Degeneracy: How do I mule?

Did you just hit 4th job on your newly made Bishop? Congrats! However, does it feel like there's something lacking on the top right of your screen? Hmm what could it be? Oh buffs! That's right! Time to get your friends to buf-oh wait... you don't have any. Guess you gotta buff yourself then. Time to make a buff mule. But which mule should I make first? Is an SI mule gonna benefit me more, or a HB mule?

Welcome to the Mule Classification List!

Note: This is going to be one huge chunk of analytical text, with almost no images. You do not have to read through everything, since you might already have some mules, or some mules might not be applicable/relevant for you. If you're a new player, I wouldn't suggest reading any mule starting from number 8.

Mule Classification List

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Introduction
Now, some of you might ask. What is a mule?

A mule is a side character that you have created with the intent to serve (a) specific purpose(s), such as storage or skill. For example, you create a Level 81 Priest so that you can cast the skill 'Holy Symbol' on yourself for more EXP gain when training.

With the ever increasing number of players, new and old players alike are currently making mules, be it a simple Hyper Body mule for a new player's unwashed Bishop or a hyper-advanced state-of-the-art dexbucc for an established player. This list will list out all the mainstream mules in 2020, as well as rate them with two metrics: Difficulty and Utility

Difficulty will be based on two other factors - cost and resources, with cost being the cost in mesos needed to get the character mule-ready and the time cost needed to make the mule. Resources, on the other hand, would mean things like how many other characters you will need to use to make the mule ready.

Utility will be based on how useful the mule is, how it is applicable and in some cases, for how long the mule will be utilised.

Do note that I won't be quantifying the aforementioned values, as different people might have different ways of producing their mules and there might be a huge standard deviation from inconsistency in results if I start quantifying them. Therefore, this will be a qualitative classification, with the following assignments: Low, Low-Mid, Mid, Mid-High, High, Very High & Godly.

Lastly, I won't be adding outdated/niche stuff, such as a skele door mule, smoke mule, shaolin FP leech mule or a Level 98 Priest for ToT farming. The list will also be progressive, meaning I start with low-leveled ones and slowly progress through. Enough nagging, let's get started:

The Mules

1. Storage Mule
Difficulty - Low
Utility - High

Not enough slots to store your precious junk? Simple! Just make a new character on a separate account, level it to 7 (level required to get out of maple island) and get out of the Island so it can go to FM and function as a Storage Mule. Additionally, you can level it to 15 so that it can sell fame too for ~100k each and level 16 so that it can open a shop in the FM.

2. Guild PQ (GPQ)/Kerning PQ (KPQ) Mule
Difficulty - Low
Utility - Mid

Love the nostalgia of KPQ? Or are you part of a guild that does GPQ frequently? Make a Level 30 mule to fulfil your purpose. Typically, a Mage or Sin are the more common choices when it comes to making a GPQ/KPQ Mule. Do remember to suicide your character to prevent it from levelling though, as doing so would rend the character unable to do KPQ and the level 30 stage in GPQ.

3. Sweeper Mule
Difficulty - Low
Utility - Mid

Are you constantly seeing that out of place meso bag disappearing when leeching? Don't you wish there's just a way for you to loot it without breaking your rotation? Well, you can make a sweeper mule.

A sweeper mule is basically an out-of-party Thief that uses Dark Sight and a pet that goes around the map looting the monster drops, increasing the mesos earned by its user. Do note that the pet would require Item Pouch, Meso Magnet, Wing Boots, Binoculars and Magic Scales for it work.

Normally, sweeper mules are mule-ready once they have Dark Sight maxed. But if you want to have max speed/jump, you could always level it up to 37 so that it has max Haste. Furthermore, you can throw all the AP you have gained into HP so that you'll have enough HP to tank monsters and not suffer from unfortunate accidental deaths.

4. Hyper body (HB) Mule
For HB mules, I'll be splitting it into two sections: your typical Level 41 HB mule, and a Level 100 Neo Tokyo HB mule

Spoiler: Level 41 HB Mule

Difficulty - Low
Utility - Low-Mid

These are HB mules that are mostly used by Bishop/Mages that do not have 30k raw MP. They're used so that the Bishop/Mages can get to 30k total MP and save on potions (since you would be using pots that heal in % when you hit 4th job and start using your ultimates).

The reason I would classify this as a low-mid utility mule is due to the fact that once you hit 30k MP (which many people have and is not that hard to accomplish), this mule is pretty much useless, and would be more or less a storage mule of sorts.

Spoiler: Level 100 Neo Tokyo HB Mule

Difficulty - Mid
Utility - Mid-High

Why level it to 100 you ask? Because that's the level entry requirement for Neo Tokyo. Some ranged players do not have sufficient HP to tank some of the hits from the NT bosses, and they are unable to find a consistent DrK to HB them in every run. Hence, they resort to making these Level 100 mules to aid them in their bossing adventures in NT.

5. Ludi PQ (LPQ) Mule
Difficulty - Low
Utility - Low-Mid

Fancy the nOsTaLgIa of LPQ? Want to expedite the washing process of your 250 int INTLORD? An LPQ mule might just be for you! LPQ mules are capped at Level 50 and most of them are Assassins or sindits(bandits that use claw and lucky seven).

As to why I would give it a Low-Mid Utility, each LPQ takes around 20 - 25 minutes to clear, provided you can find a competent party and a channel. The average NX from each run is 400 NX, provided you don't get cucked and have your drops stolen. You would also have to deal with potentially incompetent/afk teammates, and many people get visibly frustrated after LPQing a few times.

GPQ, on the other hand, is easily duo-able/trio-able within 15 minutes, and nets around the same NX per run. If everyone knows what they are doing, it is much easier and less frustrating to do than LPQ, and chances of you getting your NX stolen is much smaller, since you are more likely to know your guildmates better than some random LPQ stranger.

Again, do remember to suicide it so that it doesn't level up to 51 and prevent you from doing LPQ.

6. Meso Up (MU) Mule
Difficulty - Mid
Utility - High

Who doesn't love more mesos? Be it the level 10 noob in FM begging for mesos, or the sweaty Level 170 Bishop at skeles with 6 clients, everyone loves more mesos! To increase the amount of mesos you get per hour from leeching, it is common for people to make a Level 77 Hermit so that they can cast the Meso Up buff on their mages for 50% more mesos. To quantify how much more mesos that would be, it is roughly 2mil more per hour at Ulu 2.

The most crucial thing for the MU mule is to obviously max MU, and Endure, so that you can heal your MP while hanging on the rope and not have to use any potions. As for the AP build, it is insignificant, but most just add all to HP so that the mule doesn't die when the rope glitch occurs. Furthermore, if you are a scrub that somehow doesn't have 140 speed/123 jump, the haste from the mule can be useful too.

Of course, you can utilise your MU mule as a Sweeper Mule too, but that would involve party inviting and kicking your mule.

7. Holy Symbol (HS) Mule
Difficulty - Mid
Utility - Very High

More EXP? Faster levelling speed? Yes please! A HS mule is simply a Level 81 - 84 Priest that stays in the party and casts HS every 120 seconds so that every character in the party that can leech EXP from the mob gains more EXP. A HS mule requires Level 3 Dispel to unlock HS, before dumping their next 30 skill points into HS. Sometimes, people would level their HS mule for one or two additional levels to get longer duration on their Mystic Door.

HS itself gives 10% more EXP when you are not in a party of at least 2 people. Therefore, it is recommended to have someone else in the party that can leech the EXP too if you want to enjoy the full benefits of HS.

Once again, do remember to suicide it before it over levels. There have been multiple instances in this server where people level their HS mules to 85 and can't keep them in party when selling ulu 1 leech, having to /partyinvite and expel the mule every 2 minutes.

8. Low level Bishop
Difficulty - Mid-High
Utility - High

Find yourself making more and more mules or attackers as you progress? Deviating from the usual "add AP into main stat" build? Can't find a low-level Bishop to sell you low level leech? A low-level Bishop to leech yourself will solve all of those problems!

Ideally, the low-level Bishop should be capped at a level where you can effectively 1 hit Wolfspiders with Genesis. If not, you can cap it at Level 120 for every mob up till Windraiders. The reason you don't want it to be too high-leveled is due to how the party formula works, where a higher total party level and level difference would result in you leeching less exp from the Bishop whenever it kills a mob.

You should only have a point in Genesis if you don't plan to 1 hit WS with it. The extra damage from the higher skill level effectively does nothing to your 1 hit KO ability for every mob up till Windraiders, and will only cost you more MP per cast and increase your pot cost.

If you are sweaty enough, you can MP wash the Bishop to 18750 MP so that it'll have max MP with HB, saving yourself some pot money. Once again, remember to suicide the character to prevent it from levelling up and reducing the EXP your leeched characters gain.

9. Sharp Eyes (SE) Mule
Difficulty - High
Utility - Very High

Are you a Night Lord that needs a green sharingan to follow you wherever you go so that you can flex your big lines and not inferior to stuff like mages in HT?Well, too bad most of you already are. Make a SE mule then, which is simply a Level 129 4th job Archer that dumps all of its Skill Points into Sharp Eyes, and all of its AP into HP. This way, you can bring it with you wherever you go, be it HT, Scarga, Neo Tokyo, Zak, etc.

I would rate an SE mule more difficult to make than a low-level Bishop, as you would spend more time trying to leech it all the way from Level 20/30 all the way till 129. Meanwhile, a cleric can still grind out for some of the levels at Ghost Ship, and would also be able to train themselves to level 30 much more easily compared to a HP bowman.

10. Speed Infusion (SI) Mule
Difficulty - High
Utility - Very High

Due to how SI works over here in ML, it is not only beneficial for Warriors, Marksman, Corsairs, but Bishop/Arch Mages too. This also means that it has a place in both bossing and leeching, as you can cast more attacks per minute and increase your damage or the rate at which you are killing the monsters for leech.

Typically, a SI mule caps at Level 126, as the max level of Speed Infusion is 20. The remaining point can be put into Time Leap, if you bother doing the Papulatus prequest that is needed for it.

11. Petri-capped Mage Mule
Difficulty - Very High
Utility - Very High

Similar to the Low-level Bishop listed as mule number 7, a petri-capped mage mule is used to leech characters from Level 105. Again, you would want to cap your mage at the level it can start 1 hitting Petrifighters, so that it can provide the best EPH and complete leech packages quicker. A Fire Poison mage needs ~1255 TMA to 1 hit petris, whereas an Ice Lightning mage needs ~1287 TMA. You can reach those numbers at low Level 150s if you have godly INT equips (such as 61 tma earrings). If not, your safest bet would be low Level 160s.

To build this mage, you would ideally want to have 30k MP raw, which means you'll need to MP wash this starting at Level 120, so that you can have 30k MP raw by mid Level 150s. This takes ~150 AP resets, which equates to 465k NX, and 85 days of voting, not factoring in the vote streak and assuming you only vote on Blue Kimmy once a day, and that you are not earning more NX from events or PQs. Why not use a HB mule, you ask? You could, but that's 1 extra client for you to control when you already have a HS, SI, MU and sweeper client.

Skill-build wise, you obviously need to max your ultimate, and Maple Warrior 20. This is so that you can hit the required TMA without needing to over-level or rely on an additional character to buff you. As expensive as MW20 may be, the investment would be worthwhile in the long-run. The remaining points can be dumped into Infinity if you wish to save some potions.

Also, if you're a scrub that doesn't know how to leech at petris, read this guide: https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/1-hit-petrifighter.25939/

12. Heaven's Hammer (HH) Mule
Difficulty - Godly
Utility - Godly

A mule for the sweaty trihards in HT, if you don't know what a HH mule is, read this thread: https://forum.maplelegends.com/inde...de-to-achieving-significantly-more-dpm.22552/

I'll be mainl correcting the outdated stuff and talking about how to go around building this monster of a mule in HT.

Firstly, HH is no longer 10 seconds, but 15 seconds, reducing your hammer casts from 6 per minute to 4. Your DPM45 is still very good though, around 3.5mil or so, which is the equivalent of using 6 apples. The last post in that thread mentioned that the pot cost is 1.5-2mil per run (the cost of 1 apple now), but with what we know today, it'll be even lower.

Since 1 LUK = 0.5 avoid and 1 DEX = 0.5 avoid for warriors, you would want to build your HH mule with LUK, since it is the cheaper option. You are going to dump your AP into both LUK and HP. If you are sweaty enough, you can wash it with some INT so that more points can be invested into LUK instead of bloodwashed HP. You can also invest in some speed/jump gear in exchange for LUK gear to hit 140/123 so that your life is much easier in the cave.

Gear-wise, you would want to stack yourself with LUK gear. As there is no Helm for LUK, you would have to unfortunately fork out a bit more for Helm DEX to scroll the Scar/Zak helm that you have. You would also want to equip a 1-handed weapon and a shield when you have Guardian as it is essentially a 15% shifter when maxed. With this insane dodge rate, a HH mule can also double up as a seduce mule, so that your poor Shadower or warrior can finally be free from being HT's guinea pig. Note that the HH mule would be out-of-party, meaning that it can defeat seduce by its own, compared to your normal setup where a Bishop needs to follow the sed target and spam heal. At 353 avoid, you'll have 32.4% dodge rate at HT, excluding the 15% from Guardian.

When you reach Level 161, that's when the true potential of a HH mule shines, since you'll have maxed HH, Stance, Guardian, Achilles (which reduces damage taken) & Hero's Will.

Do note that skills such as HH, Stance, Guardian and Hero's Will require skill quests to be completed, and some of them might be tedious, especially since you are a warrior that is bloodwashed and stacked with LUK.

13. Dexbucc Mule
Difficulty - Godly
Utility - Godly

Another mule for the HTers who want to immerse themselves with TECHNOLOGY, a dexbucc is basically a 4th job Buccaneer with maxed Speed Infusion (SI) and Time Leap (TL) that partakes in the fight against the money dragon. The dexbucc is an expensive and sophisticated machine that has 999 avoidability stemming from its roughly 450 base DEX and inventory of DEX equips. Sporting a Maple Canon Shooter , the dexbucc is a preferred option for some compared to a real bucc due to the measly damage a real bucc does compared to other classes.

Now, some might ask: How and why does a dexbucc have so much avoid? Simple, the answer lies in this 301 IQ game design by Nex0n whereas a Brawler pirate gains 1.5 avoidability per dex, and the usual 0.5 avoidability per luk.

So how does a dexbucc work in HT? Since most runs with dexbuccs are just degenerates running 5 man or lesser HT, the dexbucc will be in the main party, so that it can provide SI to those speed-hungry warriors and be the sed target for the entire run. An extra perk for having a dexbucc is that it will have max TL to reset the cooldown of big skills such as Resurrection, Echo of Hero & Hero's Will.

Being a dexbucc, it is also possible for you to solo sed for the run just like a HH mule. At Level 154 (since you don't want to leech EXP off if you are in main party), you would dodge roughly 83% of HT's attacks (correct me if I'm wrong). The pot cost for each run is around 100 Ginseng Roots, or 100 Honsters, meaning it costs almost nothing to run a dexbucc in HT.

You still have to do prequests for both Time Leap & Hero's Will. Both quests are relatively tedious, since you would have to get another character to kill Papulatus from TL, and your only attack when farming the Hero's Will ETC is the first job's Double Shot, unless you are able to find someone who has the quest active and is willing to help you.

If you plan to level it to beyond 136 (the min. level to max both TL and SI), it is also recommended to get Super Transformation and max it so that you can have 100% uptime with both transformations and have 140/123 speed all the way. The prequest for ST is much more simple than the other 2 (you can actually just use barrel throughout the quest).

Conclusion
Once again, good job if you bothered reading everything. Before publishing this, I've talked to a few people to gather their opinions, such as on the issue relating to dexbuccs vs traditional SI mule. I think it can be agreed that a traditional SI mule is more versatile, since it is able to provide its utility outside of the cave. However, it should be noted that a dexbucc does its job in the best moneymaker and exp provider in the game: Horntail. The dexbucc is also part of the "Cave of 4 mules", which I will explain below.

Spoiler: Cave of 4 Mules

A good cave mule is also a good HT mule. That means a HT cave mule should also be able to provide good utility against the boss. The dexbucc and HH mule currently fulfil this requirement, meaning 2 out of 4 spots are filled. The 3rd spot can go to a cave ress mule, which is basically a Bishop that is left in cave and used to resurrect people who died in runs with no ress. The last and final spot could belong to any other character. A simple Level 80 mule, or a HB mule.

Why 4? Cave of 4 mules + your attacker + HTPQ buyer = 6 people, which is the requirement for HTPQ. If you ever fancy yourself making a quick 10mil whenever you see someone smega "B>HTPQ", you can easily offer your services. And if you decide to be a cave degen and never leave the cave, you can get these poor Priests to bring in 10mil worth of potions for youl, so that you can sustain your degenerate hikikomori-like lifestyle.

This thread may seem like a lot of information to process and is strictly crafted for the tryhards or elite, but I think it can also serve as a decent guide even for newbies. They do not have to necessarily read through the whole thing, only parts that are relevant for them (i.e should they make a HB mule?). I've yet to see a mule guide in the forums. So, next time, if someone asks "What is a mule?" and wants to know more than that, you can just link them to this thread.