piratty's HT DPM Journal

This is piratty. He is the direct result of daily influence from iPippy and my most unloved child. Piratty has received literally 0 funding in gear, inheriting a mishmash of old iPippy, akash, and cioudy equipment, rounded out by my BM's few actually tradable equips. This, alongside poor planning on my part for his washing leading to a good chunk of his INT still remaining due to lack of NX, has led to him being pitifully weak. Nonetheless, I wanted to track my progression in learning how to play a Bucc in HT and potentially reaching "passable" DPM. The goal for the end of this journey is to eventually hit 6m DPM.

piratty's HT journey begins not even as an actual main attacker, but as a second attacker that I have been multiclienting on my BM's 5 man runs. He has not performed particularly well in those scenarios; as anyone who has played BM in HT can imagine, it's not exactly trivial simultaneously piloting a second attacker while also repositioning constantly on the Bowmaster. Nonetheless, he has been able to consistently output more than 1m DPM at the expense of around 500k DPM on my Bowmaster, resulting in a net positive in terms of my own DPM, and likely a larger effect on Gurk's Sair's DPM, as piratty also serves as a boat TL mule.

One thing I discovered during these 5 man runs is that Buccs in HT are surprisingly clunky. Whereas their kit feels smooth in most other fights, between the awkward ranges to hit arms and the head rotations causing Demo to re-target on RH, Horntail has a lot of weird positional requirements that I otherwise would not have to think about on a ranged attacker or in a different fight where I can just walk up to whatever I want to hit. Anyways, the takeaway lesson before I even began my journey was: I have no idea where I'm supposed to be standing.

piratty finally made his actual Horntail debut last night during one of ryanlights 's 12 man runs. Knowing that I would be pretty lost going into the fight, I requested coaching from Joker and iPippy, both of whom gave instrumental advice during the run. I forgot to record the run, something I usually do for all my HT runs; future diary entries should have screenshots/gifs to accompany them.

Run 1
Santi was supposed to coach me, but after getting lost on a hike, he was unable to join except for a brief period during main body. Preheads played out like normal boss content - there did not feel like there was too much in the way of optimization here. The real fight began, like most HT runs do, with Legs into Tail. I am still unsure of what's the best positioning I should be doing during Legs. I initially stood to the left so I wouldn't constantly be tanking touch damage, but found myself getting stunned/super knockback several times despite Demo iframes. Perhaps it's my relatively low avoid, but it was frustrating, especially because I was struggling to locate and reposition my character after each super knockback. Normally I would find my characters by looking for the Hurricane animation or Bahamut, but in this case I was invisible 2/3 of the time, so it would take me a few seconds to orient myself. Perhaps I need to set up a macro to display an EPM/mapowner bubble above my head?

After Legs/Tail went down, we started LH. While I had some idea of the 4 different Corkscrew Blow jumps that could be performed in this map, I didn't know the details of them. During run 1, Santi described 2 of them to me while we were on the left side.

Bottom Left: Begin with a running start to the left, then jump before you hit the rope, turn around to the right, and CSB at the top of the jump. This worked well but if I missed I would be in an awkward spot due to the running jump. iPippy would later correct this and tell me that I could just stand slightly right of the rope and jump.

Top Left: This is the hardest jump for me, and the one I most want to learn to do consistently. Santi would have me stand on the left edge of the middle rope platform, and then jump and release CSB on my way up. I am still unsure of how best to time this jump, and I can't seem to get the hang of it consistently.

I was taught from the 5 man runs that I should attack LH from the second platform at the top, rather than the long platform, as a wing flap could knock me to the right. It took me a bit to figure out how best to position on this platform. Normally on my BM I have to stand on the far left side, but I realized during this run I could just CSB on to it and attack from anywhere. I am still unsure of what to do when LH ducks and MH is cancelled. Perhaps throw out a filler Dragon Strike to hit RH if it's up? I also learned during this run that I could CSB from the 2nd platform up to the top platform to hit MH. Overall left side felt decently intuitive, although when I didn't have ST or bubble and both heads were cancelled, I was unsure of what to do to wings and arms. With bubble I would have felt comfortable moving to the lowest small platform and barrel cancelling, but without it I settled on just throwing out DS from the long mid platform to charge bubble as quickly as possible, before moving down.

Right side was a mess. I felt completely lost, and Santi was no longer in the call at this point. I was told I could not hit RH when it was at the bottom of its circular rotation, but I'm still unsure of how strict the timing on this is, or whether it loops in sync with demo timing. I also was unsure of where was the best spot to stand most of the time. When I play my BM, there's really only two states I need to track: MH cancel and RH cancel, with a designated spot to attack for each. I now had to throw in tracking the additional states of ST/non-ST and Bubble/no bubble. This led to me being extremely inefficient with my damage, constantly being knocked down, whiffing demos, and throwing out random DS when I didn't know what else to do. With wings killed quite early on the right side, I also had little opportunity to practice CSB jumps. Knowing I was in need of additional coaching, I called in iPippy for run 2.

Tragically, my DPM test finished around 1 minute after the run ended and I stupidly went to the Cash Shop to preserve HT buff, cancelling the test. Given how much standing around being lost I did, in addition to just generally poor charge management, poor positioning, and lots of falling, I have no doubts it would have been a disaster.

Run 2
Now equipped with an experienced coach to talk me through the entire run, I felt more confident in this run. Not only could I receive instruction now, I could also bounce my own thoughts to someone as I figured things out on my own. Due to having an AFK buyer this run, I had to manage my TL better, including needing a TL as soon as body started. As such, I started main body in a separate party on the middle platform, DSing wings, arms, and I think possibly two of the heads as well? I'm unsure if this is the fastest way to charge bubble in HT when everything is up, but it felt fast enough. In a moment of forgetfulness, I forgot to pop an ST before I TLed our Bishops' rezes, losing out on a free ST. Oh well.

iPippy gave the suggestion of standing on the leg for iframes to avoid the super knockback and stun. Due to my low avoid though, I was absolutely getting railed. Because of this, and the fact that once bubble ran out I was having to constantly reposition due to knockback anyways, I decided to just stay to the left and demo from there. I may try staying on the leg in the future once I have more avoid or if I have bubble.

The run progressed smoothly with me picking up new bits of information, such as the fact that at the top platform, demo will whiff MH at the lowest point of the big breath attack, and the correction of the bottom left CSB jump. He also described a "safer" top left CSB jump when wings flap or LH ducks, but I would much rather get better at the one that can be performed at any time.

On the rightside, I learned the two additional CSB jumps.

Bottom Right: Running start to the right, jump into/through the bottom of the wing and release the CSB at the top.

Top Right: Stand below the top rope and jump in place and CSB. This one caused me to overshoot and fall a couple times. Perhaps I'm standing too far to the left?

In addition, I started organizing the different states into locations.
ST+no Bubble+RH up: stand slightly to the right of the top rope and hold demo. This is the default state I was using most of the run.

ST+Bubble+RH up: stand on the lower RH platform, so that I can always hit RH even when it's at the bottom of it's spin cycle/ducking.

ST+RH cancel+MH up: stand on the highest platform and hold demo and pray. Much easier with bubble. If I fall, I think on a normal RH start run I would cross and hit LH, but as I had no option to do so here I just climbed back up and prayed for the best.

No ST+RH cancel+MH up: I stood on the long platform and just spammed DS to try to hit MH. I think normally I would cross and hit LH, but in this scenario it felt like I had nothing to hit really.

No ST+Bubble+RH up: stand on the lower RH platform and barrel cancel.

No ST+no bubble+RH up: charge bubble with DS, then perform the above. Perhaps even charge bubble DSing 4 targets below the top rope? (cleaving arms/wings) Unsure if this is worth activating RA on a 6 man run, but during this run the arm was active regardless.

Double cancel: drop down and hit wings.

That's a lot more to keep in mind than BM! Bubble felt incredibly important to being able to maintain DPM without falling, so iPippy also walked me through ways of helping ensure bubble was up when I needed it. Since bubble takes 1 minute to charge and lasts 1 minute, I could cancel a bubble 1 minute into my ST, and by the time ST is finished, I should leave ST with a fresh bubble, letting me barrel cancel on the RH. In theory, anyways. In practice it felt a bit messy; over time hopefully I can get better. While on the right side, I also had to TL the rezes again as well as Ryan's echo, and it took a bit to get the party formed. Worried about wasting bubble and needing to recharge, I elected to hold charge at 90% and stand around doing nothing, while I contemplated my existence as a mule and bitterly cursed the TL/Charge change.

While there were still moments where I had to take a bit to think about where I was supposed to be standing, I played better this run than the first run. The presence of an active coach made a huge difference, since I could ask questions whenever I was in doubt. I also spent a not-insignificant part of the run stubbornly trying and failing various CSB jumps instead of just climbing the rope. I have the hang of the bottom left, bottom right, and top right ones (at least most of the time. I still mess up a good bit), but the top left eludes me.



Here's the final result. While I was hoping for 3, I will happily take a 2.8, since I did spent a bit of the run not attacking due to failing jumps and waiting for TL. While it feels quite low compared to what my BM is capable of, given the combination of lack of experience, lack of gear, heavily INTed stats, lower level, and messing around, I'm okay with this as a starting point. Nowhere to go from here but up!

I'm not sure how often I will be running HT as an active single attacker on my Bucc, as I likely will not be doing so regularly at least while he still has INT, but I'm still looking forward to becoming more consistent at the fight and improving my DPM. I would imagine my next entry on here will not be for a couple weeks, where I hope I can reach my first milestone of 3m dpm. Until then, thanks for reading!

 

im in tears

 

We're back sooner than expected! I originally did not plan on running until next Saturday, but had to re-schedule that run to today due to other plans. I was hoping I would have the crutch of washing out a bit more INT before the next run, but alas I have the same base INT as my last post. Anyways, on to tonight's events.

Run 1
Today's run was extremely melee heavy, with a composition of a staggering eight melee and only 2 ranged. As such, I told the run to try to minimized cleave on arms/wings as much as possible, leading to me often time charging bubble on just 2 heads instead of 4 cleaving wings and arms. Overall I feel like this had a pretty small effect on my DPM though.

Not too many new relevations this run, just kind of going through the motions of what I learned last run and reinforcing good habits while trying to consciously be aware of bad habits. I added a demo macro with an @mapowner name shout to better track where my character is positioned, which helped a lot in positioning correctly. On the other hand, I noticed I have picked up two bad habits. The first is the tendency to turn off my brain and hold demo, which means I occasionally whiff when the head I'm hitting is ducking (or spinning for RH) and MH is cancelled. The second is I'm a bit slow to ACP, meaning I'll start up a fresh demo while under Darkness and completely whiff it even if I ACP immediately after Demo starts. I need to keep a closer eye on the heads and RA. I'd imagine that, similar to how watching body parts as Bishop gets easier with more HP, this will get easier with more Avoid. I need to get a better sense of how long things like bubble and ST last, so while they're up I can just focus on things like watching body parts.


On the other hand, I had a couple flashy moments during the run that felt really good. Here's one of the few times I actually managed to pull off a solid CSB jump without issues (most of my attempts were me flailing and jumping in place). I have a bad habit of trying to CSB while mid air after jumping. I need to remember to start charging it before I jump. Overall the only one I currently feel comfortable with getting most of the time is bottom left but even that one I mess up a lot.


Such success is also accompanied by failure. I don't know if there was anything I could have done in this scenario besides ask for a dispel? Just unlucky, I guess. I've noticed that when I try to to the bottom right jump without bubble, I get knocked back from wing touch during my jump, messing up the CSB positioning. I feel like trying this CSB isn't worth it if I don't have bubble, but maybe I'm doing something wrong.



Overall, an improvement over the last run, but not as much as I would have liked. I still fall a lot more than I'm happy with, and my "downtime" (actions I'm taking when no ST and no bubble) isn't very efficient. I also made no effort during these runs to try to sync up my bubble, which, while it's a skill I want to learn eventually, I think is okay for now. I have more important things to practice and focus on besides timing charge, like simply not whiffing demo to head ducks and late ACPs.

Run 2
I was echo muling my BM first run, meaning I had to waste a TL on echo and also Echo ran out 40 minutes into body. This run, we had HT buff and my BM was joined by Joker 's Bucc, meaning we had 2 200s and an extra TL in the run. This let me use my TL much more aggresively and have more Echo uptime, which felt pretty good. I also played significantly better this run, although I still have the nagging issue of whiffing a lot of demos. This and falling are probably my two biggest DPM losses currently, if I had to guess. Falling will get better with avoid over time, better charge management, and better positioning choices. I think the immediate biggest improvement I can make is snappier ACP usage when RA uses status. I need to do a better job of keeping an eye on RA and watching for the status effect animation.

I also got incredible value out of smoke this run. IGN pancakee managed to time the smokes at excellent points, often times covering me when I had to hit the mid head, preventing what would otherwise be a likely fall. This helped my uptime on the right side a lot, although it didn't stop me from having several falls, both on the right AND left side. I also continue to waste time failing CSB jumps; while it's frustrating and negatively impacting my DPM, it's also important to get some practice in while I can, as there's not really any other time I can practice them.

For the most part, however, I was usually hitting something and usually with Demo if not barrel cancelling. There were only a few windows where I was forced to just spam DS inefficiently. We were pretty blessed both runs with favorable cancels; despite having an incredibly melee and cleave heavy composition, there were only a handful of double cancels both runs, meaning we never had to worry about early Mass Sed. In the event this did happen, we were still a 12 man run and could have absorbed the mass sed, protected the bishops, and been okay, but it would have been pretty bad for DPM.


Here's one of the successful bottom right CSB jumps I pulled off during the run. I was missing this jump a surprising number of times; I had few issues doing it succesfully on Weds, so I'm not sure what's different now. I noticed most of my fails were to taking wing touch and being knocked back, but maybe this means I'm jumping in the wrong spot or releasing CSB at the wrong time? Still unsure.


Overall the run went quite well. Between better personal play, more Echo uptime and HT buff uptime, and more smoke uptime, there's a noticable improvement in my DPM from this run, easily breaking my 3m goal for the day. Next goal: 3.5m! I imagine this one will take a bit longer. With perfect play and snappy DHs, it's most likely possible for me to achieve it with my current stats, but I think washing out more INT will help. There's no plans to run again any time soon, so we'll see when the next opportunity for this happens. Hope I don't get rusty before then.

Thanks for reading!

 

Todays entry is not quite what this journal was meant for, but significant nonetheless. The lessons I’ve learned from my single client runs are also paying dividends in my duo attacker runs as well.

When piratty first started running on my 5 man runs, I was pulling around 1.1m DPM on him, while pulling just shy of 8m on my BM for a cumulative almost 9m DPM. With better positioning knowledge and mobility knowledge from piratty’s 12 man runs, I was able to get 1.8m DPM on piratty during both runs today, despite terrible conditions, while maintaining my BM DPM.

When my BM is forced to attack from the topmost right-side platform (MH up RH cancel), it’s incredibly difficult to duo attack, especially if ST is down, as I have to momentum cancel my BM at all times and quickly reposition after hits, which is challenging with one hand. Today our RH was cancelled for so long that it did not die until the HP bar was well below half, which is the absolutely worst conditions for me successfully duo attacking.

Despite this, I still managed to improve my overall DPM to more than 9.5m cumulative. With better cancel conditions where my BM can stay on RH more, I can improve the DPM on both characters simultaneously. My current goal on these 5 man runs is to reach 10m cumulative DPM between the two characters, which seems viable even in piratty’s current state. Slightly more favorable conditions mean I can possibly get more attacking uptime on piratty to push 2m DPM while maintaining 8m on my BM.

In the long term, who knows what I’m capable of as piratty washes out his INT and levels up, but I’m pleased that I’m still making steady progress and improving my Bucc skills. I have managed to significantly improve my ability to CSB jump on the left side today, as only partially playing the Bucc today meant I was knocked down frequently and had to get back up. The practice is paying off as I’m becoming much stronger at pulling off these jumps (special thanks to Tr1n1tyy and, indirectly, imTinii for tips here)

 

I guess this is a multi-attacker journal now. Piratty's DPM continues to increase with better uptime and less falls. While I wasn't able to bring my BM DPM back up to 8m due to sub-optimal cancels, I was able to exceed my goal for Piratty's multi-attacker DPM and hit 2.5m, without the use of Ciders, HT buffs, SE, or really anything at all besides SI, Booster, and Echo. This brings my cumulative DPM between the two to 10.3m DPM, which I'm quite pleased by. This puts me on par with a lot of the other strongest attackers on the server; granted, I have to use two attackers to get there, but I'm happy nonetheless.

Next goal is to maintain 2.5m DPM on piratty while bringing my BM DPM back up to 8m for a cumulative 10.5m DPM.

 

More multiclient progress! I was able to get a peak of 2.9m DPM on piratty and 8.3m DPM on my BM, although they were on different runs, both of them were PRs for duo-attacking. This also means I reached my goal of cumulative 10.5m DPM with 10.7m run 1 and 10.6m run 2. This shows potential for 11m DPM cumulative, something I didn't think possible at this point, although in order to get 8.3m DPM on my BM I had both PB buff and GM buffs until the first dispel, which is a huge amount of help. Regardless, it does seem feasible to get a combination of ~3m on piratty and ~8m on the BM for 11m cumulative, so I'll keep trying. This goal will probably take longer to achieve, although washing out some INT on piratty may help.

My left side attacking on piratty has really shaped up, even while duo attacking falls are uncommon. The downside though is I have very little practice on the right side, as I favor leaving piratty on the left the entire run to make piloting the BM, the more difficult of the two while duo-attacking, easier. Always more improvements to be made though!

 

Turns out I was able to meet my 11m cumluative DPM goal quicker than expected. Duo-attacking is starting to feel much more natural. In addition to this, I've stopped trying to force hitting MH on the right side when RH cancels on my BM; it's just too likely I'll fall playing with just 1 hand and leads to a huge loss in DPM efficiency. Instead, I only hit MH during RH cancels if smoke is up, otherwise I'll drop and hit wings instead. While on most runs this isn't efficient since head damage is prioritized, it still overall shortens our run time since despite the wing hitting, wings still are consistently dying last. It also lets me increase my DPM uptime on piratty by a large amount, meaning I'm still contributing effective head damage while doing so, versus falling hitting MH and attacking with neither character.

This new strategy has led to piratty and my BM both drastically reducing the number of falls. Both runs today I only had 1-2 bad falls on each character, which was a massive improvement. After reaching 11.2m DPM cumulative run 1, I jokingly mentioned between runs "Now the goal is 11.5m, but I don't think I can reach that one yet."




An enormous improvement in piratty's DPM, despite the test continuing into arms. I easily surpassed even my single-attacker goal of 3.5m, for a total of just shy of 11.9m DPM cumulative. This is significantly higher than what I thought I was capable of, thanks in no small part to favorable cancels, extremely proficient Bishoping and Smokes from Tr1n1tyy , and the new strategy of avoiding MH on the right side. This run almost makes 12m look achievable, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to attain it as it seems to require favorable cancels. I think I played close to my peak today so I'm not sure if I can continue this trend of rapid improvement (I've managed to meet my next goal DPM consistently within 1 week for most of these posts), but we'll see if I can break 12m in an upcoming run!

 

Turns out the road to 12m was, unsurprisingly, difficult. While I had several close attempts after the previous post in the range of 11.7-11.9m cumulative, none of them actually managed to cross the 12m barrier until the past couple weeks. I've been kind of lazy and neglected to update the journal when it happened but I suppose I'll get around to it now.

Two weeks ago I managed to actually break 14m with a 10m run on my BM and a 4m run on piratty, but I didn't post this as it wasn't on my gear and felt like it was pretty meme-y. Since the spirit of the journal was to track my own personal improvements, posting an enormous leap due to temporary power seemed like cheating.

The week after, however, I did manage to break 12m on my own gear finally, and actually blew past the next milestone as well. While leetoratto's gear is the same as it's always been, I managed to upgrade piratty's loadout slightly over the past few weeks with some small upgrades, including unscrolled 1/1 Specs that I picked up from a CWKPQ run, a 6 Dex Branch Nose that I scrolled on a whim, a pair of Facestompers I recently purchased that I had misadventures with, and levelling up and washing out more INT.


As usual with decent cancels, my BM hovers slightly over 8m, but piratty's DPM has increased by a good chunk, breaking previous PRs by a good margin for 4.3m DPM, bringing the cumulative to just barely over 12.5m on HT buff. Seeing as how I managed to barely break the milestone by the skin of my teeth I doubt 12.5m is going to be a regular occurrence, but I'm pleased that regular 12s should be more feasible now provided cancels aren't omega cursed, and I'm happy that I have finally been able to surpass Gurk in DPM, albeit on two clients instead of his one.

I've gotten quite comfortable with Bucc positioning now, to the point where it's almost becoming second nature similar to BM positioning, which frees up a lot of mental space to chat and zone out in VC, which I enjoy a lot. The main skill I need to work on now for piratty is not scuffing TLs; as Gurk can attest I have an exceptionally poor track record of TLing boat, so that's a priority to work on. I don't anticipate 13m anytime soon until I can fully wash out piratty, but it does seem attainable without too much trouble once piratty is fully washed out. This process will take a couple months though so we'll see if I'm still able to make progress in the short term. This will likely be the last post here for a while as I don't anticipate 13m soon unless I decide to finish the stompers and it somehow goes well.

 

I have not posted in here for a while, as it seemed irrelevant after inheriting TTKirnk 's Knuckle. Whereas the original goal was to slowly work my way up to 6m DPM single client, it now seemed like griefing if I didn't pull 6m single client. I wasn't sure what the future of this journal was, really, but once I settled into using the new Knuckle, I realized I still had plenty to work on if I just upped my goals. So I did just that: after a few runs, it became clear that 14m was going to be the next big hurdle, and it would likely take some time, very good cancels, and possibly more levels on piratty. So the new goal became breaking 14m cumulative. This would also have the added benefit of bringing my average DPM between the two characters to 7m, which I believe should be the acceptable floor for a 6 man HT runner, meaning I would officially be putting in enough work to justify two full slots on a squad.

This goal was almost immediately interrupted by a series of vacations by both myself and my now fiancee raggy as well as the esteemed Bishop Glaceon , who is the Bishop I trust the most for enabling me to duo attack due to not only his exceptionally clean Bishop play but his smoke muling skills. Due to all of us travelling, our typical 5 man squads were put on hiatus for about two months until tonight when we finally were able to run again. Despite this, I managed to put in several good attempts in the meantime through 2 man HT with TheIegend27 , 3 man HT with abe27342 , and 5 man HT with akashsky Alyosha and imTinii , although none of them came particularly close to breaking 14m, and even 13.5m was a struggle to consistently beat. That is, until tonight...

The band is back together again! The first run my BM came in with PB buff, although repeated interruptions due to selling AFK service and triple clienting a Bishop mule to res led to non-ideal uptime as I would periodically have to take short breaks to do party management and res and TL. The cancels were exceptionally good this run and smoke timers lined up well, reflected in the run time of about 1 hour and 3 minutes, likely our fastest 5 man run yet especially when accounting for additional time resurrecting buyer and moving additional mules, which is a shame I wasn't able to utilize them to their full potential. Nonetheless, I managed to break my 14m goal with ease with a cumulative 14.6m DPM between the two of them. Given the fact that the cancels were exceptionally good and I had PB buff, I figured I was close to my DPM ceiling and I didn't think 15m was possible, even with the additional uptime of not having an AFK buyer, so I was quite pleased with this run.

Run 1:


I figured 15m was the next step, as well as 14.5m on non-PB buff, but I didn't think I realistically had a shot currently until piratty had more levels.

Run two no longer had the logistical burden of an AFK buyer, but the cancels weren't lining up as nicely. Whereas run 1 we managed to get out of preheads in a blazing 15 minutes, allowing me to make the most of PB buff, run 2 it took slightly longer with a slower, but still impressive 18 minutes, leaving a solid amount of HT buff remaining. The body cancels were good, but nowhere near as good as run 1, requiring multiple windows of repositioning away and back to heads during double cancels. This was only compounded by several player errors on my half causing constant falls, more than I could count. Due to the cancel conditions and player errors, I actually was anticipating a sub-14 run for this one, and was surprised to see the DPM tests come back showing that I was able to maintain my DPM on the BM without PB buff somehow but increase the Bucc DPM by an entire 1m.

Run 2:


Range (Echo, HT Buff, MW30):


This meant I had blazed past my goal of 15m all the way to 15.5m, a benchmark I had previously thought unreachable. I'm quite thrilled with this result as I have only ever seen one other player break this cumulative DPM while duo attacking in HT without the aid of Apples, TheIegend27 , who is well known as probably the most gifted duo-attacker on the server. This puts the average DPM for both of my characters at 7.75m which is very close to my personal minimum acceptable floor for single client attackers when I normally look to host, as I generally prefer running with players who can consistently do over 8m. As such, the next goal is 16m which would put my average DPM between the two characters at 8m. Like previous goals, I don't anticipate this one to come easily, but the run today showed that with exceptional cancels and cleaner play it should be well within my current range as both of those had room for improvement today.

I would imagine that would likely be the final post in this journal, and I'm not entirely sure when it'll happen since again it does require the cancels and my own play to line up well, and I only get pretty much one night a week to realistically attempt it, but I'll still keep trying regardless. The end of the road is likely 16m as I do not think I will be able to achieve 17m as my BM ceiling even when single client currently is slightly above 9m, and there is a noticeable efficiency loss when duo attacking. This is a number that only one player on the server has attained to my knowledge and I'm happy just coming close.

Since this journal is coming close to the end, I'd like to take a moment to thank anyone who has been reading this incredibly niche and probably boring journal following my progress in something realistically most people do not care about. I'd also like to thank my Monday squad, especially Peter and Gurk for their exceptional work with smoke muling and all of the comprehensive value they bring to any run they're in, as well as Joker and raggy . Shoutout to Jack as well for providing the duo attacking standard that I'm trying to live up to, as well as our degen duo, trio, and etc HT runs. Also shoutout to Santi, Tini, iPippy, mard and Moon for all of the Bucc advice, I've grown a lot in terms of Bucc skill thanks to you all, and continue to learn and improve with your help.

Finally, shoutout to Tyler, my brother in brain rot. I will do my best to live up to your legacy.

 

I would consider exploring trio if I had 3 NLs but I don’t think it’s humanly possible with Bucc and BM

 

MW30/Echo/HTB/SE/Trlnltyy/Asterisk

16m get.

This journal is officially concluded. Thanks for following.

Fun fact, the upper range on both of my chars run 1 was almost the exact same.

 

Honestly probably never I can't be bothered to gear 3 different NLs. Would be a waste retiring the BM as well since the entire loadout is unsalvageable because of untradeability.

 

Too much DPM lost if I do that. Even with a perfect NT claw it's going to be a long time before one of the NLs out DPMs my BM. The BM is going to be a staple forever I think, too much invested in it.

 

Wow, I can't believe it's almost been an entire year since I've posted in here. I honestly thought I'd never be updating this journal again, but I'm feeling a little sentimental and don't really have another journal to post in so... why not here? I've been doing a little reflection on what's happened, where I am now, and where I want to be, and I think a journal update is a great place to help organize those thoughts and even share them.

Obviously a year is quite a lot of time for stuff to happen, so I have several different updates that I'd like to share, which I'll break down into spoiler sections. I don't share as much with the general ML community nowadays so I figured it'd be nice to post something to show what I've been up over the past year as a reminder that I'm still around, as well as an explanation why I might not be as much in the future.

Spoiler: Where rat?

I've dialed back much of my interaction with the forums and discord, especially over the last few months or so, after much introspection. I used to post frequently to share information and accomplishments and debate aspects of the game with others, which was one outlet of sharing my passion for game design as well as learning from and teaching others.

Nowdays, however, that outlet is mostly filled by private discord conversations (shoutout to UAB) and I find that debate with knowledgable friends is infinitely more entertaining and informative than uneducated randoms. After thinking about it, I realized posting in Discord and the forums usually resulted in frustration, irritation, and general discomfort more than it did enlightenment, enjoyment, and satisfaction. In short: it was just a huge waste of time and energy. As such, I simply stopped and moved my attention to more private spaces.

However, I also realized through discussion in those same private spaces that the culture of ML has changed since I first started in many ways. Player progression has drastically accelerated, while available free time for many players has reduced due to IRL conflicts as quarantine ended. Much of the old guard that was present when I was making my way up is no longer around, or around in a significantly reduced capacity, while simultaneously a new generation of players has risen rapidly to take their place. It's kind of crazy to me in some ways that I'm not the new kid on the block anymore. The progress that some new players make nowdays in such a short amount of time is nothing short of spectacular (see theclammiest ) and it's always a joy to watch new stars make their come-up.

At the same time, however, many of the veteran players that still play have come to the realization that horizontal progress is both more fulfilling and more impactful than vertical progress. Gains can be rapidly made on secondary and tertiary attackers, and upgrades are impactful. Where 1000c can buy 1 weapon attack on a single main, it can now be used to kit out an entire new attacker.

Both of these have resulted in a new landscape where there's no players pushing the limits of a single character anymore. Where once we had weekly updates from top end players pushing DPM boundaries to never-before seen heights, now we have... nothing. There's only silence.

It would be dramatic to say this new culture is worse than the old one; after all, culture is intangible, it's a systemic effect of dozens or hundreds or more people at once, and my own thoughts on what should or shouldn't be relevant are, ironically, irrelevant. However, I can't help but feel like I just don't really fit in with this new zeitgeist. Part of what drew me to pushing into endgame was looking up towards those at the cutting edge, pushing their character to places the server hadn't been before. I really respected the effort it took to get to that point.

To be honest, I don't care for building wide. As one of the early adopters of duo attacking, and the third duo Horntail clear on the server, it quickly lost the appeal for me and I reverted to mostly single-client play in Horntail after a year or so. While it's still a tool I use freely in short-form daily content like Core Blaze and Zak, it's just not really something where I care to push the limits anymore. Achievements feel hollow, and progression seems pointless.

I'll touch back on these feelings later, but a lot of this frustration culminated in one, final goal after a chance encounter...

Spoiler: Skar's Legacy

I happened to have a brief chat with Skar when he visited Edann a few months ago. We had a chance to catch up and he asked me what I'd been up to, and if I had taken over his spot as THE Bowmaster now that he's gone. He was curious what kind of feats I'd managed to achieve in his absence.

Did I ever white Pink Bean?
Fuck yeah I did! He informed me that I'm apparently the only BM to have done so (which I have since found out is false, as one other BM has whited as well), and it was something that he was looking forward to attempting while he was still playing. I didn't realize it at the time, but I'm actually quite proud of this achievement in hindsight. As of today, incidentally, I've actually whited PB main body twice! Once on a 30 man, and once on an 18 man. I originally wasn't really sure an 18 man white would ever happen, but I'm pretty thrilled to be going out on a high note like this.

Spoiler: Whiting Edann

https://streamable.com/em1toc

Did I ever invent my own BM technique?

Spoiler: CWKPQ Shark-less Pirate Tech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD6oR1uTKUY&feature=youtu.be

Well, sort of. I pioneered the tech of puppeting while you still have arrows in mid-air to pin CWKPQ Pirate without being able to Shark, but he did point out it's not quite a general universal technique like momentum buffering. I chastised him that nothing could ever possibly be as omnipresent as momentum buffering... or could it? (more on this later)

Finally, he asked if I ever broke 10m on Horntail?
And... at the time, I hadn't, or at least not really. I had done it twice, once borrowing gear long ago and once during a meme run with full smoke coverage. For so long, 10m HT DPM using my own gear without any convoluted strats had seemed ridiculously out of reach. I could pretty easily get 9m consistently, but the push to 10m just seemed so expensive. To put it into context, Skar's range was higher than mine at the time he got banned even when he was using a 126 wa Bow. The gear difference was drastic to say the least. I had always resigned myself to being content being a 9m DPM Bowmaster, which was already a huge feat and something only Skar had achieved at the time when I finally attained it. Maybe I could get close, 9.8m even, but 10m? That's for the truly dedicated, surely, and not for me. Or... was it?

I realized that many of the gains I had made in the past year or so were actually quite significant. I had managed to upgrade to 8 wa Facestompers, 16 wa Cape, and 23 wa Gloves, all in the space of about a year or so. I had other cost effective upgrades in Specs, Earrings, and even a 17 wa Cape and 9 wa FS if I could get my hands on them. Couple that with new drops like the Ephenia Ring, my Auf helm, my Timeless pendant, and some event gear, I could actually put myself in striking distance of 10m with a good squad and solid play.

And so I ended the chat with new resolve; before the end of the year, I would break 10m.

In order to do so, I needed two things.

1. I needed a team. I needed to give myself the best possible shot of actually being able to play at a cutting edge level, which means I wanted a crack squad of top players, but this was also a pretty big sentimental milestone, and I wanted to share it with friends.
2. I needed a bit more gear. While I was close, I still had room for a few more upgrades that could potentially push me over the top.

So, the first thing I did was reach out to the squad. The choice for Bishop was obvious: in addition to having by far the most PRs enabled on the DPM thread, Trlnltyy is just straight up one of my favorite people on the server. I couldn't imagine doing this without him. The choice for Bucc was also clear: in addition to being the strongest Bucc on the server by a huge margin, TiniBikini is also a close friend who I've co-hosted PB with, and also the one who first invited me to run 6-man Horntail regularly. While both of them are semi-retired, I convinced them both to drag themselves back for one last go, although scheduling conflicts and vacation meant the run wouldn't happen until November. No worries, it just gave me extra time to upgrade more gear.

I rounded out the rest of the squad with my good friends INSTALOCK and Grrrk, both of whom I'd run with countless times in the past, as well as my wife Raggy, without whom I couldn't run because she would beat me to death IRL. After examining the squad, I realized we had the option to have a second goal for the run as well.

Spoiler: Meet the team

Trlnltyy - The GOAT. He's enabled so many PRs that "Trlnltyy" buff is often listed with PRs in the DPM thread. Not only did he write the guide that pretty much every single modern Bishop learns from, but he's also just a great team player.
TiniBikini - The Pirate King. The strongest Bucc the server will likely ever see, her Horntail squads used to have the reputation as the fastest and cleanest runs on the server. She's also well known as one of the most prolific multimagers as well as the leader of Wicked.
INSTALOCK - The god of multiattack and Night Lord. Even before he was known for his prowess duo attacking and solo Horntail, Jack already had a reputation for being one of the best, if not the best NL on the server. His recent achievements have all but sealed that status imo.
Grrrk - The unluckiest Swiss-army knife. Known for his ability to play multiple different classes at an exceptionally high level as well as be the source of ML's greatest tragedies, Gurk also has the highest posted Sair DPM on the server, and he's always been a faithful runner on my Horntail runs.
Alaei - The Queen. Raggy might not be #1 in her class like the others, but she is #1 in my heart and of course I'm going to have her on the run. She still puts out a very respectable 10m DPM, something few NLs can claim.

Every member of the squad is a top player in their class and a dear friend and I honestly couldn't be more proud to have the privilege to run besides them. It's been an honor being able to play with you all and I cherish you all very much <3

Given how absolutely stacked the run is, we also had the potential to set a server speed run record for a standard 6-player, 7-character comp with no smoke muling or high wa pots that in theory wouldn't be broken, or at least not for several years. I theorized with good cancels, we should be easily able to break 50 minutes, and maybe more if cancels were absolutely perfect.

So, while we waited until the day everyone was ready, I continued running my daily and weekly content, grinding out Horntail and PB runs and selling Zak helms and 100% service (we actually ended up losing a massive amount of coins to a bad MW30 service package during this time, and we're still trying to crawl back to parity to this day) and upgrading my gear. During this time I managed to upgrade to 22 stat earrings, a 17 wa Cape, and 11 stat specs. While I still have the funding to push the Cape, Specs, and Facestompers slightly higher, the market is pretty dry, and so I didn't have the chance before the day arrived.

We settled on doing two weeks worth of runs, since most of us were quite rusty. In fact, out of all 6 members, only Jack had played his character in Horntail in the last 6 months, so we needed a warm up run to practice. At the same time, some of our pals in Discord started making jokes that I was dying and this was my funeral, and the name stuck.

Thus, we ran the Rat Funeral Rehearsal. The run went pretty well, cancels both runs were actually quite good. However, it was clear all of us were having issues shaking off the rust, with plenty of mistakes all around. Regardless, it made for a really fun VC with the peanut gallery egging us on and we still managed a spectacular clear time of under 49 minutes.

Spoiler: Speedrun VOD

https://youtu.be/V1LNYM7GtQ8

I was surprised to see that my range actually slightly exceeded Skar's at the time of his PR, so that was cool. On the other hand, it also meant I really should've been putting up better numbers, and my play was... not great. I was really feeling out of practice and making a ton of mistakes. Regardless, both goals of 10m DPM and speedrun were met with room to spare, which was immensely satisfying, especially since I honestly for the longest time firmly believed 10m was, and would remain permanently, out of my reach. I resolved to fix the mistakes I made week 1 and push even higher the following week.

Today we ran the originally planned Rat Funeral runs, and got pretty decent cancels again! They weren't quite as good as week 1, but were still very much workable. My play was significantly improved run 1, with only a single fall from the top during the run, while run 2 pretty much everyone all around was griefing. While our prehead cancels run 2 meant we beat our speed run record again for a sub-48 minute run, the DPMs were all pretty underwhelming and our main body performance degraded. Regardless, there was a drastic improvement in my DPM run 1, and I'm pleased with my PR. Granted, my efficiency was allowed to be much higher than Skar due to the incredible speed of the comp, but I'm glad to have been able to set a new server best for Bowmasters in Horntail.

Spoiler: DPMs and Range

Range is on HTB/MW30/Echo

When Skar was first banned, there were 3 BMs that could have been considered strongest at the time. Mardi, DeepWood, and myself. Over the next year or so, we saw the rise of several other BMs who would join those ranks, including MidoAdmita, Shoot, Xyrins, Haruaki, Jebal, Nerd, TSMC, Jeesoo, and last but not least our new rising star ClammySE, all of whom have broken or are close to breaking 9m DPM, a number which only Skar had surprassed up until the time of his ban.

While it's true that for much of the period after his ban, leetoratto was the strongest BM on the server by a small margin, I never really felt worthy of holding that position as I believed, and still believe, that some of these players are more skilled than I am, especially Mard and Joe, and that I was, and still am, largely carried by my gear, of which I invested into BM much more heavily than the rest. It felt disappointing to inherit the title of #1 by default, just because the previous holder was banned, and I didn't feel comfortable with it knowing I didn't truly earn it.

But after reflecting on my accomplishments in the past year or so, after whiting Pink Bean, writing multiple guides, teaching up and coming BMs, and finally reaching 10m DPM for myself... I realized that in many ways, I had made my own impact on the server. I've hosted Pink Beans and Horntails, I've ran community events, I've made friends. I hope my legacy as a Bowmaster is not just "the guy who was left when Skar got banned" but truly as someone who's made his own name for himself.

I think there's still greater heights to be reached in this server's lifespan. 11m is only 20 wa or so away from where I am now, and although that's more than I can handle with my current commitment to the game, I believe it's possible for someone to reach that point with enough dedication. For now, I'm content to rest at the summit that I've reached and just... enjoy the view.

Spoiler: Mongolian Earthworm Tech

So, it turns out there's still potential expansions to momentum buffering that are theoretically possible. I've spoken about my work on this tech recently to some close friends, but I've found a way to pre-cast Hurricane while moving to reduce the start-up animation time.

Spoiler: Video Preview

https://streamable.com/6ncr03

By pre-casting the Hurricane start up animation, you're able to start attacking sooner after repositioning, saving precious frames of attack time in fights where repositioning is frequent, such as Horntail and Pink Bean.

However, there's a couple caveats:

• The buffer is cancelled when you change direction, and you have to re-cast from scratch. As such, the technique doesn't work for fights where you have to change direction during your momentum buffer due to kb direction, most notably Horntail right side and Pink Bean main body. However, in spots where you're KBed away from the direction you're firing, it's highly applicable, most notably Horntail left side, Toad left side, and certain statues in PB.
• It's tricky to set up and even trickier to execute. While you can pre-cast Hurricane at any point during movement, the transition from pre-cast to full-cast has very tight timing. Through practice, you can get it reasonably consistent, and it's not a DPM loss if you fail, but it's difficult enough that I don't know if the average BM player is willing to use it.

I'm still refining the technique as of this post and as such I'm not ready to post a full guide on it, but to any players looking to play Bowmaster at the cutting edge and push the class to its peak, this will likely become a mandatory expansion on momentum buffering. In theory, it should result in a 1-2% DPM increase in fights with frequent KB if executed well, which is the equivalent of 100-200k DPM for me in Horntail, or just over 2-4 weapon attack. The gains are significant, despite the difficulty. I don't have a date for a guide release at this time but we'll just say soonTM.

Spoiler: Rat Funeral

It's been a long journey since we first started ML. I initially started playing when Raggy, who was still my girlfriend at the time, started playing with her brothers and dragged me in. I didn't grow up playing MapleStory, and don't have the same sense of nostalgia that others have. What I have found however are lifelong friendships (some of whom were even at our wedding!) and communities, and I can honestly say it's been a fantastic journey to this point.

I'd like to take a bit of this post for some thank-you's and shoutouts, as I believe a little appreciation goes a long way. This is not a journey I've made alone, and it's certainly not one I could have done without help. There are so many friends and mentors I've had along the way, some who still play and some who don't, that I couldn't possibly name all of them here, but I'd like to give special mention to a few:

• To everyone who's been a mentor, guide, or teacher to me, especially iPippy mard Glaceon TTKirnk Moon and of course Selquin . Thanks all for putting up with all my questions and for all the guidance.
• To everyone in Nimbus for being one of the warmest and most wholesome communities I've ever been a part of, especially the OGs who brought me in Sky, Izzy, Kat, Sanji , and Dylan, who taught me that being disadvantaged as a Bowmaster only makes whiting NLs all the sweeter, as well as all of the newer and more casual members and everyone who made it to the IRL meet ups. Love you all so much.
• To everyone in UAB for filling the discourse void. I look forward to bickering with all of you more, and I'm thankful that no matter how heated we get we all can still end the day with mutual respect and understanding. I hope you all always stay nerdy.
• To everyone who's brought me on a run and everyone who's run with me, but especially Cornwall and imTinii for giving me a chance when I first started and Gurk -ovv and abe27342 for always being such reliable runners.
• To the staff team of MapleLegends, I know I can be pretty critical at times but you guys put in extra effort to keep everything running and do great work
• To my partners, one in crime and one irl, TheIegend27 and raggy , you're both very stinky (but not as stinky as Milkydoor )

As well as everyone else who I've shitposted with, who I've run content with, who I've VCed with, and who I've met up with. I'm blessed to have been surrounded by such great communities and friends, and you were all the best part of this game.

This all sounds like a goodbye, and in a sense, it kind of is. While I'm not leaving the game and its communities entirely, I think this is the end of a chapter. I've realized I'm happy with the progress I've made, and making further progress is too time-consuming and frustrating for me to push myself further for too little enjoyment. I'm content with how far I've come and no longer feel the need to go further, or to climb higher.

I think, touching back on the frustration I feel at the state of the ML community, it just doesn't feel like there's any reason to keep pushing. There's so few others pushing high-end limits that it just doesn't really carry the same gravity it once did. In-game achievements like DPMs and speed runs and even in-game communities such as guilds just don't really hold the same weight as before, and I would be lying if I didn't say that doesn't have an impact on motivation. Why bother trying if nobody cares? On the other hand, maybe it's myself who no longer cares? Who knows?

Regardless, I'm proud of this story that I, no, we've written. It's fun to use titles like "#1 BM" and "Strongest Married Couple" as capstones for everything I've gone through on ML, but the thing I'm most proud of is the people I've surrounded myself with. I'm looking forward to more happy days debating, drinking, travelling, camping, and snowboarding with the friends Raggy and I have made on ML, and it's satisfying seeing such tangible proof that one can find meaning through a video game.

As life goes on, I appreciate the value of time more and more, and I think I'm at a point where I no longer want to dedicate such a precious resource grinding out 1 more weapon attack. There's so much I'm looking forward to in the future, none of which is grinding out daily ML content just to eke out a little bit more damage. I'll still be around running PB as I love staying in touch with people through group content and maybe a few Horntails now and then, as well as bickering and shitposting in the discord communities I'm in, but I think... I'm kinda done.



Raggy and I have some pretty big IRL travel plans over the next 2 months, so I won't really be around much until mid January. This has been a kinda a crazy year both on ML and IRL, with huge gains and huge losses and a ton of firsts, but it's been fun looking back at it all. There's definitely some big ML-related plans coming in the new year in January, so stay tuned for those, but for now, this is leetoratto, your #1 rat and BM, signing off.