SP farming guide at the bandit stronghold (Part I)

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.
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.
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.
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. (to be continue)http://www.ogpal.com/news/silkload/2007/06/16/175.html