Right after you join our Guild, you start out at circle one. Folks call gainin a level, gainin a circle, or circling. For each circle (or level if you prefer that), you'll need to learn a certain amount of skills. You learn skills by performing actions, like hunting critters, something we Barbs know best. Each action you do, from hittin something with your sword, to disarming traps on a treasure box you might find, will help you learn ranks of different skills. Listed below are the skills you'll need to learn before you can advance.

For each of your first ten circles, you will need to know:
4 ranks each in two different weapon skills
4 ranks of the parry skill
3 ranks in the armor skill of your choice
2 ranks in shield skill
2 ranks in multiple opponent skill
½ a rank in two different lore skills (or 1 full rank every two circles)
2 ranks each in 10 survival skills.

I know that seems like a whole lot of skills to train. Trust me, though, you'll need those survival skills later on when you get to hunting bigger critters.

As you noticed, you'll need to pick two different weapon skills. EXPERIENCE WEAPON ALL will show you the twenty-two different weapon types you have to choose from. Your choice is entirely yours to make, as long as you pick two different types. I recommend training a melee weapon, like Medium Edge, and a ranged skill of some sort (Longbow or Composite bow will do you good). Once you get up to the higher circles, you'll need to train more weapons, but for now, just two will work. You can train more now if you like, in order to gain more TDP's as mentioned above, but I recommend just training two for a while, until you get the hang of things. You gain ranks in your chosen weapon skills by hitting critters that you hunt with those weapons. I recommend either shipyard rats in Crossing, or those Hegarenggi frogs outside the East Gate of Riverhaven until you get past circle five. There are several different moves you can do with a weapon. Most blades work best if you PARRY, then FEINT, then DRAW, SWEEP, and SLICE. With ranged type weapons, you LOAD, then AIM and wait for your best shot possible, then FIRE.

You'll also need to pick an armor skill. Leather will let you maneuver better, while chain, either Light or Heavy, will give you a bit better protection. Hardly any Barbs train the Plate armor skills, but you can also choose those if you wish. Just be prepared, since most Plate setups weigh a ton! Armor skill is learned by taking hits from critters you hunt. While you're slicing or shooting away, the critters will fight back. Keep a close eye on your health! (type HEALTH from time to time to check your current wounds) If you're a bit beat up, it's time to RETREAT and find an Empath who can heal you. It's generally nice to tip for healing, but while you still have your initial debt, you won't be able to. Once you get that debt paid off (through finding coins and gems while hunting, selling skins, etc.) you'll be able to tip the empaths for their help. Another way to tip empaths is to offer them skins you get from critters, gems you find when you search a critter, or even healing herbs like jadice flowers or yelith roots.

Parry, multiple opponent, and shield skills you will learn in combat, similarly to your armor skill. Parry is blocking attacks with your melee weapon, multiple opponent is how well you can handle more than one attacker, and shield is, well, using your shield. You can pick up shields from some critters you kill, or ask an older hunter to help you get one. Check your STANCE (type STANCE) to see how you are currently set up to defend and attack. Your stance percentage shows what percent of your total ranks of that skill you are currently using to defend yourself or to attack. You can change your stance around, and allocate more percentages to other skills at the cost of decreasing the percentage of some others. I generally leave attack stance at 100%. For defenses, I've always favored a stance higher in evasion. Play around with it until you get a stance you are comfortable with. Normally, you have 180 stance percentage points to allocate. Barbarians are one of two guilds who receive an extra stance percentage point every ten circles. That means that at circle ten, you'll have 181 points to allocate between your defenses, 182 at circle 20, and so on.

Lore skills are becoming a bit easier to learn as some changes are going into effect that open up more skills within the lore group. For your first ten circles, you will need ½ rank per circle, or one full rank every two circles, of two different lore skills. I'd suggest a mechanical lore skill and appraisal as these tend to come in very handy as you advance through the guild. Mechanical lore skills help with things like forging weapons. Appraisal skill will help you to tell if a weapon or armor you are using is more suited to you, or needs repair. You can train mechanical lore in many different ways, from scraping skins (see skinning below), to dismantling the empty treasure boxes you pick, to braiding vines or grass into ropes. Braiding ropes also helps you learn appraisal skill, and you can also APPRAISE just about anything to learn appraisal skill. I highly recommend braiding vines or grass into ropes, as it will train both of these skills, as well as foraging, and give you a source for bundling ropes, which are used to hold skins from critters you hunt. Simply FORAGE a vine or some grass then BRAID MY VINE or BRAID MY GRASS. Work braiding into your training routine and you'll quickly gain ranks in your lore skills.

Survival skills will by far be the biggest challenge, but most can be learned fairly easily. Here is a list of some of the survival skills you can train: Skinning, Climbing, Swimming, Lockpick, Disarm, Evasion, Perception, Foraging, First Aid, Hiding, Stealing and Stalking. These are not the only survival skills you can learn. (Type experience survival all in the game to get a full list of survival skills) Of the survival skills, Evasion will likely come easiest, as you learn it in combat with critters. Lockpicking, Disarming, and Perception can be learned by disarming and picking the treasure boxes you find. You'll have a bit of trouble with the traps at first, but once you get a few ranks of these skills under your belt, you'll do better and better. You can learn skinning by, well, skinning certain critters. For newer folks, the shipyard rats in Crossing or the frogs in Haven are skinable. You can also learn skinning by scraping certain skins you get from critters. You'll need to buy a hide scraper to do this. I recommend skinning whatever you can in combat, and scraping them when you're out taking a breather. You'll be able to learn the skinning skill very quickly this way. Remember, you'll need to choose ten different survival skills, and learn two ranks each in them before you can ask Mo or Agonar for a promotion.

Once you have learned the required amount of skills, you can go to Agonar or Mo and Ask < guildleader > about circle. If they approve of your work (if you've truly learned the skills you need) you'll be granted your promotion and a few tdp's to help you train your stats.