[Guide] Krythan's Guide to Late Job Advancements

> Will I get penalized if I do my job advancement at a later level?

Short Answer: Nope. You're going to be totally fine.

For many reasons players may choose to complete their job advancement at a later level. The most common reasons are:

• They are currently weak, and want to do the advancement challenge when they are stronger.
• They are leeching, and don't want to leave the session, or MP or don't want to travel there and back to their map again.
• They forgot, and leveled up by accident.

In most cases, there’s very little reason to worry about a late job advancement. As long as you…

• …don’t mind waiting to use new skills.
  
• …don’t spend your extra SP
• …or wouldn’t have used the AP for INT

…then there’s minimal penalty for late job advancement.

Skill Points

If you’re planning to do a late job advancement, don’t spend your Skill Points on skills of the previous job. For example: Let’s say we want to do our second job advancement at level 35. We’ll still gain 3 SP every level from 30 to 35, however we must be careful to NOT spend this SP on first job skills.

1st Job Advancement - Level 10 or 8 (mage)

After level 10 (or 8 for mages), don’t use any new SP until you’ve completed your job advancement.

You should advance no later than level 14, as that's the latest you can advance to 1st job without losing SP.

If you advance by level 14, you'll receive all your 1st job SP. If you advance at level 15 or later, you lose 3 SP for each level you advanced past level 10 or 8 (mage). (source)

You must advance before level 30. Once you reach level 30 as a beginner, you become "perma beginner" and will no longer be able to do the 1st job advancement. You can thank fartsy for this.

You may lose HP as a warrior if you do your 1st job advancement late. This is because as early as level 11, warriors can have points in their Improve Max HP Skill. This gives them a bonus to their HP gain upon Level Up.

You may lose MP as a mage if you do your 1st job advancement late. This is because as early as level 9, mages can have points in their Improve Max MP Skill. This gives them a bonus to their MP gain upon Level Up.

Spoiler: Minor note

Each class has a different formula for how much HP/HP they get during Level Ups, and how much HP/MP they get from Fresh and Stale Washing. Doing your job advancement late, means more levels using the beginner formulas, instead of the class's formula. It's worth noting, but in practice incredibly minor.

Most notably, warriors and pirates gain more HP per level, while mages gain more MP per level than a beginner of the same level would.

2nd Job Advancement - Level 30

After level 30, don’t use any new SP until you’ve completed your job advancement.

You may lose HP as a buccaneer if you do your 2nd job advancement late. This is because as early as level 31, brawlers can have points in their Improve Max HP Skill. This gives them a bonus to their HP gain upon Level Up.

3rd Job Advancement - Level 70

After level 70, don’t use any new SP until you’ve completed your job advancement.

Spoiler: Minor note

You'll get 5 AP when you complete your 3rd job advancement. It's minor, that’s 5 points that you might otherwise have had in INT when leveling up.

4th Job Advancement - Level 120

After level 120, don’t use any new SP until you’ve completed your job advancement.

Spoiler: Minor note

You'll get 5 AP when you complete your 4th job advancement. It's minor, that’s 5 points that you might otherwise have had in INT when leveling up.

That's all. You're gonna be fine.

 

I've seen this question come up in the #questions channel of the Discord quite a few times. The worry of permanently messing up a character is intimidating, so I wanted to share this to help.

 

Then you don't get to spend those points on second job skills once they're unlocked

 

True! There are a few classes where you may wish to spend skill points on a previous jobs skill. Albeit, most of these cases it's the last few skill points of a given job that get invested to max an earlier skill.

 

Related to this post... How do I complete the job advancements, if I have no damage? Often, all you need is an Amorian basket and patience, but here's some quotes from my past experiences:

Doing the second job advancement on an archer:

Doing the second job advancement on a rogue:

Doing the third job advancement on an assassin:

Note: Especially for the earlier levels, +STAT gear may often have a greater proportional impact on damage output that +ATT gear. For example: In the later levels, many attackers trade Stat:Att at a 5:1 ratio in terms of effectiveness, but lower level characters by the nature of less equipment often trade Stat:Att at 3:1 or less... For example: +3 STR may result in the same damage output as +1 Attack for a low level character, making a cape scrolled for 4 STR more impactful than a cape scrolled for 1 Attack.

Update: It's come to my attention thanks to beegoratto that "All of the Thief job advancements are significantly easier with a dagger and Double Stab... L7 is only for non-inted sins who are actively going to play the char in PQs or grind... if you're washing or inted at all, I wouldn't bother putting a single point in"

June 30th, 2024: NoMoneyToEat shared a great video in Discord where they "used 4 heartstoppers & gm buff + se + echo with 4 base luk for my L7 3rd job advancement". Link to YouTube. They also said: "Double stab is a lot easier for 3rd job advancement. otherwise just stack luk gear & preferably have SE buff, you shouldn't need more than maybe 5-6 heartstoppers even with 4 base luk"

 

May 31st, 2024 - Updated a few small typos, previously referencing the wrong job number, thanks to holysymbowl for calling these out!

 

It's an option! Just remember that as you're increasing the MaxHP Skill, you're getting more and more HP each level. So at level 10, a warrior is getting 24-28 HP, but that increases each level with MaxHP until level 13 or 14 where a warrior is getting 64-68. So there's maybe a level or two where it makes sense to over-level as a beginner, but I'd say the gains are super minor.

Fun fact, this is actually a decent idea for mages who want to optimize for end-game HP, as they can over-level a few levels to get in a few bonus HP Washes as a beginner.

 

Ha ha. Whoopsie. Fixed!

 

February 13th, 2025 - Added additional clarity to how SP refunds work with a late 1st job advancement.