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[Guide] Krythan's Leech Buying Guide

Discussion in 'Guides' started by Krythan, Feb 26, 2023.

  1. fael
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    fael Skelegon

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    I've been trying to buy leech and people are getting confused when using part of your guide. I already tried to negotiate with 2 people that wanted 12m/h for the leech, but when I ask about ratio to get some kind of exp guaranteed leech, they think they should charge 0.18 ratio even when there are 5 buyers on party, which is non sense since it would return way more than 12m/h. Some of them don't know how to calculate, maybe highlight the information that 0.18 ratio is usually used when there are 2 buyers on party.

    EDIT: I said 0.18 ratio cuz I was buying peach monkey leech
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2024
  2. OP
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    Krythan Zakum

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    When selling by ratio, sellers should always charge the same ratio regardless of how many buyers are in the party. Each buyer is still getting the same amount of exp per meso spent. But you're right in saying that ratio leech gets more profitable for the seller the more buyers they can coordinate.

    Let's do an example.
    1. At ulu2, with two buyers, each buyer should get at least 12m exp/hr. At 1:2.2, each buyer is paying ~5.45m/hr. So the seller is making ~10.9m/hour.
    2. At ulu2, with four buyers, each buyer should get at least 8.6m exp/hr. At 1:2.2, each buyer is paying ~3.9m/hour. So the seller is making ~15.6m/hour.

    Summary: Ratio leech is more profitable for sellers as the number of buyers in your party increases. In each scenario, the buyer is getting the exact same amount of exp per-meso paid, but the seller is making ~43% more.

    This is one of the reasons that Petri leech is so good, because sellers can often coordinate a larger party.

    Are you buying leech for multiple of your own characters at the same time? In this case, is often advantageous to negotiate the seller to do hourly pricing, so that you (as the buyer) can benefit from the exp bonus from an increased party size.
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2024
  3. fael
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    I get what you're saying, but I think there's a problem when people are reading your guide (it's probably their fault, but I'm suggesting you should add a disclaimer anyway). Let me try to explain what I think:

    First of all, the peach monkey leech sellers were asking for 12m/h OR 0.18 ratio with 5 buyers, and both of them said they were following your guide. It makes no sense, because if they wanted 12m/h, they also should know that with 5 buyers and 0.18 ratio will be way more than 12m/h. So, they refused my offer for a 0.3~ ratio with 5 buyers because they were using your guide, but that would give them around 12m/h too, if they did the math. And there's something worse happening: people are selling to ONE SINGLE BUYER for the ratio shown in this guide. So he was getting like 6m/h by selling for a single person, while refusing the adapted ratio for 5 buyers offer, which would give him 12m/h~. I thought I took a screenshot already wanting to post it here but I can't find it.

    The problem I see is that low level leech is tricky. They won't probably find a full party with people paying by ratio, and it's different for lv. 105+ leeches. Imagine you want to buy leech on a lv30 char and you found a 4 buyers + 1 leecher party. Would you pay 0.18 ratio on it, or you would find another seller to get a duo split, for example? I mean, what's the point of paying the same if you're leveling slower, in this case that we have more than 1 payment option to buy? It's different of skele/petri leeches that we only got ratio (or packages, which essentially means the same). The "0.18 ratio" is calculated by using the 6m/h duo split price and the eph for a duo split leech on peach monkeys, that would be something like 1.1m/6m =~ 0.18. On skeles/petri, for example, people charge 3.1 ratio and it's not calculated the same way, because split price is different (higher cost of entry to start selling leech) and you can usually fill up your party with 5 buyers. I personally don't know where the 3.1 ratio comes from, but I believe it was just a experimental number people started to use based on the times people used to buy skele/petri by hour, which was around 2~2.5x better than low level leech price back then.

    EDIT: if 0.18 ratio is really the price, no matter how many buyers there are in a party, someone with more than 2 chars/partners will just rather buy hourly. That's why it's tricky.
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2024
  4. OP
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    Krythan Zakum

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    Really good points!

    Yeah, selling to a single buyer via ratio is likely the #1 mistake I see new leech sellers doing. Either that, or using HP+MP Pots like Elixirs, etc.

    I'll likely expand on the "types of leech" section, to explain more about the pros & cons of each pricing model. You're touching on some very good points here.

    Low level leech is tricky. It's hard to find consistent buyers to maintain a full party, and it's hard to find efficient sellers that'll maintain a good epm.

    For the most part these issues are solved by going to a "ratio" pricing model, but you're very right... there's still the edge cases where a buyer has multiple characters, and they want to negotiate a fair price, but also don't want to pay solo hourly pricing.

    Personally, when I'm leeching multiple characters, I'll offer to buy "hourly leech" at a premium, ex: 15m/hour+ just to ensure it's worth the seller's time, and to ensure that I don't spend too much of my own time searching for a seller... but each pricing model does have it's own pros and cons.
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2024
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  5. Subterlabor
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    Subterlabor Zakum

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    Since I continually get leechers unsure how to use the https://leech-calculator-mirror.vercel.app/ website correctly, here's a quick tutorial. It's quite simple

    Typing your characters ign in the search bar will populate the current level+exp values. This will be accurate as long as you have changed maps or joined/left a party since last gaining exp. Clicking the box circled in green will transfer that info to the middle section
    [​IMG]

    If buying leech with ratio click where it says "hours" to switch to ratio based calculations

    [​IMG]

    From here you can now type in the ratio you're buying for, and your goal level to find out the cost of the leech you're pursuing. The checkbox beside Level+exp is just to enable/disable incomplete levels, so in the picture below the starting values are Level 167 31.43% -> Level 175 0% since it is not checked off. You can type in any numbers here, as well as skip the above steps if you already know your characters current level+exp, just type the values directly into the middle section and press the calculate box just under your characters ign.

    [​IMG]
     
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  6. OP
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    Krythan Zakum

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    Thank you! Great additions.

    The site leechcalculator.com and it's mirror leech-calculator-mirror.vercel.app are the tools I recommend for calculating the price (estimated, or actual) of hourly and ratio leech!

    I want to emphasize part of SubterlaborSubterlabor's post. "Why isn't leechcalculator.com showing my most recent exp?"

    The site is only able to load your most recent exp value, when one of the following actions has happened to "refresh" the data:
    • The character levels up
    • The character enters/leaves the map (ex: FM, Cash Shop, Channels, Portal, etc)
    • A character is added/removed from the party
    The most common method you'll see sellers doing is to add/remove one of their own characters from the party, allowing them to then load the most recent exp values for each of their buyers on the site.
     
  7. Signature
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    Signature Dark Stone Golem

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    Just did an epm test between gs1 and redslimes, and redslimes seem to yield 15% better exp so I would advise staying there til 55 and then go to gs6
     
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  8. Tate
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    Tate Windraider

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    This should be appended to the first post before it gets drowned in multiple pages.
     
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  9. OP
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    Krythan Zakum

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    EDIT: For more instructions on using leechcalculator.com, see Beads Leeching Guide

    ------

    That's a good idea. I'll add a section to the original post. It's important information to highlight. Thanks Sweatz as well!

    Since some people also like .gifs, click the spoilers below for step-by-step instructions. Thanks to TateTate for the idea. There's a lot going on here, so these .gifs may or may not be useful... so I recommend just playing around with the website to get the feel of it.

    Enter your name into the search window. This will load your character into the list.

    Fun fact! If you're just trying to estimate costs, you can skip this step, and enter Before and After values directly into the calculator.

    [​IMG]
    Click on the icon to the right of your character, to load your exp values into the calculator.

    If you've gained exp since you first added this character, it will update the "Start" and "Finish" exp!

    Please note: the website will only load your most recent exp value if one of the following conditions has occurred:
    • A character is added/removed from the party
    • The character levels up
    • The character enters/leaves the map.
    You can also manually type in a "Finish" exp value if you want to estimate the cost of exp you haven't yet gained. Make sure the percentage boxes are checked.

    In this image, we haven't gained any exp yet so the start/finish values are the same.

    [​IMG]
    Now we want to calculate cost!

    In this image, we're seeing how much it will cost to leech this character from 67.64% to level 186 via HOURLY leech:

    Select "Hours"

    Enter the estimated exp/hr. value from the chart in the original post.

    We're buying split leech, so it's 6m/hr.

    Click the "calculate" button, and this tells us that:

    Leeching from 185 and 67.64% to level 186, at an avg. of 22m exp/hr. and a cost of 6m mesos /hr is going to cost 84,097,389 mesos, and ~14 hours:

    [​IMG]
    Same as above! But this time we're doing ratio leech.

    Using the 1:3.2 ratio from the original post, we can calculate that leeching from 185 and 67.64% to level 186, at 1:3.2 ratio will cost 96,361,591 mesos.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2025
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  10. Tate
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    Tate Windraider

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    Wonderful! the only reason why i mention it is because there's been countless threads where i'd have to wade through and read each page to find out any new updates. Having it all updated on the first post helps tremendously especially for the ADHD ones (like myself).

    Also it's because your posts have slowly but surely become more famous ingame with multiple new players and even a handful of old ones referring to all the guides you've posted throughout the years. Keeping the initial post updated makes it easier for new members to read up on the latest changes as they roll out.

    P.S I'm struggling with the leech calculator myself so maybe a condensed version of how to use it would help? MapleF14

    I'm a huge fan of giving back to the community and I love seeing this level of growth on the server.
     
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  11. OP
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    Krythan
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    Krythan Zakum

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    May 23rd, 2025 - Updated the "Split Leech" and "Hourly Leech" sections to address one of the most common mistakes I see from new leech sellers: If buying hourly leech, split leech is better than solo leech. If selling ratio leech, multiple buyers is better than a single buyer. Here's the quote from the post:
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2025
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  12. Subterlabor
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    Subterlabor Zakum

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  13. OP
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    Krythan Zakum

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    How to make the most of your meso when buying leech?

    ILOVEPOMUILOVEPOMU recently created an interesting thread called Leech time to Zakum, aka level 135. In this thread, they created a chart showing an approximation of how many hours each level would take if done by the meta leech option for that level.

    I like how this chart shoes that some leech maps are better than others. Maps like CDs (71), and Viks (82) provide an extraordinary value for the mesos spent. Especially once you consider that leveling up via grinding and/or party quests usually slows down as you get into higher levels.

    The chart also shows how the first few levels at each leech map is always the most efficient. For example: Let's say you are level 82. The amount of "progress" you'll get from 1 hour at Viks at level 82, is much greater than the amount of progress you'll get from 1 hour at Viks at ~88. So, if you don't have the mesos to leech and entire level range, it's always better to buy at the beginning of that range, than at the end of that range. This same principle applies for ratio leech - if you're only able to buy ~10m of leech, it's still better to buy at the lower side of each bracket... since you'll be more powerful when you go back to grinding.

    One of the tips I'll give new players, is save up to buy an hour or two of leech at each "new threshold". For example, consider buying 2 hours of leech once you hit each of these levels: 71, 82, 90, and 105. Since you might not want to leech the entire range, using your mesos on the most efficient levels possible goes a very long way to speed up leveling, and give a well deserved break from grinding.


    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2025
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  14. Jafel
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    Jafel Capt. Latanica

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    This is interesting for beginners, however for people who are a bit further along (the majority of the current community) it'd much more interesting to see how long leech takes (either for self leech or for buying).

    I made a brief visualization for this for personal use to get more of a feel for it all. This truly puts things into perspective imo.

    Just the level ranges you mention in the original post and the expected leeching time for these level ranges at the mobs mentioned.
    All levels fixed.png

    And an additional one focusing on Zakum-ready (which honestly isn't relevant until you're close to or at Petri/Skele anyways) Zakum ready.png
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Jun 4, 2025
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  15. Travisghhhh
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    Travisghhhh Stone Golem

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    Hello what is porky and jr.wraith ratio didn’t saw it
     
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  16. Nightz
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    Nightz Supervisor Staff Member Supervisor Game Moderator

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    It's in the main post
     
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  17. Alyosha
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    Alyosha Skelegon Retired Staff

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    After testing it looks like ghost ship ought to be dead for anyone seriously leeching their characters. Red Slimes is 10-15% faster than GS1, and GS5 is only roughly 10% faster than Red Slimes. You shouldn't bother to bring your characters all the way to Singapore as the time you save from 55-57 is less than the time it takes to travel.

    I've also found that Peach Monkeys is significantly faster than GS2. For a self leech trio I found I topped out at around 1.37mil exp/hr without utilizing the teleporters
    upload_2025-7-30_13-14-46.png
    X is cast location, O is leeches
    Cast, teleport, hop up, teleport gaps, hop down, teleport, cast

    It's faster and easier than using the in map teleporters. The hops are important as they create consistency in getting to the location without being knocked down by the rabble. Doing the Vikerola rotation leads to you not knowing where you'll get knocked after teleport.

    For anyone seriously leeching a set of characters up they may just want to stay in Mu Lung 36-65 with only a trip to the spa for Red Slimes.
     
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