Hot-Air Ballooning

Basic Info

A two-person balloon.

A hot air balloon kit may be purchased from Kelpie in Zardine. There are two kinds:

• The small kit costs 650 g and can only carry two riders.
• The large kit costs 3,420 g and can carry up to 8 riders. It also has ballistae that players may use to shoot ballista bolts, which are also bought at Kelpie.

Pets cannot be summoned when in the balloon, or brought aboard.

Flying Details

The balloon in flight and almost out of fuel.

Right-click the kit and select "Use" to create the balloon. Note: The Hot-Air Balloon can be created anywhere in Iria, and the areas released after Generation 9. To get on the balloon, simply click on it. To get off, simply click anywhere outside the balloon. Note: You cannot get off while it is in flight. Once made, you will notice a yellow bar that looks like a stamina bar over the balloon, as well as an HP bar. The yellow bar is the fuel, and it will deplete at a steady rate. To keep the balloon going you must supply fuel before it runs out. You may purchase 5 Flint stones for 5,260 g at Kelpie. However, if it is raining in Zardine, you can mine for Flint in rocks by the volcano, but only while the weather persists. Simply drag and drop Flint stone onto the stone above the steering wheel to add fuel. If you fail to keep the fuel up, when it runs out, the balloon will simply float gently to the ground right below where it is. Then it will disappear, forcing the player to buy another balloon if he/she wants to fly again. While the Balloon is landing via the "Land" command or the fuel running out, the Wyverns will continue to shoot, although the shots will only hit you when you are holding onto the steering wheel. (Only Confirmed Solo, not sure about Parties) The HP bar reduces when the balloon is attacked by wyverns. It cannot be recovered in any way. When the HP runs out, the balloon will break and all players riding it will fall immediately to the ground. The damage done to the balloon is based on the amount of damage the riders take. So, wearing full elemental enchants of the same type as the wyverns' attacks, thus rendering their damage to you to 1, successfully negates the odds of the balloon getting destroyed. However, this cannot be done if using ballistae due to the fact that you cannot be holding onto your weapons when using them.

Steering

Click on the steering wheel in the center of the balloon to begin flying. Your character will start steering and be unable to use any other skills. A steering controls window will open up (seen at the left). The up arrow increases your height. You must click and hold it to increase altitude. The down arrow decreases altitude in the same way. To choose where to fly, you may click on the ground (difficult to do when you're at high altitudes) or click on the minimap. Your character's stamina will steadily decrease while steering. Once you've set the location and the balloon is flying, you may stop steering at any time and let the balloon go on its own.

Balloon PvP

It is possible to engage in Elf/Giant PvP while flying in a hot-air balloon.

See the PvP page for details.

Slaying Wyverns

Player frozen by Ice Wyvern.

• Besides being a method of transportation, the balloon ride offers a sort of minigame in Zardine, much like Rafting in Courcle.
• Wyverns fly in the center of Zardine. They will attack your balloon if you get close to them. You may use the balloon as your base to attack them in return. Note that the balloon has health of its own.
• Wyverns are very powerful. You must use ranged attacks to hit them.
• Every wyvern killed will add stars to your score. Return to Kelpie for your rewards.
  • There are three different type of wyverns, ice, lightning, and fire; each one uses only breath attacks of its element.
    • Fire Wyverns are worth 5 stars each.
    • Lightning Wyverns are worth 4 stars each.
    • Ice Wyverns are worth 3 stars each.
  • The more players you have in the balloon, the fewer stars each kill brings in, because they are divided equally among each player. However, it may be easier to hunt with more players.
• The wyverns with titles such as "the Hungry" give double the amount of stars as normal untitled ones.
• If your balloon runs out of fuel, your hunting trip is over. If you enter another balloon, you sacrifice the stars you have earned up to that point.
• If your balloon runs out of fuel, as it slowly crashes down, any aggroed or newly aggroed Wyverns may swoop down and attack.

Strategies

• The wyverns tend to do drive-by breath attacks. The best time to shoot a Magnum Shot would be right as they come in to attack.
• It may be prudent to have a player or two using the corresponding Magic Shield skills when the Wyverns swoop in.
• You may also use the ballistae to shoot at the Wyverns. Better bolts can be obtained as a reward for hunting wyverns.
  • Generally, having decent ranged combat skills or chaincasted firebolt is better than using the ballista.
  • Fully Chaincasted Firebolt is a very excellent way to take out Ice Wyverns and can do so in 1 to 2 hits with a decently ranked firebolt.
    • Note: In order to shoot your firebolt, your hot-air balloon needs to be higher than the Wyverns.
• Advanced Magic does not work on the Balloons.
• A Large Balloon is easier to work with than a small one due to the ability to move around.
• If things get rough, you may also use the Playing Dead action. However, their breath attacks have splash damage, so you may get knocked out of playing dead if a party mate is hit by it.
• Remember that the balloon will continue on the path you've set it on when you stop steering. For a (relatively) safe escape when the balloon's HP is low, set it to fly away from the wyverns then use Playing Dead.
• Another strategy could be wearing 9 pieces of equipment (2 Accessories, a Hat, Clothes, 2 Weapons (or weapon and shield) gloves, shoes, and a robe) enchanted with the element of the Wyvern you'll be fighting and then using magic to kill. Ex: Chaincasted firebolt on Ice Wyverns while wearing full ice gear thereby rendering the wyverns' damage to 1 while you can firebolt relatively safely. Be warned, Ice Wyverns can still freeze you.
  • Normally there's more than one, if not all three, types of wyverns in one area, so you might end up having extra damage dealt to you.
  • Because of the situation stated above, the full elemental tactic works best on areas that have a single species of Wyvern, such as the skies near Calida Camp.
• It is possible to hit a wyvern using a high ranked Windmill.

Advice for Giants

• If you play a giant, you'll be grounded to one ballista most of the time, and you won't have ranged attacks. During this time turn on auto-combat. It will aim and shoot for you and allows less effort with more output.
• Giants are ideal here as healers using healing, feathers, and Party-Healing especially.
• Giants, being less versatile/lethal on the balloon than their counter-parts, should just be willing to carry 2-3 stacks of flint and be the one to refuel when necessary.
• Remember your beast mode - it increases damage even with ballista and even if you're just healing it can return enough HP to save your life and give a good chunk of mana to keep healing allies.

Note: No knowledge of if Fullswing can reach wyverns from balloon or not; in debate due to its huge reach.

Rewards

• Much like Rafting, your score will determine your rewards.
• You'll always get the item in bold. You have a small chance to get the other items listed.
• Partial stars are rounded down. ie. Half of a star = 0 star

# of Small Stars	# of Big Stars	Gold	Exploration EXP	Item Set 1	Item Set 2
1~5	less than 1	460 g	410	Small Hot-air Balloon Kit x1 MP 10 Potion x5 Bandage x10	Small Hot-air Balloon Kit x1 Stamina 30 Potion x5 Ballista Bolts x30
6~10	between 1~2	1400 g	680	Ballista Bolts x10 Handmade Bandage x10 Enchant Scroll (Burst Soldier) x1	Thin Thread Ball x5 Handmade Bandage x10 Sunlight Herb x5
11~15	between 2~3	3000 g	890	Large Hot-air Balloon Kit x1 Base Herb x10 Bloody Herb x10	Thick Thread Ball x5 Handmade Ballista Bolts x30 Enchant Scroll (Mana Magician) x1
16~20	between 3~4	5480 g	1110	Wyvern Claw x1 Stamina 50 Potion x10 Snake's Gauntlet x1	Iron Ore x10 Large Hot-air Balloon Kit x1 Flint x2
21~25	between 4~5	7170 g	1310	Handmade Ballista Bolts x10 Fine Silk x1 Ancient Taming Cane x1	Iron Ore Fragment x10 Handmade Ballista Bolts x30 Enchant Scroll (Poison Archer) x1
26~30	between 5~6	8790 g	1560	Wyvern Claw x2 Iron Ingot x10 Fine Handmade Bandage x10	Copper Ore Fragment x10 Finest Silk x1 Likeability Potion x1
31~35	between 6~7	10690 g	1810	Wyvern Claw x3 HP 50 Potion x10 Giant Bird Leg Boots x1	Mandrake x10 MP 30 Potion x10 Silver Ore Fragment x10
36~40	between 7~8	12360 g	2060	Fine Handmade Ballista Bolts x10 Flint x5 Tikka Wood Taming Cane x1	Fine Leather x1 Enchant Scroll (Mana Witch) x1 Gold Ore Fragment x10
41~45	between 8~9	14500 g	2310	Wyvern Claw x4 Ring Bow x1 Mana Herb x10	MP 50 Potion x10 Finest Handmade Ballista Bolts x30 Wood Board x1
46~50	between 9~10	16050 g	2560	Wyvern Claw x5 Fine Fabric x1 Enchant Scroll (Poison Hunter) x1	HP 100 Potion x10 Finest Handmade Bandage x10 Finest Fabric x1
51+	more than 10	17810 g	2800	Finest Handmade Ballista Bolts x10 Poison Herb x10 Lightning Warrior's Helmet x1	Golden Herb x10 Enchant Scroll (Burst Warrior) x1 Finest Leather x1

Related Titles

#	Name	Requirement(s)	Effects
24	the Daring Hot-air Balloon Pilot	Add fuel when the balloon is about to crash. Note: Fuel must be added within the last second before the balloon completely runs out to earn the title, about 4 seconds after the fuel bar turns completely black.	MaxSP -30 Dex +10 Will +10 Int +5, Luck +5 Protection +3%
90	the Wyvern Hunter	Turn in 1000 Wyvern Claws to Kelpie	MaxHP +10 MaxMP +10 MaxSP -10 Str +20 Dex +20 Luck -15 Will -15