forward campaign, complete all daily quests each day until you have all boons and are able to forge Adamantine Gauntlets - once you have access to these, you can repeat the daily lair quests for a chance at free and  - you'll need a lot of these in refinement.

Dread ring is also exceptional for farming Demonic Ichor to create drowcraft armor or lesser/greater demonic keys. This is because a) two out of the three demonic heroic encounters are very near to the main rest point / camp for the level, and b) it remains popular enough that often there will be enough people participating to get a gold result, which gives a bonus encounter. A gold result demonic HE and one other HE, and you have the 3 demonic HEs needed in the daily quest given by the Demon Hunter fairly quickly.

Underdark Campaign
The main sources of campaign progression in this campaign are from Demonic Heroic encounters found in Dread Ring, Icewind Pass, Dwarven Valley and Well of Dragons, and from the Underdark skirmishes and trials. These are well worth doing as they will grant decent boons (at least to begin with), Demonic Ichor for purchasing Drowcraft gear, and some campaign currency for use in the Dread Ring, Icewind Dale and Tyranny of Dragons campaigns.

Other Campaigns
Other campaigns will most likely be extremely time consuming, or at worst impossible, until you've geared up your character some more. However it's entirely possible to run content in campaigns as part of another group and if you are trying to obtain specific gear and/or boons this is the recommended way until you can solo it.
 * The tier 2 weapons sets available in The Cloaked Ascendancy campaign are an example of something that would definitely help gear up your character.
 * At the other end of the spectrum, Storm King's Thunder has been criticized by some players as being exceptionally grindy, with some resources and mechanics that can be off-putting. Additionally, the relic armor available via this campaign is not likely to remain Best In Slot when mod 12 is available on all platforms later in 2017.

Campaign Completion Tokens

 * Depending on your platform, and when you're reading this guide, there may also be campaign completion tokens available for purchase in the Zen Market or (when such tokens are unbound, possibly as of mod 12 later in 2017) in the Auction House.
 * You might want to quickly estimate how long you'd need to grind for certain currencies and gear and compare that to the time needed to make equivalent AD for the Auction House, or AD or real-world money for Zen.
 * Also take a hard look at the boons, gear or dungeons/skirmishes unlocked and determine if any method of getting to it is worth your time.

Useful Information
There is so much information to learn in this game, some of it gets lost in the tutorials, sometimes isn't mentioned anywhere in game, or sometimes the in-game explanations aren't up to date. You may already know this information, but if not it's something worth remembering:

Astral Diamonds

 * You get bonus Astral Diamonds for your first entry into each random queue - this alone won't bring you to your 100,000 daily rough AD limit, but the salvage you'll earn (assuming you're running epic, level 70, content) can help bring in considerable income.
 * Remember that once you progress far enough in several campaigns, there are weekly quests which provide a small amount of AD as well. Timing these to do one a day can add some variety gain you some campaign currency.
 * If you work with Black Ice equipment, remember that salvaging Black Ice equipment DOES NOT TURN INTO ASTRAL DIAMONDS. Salvaging Black Ice equipment converts it into a much smaller amount of Black Ice. It's easy to be on a "salvaging auto-pilot" and assume that salvaging black ice armor is the same as salvaging e.g. alliance armor. It isn't.
 * Don't forget to periodically turn in seals at the seal vendor in Protector's Enclave, to get salvage that you can then turn into AD (or gear if you still need it). This is what's meant when people say "check your seals" before going into a dungeon; seals have a limit as to how much you can have at once and you don't want to waste time on a run when you won't get the seals from it...

Auction House

 * The Auction House is tricky to play, as economies change due to events, demand for specific resources, or other ripple effects that you'd expect in any market.
 * Do not ask for Auction House tips and tricks on forums. It's generally met with silence, sarcasm, and/or "go do the research". It's like asking a fisherman what their favorite fishing spots are. People with an advantage aren't going to talk about it.
 * The Astral Diamond exchange fluctuates as well on some platforms, partially from demand, partially from restrictions and prices that the game sets to correct some things. On PC, the exchange rate is essentially permanently set at 500:1. Keep in mind that even if you have the astral diamonds, there is usually a large backlog of orders, so it may take days or weeks to turn those astral diamonds into zen.
 * It's useful to turn some AD into Zen when the market is really low (e.g. under 300 on XBox), just to have zen for lockbox keys, strongbox keys, or even saving up to buy VIP a month or 3 months at a time.
 * The market varies on each platform, obviously, so if you do research outside of the game user interface, remember to confirm that you're looking at advice for the platform you play on...

Calendar

 * Use the Calendar and plan ahead - there are certain events like "double glory" or "double enchants/runes" that can be used to efficiently progress with your character. Usually the amount of forward planning you can do is limited by storage space, but here are some of the more common things players use:
 * Only open packs containing Enchantments or Runestones on "double enchant" events - you won't get double Bonding Runestones, or double Weapon/Armor Enchantments, but you will get double the number of other Rank 7, 8 and 9 enchantments/runestones this way. This also includes opening the bags from Quartermaster Enchantments (some details are included in the Enchantments section above, but it is still recommended to read a dedicated guide to how this works).
 * Only open Guild masterwork resource maps on "double professions" events - this will double the number of resource you get from the particular node (this only applies if a guild within your alliance is at least Guild Rank 10).
 * Level alt characters during "double XP" events - as you're level 70, you know the effort involved in getting to level 70, halving this effort just makes sense.

Events

 * Recurring events like the Summer Festival, Siege of Neverwinter, Portobello's Campaign, Winter Festival and others are good to watch for also.
 * They can be a fun break from other campaign grinds, if you want the challenge of trying to get the best mounts, garb or gear from the events.
 * They can also be a decent source of AD if you time the Auction House right and can find and pawn off common currencies or rare equipment from the events.
 * Remember that sometimes some currencies obtained during an event are only good until a couple of days after the event. If you just missed the end of an event, check Protector's Enclave for the vendor for that event, up to a day or two after the end.
 * For party-themed items where you get benefits by opening items in groups (sahha balls in Summer Festival, gifts in Winter Festival), watch chat for invitations to groups, and/or organize some groups in your guild or alliance.
 * Some groups will expect people bring a minimum number of items to open.
 * Frequently groups will meet in a confined space (e.g. crowd under a covered bridge, or under one end of a bridge) to make it easier to contain all the items to pick up, or to volley the sahha ball without chasing it around.

Joining queues, and group etiquette

 * When you're done with a particular group, remember to leave the queue group as well as any local group.
 * Sometimes it's a hassle for someone else organizing a group to try to add you, only to be unable to add you because you're already in a queue group.
 * A well-organized group will often join you to a group, then join you to a queue group, then disband the group. That way the people in the group can continue with their own quests while the group queues up for a dungeon and/or more group members are found.
 * You may want to use the Queue Group channel instead of Group or Say in chat, when part of a group in a dungeon.
 * If you're getting together a group for a dungeon, set of T3 guild HEs or similar, ask in guild chat before opening up to alliance chat. And never request or demand minimum item levels in alliance chat; that's exclusionary.
 * When in a group, hit B to skip cutscenes if they're skippable. No one wants to join what they hope is e.g. a quick Epic Demogorgon farm, only to slow down because one person isn't skipping cutscenes and everyone has to watch each one.

Maintenance

 * Watch the server messages on the opening screen of the game to get info about downtimes for maintenance. If you're an early riser on the U.S. West Coast, or hoping for an early lunch break on the East Coast, this might bite you from time to time.
 * Where it really catches people out is during events. Always plan to wrap up your participation in an event a few hours before that event ends. There's always a few people complaining on various forums about expecting to have e.g. 3 more hours of double refinement but then the system is down for maintenance at the end of the double refinement event.

Professions

 * Professions are worth doing, but the cost can sneak up on you.
 * Even if you don't invest any time or Astral Diamonds into it, you can still earn refinement points, gold, and experience points through Leadership.
 * It's generally best to level up at least three other professions to rank 20 as a minimum to unlock the last profession slot (assuming you have all of the others unlocked), and be warned that even with all nine slots unlocked it will still take months to reach Leadership rank 21 which is where you'll start producing a noticeable amount of refinement points.
 * Which other professions you progress with are up to you, but popular choices are Alchemy to be able to produce Unified Elements, Jewelcrafting to produce double enchantment slot jewelry, whichever profession matches to your class to produce Gemmed Exquisite shirt/pans and potentially whichever profession matches your class to produce Element Weapons Sets.
 * Research your professions carefully to determine total amount of time or AD to spend on them.
 * You may want to always leave at least one slot available for profession vendors specific to a seasonal event such as Summer Festival.