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09-11-2008   #1 (permalink)
killing threda since 2007
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Join Date: Aug 2008
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IGN: fLick3r/MrsT/Cod
Class: Bow/Saw/Cannon to_archaeologist
Level: 111/58/58
Guild: Moogles
Default badna0's guide to ownage TM

WARNING: this guide is not for first time, unfunded, or nooby characters.

I started a few weeks ago with a project: create a lvl 90 bunny who could wear uber (lvl 90) myhax, and farm Tut with Quad Punch (TM 85).
I've gotten her now to 90/86, and I'm happy with ohkoing tut.
But my approach to training her can be applied just as easily to training nearly any character's TM. Here's a few tips:

1. Card Quests. All card quests are worth your time, even when that Koom/Chimu card seems like it's never going to drop. The TM they give is impressive, though the revo-era quests give much worse TM than the black swamp/p. school ones.

2. TM quests are optional before, say, ghost books (@ p. school). Most of them just don't give that much TM. On the other hand, it is a great long-term investment. Once you hit 2nd job, you need to really start doing every single TM quest available.

3. Episode 2 & 1 are a great way to get TM/base experience. Just make sure you're not going over your milestone base level... In my case, I knew that finishing a chapter in Ep. 2 gives 7m base exp (about 2 levels @ level 80) + 13m TM... So plan ahead and don't do the quest at level 89 if you're trying to stay below 90.

4. SUICIDE! Getting a good base/TM ratio is hard, especially once you hit TM 50-ish and the TM takes a lot longer to level. The solution to this is to train until your base % gets to the 90's, and then suicide yourself back down until your base gets to the 30's. Why does this work?
  • Suiciding decreases base experience, by about 2% of your current base. If you have 99.9% base, then one suicide will take off ~2% experience. AT 50% base, one suicide will take off ~1%, and at 1%, it willl take off ~.1%, etc. etc.
  • Suiciding does not decrease TM by any amount (tested with my lion. lost 0 TM at a suicide.) UNTIL level 120 (thanks to usopsama)
  • Thus suiciding will increase your base/TM ratio.
EDIT: some higher levels have warned about TM loss on death. I'd monitor TM levels as you suicide, I'm not sure if this rule still holds (eg. if NTreev patched it over or something).

This takes up the majority of your training time. Parties are hard to find too, because every 40 minutes or so @ bugbears, you'll need to leave the area and suicide about 40-50 times, which lots of people don't like.

5. Panaceas: FARM 250 of these, or buy them. at level 80, this quest gives a whopping 30m+ TM experience. That's enough for nearly 5 TM levels! If you add in Episode 2, chapter 1 (which is required to get to Eclipse Island), then that's 43m TM experience, total! that's a huge help to your TM level.

6. Training a Power/Charm character, and possibly a Sense:
Basically the same as training any other character, cept a) once you hit 50, you want to be suiciding at 99.9% at least 1-2 times per level. Use a pharoah set comped for Attr% to make this training the least painful (by speeding up the process).

7. Training a Magic Character: It's possible to power level their TM's, due to the long-range and 100% tagging of the magic noobie skill. Level your noobie char to level 5, then party them with any high level character, a guildie for example, or multi-client on your own pc (you can't join a party b4 level 5) and PPD to Tapasco. I suggest you try moths, b/c they're easy to KO. Here's what you do:
1. Tag Moth w/ noobie skill. Run noobie away.
2. Kill Moth w/ high level. O.o
Since Trickster gives base experience based on how much HP you take away, and gives TM experience based on the person who owns the tag on the monster as it dies, your noobie character gains the complete TM for each Fire Moth. The first Moth gave my sheep 7 TM levels! (turning her from 5/2 to 5/9).
Depending on how patient you are, you can get the TM quite high. I've gotten to 5/38 before I started getting bored (only gives ~1% per moth at that level). Then you can train your character by itself with uber TM skills (eg. my level 5 sheep using mastered mana ring on thiefmons, you get the idea).

EDIT: several questions were asked about this training technique. You can do it with any class, but since moths are aggro and your nooby skill will be melee, the technique is a lot harder to time (most of the time your char will die to the moth). Still, if you're patient...

8. Daily Quests:
Several of the Daily Quests in different areas give a fair amount of TM experience. This would probably be the most ideal way to farm TM as it gives pure TM experience, and no base. Given infinite time, it's possible to get to extremely high TM levels. A list of the daily TM quests is given below.
Originally Posted by multippt
Quoted, modified from here.
9. Fiesta!!!!
Every other week Trickster holds an event with the Fiesta Zones. It's got a bunch of different things, but the important thing here is that if you use a Fiesta Ticket to get into your respective Fiesta Zone (drill them up anywhere), you can do monster quests for very good (~9%) TM. The upside (right now)? You can do them infinite times. This makes them one of the single best TM sources in the game. Abuse them while you can.
if the post above this is insightful/useful, rep me plz

Last edited by badna0; 05-02-2009 at 08:44 AM.