UserWiki:Lirmont

SAM Solo Leveling Guide (work in progress)
As a starting note, this guide's goal is to provide a framework for leveling on your own as a Samurai. It does this by using 3 specific tactics: choosing easy prey (EP) monsters and decent challenge (DC) monsters to kill back-to-back, picking monsters that are easily killed by Samurai, and gaining experience points where you can with your Adventuring Fellow NPC.

East Ronfaure
1-3 East Ronfaure Target: Pugils Weapon: Mumeito For the opening levels, chain pugils right outside of San d'Oria. There's no reason that you shouldn't be pulling down 100+ per fight right now.

3-6 East Ronfaure Target: Forest Hares, Goblin Weaver, Goblin Fisher, Goblin Digger Weapon: Mumeito The hares are more plentiful in number than pugils, so start chaining them. When they quit being even matches (EM) to you, start going after goblins. Orcs go down quickly, but avoid the grapplers.

Skill Check & Battle Strategy Tips
Tip #1 In this next part, you'll mostly be targeting EP monsters. You will eventually start one-shot killing these. Practice quickly switching enemies by selecting "Switch Target" in the battle menu, putting the cursor on your next enemy, and actually selecting the new enemy as the animation for your attack starts. Otherwise, you'll just have to sit and wait for a bit until the game let's you attack another monster.

Tip #2 If you neglected using a bow for levels 1-6, go buy one. Most people justify using a bow as giving you an extra hit. While that is true, it does more than that. A successful ranged attack will land you a lot of TP, moreso than your great katana. You'll use this to quickly build up TP from the start of a fight in order to get access to Tachi: Enpi, which you should use immediately. In a party, you save TP for another player to skillchain with; soloing, you use it efficiently (i.e. any hits past 100%TP are a waste of TP).

Tip #3 When you use a weaponskill, you also get TP back, provided that the weaponskill hit. So, if you use Tachi: Enpi at 100%TP, then you'll end up with somewhere around 13%TP after it lands. This is another incentive to just use the weaponskill when you get to 100%TP and not try to over-think it. I would, however, save TP if I planned on fighting a DC or higher monster for the first time.

West Ronfaure
6-12 West Ronfaure Target: Scarab Beetles Weapon: Mumeito, Tachi Head to the (G-7) to (J-9) area here. Kill everything here, but avoid sheep. If the beetles somehow end up getting enough TP to pull off their TP moves, avoid them until your next level. Pick up Tachi at level 8, but don't throw your Mumeito away. You need it for your AF great katana.

Ghelsba Outpost
11-19 Ghelsba Outpost Target: -- Weapon: Tachi, Katayama Head to the (-) to (-) area here. Kill the Orcs and the War Machines here, but you have to pull them with your bow.

Fort Ghelsba
20-25 Fort Ghelsba Target: -- Weapon: Katayama, Okanehira

Lower Delkfutt's Tower
25-27 Lower Delkfutt's Tower Target: -- Weapon: Okanehira, Kotetsu

Qufim Island
31-35 Qufim Island Target: Clipper, Land Worm, Ancient Bat, Acrophies Weapon: Kotetsu, Homura Start off with clippers. This should be really good experience for you, especially if you can kill them without needing your NPC. You do so much damage per hit at this point that the crab TP move Metallic Body should pose no problems for you whatsoever. Crabs are plentiful in Qufim, so just look around. However, for these levels, I found that killing land worms worked best. Granted, during the night, you'll have to quit killing worms to fend off a few wights (they appear from 22:00-4:00).

Skill Check & Battle Strategy Tips
Tip #1 At level 35, you now have access to Seigan. This job ability allows you to change Third Eye's recast time from 1 minute to 30 seconds and allows Third Eye to stay up until recast. It will rarely stay up the whole time, but it will generally anticpate more than one enemy attack with Seigan up. Use Seigan before you use Third Eye, or Third Eye's recast time will be 1 minute. Use Seigan & Third Eye with Dodge to avoid taking damage. You cannot use Seigan and Hasso together. Even though you should learn how to use Seigan well, I suggest you stay on Hasso to kill monsters quickly with weaponskills if you are focused on leveling.

Tip #2 You should start to skill up Polearm. If you haven't started it at all, then practically anything in Qufim Island will provide great, consistent skill-ups. However, for skilling up Great Katana and, later, Polearm, use the Acrophies.

Tip #3 If you are able to buy sleep arrows, do so. This will help you survive tight situations.

Qufim Island
35-40 Qufim Island Target: Acrophies, Dancing Weapon Weapon: Homura, Hosodachi Kill Acrophies or weapons without the help of your NPC for relatively good experience points. Early on, I suggest you focus on the weapons because they have a chance of dropping a Kaiser Sword. Since the sword is needed for a map quest, they sell quickly and consistently. This won't turn you an amazing profit, but it will fund your food while soloing and help you save up for your next great katanas.