SP farming guide at the bandit stronghold (very detailed)

[The-Battalion]

Hello to all people who want to know some real information about SP farming. This is my first SRO guide, but no where near my first gaming guide. If you read this all the way through, you might learn a lot, you probably will learn a bit or you might just be a roxxor who knows everything, in that case constructive comments are welcome.

If you are new to the game then you should be told not to farm seriously at level 16, it puts many new players off the game because it is long, boring, frustrating and incredibly repetitive... But serious players often do it, why is that? The advantage of farming at level 16 is that you will level up a lot faster, you will have a very strong character for your level (fully farmed characters generally destroy their unfarmed counterparts in PvP) and you can really sit back and enjoy the game.

If this is your first character but you feel you can stick the farming, then this guide is targeted straight at you. If this is your second or third try and this time round you would like to kick ass all the way up to level 80, this guide should help. If you are a confirmed player, with a SoSun 16+9 bow and already know everything then why the hell didn't you write this kind of guide before I started this game?

To make things clear I will separate the guide into different sections. Each section corresponds to a different post in this topic, the links link to the associated section.

I. Getting started
II. Getting that SoX bow and equipment
III. Party time (illustrated party guide)
IV. Deleveling - losing experience
V. Gold tickets and monkeys
VI. Some numbers
VII. A few tips
VIII. Lexicon

Please excuse all my spelling mistakes, grammar and so on, being french my written English is a long way from perfect and MS Word is not that good at seeing every error!

The guide is not entirely finished, I thought of a few things I would have liked to add, but now that I have written it I have forgotten

EDIT 4th june 2007 : I've stopped playing this game - so this guide is not up to date on the new items and modifications of the game. Things that have changed : premium ticket, new stat point loss when you delevel, and probably a few other things too.

[The-Battalion]

I. Getting started

Okay, you have a new character and you want to do some farming before leveling up. The first thing that you should do is choose what kind of build you are going to do and calculate the amount of SP you need - you really won't want to farm 200k if your build only needs 100k. To do this you need three links that are already in this forum :
-> SP calculator
-> Character builder
-> SP per level chart

Use the first two links to calculate how many SP points you need, then use the third to know how many SP you are going to get leveling with your planned mastery gap. Subtract this to the amount you need to know how many you are going to need to farm.

Example : I need 150 000 SP for a level 70 character. Leveling without a gap from 20 to 70 will get me 70 000 SP.
150 000 - 70 000 = 80 000 SP.
Thus I need to farm 80k.

Once you have done this, you now know how much SP you need to farm - the rest is about getting them as fast as possible.

To farm efficiently, you need a 9 level gap between your character level and your highest mastery. Accordingly you need to stop developing all your masteries at level 7.

Before you start farming, it is advised to develop two masteries, fire and bow (Pacheon) to level 7. You should now have a fire imbue (fire river 2), and two bow skills - you should develop these whatever character you are building - you hit harder with fire than any other imbue, and the bow skills will be useful against giants and champions.
-> Even if your planned character does not need these two skills develop them just to farm, you can delevel them later using a level 20+ quest.

[The-Battalion]

II. Getting that SoX bow and equipment

To farm efficiently at the bandit stronghold you need a SoX bow level 16 + all you can get, however as every single silkroad forum advise every single wannabe farmer to farm at the stronghold with a SoX bow they sell for more than 5 million on Alps server, about 8~10 million for a +3. That is one hell of a lot of money if this is your first character. But without that kind of bow you will struggle to get anywhere so you need to get gold as fast a possible, while if possible getting SP. There is no easy answer, my personal advice for you is to farm young tigers with the best sword/blade/spear/glavie that you can afford and get as many Tiger Beard alchemy items as you can, selling the wind 2 elements for 2k each, you get 2 elements per item. I'll admit that it is really slow, but if getting rich was easy life wouldn't be so hard.

Now that you have got your SoX bow it is time to start farming - the harder you can hit bandit archers the faster it will be and the less people will want to try to KS you. Performing alchemy on you weapon is one way to do things, but it is expensive and random. You can however make a huge change to your attacking power by adding Str and Int blues to your equipment - and here is the magic : as you are level 16, most of your clothing and jewels will be 2nd degree and bandit archers drop second degree tablets of Int and Str as well as all the elements you need to create stones of Int and Str. Life can be good sometimes. You want to end up with Int 3 Str 3 on everything you wear. A level 16 full int character will one shot kill bandit archers with a Sos +3 bow and fire imbue if his equipment is nicely pimped. No point in paying 70 million for a SOM bow after all is there? Just make sure you keep all those level 2 tablets of Int and Str.

-> For a very good guide on enhancement alchemy, check out this guide (forum link)

I would really go for garment, whatever your build - and before anyone flames - here is why : if you 2 shot kill the archers they don't have time to hit you, you can kill all the archers in a single zone faster than they spawn. You will always need imbue, so the 20% mana reduce is important if you want to save money on pots.

[The-Battalion]

III. Party time

If you are new to silkroad online then you will need to read this - ingame, you have the possiblity of joining or forming a party, in other words a group of players working together. There are two main kinds of parties, one is set on "Exp auto share" and the other one is set on "Exp distribution", the difference between the two is not always clear to new players.

- "Exp auto share" means that the experience points and skill experience points are shared amongst members of the party. If two of you are in a party set on auto share, and you are both of the same level for each kill you make you both get half the experience plus a party bonus. The bonus is what makes the whole thing worthwhile. However, you both have to be in the same perimeter for it to work.
- "Exp distribution", as a farmer you should now start to pay serious attention! A distribution party is a party of four people maximum, you all receive the normal experience and skill points from you own kills - you get nothing from another member's kill. You also get a bonus amount of Exp and sp when you are in this party. You get a bit more every time someone joins, and you get the maximum bonus with 4 members. [This bonus is doubled with a gold ticket.] (to be verified)

So now you know what the different parties mean. Here is how to use the "party match" system so that you can always be a member of a party while you're farming.

First of all, you can form your own party, if you have a guild or lots of friends then this is probably the best thing to do, if not, I recommend joining an already formed party.

If you want to create a party :

1. Open the party window by pressing “p”. This is what you should have (the middle has been cut out for looks).


2. Click on “Set” and choose the party you would like to form. For farming, I recommend the illustrated setup.


3. You can then either invite somebody buy clicking on him and inviting him to the party or else you can join the party match system, by doing that you will be publicizing your party to the whole server – so that is what I recommend. Click on “party match” and this is what you should see.


4.Click on “form party” and you get this. It should be set the same too, if it isn’t you need to go back to the initial party window and set the party correctly.


5. Once that is done, you should have this window. The number on the left is what you should give your friends if they want to join the party. Parties are ranked by that number, so if you are looking for a party number they start low on page 1 and get higher as you move on to the next page.


Joining a public party :

So you are farming alone, and you would like the benefit of a party? Good choice, and you will not be the only one either. You can always create a party of your own, but often it takes a long time for the first player to join, and it is generally easier to join a half full one. Follow steps 1 to 3 for creating a party. You should now have a list of parties, you need to choose one of them, but not randomly : it must have a maximum of four members. Have a look at the last screenshot, the party created is in blue, and look at the second column from the right, it says ¼. That means that there is 1 member out of a maximum of 4.

Once you have found a party that fits the description, select it with the mouse and click on “join party”. You should get this.


If you successfully join the party, that is if the party leader accepts you, you can now start farming. If not, just pass on to the next party with 4 members and try again.

Remember ! You get maximum bonus when the party is full, so try to keep your party as full as possible. If you had 4 members in your party and one of them leaves, your party does not automatically join the party match system, you have to “reform” your party. To do that, just call up the party match system, click on “form party”, check that the settings are correct and click confirm. Your party has now rejoined the party match system.

[The-Battalion]

IV. Deleveling - losing experience

While you are farming with a nine level gap between your character level and your highest mastery level you get a lot of skill experience points and a bit of experience points. The trouble is that to go from level 16 to 17 you don’t need that much experience, so in an afternoon of farming you will level to 17. DON’T put your masteries to level 8 to keep the nine level gap. You need to lose enough experience to go back to level 16, preferably to 3% of level 16.

You lose 2% per death, so you need to die 50 times to lose a level. It’s pointless to say that having someone to resurrect you is a big advantage. There are many ways to do it, here is how I do it. You need a friend with the resurrection skill at level 1 (you get only a little HP and exp back) and preferably with the harmony skills to. TP do Downhang (don’t set the return point, leave it a Jangan and save 5000 gold) and go to the south gate. Party with your friend so you can easily find each other in case you get separated, “exp auto share” if you have a gold ticket (explained below.) Go and find some place where there aren’t too many people and let the earth ghosts kill you. On a calm day, your friend just has to stay in the harmony circle, you stand just outside, when the earth ghost kills you, your friend can immediately resurrect you. Repeat as many times as necessary, until you have 5% of experience left at level 16, then respawn yourself at Jangan. And go back to the stronghold.

You can farm at the bandit archers until level 19, but at level 19 there is a sudden drop in exp and SP that you get from archers. I recommend going up to level 19 at least once so that you can add HP or Int to your character. You keep the extra HP and mana, the mana will be a real help.

If you don't have a guild and don't have any friends that can resurect you you are not lost. As you are a farmer you could be very usefull to a low level guild - for every SP you farm your guild gets a guild point, guilds need many guild points to level up. Offer them your GPs for there resurecting services

[The-Battalion]

V. Gold tickets and monkeys

They are items that you buy using silk, you buy silk with real money via paypal or credit card on the official Silkroad Online website. I strongly recommend that you DO NOT try to buy silk for ingame gold for your own good. What these items do :

¤ a gold ticket, or "gt", is a scroll, once activated it gives you three hours of double sp and double exp during combat periods. So when you go killing archers, you get double sp and the ticket slowly runs out but if you stop killing things and go back to Jangan to stall then your "double sp time stops running out.) Time you don't use today will be transferred to tomorrow. Gold tickets last 24 hours or 28 days and cost 15 silk (1.5$ - 1.15€) and 130 silk (13$ - 10€) respectively.
-> There are a few tricks to know so that you don't waste your gold/silver ticket. Gold time counts down when you are fighting - but not in the same way depending on the mobs that you are attacking.
- Gold tickets activate when you attack something, once you stop attacking gold time runs for 20 seconds and then pauses.
- When mobs attack you, unless they are red, you gold time is activated. This is interesting because if ever you need to delevel during gold time, do not attack monsters and don't delevel on anything but aggressive red monsters and you will save your gold time for farming.
- In a party, set on experience auto-share, gold time stops. In a experience distribution party, [your gold ticket is active and it also doubles the party bonus your get.] (to be verified)

¤ a monkey, a squirrel or a rabbit is an immortal pet (mobs don't attack it) that picks up your drops and any other available items around you. It has it's own inventory, and you can transfer items from your inventory to your pet's inventory. Pets don't drop items when you die. Once activated it takes up 1 slot in your inventory and last 28 days - after that it expires. To buy a pet, it is 98 silk (10$ - 8€), to resurrect your pet it cost 48 silk (4.8$ - 3.7€)

A monkey is really a big help - you will see a lot of SP farmers chain killing bandit archers without grabbing their drops because it takes too long - your pet will not only grab your own money but also theirs - there is lots of gold to be made there. As for gold tickets, if you are planning on farming more than 50k and the bandit stronghold, if you can afford one don't hesitate.

If that is the case then here is some advice. While you are own "gold time" don't lose time picking up items, you really need to maximise those three hours a day by killing, killing, killing...

[The-Battalion]

VI. Some numbers

First of all, the thing you want to know is how many SP will you be getting in how much time. This depends on a few parameters such as, pickup time, weapon, crowded areas. These figures are for an hour of solid farming, from your first kill until 60 minutes later. Farming 25 000 SP at 250 SP/hour will not take 100 hours, but a lot longer!! you have to delevel, repair equipment, connect to the game, get to the stronghold and so on.

No gt or monkey, 2 shot kills and grabbing drops : 180-200 SP/hour (+ 80 000~100 00 gold)
No gt (with or without monkey), 2 shot kills, no grabbing : 250 SP/hour
No gt, 1 shot kills, no grabbing : 320-360 SP/hour

gt + monkey, 2 shot kills : 500-600 SP/hour

With a gold ticket and a monkey, and I really do recommend this combo if you are going to farm seriously, I was getting 3 000 SP per day, and up to 500k gold. It is possible to make even more if you pickup and sell equipment, but your inventory will fill up very fast, meaning you have to go back to Jangan more often.

If you farm bandit archers for three hours a day, expect a SoX drop about every two or three days, so keep your eyes out for those special treasure boxes!

[The-Battalion]

VII. A few tips

¤ If you plan to maximise your efficiency go for a gt and a monkey. Logical but ever so true.

¤ Don't bother about picking up equipment that the bandit archers drop except if you REALLY need the money. Instead go for the alchemy items and tablets as they are stackable, sell for a lot more to the NPC (the tablets you don't need that is) what more elements are worth a lot of money. Bandit archers drop Broken Arrows that contain Wind II (2k each on Alps) so consider each alchemy items as being worth at least 1k.

¤ Learn to deal with KS. Some people are retards, others bot - you have to learn to live with it, however frustrating it may be. If you want to p*ss them of you then here is a little trick. Let us presume that you have a Sos +X bow that does at least 200 damage with imbue. It normally takes you 2 shots to score the kill - try and hit the archers only once before moving on as fast as possible to the next one. The KSer will only finish them, thus getting a lot less SP/EXP, if your weapon is good enough, you will be getting only a little less SP.

¤ Party, party, party. Exp distribution, item distribution - use the party match window (by pressing "p", "party match", and try and join any party with x members out of 4. You get a serious SP bonus if you do this. Over time those extra point DO build up - trust me.

¤ Find something to do while you are farming - a radio show, music, whatever... anything to keep you going. But just keep one thing in mind : the more efficient you are the faster it will be over, you need to be able to keep your mind on targeting mobs as fast as possible.

¤ Tape down you ctrl key, you won't have to double click to attack. If you have a decent keyboard, create a macro that only sends the "key pressed" signal. Example : launch the record function, press Ctrl, hold down, stop the record function, release Ctrl. Better in the long run because while Ctrl is pressed you cannot use your inventory.
WARNING : while talking to an NPC left clicking on an object with Ctrl pushed down sells the item without confirmation. Don't get caught.

¤ If you are planning on building a hybrid, put as many points in Int as possible before level 16 and compensate afterwards. Int characters farm faster than strengh characters.

[The-Battalion]

VIII. Lexicon

Experience points : points that you must accumulate to get to the next level. It is the green bar. (1)

Skill experience points : you need 400 skill experience points to get 1 SP. The yellow bar fills up every 400 points (2)

Skill points : or SP. When you develop masteries, you pay a price in SP. The higher the level, the more SP you have to spend a single mastery. (3)


Alchemy Items : they are medium grey bags that monsters drop. They can be disassembled in order to get elements.

SoX : Seal of Star, Seal of Moon and Seal of Sun. They are legendary weapons that are a lot stronger than normal ones. You can tell that the weapon is SoX from the pink aura around it when it is equipped. The best is Seal of Sun.

KS : kill steal or kill stealing. When a character deliberately shoots the monsters you are attacking or going to attack.

Mana and HP points : Mana is the blue bar, you use mana to use a spell or a skill. HP, or health points are your life points, when they run out you die.

Imbue : it is the basic magical skill. It covers your weapon with the magical skill you use and deals extra magical damage when you hit something.

NPC : Computer controlled character.

[Susanoo]

Very nice! Very detailed, good pics. A lot of text to read.
Very good organized. Worth a sticky in my opinion.

[Hat3sh0tz]

Really nice guide! For starters, they deserve this. This deserves as a sticky. Very detailed information about Farming.

[StealMySoda]

Seems very nice, but after I skim read it I found some mistakes/confusing bits.
Perhaps change the bit where it say you get 100% in the xp dist pt. The bonus for a full pt is 10%. And no the 10% is not doubled with a GT(from what I've noticed with grinding anyway), just like the 40% from the event we had wasn't doubled with GT.

[JackB4u3r]

Sticky! Great, detailed guide!

[Advancechao]

Wow, this is the first really good SP farming guide that I've seen! +10000000

Here's a tip or two that I'd like to add:
-Use only normal attacks with imbue (or see the next tip)
-If you are a pure STR that 2 shots bandit archers regularly, try using Double Arrow Combo even though people say not to use skills. If you can one hit kill with double arrow and imbue, then use it because it is faster than normal attacks. If you don't 1 hit them regularly with combo, then don't even bother.
-If you don't have a monkey, then only pick up broken arrows and blue equips.
-The northwest corner of the bandit archer place is really nice.
-Use Berserk whenever it fills up; don't wait for a giant to come, because there's a high probability that it will be ksed from you.
-If there is a huge group of people and there are high levels there, be wary, because they may suddenly decide to use a monster summon scroll! (This happened to me two days ago and I barely got away :O)
-Though lots of people us SOS garments, I would say to use armor/protector mix because you don't move around a lot and the archers do physical damage, not magical damage.
-SOS armor is useless. Only buy it if you're insanely rich, because the archers barely hit you anyways.

Hope these tips help

[flexo]

nice nice nice... this guides own's all sp farming guides... gonna give a link to all my members that have questions about farming.
This deserves a sticky for sure. Just a few flaws but can become the mother of all farming guides.

[The-Battalion]

Thanks for the positive feedback people .

- the experience part has been modified, I'll check just to be methodical though.

-Though lots of people us SOS garments, I would say to use armor/protector mix because you don't move around a lot and the archers do physical damage, not magical damage.
-SOS armor is useless. Only buy it if you're insanely rich, because the archers barely hit you anyways.

Those two phrases mark my point about wearing garment. You hardly get hit, so who cares about what kind of protection you wear, but in the long term the 20% man reduce on imbue will make a difference.


I use the first anti devil bow for champions (I OS them with that + imbue) and giants. But yes, otherwise just stick to the absic click and shoot.

[linange]

wow

so nice guide, best sp farming every seem

thumbs up

i O U

[borat2]

awesome this sure should stop all those how to farm topics

[Pineabs]

only problem with not needing a good bow is that u are screwed if u are a f ull str char/ if u want to one shot kill u need to deal 325+ dammage. and thats not possible w/o a som+3-5 bow. i'm use a sos+3 bow with 100% str and int it takes me 2 shots to kill one. i think the best time to sp farm is eastern time 11pm-4 am. thats when no one is around.

[francomade]

Nice nice nice +999999999

Very detailed best guide ever, seriously!

Good job mate.Ive bet you spent lots of time doing that guide.

[Advancechao]

Thanks for the positive feedback people .

Those two phrases mark my point about wearing garment. You hardly get hit, so who cares about what kind of protection you wear, but in the long term the 20% man reduce on imbue will make a difference.

I use the first anti devil bow for champions (I OS them with that + imbue) and giants. But yes, otherwise just stick to the absic click and shoot.

Yeah, I kind of contradicted myself there >_>
I would wear anything with +INT and +STR on it, but protector and armor are mixable, while garments are not. So you will probably find more upgraded protector/armors than garments.

[francomade]

ZOMG. Sticky please.

[Key-J]

Very VERY! Nice dude, a great extreamly well designed and compiled guide!

Defenetly Stickie worthy, a great help to all new starters!

Congratulations.

[PR-Solja]

Yo this guide is the bomb, with a lil minor changes this is the best farming guide yet. I have a question how do you set yoru ctrl as a macro? Good Job !!

[The-Battalion]

To macro the "control down" you need a driver that you can tell when to start/stop recording the macro. I have a logitech G15 and this is how I did it :

1. create new macro
2. Start recording
3. Press Ctrl and hold down
4. Stop recording
5. Release Ctrl

When I press the associated key, it sends just the "control pressed" command, so it is as if I'm holding down Ctrl. To finish it just press the real control key and release it.

EDIT : Thanks for the sticky lick Key-J

[micheal_safian]

very very nice and detailed guide the best of all guides....

[Key-J]

I just want to congratulate The-Battalion on creating this guide which has even impresed the JoyMax team and have decided to Sticky it on the main forums.

http://www.silkroadonline.net/sro_board ... picID=4813

Congratulations once again.

Key-J

[ThaShadow]

hi, i'm noobie but i need som answers t0o these noob quistions:
Can i farm on lvl 18 or i must on lvl 16?
And what is Gap ??
pls answer these quistons
ty very much

[Z0mbs]

hi, i'm noobie but i need som answers t0o these noob quistions:
Can i farm on lvl 18 or i must on lvl 16?
And what is Gap ??
pls answer these quistons
ty very much

Farm at 16, make sure go go into a Exp Distribution party. The level gap is the level of your highest mastery between your level. So if your level 15 and your highest mastery is level 10 you've got a 5 level gap. When farming you should have a 9 level gap.

[QingMei]

This is a really nice and detailed guide! Hope it helps many newbies with farming.

Also when delvling I think west gate hotan is a good place, since the flowers stay on same place and you don't have to run far to look for one. =)

hi, i'm noobie but i need som answers t0o these noob quistions:
Can i farm on lvl 18 or i must on lvl 16?
And what is Gap ??
pls answer these quistons
ty very much

Gap is when you keep a lvl gap between your mastery lvl (like fire, heuksal etc) and your character lvl.
If you want to farm at stronghold I'd think you should delvl to 16 and keep 9 gap (have your masteries at 7)

Maybe someone else can explain better? xD >.<