Ragnarok Online: Guides
WhiteSmith Guide-
Don’s Ultimate Whitesmith Guide Whitesmiths are one of my favorite classes, and one of the most useful as well. They can kill MVP’s and other monsters as well as any class, excel at PvP and WoE, and can even upgrade and repair equipment. What’s not to love? This guide includes just about everything you’ll need to know to play this effectively, from forging to leveling. I have specifically designed this guide for players on a 200x-300x experience server, but these techniques may be applied on any server. INDEX: Chapter 1: Getting Started Chapter 2: The Basics Chapter 3: Race to Level 99…and Beyond! Chapter 4: From High Novice to Whitesmith Chapter 5: The Road to Glory Chapter 6: Best Equips for WoE, PvP and MVP Chapter 7: Forging Guide Chapter 8: Credits Chapter 1: Getting Started 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. Once you have done that, the 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). Chapter 2: The Basics Change from a Novice to a Merchant. You’ll note that you receive a significant boost to HP/SP from this change. You’ll be back to job level 1 now, so let’s gear up and get ready to get some real skills. If there is a Platinum Skill NPC, visit them now, so that you can get Loud Exclamation, Change Cart and Cart Revolution. Loud Exclamation and Cart Revolution are great skills, but Change Cart is purely aesthetic, however you will need it to get Cart Boost as a Whitesmith. Continue spending your stat points on Strength, Dexterity and Agility. (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 leveling, 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. As soon as you are ready, buy some Concentration Potions, activate Loud Exclamation, and 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-property weapon will do wonders here. Begin putting skill points into Increase Weight Capacity until you reach level 5 in it, then get Pushcart, a skill you will want to max as you will walk very slowly otherwise. When you have the Pushcart skill, head back to Prontera and rent a cart from either the Kafra, or a Rental NPC if one is available. Now, you want to get that cart as full as possible, so that Cart Revolution will do more damage. The iron ore and other drops from Ant Hell are perfect for this, but if you need more weight, I suggest you buy Meat from the Butcher at the lower left of Prontera. Meat is inexpensive and very heavy, so it’s perfect for our purposes. (Later, forge supplies and ore will work to fill your cart for Cart Termination.) At this point, you will likely be around base level 30-35. Buy some Awakening Potions (usable after level 40) and some Flywings,you may warp to Payon dungeon 2. Most of the creatures here are Undead, and again, fire or holy property makes short work of them. Use Cart Revo to kill the Archer Skeletons and Skeleton Soldiers, or Mammonite if you have the zeny, which is the next skill you will put points into. Both Cart Revo and Mammonite take the element you are using into account when dealing damage, but Cart Revo is always neutral damage, so remember that for later when you are fighting Ghost property monsters. Cart Revo in Orc Dungeon 1 and 2 is perhaps even faster for leveling, but all the equips that drop in Payon 2 make you plenty of money for using your various skills, which is why I use it instead. If zeny is not an issue, then by all means go to Orc Dungeon instead. Fire works best there, as the Zenorcs and Orc Archers in Orc Dungeon 2 are actually earth property, not undead, just remember that you’ll need at least 30 total dex to hit the Zenorcs reliably. Continue fighting in either of these place until you reach 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. There is no real need for a merchant to go to job 50 at this point, unless you are broke and REALLY need the vending skill.) Now, we will once again warp to Prontera, and visit the jobchanger to change into a Blacksmith. Woot! Posted on: Jan 18, 2008, 11:30 amChapter 3: Race to Level 99…and Beyond! Here is where the fun starts! At this point, depending on what job level you reached before changing jobs, you should be around base level 55-65. If you have elemental weapons, you can go to Geffen Dungeon 2 and 3. There are some great equips to be found here, as well as lots of zeny and leveling experience thanks to the Nightmares. They are Ghost property though, so use Mammonite on them. You will need around 45 total Dex to hit them regularly. If you have a Wind weapon, you may find Byalan Dungeon 4 and 5 to be a good spot. If you have only neutral weapons, try going to Pyramids 4, or Pyramid Basement 1. Any of these places will get you to around base level 80, at which point you can go somewhere else. As for skills, you will need to get Hilt Binding Level 1, then Weapon Research level 10, which will increase your damage with all types of weapons and will unlock the rest of the skills you need. Adrenaline Rush is the most important, since it will greatly increase your damage output by increasing your attack speed with axes or maces. Hammerfall can be useful against monsters that normally have high flee or hit hard, while Weapon Perfection and Overthrust will increase the damage you deal. Once you have gotten these skills, go ahead and get Maximize Power and Skin Tempering. (You may have noticed by this point that smiths get a LOT of buffs. Managing these buffs and keeping them on at all times is one of the most important aspects to playing a smith effectively.) At level 80ish, you have several leveling spots to choose from. If you have an Icepick, Light Epsilon or Heartbreaker, try Glast Heim Chivalry 2. If you have wind weapons, continue to level on Mermen and Stroufs in Byalan 5 until you hit 99. If using a water weapon, try Magma Dungeon 1. If you only have neutral weapons, Rachel Sanctuary can be good, especially levels 4 and 5, or you could even go to Thanatos Tower, perhaps level 4 or so. Wherever you go, getting to level 99 shouldn’t be too hard. At that point, feel free to take a quick break, and go hunt whatever cards or equips you might need, or maybe reset your stats/skills to forge some elemental weapons for yourself while you have the stat points. When you are ready, take off your gear (since you won’t be able to use it as a novice and won’t yet have the basic skills to use the Kafra) and take anything you might need out of your cart. (You’ll need to unequip your cart before rebirth, but any items left in the cart will still be there when you rent one again later.) Now grab your Main Gauche, and visit the Jobchanger to be “reborn”. Chapter 4: From High Novice to Whitesmith 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. After becoming a High Merchant, go kill a few more ant eggs, then get the Pushcart skill and warp back to Prontera to rent a cart. Now that you have a full cart, go kills some ants! This is easy with Cart Revo, especially if you aren’t autolooting, because the ants are both looters and assisters, so they will all swarm into your whirling death-cart. From here, just repeat the process from Chapter 2 until you have reached job level 50. (Changing to Whitesmith at job 40 is not an option! Trust me, you’ll thank me later, when you are trying to get all those forge skills.) Then it will be time to visit your old friend the jobchanger one final time, to become a Whitesmith at last. Hooray! Chapter 5: The Road to Glory From here, it will be a fun ride. You are finally a Whitesmith, and you get some awesome skills that are far superior to anything you had as a Blacksmith. For leveling, just continue the same process as you used to get to level 99. You will find that you can now go to more difficult areas at a lower level than before you transcended. This is thanks to more HP/SP, more stat points, and most importantly better skills. When using your skill points, go ahead and get Hilt Binding, Weapon Research and Adrenaline Rush as before, but this time we will get Cart Boost and then Cart Termination before maxing out our other battle skills. Cart Termination deals far more damage than Mammonite (assuming your cart is full), has a decent chance to stun, and is actually more cost effective overall, since it costs 2.5 times as much but typically deals about 4 or 5 times as much damage per hit. Some players use CT all the way to max level, but I prefer to use a crit build after about level 120 or so (more on this later). CT requires Cart Boost to be on, (which you’ll use all the time anyway because it increases your movement speed substantially) and it doesn’t take into account “percent” damage cards, like Hydra or Skeleton Worker, it is just based off of your attack. (Turtle General DOES work though, if you can get it.) Many players use Zipper Bear cards, Bloody Axe, Hurricane Fury or other high attack weapons for CT. Elements and the Icepick effect do work with CT, however, so I actually prefer to use those depending on what I am fighting. For your other skills, make sure to get Maximum Overthrust, which doubles your melee damage, but not your CT damage. Continue leveling till you reach about level 100 using the same methods as before you transcended. At level 100, you can move on to Glast Heim Castle 2 or Geffenia if you have an Icepick or a Heartbreaker. Cursed Abbey level 1 and 2 or Nameless Island are good if you have a Holy weapon. If using Wind, try Ice Dungeon level 1 and 2, or level 3 if you have an Icepick or Heartbreaker, as the Ice Titans have high defense. As soon as you can survive there, go to Thor Dungeon 1 or 2, preferably using a Heartbreaker or Water weapon. (Between base level 95-115) This is not only great experience at your level, but is also the only place you can get a Heartbreaker axe, if you don’t have one yet. (They drop from Fire Imps at low chance.) This is perhaps the single most useful axe in the game, as it allows a Whitesmith to get up to 100% crit rate, which is something that typically only Assassins can do. The Heartbreaker gives one slot, +5% attack speed, +20% crit, +3 more crit for each level of refinement, and a chance to autocast level 3 Hammerfall when attacking. This weapon alone makes crit build a viable option, and gives you a great alternative to using Cart Termination.
Now that you have your Heartbreaker, it’s time to continue the grind. From level 110 to about level 130, Abyss Lakes level 3 makes for great experience. Kill all the dragons here, but in particular, the Gold Acidus offer the best experience, as well as dropping decent equips and making you tons of zeny through Treasure Boxes,etc. These are Holy property and have good defense, so use crits with the Heartbreaker, or CT with an Icepick or Dragon Killer. The Cursed Waters you likely collected in Geffenia earlier will come in handy here, as they make your weapon Shadow property for a few minutes. Just be aware that 3 Hydrolancers and Detale, the MVP of Abyss dungeon, all spawn on this map as well. At around level 130, you can either go to Cursed Abbey level 3 and kill Necromancers with Holy weapons or your Heartbreaker, or you can go straight to Biolabs 3 if you have some really good gear, such as donation items, etc. Around level 150, most Whitesmith players will be able to go to Biolabs 3 (Lighthalzen dungeon 3). This is the best experience in the game, but is also about the most dangerous dungeon too. Be prepared to die in here a LOT. It’s worth it though. With a Heartbreaker and a crit build, you will be able to kill everything in here except the High Wizards. Just bring tons of flywings, so you’ll be able to avoid the wizzies and also stay out of huge mobs, which mean certain death. You’ll also have to avoid lots of Snipers in here until you are about level 200, because they deal out so much damage while holding you at bay that you’ll just die before you get to them. Crits with the Hearbreaker are best here, because otherwise if you use CT, you’ll need tons of Dex to hit the Snipers, elements to hit the wizzies, etc., not to mention running through sp and zeny very quickly. Just use the Heartbreaker, kill what you can, teleport away from what you can’t, and try not to get too ganged-up on. This method will get you to max level without too many problems. Posted on: Jan 18, 2008, 11:30 am Posted on: Jan 18, 2008, 11:37 amChapter 6: Best Build and Equips for WoE, PvP and MVP For hunting normal monsters, such as when farming, use a Bloody Axe. It deals respectable damage and the extra movement speed makes short work of item hunts. For fighting MVP’s, use either the element the monster is weakest to, or an Icepick or Heartbreaker against those with high defense. If you already have a strong attack and decent crit rate (such as when using Vanberk cards), try 4 Abysmal Knight cards in a 4-slotted axe or mace. Both of these weapon types work with your skills such as Adrenaline Rush, and deal full damage to large size monsters, which most MVP’s are. When hunting MVP’s, try to find them alive on a map first, and then after you have killed them, return when they respawn so that you can have another shot at them. This is easiest if you make a database with their ID’s, element they are weak to, spawn time and map, etc. This might seem like a lot of trouble, but considering that MVP’s drop some of the best items and cards in the game, it’s definitely worth it. When battling other players, it’s important to consider what classes you are weakest and strongest against. Other melee classes are some of your best matchups. While Whitesmiths don’t have the flee or evasive skills of a Thief, or the HP of a Swordsman class, they have skills that can help bridge the gap. Meltdown is a skill that is almost worthless for leveling purposes, but is amazing when used against players. Melee classes have a much harder time fighting you with broken armor or weapons. On servers where the max level is 99, Cart Termination and Hammerfall are useful, because many players get stunned easily, particularly “soft” classes with lower vit such as Archers and Mages. If a player is stunned in PvP or WoE, it almost certainly equals death. On higher rate private servers, Hammerfall is almost useless because nearly everyone is immune to stun, but CT still is effective because of the incredible damage it can inflict. It’s important to note that because of the lack of Hide or other evasive skills for a Whitesmith, they have a pretty bad matchup against any class with ranged attacks. Mages in particular are a problem, because not only do they have spells to keep melee players at bay, such as Jupitel Thunder, they also deal out lots of damage and have large area-affect spells like Storm Gust, that also has a chance to freeze you. Sages are the worst of these for you, because they possess a skill which is the bane of every smith…Dispell. This one can really ruin your day if you are unprepared for it. It hurts any class, but is worst for smiths because we really so heavily on our buffs. It even can turn off Agility Up, Blessing and attack speed potions. Your best bet against Mages, Priests and Archers is to try and fight through their attacks until you reach close range, where they usually cannot survive long against you. GTB, Evil Druid, Marc and other cards can help reduce the damage and/ or prevent status effects when fighting these classes.
Reflect is even better vs. magic users, and includes Frus and Maya cards, as well as equips like Orleans Server. I often find it useful to bring an Errende Ebecee-carded ring to equip when facing Archers, because the Pneuma effect can help prevent the “hitlock” they can otherwise keep you in to prevent you from approaching them. Usually, you will want to also have a Horong-carded ring on you as well, so that you can take Assassins out of Cloak. A Maya Purple card is also wonderful for keeping an eye on any hidden players, assuming you have one. When it comes to choices in weaponry for PvP and WoE, you have a number of options. A Heartbreaker/crit build is perfect for playing a supporting role, where basically you focus on using Meltdown and crits to break your opponents equips while dealing decent damage at the same time. You can help your party out with buffing skills and Weapon Repair, plus you have a cart where you can bring extra potions and other items to support your team in WoE. This obviously isn’t nearly as exciting as some other builds, since you have a less active role in combat, but does work quite well in WoE if you have a good number of comrades with you to help. For a Cart Termination build, focus on maximum strength, tons of dex, enough agility to hopefully hit max attack speed, and around 100 total vit to prevent most status effects. With this build, an Icepick, Combat Knife or other way of bypassing defense it important, since many players have sufficient defense to make CT ineffective otherwise. If you plan to be facing lower-defense players, a Hurricane Fury or a +10 Morning Star with 2 Zipper Bear cards can work well by giving you a high attack power. If you do go the CT route, you may want to bring a Guillotine axe if you have one, so that you can always use Coma as a backup when you are having trouble finishing off a player. Chapter 7: Forging Guide Forging isn’t that difficult, but it does take a bit of practice to get the hang of it. The stats that affect forging success are Dex and Luck, so you will need to reset from battle mode to get this. Each point of Dex is worth 2 points of Luck, so don’t start putting points into Luck until a point of Dex costs twice what a point of Luck costs. Weapon Research, job level, the forge skill level you are using, and what type of anvil and hammer you have all make a difference. An Emperium Anvil alone makes an increase of +4% to your success, so try to get one as soon as possible. (It isn’t available in shops, you will have to get one from an OBB or buy one from another player.) Supposedly, Oridecon Research makes a small difference when forging, but there is no real proof to substantiate this. Many forge supplies are available for sale at the Blacksmith shop which is located in the lower right-hand side of Geffen. Some ores however, like steel and oridecon, will have to be farmed. Mini-furnaces can be used to refine rough ores, such as turning iron into steel or Wind of Verdure into Rough Wind. When buying hammers, don’t bother with anything but Oridecon Hammers. These have the best success ratio, and are the only type you can use for making level 3 weapons anyway, which will be your main focus. When you are ready to forge, simply hotkey or double-click a hammer to use it. When you do, you will see a menu box appear, with a list of all the weapons you can attempt to forge with the items you have on you. Once you have chosen a weapon to forge, a new text box will appear with three empty slots in it. Simply drag the ores you wish to include in the weapon into the text box. For instance, if you wanted to make a Very Very Strong Fire Claymore, you would simply choose Claymore from the weapon list and drag 2 Star Crumbs and one Flame Heart into the box. Then, you will attempt to forge the weapon. If it succeeds, you will see the “Success” animation, receive the weapon, and receive your forge points, if any. If the attempt is unsuccessful, you will see the “Failed” animation, and all the components used in the attempt will be lost. Forge points are important, because if you accumulate enough of them, you can make into onto the server’s Top Ten Blacksmith list, which will not only bring you bragging rights and more forge customers, it will actually make your weapons stronger, by adding an additional “Very Very Strong” effect to the weapon. It doesn’t matter whether you are number 1 or number 10, either way you will receive the same bonus. A detailed list of forge components required to make each type of weapon would be too much to list here, but for more information, you may want to visit this link to the Forge Tables on roempire.com: http://www.roempire.com/database?page=items&act=forge Chapter 8: Credits Special thanks to ro-empire.com for their forge tables, ro.doddler.com for their excellent stat calculator, the players of pizza-ro.com for their great input, and my wife Dashelle for motivating me to finish this. This guide was created by Urza, aka Don Wilkinson, in January 2007, and all info was deemed correct at that time. Please feel free to use or repost this guide however you see fit, I only ask that you give credit to the author when reproducing this document. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in Prontera!
