Lynch’s Journal - Casual Shadower

Hi everyone! Logging my first journal entry after hitting LV. 133 and soloing Ravana for the first time, in just under 25 minutes. Turns out drinking 5 Ciders can shave off 5 minutes.



Anyway, this journal post serves as my self-introduction to the community. My goal is to offer some insight into my journey, provide some thoughts on my decisions and just have fun posting whatever is on my mind.

I have met countless spectacular fellow adventurers and just wanted to say I cherish all of you out there trying to do good and help each other - that is what makes this server fun and enjoyable for me, the social and chill aspect of enjoying a game together.

To share a little about myself, I have numerous gaming achievements in PVE games (including previously holding rank1 records for my class, or being part of rank1 organizations in MMOs and Gacha raids) and hope to apply some of that expertise into min-maxing Maple in the most casual and nonchalant way possible. This is what I enjoy the most and love engaging in discussions regarding optimization, within reasonable means.

I am really close to being able to participate in end game bossing raids so I am extremely excited about that and look forward to trying it for the first time! I got a little preview of end game raiding in HT when I signed up for a regular service run and due to unfortunate circumstances leading to two players disconnecting and five players dying, I ended up basically doing most of the roles of an Attacker and it was my favourite experience to date.

I look forward to learning and sharing more knowledge with other like-minded Maplers and growing stronger together!

Once again, I’ve only made it this far as a first character Shadower and newb Mapler thanks to all the help and support I’ve received, so thank you all for embracing and encouraging me to continue on this path of becoming a strong Shadower.

Thank you for reading and hope to get to know more of you! Please say hi if you have seen me running around! Happy Mapling.

 

Thanks for the friendly welcome everyone!

Also, the reason why I pin Rav to the right is because I can only use Bstep to pin since my Assassinate is too low level to pin to the left (Ravana keeps moving forward to melee you when pinned left), whereas when you pin him to the right with Bstep, he casts AOE non-stop, allowing you to easily pin him with Bstep as well as iframe dodge most of its damage. It’s not the fastest and it does cost some pots, but it’s a nice option if you want to solo earlier. Just bring 5-6 Ciders to speed things up.

It’s quite nice as a solo Shad, give it a try sometimes! Ideally, I will be able to start pinning him to the left with Assassinate and bring in my HS mule for more exp. Soon!

 

I did not know that! Does it have to have first hit? And is there a time limit to this effect?

 

Ran my first Zak run as an Attacker @ 136, everything went smoothly and was quite fun. Wasn't too difficult picking up the optimization, starting with top right S1 (Smoke1), cleaving 4 arms at the bottom with jump Bstep, moving onto 2-3 arms with Nate/Bstep, then finally ST Nate on body only, with smoke bottom left during Magic Cancels!

Then ran it again with my guild this morning on reset! :>
For my guild run, we didn't really have any range attackers (only 1 BM) on the top right, so I practiced better damage distribution and helped out by using Bstep on the top right platform. I would say it felt like the correct choice, as we had a lot of cleavers on the bottom, and it did balance things out a little.

I've been really enjoying Shad and the kit. Overall, it's quite stylish/cool with some variations of attack combos that I find fulfilling to optimize.

Looking forward to trying Krex and daily bossing. Really happy to finally make it to this stage!

 

Wanted to post a little update, since it’s been a little over ten days since our last entry, and a lot has happened since!

I’ve kept up with leveling roughly once every 1-2 days and it’s been extremely fun hitting 144 recently, as most of my leveling is done through bossing.
Tried Krex for the first time and quite enjoyed the fight, even tho 2 people out of 5 died in a five-man run, the rest of us ate two Apples each and pushed for a 40-minute kill.

Fast forward a few more days, the anniversary event started and bossing has completely slowed down to the point where I was unable to find any runs, so out of complete necessity, I started hosting my own runs!

I was a bit uncertain at first but I knew I had no choice but to host them if I wanted to try to do runs on the daily, and sure enough, I was able to lean on my past experiences leading raids and was successful in recruiting and managing a few Zak and Krex runs, killing everything in a timely manner. On top of that, almost every run has yielded in a coin pouch drop, so my luck is up and I am finally able to start saving a bit more money for the first time in my Maple journey.

Most excitingly, we even sold our first ZHelm regular service today! I spent a few minutes making sure our buyer was fully informed on what he needed to prep, what to expect, as well as his responsibilities during the run to watch his HP bar, refresh Magic Guard and stay alive. Not only did he successfully do all of it without a hitch, he was also extremely happy and grateful towards us for the run. (To the point of even recommending his friends to purchase from us.)

Runners were happy as well, so it was definitely a happy moment for everyone involved, and I look forward to hosting more runs and helping out more new players with more reasonably priced services!



One last thing, I really feel that Maple isn’t such a difficult game, on a mechanical level. Basically the optimization is if you can deal damage with full uptime and minimize time not hitting boss, you’re already doing the most you can, which means more time yapping away with friends and memeing around in buddy chat. I really cherish the friends I’ve made along the way and look forward to hanging out and continue to boss together more!

 

Just a small entry, there was severe lag today and nearly everyone in my Zak run DC'd.

Today I ended up solo killing Zakum (with star-less NL punching 1 damage).

Had to eat an Appo too. No pouch, but gained 10,549,247 EXP (9.87%) and 3 fames from party mates.

I think I need a break after this run.

 

Hi all, been travelling and busy with real life things and finally got a moment to catch up on the event.

I discovered a new skip for Demon King's Tower Floor 8 Hard! Check it out! :>



It's pretty cool because it looks like you miss the jump at first, but you actually just thread the needle and land at the final spot, skipping two jumps.
It's pretty consistent too, my inputs are just <-- (500ms) --> (500ms) and you make it!

I also know about the other skip (landing on the bottom left platform), but I started doing this one now.

Let me know how it works out for you if you try it out. :>

 

Been on vacation, will post an update when I can with current gear and what not. Going on first (second?) HT run at 155. Will be SED target.

 

Due to busy IRL things, haven't been able to play or update journal too much, and the tl;dr is enjoying event, fishing is super fun and casual, and also been doing HT a few times a week now.

Learning SED target stuffs has been fun. I'm still not great at it, but at least conceptually I understand what to do and how to optimize damage distribution, while trying to pay attention to left/right arm SED animations, as well as head/arm DP animations.

In terms of skills, I recently reset my Taunt SP and put them into Smoke 12, so that's also a nice QOL improvement with the bigger/longer smoke. All my homies love smoke.

And it wouldn't be a complete journal if I only highlighted the positives of my Shad main journey, so here's a little bit of heartbreak (MW20)


That's about it for updates, I'm finally back on a desktop setup and will try and find time to update more, such as an overview of my gear, as well as current thoughts about my journey so far.
The past while has been extreme busy (both IRL and in game) and it's been fun to finally join the ranks of end game bossing. I consider HT to be the first "end-game" boss, and there's still a lot more to explore, such as NT and eventually PB if I ever get to that stage. I'm a huge Pink Bean fan, if it wasn't obvious enough with my pets.

Anyway, thanks again for keeping up and encouraging me to post more, until next time.

 

Casual journal needs a casual update!

Casual nub going into APQ after HT. Hope we can kill the APQ Balrog. :>


Casual fisherman going fishing in casual outfit :>


Even though summer is over in my part of the world and winter is approaching, still digging these chill summer vibes~

Hope everyone is enjoying the event as well!