Luu's Journey to a Main

Yeah, that sounds about right. Managed to actually scroll a +15 INT one with 3 more scroll slots remaining, but then didn't think about 100% ones and instead blew the thing up with another 70%.

You are right, though, in that it's completely unnecessary for this mage. It's something I can worry about once I have some decent income, at which point I should probably just be able to afford buying a scrolled bathrobe.

 

Was gonna do another session tonight, but it seems I put a bit too much strain on the fingers of my left hand ripping out some pavers, and am having difficulty pressing down keys on the keyboard with them. Not really conductive to grinding, when you struggle to press the attack key. Back at it tomorrow then.

 

Session 11

Seems I have a package?

Oh hey, Leo (poster above) sent me a Maple Llama staff, scrolled as well! Much appreciated! Won't be able to use that for a little bit, but definitely helps!

In the meantime, gonna try switching to Zombie Lupins to take advantage of that quest mentioned earlier here. Not sure if I'm too far lower than their level to hit consistently, but we'll find out!

Looks like I do, and going from bottom to top yields ~4%. So, time to do that 25 times.

Or 27 times, because I made the critical error of running low on health thinking that healing to attack would save me, while also running out of MP. Really need to invest in safety charms, because I'm definitely playing fast and loose with my safety with this character.

Also, there's been a person selling a +19 INT male bathrobe for 130 million for days now and damn if I had the money I'd probably buy it. Just salt in the wound at this point.

Hit level 38. Realized that the quest that you turned cursed dolls in for requires doing that other quest out of Sleepywood first. Did that real quick. Got a sauna robe, I guess for blowing up with some scrolls later. Some GM buffs happened, so I decided to grind for the duration of those and hit level 39 (with the assistance of those cursed doll quests; still have plenty left for those to go).

 

Session 12

Someone suggested perhaps at some point switching over to Jr. Wraiths/Wraiths. I think I'll switch over to Jr. Wraiths once I wrap up these Zombie Lupin quests, because the EXP difference between them (70 versus 90) isn't that great, but Jr. Wraiths should die much faster. I'll have to experiment.

But until then, need these cursed dolls. Should just be two more of these quests remaining. Fortunately it seems GMs are being rather generous this weekend with buffs, so more GM buffs this time around to accelerate things a bit. Wrapped up that quest and managed to hit level 41.

Then turned in the gach tickets I accrued during it and wound up with a yellow gaia cape and a dark scroll for shield for magic attack 30%. Looking up the value of the latter nearly killed me. Which reminds me, I'm level 41 now, I can do those quests mentioned earlier that get some convenient scrolls. Conveniently, my I/L happens to be in Ludi already, so I can make clever use of VIP teleport rocks to avoid the lengthy travel of going between the two.

Unfortunately the first quest requires going all the way down that dumb tower, so it'll still take forever. After getting the necessary things, I then employed my clever strategy of buying some town-specific warp scrolls to avoid having to climb back up the tower.

Or at least, I would, if that actually worked. Nope! Looks like I get to climb up the damn tower. Can't even trade the warp passes on my I/L because they're untradeable.

Oh wait, I can just buy an eos rock scroll. Duy. Still need to take ships back from Ludi, but sure beats climbing that damn tower.

Also while sitting in NLC and working out my bearings (I rarely spent any time there under previous characters), I did the math and it seems that the 60% MP healing potion becomes financially worthwhile once you have 4200 or so MP. Something for me to keep in mind.

Anyway, got the guaranteed scrolls from the various quests, shoved them into a store, and suddenly my funding is looking a little bit better. Though not to be used on equipment! This is to be saved for buying leech to level 120. Dunno how much that'll cost in the end, but by then I should be able to print money and then all the relatively cheap washing equipment will be mine.

Tested killing Jr. Wraiths and Wraiths; seems I can actually kill Wraiths rather comfortably. Decided, though, to move to Master Chronos instead, for the chance of those scrolls and to shore up my funding even more.

I have noticed, though, that things have been slowing down a little bit. I hope that when I transition over to GS2 (or really any of the GS maps), that things speed back up at least a little bit. Don't really know what to expect on that front.

Took a bit, but finally reached level 43 and can equip the new staff.

I will probably not change much in how I look from this with this character until... honestly no clue. A good long while.

 

Session 13

The nice thing about grinding is that it's the perfect activity to do when performing a task that only requires your attention once in a while, such as laundry. Got to level 44; things are progressing at a nice pace.

 

Session 14

Decided to be wasteful with some of my funds and try scrolling the sauna robe. Blew it up on the 5th scroll, already with one of them failing earlier. Oh well, wasn't meant to be. Back to grinding. Figures, given that it looks like the supply of cheap 70% scrolls is getting a bit exhausted. Means I'll just buy a fully-scrolled bathrobe down the line instead.

It also seems that I've now hit the sweet spot with regard to my level of MP eater, and I'm basically not even using MP potions when grinding at Master Chronos. I think I used... 1, when grinding up to level 45. I also managed to get 2 of those helmet DEX scrolls, so cashed in my gach tickets (got nothing) and set up shop before calling it for now.

 

Session 15

Decided to spend more time at it, since otherwise I was sitting around with little else to do. It seems now, at level 45, that I've reached the point where I can cycle through the whole collection of Master Chronos without expending any resource other than time.

Actually... how soon is it to move to GS1? I think one of the guides here suggested it at level 40, with the idea that even with all the missing, it'd be roughly equivalent with grinding at Platoon Chronos and only improve with each level. I'm level 45, so I'm already a good way closer. I imagine there'd be a ton of misses regardless, but... it's quite the experience point improvement. Sure, the dropped items sell for less, but at this point in the game funding is not my priority and I'm already sitting on like 39 million. That and they drop gach, which is still plenty valuable.

I decided to do a test. Try and kill soul teddies. Sure, they're 5 levels above a pac pinky, but it should give me some indication on how bad my miss rate will be.

It's... actually not terrible. I mean, sure, I'm being battered around like a pinball and my MP is draining dramatically due to the massive amount of damage I take every hit (given that I get two-shot by everything, can't go without mana guard), but the hit rate isn't awful here. EXP ratio is (they have triple the health of a Master Chronos but not triple the experience, while pac pinky has double the health and roughly double the experience), but that's besides the point. Following that math it also seems that death teddies offer roughly (for something that's undead) the same ratio of HP to experience. Surprised more people don't grind at death teddies, though I suppose by then you're just buying leech.

Hell, even killed a master teddy or two. First time I've seen a red enemy name; probably because they're over 20 levels higher than me.

I guess it's time to see what ghost ship is really made of.

Actually, that's a rather stupid sentence, because we know exactly what it's made of. Ghosts. It's made of ghosts. That's kinda the point.

I suppose given the fact that the HP to experience ratio is roughly the same between pac pinky and master chronos, there isn't really much of a point to moving there now in terms of raw leveling potential. However, it's my understanding that the map for ghost ship is much more compact, so I should be able to kill pac pinky at a much quicker pace. I might not even need to move!

...actually, taking a look at various maps, why not try skeleton soldiers over in the excavation site? That... should be pretty comparable, and the drops are much better. And almost certainly less crowded. Doesn't hurt to test the waters.

This map is actually kinda good! Portal from bottom to top, then drop down level to level and kill the skeletons. Everything clusters nicely. Can even sit up top to heal. It has probably an equal if slightly lesser experience rate than GS1, but I can see how this fails to compare to GS2, even if you move over to the area where skeleton officers spawn maximally rather than skeleton soldiers (the slimy equivalents). An interesting digression, but it seems like I'd only be there for a few levels before moving to ghost ship anyway. So, to ghost ship I go.

Killed some pac pinkies along the way. Yeah, I can hit them just fine. Given how quickly they died, I see why people grind here.

Oh my god. The density. The ease at which they die! I'm not even missing any of them! I'm not even spending MP grinding here; I gain it all back before any is spent.

If I had only one complaint, it is that the music here sucks. Time to queue up some of Medtner's sonatas, then, as performed by Hamelin...

Stopped at level 46 because if I didn't make myself stop, then I'd just keep this up all night. Which would be bad for, y'know, remaining employed.

 

I think they fixed the mannequin global aggro thing, so I probably can't get as absurdly rich there. Well, can probably still get pretty rich, but I'll have to teleport across each floor to aggro them manually rather than just having them all come to me.

 

Session 16

Figured to do GS1 until probably level... 48 or so, then move to GS5, and then eventually GS2.

Thinking about it, how worthwhile would it be for me to at some point, prior to making the Bucc, also make a MU mule? I suppose it just depends on what exactly I do with this eventual bishop. Ugh, so many different ways to approach things... These are the paths I see ahead:

1. Get the current mage to maxed holy symbol, use as HS mule while grinding under the created Bucc character and powering through all that base INT, until reaching a level where I would rather leech, at which point doing a combination of buying leech on the HS mule-turned-bishop and self-leeching the Bucc.
2. Get the current mage to Bishop, create MU and HB mules so that it can efficiently generate some amount of money (will have to self-leech both of those), then use it for self-leeching the Bucc the whole distance.
3. Get the current mage to maxed holy symbol, use as HS mule while grinding under the created Bucc character and powering through all that base INT, flip the HS mule to a bishop, create the MU and HB mules and self-leech those so that the self-leeching of the Bucc will be more efficient? Is it worth it at that point?
4. Get the current mage to maxed holy symbol, use as HS mule while grinding under the created Bucc character and powering through all that base INT. Pay for leech for the Bucc once necessary; leave the HS mule behind as nothing more than an HS mule.

Hard to say what path to go from here. Nothing needs to be decided yet, of course; I'm only level 48 under this mage and the Bucc isn't even created yet. I... feel like 3 makes the most sense, but at the same time I don't know whether those other mules would be useful at that point. Presumably? I'm not sure how worthwhile it would be to slow things down so I can wash the MU mule any amount (I don't really have plans to convert it to an NL), and the HB mule almost certainly doesn't need anything going for it besides the ability to cast max-level HB.

Ugh, decisions, decisions... presumably if I'm gonna go down the MU route and actually bother doing some amount of washing as it goes (as per the guide), I'd want to set up the account now to start voting on it. Or just, y'know... don't. After all, if I'm doing all of this to make an end-game Bucc, do I really care about having a potential NL in the back pocket? I'm not so sure I do.

Also at some point I should probably figure out how pets work for my mage.

 

So far I've not actually needed any extra HP at GS. I tend not to get much in the way of lag spikes, and go without mana guard for efficiency. I think GS5 will probably be pushing things a little riskier than GS1 was, but we'll see. Not that it'd take long to hammer out an HB mule; won't take more than a day. Then just keep it in FM for the occasions that I need HB.

The idea of keeping the mage as a HS mule and creating an F/P for money generation/self-leeching is an intriguing one. I'm not really all that attached to the mage I'm working on right now, so I don't really care whether or not it has utility beyond HS or not.

Decisions, decisions...

 

Thinking on it some more, my goal is to be a bossing Bucc, which does seem at some point to generate plenty of revenue on its own, particularly as an in-demand class like buccaneer. What I am working on is all in facilitation of that end goal. I don't want to get too sidetracked by focusing on things that I don't need to that end. This character should, at some point, be able to pay for itself. It should also be able to do plenty of grinding on its own, even with all that base INT.

I think I'll do the HB mule to keep my HS mule from getting killed during this stretch of the grind, and then max out HS at third job immediately (plus a point into door). I will worry about whether I need to make an F/P, or level the HS mule to a Bishop, or whatever else, later.

 

Thinking it over, I realize the above forgot the fact that I need probably around ~300 million mesos to finish all the equipment I need for washing.

Not that it's particularly necessary, but I'm missing some pretty big hitters. So, meso generation is a concern, before I even get to make my main.

I'll figure out whether or not to go HS mule + F/P or Bishop once I hit level 70 and make this cleric a priest, because regardless of route I'm gonna need a good chunk of change.

 

Yeah, I think it makes more sense to go the F/P route then. Which works out fine; Meteor Shower books are nice and cheap, especially compared to Genesis 30.