Fairyland Axeman Guide Version 2.0, 7/8/2006 By Edward Tuttle a.k.a Shadorr ----------------- Table of Contents ----------------- 1: Copyright Info 2: Introduction to Axemen 3: Stat Builds 4: Leveling Your Axeman 5: Berserker 6: Arena and War 7: Axeman Skills 8: Training Your Skills 9: Pets 10: Work Skills 11: Frequently Asked Questions 12: Credits and Thanks Update History -------------- 1.0-November 11, 2005-Decided to write up this guide to share my knowledge of the Axeman class. First guide to ever show up on GameFAQs for Fairyland since the FL-MY Beta. 2.0-July 8, 2006-Woah... it's been that long? Anyways, fixed many typos, made some MAJOR updates to many parts of this guide with the recent release of the Arabian Nights Patch, including some detail on the berserker skills now that I am actually a berserker. Sadly, I have quit Fairyland for good due to many reasons. But if the game ever goes free-to-play again (which might never happen unless a massive boycott happened), I might break out my good ole' smashing axe and start going on a war path again. So yeah, this is probably my final version. ----------------- 1: Copyright Info ----------------- This guide is copyright by me, Edward Tuttle (A.K.A, Shadorr), 2005. Nobody is allowed to copy, steal, or plagiarize this guide in any way without credit to the author (me!) for making it. If any site other than www.gamefaqs.com is hosting this guide without my knowledge or credit to me, please notify me at www.geminirage@hotmail.com ------------------------- 2: Introduction to Axemen ------------------------- Axeman is one of the three warrior classes you can select in this game upon becoming Level 10, and my personal favorite. Possibly the least popular class in Fairyland USA, Axemen have been overlooked and underestimated because of their seemingly weak battle capabilities in comparison to Swordsmen and Blademen. This probably stems from not knowing how to make the most out of this class. These characters are intended to be hard-hitters who can cut down enemies with the least dependence on magic usage early on, and as berserkers, great mobbers and boss-killers with sure hit, axe rain, and haymaker. Their only drawback is lower accuracy compared to the other warriors due to the nature of axe weapons, which have the highest damage ratings of any weapon in the game, but also the lowest hit rates when compared to any other weapon, except sticks. In addition, the market is pretty unfair toward warriors; people rarely sell the heavy armors and weapons we need, which is a problem due to the fact warriors are very dependent on their equipment for survival compared to diviners, which people seem to favor too much. Much like the swordsman, this class will also have trouble leveling beyond 40 or so alone without great dedication or a very good arsenal. Here's a breif overview of Pros and Cons of this class (Note that the cons only apply for the Axeman class, and not the advanced class, Beresker). Pros ---- +Warrior class, can wear strong heavy armor +Axes are capable of inflicting great damage on simple attacks. +Axe skills can reduce the enemy's evasion when they connect. +Berserker's Sure Hit just owns bosses when combined with high damage attacks. +Axefighers are a rare class. You will be unique and easily stand out. Cons ---- -Poor against large mobs of enemies. Can only attack one foe at a time. -Low accuracy in comparison to other classes. -Good axes and armors are hard to come by in the market, you will have to make your own. -Leveling is pretty hard after level 40 or so. The point of this guide is to help players understand how to use this class to it's extent and ways to use it. That, and to prove that axefighters have potential to become just as good, if not better, than swordfighters and martial artists. ----------------------- 3: Race and Stat Builds ----------------------- For race, I personally chose Dwarf. Their randoms usually consist of good strength and constitution boosts, and you can get pretty high HP early on and good damage for later levels. Humans are also good in that they are well balanced, but they sometimes tend to grow into the wrong stat catergories because they are well-rounded like this. As for Elf... don't do it. You will start with poor constitution, meaning you'll never get as much health as a human or dwarf at the later levels, plus your randoms will often go into intellegence or charisma more than anything else. The only reason you might even think of making an Elf axeman might be the dexterity growth, but it's much better to pick a race that can give you reliable strength and HP growth, as these are important stats in making or breaking your axeman. As for your stat build, it is usually a matter of what style you want your character to be. If you want to be able to cut down enemies with the least amount of hassle, you might want to look into a high strength build. On the other hand, if you'd like to use your axeman to duel other players, high dexterity isn't bad either. The HP Factor ------------- Now before I start mentioning stat builds, let me point out that my axeman had some pretty bad luck when it came to level ups. Sure, he got lots of random CON, STR, and DEX, but his HP was really gimped, despite having 80 base CON by level 60. He only had 3025 HP at that level. HP is probably the MOST important stat for solo-fighting. If you do not have enough HP, you simply won't be able to solo, simple as that. So how much HP should you aim for? 3000 by level 60. That is the least amount of HP you could have and still be able to solo monsters around your level. Also, some players have come up with ridiculous rumors claiming that you get better HP growths when the in-game weather was clear and it was daytime. One also claimed that by filling yourself up with food, your HP growth will be better. NONE OF THESE RUMORS ARE TRUE!!! I HAVE TESTED THESE MYSELF!!! The only way you can ensure good HP growth upon leveling is by having high CON, and the rest is just getting lucky. The way HP grows when you level up is there is a range of possible values your HP could increase, depending on how high your CON stat is. The higher the CON, the higher the values, and the wider the possible value range gets. So even if you have 100 CON, you might only get 150 HP whereas someone else might get 225. Most builds will always start with boosting CON to some point around 50 by level 15 or sooner. If you have access to jewelery with CON boosts, always wear them before making your level for the best HP increase. Then the builds start to differ. STR Build-The Heavy Hitter -------------------------- If you want to be able to deal loads of damage to enemies, boost your STR as much as possible. While is this a good build for later levels when the monsters have increasingly stronger defense, you might have trouble in being able to hit beasts. If you come across beasts that attack before you do, that means it's time for you to start pumping that DEX stat so you can hit them first and also be able to run from a fight if it turns ugly. An STR build like this comes as a bonus when you reach the Berserker class (explained later in this guide) as you won't need to rely on your DEX to be able to hit enemies when you can use Sure Hit to always land hard damage! DEX Build-Improving Accuracy ---------------------------- Another build for the axeman is the DEX build. In this build, you're trying to boost your DEX to counter the low accuracy drawback. You basically pump a lot of DEX every time you level so that you hit more often. If you want to fight other players, even more DEX should be added so you always get the first move before your opponent can react with whatever attack or defense he/she has in store for you. The only drawback to this build is you might have trouble doing good damage to beasts. You may end up having to get some STR to be able to 1-hit enemies when equiped with your arms pet. But I suppose not having to waste turns on Sure Hit would be a nice bonus. CON Build-The Health Tank ------------------------- Also what I call a Tank build. This is a stat build focused around getting very high HP at the cost of some STR and DEX. Basically, you keep pumping CON from the start until you have around 100, then start raising your STR and DEX much like a standard STR build. By doing this, you'll probably get somewhere between 4,000 to 5,000 HP by the time you reach level 60, making you quite the endurance machine. (Thanks go to Laokong who tested the build himself and gave me the idea of it) The fabled NO-DEX Build ----------------------- This could possibly go in-line with the tank build. Simply put, you boost nothing but CON and/or STR so that you have very high HP or damage (or both). The flaw of this build is that you'll lack accuracy for hitting things, and even with a high axe skill, you'll have a lot of trouble at level 50. But once you hit level 60, it all pays off; you can use Sure Hit and dish out incredible damage with your high STR and your CON can help you take many more blows than the average warrior. If you are going to attempt this build, you better have strong friends or a guild that can power-level you. Tuning and Pranking ------------------- Surprisingly, at the time I wrote the first version of this guide, the Poker Captain, along with tuners and prankers that he dropped, were known only among a select few players. A few weeks later, they spilled the information, and now these things have been popping up all over the market, along with experience seeds. Chances are if you don't know what these are, you probably aren't rich enough to afford them yet, but I'll explain anyways. Tuners are little smiley blue balloon items that take one point from all of your stats and allows you to relocate them however you like. Prankers are purple balloons with a sinister smile that take a point from every stat much like a tuner, but the stat relocation is completely random. In addition, you may NOT use tuners or prankers if any of your stats are less than half your level. For instance, I am level 60, and I only have 18 base charisma. This means I must have 30 charisma to use a tuner or pranker, and I would have to spend roughly five or six levels trying to get it high enough to use one. So how can you get these? For one, unless you are very strong, say, level 60, and you fight Poker Captain on a daily basis, you are going to have to fork out 300-500k for tuners (the price might have changed as of this writing), or 50k for prankers. I believe there might be an enemy in the new Arabian Nights patch that has a very rare chance of dropping these, but I might be wrong on this. Okay, so you got some prankers or tuners, but you don't know how you should go about using these. For starts, only use prankers when you are low level and losing stats isn't a big deal. You might get lucky and get some more strength, dexterity, and constitution than you would've gotten naturally. On the other hand, they might screw up your stats completely, and you'll have to either pick a different class or reroll your character. But the advantage of prankers is that they are much cheaper and not in heavy demand like tuners. Tuners, on the other hand, are best used at higher levels, say, past 30. By this time, you have stopped boosting your CON, and now you just need DEX or STR. First off, check your stats. If your lesser stats (INT, LUK, CHA) are less than half your level by only 6 or so points, boost them up so you can use the tuners. But if it would take you 5 or more levels to balance out the stat points (this can happen if you picked dwarf!), then do not bother tuning, it would be a waste of 15+ stat points that could otherwise have gone into your better stats. In addition, when tuning, beware of your CON stat. Some people think it's okay to not put points back into CON just because your HP looks good. I, on the other hand, have had some pretty bad experiences with HP growth just because I forgot to put on a couple points of CON through jewelery. If you feel confident in your HP growth, then go ahead and take points off of CON, but if you fear a couple points from your CON stat will come to stab you in the back later on, you might want to set the CON points back when tuning. ---------------------------- 4: Solo-Leveling Your Axeman ---------------------------- Okay, so you've made your axeman, but you aren't sure where you should be training. This section gives you some of the best locations for solo-fighting as an axeman, or at least best through my experiences. Note my HP growth started to go bad around level 45, so I didn't end up with quite as much HP as a lot of higher-level players. If you get a bit over 3,000 HP by the berserker advancement like I did, you're in good shape. If you've gotten hundreds more, you're really rolling, and you will probably be able to withstand more hits. Note: Since this is a solo-leveling guide, this section is assuming that you are fighting alone and not with a bunch of friends or some level 60 player. Level 1-10 ---------- Become an apprentice soldier the minute you leave the newbie dungeon. Do the newbie quests in your region for quick EXP. Garden of Dreams is great for levels 1-5, and the Valley of Fear is also nice as you approach the job advancement. Level 11-15 ----------- At this point, you are now an Axeman. You might still have quests to do, so finish those up. Now go to Rosen Lake and fight the beetles and butterflies there for a couple levels. You might also try the water monkeys and woodies there since they don't cast spells. If you're looking for bigger mobs, go to Slime Maze 1 in the Northern Grasslands and go to the southern side of the room where you encounter woodies. These are great for shield leveling if you need to level it, plus they are easy kills. Just be careful of the occasional fire slimes, as their fireballs hit for 50 damage, which is a lot at your level. Another alternative is Nicolas Steppe, northeast of Gion. Here, you can encounter dread rams and fieries (fire dogs) that are around your level, and neither of which cast spells. Flying Palace 1 is an interesting map, lots of metal scorpions that die easily to a fire axe, and big mobs too. But chances are unless you've got 3,000 coins, you won't be able to afford the boat ride AND the magic carpet to fly up there. Level 16-20 ----------- Slime Maze 2 might seem like a good idea at first, but if you're using fire as your main arms like most warriors should, those water beetles will give you a hard time. On the other hand, the metal slimes can probably be killed in a single hit of your axe. Just be careful of Spiritual Blade, that hurts when it's being used every turn. Or you can go over to the right side of the map where you will encounter level 19-20 light/dark slimes. Flying Palace 2 is pretty much the same as the light/dark slimes in Slime Maze 2, except with MUCH less dimension distortion and holy word. If you feel like fighting big mobs, this place is perfect. You can also try fighting around Western Grasslands if you can't handle mobs larger than 4 enemies. Light Beetles, Sheep, Evil Vultures, and Night Owls are great EXP until level 21. Level 21-25 ----------- Slime Maze 3 and Rat Cavern 3 were NOT intended for warriors, as water mobs who can use blizzard appear too frequently there. Instead train around Snow White Forest and Genie Desert for some easier mobs. The East of the Wood With No Name is also a good place if you can handle mobs as large as 8 light/dark enemies. Persian Desert is equivilant to Snow White Forest in terms of enemy levels and elements. Just stay away from the Cave of Trails near the northeast corner of the map, unless you want to get killed very fast. Level 26-30 ----------- Eh, what can I say? More Snow White Forest. The lizards there are good to train on as they don't cast Pine Grove or Timber Strike like the other enemies here. Just be sure to eliminate the fire spiders before they cast Flame Hail and other nasty fire spells. Level 31-35 ----------- Crystal Mountain is probably your best option here. Clouds go down pretty easily and the vultures have a chance of dropping rare nimble gems. Swan Lake is also a decent place, though the nightmare clouds can get annoying since they have good defense and can drain 75 or so health from you with vampirism. Level 36-40 ----------- Train around Candy Mountain. If you're using a wood pet as your armor, those Wraths of the Lands from the wolves and draconians shouldn't be a problem, and as for the metal puppets and monkeys, they are easy kills. Once you can one-hit gem crawlers, start fighting in Moonglow, good exp, very good drops which consist of gem ores, doll boxs, and defense gems. Stay away from the snowmen and black rocks, they are not worth fighting, even though they drop emerald ores sometimes. If you somehow got a mirror or some vintage shoaxing/fried meat, good for you. Dragon Cave 1 has lots of golden halfdragons that should be 1-hit kills for you, along with water owls that aren't too hard to kill either. Just be careful of their damage, they pack a punch. Similarly, Nameless Maze offers many golden eagles and water butterflies, and I prefer this map over Dragon Cave 1 since vultures are weaker. Level 41-45 ----------- Here's where training gets hard for most people and they insist on grouping up or power-leveling with other players. This does not have to be the case, there are still ways to solo. Hasim Island will be your main training area for some time. Grim witches and fire gryphons aren't nearly as bad as what you might fight in Coconut Island, since it's only two elements you need to worry about rather than all seven, not to mention the mobs here aren't that big. Garden of Live Flowers can either be a great or terrible training spot, depending on what pets you use. If you were like me, who trained a wood lizard to around level 35 or so, you can use that in arms to chop down the flowers. None of the enemies in this map, save for Wood Caterpillar, use magic, so there is no need to fear a dancing fountain. Just stay away from the bottom of the map, the level 51 wood bells are quite nasty with the 50% defense bonus and and strong punch. Level 46-50 ----------- If a war announcement pops up for level 41-50, go to war. You'll get some experience, plus a chance to obtain some rares and boxes. Momo Island is a good spot to train at this level, provided you aren't unlucky enough to run into level 51 enemies. Nothing but dark and light enemies, with the occasional wood enemy thrown around here and there. If you've been training at the Garden of Live Flowers, you can probably stay there until level 48. Bath Catacombs 2 is a fun place to train, IF you can one-hit most of the enemies here. Enemies appear in all elements but dark and light, and there can be as many as 10 foes, or just one. Level 51-55 ----------- Another hard time for most players would be level 51-55. With the recent war change, you'll have trouble fighting in the new 51-60 war bracket without some allies. Bath 2 might still be good for a level or two, but after that, you have to move on to the dreaded level 51+ monsters. Easiest place would have to be North Kitty Forest. Make your defense element fire based to reduce the pain from the wood cats and place your armor pet in combat as a meatshield. You should be able to kill the cats and firebirds in three strikes of your axe combos. As you near level 55, you can probably give Tulip Island a try. If you run into more than 7 enemies, run; you will not be able to defeat that many monsters without some healing potions. Level 56-60 ----------- I'll be honest here, I liked none of these maps, as they all have some sort of nasty flaw to them. If possible, enter the wars whenever they show up, they are much better for training. Guru Island was where I trained since level 54. The mobs are probably easier than those found on Tulip Island with the exception of honest bulls and dummy bears. The bulls have over 2,000 HP, and the bears will often throw a tidal wave at you if you ignore them. You can find mirrors here, which are useul for going to the Nameless Maze once you are ready to fight the "mysterious guy". North Kitty Forest is still a good place to train. The lower sides of the map have enemies as strong as level 60, of the same elements as the northern side of the map. Just beware of the occasional pine grove. Lethean Catacombs 3 is a map of mostly metal and earth monsters. You might be thinking "Metal enemies would all die with one swing of my axe!" Yes, but there are also these nasty monsters called Earth Elephants, which are possibly the most annoying of ALL earth-based monsters. In addition to having some above- average hitpoints, they also spam Wrath of the Land more than half of the time. I have captured a screenshot of FIVE elephants, ALL of them, using Wrath. And it is not funny to take roughly 650 damage from all of that since magic spells are rarely evaded. That aside, theres really good drops here, including topaz, turquoise, ruby, and sapphire ores if you are lucky. Level 61-65 ----------- You are most likely a berserker by now, and you've got axe rain, sure hit, and you are ready to kick some serious butt. Lethean 3 is still a good place for a level or two, you can probably kill the metal spirits and gold witches with one axe rain, leaving those elephants to beat down with combos and thunder axes. Hearsay Island is a pretty fun map once you can two-hit, thenemies here. Turquoise ores are also nice finds here. Got some good friends? With any luck, you'll be able to run the poker captain several times. In addition to the berserker, your party must have a mage, a priest, an acolyte of light, and a mobber, either a schemer of darkness, a high-level beastlord, a blademaster, or a merchant who is willing to use cash rain. Bring many health cards along, because if the mage fails to silence the Queen of Hearts, expect everyone to die from the overpowered Wrath attack. Level 66-70 ----------- Boulder Island is full of gold demons and metal gryphons, which should fall easily to your axe rain. Just be careful of large mobs of water demons, they can cause problems if there are lots of them. But the main attraction of this place are the drops; you can get experience seeds off of these enemies, as well as Gold Stabilizers and various gem ores. Level 71+ --------- So you're now stronger than me. Train wherever you want. ------------ 5: Berserker ------------ Once you've reached level 60, give yourself a big pat on the back; you can now become a Berserker! This advanced axeman class comes with some skills that more than make up for all that time you spent trying to get to this level. The only drawback to this class is the heavy MP cost on the attack skills. NOTE: Seeing as I've yet to reach level 70, I can't provide accurate details on Axe Flash and Haymaker. Axe Rain/Berserker LV60/40 MP ----------------------------- Hits enemies for good damage in a plus + formation. The damage is as strong as Windy Axe, plus it has more accuracy than an ordinary one. If you are confused on how the targeting for this skill works, heres a crude diagram. E E E E E E You Those Es are your enemies, lets say Gem Crawlers. If you use axe rain on one of the Gem Crawlers in the middle column, that one, along with the two besides it and the one in front or behind it, will all fall down. If you were to hit one in a corner, only the one beside it and the one behind him would die. Considering this skill eats up 40 MP when used, you should use it only when you can hit 3 or 4 enemies with it, otherwise thats a good chunk of MP down the drain. Axe Flash/Berserker LV65/60 MP ------------------------------ An attack that ignores the enemy's defense. This attack also has a chance of stunning the enemy, even if it doesn't land damage. Useful against bosses or enemies with high defense. Haymaker/Berserker LV 70-Quest/60 MP ------------------------------------ A powerful attack that ignores both defense and resistance factors. Sure Hit/Berserker LV60/25 MP ----------------------------- This is what makes the Berserker a formidible fighter. This move can ensure 100% accuracy with your next THREE attacks, yes, THREE turns of 100% accuracy, and it even works with skills such as Axe Rain and Combo. The journeyman skill Mirage is also negated by this skill (no hiding in the corner for you little coward!) NOTE: This skill does NOT work properly in PvP duels. Some claim this is a bug, others, like myself, believe this might've been intentional so that berserkers wouldn't be so overpowered against other players. Thanks to Sovan for pointing this out. I've yet to see if this has changed yet, as I rarely duel, since the PvP in this game is incredibly broken. ---------------- 6: Arena and War ---------------- Every now and then, you might think of testing your mettle in the Arena or fighting off waves of enemies at a war. This section has some strategies that are useful for axemen in these situations. Arena ----- Axemen and berserkers are probably the best class to use in the Arena. This is because they are not heavily dependant on using MP to finish off early mobs like with other classes. Second, Axe Rain can clear mobs quickly before the enemies can cause too much damage. However, you will be restricted on how far you can go depending on your level and what items and pets you bring along. Level: Whether you have high health and damage or not is a main determining factor of how far you progress in the arena. Higher health means better endurance and higher damage means you'll be able to clear mobs with the least attacks throughout this 100-battle challenge. Items: if you want to get far, equip your strongest axe and hardest armor. If you want to keep yourself going even when your HP/MP are low, bring potions so you can recoup in battle, as theres only one break time where you can heal your pets and eat food, which is after the 50th stage. Pets: A good selection of pets at your disposal will help. Generaly, you will need a powerful arms pet, a sturdy armor pet, and a combat pet. The combat pet can be one of two kinds; a meatwall, or a damage-dealer. Meatwalls are basically pets with good defensive capabilities or skills, but poor attack, such as a wood rat (silence), pie aibo, or water slug.(dancing fountain). They are usually meant to soak up attacks that might otherwise harm you. On the other hand, damage dealers can be used to help you kill the enemies even faster, but you should note that at the later stages, such combat pets that can do good damage will die pretty fast, and theres no healing them, even if they have the heal/full heal skill. Such pets include flame tigers, fire crabs, golden lions, and possibly gophers (for meteor shower). My arena pets were the following Blood skeleton (arms) Wood Lizard (combat for stages 1-50) Pie Aibo (combat stages 51+) I intend to get a trained water slug to replace the pie aibo, as those bosses hit pretty hard from stage 60 onward. The wood lizard is merely a minor combat pet which I use in the early rounds to kill some of the enemies faster and thus, not have to use any potions. As for potions, I bring fairy brews (I do NOT have 800 MP to make dragon spirits efficient), blue cats, and ocean breezes. If you've got over 800 MP, switch fairy brew with dragon spirit, and maybe throw in Deadly Rose. Recently, the Guild Arena mode has also been implemented. The difference is that you may create a group of up to three guildies and fight in the arena. Theres differences between solo and guild mode however. One, enemies appear in bigger mobs so as to make this more of a challenge and second, the arena points go towards the guild, and not the individual players. But the same strategies in solo arena will work for guild arena as well, except that you can also be teamed up with various other classes. The best team with an axefighter should also include a mobber (mage, schemer, bladefighter, berserker, sucker-puncher) and an acolyte of light. And yes, when I said sucker-puncher, I meant Kung-Fu-Master, but seriously, those glove models look more like something that would come out of a prank jack-in-the-box. War --- War! What is it good for? Absolutely Everything! I don't get why people don't go to these. For one, it's great training once you hit level 55, since the mobs do not gain any stat modifiers that wild beasts get. Second, you can fight some enemies that you can't find out in the wild, meaning you can get cards and dolls from enemies such as Gold Whales or Black Pokers. And last but not least, enemy captains and sergeants drop boxes which can be opened in Ilium for random junk or valuables. Odds are, unless you were lucky enough to enter a war with about 5 or more people, there is no way to win the war, but you may feel free to keep killing the dark captains/sergeants for experience and a chance to get boxes. Okay... enough babbling about what war's all about, lets talk about what this has to do with axemen. Axemen, much like swordsmen, are vital to winning a war, as they can dish out the most damage to the enemy leaders (pre-advanced class), and can take hits. Your objectives should be to start by clearing the monsters before attacking the leader (or go right for the leader if you are in a good party. You should kill the beasts in order of most dangerous (wood, fire) to the weaker ones, then finally beat down the leader. Always use Thunder Axe on the leader, then follow up with combos (or if you are a berserker, sure hit, the combo). If you end up in a worst case scenario, RUN. Unless an AoL is in your team, you cannot afford to die on the battlefield, as you will be out for the rest of the war (And health cards cannot be used to stay in wars). If you run into a bad mob, say, 4 water enemies, you can run, challenge the leader again, and you'll be up against a different mob. The above situation might happen if you end up going it alone. While this can be done in wars 36-40 and below, 41-50 and higher is a different story, as the enemies can hit harder. However, a large group of players can affect the situation, as the leaders will have more pets bodyguarding them. For instance, if you fight solo, you might only encounter 3-6 enemies, even less in lower level wars. On the other hand, a full party will usually face off against an equally massive enemy mob. I should also note that it has recently come to my attention that since the Arabian Nights patch, the level brackets were adjusted. Originally, 41-45 and 46-50, and so forth were all seperate brackets. Instead, the brackets look like this now 11-15 16-20 21-25 26-30 31-35 35-40 41-50* 51-60* 61-70* 71-80* 81 and above* Those ranges with the *s by them are the new level brackets. While I believe this might've been done so more people can enter a war, I highly advise against entering a bracket at the lower half of the level range, as all the enemies will be as strong as the high end of the range. ---------------- 7: Axeman Skills ---------------- Axemen have pretty much the same skills as a swordsman or blademan, with the exception of the axe skills, which are unique to this class. For berserker skills, refer to the berserker section of this guide that was mentioned earlier. Impact/Impact Level 1/10 MP --------------------------------------- Your basic attack skill when you become an apprentice warrior. This does more damage than your standard hit, but your evasion will drop and you will be unable to block with your shield. Best used when there are only one or two enemies around. If you want to level this, take advantage of the free heals you get before you hit level 10. Rush/Impact Level 20/15 MP -------------------------- Same as impact, except a bit more damage, plus there is a chance the enemy will be stunned and unable to attack for the turn. There is still the same evasion and shield penalty like with Impact. Charge/Impact Level 40/20 MP ---------------------------- Boss characters and GM duels have given some players the impression that this skill is very powerful. Turns out this is only about as strong as a windy axe, except it sometimes stuns and still has the same penalties as the previous Impact skills. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT get 40 impact just for this skill, it is not worth the time and effort, unless you really want it just for showing off that you actually got this skill. (Thanks go to Sovan for taking the time to get this skill and testing it out.) Shield/Shield Level 1/Passive ----------------------------- The other skill you get upon becoming an apprentice warrior. This gives you a chance to block an attack whenever you are equiped with a shield. The higher the shield level, the more likely you will block. Protection/Shield Level 15/5 MP ------------------------------- This skill allows you to protect another party member or pet by giving yourself a chance to take a hit for them. Useful to use on diviners or combat pets who lack the physical defense to take blows themselves, but be sure you can handle the hits yourself. Shield Strike/Shield Level 30/Passive ------------------------------------- Getting this skill requires having to break a lot of shields, and the skill isn't so great. You will do some minor damage (I do around 250 when I have my arms pet equiped) compared to the damage you can inflict with your axe. I am guessing the damage is 25% of the damage inflicted by a normal attack without putting defense modifiers into consideration, which is somewhat useful as it means you can actually do good damage to those water enemies since it ignores that nasty damage reduction towards fire attacks. Double Combo/Combo Level 1/10 MP -------------------------------- You get this skill upon upgrading to any warrior class. This skill allows you to hit an enemy twice, doing the damage of a normal attack twice if both combo hits connect. Don't be surprised if you're landing only 1 hit with the combo early on, as your hit rate will be pretty low at that point. I should also point out that since each combo hit is an individual attack, and not all one hit, your weapon will lose durability for each hit that connects, so be aware of that, especially around level 50 when you will be using it a lot, so have some spare axes availible. Triple Combo/Combo Level 15/15 MP --------------------------------- Same as the double combo, except its three attacks instead of two. Quadruple Combo/Combo Level 30/20 MP ------------------------------------ Same as the other combos, except its four attacks. Axe/Axe Level 1/Passive ----------------------- Finally, we get to the axeman-specific skills. This basically determines how much more damage and accuracy you get with an axe. Higher level, higher damage and accuracy. This skill can be leveled by either a normal hit or using any skill that requires an axe, including the advanced ones. Windy Axe/Axe Level 15/10 MP ---------------------------- A skill that is stronger than Impact, but doesn't have those annoying penalties and can reduce the enemy's evasion? Cool! It's useful for getting that extra punch you need to finish off an enemy. Thunder Axe/Axe Level 30/15 MP ------------------------------ Does even more damage than Windy Axe, plus more evasion reduction! Get it! It is VERY useful for fighting bosses, especially White Kitty and a few others who are known to dodge a lot. But chances are, once you finally become a berserker, you will be using Sure Hit combos and axe rains instead of thunder and windy axe, except maybe in a group. ----------------------- 8: Training Your Skills ----------------------- Lots of players get confused as to how skills grow. This section here answers everything. First off, you shouldn't concern yourself with power-leveling your skills until level 40 or so, your skills will rise pretty fast until then. Also, you probably won't have the proper pets or items to power-level your skills anyways Ok, onto how skills grow. Each skills growth is independent of every other. This means that using Combo or Impact will not increase your axe skill at the same time. In addition, two factors affect the speed at which skills grow; your damage and the enemy's level. The damage part is simple, the more damage you do with your attack, the more the skill bar goes up. This is why people who power- level their skills often use a pet with molten in the process; to maximize damage. Another factor I've discoved-and not many people know of-is that the level of your enemy affects skill growth. Thunder axing twenty golden hamsters will not raise your skill bar as much as if you were thunder axing the same number of golden clouds, even though you are probably doing more damage to the hamsters. Apparently, I am guessing there is a modifier based on the enemy's level which multiplies the damage factor by a certain percent. Now that I've gone over how skills grow, now I will explain how to train them! Chances are the only skills you will ever train are Axe and Combo. Get combo to level 30, and stop training it; there is no advantage to having level 50 combo over level 30. Axe skill can be trained as high as you like; it increases your damage with an axe by a percent based on the skill level; for instance, 50 axe skill means damage from your axe weapon, including arms pets, is increased by 50%. Early on, it might not sound like a lot, but when gaining one axe skill level means +20 to the damage rating on your equipment screen at high levels, it adds up. In theory, the best enemy to train your skills on would be something high level that takes lots of damage. I thought Golden Beetle at first, a level 50 metal enemy that takes incredible damage from flaming axes, but since they appear 1 out of 7 enemies in a mob, they aren't worth it. On the other hand, Golden Eagles are level 36-40 monsters that appear in nice masses and take equally brutal damage from fire axes, so if you have a mirror, go ahead and break into the Nameless Maze and hang around there until your potions run out. If you don't have mirrors, or you don't want to waste potions, Golden Clouds outside the maze in Crystal Mountain are just as good, as they are only 40 steps or so away from the Goldburg healer. Chances are if you paid enough money for this game, you probably got a bunch of Fighting Dolls as a promotion gift*. If nobody has told you yet, these dolls make your combat skills grow twice as fast for one hour. These dolls also have 6 uses, so thats 6 hours you can spend power-leveling your axe skill. However, you must use them wisely, as in get enough MP potions to last your through an hour of constant thunder axes and axe rains to get the most out of these dolls. *Fighting Dolls are no longer rewarded through promotions. Any existing fighting dolls now cost a million, so good luck trying to get more. The skills and what they are associated with (as in what skill bar they boost) are listed below: Axe=Normal attack w/Axe, Windy Axe, Thunder Axe, Axe Rain, Axe Flash, Haymaker Impact=Impact, Rush, Charge Shield=Shield block/Strike, Protection Combo=Double Combo, Triple Combo, Quadruple Combo Sure Hit does NOT boost any skills, nor does Sure Hit gain skill levels. ------- 9: Pets ------- Pets are very important for the success of your axeman, as they are for other classes. Here, I will list some various pets you should use with your axeman. Arms Pet -------- Very important. You will need a hard-hitting pet to use on arms mode to get the most out of your attacks. Fire Pure STR: Pets whose growth is mostly STR. These include flame tigers, fire bears, and blood skeletons. Fire STR/DEX: Pets whose growth is mainly STR, but they also get some DEX, which can translate into slight increases in hit rate. Pets include red beetles, flaming pegasi, and large red buterflies. Metal STR: Don't know if these are any good, but I suppose they grow about as much STR as the STR/DEX. Pets include golden lions, mining lizards, and golden crawlers. Water Pure DEX: No, just no. I don't care if you can't hit the broad side of a door with your axe, a pure-DEX pet is NOT worth it. Sure, you might hit a lot more often, but your damage will be terrible without the strength of a fire pet. That, and Sure Hit at level 60 would make these pets totally pointless. Armor Pet --------- Also important, these pets will help reduce the amount of damage you take, but at higher levels, they lose their usefulness and are better as meatshields, or at least the high-CON ones. Wood Pure CON: Pets whose growth is mostly CON. Pie aibos, wood slugs, and wood babies are the best choices, as they can be used to transfer health to you, as well as they you can heal them for only 35 MP with the Full Heal skill. If you can't afford these, wood crabs and wood polis work too. Earth CON/LUK: Pets whose growth is mainly CON, but they also grow LUK, which improves evasion. The species you should use should be the same as those for wood pure CON. Earth LUK/CON: A pet called the Guardian Angel is a rather unique pet in that it grows mostly luck, because for one, angels are the only pets which grow luck, and because earth element pets grow luck as well. With a Guardian Angel in your armor, you can dodge a lot, just don't count on it keeping you alive, you'll still take some hard damage, especially if a wood bull or something kicks you. Combat Pet ---------- Not exactly necessary (except for the meatshield), but a pet in combat mode helps, as they can help you clear mobs faster. Metal STR: Always use a combat pet whose element of attack is not the same as yours. In this case, most people use any STR-growing metal pet that can use Heal, such as a gold lion, metal tiger, or a gold half- dragon Fire STR/CON: If you'd rather use a fire pet for combat, you'll usually pick an STR/CON one. Pets include fire crabs, red bulls, and fire clams. Wood/Earth Meatshield: Very useful once you are level 50. These pets, though very weak in terms of damage capability, are incredibly durable when it comes to soaking up attacks. An attack that might hit you for 250 damage or so may only do 1-100 damage to a meatshield if they attack it instead. Best pets for this role would include the same ones as armor pets with transfer HP and heal, perhaps wood/earth elephants can also fill this spot. Merged Pets ----------- With the release of the Alice in Wonderland Patch came pet merging. This will let you merge two pets into one pet that could have the characteristics of the two your merged together. However, by using a Pet Nutrient (or Life Core), you can also control the stat growth attribute of a merge, so it is possible to have a water pet with the CON growth of a pie aibo, or a dark pet with the STR growth of a blood skeleton. Dark and Light STR Pures are the best arms pets to have, as you'll be incredibly versatile when it comes to what you can fight. As for armor pets and meatshields, it's far from necessary to try merging for a different element CON pure, unless your meatshield cannot last 3 turns against metal mobs (in which case it is probably too weak anyways, my Pie Aibo could survive Lethean 3 mobs for several turns, and those things were 5 levels above it). --------------- 10: Work Skills --------------- If you have any intentions of making your own axes, armor, or potions, you should do so. These work skills, though time consuming, save you money in the long run. Axe Weapon ---------- I think this one was pretty obvious. Make your own axes, because very few people make these for profit. Plus, everything made by players is far more superior compared to anything a monster might drop. Required skills: Mining, Woodcutting, Metalworking, Gemcutting (for stat-axes) Armor Making ------------ Another skill that's useful for an axeman. From my experience, I rarely find armor shops in the market on FL USA, so you might want to consider making your own. Required skills: Mining, Hunting, Metalworking, Gemcutting (for stat-armors) Helm Making ----------- Same as armor making, except less material is used in the skill. Required skills: same as armor making Glove Making ------------ Gloves don't grant as much defense as the previously mentioned equipment, but every piece of equipment counts. Required skills: Mining, Metalworking, Hunting, Farming, Weaving, Gemcutting (for high-level stat-gloves) Shoe making ----------- If you're going to make gloves, you might as well make shoes, they require the same work skills. Required skills: same as glove making, minus weaving Shield Making ------------- Though you can always block with the square shields sold at the armory, you'll seldom block attacks with them. Shields with higher armor class made by this skill tend to block more often, plus make you more evasive. Required skills: Mining, Metalworking, Hunting, Woodcutting, Gemcutting (for high-level stat-shields) Jewel Making ------------ Okay, I am going to admit theres already a lot of jewel makers out there in FL USA. But if you feel like doing this yourself, go ahead. Doesn't hurt to be able to make stat-boosting amulets and rings for yourself. Required skills: Mining, Metalworking, Hunting, Gemcutting, Fishing (for coral and pearls) Apothecary ---------- Another skill that already has a lot of people using it. You can make some of the more useful healing and magic potions that will help later on. Just try not to rely on taking many weak potions, as these will make you sick, meaning the potions lose their effect. Required skills: Harvesting, Farmining, Brewing, Hunting (fishing if you ever reach the point you can make Ocean Breeze) Cooking ------- Not quite as good as Apothecary, but food doesn't lose its effect if you eat a lot of it at a time. Just remember that your food meter will determine how much more you can eat before you're full. Required skills: Hunting, Fishing, Farming, Harvesting, Brewing ------------------------------ 11: Frequently Asked Questions ------------------------------ Q: Why should I make an axeman over a swordsman? A: Good question. Sure, swordsmen do very pretty damage once they've gotten Windy Sword. Problem is, swordsmen don't really need to be doing 1200 damage to Gem Crawlers when they can kill them with Flying Sword, and even that eats up MP. Axemen, on the other hand, can one-hit a lot of enemies early on in the game, and that just normal hits! Not to mention our quadruple combos can match, if not surpass, the damage of Windy Sword. But later on, both classes will be guzzling down Fairy Brews like crazy from trying to solo. However, the differences become clear at the level 60 advancement. Sword- masters get Quaker, an attack that does windy-sword damage to a column of enemies. Berserkers get Axe Rain, which doesn't do quite as much as quaker, but it hits more enemies, so I guess it balances out. But what turned me off swordmasters was the lame Counter skill, which enables to swordmaster to hit back any enemy that hits the swordsmaster, but this attack does very minor damage. I think it does a bit less than Shield Strike. And the skill only lasts for three turns. Berserkers get Sure Hit, which makes the berserker's next three attacks never miss, which is VERY useful, considering that axe weapons have poor accuracy, and this skill eliminates that weakness. Dex-less axemen are even a viable build just for the sake of doing insane damage with Sure Hit axe rains and combos. At level 70? Swordmasters get Air Sword and Draco, both of which are merely one-target skills that do insane damage. Berserkers get Axe Flash and Haymaker. Differences are in that the berserker skills are unnaffected by defense and resistance factors, and the axe flash can sometimes stun, even if it misses. Haymaker also does much more damage than axe flash, and it can be very useul if your arms element isn't exactly suited for fighting a particular enemy. Q: How much damage should I be doing? A: From level 15-50, you should be able to kill enemies weak to your arms element in one normal attack. There are exceptions to this, such as Wood Slugs, which have ridiculously high HP. Thunder Axe should be able to one- hit almost any enemy, except something very resistant to your element. From level 51 and onward, you should still be seein similar damage results in wars against non-boss enemies, minus the "1-hit kill with normal attacks". Outside wars, perfect triple/quadruple combos should be able to kill almost anything, except stuff with elemental resistance or very high HP. Level 60 onward, 2 axe rains should be able to kill most enemies. If you aren't getting those kinds of damage, you need to get a better weapon, or just better axe skill. Q: How am I supposed to solo beyond level 50? Those enemies hit too hard and I can't do enough damage! A: First off, if you are still using your armor pet in armor mode, stop doing that now, it will only harm you. Instead, place that armor pet out in
   combat mode. By doing this, half of the attacks that would probably hit
   you for about 100-450 damage instead hit your combat pet for only 1-100
   damage, and you, only 150-300 since you won't have weaknesses.

   Another useful trick is to take advantage of elemental bonuses from doing
   divine quests. For instance, having a "fire blessing" is great for
   training in North Kitty forest where more than half the enemies are
   wood-based.

   As for your damage, get used to it; all level 51+ enemies found in the
   wild have a 50% defense boost. I believe this might have been put in to
   encourage players to party up at higher levels. This does not have to be
   the case. With a good enough arms pet, your axe combos should be able to
   kill most enemies with 3 hits. Also, enemies found in wars do NOT have
   any defense bonuses, so you can kill these much faster compared to wild
   monsters. This is why I advise going to wars whenever they are availible.

Q: I can't find axes or heavy armors at the market! What do I do?!
A: Warriors are probably the most equipment-dependent class, yet the market
   is very unfair towards us. People rarely sell armors and axes for profit,
   so you will most likely be having to make your own. This can take a while,
   especially if you can't leave yourself working overnight or while you are
   away from the keyboard. It is definitely worth the time though, as you can
   keep making equipment until you get something with great stats.

----------------------
12: Credits and Thanks
----------------------
Credits and Thanks go to:

-Nope, not giving credit to Lager or EAS, they made the bad choice of making an
 already unpopular game (because of the name FairyLand) even more so by making
 it pay-to-play. Also, the GMs told me to stop hunting for hackers and macro-
 users personally, even though I had very good proof of these abusers' actions.
+The *former* Iron Wolves clan. Shame they broke up.
+Sovan, the now-retired axeman who helped point out some details I was unaware
 of before he quit. He now plays Ragnarok Online and never talks to me -_-
+IceAxe, the axewoman who performed some tests to prove a few theories of mine.
+SilverKnight, the swordmaster who inspired me with the determination to become
 the first axefighter to ever solo to the berserker advancement. Greatest.
 Warrior. Ever. And that's directed at a swordmaster.
+And of course, myself, for taking the time to type up this guide.

Contant me at
-------------
GeminiRage or DarkGemini in-game or at the following email address

geminirage@hotmail.com

Please do not send spam, viruses, or junk mail that would have nothing to do
with this guide. Also, if you are contacting me in-game, do not spam my chat
log or mailbox with useless spam; I will simply put you on my unfriendly list.

                                              Copyright 2005-2006 Edward Tuttle