Definitive RO Leveling Guide!

Started by Acrued, Jan 15, 2008, 08:25 PM

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Acrued

INDEX-
Section 1:The Adventure Begins
Section 2:My First Job...Now What?
Section 3:Race to Level 99...and BEYOND!
Section 4:Back to Square 1
Section 5:I'm a High______! Woot!
Section 6:Final Job Change, The Real Work Begins
Section 7:The Road to Glory
Section 8:Best Equips for WoE, PvP, and MVP's
Section 9:Making Money, The Easy Way!

Section 1:The Adventure Begins
You start at the character select screen, and simply click on an empty space. You can choose hair colors and styles here, but as most private servers have a stylist NPC, it's usually better to choose pick a random one and change it in-game later. Since you will be able to reset stats later anyway (on private servers at least), just max out strength, dexterity and agility, no matter what class you plan to play. Once you have done that, game begins, typically starting you in the Novice Training Grounds. There are several free levels, and a bit of free equipment, to be had here, but it's not really worth it except on low-rate servers, so just warp to Prontera the quickest way you can. (Most private servers have @go 0, @go Prontera, or @load to get you there.) Save your respawn point at the Prontera Kafra, as this is where the majority of your RO life will be headquartered, and you're all set. On many servers, I recommend any players with 2500 zeny or more visits the Prontera Weapon Dealer (just Northeast of the fountain in the center of Prontera) to buy a Main Gauche, the best weapon a Novice can equip. It will make short work of the few job levels you will need to get as a Novice, but on servers where the experience rate is at 200x or higher, or if you don’t have the zeny, your basic Knife should suffice. If you have the zeny to spare, a couple Concentration Potions make it even faster, but aren’t crucial. Flywings and healing items won’t be necessary at this point. From here you can take the Warper (most private servers have one located near the Kafra), and go to either Ant Hell dungeon 1, or if it’s available, the Novice Training Grounds. The Ant Hell option is fast and easy, as inanimate objects are easy to slaughter and the drops can make you some good starting money, but the problem is that a single Familiar or worse, Maya Purple, lurking at the spawn point can really ruin your day as a 1/1 Novice. The Training Grounds is pretty quick leveling, and fairly easy to survive, no matter how weak you may start out. Either way, kill Ant Eggs (not ants!) or Porings for a few minutes until you have job level 10, which is as high as you can take it for now. Spend your skill points on getting 9 levels of Basic Skills, then warp back to Prontera and find the jobchanger (also usually located near the Kafra in the center of town). Decide on a character class to change into, (I usually recommend a melee class such as Swordsman or Thief for a players first class, as they are easy to level without much in the way of items or zeny, and very easy to understand.)

Section 2:My First Job…Now What?

Magic classes such as Mages and Acolytes may wish to change their stats at this point if they have the zeny, but it isn’t an absolute must at this point. Any melee characters can stay with what they have, and will continue spending their points the same way they started the game. (Strength for carrying capacity and more damage output, Agility for better dodging and faster attack speed, dexterity to avoid “misses”, etc.) Str and Agi will be your bread and butter for any melee class, and just enough Dex to stop missing often. 30 total Dex including bonuses from job and gear) will get you to around level 45 or 50 easily, and you will likely never need more than 60 total Dex for leveling purposes. Magic-based classes will instead focus their stats on Int (for more magic attack) and Dex (for faster cast time). Neither class will need Vit or Luk at this point. Once you have chosen your class, head back to Ant Hell 1. You will notice that your new HP and stats will make killing ants a breeze this time around, just remember that ants are assisters, and will attack you if you attack their brethren. A fire weapon or fire spells will do wonders here. Once you have hit about base level 30, you may warp to Payon dungeon 1. Most of the creatures here are Undead, and again, fire or holy property makes short work of them. Work your way towards the portal at the bottom right of the screen, and by the time you reach it, you will likely be around level 35 or 40. Take the portal into the second level of the dungeon, and kill the Archer Skeletons and Skeleton Soldiers until you have hit job 40-50. (I recommend most classes change at job 40 while they are non-transcended, as this won’t really matter since they will soon be starting over after level 99 anyway. However, non-transcending classes like Ninjas and Gunslingers are HIGHLY recommended to go to job 50, since they won’t get another shot at this. Some classes with many useful skills, like Merchants and Acolytes, may want to go to job 50 as well, but it’s your call.) Alternatively, classes with area-affect skills like Magnum Break may wish to level in Orc Dungeon instead of Payon, but either is fine. Now, we will once again warp to Prontera, and visit the jobchanger to change into our second class.

Section 3:Race to Level 99…and BEYOND!
Here is where the fun starts! Thieves can become Assassins or Rogues, Swordsmen can become Knights or Crusaders, etc., and you finally will begin to learn the skills to turn you from RO noob into hardcore badass. At this point, depending on what job level you reached before changing jobs, you will be around base level 55-65. Mages will want to go to Louyang Field, where they can gain tons of exp by killing Mi Gaos (also known as Increase Soil) with fire spells, Priests will go to Glast Heim Churchyard and heal-bomb Undead, and melee classes have several choices. If you have elemental weapons, melee characters may kill things in Geffen dungeon 2 and 3 with Holy or Ghost elements, continue killing Undead in Payon 2 and 3 with Fire or Holy, or if they feel brave, go straight to Byalan dungeon 4 or 5 with Wind. Any of the places will get you to level 80 easily, at which point you may choose another area. If you have an Icepick, or another way to bypass defense, Raydrics and Khalitzburgs are awesome exp in Glast Heim Chivalry 2, or Wind is still brutal on Mermen and Stroufs in Byalan dungeon 5. Either of these place will take you all the way to level 99 without too much worry. Wizards are better served by heading to Magma dungeon 1 and using Storm Gust, although this is much easier with a “tank” to help you, such as a Knight. In fact, a good tank and decent gear could even allow Wizzies to head straight for Ice dungeon at this point, where they will level to 99 with wind spells like Lord of Vermillion. Once you have hit level 99, you may return to Prontera and see the now-familiar jobchanger to be “reborn”. This is the process by which you will return to level 1 as a Novice again, only with more stat points to spend, and later, much better skills. Once you have transcended, you will level 3 times slower than you did the first time around, so you may want to take a quick break before continuing. Don’t get discouraged, however, because despite the longer journey, this time around will likely be much more fun!
Posted on: Jan 15, 2008, 12:24 pm
Section 4:Back to Square 1
Before you are “reborn”, be sure to take off your equipment, because you won’t be able to use most or all of it once you are a Novice again, and you won’t be able to use the Kafra right off the bat either. As soon as you have become level 1 again, (spending your points on Str, Agi, Dex as before) you may return to Ant Hell 1 or the Novice training grounds and repeat the process from Section 1. This time around, things are likely to be much easier, as even though you are technically leveling 3 times slower, the increased stat points, and the better gear you will probably have by this point, will make this a breeze. Once you have hit job level 10, (around base level 15) just spend your skill points getting the 9 levels of Basic Skills and return to the jobchanger in Prontera.

Section 5:I’m a High_____! Woot!
This part is easy. The jobchanger will probably choose your next class for you at this point. For example, if you were a level 99 Knight before transcending, you will now become a High Swordsman. Once you have done that, simply repeat the process from Section 2, although your better gear and stats will likely allow you to skip ahead to more difficult training areas at a lower level this time around. Just keep it up until job 50 (that’s a MUST this time, because you won’t get another shot at this), then go visit your old friend, the jobchanger, one last time.

Section 6:Final Job Change,The Real Work Begins

I will say this one more time, because it’s that important. DO NOT CHANGE JOBS UNTIL YOU ARE JOB 50!!! The only, and I mean ONLY class that can maybe get away with this, is Assassin Cross, because they can likely get all the skills they want anyway. But it’s so easy to get those last few jobs, I recommend that every class go to job 50 before changing jobs for the last time. Okay, enough ranting; back to business. Now, just continue the same process as before you transcended. You will again notice that you can probably go to more difficult areas at a lower level than the first time around, due to better stats, better gear, and MUCH better skills. Continue this process until you are about level 90. At this point, Wizzies and Ninjas with tanks andr good equips can go to Ice Dungeon, and melee characters can move to Abyss dungeon 1 and 2 and begin killing dragons, or Glast Heim Castle 2, Geffenia and other places to fight creatures with high defense, provided you have an Icepick or a skill/weapon which can bypass defense. Priests can continue their Heal-bombing ways in Cursed Abbey dungeon 1 and 2 (level 3 is still out of reach…for now). Assassins can equip a katar (preferably with several Peco Peco Egg cards) and Grimtooth Venatus in Juperos dungeon 1 for fun and profit. Lord Knights can mob and use Bowling Bash in pretty much any mobby area, or use Frenzy with a Muramasa in Geffenia or Glast Heim Castle 2. Palladins will want to use Grand Cross in either the afore-mentioned Glast Heim and Cursed Abbey, or in Hidden Dungeon level 3. Any of these will get you to level 99. If you are on a lower-rate server, then that’s it for you. Congratulations, you made it! Everyone else read on, because here is where the real work begins…

Section 7:The Road to Glory
By now you’re probably thinking you’re home free, right? Well, if you are on a server where the max level is 200 or higher, you still have a looooong way to go, but I’ll try to make it as painless as possible. Assassins should continue using Grimtooth in Juperos until about level 115 or 120. Don’t bother going to any other levels of Juperos, things are far better for you in level 1. If you are on a server where the Smokie pet enables “perfect” hide, begin leveling one to Loyal in Juperos. As early as level 120, you can go in Lighthalzen dungeon (also known as Biolabs) level 3, and continue using Grimtooth there all the way until level 255, 300 or whatever the max level is. This is the best experience in the game, so although it may be boring, this is as good as it gets. If you don’t have a Smokie, or it is disabled on your server, you may want to level to about 140 or so on Gold Acidus dragons in Abyss Lakes 3. (These are Holy, so bring some of those Cursed Waters you probably collected earlier in Geffenia.) Even then, be careful, as the Assassin Cross and Lord Knight creatures in Biolabs are technically Demons, and can see hidden players. (Everything else there is demi-human, so use typical PvP or WoE gear.) For Lord Knights, use Bowling Bash in Juperos until about level 110, then continue using BB against those same Gold Acidus and other dragons in Abyss Lakes 3 until about 150 or so. This is best accomplished using a Dragon Slayer or Gae Bolg, as the dragons have high defense. From there, use Spiral Pierce with a good, heavy spear like a Pole Axe or Hunting Spear against the creatures in Biolabs 3, or Thor dungeon 3 works well also, particularly with Water property. Alternatively, you may use the old standby, a Muramasa, with Frenzy (Berserk) in any of these dungeons. Creators should use Acid Demonstration on Gold Acidus until about level 120 or so, then continue with AD in Thor 3 or Bio 3. If you use this skill, be prepared to do lots of farming for AD bottle ingredients, and make every bottle count. Either target all but the Kasas in Thor 3, or in Bio 3, target only the things you can one-hit-kill, and teleport away from the rest. Depending on your stats and gear, this will be the High Priestess, Lord Knight, and Whitesmith. Stalkers should also use AD in the same way, or copy another skill, such as Soul Breaker, or they may use Storm Gust or Spear of Ice in Thor 3. Sages and Wizards will want to use Water spells in Thor 3 (some use this all the way to max level), or Wizzies may use a variety of spells in Bio 3, depending on which element deals the most damage to the monster they are fighting. Gunslingers and Archer classes spend a good deal of time in Thor 3, but most can survive fairly well in Bio 3 due to their ranged attacks. Palladins will use either Shield Chain (requires enough dex for instacast, with high Str and Agi and a heavy shield like the Strong Shield) or Sacrifice (massive damage, but requires coming back to town to heal often) in Bio 3. Champions can either use Throw Spirit Sphere or Asura (this requires warping back often, just like Sacrifice, but ensures one-hit kills) in Bio 3. Smiths may use crits or Cart Termination on Gold Acidus, then will be in Bio 3 with the same tactics from about level 140 on. (Seeing a trend here?) Most other classes may use these same techniques to good effect. Priests, however, have a slightly different approach. They should use Magnus Exorcismus from about level 90 in Cursed Abbey 1 and 2, then move up to level 3 from levels 100 or so to 130. From there, they can easily level the rest of the way in Bio 3, using the simple tactic of just throwing down an ME and teleporting. (Remember that the Sinx and LK are Demons. All others are unaffected by this skill.) A priest can level faster than any other class when played properly, so they do have an advantage in this. Soul Linkers will use the same techniques as Wizards, and Star Gladiators will level like Blacksmiths or other melee classes. Super Novices may use any technique they wish, but magic is probably the best choice, just remember that their relatively low HP/SP can make leveling tough in Biolabs. No matter which class you choose, if you work hard and play it smart, you can become the legendary hero you always knew you could be!
Posted on: Jan 15, 2008, 12:25 pm
Section 8:Best Equips for WoE, PvP, and MVP's
Congratulations. You finally maxed out your character, and now you’re probably wondering what’s left to do. Well, the answer is, LOTS! Farming cards and equips, killing MVP’s, fighting in PvP and WoE, completing quests, and tons of other great things await you after the leveling is through. For most players, War of Emperium and PvP are the ultimate goals, but what do you need to excel at these? Fighting Boss Monsters, also known as MVP’s, also offers a great way to pass the time, as well as being one of the only ways to get some of the best gear and cards in the game. So, how do you do all these things like a Ragnarok Pro? Well, there are many answers to that. For equips, it’s important to understand which classes your character excels at fighting, and which ones are a problem. For melee characters, fighting against ranged characters like magic-users and Archers is often the most difficult. Thief classes can use Backslide and Hide skills to avoid the casters until they can close to melee range, but many other classes have problems here. The best solution is to focus on gear that will provide Magic Defense, or better still, Magic Reflect. This will enable you to survive an encounter until you can close to striking distance, or in some cases, reflect enough damage that casters actually kill themselves! Most wizzies and archers cannot survive a fight for very long against a melee character at point-blank range, so use any gear and skills you have to get close to them. The best examples of mDef gear/cards include God items such as Megingard and Sleipnir, Golden Thief Bug card, Ragamuffin Manteau etc. Magic-reflect gear includes Orleans Server, Maya card (so good!) and Frus card, as well as certain skills. Preventing crippling status effects like Freeze and Stone should also be a priority. Marc card can protect against Freeze, and Evil Druid can turn you into Undead property, which protects against Stone, Freeze and Aspersio, but has its own drawbacks as well. Your server’s rates, and the lack or benefit of an MVP room, will help determine what types of gear and cards are available on your server. The Pneuma skill, as well as cards like Errende Ebecee, will help greatly against Archer classes. Caster and ranged classes have just the opposite problem, so they must focus on disabling the enemy, keeping him at bay, or just dealing enough damage to kill the enemy outright before he reaches them. For disabling the enemy, try status effects like Freeze, Stun and Stone Curse, or skills like Storm Gust that deal damage while also inflicting these statuses. Various arrows can cause these effects as well. Cards like Sasquatch, Garm, Pest and Dark Frame can also inflict these affects when you take damage, which can be useful as well. Jupitel Thunder and Charge Arrow are examples of skills that can help keep the enemy at bay. Other skills can simply hold the enemy in “flinchlock”, where he cannot move and simply takes damage until he dies. These are skills such as Spear of Ice, Sage bolts, and any Archer class with a high attack speed. Some cards can inflict status effects while attacking, and are particularly useful for Archer classes while fighting in WoE, as it is often enough to simply slow down an enemy if you cannot kill him outright. These are cards such as Marina, and many others. (Don’t forget Traps too!) Other cards and skills can cause various annoying effects, such as Wickebine Tres, which can cast Strip Armor when attacking, or the Gunslinger skill Disarm, not to mention the devastating Stalker skill “Full Strip”. Cards or items that increase damage when attacking are obviously useful for melee characters, such as Hydra and Skeleton Worker cards for PvP, or Abyssmal Knight cards when fighting MVP’s. In fact, the best combination of cards for PvP and WoE, especially where damage output is concerned, would be a Triple Bloody Boned 4-slotted weapon. (This is 3 Hydra and one Skeleton Worker card, and the reason why it is better than just 4 Hydra cards has to do with how damage is calculated, but that’s a story for another time) MVP’s don’t require much explanation, but suffice it to say that much preparation and hard work, as well as a bit of research, is required to know their individual strengths and weakness, spawn times and place, etc., but it’s well worth it. MVP’s are great fun, and as I have said, a source of some of the best cards and gear in the game, and just about any high-level character can fight them. Why not challenge yourself by taking on some of the fiercest monsters in the game?

Section 9:Making Money, The Easy Way!
Want to buy that awesome armor, but just can’t afford it? Tired of being broke while your friends are buying +10 gear from vendors all over town? Well here’s the guide for you. You can easily make lots of zeny, at virtually any level, if you just know what to do. First of all, make a vendor. This is easy to do, and you have 9 character slots. Why aren’t you using them? Simply make a merchant with level 10 vend, and start selling the extra loot you get from leveling, MVP’s, events, etc. Before long, you’ll have so much extra loot that you’ll want to overupgrade weapons and armor and start vending those as well. (This is easier with a Whitesmith, but I digress…) Yes, vending is the ultimate way to become a “zenyionaire”, but is you want the quick and dirty, approach, I suppose I can give you that too. Here’s a chart, along with what level you should be to fight these things. The number in parentheses is approximately how much money you can expect to make in an hour on a 100x drops server.
Level 1-30:Screw money, just level! (Yea, level!)
Level 30-40:Payon 2. Tons of equips to NPC, and Soldier Skel cards can be vended. (1-2m, +SS cards)
Level 40-50:Wild Roses. From Geffen, walk one map west, then one map north. (2-3m)
Level 50-60:Obeaunes in Byalan dungeon 3. More roses, Saints Robes, etc. (4-5m)

Level 60-70:Geffen 2 and 3. Infiltrators for vending, ori, OBB’s etc. (4-5m, + Infiltrators)
Level 70-80: Raydrics, Khalitzburgs. (4-5m, not counting vending Raydric cards, Elu, etc.)
Level 80-100:Most melee can kill in GH Castle 2 and Geffenia. (3-20m +, depending on drops, Abby Knight cards, Muramasas, OCA’s, etc., and gear by the truckload to NPC in Geffenia)
Assassins can go to Juperos to farm with Grimtooth at this point, where there is a fortune to be had if they load on pet-equips, so they can pick up everything except Armor Charms. (5-10m)
Crusaders and Knights can also use GC in Juperos now, or farm Yggs in Hidden Dungeon 3. (2-4m)
Level 100-130: Abyss Lakes 3. Gold Acidus FTW! Great exp, treasure chests and equips to NPC make you filthy rich! (10-30m plus, depending on how fast you can kill)
Level 130-170:Thanatos Tower levels 6 and above. Stones of Sage, equips, and other random NPC’ables abound here, and Observation cards sell well on some servers. (20m+)
Level 170+: Farm EDP bottles in Bio 3, or better yet, just kill MVP’s! Some MVP’s such as Valk and Thanatos can easily make you over 50m PER KILL!!!! Not to mention the fact that many MVP equips are very useful, or can be traded for other gear you need. So go kill MVP’s for God’s sake! (??????)


Well, I hope you all enjoy this guide for Ragnarok Online. It’s the first one I’ve ever attempted, so please let me know what you think about it. In the meantime, have fun, and I’ll see you in RO!

Ansuz Isaz

=D Basic, but pretty useful. I have one piece of advice, though. That is to kind of seperate the sections a little more. Fore example, since you seem to make a pretty simple comparison in different ways melee and magic characters level, divide the sections up by that. As it is, it's pretty concenced, and hard to digest unless you're keenly curious about the whole thing. For those who are skimming to find the info they want, it might seem like too much of a hassle.

From where I've stood, I've found that killing the Ant Eggs can take for bloody ever. xD It gets annoying, hacking away at the things for nearly a minute before they fall. They're easy to kill, but slow, and not quite as productive. Thus, I'd say point them one south, east, or west of prontera to kill Porings and Lunatics if they don't have a warping option to the Training Grounds. That, or there's some ninja secret way to kill the ant eggs that I'm not aware of. o.o

InLarGe

mages and archers can kill mandragoras,floras and geographers for easy leveling..  ;D

phranxis

Correction:

Dont always use Grimtooth in lighthal lvl3
cus Some monsters there are Demon class
and Demon class can see you in Hiding Mode.

dorkritual

This guide assumes that your server has pet skills enabled. That means that you would take a Smokie pet (Loyal, with accessory equipped) in to LHZ, and even the demons there (LK and SinX) will not be able to see you, as Smokie enables perfect hide. If you don't have a loyal Smokie, or the skill is disabled on your server, then LHZ is not a friendly place to Grimtooth.

superja

You missed a lot of GREAT EXP monsters.

Unless you are an acolyte heal-bombing, payon 1 is crappy exp for monster level. You're better of going 1 map south of payon and killing spore (which give tons of job exp), and then going south 1 map again and killing wolves.

Also culvert is way better exp wise than ant-hell. Tarou give great exp, and there's spores there as well.

so for a melee class, culvert--->2 maps south of payon---->payon 2 is better. And if you can kill orc lady, they give great exp, but are kind of difficult for most 1st class jobs.

Franpowah

Do not forget metalings north of LHZ, for some classes (flee, range, vit) it's a great place to level.

dorkritual

First of all, I did make a note that this guide was slanted towards melee. Also, you will also notice that this guide was designed for mid-high rate servers, specifically those with exp rates around 200-400x experience. Therefore, metallings and such can kiss my non-black donkey.

Majora_younglink

Not a bad guide, but not made for some of the lower rate servers. I think you should label it as such so people don't start complaining about it as not all of the leveling places would work on the lower rate servers.

Still a nice guide though.

phranxis

w8 w8 w8...
you said pet skill? ???
WTF :o

can anyone tell me the diff skils of all pets?

Acrued


Lol! Dorkritual can give you SOME but not all O_o

dorkritual

Well, most pets have skills, but it will depend on your server as to whether they are enabled or not. The pet needs to be loyal, and must have its accesory equipped in order to use its skills. There are plenty of places you can learn about this, but here is one particular site that seems to be fairly accurate: http://www.neatocool.com/Projects/Ragnarok/pets.html

I will issue this disclaimer, however: Alice and Zealotus don't officially have accessories at all, so they won't actually use any skills unless this has been tweaked on your server. The same is true for the new pets, such as Wanderer, Deleter, Diabolic and the various goblins. Anyway, I hope that helps.

phranxis

my deviruchi wasnt loyal but it gives me the stats.
and not every minute but evry 2 seconds :D

dorkritual

Yea, they are screwed u on many servers. Deviruchi is supposed to give his buffs for 20 seconds per minute, basically one third of the time.

pfja1st

does spore and/or poison spore have any skills? if they do, please let me know about their specifications and the like... thanks alot (^_^)