Help a class in extinction out>Outlaw in need of tips for lategame. Also, Slinger appreciaton thread

TL;DR​

I have a lv80 gunslinger right now (ign: GrayNimbus), with about 2.5k HP, not counting HP gear (which takes me to ~2.8k HP). I have been washing with like 20 INT (I know, I know...) from lvs 40-70 and with 40 INT from lvs 70-80.

I just want to open this thread to look for ways and/or tips to save this character's late game:

- How much HP do I really need, considering I HAVE to get HP gear now? Maybe if I can't get my desired HP washes for lv150 (which will probably happen) I can maybe get them for lvs160-170.

-AP resetting to get some more INT isn't out of the table if you guys 100% recommend it (I think I will be able to get 25 extra washes for lv150 with the INT gear and base INT I have, and I must have done around 10 washes already... I forgot since I haven't played this character for more than 2 years)

- Can HP gear really save me? I am willing to take the monster book ring as high tier as possible, use NX to get 3 pets with HP equips and sacrifice some equip slot to gain more HP. This will most likely be my cape for a Black Fist Cloack, but I want to know if Chaos Scrolling a MoN is a good idea, considering I'd be missing on HT necklace, and how worth is it to get a Ravana Helmet for that +60HP instead of Scarlion Hat (also, how soon can I get a Ravana Helm?)

- Any Corsairs who want to add me or leave a comment here so they can teach me tricks with the ship and how to survive bosses later on is highly appreciated.

-Any other kind of help or tip for the class is appreciated (mostly for lving on my own or helping me in-game to lvup PLEASE 3RD JOB IS HARD).

Assume erasing this character is out of the table. Maybe some other day I'll have a chance to create the ultimate Corsair or any other ranged DPS class, but I don't think I'll have the meso funding for godlike INT gear OR the time to get the 1M+ NX required to HP and MP wash a 'sair with 11.5k HP+ anytime soon. I love this game, but HP washing that much really takes the fun out of it IMO. I want a respectable character, not a character that just trivialized the game because one of their main cons was their squishiness and now it has double HP than a vanilla warrior thanks to half a year's worth of NX funding.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you want a better explanation on why the character is so unoptimized and why I don't just "create a NL instead", here we go: ​

I started playing Maplelegends around July 2017, where I played with a group of 7-8 friends during the span of 2 months. Nothing really serious, but we still agreed to play different classes to have variety in our party. I had never played a Gunslinger, so I just picked it. I also never heard about HP washing, so I played casually until lv40-ish, were I started to care more about my late game and noticing that my HP was really low. Managed to get my char to lv64 with some washes thanks to some INT gear and the inherent extra MP you get and then we all stopped playing the game.

I thought that was it, so I did not care if my character was perfectly minmaxed since we did not get to play that long or get that far. However, ever since the 15th of March of this year (2020), an even larger group of people and I came back to the server. I created a DK to mix things up and start fresh with my friends (I have that character properly HP washed, don't worry), which is now 4th job and my highest lv character on this server. After 2 months of almost exclusively playing my warrior, it felt bad to see I had a character so close to 3rd job just lying there. So I started AP resetting some points to INT, got the Ellin's Savior Ring, monster book ring (Tier 1) and a Zak Helmet, and leveled him to lv80.

I really want to make this character work. Most importantly, I really want to take him to 4th job so I can experience the best a gunslinger can offer. However, I also know I'd be competing for party spots with other more optimized characters or classes during boss runs. So I know I have to become a beast Corsair, both mechanically and in minmaxing terms.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Why not just create a Night Lord/Bowmaster?" Here is why: ​

Despite every single guide and thread complaining and talking about how bad this class is and how one would be better off choosing a NL or BM instead, I fell in love with it. For the first time in my life playing Maple, this game felt challenging, and I felt like I had a keyboard full of skills to use as soon as 2nd job (!). None of them were great on their own,(and most of them get inmediately replaced on your next job advancement) but that is exactly why the class felt fun: you have to THINK to play it (no offense to any other class, but I've played many classes up to 3rd or 4th job and this is the one I had to concentrate the most playing it, and I haven't even started bossing). I really don't think it is a contentious point to say that Corsair is the hardest ranged DPS class to play. I embrace that challenge.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Conclusion, and hopefully the start of a Gunslinger appreciation thread
​

So, if you have any good tips on how to save this gunslinger from playing 40 levels unoptimally and some other 40 levels with minimal HP washing, I am all ears. It would also be awesome to hear the experiences of people who also have fun with the challenge this class brings to your character roster or of other gunslingers/ ranged DPSers who brought their unoptimal HP build into a respectable one.

 

Hey! Thanks for the quick response.
Of course I've read your guides! I definitely knew that if I wanted to actually make an optimal corsair, I would've had to create one from scratch, considering your calculations for every HP range (your second try on a character in an MMO is ALWAYS better than the first one). And I definitely will do that if I see that I want to stay in this server for the long haul. Thanks for the cwpq tip; I was planning to build the ´sair on a separate account if it came to that, but that actually changes things dramatically.

I was never expecting to reach the HP wash goal now. I totally agree that Pumping AP resets and Lvup AP into INT right now would be completely stupid; which is why part of my questions were about using gear that gives me HP in order to circumvent a lot of those washes.

Let's say I pump INT right now so that I can lvup with 70-80 INT until lv150 (So around 1 wash per 2 levels for 70 levels --> 35 washes).
This is, of course, not enough HP on its own to reach any treshold --> Its just around 630 extra HP only. But it is still something that I can do to get some HP boost.
But now, let's add some equips to help me out:

-Ravana Helm: +60HP

-Black Fist Cloack: ~+300HP

-MoN: ~+300HP (Transferable to new Corsair)

-Ellin Ring: +100HP

-Monster book ring tier 10: +1000 HP

-At least 1 pet with a decently scrolled Equip for HP: ~+100 HP (Transferable to new Corsair if on same accs)

That equates to: +1860 HP thanks to equips only. And I can get 2 other pets if needed for some extra 100HP each, or some 10 DEX Fallen Leaf Earrings if I really needed those extra 20-25HP.

Wouldn't that be enough for me to reach some respectable level of HP (5.6k, lets say) for lv150? And what about lvs 160-170 if I decide to HP wash for some extra lvs?

It is definitely true that my first Corsair wouldn't go to waste, because of the experience factor, and I am already beyond the halfway point to reaching lv120 to give up on that now. But I at least want to know if I can still make it viable HP with the help of HP equips.

 

Well, that is fine I guess. I could still do Toad/Vergamot with my DK, so I would only be losing content for 2 bosses with my Corsair.

And I'll see what I can do to survive a Horntail run (if I ever get to that BEFORE creating my new Gunslinger).

Thanks for the tip on MoN/HTP. Definitely will be getting both then.

 

Yeah, I was thinking about doing this, but then I really found it too much of a commitment to amass so much NX and level up so slowly to avoid the cons of pumping so much AP into INT. I honestly don't mind dumping a lot of NX, but at this point I might just HP wash normally with 70-80 INT (with equips) and just get good HP gear that can help me reach that 6k-7k goal. If I have to do it with 3 pets with some good HP scrolling, so be it. If I get locked into having to scroll HP equips to a godlike state, so be it. But the thing is I realized I absolutely lose the love for this game once it gets too tryhard with HP washing. Being 100% honest, playing ANY other game in my PC or console is more fun than trying to amass hundreds of millions of mesos, MONTHS worth of NX and 100+ levels of having a character in an almost unplayable state (meaning, I have to leech it or bust). Warriors or Mages I can absolutely handle. But HP washing a ranged DPS class is just too much commitment to this game for me (at least for now).

I guess I am really going to follow Akash's tip to just do what I can with this Corsair and create a new one IF I see that I'm in too deep with this game.

 

Right now with the event leveling up isn't going to be that bad! But yeah, I'll still probably leech from 110 to 120 as much as I can. Been saving some money for that for a while. I will actually just take advantage of it and try to reach Corsair ASAP and train on using those skills.

Thanks for all the tips <3

 

UPDATE
​

So, after a full month of posting this blog, my Outlaw finally became a Corsair. As I'm writing this, he's lv125. My total HP is 4841 right now, thanks to Elling Ring, Monster Ring Tier 3, MoN & some other gear that give me minimal extra HP (clean HP is 4268).

What I did is to progressively add INT until I managed to lvup with 160-170 INT (Depending if I get MW20 at level up), with my base INT being 80 right now. From 81 to 85, I only could lv up with 80 INT (1 wash per 2 levels), then 90, then 110 INT. That is until I hit a big jump to 160-170 INT, at lv 109, thanks to the help of all the friends I am playing with. Without their gear, I would not be able to keep progressing with at least 1 wash per lv guaranteed and would just lvup with 110 INT instead or would be obligated to stop playing this character for weeks in order to keep adding into base INT. This event has been perfect for washing all that HP quickly and without much waiting. And thanks to some good gear I managed to get (5 att MoN, 96 att Concerto, a +7 Red Belly Duke with +11 STR and +16 DEX, +10 DEX earrings, +10 DEX shoes, 10 att Work Gloves), my damage is pretty decent.

According to my calculations (as shown below), I should be able to finish all my HP washes until LV 155 and reach a grand total of 5544 clean HP (all HP numbers assume an average of 20HP gain per wash and per lvup), which should be enough to enjoy Zak, Papulatus & Pianus runs w/o HB and probably HT with HB once I get my Tier 10 Ring and some other HP equips.



However, it seems that A LOT of my friends (around 7-9 people) are already planning to stay with this game long term, since they have reached 4th job pretty quickly. Now that I am truly convinced I will be playing this game at least until the end of the year to enjoy the content, I also made some calculations concerning MP washing until lv155.

The idea is: since my HP is decent enough now so as to survive all the bosses I will most likely be fighting from lvs 120-155, I could start pumping all my 5 AP during my next 30 levels into MP, and then resetting them back to DEX so I don't lose damage - Thanks Alyosha for the tip!. Continue doing this until lv155, which would net me +1641 extra MP (assuming I level up with 170 INT and keep my base INT at 80, which both could be subject to improvements). Then, just AP reset all my INT into HP; that way I can get that HP bonus inmediately, while ALSO resetting my INT back to base. And FINALLY, gradually HP wash all those stats back to DEX to enjoy MW20 boosts on my damage.

On the sheet, the NX needed to reset all the INT back to base isn't calculated, but MP + HP washes are; and it would take 134 days of voting to so (or 145 days, if I only do one of the two 12 hour votes per day). With the Golden Gachas still available, Spring Festival coins being able to be turned into AP resets, the NX drops from mobs, CWPQ rewards and other possible events/pqs down the road, I can hopefully shrink this number.

It is also not shown on the sheet, but I still got a lot of possible extra HP avenues to work with (7 more tiers of the Monster Book Ring, BlackFist Cloack, Ravana Helmet, 3 pets with HP equips, some fallen leaf earrings/sword earrings that I plan to scroll for 10+ DEX, etc.), which can take that 7044 clean HP into the high 8000's by lv155, and I would be able to enjoy all the ML content avaiable further down the line, as long as I get HB. Having said that, I don't think I'll make a new Corsair in the future, which, while a sincere and helpful suggestion from Akash - thanks for your HP wash and Corsair guides, by the way!- it was something I wanted to avoid at all costs.

I want to thank all of the people who responded to my post, and anyone who had the patience to read both my initial post and this gigantic reply. All your suggestions, harsh or light, helped me realize I needed to do something NOW to fix my character. Just 5 levels into Corsair and I can't wait to start maxing out all the 4th job skills. Finally, my character doesn't suck DPS-wise. Now I just need to make sure it doesn't suck on the HP department either.