Pirate Buccaneer SP guide post-Anniversary Fiasco

I have seen some sort of confusion in game recently, a lot of stuff has changed with the revert of Anniversary changes. A lot of those questions came from players who have leeched their Buccs as SI mules, and never played them manually.

I have made a full video talking about it HERE:


But if you would rather want more comprehensive, text version:

LEVEL
120-121:
unlock barrage, speed infusion, dragon strike first, then Super Transform, Demo, Time Leap

121-135: ~42 points to spend
invest skill points until:
11 Dragon Strike (10 points)
11 Speed infusion (10 points)
11 Barrage (10 points)
11 Super Transformation (10 points)

Spoiler: EXPLANATION:

At those levels you are going to mostly AoE grind on stuff like lower floors of Sutra Repository and other places.
For that purpose we need:
Dragon Strike 11 (for 6 target cap, which makes your bubble charging 50% faster than 4 targets)
Our grinding skill is STILL Energy Blast from 3rd job but we will be now weaving in DS and Barrages inbetween Corkscrews.
Barrage comes next. After the buff to its speed its an incredibly valuable button, gives us iframes and it shits out damage PLUS it locks down and pins / pushes the bosses even when they are weapon cancelled.
We are going to put here around 11 points, to get a lot of bang for our bucc.
We have 20 points to spare. I would suggest either Maxing Super Transformation or 11 point speed infusion
Since at this level your demo is gonna SUCK, even during ST you will be pressing Barrage > Demo alternating, but demo is a good filler.
I marked 135 specifically because its a zakum level, and trust me you gonna get REAL intimate with this boss. Probably die couple times if you arent washed. (Do your HP challenges!!)
Note, if your SI is still level 1, you are screwing paladins and heroes over. If you do Party content a lot
you probably SHOULD GET 11 INTO SPEED INFUSION

135-155: ~60 points to spend
invest skill points until:
20 Super Transformation (9 points)
11 Energy Orb (10 points)
20 Demolition (19 points)
20+ Time Leap (19+ points)

Horntail time!!!

Spoiler: EXPLANATION:

Its time to join some Horntail groups! Insane xp, great money, very fun to do, infinitely more exciting than grinding 7f until your eyes bleed.
You CAN opt into leaving Time Leap, and instead investing into your own personal damage, but i WOULDNT recommend it. Your main value as a buccaneer is providing the buffs to Paladins (who frankly shit on your damage output) helping others that benefit from SI, and resetting ressurect cooldowns etc.

155-200:
From now on, its your choice. I would highly suggest grabbing 11 points into Snatch. Its a very powerfull aoe skill, highly underrated.
And start working on getting your attack skills like Orb and Barrage to 20. The Priority of your damage dealing skills for maxing is gonna be somewhere between Demo or DS, depending what kind of content you are doing and how much time you are spending at 7F.
But i would highly suggest not putting 30 points into any attack before you have 20 in everything at least(well maybe except snatch?)
Another thing to consider is MW20 (+) if you will want to fit that and become ultimate buff boy (Which is my plan in future) you will probably have to skimp out on some skills, probably snatch and orb gonna have to stay at 20.
But if you are at 180+ level why are you reading this guide bro?

GAMEPLAY when you have your core skills unlocked:


Sources for UPDATED skill values in the post here:
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/august-2025-balance-changes-explained.59340/

TO MW OR NOT TO MW:

Spoiler: Maybe?

The difference between having or NOT having mw20 buff is roughly 9% depending on your gear. MW30 is up to 12%
So, considering on most skills going from 20 -> 30 is roughly 9% more damage from that specific skill mind you, one could make argument that its worth leaving some skills unmaxed, and grabbing mw20 instead.

OF course, if nobody else in your party is a MW20/30 wielder.
So it ends up being around 0.5%~ personal damage per point spent on MW but also Quite a lot for entire party if nobody else has it.
But thats specific to your party composition and content done.

 

Quote from August 2025 update post for ease of access:

 

Great question. Honestly, this could go both ways. If you do a lot of grinding content with many targets to hit, DS would add up to more damage to combo between barrages.
But if you are hitting a single monster (think zak after arms) you will be spending 2 minutes doing barrage orb orb combo, or 2 minutes doing demolition.

The problem is, 10 more points in demo is a TINY damage increase

going from 425% to 460% means you are getting LESS THAN 10% of your Demolition damage gain for 10 skill points
and thats with ST being available for Half of the Time in the encounter.
In meantime, you could spend those 10 points on orb and gain this much more on your skill used outside of super transform.

And dragon strike even with 20 very valuable points is still DESTROYED by 3rd job energy blast in cleave situations. And yes, i was surprised about it too.

Regarding training, yeah those levels are quite a slog. Sutra Repository i mean the China Shaolin temple, accesible by Spinel World tour girl in every main city.

 

i think i went through around

Spoiler: uhm

100 sp resets

between anni update and now hahah

 

11 DS will change your life mate

 

current bucc is slightly adjusted PRE ANNI buccaneer.
Anniveersary bucc had very powerfull energy orb, a lot of pressure on pressing comboes for optimal damage

 

So Basically, with super transform being available 2/3 of the combat time earlier, people who played bucc were used to to infinity iframes, and they were satisfied with damage output. Then it got changed to 1/3 of time in demo, but it was CRAPPING out damage but had waaay less iframes, and required more attention while plaging

So now we are into 2:2 paradigm where we have neither the OP damage or iframes / simple gameplay

At least that's how i understand it.
Also orb wasnt anything magical during the anni, it was just 25%~ stronger which meant you could hold it down, and only press barrage when you needed to dodge something. Now barrage has incredibly high damage, so it has to be pressed whenever possible. You can still Dodge stuff with corkscrew, but it doesnt work on stuff like horntail platforms or if you stand next to edge of screen.
Because corkscrew only grants iframes if it moves your character, even if you hit something

 

well, i didnt really mean infinite exactly, but a lot of them.

just like now spamming demo isnt perfect coverage

 

Added a second video with papulatus explaining damage moves and shi