From Redmoon Advanced Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search

The Lonely Swordsman - A Comprehensive, Data Driven-Walkthrough for leveling Sadad Written by microRNA1, Up to date Dec. 2021

Introduction

Sadad, guardian and protector of the Sun, is the quintessential sword wielding fighter of Redmoon. We all know why you’re here thinking of leveling a Sadad. You were fascinated by the stories of Knights and Ninja, Samurai and Jedi. Your favorite characters always have swords. You preferred Zero to Megaman and you thought Aragon was cooler than Legolas. The reason Final Fantasy VII and VIII were the best in the series was because Cloud, Sephiroth, and Squall all used awesome swords. You played warriors and not mages in WOW; DragonKnights and Knightblades in ElderScrolls; Marth and Link in Smashbros. You probably still stream Inuyasha and Rurouni Kenshin. Your class of choice is the swordsman and Sadad is that character.

As is traditionally the case, the sword wielding class is supposed to deal less damage than the magic-focused classes (Philar, Azlar) and tends towards being tankier alongside other melee (Jarexx) classes. Sadad fits this mold well. Sadad is not going to deal the most damage to a single target. He will not kill an army of mobs with AoE instantly. He may not survive the longest in a PvP war, but you love a good swordsman so you will choose to play as Sadad. Others may want to level Sadad for other reasons. The dynamics of leveling, and endgame content of Redmoon is highly imbalanced; however, the distinct skillsets, buffs, and utility of each class make each character an important one to level and play with. This may mean you’re begrudgingly here to level a Sadad just to get Warcry for you other toons with no passion for a good sword with a well-known name and that’s okay, too.

This walkthrough will share my experiences of leveling and playing as Sadad since the early 2000s. I hope it will provide you with a guide to playing a Sadad in the current environment of the Redmoon Advanced Server. I am going to take the opportunity of this leveling guide to include details highlighting aspects of Redmoon that may be valuable for new players. I believe these details and nuances of playing Redmoon are well known by the 15+ year players and are left unspoken. However, an in-depth understanding of Redmoon is invaluable in your quest to level a Sadad from 1-1000. Sadad is not the quickest leveling character and even with the best gear, you may still have difficulties so by understanding the fine details of the game, you can optimize the speed at which your Sadad gets you to the endgame content and have a good time doing it.

  • This guide is:
  1. A realistic leveling guide from level 1-1000 for Sadad
  2. An end-game guide to Sadad and several PvE and PvP builds
  3. An introduction to certain nuisances of Redmoon for new players that can improve the leveling experience not just for Sadad
  4. Generally written for new players in the beginning but assumes more experience and understanding of the game as you pick up how to play the game. Likewise this walkthrough is writen assuming no donations/ tokens, unique items or higher level buffers
  • This guide is not going to:
  1. help you level a Sadad as fast as an Azlar, Philar or Canon
  2. help your Sadad 1 hit Monsters in all the level 1K maps
  3. make your Sadad the MVP of your next war
  4. change class balance in the game to make Sadad more popular

Sadad is a common character to level because of the utility and necessity of his buff ‘Warcry’ which increases his group’s defense against monsters by 30%. This is seen as a necessity for other characters at max level to survive in the endgame maps at level 1k (Sky dungeon, Himalayan summit, super junkyard). This skill is granted at level 800 and means most players will stop leveling Sadad at level 901 (the soonest you are able to group a max level player). He can also play the role of assassin in Redmoon because he alone has the ability in Redmoon to warp to another player without the player’s consent. This means Sadad is uniquely suited for ganking (teleporting in, killing and teleporting away) from other players. While excessive PKing is discouraged and can even be against the code of conduct, it can be a deterrent for others to PK you or used to settle a grudge. While not the favorite for endgame leveling, or PvP, I will show you viable options for Sadad to fill these roles as well. This does not mean he will be stronger than a Jarexx or Lunarena but I argue that he is wonderful and fun alternative.

Sadad is a slow leveling character. The dynamics of Redmoon emphasize…

  1. low survivability -- you can eat food to restore HP completely, instantly and almost infinitely.
  2. fast killing -- monster experience does not increase enough as monsters get stronger to warrant killing slower
  3. AoE killing – Monster spawn rates are high and you often encounter several mobs at once so to kill multiple enemies simultaneously is highly preferred. Additionally, many class’s single target attacks are not significantly stronger than AoE attacks of the same class so it isn’t much different to kill any single enemy with AoE vs single target skills.

….. and Sadad does not excel in any of these areas below level 800. That is to say, he can generally survive well (1 bonus point = 13 power, higher than all other classes except Jarexx (15pow/bp)) but is not able to kill especially well. At low levels, his skills are generally weak, single target attacks without great range. Sadad has no viable AoE damage until level 800. Even his single target skills at lower levels (50-350) are not particularly strong so he cannot 1 hit monsters any sooner than other classes. This means Sadad will level slowly in Redmoon. By my experience and estimates a solo leveling Sadad will take 4-5x longer to level from 1-800 than a solo leveling Philar, Azlar, Jarexx. The only other characters that will have a similar experience are Lavita (AoE at 700) and Destino (AoE at 800) who also do not get AoE damage until a high level. If you wanted to be squishy, 1 hit and be 1 hit by everything in your effort to level quickly, you would not have chosen Sadad. But you are a sword wielding warrior at heart so I will guide you on your journey…

Leveling 1-801

Levels 1-50 (Stats at level 1: 10-10-20-10 (2bp)

So you made a Sadad! Congratulations! That really cool cross looking sword he’s wielding in his character photo isn’t one we see again, unfortunately. But let’s see what twigs and sticks we can wield starting out.

Beginner Zone (1-3)

I reflexively go to the beginner area where your instantly mobbed by gangsters and hooligans but don’t worry, they cannot kill you in the beginner zone. Your HP (red bar) will go down to ~10% but you cannot die. In exchange, your DP bar (purple) will become full and start flashing. When your purple bar is full and flashing, you can use Sadad’s special skill Mirage Sphere seen in the skill menu (F5). If you right click on the icon for Mirage Sphere, it will be assigned to the quick bar (F8 menu). Go ahead and assign soul blade while you’re there. To use the skills in the quick bar, right click (on a target and within range) to use soul blade, your normal skill. You will see it is pretty weak and won’t even kill gangsters without several hits. Shift + Right click to cast Mirage Sphere which will kill all the monsters surrounding you in 2 or 3 casts. This is the only time you will experience good, easy AoE killing for a while. This quickly get you to level 3 where you will no longer gain experience in the beginner zone.

Street2 (3-18) (10-20minutes)

Go ahead check your inventory (F3), drop your maps cause they’ll waste your carrying capacity, right click your goldfish to assign to the quick bar, slot 1 (pressing 1 will consume 1 goldfish to restore HP) and head over to the right from the hospital until you find the equipment/armor shop. I also take a minute to add my bonus points in the character menu (F2). Each bonus point will grant Sadad 15 strength (the first attribute; will not only contribute to damage but also increase carrying capacity) and 13 power (the last attribute, increases health and thus survivability). Only for specific reasons will you ever add to spirit (the second attribute) while leveling. Dexterity (the third attribute) is useful for Sadad to improve accuracy which will greatly improve the leveling experience and speed. I added 3 bonus points to strength and 3 to power so I have 55-10-20-49 stats. While at the equipment shop, take a moment to appreciate the stats and level requirements for the swords. I will only pick up the swords and not worry about any armor for now. The reason for this is that at such a low level, the defense of items is very low (a tshirt is 5). But 1 point of power is 15 power which increases your HP exponentially. All this to say, your survivability at this level will not be your gear, but your power. I go ahead and buy each of the level 1-20 swords. I cant afford any more cause I haven’t gotten any gold yet. Equip the Oak sword (level 1) and lets see how much damage we can do. With only 40 str and level 1 sword, a gangster can be killed in 2 hits. From a distance, too which makes it easy to survive. Your XP bar will slowly rise as you kill more and more. Try slashing a few down with left clicks or using soul blade until your MP runs out with right clicks. With 50 or so power, you should survive several punches and not have to worry about gangsters killing you. Go ahead and kill them until level 5, and try out your new sword. It will cut down gangsters like a warm knife through butter. Hooligans are a bit tougher and mostly because you tend to miss. This is where I throw in 2 bps to dex and another 2 into power. You’ll be able to kill much faster at this stage by improving accuracy rather than improving damage. By level 9, you’re killing hooligans and even spys easily if you’ve ventured down towards the bottom of the street2 map. Survival isn’t difficult if you kill them quickly before they can hit you much. By level 10, you get a new sword and with 205 strength, you will almost 1 hit spys with soul blade but youll notice that left clicking with normal attack might be even more effective at killing even though the range is only melee distance. By now, you’re running around the bottom of street 2 below the river killing all the spies. You may not even notice gangsters anymore. Do this until around level 18. Then head back to street 2 center and pick up a couple more swords on your way to street3.

Street3,1 (18-50) (20-30minutes)

205 power with no armor is sufficient to survive robbers and spy2 in street 3. They are very quick and easy to kill with the level 20 sword, 300 strength and 100 dex. Thugs are still tough but reasonable if you have picked up plenty of food. Adding another 100 power by level 30 will make them easier and be necessary for str1. By level 25, hopefully you find the jewelry shop in str3 park. Make sure to grab a necklace. And level 25 isnt a bad level to go ahead and grab a set of armor from the armor shop. This is because your belt will start to add a good amount of power, gloves will add attack and you can equip a shield finally. I’d also grab a pair of 35 boots just to be ready to throw them on right away. Chest, legs shield are the most important for defense. Belt, boots and gloves are less defense but add other stats. Necklaces tend to add some to all of the stats plus substantial defense boost. At level 30, you should be able to survive in str1 without too much worry and thugs/cyborgs will give you good experience until 50 when you can complete the spy quest in str1. Make sure at 40 you grabbed the silver sword for added defense. With this, you should be comfortable going to junkyard at 50.

Level 50 – 120

Junkyard (Stats at 50: 800-35-265-692) (45min – 1.5hrs) Starting on the left side of Junkyard, you should have a blast killing all of the cyborgs and jesters. They’re predictable and easy exp for now. You’ll notice that even the much stronger monsters won’t give you a huge boost of XP1. By level 60, you should survive all over JY just fine but focus on killing jesters until 65, Dragon Infantry until 80 and then mutants. This will maximize your XP (10% per monster) while killing quickly. By level 120 you should be able to kill mutants very easily and survive well. The defense from the 120 swords and gear at 100 will begin to allow survival in downtown where snipers will be difficult. They hit hard, are hard to hit and heal one before they can be killed. By Level 75, I still haven’t updated armor, with 800 power and I survive just fine. 1250 str kills easily except mutants are a bit slow. 350 dex makes my accuracy really good. Make sure the 80+ swords are the ones with defense. At 100, downtown1 is easily survivable with 1055 power and 105 armor. Mutants and Spys will still give great xp but snipers aren’t even worth the time to kill. Adding some strength and dex to keep killing rate up but really the 120 sword is what will make snipers worthwhile to kill.


1 Experience given from any single monster is limited to 10% of the experience you need at your current level. So at level 50, a Jester, dragon infanty and mutant will all grant 10% experience. At level 65, a jester and dragon infantry will still grant 10% exp but a cyborg will only be ~5%. This weighs on decisions to move to more difficult maps until certain levels because they may not necessarily improve experience granted by monsters.


Level 120-220

Downtowns (Stats at 120 2185- 110-1380-1055) (2-3hrs) The 120 sword grants some much needed dexterity to improve accuracy and crit chance which begins to make downtown1 and snipers pretty easy. Once you can reliably kill snipers before they heal (meaning ~3 left click attacks), I will add power. Commandos do much more damage than snipers but are in fact easier to kill for Sadad. When power is ~1600 and surviving a mob of snipers seems easy, you’ll be ready for downtown 2 and 3. The spawn rates there are much higher so leveling will be quicker. By the time you’re able to weild the 160 sword, anywhere in the downtowns 1-3 should feel comfortable. Downtown4 will have some occasional espers which will be good to test your power before going to Sahara. By level 200, leveling will seem slow in downtown. A big reason for this is snipers and commandos have such high range so you have to physically walk to them rather than them mobbing around you. This won’t improve until we go to Dungeon 2 or Himalayas but is a severe hinderance to Sadads leveling speed. If only we could replace the worthless skill guillotine at 200 with Roar like Jarexx has. Speaking of Guillotine, don’t get your hopes up that this will change much in the way of leveling. I find killing with guillotine to be slower that slashing down with your normal left click attack. This is because guillotine has a weak damage multiplier for strength, its not particularly fast animation wise, and it has very low range. 220 is a good goal for going to sahara because you’ll get a few pieces of 200+ gear which is a big defense improvement and the 220 sword starts to grant power.

Level 220-280

Saharas (Stats at 220: Rest-110-1380-2500) (~3 hrs) Unfortunately, this is the point where Sadad begins to suffer severely in leveling speed. This is caused by 3 main things: 1) Lack of useful ranged or AoE skill, 2) lack of strong attack skill, 3) lackluster attack increases from swords for several hundred levels (~160-450). Fortunately, the main maps for leveling through this period are have high and predictable spawn rates. Sadad will not blow through these levels quickly. This is where the true, classic grind of Redmoon appears. This will be a proper grind of simply walking in circles through Sahara2 and Sahara dungeon 1 slashing down espers and mgs seemingly with out end. This might be a good point to stop all of you impatient, Philar/Azlar A.D.H.D. levelers who have an impulse to speed things up. Sadad will not be able to kill quickly enough in Dun2 to make the experience rate quicker. Additionally, survival is important because dying will not only make you lose some amount of your XP bar but also will take several minutes to restock from losing your food, buy more armor (unless you try to pickup your death pile which will inevitably lead to further deathpiles) all of which add up to several levels worth of time spent recovering. This will become even more important towards the end game where your protections may save you from losing gear but your experience lost will cost must more time. For these levels, focus on the grind. Consistent XP albeit slow. Pick up all the boosters and food you can. Sell the MP for gold to help buy your more expensive swords. By levels 270-280, Saharas will be a breeze and slow testing the entrance to Sahara Dung 1 at the entrance with 4 mgs is a good idea.

Level 280-450

Sahara Dungeons (Stats at 300: 4800-380-2000-3700) (7-10hours)

If you can survive and kill those 4-5 mgs comfortably then Dung1 will be fine. Expect to use a lot of food. Still slashing away with left click to kill is my recommendation. You will kill everything in 2-3 slashes and the animations are far quicker that casting guillotine over and over. I find the loop near the entrance to Dungeon1 takes about as long to clear as it takes to respawn and is primarily machine guns. This is helpful because machine guns are by far the highest contributor to experience gained in dungeon 1. Don’t expect much in the way of damage improvements from swords but stay up to date on the armor if you’re having difficulty surviving; the armor does improve markedly around 350.

A big improvement for damage comes at 350 with the skills Vampiric Touch (Red honor) or Slash (Blue Honor). I do think either of these skills are about equal in terms of damage/strength stat multipliers and they are each vast improvements over guillotine or soul blade. Vampiric Touch is a missle style skill with medium range and returns health based on damage delt. This is great to reduce your reliance on eating and put some distance between you and strong melee attackers (revertrix and upcoming buccis and yeti in hima). Slash is a unique skill in redmoon that is similar to Jarexx’s Dash skill. It has medium range and teleports you towards the opponent dealing damage. Additionally, it deals damage to other enemies in the line with the attacks travel. While this is a fun skill to zoom around maps from monster to monster, its usage as a killing tool for leveling is limited in my opinion. This is because rarely does the ‘in-line’ damage effect more than the targeted monster and even then, its damage is only partial. Also, in Himalayas where slash would be used to level for a while, buccis and yeti have quite hard hitting melee attacks that are nice to avoid. ALL this is nice but my recommendation is to continue using the normal left click attack. In my experience this is still faster than the casting animation of vampiric touch. Especially if you opt for the automouse attack approach2.


2 Wayyyy back into the earlier 2000s, automouse software has been commonly used in Redmoon because of the constant left clicking required for certain characters such as Sadad, Canon, Jarexx. I recently have used software available through MurGaa which is freely available. The software will continuously left click at the mouse location at a given rate (100-200ms/click is nice). This clicking makes leveling Sadad orders of magnitude easier because of the hundreds of levels of left click attacking required. In no way am I suggesting or recommending use of autoclicking/macro software to automate the leveling process which is strictly against the code of conduct. Use of autoclicking to minimize strain on clicking as you actively move and level. It’s quite surprising how much this can increase damage done by normal attacks and increase leveling speed.

At level 400, sahara dungeon 1 is slowing down noticeably but becoming easy. Make sure to find the esper and kill it and avoid the alarm rooms because your egg is really keeping you alive. Sahara dungeon2 and bsd become promising temptations by this time. Fortunately, survival in sahara dung2 is not so dramatically different that dungeon1 (the way downtown->sahara or sahara->dungeon1 was). If you are tempted, go try dungeon 2 and you may find the difficulty is not in surviving but killing at a reasonable rate to level efficiently. Killing 3 mgs is as easy as 1 combat drone but 3 mgs is more than two times the xp as 1 combat drone. This killing rate/ xp relationship is going to drive the decision to stay in dungeon 1 for as long you can bare, maybe until 400. 400 brings a new sword which is a joke of an improvement over the 350 claymore. Also, the great improvements in armor defense around 400 make power less important and strength can be added to improve damage. At 400, dungeon 2 and BSD shouldn’t be too difficult. Aim to kill as many lab techs and revertrix as possible as Combat drones don’t give much more xp and take much longer to kill. When feeling comfortable, try out boss spy dungeon and if you have plenty of food, pop a few of those boosters you’ve been saving to kill the boss spy (visyne, pro M, adrenaline, Moradyne, Aryne, Anubyne for sure). If you’re surviving alright, then don’t worry about adding power. Power will be much less important in Himalayas than will be 1 hitting yetis with consistent accuracy.

Level 450-550

Himalayas (Stats at 400: 7400-560-2180-4310) (3 hours)

Level 450 begins the availability of Earth rare swords. These weapons are not purchasable through the normal weapon shop but found by killing assasins, or purchased from other players. While ‘rare’ is in the name, they’re not generally considered valuable or rare and will often be given away for free if another player has even gone through the trouble to store them in the limited size bank slots. Make sure you use these rare swords at 450, 500, 550, 600 and 650 because they are vast improvements in damage and other stats compared to what you are able to purchase through the vendors.

This is the transition time where I begin to kill primarily with vampiric touch and not the left click attack. One hitting destoyers and yetis in the key to Himalayas. Leveling is much quicker because there’s a substantial XP boost in destoyers (50% more than combat drones) and because the monsters are more melee based so they tend to run and mob you. Another note is to avoid super yetis. They’re not worth the time or risk to kill. Yeti’s have a type of berserk mechanism so the lower health the yeti has, the more damage it will do. This means if you don’t 1 hit a yeti, it can do significant damage; all the more so for supers.

Whenever convenient, take care of the destino quest (after the philar quest) to allow access to signus. While this use to be extremely difficult (because everyone hates leveling destino); now there has been a convenient warp tool that allows players to warp to certain convenient locations around the game. This warp mechanism enables warping onto the spaceship while in flight (it takes off between x:00 and x:05 OR x:30 and x:35Greenwich Mean Time; two 5-minutes windows every hour; before you could only board and take off then but now you can warp anytime during the hour). What I will suggest is to warp onto the ship using ‘!!!ship’ command in game at any hour at the 24minute or 54minute (i.e., 6:54 or 15:24). The ship will crash because you did not kill all the monsters attacking the ship (an old part of the quest) and leave you in the Himalayan hospital. Immediately warp back on to the ship again using ‘!!!ship’. This time the monsters have been cleared and you can safely walk onto any of the 4 escape pods. Once you enter the escape pod, wait ~5 minutes and it will crash on Signus. Immediately warp to safety as survival might be difficult if you’re below 550 or 600.

At level 500, you will gain the blue skill teleport or the red skill soul drain. These are both extremely useful PvP skills which I will detail in the PvP builds. Soul drain has a slightly higher damage multiplier than vampiric touch so it will improve damage PvM. I would still level with Vampiric touch because it self heals and 1 hits Himalayas. At 550, with some boosters (ProM, Aryne, maybe Adrenalyn) Signus is possible but far less safe. If you get impatient in Himalayas, go ahead and try Signus.

Level 550-700

Signus and Freedom Valley (550 stats 11400-1000-3410-6180-Moradyne+adrynaline) (4-7 hours) Armor around 540-560 is a big improvement and will make survivability in Signus possible. Soul Drain will 1 hit all of the monsters (with aryne/moradyne) on the Signus maps (ax,bx,cx,dx) with 550 sword. Start in signus DX (it has the lowest spawn rate so will allow you to test survival and damage while slowly learning how to deal with the mobs. Avoid the bases (walled in boundry areas with base guards. Base guards have high crit damage and are often in large groups so can easily kill you. Continue adding power for survival. 600 will grant 10% damage boost with rabbits foot. At 600, see if you can borrow some avends from other players or trade with a few durabilities or quickynes you’ve saved so far. Avend defense and regen necklace is a huge boost to survivability. 600-700 should be very easy in freedom valley where you can now survive raikon and pramar easily (~8k power) and 1 hit with soul drain (12800str + 600 earth rare sword). FV is pretty consistent, safe and it will be difficult to both survive and 1 hit lepon or giant raikon in SV at this stage.

I recommend using earth rare weapons because the dexterity granted will far improve accuracy and this will ensure 1 casting killing monsters. In fact, I will plan to use an Earth Rare weapon for leveling until either level 1k, or you begin to collect unique items or sunsets. (Even if you 1 hit a monster but miss it 2 times before hitting so that’s really 3 casts to kill. This is not a similar case for AoE killers but sadly, Sadad still have no AoE. If you cast the AoE with 10 monsters around and have 50% accuracy, chances are most of them will die after two casts (1 extra vs 100% accuracy). With 10 monsters, 50% accuracy and a single attack skill, this could be 20 or more casts (10 extra casts vs 100% accuracy).

Level 700-800

Signus Valley and Sky cities (700 stats 13500-1750-3450-9200-Moradyne+adrynaline, Nova blade) (4-6 hours)

Level 700 Red Sadad is granted the skill Cross Blade. This skill is a great improvement in damage over the already modestly strong soul drain. By no means is it going to be the strongest single target attack in Redmoon but it is nearly that for Sadad. It also has a similar ‘in-line’ damage as slash which you cannot rely on but is always nice when you see it.

Legendary medicine is useful for any character leveling. Each character is able to consume a maximum of 50 legendary medicine for a total of 200 bonus points. This is best done before reaching level 1000 because the potential bonus points from LMs are actually granted by leveling past level 1000. I am mentioning LMs here because up to this point, I have assumed no LMs were used to increase stats. The extra 200 bps given by LMs can make a huge difference in early levels allowing you to move to higher level maps 30-60levels sooner and thus increasing speed of leveling substantially. After level several sadads from 1-700, I find that this is around the stage that I have acquired rare drops to the extent that I can trade for 50 LMs to other players. I will save any durability, golden apples, redmoon fortunes and offer these for 50 LMs. Usually I find a few radiations in signus, too, which are helpful in trading for LMs.

Level 701 also allows you to begin grouping with level 800 Sadads or Lunarena who can provide extremely useful buffs Warcry and Moons Blessing, respectively. These will make survival and accuracy sufficient to make leveling in sky city not only possible but preferred. Without Warcry buff, survival is likely too difficult to warrant the risk. Especially at this level, dying will likely mean losing a lot of food, and armor and in a map like sky city, these can be extremely difficult to recover and regen necklaces and avends cannot be replaced as easily as earth armor.

The stats listed for 700 will allow 1 hitting all of signus valley, uni, anatu and bau with nova blade (with aryne, not egged monsters in sky). Survival is high in signus valley without Warcry. Survival in uni and anatu is modest with warcry. By 750 you’ll have near 11-12k power and survival will be much easier in sky (even in Bau, still probably need war cry though). I have to say though that leveling 700-800 in sky city with crossblade is some of the most fun leveling I’ve had in all of Redmoon. It’s a great combination of interesting, challenging and you are constantly kept on your toes. Anatu is probably 50% faster than SV and Bau is ~50% more than that. But I recommend SV if you do not have boosters, warcry and moons blessing and anatu if you do. If anatu feels comfortable, then bau is possible but the difference in the number of monsters is substantial.

Level 801-Endgame

Level 800-1149

Sword Dance (800 stats 17500-1750-3450-12000-Moradyne+adrynaline, Nova blade; 800-901 (2-4 hours).

After all of your hard work and grinding, poking and slashing single monsters for 799 levels all over the game of Redmoon, you have finally earned the full set of skills offered to Sadad. You’ve finally made it to the point of the game where things become easy, and fast. Sword dance has medium range and high damage (almost as strong as cross blade). You will have the same feeling Azlar had at 50, Jarexx had at 100, Lunarena at 350, Philar at 400, Kitara at 500 and Lavita and Canon had at 700. You will run into a huge mob mashing your food quick button to stay alive and with one simple right click of the mouse, melt all of your attackers instantly. Leveling speed instantly increases by 5-6x faster.

Leveling locations will stay the same. SV will be sooo fast because all the spiders and lepons will die at once. Anatu and Bau are easily survived with Warcry and Bau and you’ll easily kill the huge groups of centinels and psyanides in Bau. Stats wont matter much. You don’t need strength because you already 1 hit everything that matters. Survival can always be improved so extra points can go to power.

Level 900, you’ll notice your leveling hits a brick wall. Exp needed for 890-900 = 900-901. This begins the part of the Redmoon grind that will really test a players will to become the Sun. Level 901 is a common stopping point for players who just want a buff sadad. Grab 901 to group max level players, switch to blue honor and take a ppill to go all spirit so you can warcry your teammates. But you love the Swordsman life so you will press on.

Level 901-1150 (minus the 100 levels you earned when taking 50 LMs, 15hours – 15years)

Yes you read the estimated time correctly. Some of us stopped our Sadads at level 900 before Obama was president and just recently made it to max. You have 149 levels of grinding at this rate. While its hard to say know to potentially faster leveling, Bau is your best, safest and most consistent leveling area at this stage. Sky dungeon has guardians that hit very hard with crit damage, and hierarch which have the health of an egged psyanide. The insane number of monsters in Bau also makes it a tough map to beat by rate of experience. Testing sky dungeon, stats of 18000-1500-2500-15000 with chrysaor and full buff/boosters allows a 901 sadad to barely survive critical hits from guardian (~80-90% damage) and sword dance will only deal ~80% damage to a guardian which is barely 50% to a hierarch. These are not the monsters you want to try 2 hitting. It is possible to add more strength and try to level in Cyrn (mobs have ~20% more health) but the power you must sacrifice for this is going to cause you to die quickly (mobs deal 20% more damage). Cryn also has lower spawn rates than Bau so even though the monsters grant 20% more experience than bau, there are only ~60% as many of them3.


3 All five of the Sky and Sky Dungeon Maps have the same monsters but their spawn rates, XP granted, damage and power differ dramatically. Uni, Anatu and Bau all have the same monsters (that is same damage, health and XP granted) but the spawn rates are dramatically different with Anatu = 2.75 times the spawn of Uni and Bau = 5.5 times the spawn of Uni. So the potential XP on Bau is about twice that of anatu and more than 5x greater than Uni. Cyrn monsters are 20% harder (~20% more health AND damage delt) and grant 20% more xp. Dyaus monsters are similarly ~20% stronger than Cyrn but only grant ~12% more xp (that is ~35% more xp than uni monsters). Cyrn and Dyaus have spawn rates slightly higher than anatu and slightly lower than bau (3.5x and 5x Uni, respectively). If you determine XP/monster and number of monsters/map, the relative XP rates are 1 (uni), 2.81x (anatu), 5.58x (Bau), 4.35x (Cyrn), and 6.75x (Dyaus). So Cyrn is slightly less than Bau and Dyaus is only slightly higher than Bau. All of these multipliers seem to be consistent with the Sky Dungeon maps as well. (that is Bau dungeon is also 5.5x the XP of Uni Dung).

Ill add a note in that from level 901, the grind is not fast soloing as a Sadad. Its not fast on any characters. But Sadad is not particularly slow at this point either. The fastest way to max will be to find some friends or army-mates to group with in higher level maps than you’re comfortably able to solo. Summit is the most common place for this. You’ll easily be able to survive in Summit if you pop a pro M, have warcry and your ready with some food.

Often time’s level 900 begins to make one want to start upgrading sunsets because maybe this will grant you the increased stats needed to survive in the 1k maps. I generally suggest waiting until you are maximum level before spending experience on sunset upgrades for a couple of reasons:

1) your exp may be wasted on bad sunsets and they may break, 2) 2-3 mediocre sunsets alone will not be enough of an improvement to allow you to level in d dung or summit, 3) the bonus points (~300 between 901 and 1150 if you’ve taken 50 LMs already) are substantially more important for your stats than any 1 or 2 sunset items, 4) Once you reach maximum level, your level will result in you receiving mail that contains either a legendary medicine (which you can no longer consume) or a durability. This reliable source of durability will be important for you in order to obtain protections. Without protections, you wont want to risk leveling with sunsets or unique items. 5) at level 1000, you will receive the heroes buff with give a meaningful improvement in defense and damage that will make more of an improvement than 1 or 2 sunset armour pieces.

But if you need some excitement to help you grind up to max, you can always try to start a new low level character that you can use to help buff your Sadad (another Sadad or Lunarena, probably). It never hurts to try break 1 or 2 sunset orbs just to break up the monotony, too. Likely you’ll want to reach level 930 at a minimum because the most commonly used sunset pieces tend to be level 69 (they break so much going to 70 that its hard to make many higher than 69) and level 930 is the minimum level to allow you to equip a level 69 sunset.

Level 1150 – The Endgame

At this point you decide how you want to play Redmoon. Few players tend to level a Sadad to max and continue to use this character to level with other or upgrade sunset items. I do and I never see any other Sadads. Sadad will not be the fastest to level in sky dungeons, bau or the other level 1k maps like Dyaus, Himalayan summit or superjunkyard. But with the right gear and buffs, all of the maps can be easily conquered by Sadad. You will decide whether to further level other classes or what to do with you Sadad. I recommend saving rare drops (apples mainly) to trade for a chipset, then a selion set and then searching for an S4 manus blade. Upgrading your own sunsets is some of the most fun (and frustrating) times you’ll have in Redmoon. You might make the best orb in the game or you might make a high dex+spirit orb that breaks at level 29. Either way, you should aim to upgrade your own or trade for ANY s4 manus blade/orb, and high power level 69 (any stage) helmet, shield and gloves to compliment the selion set. The swords stats are mostly irrelevant for leveling purposes, it mostly just matters its s4. Even an s3 is only going to be about half the damage of an s4 and that will make all the difference in the 1k maps. s2 and s3 manus blades can make the sky dungeon maps much easier leveling options but dyaus dungeon, summit and SJ will not be viable without an s4. Someday you may even look for a unique ringset to fill in all of your equipment slots but from my testing, these wont really change your leveling options in the end game, the ring set will just improve your survivability in the 1k maps. Below I will detail some of the end game builds and stats I have had success with on Sadad and what I use them to do. I will also start to share some of the gear combinations and play styles that can be used for wars in PvP or PKing adventures.

PvM builds:

901-1150 Vanilla Sadad – PvE leveling, no sunsets or uniques

This stage is a key point in the leveling stage for new players. The first character to reach maximum level is the hardest to be sure. It is a true grind but this is a grind that all players must do and Sadad is not at any particular disadvantage. This can be done faster by some characters but Sadad is also faster than many.

I suggest leveling in Bau when you have warcry and moon’s blessing buffs (and boosters like ProM, Adrenaline, Aryne). You’ll easily be able to level in Signus valley without any buffs or boosters. Of course, SV is slower, but Bau may be too dangerous without Warcry. Cyrn and dyaus are options but damage is very high and you may have trouble killing if you reduce power to increase strength. You’ll also want to save any durability or golden apples to trade with other players for a chip set or sunsets later once level 1000.

  • Sword – Nova Blade
  • Gear – A Vend armor, Regen Necklace
  • Other – No Chipset, no uniques, no sunsets
  • Stats: 18050-1487-4520-15406 @ 901
  • 1000-1150 Cherry Vanilla Sadad – PvE leveling, no sunsets, Selion Set, Chip set

At this point, you have the hero buff and you’ve maybe saved up enough fortunes to trade for a chipset and Selion set. This will slightly reduce your defense level but substantially increase your damage allowing you to add more power. This damage increase makes leveling in Sky Dungeon without sunsets much more viable. Your survival here is pretty strong now with the 1k buff but with your uniques, you really have to step up your survivability because you don’t want to risk any fading. If you’re willing to risk it, Cyrn Dungeon and Dyaus dungeon are both options. I suggest that Bau dungeon is greater experience than Cyrn because while the xp/ monster is greater, the spawn rate is lower reducing the total exp rate. Dyaus Dungeon is great if you’re willing to risk it. By adding the extra ~4k base strength needed to 1 hit in Dyaus Dungeon, you’ll lose the survivability needed for ddung substantially.

  • Sword – Chrysoar
  • Gear – A Vend Helmet, gloves, shield
  • Other – Chipset, Selion set
  • Stats: 19650–1487-4270-19260+ @ 1000 + 200bps


1150 Cookies ‘n’ Cream Sadad – PvE leveling/upgrading with BIS gear

So Redmoon has some gear that may be considered ‘best-in-slot’ or the best available in the game for a specific class and armor piece. This is a little bit different in Redmoon because sunsets each have unique stats. For PvE however, the real goal to achieve that will make you feel like you’re at the max possible performance in the game is to level safely and consistently in the top tier maps. The top tier maps currently are dyaus dungeon, Himalaya summit and super junkyard. Generally, Dyaus dungeon is easier to kill but the damage delt by all of the mobs is very high. Himalayan summit seems intimidating but the damage delt by monsters is relatively low (similar to Bau but all melee, probably). The primary challenge to level in summit or superjunk has to do with killing the monsters who has insane health. To be able to 1 hit a psyanide in bau might mean you can kill a guardian in summit in 30-40 hits. In order to accomplish this, the primary tool will be a stage 4 weapon. The damage difference between chrysoar and an s4 is extremely significant – over 2 fold greater for the s4.

Generally, for any weapon (or armor really), the attack stat (strength for a Sadad) contributes extremely little to damage output. In my testing 1 point in base strength contributes roughly 15-18x more towards overall damage than 1 point provided by sunsets. That is to say, a nauthiz shield (69 2-17-14-15-21) has strength of 17 and multiplier of 60 for a total of 1020 added strength. This added strength is will not noticeably increase your damage delt because it comes as an added armor stat. If you were to add 64 bonus points to your base strength stat (~ the same 1020 added strength as the shield), the increase in damage would likely be noticeable and the amount of damage contributed by that base strength statistic is roughly 15-18x greater than the same amount added through sunset gear. All this to simply say that for the purposes of dealing damage on a Sadad, the base strength is extremely important and the stage of your weapon is important. The amount of strength contributed by your sunset items is significantly less meaningful and can almost entirely be neglected. This is highly opposite for the power statistic on sunsets where almost all of the power directly increases health. An ideal sunset gearset for PvE is an s4-0-0-0-95 sword, and s0 0-0-0-99 helmet, gloves and shield. No need for any other stats.

  • Sword – S4 Manus Blade (39- 4-10-8-6-11)
  • Gear – Nauthiz Helmet (79 – 1-21-20-17-20), Nauthiz Shield (69 – 2- 17-14-15-21) and Nauthiz Gloves (69 – 0-26-12-13-18)
  • Other – Chipset, Selion set
  • Stats: 30250-10-20-5890 @ 1000 + 300bps (BASE STATS with no gear; With Mora/Adryn)
  • Stats: 32400-2660-4270-8777 (Same stats with chipset, regen neck, selion, mora/adryn)
  • Stats: 36840-6520-7900-14157(Same as above but with my specific sunsets equipped, details above)
PvP Builds:

The Ninja Assassin – Blue Honor -- 1v1 PvP

This is probably the most frequently use build of most Sadad’s historically (before 800 skills were introduced). This was always a popular way to play Sadad because Lightning blade (Blue 600 skill) is a strong, single target skill with great range and because of Sadad’s 500 Blue skill: Teleport. Teleport is a unique skill in that it allows Sadad to be transported to the location of any player that is online without the player’s permission, as long as they are on the same planet. This has always been a favorite tool of players who wished to kill other players for one reason or another. If someone was rude to you, or they stole your drops, maybe they were KS’ing you longer than is polite, or maybe you just don’t like someone. Log in to your Blue Sadad, buff, teleport and you’re a lightening blade away from testing whether or not they have protection on.

The capability of Sadad to act like this teleporting assassin has only been extended by the 700 skill Master which will greatly improve accuracy with a Chrysoar even with minimal dexterity and with the 800 Warcry Skill which grants 30% greater pvp defense. The most embarrassing thing is to attempt to PK another player and the other player actually kills you. In order to prevent this, the Sadad-Assassin wears PVP defense gear, always has protyn P on and has high power. In fact higher strength is not common for PK’ing because survivability is key and there are very few other players who will level with PvP gear on and more than 15-20k power. This dynamic will be important for you as you play Sadad as an Assassin because you will need to be ready to teleport into any map and survive (meaning you need up to 20-22k for Dyaus Dung). You’ll also need to understand which characters you’ll need to guard against or be ready to take serious damage. This is a very peculiar build because there is a fine line between making sure you can kill an opponent in 1 shot ( or very near 1 shot) and that you’re also able to survive a shot from a max level player wearing all selion and mostly attack stats (end game pvm build). In my testing, 25k strength with an S4 manus can 1 hit players with PvM leveling gear and power to level in dyaus dungeon.

You’ll only need 18K strength to 1 hit players with stats for leveling in sky city maps or summit. Bau Dungeon would probably fall near the middle of this range. This testing was based on PvM gear which runs ~ 42% PvP defense value (selion + 3 vends, weapon and necklace, no Pro P). For a 1150, with chipset and moderate sunset and gloves for power, I suggest adding strength to 1 hit players in bau dungeon, summit or sky. These stats are really convenient because you’ll have the strength to 1 hit those players (unless they have excessive power) and you’ll still have 20-21k power which will allow you to survive the damage that those players are usually dealing since your Sadad will have full pvp defense (90%) and warcry. For a special target, you may need to reset for attacking players in dyaus dungeon but this can be very tricky. You’ll need maximum pvp defense AND 20-22k power to survive (the monsters in the dungeon). The target will also have higher power to survive the monsters so it may be difficult to kill the player with your remaining BPs into strength.

All-in-all, this build is fun to play with when you have a grudge against a player or a score to settle. I would recommend checking the code of conduct to ensure you don’t engage in excessive PK’ing which typically enters the picture if you begin to ‘harass’, or ‘inconvenience’ another player. This build relies on the extra pvp defense a blue sadad is granted by self casting warcry (can be an issue if auto warcry buff is on because it will remove your self warcry once teleporting to a new map). The build will also rely on the heavy damage bonus granted by an S4 manus blade which is pretty much essential for PvP at max level. If your Sadad is under 1k, this guild will still work but you will only be able to target players in signus or maybe bau maps.

  • Sword – S4 Manus Blade (39- 4-10-8-6-11)
  • Gear – A-Vends around Tamas or any sunset with high power
  • Belt – Elein (adds damage and power but no PvP defense)
  • Other – Chipset, Tamas set, regen neck, no S3 or S4 armor needed to reach 90% defense, Regen Necklace, chrysoar or manus, tamas set, vend or SS shield, gloves, pants, Pro P
  • 10% + 20% + 40% + 12% + 15% = 97% defense PvP (cap’d at 90%)
  • Stats: 18000-10-20-18000 @ 1000 + 300bps (BASE STATS with only regen neck on -- no boosters)

You’ll likely gain a 6-7k power with chipset, elein and sunset armor pieces

The Whirling Hurricane – Red Honor – War PvP

This is my favorite build. It is unusual and something I designed using help and consulting several buddies with extensive experience in wars on Redmoon. The dynamics of PvP and the imbalance of the game clearly establishes the best PvP characters as Blue Luna (survival) with a Uni Bow (Uni splash damage is ~33% remaining HP to just about anyone within a screen’s reach of your target). The damage from Uni splash is remarkable in that a max defense player with extremely high power can still be hurt A LOT, very quickly. We will utilize this for the Whirling Hurricane build. Another strong player in PvP is Jarexx because of his extremely high damage and rate of damage given by cyclone. Especially in combination with his defense buff and damage buff, he can be very difficult to defeat. Finally, a 5:1 red luna, lavita, or a philar with good sunsets can deal incredible amounts of damage although their survival ability is far less than the blue luna or jarexx.

The Whirling Hurricane build relies entirely on the splash damage of the Uni sword to deal damage to the opposing enemies. This damage is substantial because it is very fast, has high range, and can be constant depending on the type of fight or war. The survival of the Sadad is very important because if you die, your team will be losing the greatest damage dealer. Survival will be difficult because red Sadad does not benefit from the Warcry defense buff of blue Sadad and you have no other defense boosting powers. Additionally, the damage output of a uni weapon wielder is so high that you are likely the first target of an opposing forces. You will counter this incoming damage in a couple of ways. Firstly, it is vital you reach maximum (90%) PvP defense which can be hard with a uni weapon. Secondly, you must have extremely high power and hopefully 15-20+ power on your 3 Sunsets which is highly unlikely (because they must be s3 or s4s and probably 69+). The only stats added to strength are if you need help carrying more food (because you will use A LOT). Finally, there is some positioning strategy that can vastly improve your survival but this will depend on the type of war (inside shop war, hall war, wandering shop war). The other benefit of this build, and the reason why you are not a blue Sadad is to act as a support for your team. The support you’re able to grant is that of annoyingly slowing down the targeted opponent. This requires a good team to coordinate targets and your Soul Drain skill which has moderate range, and drains your target of all stamina (and MP). The MP will probably be restored quickly as the enemy eats but the stamina will not return as long as your team is attacking the target. This means they will be very slow and much easier to hit.

The strongest PvP players (at the time of writing this) in Redmoon are only able to kill in 1 hit a player with 29-31K power and max defense. As you will be a primary target of several players, 35k power is probably a minimum for this build to be effective. You will run into the battle, hit the primary target or two (usually the Phils, Red Luna or Lavita) with Soul Drain to prevent them from running, limiting their mobility and making them easier for your Luna and Cannons to target. After hitting 1 or 2 targets with drain, you will quickly hide behind a teammate Canon (who is in your Army but with whom you are not grouped). They will act as a bit of a shield in that they may absorb some of the single target attacks intended for you by standing in front of you.

Additionally, you’ll be able to use them as your target to attack generating the splash damage from the uni weapon. Your Uni Weapon will deal very little damage if you directly target an enemy so instead you will be hitting your teammate (who won’t take damage) and this way all of the opponents will be delt splash damage. Probably, your teammate canon will stand still using Snipe to shoot enemies so you will not need to move around in order for your melee to hit anyone. Lastly, this dynamic of using your still, teammate canon as the target of your slashing means that the animation generated by the Uni weapon (a sort of blue tornado) will actually hide you from the opponents visually. Not they can still target you can because they’re smart and know the SoA animation and that it is melee, can guess where you are. But anything to slow down the opponents from targeting you directly will help extend your survival while you act as the greatest DPS character of your army. You will not get any kills and hopefully only 3-4 deaths but your team will know how easy the enemies are to take down by how slowly they walk and how much your Uni Splash damage ticks against the opposing forces. The function of this build is to optimize the Uni Splash damage on a low damage build that can also provide team utility of drain. This allows your team to include more players such as jarexx, red Luna, or canon which have high damage and improve overall team killing ability.

Simage5.jpg
Image of war at Street 3 Geographer showing Whirling Hurricane in action.

Blue arrow is pointing to Sadad (you). Yellow arrow is pointing at teammate in same alliance, Canon named IpMann (Shoutout to Jiren) who is my target for left click attacks. Notice the Blue tornado animation over IpMann. The Red Arrows are pointing at opposing army forces who are taking Uni Splash damage. Notice how my name is not even visible behind IpMann’s army symbols and I might be hard to target with anything but an AoE without hitting my teammate who is acting as a body guard. This position can vastly improve survival and optimize the damage delt by the Uni Splash. War between RAMPER and ILIKETACOS, 11.13.2021.

full video available by Airjig

  • Sword – Sword of Aeolous
  • Gear – Tamas set, Parcae’s belt, Regen Necklace, 2 s3s + 1 s4 or 2 s4s + 1 s0-s2 for Pants, Gloves and Shield; whichever grants more power
  • Other – Chipset, ringset for added power (~3k extra power after buffs, gear)

PvP def from above = 0% + 40% + 5% + 10% + 20% + 15%ProP = 90% (cap’d at 90%)

  • Stats: 8-10k-xxx-xxx-30-32k minimum @ 1000 + 300bps (Final stats with all gear/buffs)

The Strength can be swapped for more power but at the expense of losing food. I would start with adding up to 32k power and seeing how many BPs you have left. Then adding to ~8-10k str which should allow you to carry 500+ food (800+ is better). Then remaining back into power.

One-hit chart

This one hit chart is not by any means supposed to be comprehensive to include every combination of weapon, level and skills needed to kill all mobs. Instead, I’ve included what I’ve found to be the relevant monsters to kill with the relevant skill at the level that you’ll need to kill those monsters. For example, I will include guillotine to kill espers with level 220 sword but I will not include cross blade with chrysoar to kill an esper.

Onehit.png

Onehit2.png

Interesting Charts

I collected these data while putting together this guide in an effort to better appreciate the grinding nature of Redmoon and the separation that exists between XP needed to level and the XP granted by monsters as you grow from level 1-1000. This is normal for most MMORPGs but I suggest that the mechanics of many RPGs where a player stops gaining experience from a monster significantly below his/her level mitigates this for several games. What I believe this means for Redmoon is that until you have truly reached endgame status (easily leveling in all maps), it is far less important which maps you level on and what monsters you kill for exp but rather than you simply grind efficiently killing the most monsters as quickly as possible even if they’re substantially below your level. This is key for Sadad because of the lack of AoE until level 800. Struggling to kill a monster that grants 20% more XP is not going to make a substantial difference for you in 100 level when you need 100% more xp for that level. What will make the biggest difference is to kill quickly in a lower map because killing at just 20% faster will mean the xp rate is approximately equal. This also incentivizes staying in lower level maps with much higher spawn rates (downtown 3 over sahara1, Sahara dun1 over dung 2, BSD over Himalayas, Bau Dung over cyrn dung or summit). This is hopefully demonstrated through the figures below showing the exponential increase in XP needed per level and a slow, linear increase in XP per monster killed (especially when the 1k maps are excluded). Simage1.png
Experience of Each monster in Redmoon plotted with approximate level you would begin killing that monster when following this leveling guide. The Endgame monsters are labelled for clarity.

Simage2.png
Experience for each monster and the approximate level this guide recommends you start killing that monster. Plotted without the 1k Maps. This shows the clear linear increase in XP gained per monster killed.

Simage4.png
This figure shows the same data as above (XP per monster vs. Level you would kill that monster in blue on right Y Axis) plotted alongside the XP needed to level for each level 1-1k in red (left Y Axis). Notice how the red graph follows a near exponential trend from 1-899 and 900-1k with an order of magnitude jump at 900 and steeper increases in the last 10 levels of each century. These last 10 levels always drag on a bit and I think have pushed players into stronger maps prematurely because the risk would actually slow down the leveling speed. The point of this figure is to highlight how experience gained per monster is linear while experience needed to level is not. Therefore leveling in a lower level map that is safer (especially when faster killing is possible) is not going to slow down the overall grind 1-801 for a Sadad. However, these numbers do not take into account the spawn rate of monsters per maps; only the XP per monster.

I did a census of all the monsters in Redmoon and which maps they were on in order to better quantify this: Simage3.png
The number of monsters found on various maps throughout Redmoon. Until some of the later maps came of (FV, SV and adjustments to sky spawn rates) most maps throughout redmoon help between 100 and 200 monsters per map. So for a Sadad who has no AoE, the difference in going to high spawn rate maps is not going to significantly enhance leveling speed. This is much different after level 800 when you start comparing the sky and sky dungeon maps compared to other end game maps. This is because the sky maps were specifically designed to have spawn rates that were very different from one another and because at this point, Sadad has an AoE so grind speed is not dependent on number of casts.