Coco's Blacksmith Leveling Guide

Here is my first guide on leveling a blacksmith from scratch on a low-rate server. I generally main a Whitesmith on many servers and have decieded to post my tips and suggestions.
Many people believe Blacksmith require high-zeny and are not good chars to main. However, this guide will prove that a Blacksmith is a good newbie-friendly char to start on a fresh server.

Things to know before you start:

1. This is a basic guide for beginners.
2. It is intended to level your blacksmith efficiently to reach whitesmith.
3. I am assuming the drop rates of the server are atleast 4x.
4. All the screen-shots are from RMS test server.
5. Please respect the CC rights and mention the source if you are re-posting the guide elsewhere.

Creating your chars:

If you want to main a BS/WS you need 2 essential chars i.e. a priest and an endower. Even if you have elemental weapons, it is a wise choice to create these chars as they will be quite essential when you are farming as a Whitesmith.


Novice Grounds:

If your server has a job changer, you can just change your field to 'tougher monsters' and kill few spores or thief bugs. Else, just try kill some chonchons or roda-frogs as you need 1k and some warp money to change to a merchant. Use your merchant to kill the monsters as he will have the highest strength. Save 10 Fluff, 10 Clover and 10 Jellopy for creating Mr.Smile

Job 1-10:

Once you have changed job on all 3 chars, head to payon->right. Kill spores using your merchant and a battle-axe given by personality test NPC. Keep adding str on your merchant and int on your mage.

Job 10+:

Once you have level 10-firebolt, head to lighthazen->top. Kill metalings by kiting them. You should be able to kill them with 2, lvl-10 firebolts. Increase your int on your mage till you can 1-shot metalings and switch to maximizing your dex.

Base 45:

As soon as all your chars reach base 45, go to Brasilis. Do the Lost Puppies Quest, Brasilis Dungeon Entrance Quest and Crow of Destiny Quest. With all these quest, your chars should be base ~70 and job ~50, depending on your rates. If you do not wish to do  Crow of Destiny, just level at metalings using lower level bolts. Metalings are a very nice source of starting zeny. Alternatively you could go Geographers(safer option) or Drosera(a bit tougher but higher exp/hr). Drosera are located in ra_fild09. Memo the drosera field at the portal as you need it for the later part.

Job 45-50:

Depending on your server rates, the exp from the above quest will leave you above job 40. I strongly recommend getting job 45 before changing to a Blacksmith. Do note, you need ~150k zeny to change to sage and blacksmith. Hunt a few extra squid ink and animal skins for future quests.

Job Change:

Congrats on changing the jobs. Head back to metalings/geographer/drosera and level until the sage has maxed all the endows. Max Kyrie and Aspresio on your priest.

Finally a blacksmith:

After your maxed all the endows, take a deep sigh. You can finally play your main-char. First take the following stats on your Blacksmith: 85-str, 50-agi and 28-str. For the skills max: 10-Weapon Research, 5-Adrenaline Rush, 5- Weapon Perfection, 5-Power Thrust and 5-Power Maximize.

Next, head to alberta and buy a two-handed axe. You will be using this weapon even on a Whitesmith, so its an awesome investment. Go to prontera meat-merchant located in the south-west and buy ~500-1000 monster feeds. If you feel a bit hesitant on spending money on monster feed, you should probably quit Blacksmith now as this class requires you to be willing at spending zeny.

Before you start leveling, we have a little more preparation required. Go to Umbala and do the Umbala Language Quest and Ore-Breaking Quest. Now, take your priest and go to sleepers. Kill 5-6 sleepers and break those great-natures into green lives.

The next step requires you to choose your inn. I prefer Alde as it has a tool dealer and makes it very easy to sell the loot and buy fly-wings.

Let the killing begin:

If there is one monster that you need to bow-down to, its this: Hill Wind. Yes, you will be slaughtering so many of these that your name will be written in their history books. All future hill winds will know about how you brought doom on all their forefathers.

Ok, save at your inn. Endow with sage and log him out. With bless, agi, wep-research, adrenaline rush, wep-perfection, power-thrust and power-maximize, you should be able to kill them with level-10 Mammonite. Use Kyrie on yourself as you wont be able to dodge their attacks. Just Mammonite and flywing away until you run out of sp. Go to inn, restore sp and repeat.

Every hill-wind will give you ~1.6k per kill so you should be getting a good flow of money. Keep adding agi until you can flee them ~70% and max strength to 99. I usually pull 300+ mobs per endow. The levels will roll ridiculously fast at 70+ and will slow down to moderate speed after 85+. It should take you few hours(~4-5) to get to 90.

90+:

You should have made ~4m by now. Your stats should be: 99-str, 68-agi(180 aspd) and 38-dex. Continue adding agi if you want more aspd or go for vit if you want to hunt MVPs. With a water endow, it should take you ~20 sec to kill Eddga with Mammonite (~50k zeny). Buy some basic equips from NPC and continue your grind on Hill-Winds.
It would be preferable if you don't join any parties(including abbey) as your exp/hr would be less and you will be missing out on your zeny farm too. On a 10x server it will take you ~4 hrs to get from 98->99.
If your are really bored, complete the Moscovia quest and farm Sharp Leafs using Auto-attack. Les should die to 3 attacks. You need to farm ~500-800 sharps for your High-Merchant. Try farming 5-Rough Winds from Wind-Ghost as you require them before you trans. Alternate leveling places are Gonryun Dungeon and Mermans.


99:

Congrats on making it. If you have leveled 70-99 on hill winds alone, you have earned my respect. Whitesmith life should be a piece of cake with such patience and determination. You should have around ~10m from all the farm. If you want to go shopping, I recommend 2x Mantis cards, Magnis Cap, Zipper-Bear cards, Meteor Plates and Orcish Axes. Try not to buy rings or Giganto-axe as they will be way overpriced and Whitesmith is a pure MVP class.


Tips on Hill-Winds:

1. SPOTIFY: Seriously, I have no idea how to survive that grind unless I have some access to decent music or a girl.
2. Try not to save in Prontera if your server has a healer. Most hunter and assassins will steal warps and the map efficiency will decrease. The map is best if the number of people is less than 3.
3. Switch off effects. Mammonite has a long animation after the damage has been done. I pull ~50 extra mobs/endow with the effects turned off.
4. Please don't keep using lvl-10 mammo at 99-str. Turn it down to lvl-8 or lower till you can 1-shot them.
5. If you farm ~16hrs per day like me, please watch a good horror or a thriller movie before you sleep. I have had countless nights where all I could dream about was shaking hands will Hill-Winds IRL.

That brings us to the end of my blacksmith guide. Hope it was informative for you. I will follow it up with a Whitesmith guide. Stay Tuned...

 -Coco