Skills

Skills in Ragnarok Online are special actions a player can perform depending on his/her Job Class. There are two types of skills: Active and Passive. Active skills can be manually activated by the player, where some of them remain active for a set period of time, others can be manually deactivated, and some are one-time-use skills that require manual activation each time the player desires to use them. Passive skills are always in effect, they do not need input from the player to provide its benefit as long as the player has learned those skills.

Active skills can be broken down into 3 sub-categories: "Offensive", "Supportive" and "Active". Offensive skills are those that inflict damage to their selected targets or in a wide area. Supportive skills are those that provide helpful effects to other players, like boosting their offensive and defensive capabilities. Plainly Active skills are those that do not fit in the two forementioned categories and only affect the player or a certain area, usually for a set period of time.

Skill Phases

The skill usage is performed through the following phases:

Initiation

Skill name appears above the character's head.

Cast Time

A gauge appears above the character's head. If there is no Cast Time it is then executed instantaneously.

Execution

Skill name appears above the character's head again and its effect is triggered.

Cast Delay

All skills are temporarily grayed out after execution, blocking their use. Most skills have this value.

Cooldown

Only the skill used is temporarily grayed out after its execution, blocking their use. Not all skills have this value.

Cast Delay and Cooldown start at the same time. No skill can be used if there is still Cast Delay, and any other skill can be used if only Cooldown remains.

Initiation

This phase occurs when the character uses the skill. SP Cost and other requirements are checked, but do not take effect. If the character cannot fulfill the SP Cost or the other requirements, the skill will not activate.

Cast Time

During Cast Time, the character cannot move, attack, or use other skills. If the character takes damage during Cast Time, the skill is canceled (exceptions: wearing a Phen Card or Bloody Butterfly Card, being Sacrificed by a Crusader/Paladin/Royal Guard, or while casting certain skills). If a skill has no base Cast Time or modifiers reduce the effective Cast Time to 0 or less, no cast gauge appears and this phase is skipped entirely.

Cast Time is indicated by a "progress gauge" above the character's head, sometimes called "Cast Bar". The gauge starts out black and is filled with green as Cast Time proceeds. When the cast bar is completely green, Cast Time ends. Some skills do not have a cast bar, even though they have a casting time, such as Bowling Bash and Brandish Spear.

Cast Time is composed of "Variable Cast Time" (VCT) and "Fixed Cast Time" (FCT). As the names may imply, VCT depends on the stats and gear of the caster, while FCT is constant for a given skill. A small number of effects can reduce FCT. Effects which reduce FCT by a percentage do not stack; effects which reduce FCT by a set amount do stack, and are applied before percentage modifiers. For most skills, FCT is 20% of the total Cast Time, with the remainder being VCT.

VCT is reduced by DEX, and also INT at half the amount.

Calculation

Cast Time (seconds) = VCT + FCT

VCT (seconds) = BaseVCT × (1 − SQRT[{DEX × 2 + INT} ÷ 530]) × (1 − Sum_VCTReduc ÷ 100)
FCT (seconds) = (BaseFCT - Sum_FCT) × (1 − Max_FCTReduc ÷ 100)

• BaseVCT = Base Variable Cast Time of a skill.
• BaseFCT = Base Fixed Cast Time of a skill.
• Sum_VCTReduc = Sum of reductions for Variable Cast Time, like Suffragium, Magic Strings, Isilla Card effect or Kathrene Keyon Card.
• Sum_FCT = Sum of all effects that directly subtract from Fixed Cast Time (or add to it, like Mandragora Howling).
• Max_FCTReduc = Highest reduction modifier of Fixed Cast Time (for example: if both Sacrament (50%) and Radius (20%) are active, only Sacrament will work)

Modifiers for Fixed Cast Time

Item/Skill/Enchant	Max Modifier	Additional Notes
Fenrir Card	-70%	Headgear
Fenrir's Power Scroll	-50%	Lasts for 5 minutes.
Laphine Staff	-1% per upgrade level
Temporal Dex Boots	-0.5 second	If base DEX is 120 or higher
Temporal Dex Boots [1]
Modified Dex Boots
Modified Dex Boots [1]
Sacrament	Var	See skill description
Radius	Var	See skill description
Mandragora Howling	Var	See skill description
Magic Essence Enchant	Var	See enchant description
Magic Enchant	-1%
Special Stat Enchant	-7%	If upgrade level is +12 or higher
Valkyrie Drop [1]	-50%
Devil's Hand	-50%
Glorious Fist	-50%
Heart Wing Hairband & Love Piece Set	-10%

Modifiers for Variable Cast Time

To reduce all VCT with stats, a character need a combination of DEX and INT so DEX ×2 and INT equal at least 530 ((DEX × 2 + INT) = 530).

Some examples how all VCT could be reduced:

• INT 530
• DEX 265
• INT 170 and DEX 180
• INT 190 and DEX 170

Cast Time is only calculated once. It ignores changes to the modifiers during casting. This means it is possible to start casting and equip a Phen carded accessory afterwards to get the anti-interruption effect for most of the casting without the VCT increase.

Item/Skill	Max Modifier	Additional Notes
Magic Strings	Var	See skill description.
Suffragium	−45%	(SkillLv × 15)%
Foresight	−50%
Bloody Butterfly Card	+30%	Accessory. Prevents interruption.
Phen Card	+25%	Accessory. Prevents interruption.
Beelzebub Card	−30%	Accessory.
Tower Keeper Card	−5%	Headgear.
Dark Illusion Card	−10%	Headgear.
Kathryne Keyron Card	Var	Headgear. −UpgradeLv%
Dark Illusion and Dark Lord Card Set	-10%	Headgear and Footgear
Devil's Hand	-50%	Only for Lion's Howl and Summon Spirit Sphere. Need upgrade level of +10 or higher.
Long Tongue	-3%
Orleans's Gown [1]	+15%	Prevents interruption.
Antonio's Coat [1]	-10%
Love Piece	+0%	Prevents interruption.
Skin of Lindwyrm [1]	-2% for every 20 base AGI and VIT	If upgrade level is +8 or higher
Perverse Demon Mask [1]	-1% for every 18 base VIT.
Imperial Glove [1]	-10%	Prevents interruption.
Valkyrie Drop [1]	-10%
Sound Amplifier [1]	-50%
Rebellion's Scarf [1]	-10%
Celine's Brooch [1]	-10%
Keraunos [1]	-5% for every 15 base levels.	Only for Lightning Ride
Mercenary Ring Type B	-30%	Novice, Taekwon, Ninja, Gunslinger Bonus
Ferlock's Cloak [1]	-10%~35%	Additional -10% at upgrade level +7 or higher, additional -10% at upgrade level +9 or higher, additional -5% at upgrade level +12 or higher
Mob Scarf Set	-3% for every combined sum of 80 base INT and DEX
Memory of Lovers & Vesper Gear 04 Set	-5%
Spell Enchant	Var	See enchant description

Notes

• Free Cast skill allows movement and attacking while casting.
• Phen Card and Bloody Butterfly Card both allow taking damage without being interrupted, except during War of Emperium.
• Sacrifice skill allows the target to take damage without being interrupted.
• Certain skills cannot be interrupted. Generally those skills are intended to be used by classes on the front lines.
• Although Bloody Butterfly Card adds 30% to VCT, the Mage Card Set substracts it by 15%, meaning that it would only be an end result of +15% vs. the Phen's +25%.
• Magic Strings and Foresight are treated as separate factors in the calculation; they are not added to the other modifiers.

Execution

SP Cost and other requirements are checked again. If the character can fulfill all requirements, they are applied and the skill is triggered. Otherwise nothing happens. If the character is inside a Chat Room, the costs are applied as usual, but the skill is not triggered.

Cast Delay

During Cast Delay (or Global Skill Delay or After-cast Delay), the character can move and attack freely, but cannot use skills. There is no visible indication of Cast Delay except the grayed out skill icons of all skills in the Hotkey bar.

Calculation

Cast Delay (seconds) = BaseDelay × (1 − Sum_DelReduc ÷ 100)

• BaseDelay = Base Cast Delay of a skill.
• Sum_DelReduc = Sum of reductions for Cast Delay.

Modifiers

Item/Skill	Max Modifier	Additional Notes
Magic Strings	Var	See skill description.
Kiel-D-01 Card	−30%	Headgear
Diabolus Robe	−10%	Armor
Expert Ring	−5%	Accessory
Baron's Evil Eye	−5%	Headgear (Middle)
New Wave Sunglasses	−10%	Headgear (Middle)
Bio Protector	−5%	Headgear (Middle)
Bio Protector & Pipe Set	−5%	Headgear (Middle and Lower)
Heart Wing Hairband [1]	-5%, additional -3% per 3 upgrade levels	Headgear (Upper)
Midgard Serpent Hat [1]	-5%, if +10 decreases 10%	Headgear (Upper)
Skin of Gwiber [1]	-1% for every combined sum of 20 base INT and DEX	Garment
Medical Scrubs [1]	-10%	Armor
Tae Goo Lyeon [2]	-20%	Lord Knight and Paladin Jobs. Requires upgrade level of +9 or higher
Fairy Leaf Powder [1]	-5%~15%	Expert Archer 1 Set Bonus:-5%. Expert Archer 2 Set Bonus:-5%.
Blacksmith's Gloves [1]	-10%	This accessory can only be equipped in the right accessory slot
Spirit King's Ring [1]	-5%	Accessory
Supplement Part Dex	-10%	Mechanic only
Perverse Demon Mask [1]	-1% for every 18 base INT	Accessory
Valkyrie Drop [1]	-5%	Accessory
Rebellion's Scarf [1]	-1% per level of Fire Rain known	Accessory
Glorious Apocalypse	-5%	Upgrade level of +9 or higher
Enforcer Cape [1]	-5%~11%	Additional 3% at upgrade level +7 or higher, additional 3% at upgrade level +9 or higher
Peuz's Greaves, Peuz's Manteau, Peuz's Plate, Peuz's Seal, & Storm Stone Set	-70%	For 10 seconds duration after using Aura Blade

Cooldown

During Cooldown (or Skill Re-use Delay), the character can move and attack freely, but cannot use the same skill again. There is no visible indication of Cooldown except the grayed out skill icon of the just used skill in the Hotkey bar.

Almost all 1st and 2nd Class skills have no Cooldown.

Modifiers

Item/Skill	Max Modifier	Additional Notes
Aeon Staff [2]	Earth Strain: -1 second	Upgrade level of +11 or higher
Arch Bishop Ring [1]	Epiclesis: -10 seconds	Set bonus with Cure Lv1
Bellum Bible [1]	Clearance: -10 seconds Lauda Agnus: -3 seconds Lauda Ramus: -3 seconds	Upgrade level of +6 or higher
Bow of Storm [1]	Severe Rainstorm: -2 seconds
Contabass [2]	Improvised Song: -2 seconds
Cute Grass Necklace [1]	Tuna Party: -7 seconds
Devil's Hand	Lion's Howl: -9.5 seconds	Upgrade level of +10 or higher
Empowered Wand of Affection [1]	Lauda Agnus: -3 seconds Lauda Ramus: -3 seconds Sacrament: -3 seconds	Affection (Empowered) Set Bonus
Fresh Grass Necklace [1]	Scar of Tarou: -5 seconds
Fresh Tuna Charm [1]	Tuna Party: -5 seconds
Giant Lance	Clashing Spiral: +20 seconds
Golden Ninja Suit	Swirling Petal: -1 second	Golden Ninja Suit, Golden Scarf & Huuma Shuriken of Dancing Petals Set Bonus
Iron Nail [2]	Rampage Blast: -1 second	Upgrade level of +11 or higher
Keraunos [1]	Power Absorb: -3 seconds
Rebellion's Scarf [1]	Hit Barrel: -4 seconds Shattering Storm: -0.1 seconds	Per level of Shattering Storm known.
Spirit King's Ring [1]	Diamond Dust: -2 seconds Earth Grave: -2 seconds Varetyr Spear: -0.5 seconds Warmer: -15 seconds
Supplement Part Dex	Axe Boomerang: -2 seconds
Tornado Axe [1]	Axe Tornado: -1 second

Skill Reset

A character's skills can be reset in a few ways:

• Rebirthing to prepare for transcendent classes (can only done once, and does not apply to classes that cannot transcend).
• The Hypnotist NPC in Prontera (146, 232) or Izlude (127,175) will currently reset a character's skills for free, provided they are base level 99 or below and have 0 weight.
• A Neuralizer (Kafra Shop item) will reset a character's skills.
• An event NPC called Mesmerizer will reset both stats and skills (only put in the game in certain situations). Sometimes other NPCs are put in that offer the same reset methods.

Notes

• Even after doing a skill reset, a character cannot put 1st class skill points into 2nd class skills, or 2nd class skill points into 3rd class skills. The game will force the character to put all of their 1st class skill points into 1st class skills before the character is able to acquire 2nd class skill points and so on.
• If a character promoted below the maximum Job Level, they will never be able to recover the lost points. Thus, it is always recommended to reach the max Job Level before promoting (although some players may choose to promote early before transcending as all stats and skills are reset anyway). For example:
  • If an Acolyte promoted to Priest at Job Level 45 instead of Job Level 50, they will still only get 44 skill points (instead of 49) out of the Acolyte skill points after doing a skill reset.
  • If a High Priest promotes to Arch Bishop at Job Level 67 instead of Job Level 70, they will still only get 66 skill points (instead of 69) out of the High Priest skill points after doing a skill reset.

See Also

• Guild Skills
• Monster Exclusive Skills
• Template:Skill Info