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Odd Jobs Community Thread

Discussion in 'Community' started by deer, Jan 7, 2021.

  1. Chris
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    Chris Zakum Retired Staff

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    Christopher
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    After hours of walking around to get hair/eye + trying on every piece of clothing in the cashshop + allocating all gear & mesos, I am finally ready to start my Swashbuckler adventure! Or so I thought as I went into ribbon pig hell with no pots...

    Ty to SaltSalt & HiyoHiyo for helping me <3 <3 <3
    [​IMG]
     
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  2. Dance
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    Dance Stone Golem

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    I didn't know Chris had an Oddjobs character.
     
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  3. Chris
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    Chris Zakum Retired Staff

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    Keeping everyone on their toes. FoxSpy
     
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  4. Chris
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    Chris Zakum Retired Staff

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    Christopher
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    Swashbuckler & Str mage duo!

    [​IMG]


    Odd Job? More like Strong Job!
    [​IMG]
     
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  5. OP
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    deer Pac Pinky

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    Oct 27, 2020
    Female
    Oddville
    4:18 PM
    cervid
    Bishop
    130
    Oddjobs
    (You can also read the original diary entry here, and/or read the diary entry on the Oddjobs forum.)

    rangifer’s diary: pt. xvi

    Ellin ring time~

    Now that I graduated OPQ, it was time to get rangifer her very own Ellin Savior’s Ring! Most people probably like to get theirs around the time that they graduate LPQ, but I generally don’t feel the need for it until I’m MPQing, and it’s a little easier to get once you’re higher level than the Lazy Buffies. rangifer hunted for all of the ETC items herself, with the exception of Firewoods, which I already had, and which aren’t very interesting to farm anyways:

    [​IMG]

    MPQing with ETAN and Kimbow

    Just about 85% of the way through getting my ring, a sader by the name of ETAN (who I already knew from OPQing on another character) was trying to recruit for MPQ! Thanks to I/L mage jellyicez (a.k.a. jellystarz, jellyslashz), we were able to form a full party (exactly 4 characters, with at least 1 being a mage)!! So I rocked to Magatia to MPQ with the crew, including a previously mentioned OPQ friend of mine, Kimbow! But now, Kimbow was shooting 5 lines!! :O

    Unfortunately, in our first MPQ, ETAN’s game crashed, so Kimbow and I had to fight not-so-angy fanky as a duo (with jellyicez on Romeo-protecting duty). But our runs otherwise went smoothly!

    Kimbow remarked that the combination-searching in stage 6 might just give her brain damage, and I can’t say I blame her, especially with the global chatlog spam making it twice as difficult as it really is…

    Soiled rags…

    As that party dissolved and we were looking for new members, I decided to transfer my equipment to my woodwoman, capreolina, in the meantime, so I could try hunting for Soiled Rags for the Silver Deputy Star quest. I actually already had 2 rags, so I just needed the 28 other ones…

    [​IMG]

    No MPQ party formed, so I was farming rags for probably 1 or 2 hours continuously. And in that time, I found 3 more rags (for a total of 5). O—only 25 more to go >.<

    The drop rate is really abyssmal, Elderwraiths spawn rather infrequently, and the damn things:
    • …fly.
    • …have super annoying iframes any time that you hit them (and it takes me quite a few Strafes to kill one).
    • …have very high WDEF (940).
    • …hit like trucks (560 WATK); this reason, and the above reasons as well, were why I didn’t bother doing much meleeing.
    On the other hand, their MDEF is comparatively low (550), and they are weak to holy-typed spells. You know, like Genesis. So I was likely getting at least an order of magnitude fewer rags per hour than someone who has level ≥1 Genesis. Realising this, I just… gave up, heh. I bought 25 rags in the FM and just got on with it.

    Adding some new odd jobs to the list; first revision of my swashbuckler guide

    I’ve added a few new odd jobs to the list on the Oddjobs website. One is similar to the grim reaper: the carpenter (a.k.a. jigsaw killer, woodworker). The only restriction on carpenters is that they can only use the Saw, a one-handed sword that is only equippable by thieves/rogues. Like the grim reaper, this odd job is unfortunately unplayable in MapleLegends, because the Saw does not exist in-game (even if it is represented in the library).

    And two are similar to the pistol-whipper (a.k.a. buffalo, bulletless sair):
    • Bombadier, a.k.a. grenadier, focussed on the use of Grenade and Gaviota, but otherwise plays like a DEXginner during first job. Note that Grenade is only usable with a gun equipped.
    • Summoner, focussed on the use of Octopus and Gaviota. Summoners play even more like DEXginners than bombadiers do, because they don’t get any attacking skills in second job.
    On that note, I’ve published the first revision of my swashbuckler guide, on the Oddjobs website. If you’re expecting it to be on the MapleLegends forums, I will post it there as well, but not until I consider it to be more “mature”, and also not until I have a lil video to accompany it ^^.

    MPQing with Kimbow, Fabienne, & Whitebeard1

    I actually got in a few more MPQs (rangifer is now level 72 & 78%), with a new crew. Kimbow was still with me, but also joining us was F/P mage Fabienne, and fellow marauder (with whom I also OPQed), Whitebeard1. Here I am, posing with Whitebeard1:

    [​IMG]

    And here we are, doing stage 3 of MPQ:

    [​IMG]

    I found that rangifer’s performance is a bit… subpar in MPQ (at least, compared to how I did during the early levels of OPQ), although that may improve once I get to level 80+ or so. A big issue is that the MPQ monsters tend to have rather significant WDEF; for example, Neo Huroids in stage 4 — which you generally have to kill quite a few of in order to clear stage 4 — have 400 WDEF. If I’m at least the level of the Neo Huroids (I’m not yet, since they are level 79, so leveling up should improve things at least), that 400 WDEF shaves an average of 220 damage off of each line of damage. Except, actually, that’s not exactly how it works. this average of 220 damage is shaved off not from the final damage number, but from the raw damage (before skill multipliers). So even if I use a skill with a high damage multiplier, like e.g. Flash Fist (270% damage), that 270% is applied only after WDEF is applied. So by that point, it’s multiplying a pretty pathetic number. For reference, at level 72, fully geared (with some pretty good gear) and with a Cider active, my before-WDEF range is 159~1137. So 400 WDEF is significant enough to make me hit quite a few “1”s. :/

    On the bright side, Transformation actually grants the equivalent of Haste for its duration (+40 SPEED, +20 JUMP), so here I am using it to do the left-hand-side JQ (jump quest) in stage 4 of MPQ:

    [​IMG]

    Finishing up the Dep Star & Ellin ring

    I went and finished up the quests for the Silver Deputy Star and the Ellin Savior’s Ring, respectively, and now rangifer is that much stronger!!:

    [​IMG]
     
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  6. OP
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    deer Pac Pinky

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    Oct 27, 2020
    Female
    Oddville
    4:18 PM
    cervid
    Bishop
    130
    Oddjobs
    (You can also read the original diary entry here, and/or read the diary entry on the Oddjobs forum.)

    rangifer’s diary: pt. xvii

    MPQ needs medical attention

    It’s true. MPQ is one of my favourite PQs, and yet sadly dusty ;(

    See also: “Yeah, MPQ. It’s pretty obscure; you’ve probably never heard of it…

    [​IMG]

    I tried 2 smegas of this kind on two different occasions (along with some other smegas), to no avail.

    Actually, someone who I was in a hopefully-MPQ party with (but who did not speak English very well) got smega muted for recruiting for MPQ. Now, I realise that it’s probably just an automated mute — the recruit message was perfectly innocent, but was exactly the same in most of the smegas, so maybe a spam filter caught it. But, it felt a little sad that someone got a smega mute for advertising the one PQ that needs it the most…

    [​IMG]

    Getting capreolina a new helm(s)

    capreolina is my wood(wo)man, and when I got a zhelm for her (back when she was level 56 or so), I actually had pretty good luck; the STR/DEX/INT/LUK was 16/16/16/17! I’ve been slowly (they are expensive!!) buying helmet for DEX 60% scrolls for a while now, since I basically need an unlimited quantity of them… such is the curse of having 941 (actually, just 5, but it feels like 941) characters. In any case, so far I’ve used 8(!) such scrolls on capreolina’s zhelm. At this point, 5 of those 8 have failed. Ouch. So much for 60% success rate, and so much for wasting even more money to finish off the last 2 slots.

    Rather than give up, I plan to work up a fresh new helm, and switch to that helm once it (hopefully) surpasses the zhelm.

    To that end, I decided that I wanted to try getting a Scarlion Hat instead of a Zakum Helmet this time. I’d actually never tried it before, so I had to figure out how to do the prequests. Luckily I found a guide, and set to work completing the prequests so that I could buy a Scarlion Hat service:

    [​IMG]

    If the backgrounds look a little mangled in some of these screenshots, it’s because I’ve turned down the graphics quality all the way. For some reason, Fantasy Theme Park is the one place where the game’s performance takes a nosedive (severely lowering framerate and making it difficult to play).

    [​IMG]

    As I was hunting Vikerolas, a level 155 nightlord by the name of DeeTheDon came along, while card-hunting, and apologised for killing some of the mobs on the map before he noticed that I was already there. In honesty, I didn’t even notice either, and I said not to worry about it. DeeTheDon asked what I was doing killing Vikerolas, and I said that I was not card-hunting, but just doing a quest. He graciously offered to help with the quest, asking what ETC items I needed:

    [​IMG]

    And he even helped me out with all of the parts of the quests that I had yet to complete!! It was very nice of him, helping to kill the monsters that I needed for the quest even when they wouldn’t drop any cards he needed. The monsters required to be killed for the Scarga prequests are quite tough (like Galloperas), and I’m quite sure that it would have taken me much longer without his help. Thanks again, DeeTheDon!!!

    Fortunately for me, shortly after I finished the prequests, someone smega’d, selling Scarlion Hats. I agreed to pay for the service, and they assured me that I wouldn’t need any HP (good, since I don’t have much to spare as an unwashed archer…). Here I am, at the Scarlion run, cowering as far away from the boss as possible, alongside the party’s resident SE mule:

    [​IMG]

    One of the two who were killing Scar, a level 169 paladin by the name of Chronicles, recognized my guild, Oddjobs, and was asking me a few questions about the guild and my odd job (wood(wo)man) during the run. Funny enough, he demonstrated a technique that he likes to use with bosses like Scarlion, which he calls “mosh pitting” — a technique also commonly used by permabeginners, particularly when trying to avoid a boss’s deadly magical attacks:

    [​IMG]

    In this case, the benefit is mostly a lot of mesos saved due to potions not being used.

    Once Scarlion was finally dead for good, two hats dropped. I take this to be standard: one DEX, one STR (correct me if I’m wrong, I’ve only been to one run). And so I got to loot both of them!:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    On average, the DEX one is better for me. But as it turned out in this particular case, the STR one is clearly superior. Hopefully, I can land some 60%s on it >.<

    …And they let me loot some of the crappier 60% scrolls that dropped from Scar, hehe. Thanks y’all!

    Finishing up the Magatia questline on capreolina

    I’ve made it my goal to complete the Magatia questline (which culminates in For Phyllia) on all of my characters that graduate MPQ (level 86+). cervid (my STR priest) already completed the questline, but capreolina was only partway through. So it was off to Authorized Personnel Only to fite some Sites. Oh, and a Security Camera, apparently:

    [​IMG]

    Security Cameras are one of those weird minibosses that spawns in certain maps: they are initially completely invincible, but once you perform some ritual (in this case, talking to theControl Device NPC), they suddenly become very weak and easy to kill. Security Cameras are technically level 10(!) monsters (for reference, Ribbon Pigs and Dark Stumps are also level 10 monsters), but have 16k HP, a knockback damage threshold of 1500, and 300 WATK! Extremely overpowered for a level 10 monster, but quite modest in comparison to the Sites that spawn in the same map.

    For The Hidden Words, a special quest item (Homunsculer’s Blood) has to be obtained by killing Homunscullo:

    [​IMG]

    Homunscullos are not bosses, but they strangely only spawn in one map, with two spawnpoints, each having a 90 minute respawn time. And they have a relatively impressive 27k HP. So they’re kinda like minibosses.

    The Black Magician’s Magic Pentagram has you kill Homunculus for a Magic Stone of Honesty, although (according to Hidden Street, at least) in GMS it actually dropped from Homunscullos. And for the Magic Stone of Trust, you have to obtain it from D. Roy. Unfortunately, D. Roy drops a card, so finding a D. Roy can be a bit tricky. And because the Magic Stone doesn’t have a 100% drop rate, this ends up being kind of a pain in the ass in many cases.

    On the way to the map that spawns D. Roys, I took a shortcut through Secret Basement Path (which can only be entered after once has completed the requisite quest), and was surprised to meet someone in there!:

    [​IMG]

    BaiRanger informed me that she was waiting for a special miniboss to spawn. That was news to me, as I didn’t even realise that monsters could spawn in that map!

    capreolina got a little lucky, and I was able to find two D. Roys after not too long of channel surfing and waiting:

    [​IMG]

    …And one dropped the stone! Yay! At that point the questline was basiclly complete, pending some annoying walking and talking (made easier, thanks to TP rocks), hehe.

    capreolina hits level 100~

    Now that capreolina finished the Magatia questline, she only needed some 2~3% more EXP to level up form 99 to 100! So I headed to the Phantom Forest in search of some HHs :p

    Unfortunately, I didn’t find any at Forgotten Path, so I wandered around some of the other maps in search of an HH. And I did find one, at Hollowed [sic] Ground. Killing an HH here is a lot more difficult than at Forgotten Path, as there are Jr. Wraiths that rapidly spawn over the entire map (not great for when I’m using my bow), and no safe spot where I can attack HH without fear of retribution. I had GM buffs active, so I figured with the HB and the HS, it was worth trying anyways. And it was rough; I very nearly ran out of GM buffs before HH went down, but I did make it! And that was enough to put capreolina into the triple-digit levels!!:

    [​IMG]

    The 5 STR from leveling up was just enough to put my damage range with my bow (with a Cider active, but no Echo) into the quadruple-digit numbers, for both the top and bottom of the range! ^^

    cervid finishes the Capt. Latanica quest

    I had finished the Capt. Latanica prequest on my STR priest, cervid, but not actually done the quest to kill him yet. With the convenience of GM buffs active on me, I decided to take on this boss solo. With just GM buffs (20 WATK; same as a Cider) + Echo, I was able to solo Capt. Latanica in just about 20 minutes and 28 seconds (20:28)! I filmed the whole thing, and you can watch a timelapsed version of the fight on the Oddjobs YouTube channel~!

    Beginners need Zhelms, too!

    Two of the permabeginners in Flow (a largely permabeginner guild that is part of the Suboptimal alliance, alongside Oddjobs and Southperry), drainer (a.k.a. maebee, technopagan) and Dizz, are around the level that they are trying to get a hold of a Zakum Helmet. But, for those who have not played a permabeginner before, you should know that beginners have extremely low MAXHP. If you thought that assassins, archers, and gunslingers were fragile… try a beginner on for size. So even getting to Entrance to Zakum Altar (necessary to do the prequests) proves difficult or impossible for a level 50~60 beginner.

    Dizz was talking about this in alliance chat, and I honestly forgot for a few seconds that I was even playing a priest, because I offered to kill monsters to help clear the way… but of course, I could just door them there! Dizz wanted to try walking up, so we were taking the hike up to the Forest of Dead Trees, while I doomed some of the more powerful monsters that got in the way. Unfortunately, at one point Dizz slipped and fell, instantly dying to a Lycanthrope. So we decided it was better for me to just go the rest of the way and then put up a door:

    [​IMG]

    And the next day, I also helped put up a door for drainer, who had never done the Zakum prequests before — what a treat, to do the Zakum prequests for the first time… >.<

    Grinding Fancy Amps with Taima

    Taima (a.k.a. Boymoder, Tacgnol) logged on, and we both wanted to MPQ… but since MPQ was not exactly a happenin’ place, we decided to do something else in the meantime, while I idled in the MPQ lobby as rangifer. Taima wanted to train, and at least for now (especially when the permabeginners are planning to take on Leviathan(!) in just two weeks), the spot to be is at Voodoos, because they have such low WATK (no potions really necessary, when every hit that you take is for 1 damage), and more importantly, drop Heartstoppers to be used at boss runs. But since I offered to come along and train as well, Taima decided that we were better off grinding for very high (by our standards) EPH, and so the place to be was at Fancy Amps:

    [​IMG]

    We grinded at Fancy Amps as a duo of level 103 beginner and level 101 STR priest for… a long time. Pretty mentally exhausting, but by the end of it, I was roughly 22.5% higher in EXP than when we started! And Taima saw a similar increase as well, although obviously a bit less due to the level difference between us. I recorded a little EPM test (@epm 3) to get an idea of what our peak EPH was like, and we were getting something like 1.7M EPH at peak! Wow! Not bad for some basic-attacking goofballs like ourselves.

    I had put a single meme SP into Summon Dragon on my previous levelup, so Taima kindly gave me a few Summoning Rocks to try it out! At level 1, it actually only lasts 10 seconds, but here is a crappy screenshot of us testing out whether it MISSes or not (spoiler: it MISSes every time):

    [​IMG]

    But that’s OK, because they are my cute tiny dragonito friend~

    cervid tries out card-hunting

    Now, cervid was my first real character on MapleLegends, and as a result, I was a bit clueless about what monster cards were… Add to that the fact that I was largely questing early on (and doing some training in Ellinia tree dungeons), and cervid has the fewest card sets out of all of my characters, despite being the oldest and highest-level. >.< After grinding Fancy Amps with Taima, Taima was talking about card hunting to get her tier 2 ring. I checked my book (and @checkstat), and found that I had (and it pains me to say this) just 3 sets…:
    Ahem. So, I figured I should probably get that huntin’ goin’:

    [​IMG]

    And I even got some gachapon tickets along the way~:

    [​IMG]

    After a bit of mucking about around Henesys and Lith Harbour — including a very oddly-shaped, biodiverse, and otherwise basically useless map that I love, by the name of Beach Hunting Ground — I’m now at an ever-so-slightly more respectable card set count of 7. Expect more card-hunting in the future, I hope~

    And Taima got her tier 2 ring! Yayy!! <3
     
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  7. Chris
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    Chris Zakum Retired Staff

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    Christopher
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    gun life do be fun tho

    [​IMG]
     
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  8. OP
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    deer Pac Pinky

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    Oct 27, 2020
    Female
    Oddville
    4:18 PM
    cervid
    Bishop
    130
    Oddjobs
    (You can also read the original diary entry here, and/or read the diary entry on the Oddjobs forum.)

    rangifer’s diary: pt. xviii

    More card-hunting for cervid~

    I did some more card-hunting on my STR priest, cervid, as my goal is to at least get a tier 1 ring for her! I was still working on that first page, so it was all Victoria Island maps for me:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    And I’ve completed the entire first page!!:

    [​IMG]

    Yay! ^^

    While I was in Victoria Island, I decided to try out my dragonito again, but this time on some much lower-level monsters. Here I am, with a Wizard Elixir active and my Crimson Arcglaive in hand, watching my lil dragonito absolutely slay some Snails:

    [​IMG]

    Training at Voodoos with Taima!

    My level 103 permabeginner friend and guildmate Taima was training at Voodoos, to get some EXP, and equally importantly, some Heartstoppers for permabeginner/odd-jobbed boss runs~ I decided to join her, and by our powers combined, we were able to squeeze out some 850k EPH or so! Not as good as the roughly 1.7M from grinding at Fancy Amps, but pretty respectable for such an easy place to train, that also gives those sweet Heartstoppers. Training at Voodoos is particularly easy for permabeginners like Taima, because of the way that WDEF’s effectiveness varies based on the combination of your class and level. Beginners can get hit for 1 damage every time by Voodoos with only a relatively modest WDEF. As a STR priest, on the other hand, I was getting hit for roughly 60~70 damage per hit, even with all of my gear equipped, max Magic Armour, and max Invincible!

    [​IMG]

    Finally MPQin’ a lil

    Boymoder (a.k.a. Taima, Tacgnol) and I were able to, eventually, pull together a functional MPQ party. It was the two of us, plus Whitebeard1 (who I was already familiar with, having OPQed and MPQed with him before), and IHealForYou, who is a friend of mine from OPQ. IHealForYou was new to MPQ, so Boymoder and I showed him the ways~

    Whitebeard1 is — like me — a marauder, but does… a lot more damage than I do, thanks to being an ordinary marauder, rather than a pugilist like myself. So when we finally got to the final stage (boss fight), I decided that even with a relatively small amount of time on the clock (only 15 minutes or so, because we were a bit slow in the earlier stages, as Whitebeard1 and IHealForYou were still learning), we should fight Angy Fanky for the big EXPs, and “true ending” of the PQ.

    Unfortunately, Whitebeard1 (and IHealForYou) were having some internet issues, and our main DPS, Whitebeard1, died almost immediately after the boss fight started:

    [​IMG]

    Because IHealForYou was having internet issues as well, he died later on in the boss fight. Boymoder and I tried our damnedest to kill Angy Fanky before time ran out (we gave up on protecting Romeo about halfway through), but once we had run out of time, Angy Fanky was unfotunately still at 2% HP or so. :/

    We did another MPQ, which fortunately was much faster and cleaner — although this time, of course, we went with Non-Angy Fanky. Not the true ending, but still, we at least fully completed the PQ and each got our random end-reward items and marbles.

    Loitering at MPQ

    After the two MPQs that we did, it’s mostly been loitering in the MPQ lobby, unfortunately. My friend from OPQ, 44ayuh, has been waiting with me, along with Whitebeard1 and Boymoder. Here I am, loitering in the Alcadno MPQ lobby, dabbing:

    [​IMG]

    And here I am in the same place, but naked — at least, naked NX-wise:

    [​IMG]

    I look like I do a lot of damage. But, looks can be deceiving…

    And here I am, joined by 44ayuh and Lovecraft, as we wait for a mage (MPQ requires at least 1 mage):

    [​IMG]

    PPQ it is

    Eventually, 44ayuh, Lovecraft, and I gave up, and decided that it was PPQ time:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    I’m not a big fan of PPQ myself, and the EXP is more geared towards characters in the 55~70 level range (somewhat similar to OPQ), but it was nice to try it out on my pugilist~

    [​IMG]
     
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  9. OP
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    deer Pac Pinky

    195
    398
    191
    Oct 27, 2020
    Female
    Oddville
    4:18 PM
    cervid
    Bishop
    130
    Oddjobs
    (You can also read the original diary entry here, and/or read the diary entry on the Oddjobs forum.)

    rangifer’s diary: pt. xix

    More MPQ with ETAN and Keki

    I got to do a few more MPQs, with my STRlord friend and guildmate Boymoder (a.k.a. Taima, Tacgnol), crusader ETAN, and I/L mage Keki!

    [​IMG]

    These MPQs generally went pretty smoothly, particularly thanks to Keki’s ridiculously high damage… Here we are, fighting Angy Fanky, whilst I elbow the diaper robots:

    [​IMG]

    Somewhere during this fight, ETAN found his way to the grave…

    [​IMG]

    R.I.P. ETAN, 2020~2021. u_u

    (And yes, you still get the the bursts of EXP at the end, even if you die, as long as you don’t click the revive button.)

    More Fancy Amps training with Taima

    I did some more training at Fancy Amps with Taima, as a permabeginner/STR priest duo, with my STR priest cervid. We were both hungry for that sweet, sweet EXP. And Taima even reported recoding some 1.8M EPH or so, 100k more than we recorded last time!!

    [​IMG]

    And we were grinding long enough for Taima to level up, to level 104!!!! Congrats!!!!!!

    [​IMG]

    Meet hashishi, the baby besinner

    A lesser-known variant of ye olde permabeginner (which is typically STR-based, with the exception of DEXginners) is the besinner. Besinners (also known as “LUK beginners” or “LUKginners”) are LUK-based, because they only use claws. Most claws, obviously, are restricted to rogues only. But some, like the Magical Mitten, can be used by any job.

    Last MapleLegends anniversary event, the Sweet Fork Cake was made available, so in case I ever wanted to play a besinner myself, I went ahead and made one, and got the fork. Her name is hashishi, from the Arabic hashīshī, literally “one who uses hashish”, but figuratively used to mean “low-life, outcast, rabble”; this term is commonly believed to be the origin of the English assassin, meaning “a member of the Order of Assassins”, and later meaning, more generally, “one who commits murder, especially of a politically important person”. The plural of hashīshī is hashīshīn, and the pluralising -īn was mistaken for being part of the root word when the word was imported into European languages (hence in English, singular assassin, plural assassins). This etymology is probably ultimately false, though, put forth mistakenly by Marco Polo; Hassan-i Sabbah (not to be confused with the band of the same name) referred to his followers as Asāsiyyūn, meaning “people who are faithful to the foundation [of the faith]”.

    Like this false etymology, hashishi is a false assassin. In fact, she hasn’t a single rogue/assassin/hermit/nightlord skill to her name, unless you count “noob haste”. A funny quirk of besinners is that they can be truly DEXless (indeed, truly pure LUK), unlike actual assassins, who need at least 25 base DEX, and may want more in order to wear equipment. Here’s a look at my level 17 baby besinner’s stats (with Cider active):

    [​IMG]

    And here I am with Boymoder, a real assassin (and a STR-based one, at that), testing out some star-throwin’:

    [​IMG]

    Perhaps the biggest bummer for besinners, however, is that they don’t get access to Keen Eyes. So while they are kinda ranged, they play more like longer-range melee… Definitely not enough to serve as range in LPQ. And their damage is low in comparison to STR-based beginners. But they have all the swag points, and all the WACC & AVOID!

    Moar card-hunting~

    And I’m continuing to card-hunt on cervid. I decided to get some more cards from Perion, so here I am, huntin’ it up:
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
    Oh, and I just realised that for low-level mobs, I can just use Shining Ray (which I put a single meme SP into), with my I/L magelet’s (cervine’s) gear equipped:

    [​IMG]
     
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    deer Pac Pinky

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    Oddjobs
    (You can also read the original diary entry here, and/or read the diary entry on the Oddjobs forum.)

    rangifer’s diary: pt. xx

    Boomin’ Toys

    A friend of mine (IGN SiriusPlaque, SmallMight) has had a cache of Toys of 101 for a while. For those not aware, the Toy of 101 is a level 85 two-handed sword that is only available as a drop from the level 100 Spirit of Rock area boss. Spirit of Rock is a very tough boss (good luck surviving his attacks, or even hitting him at all, with his whopping 55 AVOID), but has relatively low HP (800k) due to being an area boss. SiriusPlaque killed quite a number of these, and got a number of Toys of 101 for his sader/hero, SmallMight. But the Toy of 101 isn’t really that amazing for STR-based warriors like SmallMight; they have access to other two-handed swords around the same level, like the Devil’s Sunrise, Blue Screamer, and Heaven’s Gate, not to mention higher-level upgrades. However, the twist of the Toy of 101 is that it has no stat requirements (unlike usual two-handed swords, which have high STR requirements) and no job requirements (most two-handed swords are warrior-only). In fact, I use a Toy of 101 on my STR priest cervid, and on my wood(wo)man capreolina. The Toy of 101 is very powerful for odd jobs like permabeginner, STR mage, woodman, etc., because it’s the best two-handed sword — actually, best sword in general — usable by those jobs. If you’re not familiar with how the maths work out here, you’ll just have to take my word for it when I say that this makes the Toy of 101 a truly formidable weapon. And odd job warriors like LUK warriors, DEX warriors, and HP warriors who are swordsmen/white-knights/crusaders/paladins/heroes can benefit a lot from the Toy’s lack of stat requirements, as well.

    The Toy of 101 that I use was very kindly donated to me by SiriusPlaque, and because he has no real use for the other Toys anymore, he offered to sell me the others, in exchange for Power Crystal Ores. I was able to get a number of these ores from my experience farming at Taipei 101, as well as from OPQ (see diary pt. xv; this includes entire refined crystals, which are effectively 10 ores each), and some from kind donations due to Kudu! Thank you!! I was able to pay for two of the very good clean Toys that SiriusPlaque had:
    • 96 WATK, 4 STR, 4 DEX (Toy A)
    • 96 WATK, 3 STR, 2 DEX (Toy B)
    Because the Toy that I currently use is 106 WATK, and the finished (read: zero slots) Toy that SiriusPlaque has is 108 WATK, I knew I needed to try really hard when scrolling these things, because I want a substantial upgrade here. Normally, I’m the coward who refuses to use scrolls that don’t either have a 60% or a 100% chance of success… but I know perfectly well when I need to get brave. Unfortunately, two-handed sword 30% scrolls are a tad pricey at the time of writing, somewhere around 1.5M~1.6M. I bought the 30%s that I used for an average price of 1.53M mesos. Here’s what happened with these two fateful Toys:
    • I used a 30% on Toy A, and it boomed. (0 WATK, 0 STR, 0 DEX, 0 slots)

    • I used a 30% on Toy B, and it failed. (96 WATK, 3 STR, 2 DEX, 6 slots)
    • I used a 30% on Toy B, and it passed. (101 WATK, 6 STR, 2 DEX, 5 slots)
    • I used a 60% on Toy B, and it passed. (103 WATK, 7 STR, 2 DEX, 4 slots)
    • I used a 60% on Toy B, and it failed. (103 WATK, 7 STR, 2 DEX, 3 slots)
    • I used a 70% on Toy B, and it passed. (105 WATK, 8 STR, 2 DEX, 2 slots)
    • I used a 70% on Toy B, and it boomed. (0 WATK, 0 STR, 0 DEX, 0 slots)
    Poof! There they go. I sure do love scrolling. :)

    Guess it’s time to farm up some more ores

    cervid hunts moar cards

    cervid’s card-hunting continues, in the quest for moar card.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    And cervid is now at 21 card sets! Just 9 more!! I’m now paying attention to the helpful guides out there, like “Card Hunting Guide: Get your Tier 10 Ring ASAP” and “Monster Book Efficient Farming Guide”! I’m going to try Orbis Tower next~!

    LPQing as rusa

    It is at this point that I must make a confession. I’ve been worried about the Oddjobs guild not having a sufficient quantity of HB, and I do hope to be doing some tough boss runs maybe in the future~ maybe~~

    So… meet rusa, the DEX spear(wo)man:

    [​IMG]

    I was playing rusa somewhat secretly, as I got her to at least level 41, for that maxed HB. Being a DEX spearman, she’s somewhat limited in equipment choices; warrior equipment generally has high STR requirements, but I’m stuck at 35 base STR for life. But when it comes to weaponry, there are thankfully a number of odd-job-friendly weapons that are polearms and spears. Having extremely high accuracy (just from each levelup’s AP, I get 5 ⋅ 0.8 = 4 WACC!), and quite stable damage once I get my masteries (and even more stable once I start using third job attacking skills), has been a fun experience so far. While I’m familiar with the maths behind it, I’m not quite so familiar with actually playing warriors, so I’m loving playing one, and being useful to my party, at the same time! And now rusa is an official member of Oddjobs~

    Speaking of Oddjobs, here are 5 members meeting up at the LPQ lobby:

    [​IMG]

    Pictured (left-to-right, top-to-bottom): Mootsama, a level 37 dagger fighter; rusa; Taima, a level 104 permabeginner; xX17Xx, a level 39 permarogue; and maebee, a level 39 woodwoman of the hunter variety.

    And here we are, in an LPQ party, fighting Alishar for all he’s got!:

    [​IMG]

    Additionally pictured above is Yotsubachan, a level 37 woodwoman of the crossbowoman variety.

    rusa is now level 46, with maxed HB, so she can officially fill in the role of “HB slave”, if needed :)

    The CD grind is real

    A friend of mine (Sopooroh) asked if I could Heal him at CDs as my STR priest cervid, so I came to help, and we trio grinded alongside Sopooroh’s hermit friend. For those unfamiliar, the Healing is necessitated by the use of Dragon Roar, which damages the caster for 30% of their MAXHP each time that the skill is used. Almost immediately after they both had to go to sleep, I met with a DrK by the name of ScoopRice, who also needed some Heals.

    Now, as a STR priest, I have 20 base INT; from this, the efficacy of my Heal suffers quite a bit (Heal’s efficacy when healing allies is based only on the skill level and the caster’s TMA; its efficacy versus undead enemies is calculated in an unrelated way). Thankfully, I have some decent TMA gear that I use for my I/L magelet, cervine, and I can use MATK buffs to even further accentuate my low TMA. As a result, my Heals are often powerful enough to suffice for this purpose, although DrKs that are heavily HP washed (30k-ish MAXHP when HB is active) will sometimes have to cancel (by right-clicking) their HB immediately after casting it, so that my Heals are effective enough. Heh. It works quite well though, and I can keep up with the DrK well enough by using my Teleport.

    ScoopRice had to take a break for a while, and asked me if I wanted to keep training at the CDs map that we were in. I asked in alliance chat, and Taima responded that she would definitely like to try out CDs. If you’ve read previous diary entries, you’ll know that Taima and I like to train at Fancy Amps together. CDs are quite nearby, and in theory, give us a bit better EPH (experience per hour). But we had never actually tried it, and Taima was actually entirely new to the map. ScoopRice heard that a level 104 permabeginner from my guild was coming, and wanted to see Taima in action for himself. We even briefly tried some trio grinding, with Taima, myself, and ScoopRice! Here we are during duo grinding at CDs:

    [​IMG]

    We actually were grinding for quite a long time (all in all, I was at CDs for some 7-ish hours straight, god help me), and I decided that it was a good place to stop when I hit level 105!!!!!:

    [​IMG]

    ❤️
     
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  11. Chris
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    Chris Zakum Retired Staff

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    Christopher
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    Got my tier 1 ring!

    [​IMG]
     
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  12. Isme
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    Isme Brown Teddy

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    The journal is very well written and very fun to read! Keep on going :D
     
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  13. OP
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    deer Pac Pinky

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    Oct 27, 2020
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    Oddville
    4:18 PM
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    Bishop
    130
    Oddjobs
    (You can also read the original diary entry here, and/or read the diary entry on the Oddjobs forum.)

    rangifer’s diary: pt. xxi

    cervid solos bosses~

    I’ve posted two videos of cervid (by STR priest) soloing bosses, and forgot to include them in the previous diary entry. Both of these bosses are level 100~

    Here I am, soloing Capt. Latanica in 20 minutes and 28 seconds (most of the fight is timelapsed for brevity):

    Level 101 STR priest solos Capt. Latanica in 20:28 w/ Echo + 20 WATK buff

    And here I am, soloing two(!?) Crimson Balrogs at once:

    STR priest solos 2 Crimson Balrogs

    Boomin’ ducks

    I’ve had five level 100 Duck Tubes sitting in my inventory, that I got from opening boxes during the last summer event. At the time, I was just hoping that one day I would manage to achieve level 100 at all. Well, I now have a level 105 STR priest and a level 100 wood(wo)man, both of whom could make good use of such a Duck Tube, especially when paired with a nice shield! So I decided it was time to round up those duckies and give em a couple good scrolls. Because the Duck Tube has kinda underwhelming WATK (90 on average), is a one-handed blunt weapon, and isn’t particularly fast (speed 5, which is generally the slowest speed you would expect from a one-handed weapon), it needs a good scrollin’. Thankfully, one-handed blunt weapon scrolls (particularly, for our case, 30% for WATK) are quite cheap. So I was pretty excited to scroll these:
    • 86 WATK, 3 AVOID, 5 SPEED
    • 92 WATK, 4 AVOID, 5 SPEED
    • 94 WATK, 4 AVOID, 4 SPEED
    • 94 WATK, 4 AVOID, 6 SPEED
    • 95 WATK, 3 AVOID, 5 SPEED
    All of these were clean, so 7 slots each. This is a pretty damn good lineup; four out of the five tubes are above average, and the average WATK of all five tubes is 92.2 > 90.

    I used 30%s on every one of these bad boys, and you’ll never guess what happened: all five (no really, every single one) boomed on the first slot! Wow! I really do love scrolling. Haha!

    Chillin’ with Gambolpuddy-chan

    Taima (a.k.a. Boymoder, Tacgnol, Yotsubachan) got the itch to play a DEXginner, so she went ahead and made one by the name of Gambolpuddy! Gambolpuddy-chan has big stronk (weapon) accuracy, and big stronk minimum damage that lays waste to every shroom in sight!! Here I am, as my besinner hashishi, training with Gambolpuddy-chan:

    [​IMG]

    At the end of the day, don’t we all just wanna KPQ?

    MPQ with Seafoam and taipan

    While I was playing hashishi alongside Gambolpuddy, we both were also on our MPQ-level characters: for me, rangifer the pugilist, and for Gambolpuddy, Boymoder the STRlord. A smega or two later, and we managed to pull together people for a functional MPQ party! Joining us were two priests: Seafoam and taipan!:

    [​IMG]

    Unfortunately, shortly before we could finish the third stage of our first MPQ, taipan bit the dust:

    [​IMG]

    D:

    taipan has limited time, so she decided she had to leave anyways. But we were able to finish that MPQ. We opted for the calm version of Angy Fanky…:

    [​IMG]

    We also had some fun decorating the Juliet-side MPQ lobby:

    [​IMG]

    And Seafoam said that his penguin needed a name, so my immediate suggestion was Heliodorf. After all, what better name for a smol penguin? And so it was:

    [​IMG]

    Seafoam was new to MPQ, so Boymoder and I taught him the ropes. He said he enjoyed the PQ, so maybe we’ll see Seafoam (and/or one of his other characters) at MPQ again soon!!

    cervid trawls the Orbis Tower for cards

    You already know what it is: more card-hunting for cervid! This time, featuring the Orbis Tower!:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    After finding these sets, I can probably get away with just finishing up some partially-completed sets to get my T1 ring~

    MPQ be bumpin’

    Another day, hopefully more MPQs! And to my pleasant surprise, we got the MPQ lobby pretty bumpin’!:

    [​IMG]

    Unfortunately, while we did have quite a few people, we were just short of the number of folks (8) that we would need to split into two parties. MPQ regrettably requires exactly 4 players per party:

    [​IMG]

    But we were able to resolve the issue after a while, effectively splitting into two parties. In my party was Boymoder, an outlaw by the name of Lovecraft, and an I/L mage by the name of NiceOnRice. The rest of us were, uhm, maybe not so hot when it came to dishing out damage, buy NiceOnRice proved to be more than capable of picking up the slack. Here we are, farming up some liquids in stage 3:

    [​IMG]

    Our first Angy Fanky fight didn’t go terribly well; Lovecraft found his pet to be inadequate for his HP-potion-using needs:

    [​IMG]

    …But we made it through the fight just fine (if perhaps more slowly), and saved Romeo successfully~

    Our PQs after that were generally smoother, and at one point we were joined by the priest lostbearbear, who is also pictured above.

    And rangifer is now level 75 (and more than halfway to 76~)!!

    [​IMG]

    Party at Maya’s house

    Some buddies of mine who I met as rusa (my DEX spear(wo)man) at LPQ, including ToxicChicken and Hemo (a.k.a. hxmo), hosted a party at Maya’s house (a map which is bizarrely called “Henesys Townstreet”) during the hour before a server maintenance.

    Much mesos were showered around, many illicit drugs were consumed, mae (drainer, maebee, xX17Xx) was there, JamesCharIes paid a visit (and even shared a few top-secret beauty tips), we helped a new player learn how MapleLegends works, and Kimmy even paid a visit (presumably to bust us, but this was 2~3 minutes before a maintenance, so we were all about to scram anyways…):

    [​IMG]
     
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    deer Pac Pinky

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    Female
    Oddville
    4:18 PM
    cervid
    Bishop
    130
    Oddjobs
    (You can also read the original diary entry here, and/or read the diary entry on the Oddjobs forum.)

    rangifer’s diary: pt. xxii

    Scrolling a STR robe

    I’ve been almost exclusively using DEX robes (both bath and sauna) on my physical-attacking characters for a while now, since I benefit from the extra damage, WACC, and those who can also range (my wood(wo)man capreolina and my swashbuckler hydropotina) can benefit even more from the extra damage, when at range. Now that I have rusa, my DEX spear(wo)man, I decided to invest in a STR robe as well!

    The DEX robe that I normally use works well enough on rusa, but she really only cares about the damage (she has plenty of WACC…), and DEX doesn’t contribute nearly as much STR to her damage. The reason for this is not that rusa is pure DEX, but because she is a warrior using appropriate weapons (polearms and spears, in this case). That means mastery, and quite high PSM (primary stat multiplier) values. In particular, polearms have an “average” (ignoring the effects of any WDEF) PSM of 5.0 ⋅ 60% + 3.0 ⋅ 40% = 4.2. But that’s when basic-attacking (or using skills that animate identically, like Power Strike or Slash Blast); in third job, rusa will have access to skills like Dragon Fury: Polearm and Spear Crusher, both of which guarantee a PSM of 5.0(!) on every hit. This means that, depending on how you estimate it, each point of STR contributes as much damage as somewhere between 3.0 and 3.8 points of DEX!

    And, in any case, a STR robe could be useful on my other characters as well, in contexts where I can stand to lose the WACC.

    Unfortunately, while I was able to get a number of good results when owling for male robes scrolled for STR, nothing came up after a few owls (and even smegas) for female ones. And come to think of it, I’ve owled for female robes many (really, very many) times… and I don’t recall ever seeing a STR one. So it seemed that I had to go for it myself~

    I sunk more mesos into this than I’d like to admit, and after booming a number of them — mostly with 70%s, because more than half of the 70%s that I used boomed, although I did use two 30%s (ow, pricey!!) — I ended up with no real choice other than 60%ing the whole way:

    [​IMG]

    …Aaaaand it’s average! I may have lost a sizeable amount of net worth in the process, but at least this robe is, uhm, usable. So rusa will be sticking with this one for the foreseeable future~

    cervid gets her T1 ring!

    My STR priest, cervid, was back at it again with the card hunting. And with my very first monster book ring in sight!:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Ah, finally. That last Cactus card was all I needed. Oh, and a Garnet!:

    [​IMG]

    I know it might seem kinda dumb (the tier 1 ring is not exactly considered a big accomplishment, especially with 9 higher tiers…), but it was cool to finally do some card-hunting in earnest and get myself my first-ever monster book ring. ^^

    Finishing capreolina’s Scar Hat

    As detailed in diary pt. xvii, my wood(wo)man capreolina paid for a Scarlion run and got two hats (one STR, one DEX). Since then, I have tried my hand at scrolling the better of the two (the STR one), and finished it with excellent results!!:

    [​IMG]

    Finally, some good scrolling results!!! Now capreolina’s headgear is all sorted ^^

    Maybe I will scroll the other one for HP

    Meet potpan

    As some readers may already know, I’ve been advocating for MPQ for a little while now, and I figured it’s time to suck it up and make Yet Another Character™ so that I can have an MPQ mule. I don’t think I’ve seen any MPQ mules before (unlike mules for KPQ and LPQ), but of course, any MPQ mule would have to be a mage of some kind. So here she is, all ready to KPQ:

    [​IMG]

    Her name is potpan; just like she is (or rather, will be) a servant of Romeo & Juliet PQ, she is named after Potpan, a servant in William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. potpan will be my only character who isn’t an odd job; she will just be an ordinary, INT-based, F/P mage. As a result, she will likely not feature very heavily in this diary. But on one glorious day (I hope), she will achieve level 71 and meet her true calling!!

    capreolina gets her T1 ring also~

    Now that cervid got her T1 ring, I want to work on some of my other characters’ rings as well. capreolina needs rings even more than cervid, since she is quite fragile, being an archer and all that. Luckily for capre, I made her after cervid, when I was a little more aware of what monster cards were, so I already had 23 or so sets completed. Here’s capre, finishing up 7 more partially-completed sets:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    And so it is. Now capre doesn’t have to lug that stinky T0 ring around anymore, either ^^

    [​IMG]
     
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  15. Fair Row
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    Fair Row Red Snail

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    Hey guys, short term lurker - long time lover of "odd jobs" here. I'm looking to join up! Hope you're all doing swimmingly as weirdo's with strange jobs!

    I play a Level 37 Permaginner, my one and only character... Looking forward to catching you all in game :) :).
     
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  16. Voxtagrams
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    Voxtagrams Headless Horseman

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    OnionCheer 4wTf1kUeeeWeuywNkjTEyQ_48x48.png CERVID LESGO


    I sent you some presents via Duey :D
     
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  17. OP
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    deer Pac Pinky

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    Awesome! :D Added to the guild~! ^^

    [​IMG]

    Thanks so much!! <3 I've already started farming towards T2 on capreolina hehe~ It's a little more buttery smooth and relaxing when I can just spam Arrow Rain :p
     
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  18. OP
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    deer Pac Pinky

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    191
    Oct 27, 2020
    Female
    Oddville
    4:18 PM
    cervid
    Bishop
    130
    Oddjobs
    (You can also read the original diary entry here, and/or read the diary entry on the Oddjobs forum.)

    rangifer’s diary: pt. xxiii

    Sorry for the delay on this one, hehe… Had a bit of difficulty, thanks to some adverse weather conditions.

    R>1 pog ranged for blue mushmom run

    Dealing ungodly quantities of single-target DPS to boss monsters has long been a fascination of maplers. Many maplers aspire to mow their oversized enemies to shreds with the most brutal possible efficiency, and in pre-BB (pre-Big-Bang) MapleStory, playing a terribly squishy and ranged character is usually the choice way to do it. And if we’re talking about ways not to do it, we might consider instead playing a peepee poopoo garbo odd-jobbed character.

    But what if you could do both?

    Some odd jobs retain the ability to use ranged DPS skills; and if you’ll remember, in pt. iv of this diary, we explored the damaging capabilities of the third-job STRmit. We also compared the model STRmit to an equivalent model pugilist, although the pugilist is a little out of scope here; the pugilist suffers too much from a lack of range and inability to surmount any significant quantity of WDEF. The pugilist is more specialised in crowd control, survivability, and general, jack-of-all-trades, ass-whoopin’.

    Here, I want to look at one (or two, depending on how you count) other third-job odd-jobber who can also reasonably fill the role of “ranged DPS” in an odd-jobbed context: the wood(wo)man. Woodwomen have historically been understood as a kind of “fancier” or “jobbed” version of permabeginners, because they are pure STR by definition. But the fact remains that woodmen are, nevertheless, technically capable of using any archery skill in the game, from first through fourth job. This is of utmost importance when differentiating the two varieties of woodwoman: bow-using (hunter/ranger/bowmaster), and crossbow-using (crossbow(wo)man/sniper/marks(wo)man).

    Crossbow-using woodmen are usually understood to be somewhat superior, although in second job, Arrow Bomb proves to be more generally applicable than Iron Arrow. The reasons to believe that crossbows would be superior to bows here are two:
    • Crossbows differ from bows in the general sense that crossbows deal more per-shot damage (better damage “range”), at the cost of having larger attack periods (slower attack rate). This would seem* to work in favour of the woodwoman — who has a relatively depressed (although considerably narrower) damage “range” in comparison to the DEX-based archer — because their target’s WDEF chews away so much of their raw damage before it can be multiplied by their skills (including crits).
    • Crossbow-users get Snipe as their main new (“new” excludes Strafe, which the woodman already has by third job) attacking skill in fourth job. This is ostensibly** more fruitful than the bow-user’s main new fourth-job attacking skill: Hurricane. The reason is simply that Snipe’s efficacy doesn’t depend on the woodwoman’s stats (DEX, STR, WATK); in fact, it doesn’t depend on much at all, save the skill level of Snipe itself.
    Oh geez, look at those asterisks. We won’t be going into the double-asterisked (**) bit above, because that’s getting a little too in the weeds with fourth-job stuff. But it’s worth investigating the singly-asterisked (*) bit above, using similar model characters to the STRmit and pugilist used before.

    The model wood(wo)man
    • 525 STR (25 of which is from gear)
    • 105 DEX (80 of which is from gear)
    • 128|131 WATK (90|93 from bow|xbow + 20 from Cider + 3 from cape + 10 from gloves + 5 from arrows|quarrels)
    And we take the target to be the same level as the woodman.

    Let’s consider how the basic attack damage (assuming no (x)bow-whacks and no crits) compares between bow and xbow, as we modulate the target’s WDEF; the basic attack damage is indicative of the raw advantage that one weapon type has over another, because damage modifiers from skills and crits are applied after WDEF. We won’t be looking at the dispersion of the values in question here, because the vast majority of the dispersion that matters for woodwomen who are engaging in archery is in the form of crits. The reason for this is that so much of the woodman’s damage comes from STR (not DEX), which does not differ in its damage contribution from the minimum damage to the maximum damage (unlike damage due to DEX, which is subject to mastery as well as a constant 0.9 multiplier when calculating minimum damage).

    Comparing basic attacks

    The numbers here are crunched using my damage calculator. The winner of each matchup is bolded.

    0 WDEF

    Example: Orange Mushroom.

    Bow:
    • Range (avg): 918~1128 (1023.4)
    • DPS: 1550.5
    Xbow:
    • Range (avg): 955~1182 (1068.5)
    • DPS: 1548.6
    200 WDEF
    Example: Red Slime.

    Bow:
    • Range (avg): 798~1028 (913.4)
    • DPS: 1383.9
    Xbow:
    • Range (avg): 835~1082 (958.5)
    • DPS: 1389.2
    400 WDEF
    Example: Female Mannequin.

    Bow:
    • Range (avg): 678~928 (803.4)
    • DPS: 1217.2
    Xbow:
    • Range (avg): 715~982 (848.5)
    • DPS: 1229.8
    600 WDEF
    Example: Eliza.

    Bow:
    • Range (avg): 558~828 (693.4)
    • DPS: 1050.5
    Xbow:
    • Range (avg): 595~882 (738.5)
    • DPS: 1070.3
    800 WDEF
    Example: Angy Fanky.

    Bow:
    • Range (avg): 438~728 (583.4)
    • DPS: 883.9
    Xbow:
    • Range (avg): 475~782 (628.5)
    • DPS: 910.9
    1000 WDEF
    Example: Pianus (L).

    Bow:
    • Range (avg): 318~628 (473.4)
    • DPS: 717.2
    Xbow:
    • Range (avg): 355~682 (518.5)
    • DPS: 751.5
    Of course, WDEF values can go much higher than 1000, but we will stop there.

    As you can see, the bow-user only wins in cases where the target has very low WDEF, and even then, only w.r.t. DPS; their per-hit damage is still inferior on even a 0 WDEF target.

    It’s worth noting again that this assumes the use of level 64 maple weapons. Woodwomen who are rangers/bowmasters have another option: the Bow of Magical Destruction (BoMD). Obviously it depends on scrolling outcomes, but the BoMD has, on average, the same WATK as the Kandiva, but is one speed category slower than the Kandiva. So using the BoMD will make the bow-user comparatively worse here (in terms of DPS; the per-hit damage would be unchanged), still assuming that the xbow-user is using the Nishada.

    Oh, remember when I said that “[t]he reasons to believe that crossbows would be superior to bows here are two”? Well, maybe they’re three now, in MapleLegends…?

    Comparing Strafes

    In MapleLegends, the sniper version of Strafe was changed to fire 5 projectiles, rather than the ranger version’s (and original sniper version’s) 4. The per-projectile damage multiplier was adjusted accordingly, with the sniper version only having a multiplier of 75% at max level, versus the ranger version’s 110%. This would naïvely seem to work out in favour of the ranger, because 110% ⋅ 4 = 440% > 375% = 75% ⋅ 5.

    But critical hits work by adding the critical’s damage multiplier to other sources of damage multiplier, and then taking that sum and multiplying it by the after-WDEF damage. For snipers/rangers with no SE, their critical multiplier is 100%, so for a critical line of the sniper’s Strafe, that’s a total multiplier of 75% + 100% = 175%, and for the ranger’s Strafe, 110% + 100% = 210%. Because (again, assuming no SE) 50% of lines are crits, we expect the total damage multiplier for a line of the sniper’s Strafe to be (75% + 175%) ÷ 2 = 125%, and for the ranger’s Strafe, (110% + 210%) ÷ 2 = 160%. Taking into account the number of projectiles/lines per Strafe, we have 160% ⋅ 4 = 640% > 625% = 125% ⋅ 5. So the ranger still wins here, in terms of damage multiplier, just by a smaller margin (both in absolute and relative terms).

    Since, after all, we are worried about shredding boss monsters with as high of a single-target DPS as possible, let’s throw together all of the variables into the calculator here. And this time, we will assuming 600 WDEF, since that is reasonably representative of many low- or mid-level boss monsters:
    • Bow DPS: 6725.3
    • Xbow DPS: 6690.6
    So, indeed, the ranger still wins here, albeit by a similarly small margin as the xbow-user won when basic-attacking: 6725.3 ÷ 6690.6 = 1.00519. It looks like rangers are still, after all, the (very slight) favourite for single-target DPS in third job. Remember, though, that xbow-users still have a number of advantages, even before fourth job!:
    • They deal more single-target DPS in first and second jobs, as we saw above.
    • Iron Arrow, while somewhat more difficult to pull off than Arrow Bomb (and lacking stun), deals considerably more damage than Arrow Bomb.
    • The xbow-user’s access to Blizzard means that they pull ahead of bow-users in terms of crowd control during third job. This generally makes up for their lack of Arrow Bomb (not to mention that Arrow Bomb has a measly 60% proc chance at max level).
    Almost all-Oddjobs LPQ…
    Around the time that we had just got a new addition to the guild, a permabeginner by the name of FairRow, I noticed we had a few people online who could LPQ:
    Together we actually formed a technically-functional LPQ party: doiob and TestChars had Teleport, and MingsToo was capable of covering both the thief portal (due to having Dark Sight) and our range (due to having Keen Eyes). I prepared by gathering up some potions for us, as well as a claw, stars, and even a LUK earring for MingsToo.

    We were very nearly ready to go, but unfortunately doiob was having some serious internet connectivity issues with the MapleLegends servers, so we eventually were forced to give up the dream… Oh well, maybe next time.

    I did, however, get to try out Outside’s Maple Scorpio:

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    I love how it looks on rusa~

    capre lays waste to the island we know as Victoria

    I recently got a Duey package from Voxtagrams, who very kindly supplied me with the jewels necessary to complete various monster book rings:

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    …So it looks like it’s time to go more card-hunting B)

    I had already started my woodwoman, capreolina, on her way towards the T2 ring! With maxed Arrow Rain, it’s much more effortless and relaxing to simply run around and Arrow Rain the shit out of everything. With my STR priest, cervid, card-hunting has the possible advantage of being more engaging; in order to be efficient, I have to pay a lot of attention to where I position myself, how I use Teleport, and exactly how much damage each one of my hits deals. As a STR priest, my damage is wildly unstable, so the number of hits that it takes me to kill a given monster can vary quite a bit. But when using a bow with capreolina, it’s smooth as butter:

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    capre is now at 49 card sets! Sick~~ And I met a few big bad guys along the way:

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    Hi, Bob.

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    Gah! Dyle!!

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    A showdown with Zombie Mushmom results in a card for a set that I will likely never finish:

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    Not going to lie, I expected Zombie Mushmom to put up more of a fight…

    hashishi and Gambolpuddy-chan train in preparation for permanoob KPQing

    And then, I was ready for more training fun times with my besinner hashishi, and Kelsey’s (a.k.a. Taima, Tacgnol, Boymoder, Yotsubachan) DEXginner Gambolpuddy:

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    So that by our powers combined, we could achieve level 21, for great KPQ! Yes~!!
     
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  19. Voxtagrams
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    Voxtagrams Headless Horseman

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    Squishy squish~
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    Poggies
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    Good luck and have fun getting monster book rings! :D
    OnionCheer
     
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  20. Slime
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    Slime Pixel Artist Retired Staff

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    NICE AIM
     
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