Mango's guide to leveling and farming with SA: Difference between revisions

[[Category:Soul Ascetic]]

== Introduction ==

Hello there! I've been playing Soul Ascetic for a while now, and I find it very fun and slighty overpowered as a farming character, so I'd like to share this guide with you all in the hopes of addressing some questions players have about when to farm what. I'd also like to talk about leveling, since most people seems to think leveling from novice to Soul Ascetic is a pain in the rear unless you get carried. I'd like to say I experimented with a fresh novice, without using any items from my account nor asking for help, and it only took me 4 hours to get to level 220 with 15m zeny farmed (no exp event active at the time). It's probably far from being any kind of record, but I'd say it's ok for your first day of playing! You'll probably take longer cause you know... you're reading this instead of mashing buttons, half the time.

I recommend reading the Taekwon section completely before getting to level 40, since after that it's kind of time sensitive and you shouldn't be stopping to read.

* After creating your character DO NOT skip the tutorial quest. Just tell the NPC you want to do the quest, follow the arrows, talk to the npc, hit the poring he summons, talk to the npc to get teleported, follow more arrows, heal yourself with a potion after getting hit, follow more arrows, talk to npc again to get some items you don't care about, follow NPC north, kill poring again, talk to NPC until deviling appears, get teleported out, talk to the NPC again and either choose to take the tour or tell him you're fine. Done! You used 2 minutes of your time to save an hour (assuming you didn't take the tour)! These few steps give you an exp book that lasts for 30 minutes and multiplies the exp you earn from killing enemies and completing quests by 3! It's a great deal, so please take it. Feel free to take the tour if it's your first time in the server. If it's not, or you don't care, just skip it. You already got the potions and the exp book anyway.

* If you didn't take the tour, you should be at Prontera, near the warper, and you should be level 8/10. Don't use the exp book yet, I'll let you know when. Equip your Beginner costume, get a blessing from our Healer NPC and use the warper to go to Dungeons > Anthell. Kill one ant egg and you'll be level 10/10. Type @go main and hit Enter. You'll be at our Main Office. Assign all of your skill points to Basic Skill, then click Apply. Talk to our Job Master NPC straight ahead and you'll be given the option to change job. Pick Taekwon and confirm.

* Go to Eden Group (@go eden) and talk to Secretary Lime Evenor to join Eden Group with the second option. She'll ask you to type your name twice, but you don't really need to. If you type anything she'll think you're a dummy and fill the forms for you. You should now have your eden badge, so say goodbye to the nice lady and walk a bit north and to the right, through the warp. In the corridor, go through the warp to your right, to the Paradise Equipment room. Talk to Lucy and get free shadow gear from her, then talk to Lothaire and get the physical armor set. Yes, the physical one. For weapon, grab both the dagger and the staff. Equip everything except the weapon, which you can't use yet.

* Put all your stat points in STR and go back to Anthell. Type @al to activate your autoloot at 100% and go kill a couple eggs to get some skill points. Max your Kihop and Flying Kick. Put Flying Kick in your hotbar and kick some ants until you're level 39. It should take just a couple minutes. Remember that exp book? Well, it can't be used after you level to 41 so that's why I'm stopping you now. After you consume it, you'll have 30 minutes to get as much exp as possible, so we'll prepare to do just that.

* Once in Malaya, with your precious exp book paused, go calmly do the [https://wiki.muhro.eu/Cautious_Village Cautious Village Quest] but DO NOT do step 9 (don't deliver it).

* It's time to improve your gear! Sadly, this is going to consume quite a few minutes from our precious exp booster. If you're feeling bold, try to ask in #global (send a PM to #global) if someone can spare the following items: 15 Elastic Bands, 3 Blue Hair and 15 Old Picks. If not, then just assume you'll have to farm them as quickly as possible. You'll need the aforementioned items to get Advanced Paradise gear, which is a nice upgrade for now. Buy 150 fly wings and 5 blue potions just in case and let's get those upgrades.

* Go to the backroom of Eden Group and talk to Louis and then Labraham. Use the Take Special Offer option to exchange your items for the Advanced Paradise Magic set and the Advanced Paradise Soul Reaper Staff. Hopefully this didn't take you long! At the time of writing this, I tried and when I finished I still had 13 minutes of my exp boost. Now what to do with them?

* For this part, I chose to spam the Eden Board quests for Gefenia dungeon. The reason is that they're very quick to complete in Gefenia level 1, which is directly accessible from the warper and it's one of the fastest methods to get a good amount of Eden Coins while being this weak. I recommend having @go eden bound to a hotkey combination through ALT+M to go back fast. The idea is to teleport around killing Succubus, Incubus and Abysmal Knights with Espa. You'll have no trouble one shotting them with Espa if you use Holy Element (lvl 7 Mild Wind). The Abysmal Knight Quest is in the 100-110 board, and the Incubus/Succubus one is in the 120-140. When you start doing this, you might be a bit short of level 120, so you might be unable to grab the Incubus/Succubus quest. Don't worry about it. Get in there, kill a few mobs and they'll naturally get you to 120. After that, your objective is to deliver the AK and Inc/Suc quest as many times as possible before your exp book runs out. When mine finished at this point, I was level 155 and I had over 80 Eden Coins.

* Notably, Gefenia is also a great spot to grab some early Zeny. For now, just run around with @al 100, looting everything. Just sell everything to NPC, except Eluniums, Oridecons and Eden Coins.

* Up until this point, you should barely be at the 1h playtime mark, more or less. Of course, if this is your first time in the server not everything might have gone according to plan, but don't worry! Even if you're a bit lower than 150, the next leveling section could actually apply from a lower level, so it's not a big deal. Just make sure you farm at least 44 Eden Coins from Gefenia.

* At this point, if you're alone, leveling starts slowing down quite a bit. I recommend you prepare some good music :) It's Illusion Dungeon farming time! From 150 to 190, the easiest in my opinion is to farm Illusion of Vampire. The tactic is simple. Just grab the quest from the Daily Hunts NPC, buy consumables to be invincible and kill those 100 mobs repeatedly! How to be invincible in Illusion of Vampire? That's what those 44 Eden Coins are for. Just buy 2x Brilliant Protection Scroll, 2x Small Life Regen potion, 2x Small Mana Regen potion and 2x Almighty from the Eden Coin vending machine at Eden Group. Add one Battle Manual and that should be 44 coins. This is all going to last you for 1h.

* To kill effectively here, your stats should be 120INT, 110DEX, 100VIT and I put the rest in STR to not get overweight that quickly. As you progress towards 190, max INT to 130, put 120 on DEX and then do whatever feels best for you with the rest. I tend to get LUK to 90 just because I hate getting Curse status and LUK also provides a small MATK bonus that can help you 2 shot instead of 3 shot. Just use Mild Wind lv7 to apply Holy Element.

* As for loot, keep the Refinement Boxes if you get any, Carnium, Elunium, Oridecon and the Forgotten Heirlooms you get from completing the quest. The rest you can sell to Tool Dealer.

* At this point, you'll barely be getting 1 level every time you turn the quest in, and it's going to slow down even more towards the end. You can definitely keep going here, but I'll tell you what I did. Since I was so bored of Vampire at this point, I decided to see if I could do Illusion Underwater 2. Surprisingly, as long as you keep your buffs up, it's not that difficult.

* To get to Illusion Underwater 2, Warper > Illusion Dungeons > Illusion Underwater > Talk to Gein and say Sure > Talk to Jerry and say Yes let's go.

* Allocate your remaining skill points. You should finish leveling Kaute and Shadow Soul and put the rest wherever you want. Later on we'll reset skills anyway. Once done, go to the Job Master and change to Soul Ascetic.

* Now you're ready to farm at the speed of light... are you? Well... turns out you'll need to do a bit more leveling first. Without Job Levels, we can't use our shiny new skills! My recommendation here is to go Exo build first. Talisman requires a bunch of points and is not that strong with no gear. So, how to get there?

* At this point, you can easily do something like Illusion of Teddy Bear! It will be a welcome change of pace, and you only need to do it once with Espa/Eswhoo, so let's get in there. Grab the quest if you haven't, and by the time you finish and turn in, you'll have enough Job Levels to max Soul Gathering and Exorcism of Malicious Soul.