Warrior [Guide] Nisse's Hybrid Paladin Guide! (Updated)

[INTRODUCTION]

(Finally re-updated as of May 2020. All edits from Early 2020 are in blue. All edits from Late 2020 are in purple.)

Do you wanna kick ass with a sword, a blunt weapon AND swing a bad ass hammer around? Do you wanna be a bossing machine? Do you wanna have the best end game grinding that gives more XP than Horntail? Do you wanna be hipster? A Hybrid/Off-Meta Paladin might be what you're looking for!

Welcome to my Hybrid/Off-Meta Paladin Guide! My IGN is NisseONE (Lvl 16x) & currently the #5 Pally on Legends (I got over taken by all the Hammer mules... rip).

Wait... off-meta??? What is this League of Legends? Since when does MapleLegends have a meta? Yup the meta does exist in Legends and that would be the 1h blunt weapon Pally. Its great fun using a crushed skull and if you're interested, I highly recommend you check out SwordArt's Paladin Guide (it's also a great resource in general too ^^).

This guide will mention the basics about being a Pally, but it'll mainly focus on what makes it off-meta:

- Using a sword for bossing (Zak, Horntail, Bigfoot, etc), while using a blunt weapon leading up to 4th job
- Unlocking Heaven's Hammer as fast as possible (to start crims grinding as soon as possible)​

Spoiler: Terminology

• HH = Heaven's Hammer
• Crims = crimson guardians
• 1hbw = 1 hand blunt weapon
• 2hbw = 2 hand blunt weapon
• ST = stonetooth
• Skull = crushed skull
• BF = bigfoot
• Zak = Zakum
• HT = Horntail
• Dpm = damage per minute
• Epm = exp per minute
• White = deal the most dmg & get most xp in party
• Wa = weapon attack

Spoiler: The Off-Meta Strategy

The Strategy

1. Start with using 1h bw until 4th job (cheaper scrolling, tubes have fast attack speed,
2. Switch over to 2h sword once you hit 120
3. Finish core skills (except stance)
4. Start maxing HH (allows you to increase DPM @ zak arms without max stance)
5. Duo big foots (can't solo since you don't have max stance) @ train at petris
6. Once you have max HH, start training at crims (with the release of other maps, you can also grind at Shaolin 5-6F, 7F and some of the Neo Tokyo maps)

Using this strategy will drastically speed up getting to 155 (Horntail level). Afterwards, it's up to you what you want to do. If you're crazy about leveling and want to overtake SwordArt (#1 Pally atm), crims xp is better and more consistent than HT.

I get around 22% from a 2 hour Horntail run - around 56mil. While I get 1.8mil epm at crims. I'll train the same amount from a 2 hour HT in just over 30 minutes. But ofc, you have the chance of getting thicc splits from MW20 and HTP buyers, while crims just eats through your mesos.

(this strategy has been nerfed... with HH being a 15 second coooldown instead of 10 seconds :sad: BUT the ability to do 199k damage to an entire map is still really effective for grinding).
(this strategy has been FURTHER nerfed... with HH being capped at doing 50k damage to bosses... *cues sad music from the world's smallest violin* BUT in exchange we got a massive speed buff to HH, which was noticeably a sluggish skill, as well as a Holy/Divine charge buff~ )

[WHY PLAY A PALLY?]

Contrary to popular belief, Pallys are actually really good & useful at bossing. We are good at elementally weak bosses (like scar, bf, HH) and we're good for the main bosses too (Zak & HT). We might not output the same amount of dpm as heroes most of the time (actually, further testing showed that we do more damage than heroes for single target damage, it's just that there are more funded heroes than funded pallys that make it SEEM like pallys are worse at damage than heroes), but with HH we're more of a team player. For example we can clear mob spawns at bosses like dark wyverns at HT or those flying mayan idols at Zak.

With HH, we're pretty op. At Zak arms with max HH, you can do around 9-10m dpm guaranteed and can often white 2-3 arms minimum. (this... is no longer the case as HH is capped at 50k. However, with the speed increase for HH, you'll be able to get a cheeky HH off, all whilst you white the arm you're on because you're a swol Paly) Oh and you usually white scar & targa just by default since they're elementally weak.

Advantages:

- 3rd job is a breeze at least until you get to Lvl 110
- Great against elementally weak mobs & bosses (you will 99% of the times white scar just by default)
- Best late game grinder (we get xp equivalent to Archmages at around Lvl 146 latest following this guide)
- Great at taking Bfs (should be around 10-15m average time)
- Heaven's Hammer is one of the most satisfying skills - great multi target skill doing 199k dmg per target
- Cheap weapon scrolls while using your blunt weapon (until 4th job)​

Disadvantages:

- Bad rep about how Pallys are useless at bosses (totally not true) (3 years since the writing of this post, the new "rep" is that all Pallys are mules... big RIP)
- No party buffs (this makes pq-ing fairly difficult, especially getting people to accept you into the pq)
- Not as high dpm as heroes on element neutral mobs (but note: higher DPM on single target, aka one body bosses)
- Full damage spike in 4th job only comes after maxing ACB & Blast (around 133) - not like heroes and dks​

[WHY GO HYBRID/OFF-META?]

So most Pallys on this server tend to go with the crushed skull (1h blunt weapon) as their end game item. It's no doubt a great item and has the highest clean wa on an item, 120 being max wa. Its great for grinding because of the burst damage it does and is great for Petris. BUT by going Off-Meta and unlocking Heaven's Hammer asap, your weapon only matters for when you're bossing. Heck, I sometimes just train with a wooden wand *shrug*.

So, the only thing that matters for your weapon of choice is what's better at bossing. For some reason 4th job Pally's main attack skill (blast) has a different horizontal range depending on whether you use a 1h or 2h. Wtf does that mean? It means if you're using a 1h weapon, you'll feel like a T-Rex with short arms that can't reach things. (THIS HAS BEEN PATCHED! HALLELUJAH! No more t-rex pallys! We got arm extensions!!! but 2h weapons do still have longer reach than 1h, so that's important to keep in mind)

When I initially wrote this guide 3 years ago, the idea of a Hybrid Pally revolved around improving "quality of life". Going for a sword meant you didn't have to spend weeks grinding for an below-average crushed skull or feeling like a t-rex with short arms at bosses. The idea of Hybrid Pally now revolves around DAMAGE/EFFICIENCY. Using BWs at early level for that cheap training, and 100% resorting to swords at the end-game. Why? Because Neo Tokyo swords are just super OP.



At Lvl 200 with perfect gear, perfect weapon, mw20, and a gelt chocolate (aka the highest possible form of damage), you can see that the Neo Tokyo 2h sword clearly outperforms the crushed skull. Essentially every other sword outperforms it as well. There reveals absolutely no reason to go for a blunt weapon-only build with the release of Neo Tokyo.

Note: if you're not training, you could just go complete sword pally and I won't hold it against you either.

For example with a 1h weapon (a crushed skull) at Zak you won't be able to hit the top left arm, while at HT you can't hit either arms or the left head. Okay so I'll use a 2h bw! No please don't.. all 2h bw are absolute garbage. Meaning you should go into a 2h sword instead. By doing so you'll have a more comfortable time at HT and you'll also feel less like strangling yourself cus you can't reach that arm that's literally dangling infront of you.

This extra range you get with the 2h sword also makes your life wayyy easier when BF-ing, as if you stand just a bit far enough you can hit all your attacks on BF. With a skull you have to be right up in its face, which triggers its jump (which makes it invincible/un-attackable for a few frames), meaning less hits landed on it + requiring precise timing to hit it.

Oh, and an added bonus for going Hybrid is that you allow yourself to have a cheaper & easier life until 4th job as 1h bw scrolls are superrrr cheap.

______

Note: There are lightning weak bosses (such as Anego, Black Crow, and Kacchu Musha), for those I tend to just switch back to my 1hbw (I have a shitily scrolled skull on me). Crows & samurais are worth killing if you can find them for the potential drops, while for Anegos unless you're hella washed or duo-ing with a DK, they'll prbly 1 hit ko you. Anego's range attack is 18-19k and it's usually better left to the ranged classes to deal with that while you hog all the bfs

[AP BUILD]

There's legit only 2 builds you should even consider on Legends.

Low Dex - capping your dex at around 30-40 max

- You want to hit 120 dex by 120 so you can equip a ST, so the rest of the dex will need to come from equips​

Dexless - pumping all your points into str and keeping dex at 4

- Requires amazing funding or godlike scrolling to reach 120 total dex while being dexless
- Not to mention, requires a lot of accuracy gear at lower levels since warriors already suffer from accuracy issues without being dexless​

In my opinion, I highly recommend low dex and then after you finalize your gear (like getting a horntail pendant), you reset away the dex. Orrr if you plan on going a Dragon Claymore instead of a ST, you don't need to hit 120 dex.

[HP WASHING]

Hp washing is not an absolute necessity on Pallys, but it is highly recommended to wash at least a little.

Hp washing will help you BF earlier/comfortably without having to worry about being 1 shot (it does around 9k damage). Ideally you wanna start BF-ing around 135 and having around 10-11k hp by then.

With the release of PB, this might not be 100% true. Touch damage for PB is around 22k, while the highest magic damage from PB is around 18.5k. So getting to these values by 185 should be considered a must if you're going for the SUPER END GAME Pally. AKA if legitimately think that you're aiming for a Lvl 200 character, or are open to the possibility. If you wanna be casual and eventually reach 160ish, you don't need to hyperwash for PB.

I'm no HP washing expert (legit, I half-assedly washed) and there are a ton of detailed HP washing guides on Legends already, so I won't get into that.

[SP BUILDS | 1st , 2nd, 3rd Job]

Spoiler: 1st Job SP Build

HP Recovery [5]
MaxHP Increase [10 - MAX]
Slash Blast [20 - MAX]
Power Strike [20 - MAX]
Iron Body [6]

You max MaxHp Increase before your attack since that nets you more HP in the long run & allows you to wash from Lvl 15 onward if you wanna be one of those hardcore 30k clean hp washing machines.

Spoiler: 2nd Job SP Build

For 2nd job if you go Hybrid you'll have to choose to use your remaining SP on either Threaten or Iron Body. Threaten is good while you're grinding, but at bosses it's pretty much useless. Iron Body is a good added defense in addition to Power Guard, and I find it pretty handy at HT. Before rotating to heads at main body won't be able to Power Guard and the added def helps in my opinion (much more compared to the unused Threaten at least).

DO NOT GO FINAL ATTACK. Not only does it stick you in an animation reducing your DPM, it wastes precious SP you need to go Hybrid!

Spoiler: 2nd Job - Threaten Build

BW Mastery [10]
BW Booster [10]
BW Mastery [19]
BW Booster [19]
Power Guard [30 - MAX]
Threaten [14]
Sword Mastery [20 - MAX]
Sword Booster [19]

Spoiler: 2nd Job - Iron Body Build

BW Mastery [10]
BW Booster [10]
BW Mastery [19]
BW Booster [19]
Power Guard [30 - MAX]
Sword Mastery [20 - MAX]
Sword Booster [19]
Iron Body [20 - MAX]

Spoiler: 3rd Job SP Build

BW Ice Charge [1]
BW Fire Charge [30 - MAX]
BW Thunder Charge [30 - MAX]
Charged Blow [30 - MAX]
Sword Fire Charge [30 - MAX]
Sword Ice Charge [30 - MAX]

Avoid magic crash like it's the plague and you're pretty much set. I made the mistake of MAXing it... it doesn't work on this server I can verify T-T

If you want to train with Ice charge for your BW, you can switch things around but there aren't that many ice weak mobs and Ice is your weakest charge. Fire charge is 175% dmg, Lightning is 150%, while Ice is only 125%. So it's always preferred to train at fire weak mobs. Additionally, the only time you'll actually use Ice charge is for targa, meaning it's better left on your Sword than your BW.

[SP BUILD | 4TH JOB]

Spoiler: 4th Job SP Build (NEW!)

Spoiler: 4th Job - Traditional Build

Rush [1]
ACB [10 - MAX]
Blast [30 - MAX]
Stance [10]
Heaven's Hammer [30 - MAX]
Stance [30 - MAX]
Holy/Divine Charge [20 - MAX]
MW [9]
Achilles

Spoiler: 4th Job - Ignoring ACB

Rush [1]
Blast [30 - MAX]
Stance [10]
Heaven's Hammer [30 - MAX]
Stance [30 - MAX]
Holy/Divine Charge [20 - MAX]
MW [9]
ACB [10 - MAX]
Achilles

Spoiler: 4th Job - HH Rush

Rush [1]
Heaven's Hammer [30 - MAX]
Blast [30 - MAX]
Stance [10]
Holy/Divine Charge [20 - MAX]
Stance [30 - MAX]
ACB [10 - MAX]
MW [9]
Achilles

Balance patches have actually made things a bit complicated for Pally builds in my opinion. Since there are a number of key skills now, with equal importance.

• HH is still great for mobbing/grinding (especially with ice charge + HH to freeze everything)
• Blast is still crucial for bossing (and probably one of the highest damage spike skills, since blast is 600% damage)
• Stance is such an important QoL skill, and as someone who played with stance 5 to max out HH as fast as possible, it really does make such a huge difference
• Holy/Divine charge is 185% damage, which makes it a must-have, but not necessarily a priority skill, as it just fine tunes your damage

Spoiler: 4th Job SP Build (OLD OUTDATED)

Spoiler: 4th Job - Recommended

Rush [1]
ACB [10 - MAX]
Blast [30 - MAX]
Stance [10]
Heaven's Hammer [30 - MAX]
Stance [30 - MAX]
MW [9]
Achilles

Spoiler: 4th Job - HH Rush

Rush [1]
Heaven's Hammer [30 - MAX]
Blast [30 - MAX]
Stance [30 - MAX]
ACB [10 - MAX]
MW [9]
Achilles

Ignore Divine/Holy Charge.. it has a cool animation but unless you plan on skele-ing (why do that when you have petris and crims), totally not worth it...

For the Hammer build, you can switch ACB and stance if you want. Stance makes bossing and BFing way easier, but ACB stuns mobs and is good for helping clear out the flying mobs at Zak or Wyverns at HT. Alternatively, you could also go:

Rush 1
Max HH
Blast 30
Stance 10
ACB 10
Stance 30
​

Spoiler: 4th Job Skill Quests

Advanced Charge Blow

• • From Zakum
  • Some guilds do skillbook/helm packages where you loot the skillbook when you get the helm at like Lvl 50. That way you don't have to waste like tons of times trying to get ACB at Lvl 120, thereby halting your training speed.

Rush

• • Hunt for Indecipherable Book from taurospears or just buy it in FM
  • Head to Manji in Perion and accept the quest
  • Hunt 200 taurospears in a dungeon in Sanctuary Entrance (Sleepywood), with another 4th job warrior (your partner can already have rush)

Stance

• • Hunt for Crimson Balrog's Proposal from Crimson Balrogs, then talk to 4th job instructor
  • Talk to Spiruna and give her the Proposal
  • Talk to 4th job instructor
  • Hunt for Lycanthrope's Proposal from Lycanthropes
  • Talk to 3rd job instructor then do El Nath PQ

Heaven's Hammer

• • Talk to Wiz the Librarian
  • Talk to Village Chief Totamo
  • Hunt Griffey for Chief Totamo's necklace and return to Chief
  • Talk to the "Insignificant Being" in Sleepywood Dungeon
  • The Remember will ask you to find a key and a shield
  • Kill Jr Balrog for key
  • Go to Sanctuary Entrance 4 and find the shield in the arena
  • Return to Librarian Wiz

Holy/Divine Charge

• • Talk to 4th job instructor at Leafre
  • Hunt for 10x Shark Teeth
  • Go to the bottom of The Grave of a Wrecked Ship (Aqua Road)
  • Talk to Taeng the Explorer
  • Hand in Shark Teeth
  • Talk to Village Chief Tomato/Tatamo/Totamo (the guy in Leafre)
  • Do the Pre-quest for Horntail:
    • 1x skull mask from Cornians
    • 1x cornian marrow from Green Cornians
    • 1x broken dagger from any Cornians
    • 1x Manon Cry from Manon (not a 100% drop)
    • 10x Red Dragon Skins from wyverns/drakes (go to Dark Wyverns)
  • Talk to Mos in Leafre to craft a Cornian Dagger (you need 1x mithril and 1x steel plate)
  • Enter the Horntail PQ, kill the skelegons until the Holy Cup with Holy Water filled is dropped
  • Go to Orbis Tower <8th Floor>
  • Talk to Statue of a Goddess

You can do the other skill quests for fun (I did them while I was waiting to get my ACB - took me 10 runs). Do note that if u go the 2h sword build, guardian doesn't work since you don't have a shield.

[TRAINING]

Spoiler: Training Locations

Lvl 1 - 35: Lots of questing and low level grinding (refer to this guide)

Lvl 35 - 45: LPQ, Teddies, Platoon & Master Chronos

Lvl 45 - 45: Straw Target Dummies

Lvl 50 - 70: LMPQ, Mysterious Path 3, Ghost Ship 1, 5, 2 & Windraiders, Forest of Golems

Lvl 70 - 80: Windraiders, Dual Ghost Pirates & Wolfspiders

- Dual Ghost Pirates are weak to fire and have an amazing layout (you kill on your way down, enter/exit FM, and you're back at the top)
- Thanks Adra for the info!​

Lvl 80 - 95: Vikerolas, Gallos & Grim Phantom Watches

- Mannequins @ Taipei 101 (thanks to HammerTime for info)
- CDs @ Taipei 101 (this map was recently buffed, and it's really good for money making/exp/party training)​

Lvl 95 - 110: Himes with Priest & Blue Wyverns

- Hurts a lot more than Grims but way faster
- Thanks again to Adra ^^​

Lvl 110 - 123 (aka Hell): Headless Horseman, more himes, more grim phantom watches, and skeles with low level bishops if you can

- You're pretty much still a 3rd job nub with low damage until you max ACB​

Lvl 123-15x: Skeles with bishop duo (I hate the skele maps so I avoided this at all costs T-T), Petris, Bigfoots, and Zaks

- Few new maps that you can train at = Shaolin Temple 1-2F, 3-4F, 5-6F (provided you have the accuracy)
- New bosses that you can do = CWKPQ, Ravana, Krexel​

Lvl 15x (or whenever you have max HH) onwards = Crimson Guardians

- So far the best xp in the game for warriors
- Check out this guide for a more detailed explanation on how to Crims
- As mentioned before, with the HH nerf to 15 seconds, crims isn't the BEST but still viable... you could graduate to Shaolin 7F and Neo Tokyo for training as well
- Bosses like Horntail, Toad, Jiaoceng all become more relevant with this change (since you aren't brainlessly grinding away with HH anymore)​

[RECOMMENDED EQUIPMENT]

Spoiler: Stonetooth v Claymore

Alternatively to the ST, you could go with the Dragon Claymore. It is 110wa clean, and can its a far cheaper alternative to the ST. Also if you have SI in your bossing guild, it's preferable over the ST since you get the same att speed but with more WA. You also won't have to hit the 120 dex requirement so if you're not funded thats another pro for you.

That said, if you do want to output the most dpm especially on apples or stoppers, and don't have a permanent (which is likely, cus people die or are unavailable) ST is always the better option.

But for TRUE end-game, you should gun for one of the Neo Tokyo swords 100%.

For TRUE TRUE TRUE end-game, I guess you go for the Timeless 2h Sword

Spoiler: Early Game Gear Guide

Hat: Blue Wisc with as much acc
Bathrobe: scrolled for dex (this will be with you till Lvl 80 or 100)
Shoes: squishy shoes from KPQ or silver strap shoes scrolled for dex
Shield: scroll stolen fence for wa (good for resale when you transition to 2h sword)
Weapon: start with a Pig's Illustrated scrolled for accuracy > switch to the 1h bw tubes (eg. white duck tube, emergency rescue tube, yellow tube, etc) scrolled for attack

At Lvl 50:

- Get a Zak Helm to help with HP washing (even if you're not washing now, it's good to have that extra int in the future if you choose to wash later)
- Get a Deputy Star if you can (if not, just get it at Lvl 80 from the Bounty Hunter quest - tons of high level players will help you out with getting a toe or HH Head if you find a BF or HH for them)​

Tons of thanks to BlackApe, Yolock, SwordArt, Pigeon, and Adra for ^^

#PallyLivesMatter (#PallyLivesMatter, we ain't no mules... I think...)

 

Yup there aren't that many bosses weak to thunder Charge and also even if they are you can just switch out your sword for a BW and kill it if you needa.

Right now my setup includes a pretty shittly scrolled 126wa skull so for bosses like Kashu or crow I just equip that instead.

Also Ice Charge for blunt is only 1 point just for utility. Ice Charge for sword is actually maxed since targa & manon (which you'all massacre to get cries for HT) are both weak to Ice.

 

Ayeee yup PallyLivesMatter ooo yea I forgot about Crow, Samurai and Anego (apparently also weak to lightning). Right now I keep my 1hbw with me so I usually just equip that when I'm dealing with those bosses, especially since they don't need that extra horizontal range from a 2h to kill.

And damn I wish I knew about blue wyverns when I was that level T-T no wonder it felt so slow at Grims. (Btw I'll put all your suggestions into the main post once I'm back home ^^)

Hahaha everytime only the top left/right arm was left at Zak I couldn't help but think of that trex quote from the robinsons :'D

 

Thanks ^^ Pallys get a lot of hate so I really wanted to make it as indepth and easy to understand as possible so that new players don't get tempted to the dark side f3 (pun intended if anyone caught that)

Thanks man, that means a lot

 

Thanks thanks ^^

It's definitely more cost efficient to stick with 1 end game weapon, and this is my guide based on my mistakes and what I would do differently if I planned properly in the beginning. I was actually a full 1hbw Pally up until Lvl 140, and I sp resetted to go hybrid (took around a month or so). So I only have fire charge & for bw I have fire, ice, lightning.

So whenever I go for manon or targa I have to switch back to my crushed skull. But even for scar, I sometimes switch out for my skull since it does more burst damage & it feels superrrr satisfying because it hits so much harder xD (a skull can hit 120k+ with blast). Though the trade off is that its inconsistent damage - lots of variance so you can also hit 30-40ks as well.

By going hybrid you can experiment and choose between a bunch of weapons (since you have fire charge on both weapons, you can always alternate). I found that way more enjoyable than only being able to choose 1 path. Like while testing numbers and stuff, I rotated between a crushed skull (1hbw), sparta (1h sword), claymore (2h sword), and a stonetooth (2h sword). If you find / are succesfully able to scroll one, you can also add a red katana into that mix too ^^

 

Included mannequins @ Taipei as a good alternative to Vikerolas and Grim Phantom Watches because of their auto-aggro.

Thanks to HammerTime for letting me know about this ^^