Rayque's Blog

[EMS] 19 years of Rayque!

2026-09-30T06:29:47.608+02:00

Today is day 6941, the 30th of September - which means I've been playing EMS daily for 19 years now!

Starting this year, EMS is now longer under the management of Nexon US than it was under Nexon Europe. Last year I've talked at length about the state of EMS and hoped that things would be better. Unfortunately, we're in a race to the bottom and next week's going to add another dumpster fire to the long list of Go West flops. It will burn... very brightly. To be honest, it's not even worthy of attention and it's funnier to just give future readers no context about any of this.

That said, we make do with what we have. For all of the abysmal exclusive content we got instead of major updates and events, as we'll discuss in next month's blogpost: there's still some good to be found. Not good for Nexon that is, as explained in my acquisition of a Breath of Divinity, all of their thoughtless choices have resulted in several baffling oversights that drastically changes the way we progress our characters. For a while I felt kinda stuck with the lack of the Additional Potential revamp, but with Mystic Frontier and the Star Force changes I now have a clear path forward.

It's this ample supply of busywork and tinkering that keeps me coming back every day. Having been able to achieve a Breath of Divinity has been rejuvenating for my motivation, since that challenge also solved other problems including the need for large quantities of cubes and mesos to buy resources. Potential and 6th Job are now solved over time, and that allows me to save up mesos to work towards six Union Champions. While I certainly can try to increase my Star Force to 22, the game doesn't provide me enough incentives to choose that over building more powerful mules.

The plan moving forward is to copy my entire build on Rayque and to run the same on my Union Champions. I'm not too concerned about whether if that's possible. I have already achieved this once, and each subsequent character will progress faster with how the game is designed. I'm in no rush to achieve this ASAP; it defeats the point of having fun. But make no mistake: I would absolutely not recommend to return to the game any time soon. Now is not a good time.

Cheers everyone, I'll see you guys again when we'll discuss how stupid Mystic Frontier really is. Now leave me alone.

[EMS] Level 294!

2026-09-08T14:25:08.980+02:00

Ding! I figured that with today's level up I'd write a separate blogpost for this, since it otherwise would've had to be part of another or be November's blogpost. At that point I might already be (close to) Level 295, because the time between Levels 293 and 294 was only forty-four days. Either way, events end tonight so the next update is around the corner.

To my surprise, I got really lucky with the Sunday discounts on Star Force, so I only have my cape left to upgrade. For now I'd like to save up just to have mesos on hand whenever I want to purchase something from the Auction House.

I'm expecting to want Sol Erda Fragments in bulk with Blitz Shield VI releasing soon, as I've been leveling skills on my Wild Hunter. It has its Ascent at Level 29 already, but with Extreme Lotus taking 24 minutes and costing boss potions, I'd like to focus on Blitz Shield VI to shorten these runs and cut the need for finite resources. While Blitz Shield VI and Rage Explosion are the cheapest within their respective skill groups, they both cost 4000 fragments each and there's less than four months between them. They'll probably start releasing a new 6th Job skill each season after Nexon has done most of the class balancing that's scheduled for later this month. We'll see how that goes. Now leave me alone.

[EMS] Level 293 and more!

2026-08-19T19:47:44.512+02:00

It's time to catch up on recent progress. The expected goal of the year (Level 293) was achieved earlier thanks to the tremendous event support. Level 294 is likely to happen before the end of the year. Last season's Hyper Burning got my Erel to Level 260 and in a few days I should have Kinesis done as well. My Union is at 9900, so I'm guaranteed to achieve the 10k milestone within the next two Hyper Burnings. If only we didn't skip so many of them, but at least we got another Burning Max so my Marksman's 270. Rayque's now my first SSS-Rank Union Champion! 100b well spent.

Now, in terms of low hanging fruits, my main is almost at that sweet spot. The relevant 6th Job skills are maxed out so we're waiting for Blitz Shield VI to arrive. Tallahart Symbol's done, so we're waiting for the next one at Level 295. I only have two items that need an additional Star Force each to reach 18, which might take a while with the Mechaberry tax from this event. My Breath of Divinity is already done with its Potential for now, as I've managed to roll a triple %-STR in the same month that I got it. I'm not going to use many Additional Potential cubes on my main anymore as it's more interesting to use those on my Wild Hunter. With only three items left to roll triple %-STR on, I'm preparing to dedicate all resources on Wild Hunter soon. It rushes Easy Lucid and working on it has been a great exercise in learning what works best in the early game environment with the mesos earned from bossing, which is now five billion every week.

In the laboratory I've been researching the ins and outs of Mystic Frontier and finding stupid ways to exploit it beyond its intended purposes. Obviously there's some silly oversights since "Team GMS" are idiots, but the sample size on my research is still on the lower end. I'm expecting to share my results in the October blogpost, seeing as September is always reserved for my EMS anniversary. Last year I wrote something fancy but I don't have much to add on what I've already said in other blogposts since. Besides, I'm not expecting to be healthy enough to write anything substantial for the foreseeable future sans the year summary. I'm not looking forward to it because I've nothing to celebrate anymore.

On a more positive note, the leg design of Ouroboros is able to carry over eight kilograms! I haven't recorded any of it as I'm working on improving the frame, so the ankle joint slots deep enough inside the lower leg frame. Either way, it's going to work but I'm taking extra time to iron out some concerns regarding the many EV3 this'll require. They are not the easiest to hide so I'm trying to see if it's possible to hide them between the linkages. I also need to run tests to see how many motors can be stacked on each port as it'll decide if I have to add more EV3, or scale down the amount of motors. For that reason I'm working with modular builds because my energy is limited and the decline in mental health have both been major hindrances. Anyway, seeing as I'm sticking with EV3 I figured it's worth understanding its quirks and limitations (beyond its retail capabilities) early, as that avoids the dead ends that have plagued both Hailfire Droid and Constructor many times. I trust the design process as it has served me well to this point. We now know that buggy motors with linear actuators works, but it helps to know how many EV3 and motors I'll need, as this'll decide the sizes and weight for every project moving forward, y'know? I hope to be able to write something for Ouroboros in November.

That's it for today. Now leave me alone, as I have a second dispute against the UWV. Thanks for nothing, Jojanneke.

[EMS] Breath of Divinity GET!

2026-07-19T16:10:48.193+02:00

Doing things out of spite is one hell of a motivator. As someone who's been playing EMS daily for almost 19 years, I've grown tired of outsiders siphoning our players and expecting us to pay for their greed. You have no idea how harmful the GMS Reboot mentality has been for the longevity of EMS until you've been on the receiving end of it.

Time is finite; the vast majority can only play on one server. But the notion of choosing a server ceases to exist when your server is forced to compete against five (soon seven) much larger servers in a winner-takes-all format, with the worst options ran like a cult. They can't be bargained with, they can't be reasoned with. By the time it was possible to have pushback, it was already too late. Reboot runs on mental gymnastics and that is why Go West has been able to take the piss and get away with it. Look no further than recent events. However, Nexon US are cowards and they fear the backlash because the tangible effects of the loud are real, so their decisions always boil down to safe. They opted out on contested updates but failed to comprehend what this does to the balance between the two server types. That leads us to today. I'll teach you how stupidly easy you all made it to acquire a Breath of Divinity as a free-to-play.

At the time of writing, the price for Breath of Divinity (BoD) is about one hundred billion mesos. Believe me that it isn't a lot in today's economy. I'd also like to point out that I've deliberately chosen not to grind as Frenzy service is hard to find and Chains of Resentment (90 days) is priced in the same bracket as BoD! As an engineer, the whole point of this experiment is to prove a reproducible method that is accessible to enough players with minimal effort required, which further helps to develop this "open-source" strategy as more experience gets accumulated, shared and challenged.

One hundred billion mesos to buy a BoD wasn't necessarily the goal, but rather the benchmark in which the plan could be tested and verified. Rather than figuring out a method to achieve one hundred billion quickly once (i.e. crashing the markets, which require years of preparation), I wanted something more substantial in where I was able to consistently achieve a constant rate of mesos without inference or dependency on others. This way, I'd not only tackle the price tag but also have futureproofed a more reliable means to afford (better) items and upgrades (Star Force) moving forward.

Here's some fun trivia. In context, one hundred billion mesos on our server could also buy you one of the following:

400.000 Maple Points.
30.000 Sol Erda Fragments.
Two Petite Luna pets ("vac pets"), which can be extended indefinitely for free via Reward Point shop.
Whisper of the Source (Limbo ring) with twenty billion mesos left.
Two sets of complete Eternal equipment with eight Pitched Boss accessories each (no hearts and badges).
Four complete sets of Eternal equipment, or twenty-five sets of Eternal Hat/Top/Bottom/Shoulder.
One complete set of ten Pitched Boss accessories (including heart and badge), or four sets of eight.
One-hundred-and-twenty-five complete sets of Superior Gollux accessories.
Two hundred completed sets of Arcane Umbra equipment.
Two Firestarter Rings.

Granted, not everything will be in stock at any given time but it's interesting to see how much spending power I now have in such a short amount of time. Being able to buy two Pitched Boss accessories or four Kaling Eternals weekly is tantalizing. Yes, the equipment will be clean but in practice this hardly matters as you'll see in two paragraphs.

So my method of choice for achieving one hundred billion mesos within five months is boss muling, of course. But not the traditional method of doing several high-end bosses. Quite frankly, like with grinding hours for mesos with Frenzy, that just takes too long and requires way too much effort. It is way easier, faster and cheaper to one-shot nine newbie weekly bosses a dozen times than it is to clear Tenebris bosses six times. With all of the latest changes to the overall gameplay, skills are reset when entering weekly bosses, so you throw everything on a single Skill Sequence and press Origin skill to immediately delete the boss. This way we keep it short, bite-sized with minimal effort and commitment. It's not that we do not want to achieve several Tenebris boss mules, it's that this is our way to afford it without having to spend an eye-watering amount of time or any real money. One-shots are perfect for an "AFK" playstyle, but once you aim for anything past Akechi, their separate boss phases requires substantial upgrades and skill unlocks (i.e. Ascents).

With 180 boss crystals a week and frequent Hyper Burning events, it doesn't take long to get started. One-shot mules (or "ghetto mules" as I call them) shouldn't require more than a few dozen million mesos to clear the first nine bosses, and if it requires more mesos, it just means the return on investment is a few weeks later. Either way, it is guaranteed profit and you'll quickly learn that you have access to so many cheap and accessible items to build them. The cost for each subsequent mule lowers as you become more self-sufficient in resources and unlock better stats on the account. This snowballs into billions every week and this allows you to buy powerful resources from Auction House, so you can one-shot stronger bosses. What's more important is that each boss has a chance to drop cubes. At 180, I end up with almost 30 legendary and 100 unique cubes every week. This solves the cubing problems on regular server, as at this point it's easy to afford Mystic Frontier for Additional Potential cubes, which then become common. With 30 legendary cubes, it gets me a triple % every month, or at least one rank up to Legendary. This makes replacing gear a lot faster and with our exclusive changes to Star Force you no longer need spare BoDs until you go past 22 enhancements.

Now, here's some practical advice. It's likely that eventually we'll see a backport of the updates from Korea MapleStory that we've skipped up to this point. Specifically, the reduction of boss crystals each week to 90, and the introduction of dynamic pricing. When that happens is anyone's guess, but ideally you'd want to be prepared for this change. You can still benefit a lot from the current status quo until then, and if anything: strike the iron while it's still hot.

Now, let's talk about Breath of Divinity. They won't fear it until they understand it. One hundred billion is a lot of money, but this buys you unmatched power. It's common to hear others burning several hundred billion mesos in Star Force, and while it does provide a ridiculous amount of stats, it'll never warp the game as much as purchasing a BoD would. This is not only a critique towards players who choose Reboot, but also a pet peeve towards progression on regular server. BoD provides a skill that's so disgusting it is self-defeating not to own one. You gain an additional HP bar and every (separate) attack fully restores it. Paired with Len's link skill, I went from Easy Kaling to Extreme Lotus overnight. There will be a blogpost taking a closer look at the inner workings, but yes: it's really stupid. And you can get one too. Remember: you can bank this item every month. That's how I'm going to achieve my six SSS-rank Union Champions.

Now, I've saved my best tricks for last. I wasn't the only one that was able to buy a Breath of Divinity this month. You see, what most people forget is that I'm part of a like-minded group where we openly share, discuss and challenge our understanding of this game. I've waited with this blogpost until a friend of mine, who's far less invested and lazier, got a BoD of his own. I've also had "ghetto muling" methodology be tested in the early and mid-game environments, which also helped several folks who were struggling to proceed with their accounts. That's how I measure the success of this experiment. And remember folks: I am fully, bona fide trade-restricted Bronze 0 so none of y'all have an excuse. I've been telling for years on my blog: you can still use the Auction House while restricted. I won't tolerate any misleading information: get yourself a goddamn guild storage already and start using it! That's it for today. Now leave me alone.

[EMS] Level 292 and more!

2026-06-20T17:09:12.743+02:00

It's the Summer of 2026, and once again real life events will decide whether the status quo is prolonged, or if there is a way out of this mess. The difference with previous years however, is that moving forward I'll be more overt as surface level understanding about my personal life is now public knowledge. To go through everything that's going to happen this Summer is way out of scope for today's blogpost, but if anything of interest happens, I'll be sure to write about it.

Time to catch up. At the end of May, I've reached Level 292! This Summer update comes with plenty improvements to level progression, including the long-awaited Mechaberry Farm. It costs one billion per entry; two entrees a week. It's a steep price, but each run gives a staggering 2%. I can afford it thanks to the "ghetto muling", and this event lasts until September, so it adds up. This does mean that I'll be cutting my weekly income by half, so the process of saving up for the grand goal will be slower for a few months. I'm currently past eighty billion mesos and if I were to skip Mechaberry, I would achieve my goal in about four weeks, but I don't think it's worth sacrificing 16% EXP to have the item earlier as there's also no guarantee that anything listed on Auction House (right now) will be available for purchase next month.

The FallenAngel guild has reached Level 29, which was overdue. When it comes to contribution, it's almost entirely a solo guild, so leveling takes years. My Bishop caught up and reached Level 260, alongside previous season's Hyper Burn: Mo Xuan. Currently, I'm working on Erel as the next boss mule, and Burning Beyond is used on my third Union Champion: Marksman. Union Artifacts reached Level 55. Now, as for the latest progress on my equipment and skills...

My Tallahart symbol is almost done, with one level to go. I've been brute-forcing three lines of main Potential on all of my equipment via the Meister Cubes obtained from "ghetto muling". We may not have the Potential revamp yet, but a small investment in Mystic Frontier has proven to be very lucrative. It's easy to get a ridiculous amount of (Additional) Potential cubes. The yield is more than any event or Reward Points can offer. It's been a tremendous help and it's also all-year round! This system sucks, but we have to make do with what we have. Speaking of which: Star Force. Once I have fulfilled the grand goal, I planned to raise all Star Force to 18 and then increase the yield from boss mules. That's still the plan, but this update also brings the opportunity to go even further with 22. Not needing spares is great for the availability and pricing for the most important equips, as we'll discuss once I reveal what I've been working towards.

Our latest 6th Job skill, Sol Hecate, is now available. It's already Level 22. Got all the fragments I need, just gotta be patient with Sol Erda. Waiting is not a big deal, I'll have it Level 30 in no time. I'm now gathering the fragments for our Winter update (Blitz Shield VI) and next year's Rage Explosion. I should probably bank some of the surplus frags and use those on my Union Champions, seeing how easy it has become to obtain them. I'm also considering to write more about progress on Union Champions, as I believe that there's a lot of interesting things to discuss regarding the ease of progression on Luna right now thanks to the years of neglect on Inkwell's end causing massive unintended exploits.

Ohey, this is a pleasant surprise. MapleStory plushies! Ya know me, I like to collect video game plushies and artbooks. In 2018, I've gotten my hands on one of the official MapleStory artbooks (and I wish they continue to make new ones), but I've never went out of my way to get the old plushies. Fortunately, the game has become massive in Korea and it warrants a lot of new merchandise. With the convenience of Ebay, it's easy to get your hands on them. I'm very happy with this series of plushies, where they share a common design language and size. I have plenty of massive plushies in my room already, so having these smaller ones is just what I was looking for. There's still a few I'd like to add to the collection and I'll keep an eye on future releases. Personally, I don't think it's worth to spend real money on free-to-play games, but remember this: digital gacha-game slop is only temporary - their physical merch however, are forever.

Now if you don't mind, I'm going to leave it here. There's plenty of other things to talk about, like how I have started on the Inti Creates backlog, or the proof of concept builds for Ouroboros as I continue to prepare the parts list and budget for the end of the year, but this blogpost is long enough already. That'll be for another time. Now leave me alone.

What is the cost of lies?

2026-05-01T00:17:00.003+02:00

"Ray is stuck inside a bottomless pit. All of us have a rope, but none of our ropes are long enough to reach him.
The only person with a rope that is long enough to save him, is Jojanneke." - GreenBlade, member of FallenAngel.

We don't get to choose the things that fix us. The people that makes us whole. The goals in life that give us purpose.

Several hours after publishing the last blogpost, one of my moles told me about something I wish never happened. It tipped me over. I wanted the end, but this is not my first rodeo. After a few hundred times, I got used to it. I wanted to share my thoughts, but lost track on how many drafts were made. None sufficed, but I did find a new perspective.

I think it's time I come clean about the status quo, which is something I've mentioned in passing on my blog for years now. I can't take it anymore. I can't keep a lid on it. I cannot disclose everything in public, so I'm not expecting you to agree on everything, but I hope that you're able to understand me a bit better. That's all I can ask for. Now, let's talk.

I'm inconsolable and I'm losing the will to live. I'll never be able to be happy, I'll never be able to have my own life, I'll never be able to have children of my own and I'll never be able to leave this godawful country. It's been 27 years since I've tried to make something out of my life, but the decisions of a single person has made it an inescapable, living hell. The worst part is, there's nothing that can be done about it, except for appealing to the person in question: Jojanneke.

For most of my life, I've devoted myself tirelessly to Jojanneke. She's the only one more important than LEGO. I might have had a chance with her, however her uncompromising beliefs and unwillingness to overtly share her feelings are hard for me to understand as I'm more rational than I am emotional. I'm blunt and outspoken, I value communication, fairness and honesty, but that makes it difficult when it's not overtly returned. As an introvert, talking is not my strength either, where I have had many unintended quarrels with others caused by poor communication. She is my equal, so I want to understand her better. I wish to cherish her, and be cherished in return. However, that may be impossible now.

We've spent a lot of time together and I assumed that everything would work out fine. I took it for granted. If she wasn't clear enough about something, I blindly treated it as a problem that needed to be solved, when that was not my call to make. She toyed with the idea that our friendship might go somewhere, but she decided to ghost me. For the longest time, our side of the story thought it was cruel because this destroyed my life, made worse by the fact that she lead on several times (since). She's criticized for not solving the problem that, from our perspective, she caused. It's the status quo that I can't escape. LEGO cannot happen without her, but if she's unwilling to listen or cooperate, I'm finished. But just because she left doesn't mean I've moved on. I'm still trying to understand what happened, how we can reconcile within the limitations and the lifetime journey I must undergo to become worthy of earning the right to be by her side.

Lately, I've been starting to wonder if, just maybe, against all logic and rationality, I was the one cruel to her all along? What if, from her perspective, I was the one that wronged her? I'm familiar with the virtues and beliefs she lives by, but I have always been puzzled by the somewhat hypocrisy and double standards she's shown towards me. But after so many years, I've started to wonder if maybe my choices had the exact opposite effects on her, becoming the things I'd accuse her of, even though that was not my intention. And it then got me thinking: if that happened all the time, would it be also possible for this to happen on her end as well? What if we misunderstood the way we should treat the other? What if we misunderstood what to expect from each other? What if we misunderstood the way the other wanted to be treated? Things never added up, until I looked at the big picture from this perspective. Here's an example what I mean.

The status quo destroys my life, but many attempts have been made to try and explain her the situation. In fact, this is the focus of my daily life for the past 14 years, and continues to be. Nothing worked. Each time we reached out to her, the situation got worse. Each time she reached out to us, it also got worse. What if these outcomes were unintended?

During the time when we were still together, a distinct characteristic of her is when she rarely opens her heart and is willing to listen. It's always clear when this happens, because her default behavior is extrovert but distant, where she's chatty, controlling, prideful and assertive but avoids connections on a deeper level. When she opens her heart, she is basically defenseless, at her most vulnerable state. A long time ago, Jojanneke once wanted to know the truth and I gave her an answer so honest that she was willing to return the favor. But as someone with autism, finesse and tact aren't my strengths. Like a test at school, you are never graded for if you understand, but the answers you give in the moment. Each time she revealed a part of herself, I understood what she meant, but not how I should act upon it.

Jojanneke once told me that the past shouldn't matter and that we should focus on the now, but at this point in time I was a nervous wreck, eight years in pain and had no reason to believe her. Not only did I refuse her favor, I called her out on her behavior. That was wrong and uncalled for, I fucked it up. I let her down and should've given her the benefit of the doubt. Things escalated after that. I now realize that I offender her, that she may've also nervously fumbled her response after I sneered at her, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. I wonder if that is the reason why our relationship went nowhere, where this befell on her too many times. I improperly handled a porcelain teacup like it was one made of steel. I wonder if our relationship would've developed better if we'd spent more time together offline. Call me old fashioned, but I'm better at reading non-verbal social cues than I'm with verbal communication. Everyone was so busy defending my side of the story and confronting her for 14 years that I failed to notice her body language, tone of voice and other signs telling me different. I should've connected the dots sooner and it's probably too late now.

It doesn't matter if everyone else believes she wronged me and that I would be the best partner she could've had. As long as she doesn't see it that way, no matter the reason, it is all irrelevant. It is perhaps the reason why she told me I don't know her and she doesn't know me. I always want to be by her side. I want us to understand each other, to carry her burdens. But it needs time and experience being together. Emotions show value; there's no fulfillment to be found if it doesn't hurt. We must quarrel before we can understand each other. We need to allow mistakes to happen before we can learn. That's the only way to grow meaningful relationships, and I wish Jojanneke would allow us to have one.
I was still inexperienced with her, so I couldn't think straight. I judged her for taking no responsibility for her actions, but what I should've thought about is that there's a chance she knows little about what happened, even if I sent her letters explaining the situation. I should've let her in and asked if she knew what was going on in my life, and if we could work together to solve the status quo. But I've returned the worst thing she did to me, and I'm paying the ultimate price for it.

She may have moved on and found happiness in life, but that doesn't mean I ever will. She may be convinced that we aren't meant to be and I'm somehow able to move on if I tried hard enough, but I should've asked if there's any chance she might be wrong and hasn't given us enough opportunities to understand each other on a deeper level. Because in her decisions to shut me out, she removed (regardless if this was intended) my options to move to Billund and receive the help I need. God knows I'm still trying, but everything keeps getting worse. With chronic fatigue syndrome, I can no longer function on my own. It's too severe for treatment but never severe enough for financial disability support. I'll be forever chained to a caretaker. I've exhausted all options this country offers. Been running in circles and none of health care (over the past 14 years) are allowed to contact her. Without her, my health cannot recover. The exhaustion (CFS) is bad enough already and I'm also losing the battle against my crippling persistent chest pain. It eats away my sanity. Sleeping consumes more energy than it recovers, and I often have to face nightmares about the future I'll never have with her. I don't even want to think about the effort required to get out of this. I pray that she's willing to ponder and ask herself if this is how she wants it to end. I wish we could hug it out, let bygones be bygones because it hurts that I've yet to live my own life. I've spent almost half my life stuck like this. It's a struggle to stay afloat and to do right by her.

There's still so much that can be said, but I think you get the point. Truth is, we can talk all day, but it's unlikely she still reads my blog like she used to, let alone do something once she reads this. I'm sorry to have let you all down. I had to vent my frustrations here because nothing ever changes. I always struggle with how I should feel about this, especially now that I realize that she may've experienced our relationship as unpleasant and harmful, when that wasn't the intent. I may've only been a small part in her life, but she still means the world to me. As long as we're alive, there's always a chance for redemption. That's the sweet lie I tell myself, but it's enough to keep me going and to try again tomorrow.

Jojanneke, I'm sorry. Please forgive me.

[EMS] It's a filler update.

2026-04-10T08:28:00.006+02:00

Still pissed about last month because all of this has been incredibly predictable and therefore utterly dull. Contribution, like the other systems in the game that tallies cleared runs (i.e. slayers and Commerci), is one of few Nexon refuses to properly address or compensate for. The process of raising them is fun, but being denied accomplishment for the most asinine reasons amplifies the frustration. Normally, you'd have customer support for this. But this is Nexon US we are talking about, so their customer support is useless because they're paid to ignore what doesn't cost them money. Try as I have, the non-existent "Team GMS" would rather throw everyone under the bus than to seize these opportunities to build customer loyalty and repair trust. My patience with Nexon US is increasingly being tested and things will never be the same. The last thing they'll ever do is the only thing that would solve this, and their hollow apologies do nothing. The more I'm pushed to alienation the more vengeful I become. Same shit, different day. Let's never speak of it again.

Now, as the title suggests: it's a filler update. I couldn't care less about the crossover's source material itself. However, the furniture and apartment are nice. As you may recall, I grew up in Japan and everything about the culture has stuck with me. Anime as a pastime is one of that. For years I watch between ten and fifteen anime shows each season, but you may be surprised to hear that I wouldn't consider half of the watched shows to be good. Only a handful are great and usually there's only one or two each season that are excellent. It's all about those hidden gems. But just like food, a healthy balance requires all of the above, including junk food every once in a while. However, the one genre that is often not my cup of tea is the clichéd but popular action genre. Example includes this crossover and the previous one.

Grinding this crossover event was easier, though that's offset by the fact that you cannot keep this character or have it changed into another. It's only for the (cosmetic) rewards. No new boss mule this time. However, regardless whether if it's a filler update, progress continues to be made because dailies and weeklies are always available. As of the time of writing, I've saved up thirty-four billion mesos. Still a lot of mesos required until the goal is met, but I'm getting there.

The latest Epic Dungeon is now available and it yields a slightly higher EXP. I don't enjoy this one as much as Angler Company and that's because of the poor selection of quick-time-events and janky tasks. Carlisle's voice actor carries the English dub once again, which I can't say for Ymir's. That accent is jarringly familiar. Anyway, I'm already halfway to Level 292. How fast it'll go will be decided by the quality of the next event rewards. This event was modest, but the cubes have ranked up the Additional Potential of my Eternal gloves and gave it two useful lines. That's nice, I guess.

Aside from Maple, I continue to be busy with the same as always. In particular, the ramifications of 2023 still demands a lot of time, energy and keeps me stuck in this godforsaken dump. Buried in paperwork; from pillar to post yet I have exhausted so many options that our health care organizations are running out of ideas. Not that the only person who both controls and condemned me to this fate cares enough to read this blog, but one can dream. In the meantime I've been going through my gaming backlog. Recently I wrapped up Borderlands 4 co-op with Luxatus as he achieved his platinum trophy. I've started Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness earlier this year. Saving the review for the year summary, but the game was exhausting. Bigger isn't always better. It lacked the core (story, characters, world, music, gameplay) that made Colosseum compelling, but those were also part of Colosseum's critique. In trying to fix those, it created a meager "quantity over quality" sequel with its best ideas underutilized and an unsatisfying ending. It's good, but not as great as I hoped it to be. I'll do the post-game another time and play something else from the list. Now leave me alone.

[EMS] The axe forgets; the tree remembers.

2026-03-19T04:48:00.005+01:00

So much for Guild Contribution. I haven't missed a single day but I can no longer say this is a perfect score. There's been plenty of close calls in the past nine years but the one thing I was ill-prepared for was the diabolical decision to increase the daily contribution cap on the 18th of March from 5000 to 35000 (and only for three hours). You can't make this shit up. Only in Maple can you continue to have a perfect daily track record and yet still losing out on 30k points.

This was a much longer blogpost, but I'm too pissed to give a damn. You can forget about the 6th Job blogpost, I can't be arsed anymore to write it for the foreseeable future. Losing this one is just one too many. I despise the demand to change dailies into weeklies. If you asked for this, I hope it was worth ruining the fun for others. Now leave me alone.

[EMS] Eternal set completed, catching up on bosses and more!

2026-03-11T14:12:00.000+01:00

Hey all, today we'll look at some of the recent achievements and upcoming plans for this year. Let's start with the pair of new Level 260s - this season's Hyper Burning (Phantom) and my F/P from two years ago. This adds another mule to the weekly boss army, and I'll now work on raising my Bishop from 250 to 260. Next burning should be Mo Xuan.

The recent event introduces a new staple challenge for a free Plasma Heart voucher, which was an excellent incentive to get off my lazy bum and give it a shot. Before this update, I was content to settle on True Hilla as the highest weekly boss, seeing how quick and easy these runs have become thanks to 6th Job. The challenge however requires to clear at least Easy Kaling, which is further in the game. Not a boss I was familiar with to say the least, so I reserved a day to run practice mode and to study with videos. To my surprise, I had it cleared within four hours! Even better, as much as I was encouraged by friends to try out this challenge, I then found myself encouraging others to try it out as well.

At a first glance, Kaling overwhelms you with a bunch of stuff you have to learn and micromanage. Then I realized that most is irrelevant and that the boss is laughably exploitable. Defeating Hundun and phase 2 before the bind runs out eliminates most of the difficulty. It ensures you have ample time to safely clear the rest. To give an idea, this video for coaching (apologies for the subpar commentary; it's not my strong suit) was the third clear. Not sure if that video will be of use here but I figured its inclusion fits today's topic and may be interesting as part of this blog's recorded history.

With Easy Kaling being such a deceptively reasonable task, I've added it to the weekly menu. Seeing how quickly I was able to learn a new boss, I figured I might as well try out the others. I've settled on adding Normal Seren and Easy Kalos since these could be cleared immediately without much effort. I can't be arsed to practice Easy First Adversary, Hard Seren and Normal Kalos because the extra hour doesn't yield much. We don't have dynamic boss crystals and due to trade restrictions I can't sell the loot. The low effort 320 mill will do just fine. Plus, there's also Black Mage runs!

Now, the reason for this tangent has to do with the next goal. As expected, the Eternal set was completed last month. Aside from Star Forcing to 18 and grindstones, there's not many low-hanging fruits left to spend mesos on. It's been a while since I've had a massive goal to work towards (the likes of Mu Gong or Ribgol), and I fancy a new challenge to keep me occupied. I have something in mind and I'll be saving up mesos for the remainder of the year or until this goal is met. Whether if this will work out depends on the assumption that several things in EMS remain the same as they've been for years, but with the current management there's just no guarantee. I'll give it a fair chance, do what I can and we'll see where this goes. I'm pretty sure it'll work out just fine, but you can never be certain with these guys in charge.

Before I wrap up today's blogpost, a few other things to mention. Here's the regular reminder that for the next several months I'm taking a break from my LEGO portfolio in order to replenish the parts budget. Blueprints for Ouroboros legs are ready. It's got the power and the battery sorted out, so I'm fairly confident with this one. But as we all know, theory will take you only so far. I have most parts on hand, but there are several that need to be ordered in bulk, including a damn buyout. It's prohibitively expensive to do buyouts, but because it's a critical component it must be done. I'll order those later this year. For now, I'll try to publish the next 6th Job blogpost in either April or May. I'll get back to work now.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post! Wait, what do you mean Konami redesigned the Sacred Beasts?

[EMS] Level 291!

2026-02-03T09:04:00.006+01:00

Ding! Just fresh from the oven. Events end today, so that's another stack of rewards that contributes towards today's achievement. With Level 291 achieved early, I believe Level 293 as a goal is possible before the end of the year. The next symbol (Level 295) is still a long way off, but there's a lot of EXP-related quality of life updates to look forward to.

To continue on last month's objectives, I was very lucky with the results from all of this season's event cubes. All of my high priority equipment, including my recently-obtained Eternal Shoes, are now fully ranked up to Legendary Potential. This includes Additional Potential as well, and I hit the jackpot with my Reaper's Pendant! It is my first six-liner, which is a significant milestone considering the ridiculous odds of that ever happening. Furthermore, I was also able to land the first Spikes on Shoes, which is kinda funny given last month's tangent. Though now I'm stuck in Return Scroll hell because I do not have the luxury of redoing scrolls on these shoes. If only they sold the scroll in El Nath, like in JMS... As for obtaining the remaining two Eternal equips: I have enough mesos to buy one, but they're currently out of stock.

Anyway, the rush for this blogpost is intentional because I'd like to chime in on the discussion about recent events. Not that I really expect any of this to amount to much, given how meager the viewership is for this blog and how few seem to actually read anything here (especially true for new blogposts), but I do believe that in moments like these it's worth adding to the conversation. I feel like nobody is talking about two major issues and it seems to be caused by a lack of awareness on either subject matters. I'll try to keep it short because this could easily grow into two lengthy blogposts.

It was brought to my attention that multiple language support was recently confirmed for the EMS/GMS conglomerate. It's a legitimate cause for concerns because this was an ill-fated exclusive feature of EMS that caused many unfixable issues for the game. It was supported for about six years but there's good reason why this feature never returned. The technical details on how it worked is beyond the scope of this blogpost; all you need to know is that everything broke. The game is barely functional as it is. Adding more languages multiplies the required effort. EMS started out with five and had to axe two (including Spanish) after four years. The entire system was dropped after the hackwave of 2012 was over. Inkwell is a fool if he believes he can do what Nexon Europe couldn't, especially since this is well-trodden territory. It didn't work for EMS, it barely functions on MapleStory N and anything Go West has a terrible track record.

Now, the other point of discussion is the ousting of Wonky. Specifically: the dude that takes over the entire MapleStory franchise. I'd be careful about rejoicing if I were you, because historically Gaga's up there as one of Maple's worst. For those unaware, Gaga is Inkwell's mentor and his two-year tenure introduced everything we hate about the game. He may not have been the brain behind most of the game's horrendous monetization practices (that was mostly Inkwell's), but Gaga was the one that greenlit it all and then gave his position to Inkwell to further drive the game into the ground. His grossest contribution to MapleStory is the complete removal of all overseas content for Korea MapleStory in 2010; a decision so baffling that after 16 years I still don't know why they insist on enforcing this rule. If you ever wondered why KMS doesn't have certain classes or items, now you know. KMS players have never stopped asking to revert this decision and not even Changseop was able to give a sensible retort. You tell me: do we want the butcher of overseas content to oversee our version? If there's anything that threatens Go West more than its own deranged creator, it's the anti-overseas hardliner who gave the lunatic a career and put classic MapleStory into freefall. You have been warned.

Well, the future of EMS is certainly going to be interesting. Let's see if any of the withheld updates from Korea sees a widespread release under the new stewardship, or if the exclusivity is going to get worse. I guess we'll find out soon...

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

[EMS] Spirit Caliber MAX! Silent Cleave MAX!

2026-01-25T23:11:00.005+01:00

Well, that wraps up 6th Job. For now. All of the materials will be stashed until the next wave. Remember, you can store excess Sol Erda on every Level 260+ mule that you own. With so many Hyper Burninators, it's not uncommon to have several by now. In my case that's eleven, with more on the way. Currently burning Phantom for its Union bonus stats.

As mentioned last month, my Len is now Level 270 thanks to the plentiful event support. It is now my second highest character. Third place is my Wild Hunter. MPE should get it to 270. Furthermore, I've been working on other 250's and get them to 260, of which I recently finished Sia. I've decided to temporarily spend Level 250 pots and vouchers to aid in that endeavor, as I still have my original two Hyper Burnings who could only burn to 250. It wasn't until Ignition when they raised the support to Level 260 and introduced the daily quest EXP. All of my Level 260+ mules are now 6th Job!

Having them all 6th Job keeps the weekly bosses short. If a boss doesn't melt, it's simply not worth it. There's no cap on acquired mesos and every important item in Auction House is (dirt) cheap. This is why I strive to keep a tight leash on hours played because it's all too easy to lose track of allotted time. The quick, effortless and consistent cashflow is far more interesting long-term. Even better if you are mindful on mesos per minute. Having to spend extra minutes on low-end bosses isn't proportional when I can clear 60k an hour, or Urus in 12 seconds. Anyway, I've obtained my first Limbo/Baldrix Eternal (shoes), and I should be able to buy the remaining two equips next month to complete the set.

For upgrades, my Endless Terror's Additional Potential is now Legendary, and I'm now working on the Eternal Shoes. Redoing Spikes on Shoes is going to take a while, with how limited the monthly cap is for Reward Points. Buying all cubes and Monster Park tickets doesn't leave you with many spare points... Ya know, it's in moments like these where skipping the Potential revamp bludgeons all aspects of the game design, RP shop included. With how many items are in the shop, the monthly cap isn't high enough without having to sacrifice progress one way or another. It really sucks when trying to optimize scrolling (i.e. ICOGs). I'll remind you that the fabled Potential revamp's already two years old.

On the bright side, I'm almost Level 291. Yes, already. We might have sacrificed way too many good events in favor of some terrible exclusives, but I'll reluctantly admit that the Twenteena event has speedrun most of Level 290 because it keeps shitting copious amounts of Advanced EXP Vouchers. That's the blogpost for next month. I don't know when I'll start on the next 6th Job blogpost, because I've been so busy this month that I haven't had time to look at my blog. But rest assured, I should have plenty of time this year to work on some blogposts because I'm saving up, so progress on my LEGO portfolio will be limited in the foreseeable future. However, Ouroboros should have his first steps very soon.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

[2025] What happened this year to Rayque?

2025-12-31T17:37:00.003+01:00

Another year's end, another summary.

This year marks the 15th summary on this blog, and we reached the milestone of over 600 blogposts! As always, the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2026!

It's been a bit of an eventful year, more than I expected it to be. So without further ado, let's get to it before I turn into a popsicle as today's blogpost is written in a basement in Switzerland, of all places. How did I end up here? Who knows.

The Youtube Department (Rayque3 Staff)

Not a whole lot has happened in the Youtube department with only two videos released this year. The Zu Pharg video took about 75 hours to prepare, believe it or not. There was a lot of materials to grind for and it would've gone quicker weren't it for the paywalled online features (I aint paying for NSO). We'll further discuss this later in this blogpost...

Our other video was a tad late. It was intended to be published while the corresponding event was still ongoing, but we couldn't get it through quality inspection on time. It happens, y'know. But I'm glad it's out.

Top 10 Most Viewed Videos for this year

1. WarioWare: Smooth Moves - All Microgames (33.500 views)

2. Super Smash Bros. Brawl - 100% Subspace Emissary (15.000 views)

3. Mario Party 7 - All Mini-Games (13.300 views)

4. Pokémon Battle Revolution - All Masters Battles [HeartGold] (8.000 views)

5. Endless Ocean - The Abyss & Finding the Giant Squid (7.000 views)

6. Kirby's Return to Dreamland - All Mini/Main/EX Bosses (6.200 views)

7. Donkey Kong 64 - All main bosses (2.400 views)

8. Borderlands 2 - Sound effects: Constructor's Digistruct (1.500 views)

9. [WALKTHROUGH] - HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE (PC) - PART #1 - FIRST LESSONS (1.000 views)

10. MapleStory Skill Quest - How to obtain "Rush" [Before Big Bang Patch] (700 views)

As expected, our Endless Ocean video reached the 100.000 view milestone! To my surprise, it is now our tenth most viewed video on the channel as it surpassed our LEGO City Undercover video. The latter may have reached 100.000 views two years ago, but it's only seen a thousand views since. Oof. The first part of the Croc 2 walkthrough has been struggling to reach 100.000 views and according to Youtube analytics, it needs another two years before that happens.

Off-topic but tangentially related, Croc 1 was confirmed last year to see a physical release on the Switch and PS5, but its supplier keeps delaying shipment. It was intended to be released earlier this year, and despite it's still scheduled for "Q4 2025", they've been awfully silent. Darn, it appears Lux will have to wait a bit longer before he can finally play it.

The MapleStory Europe Department

The big ol' Level 290 achievement! Already past 40%, too. Seeing what Changseop has been cooking for our Korean neighbours, Level 295 should be possible in 2027. Not sure if Level 293 is possible next year, but 292 certainly is.

Most of this year's work has been maxing out 6th Job with some modest upgrades on gear. Progress on Union's been superb, seeing as I now have a weekly income of over three billion mesos. I'm close to 9700 Union, Artifacts are Level 53 and with how consistent Union progress has been for several years, reaching that fabled 10.000 Union score might happen next year. I'd like to have some serious progress on gear, but with so many major updates being held hostage from KMS that isn't likely any time soon. But you make do with what you have. With the second weekly Monster Park Extreme, I'm able to push characters past Level 260 for extra stats. In particular, with the Burning Beyond event, I took the Level 270 event challenge for Len which I've completed last week. Not gonna lie, the class is not great. It's lacking in its basic gameplay with limited movement options and an obtuse chance-based on-hit healing when so many other classes have unlimited access to it. Add insult to injury, Len's fully-upgraded main attacking skill remains awfully short and by that point, it's outclassed by so many others. But the nuance I've learned this year is that subpar classes aren't the worst to play as long as the weekly bosses are short. Remember: if you only need to use buff sequence and Origin for a quick buck, class choice (thankfully) doesn't really matter anymore. Be wise with your time spent. Keep it easy.

Guild Castle: Personal Research maxed out very recently, and seeing that TMS expanded Guild Castle a second time, EMS should have more Personal Research skills later. Both Housing and Guild Castle has been adopted in KMS (as per the roadmap post-Pangyo truck incident), and this leads me to believe that the non-KMS Housing/Guild Castle will be replaced by their Korean counterparts. Remember, this wouldn't be the first time. Most forget that Soul Weapons and Root Abyss doesn't originate from KMS, but was overseas content adopted-and-made-mainstream by KMS later.

My coverage for the first three waves of 6th Job was published, and with new skills released not too long ago, I should be working on that blogpost soon. I'm not quite settled yet on my thoughts, so I'd like to wait a bit longer. It needs more testing, and I'm expecting to have it maxed out by early February (which should help to finalize my thoughts).

Any other closing thoughts that I haven't already discussed at length? With how much of a disaster it's been lately, I've been gravitating to write less about Maple in general. Seeing as I don't sugarcoat things, the past two years have been overly negative because the state of the game is simply not doing well. Anyone that believes otherwise is full of shit. I'd prefer to avoid the discussion but that's not always possible. Now, you tell me what is the plan for Classic MapleStory because I have no reasons to believe it'll have a chance for long-term survival. Nexon's already struggling to maintain Reboot past its expiration date, yet they insist to add an even more complex server type to the client. You know what's going to be really funny? Every time Classic, regular or Reboot has a critical bug, one will drag every other server into maintenance mode. You thought Jett, Sia or Steam Market integration was bad? We might witness the worst one yet.

The LEGO Department

Unfortunately, I did not meet my portfolio-related goal I had set for this year, but on the bright side I was able to get my hands on some incredible items. It's always a momentous occasion to see progress on covering Galidor and it can't be understated how significant these finds are in our understanding of what was planned past the original product lineup. I've started writing this blogpost, but out of health concerns I can only work on it occasionally. I have no idea when it's finished as I'm only productive for a few hours a day and I need to be selective with how I spend those hours. Writing often takes a backseat because it's not as much of a priority compared to ADLs or working on my LEGO projects.

The portfolio-related goal for the year was to develop a walking sequence for Ouroboros. I am close to figuring it out. It's a new build, so it comes with its own problems. While I finally got the main play feature to work last year, none of its solutions were sufficient for a pair of legs. Seeing how much torque part 46490 delivered, I expected them to work for everything. As always, I learned the hard way that this was not the case. Thus, I had to start from scratch again.

You may recall that I saw potential in a robot leg design from James Bruton. By July I had the necessary parts to build them and by September I had a proof of concept. Those clutch joints were not needed, oops. But the LEGO leg design had a fatal flaw: it couldn't carry weight. The way it's designed is nonoptimal for torque. With the "real" one, you could compensate with better motors, but with LEGO we don't have this option. This proof of concept was already using the best possible motors, so it required a different approach. Going back to the drawing board, I identified the issues* and designed a new frame. Lo and behold, by November I had the breakthrough I was looking for! As you can tell from this video, this new build can hold a lot of weight, but it's still in early stage of development. You can hear the buggy motor struggling to carry all that weight, so I'll have to increase the amount of them to improve the leg design's performance.

*LEGO gears are very inefficient, so precious torque was lost. This effect worsens with each additional gear. Direct-drive is the only solution, where actuators are directly mounted to the motors. Furthermore, the placement of these actuators were far from ideal, because they aren't pushing in the direction where the weight needs to be carried. The solution is to connect the actuators between the opposite corners of the parallelogram linkage.

But that'll have to wait, as this year has been really expensive because buying LEGO parts is not cheap*. In particular, after last year's success I stockpiled Powered Up motors and gen 4 Mindstorms as I expected to need more of them for the legs. Of course, that did not work so I ended up going back to the EV3 ecosystem, which required yet another purchase for the cables, buggy motors and sensors I did not have. But all of this has been a worthwhile investment in knowledge and experience, as the project is getting somewhere. A walking sequence should be possible next year!

*Rule of thumb: 99% of the parts bought do not end up in the final model. Over the past decade, I've submitted almost four hundred Bricklink orders. Iterative design requires scrapping hundreds of prototype builds, all of which requires different parts. Robotics is nowhere near the same as building a LEGO town where you settle for one-time builds you'll never touch again. Even worse if you're trying to push LEGO models to a higher standard.

I wasn't expecting to go back to the EV3 ecosystem, but given the circumstances a walking sequence wouldn't have been as fast if I stuck with the generation 4 Mindstorms. Even though you can run six motors on the latter, EV3 has a few advantages like being able to run four (and possibly more) of the absurdly powerful buggy motors with an insane RPM of over 1k, which is what I'll be using to compensate for the linear actuator's otherwise awful speed. The reason why I haven't tried this before... is simply because documentation on these finds do not exist. Buggy motors on an EV3 requires converter cables, and it appears that in the past decade nobody went out of their way to confirm that it works. If you can't Google for these answers, you have no choice but to financially take risks to find those answers yourself.

Either way, having learned Micropython for Pybricks proved to be a worthwhile venture because programming EV3 is the same but on Visual Studio Code. Using VSC is a tad more challenging than the simplified Pybricks software, but it also allows me more options with the EV3. For instance, the microSD allows me to run much larger programs, which is inevitable the more complicated this project becomes. Sound files can be played, which you can't on gen 4. The USB port can be used to control the project through Wifi*, and I can opt to run LEGO's own USB camera for video tracking. I'm excited for the newfound possibilities for several of my projects running EV3, but I also dread the programming...

*Using Wifi may sound overkill, but once you consider that the project is very likely to require about a dozen EV3 units, it might be a better solution than to opt for a master-slave network between EV3s via Bluetooth. With how complicated controlling the robot's movement will become, alongside Micropython on the EV3 being not ideal for multithreading, offloading the calculations to an external device might be for the best. This is also why I've opted to run more EV3s on the project, as having a dedicated EV3 unit for each mechanism is a way to work around the multithreading issue, alongside other concerns such as battery life, programming complexity and diluting the motor performance by having too many on the same battery.

Anything else? Remember those retail flags? Earlier this year, I've gotten my hands on a product display. Usually there would've been a blogpost about it, but I've decided to wait because the display requires restoration. It's a side project, if you will. Electrical engineering has always been a field I'm not very good at, and in self-imposed challenges I find a way to slowly get better at it. I've been able to fix most of the problems except for one I can't identify the cause, though it's probably one of the two capacitors that needs replacing. I could send it to a repair shop, but that defeats the point of learning it myself. Anyway, I figured that this restoration process would make for a fascinating blogpost, but till then the great article on Stonewars will have to suffice. So much stuff to do, but so little energy to do anything, really...

Other

Most of the games that I've either bought or played this year. Not pictured: the few games released by Inti Creates.

Blimey, time to talk at length about some (but not all) of the games I've played this year. Not all of these were great, to be honest. But I see value in talking about what games I'd not recommend. Caveat emptor - you know the drill.

To my surprise, the three games I would recommend avoiding have more problems in common than they should have. They are Xenoblade X Definitive Edition, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound and "Sarge, look! She's doing Morph Ball!". You'd be surprised to hear I had a draft for a blogpost for Ragebound, but after going back and forth on it I've decided to let that one go. But damn, this lineup is painful and it really do be like that sometimes. It's about to get real nerdy in here...

Xenoblade X Definitive Edition (or DEX, for short) somehow manages to do more harm than the DE for the first game. It repeats the same mistakes yet finds ways to make them worse. As the Switch is no Wii U, giving the DEX a higher resolution meant that other things (i.e. polygon count, textures) had to give. The overhauled style is also too far off to be faithful. I could go on for hours but the main problem that the DEX introduces is with its new story. It deconstructs everything the original built up, damages it and leaves nothing left to care about. Aside from what I've said, my interest in the series has declined after how much the Definitive Editions have butchered the original works. Furthermore, the haphazard rework of the reward tickets requires a year of daily logins in an offline JRPG to craft the post-game outfits, unless you pay for NSO (which was free on Wii U). Reminder that they did not futureproof this, so eventually once the Switch servers go offline the next release of this game will repeat all of the problems - Bonjelium, another 100h+ grind and all now-paywalled holofigures become unobtainable. I've gone at length recommending Xenoblade to friends, but if they don't go out of their way to play the originals, none of them can share the same enjoyment because these won't be the same. After Xenoblade 3's second half not living up to the series standards, I started to crave for a sequel to X. But after the DEX, I'd rather want they'll never continue X and have another numbered entry instead. Thanks, I hate it.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is not a great game. A series known for its brutal difficulty and tight gameplay, Ragebound is too forgiving and wants to do too many things. None of its interesting gameplay additions are executed well because something else got sacrificed for it. The game is either insufficiently playtested, or offended playtesters so much they overcompensated with bandaids to a detriment. The game ultimately became a forgettable experience where even on its hardest difficulty, 100% wasn't too much of a challenge and yet the game still somehow overstayed its welcome. All of its best aspects including presentation, adaptation of the source material and its underrated soundtrack are wasted by the abundance of flaws. It doesn't even run 60 FPS on the Switch (2), which is inexcuseable. Ragebound is a harsh reminder that not all returns can be stellar, and that it's never too late to pick up the classics from a bygone era. Now, let me wallow in Kaze no Chronicle which is humorously on-point with the secret ending and the state of this franchise.

Metroid Prime 4 not delivering is the most painful one of this lineup, because Nintendo had a lot riding on it. It is clear why they were reluctant to give the game's development to Retro Studios; all of their best employees left the company long ago. What we're left with is an unfinished game, released out of obligation because it was announced too early. It probably would've been better if it was cancelled for the Switch and fully developed for its successor, though with the 2017 announcement it would've been a legal mess. Nintendo heavily invested in Retro Studios during its development, so I can't help but see Prime 4 as a loss leader with growing pains for the new team. That said, I have little hopes for a sequel because there are things about Prime 4 that's so fundamentally flawed that they're better off not making one. At its core, MP4 is like the first Prime* but worse in every way. It has the same beams, but without the type matchups and visors to keep things interesting. Several Metroid (Prime) staples are missing, i.e. the Gravity Suit and Screw Attack. It has the same biomes but its linearity gave it the infamous "corridor shooter" moniker; as it lacks a labyrinth to get lost in. Maps are light on puzzles and exploration yet heavy on backtracking. There's an excessive amount of handholding. Bosses tread same ground and honestly, the writing is so utterly broken that it breaks canon in ways the writing team probably aren't aware of. All of this blends into an one-trick pony and anyone that pretends that the game is great has yet to suffer through its endgame twice. If you are going to tackle Hard Mode, I'd recommend to do GE early as its first perk can be unlocked early. Sylux should not have been in this game and the story would have been more compelling without it. Weavel would've made narratively more sense if they insisted on a returnee from Hunters. The game's front-loaded and once you have recruited Tokabi, it drives off a cliff barring VUE-995. The Famitsu interview can take a hike because shifting the blame to Bamco just means Retro 2.0 couldn't get shit done for six years, and any excuse they're giving is just damage control. If they have to explain the story in an interview, that means they should've included it in the final product. Ultimately, Prime 4 is one of those bargain bin games like Other M and Federation Force. You have been adequately warned; I'll remind you that for its hefty price tag, you could've gotten both Metroid Dread (arguably the best game you can get for the Nintendo Switch) and Metroid Prime Remastered instead for the same amount.

*Specifically, Metroid Prime Remastered. Which is even funnier once you consider the remaster was handled by those that worked on Prime 4, and for whatever dumb reason they decided not to include all the quality of life updates made for the remaster. Prime 4 doesn't come with MPR's model viewer, the soundtrack player or the important New Game+ because missable scans return in Prime 4. You tell me, this doesn't make any sense.

In the wider discussion of Metroid Prime 4, there was this one comment that stood out to me. It mentioned that when Metroid Prime 1 came out on the GameCube back in 2002, people feared Metroid would lose its identity in becoming a generic first-person shooter like all games were becoming during these days. This concern was only all the more valid, with Microsoft's immense success with the launch of the XBOX and Halo. Two decades later, there's not much left of it and it's ironic to see the few employees that left Halo ended up working on Prime 4, alongside other industry veterans from franchises that have met a similar fate. It reminds me how easy it is to take the talent we had for granted and that it's all been utterly wasted. The industry has never been this successful yet I can't say as a hobbyist it feels that way.

On the bright side, the Metroid franchise can afford a dud like Prime 4, which wasn't a luxury it had back in 2017. You might remember the drought that this franchise had, and at the time, Prime 4's announcement was significant. Though funnily enough, by the time MP4 released, the franchise was back on its feet with Samus Returns on the 3DS, Dread and Prime Remastered on the Switch. It may not have been there during the Metroid renaissance, but it has played a role as its early announcement was crucial for Nintendo. It was during the time when the Wii U flopped and the Switch desperately needed some big announcements to get customers on board. In that regard, it has done its job. So... win?

Now, do I have anything positive to say about any other games I've played this year? Well, of course I do. If you were looking for the killer app on the Switch 2, play Donkey Kong Bananza. R.O.B.'d game of the year, it's such a fantastic addition to the franchise that celebrates its history in ways you can't even comprehend until you're knees deep into the Emerald Rush DLC. Bananza is Nintendo at its best: innovative, forward-thinking and a videogame first and foremost. This, alongside Metroid Dread, are my only true recommendations as must haves on the Switch family. If you liked Bananza's gameplay loop and have yet to decide whether if the DLC is worth it, I'd say it's the icing on the cake that's unfortunately missing in the base game. Heads up: the time spent on Emerald Rush eclipses the time spent to 100% the base game. Finally, a new contender to compete with LEGO Dimensions for the title of king of the collectathons...

While not officially released this year, Cyber Shadow had its physical release on the Switch. Forget Ragebound, as it's the successor fans of Ninja Gaiden are looking for. I'll be writing a dedicated blogpost for Cyber Shadow one day, but let me tell you that it's excellent. It has the tight gameplay, it has the difficulty, yet it gracefully handles respawns so you can keep trying. Even better, as your kit expands, the game evolves with it and remains challenging. Once you get the parry, that's when the game really clicks in a way only one other indie title has ever done for me. It's a niche game that requires an acquired taste for difficult games, but rest assured: if this style is your cup of tea, Cyber Shadow is worthy of your attention. Bonus points: it plays well with the SNES controller. As the saying goes... vote with your wallet.

Anyway, with most of Nintendo's announced lineup having released, we'll start next year without knowing much about what's in store. Will Metroid 6 live up to the insane standards set by Dread? With Nagoshi's game finally coming out, does that mean Nintendo will ask him for the next F-Zero? Does Mega Man 12 mean that Capcom will inevitably call Inti Creates to restart ZX3? Is Half-Life 3 finally upon us? What has Treasure been cooking for over three years now? Only time will tell. But I can confirm that it's time I get a Super Famicom in 2026. This one has been long overdue, as I've always wanted to expand my library of Nintendo devices and hardware add-ons. It feels like now is the right time.

That it's for 2025 - I'll see you guys again next year!

[EMS] Level 290! Guild Castle: Personal Research MAX!

2025-11-30T10:41:00.001+01:00

One milestone at the start of the month, the other five minutes before it ends. At least, that was the case until daylight saving time (DST) pushed it past twelve o'clock, meaning this happens on the 1st of December. Oops. But as far as Maple's concerned, it technically is still within November as reset o'clock happens after this milestone. Fine, I'll allow it.

Level 290 is the big achievement of the year (it happened on the 6th of November), though it was guaranteed thanks to the amount of event support all-year round. The only thing I had to do was to participate and be diligent with dailies. Y'know, which for a creature of habit is easy. As DailyStory continues, let's see how many levels will happen next year.

The other achievement this month is quite a significant one that I've been working towards since its release. This week is the first official week where completing Guild Castle's Personal Research is possible*. It was easier said than done.

*Interestingly, because the Personal Research skill tree was expanded within its first year (to accommodate for 6th Job and update the Cache of Greed to match Odium), it was never possible to have the original tree maxed out because it required about one-and-a-half year to unlock all of it.

You see, Personal Research is one of those long-term commitments that requires years of weekly attendance. You'll have to clear at least 5000 enemies in the Cache of Greed, turn in this weekly mission, start the Personal Research and then also claim it after a week has passed. The latter is the tricky part, because to log-in at specific times can be difficult when it must be done manually every week for two-and-a-half years. In practice, this log-in moment is often pushed back minutes or hours each week, which are made worse by (emergency) maintenances and DST. This is not a new problem, as this phenomenon is an inherent flaw of the type of (daily) reset it's using, which is a system that has been around since 2007. Yes, (daily) resets have been around for that long, and this wasn't even Maple's first attempt.

Anyway, for those two-and-a-half-years you'll receive plenty in return. At least, for Maple's standards, that is. The EXP per Cache of Greed monster is the highest in the game. Combined with Monster Park Extreme and Angler Company, that's still over 1% every week at Level 290 - excluding dailies. On top of that, dozens of Nodestones and Fragments to buy upgrades with. All of it adds up over time, and I certainly wouldn't have reached Level 290 this year without it.

Speaking of upgrades, the cooldown resets upon boss entry has been a huge boon. With so many characters above Level 250 thanks to the abundance of Hyper Burnings, they make short work of the small fry. I also forgot to mention that earlier this year I've levelled my Hayato to 260 through Mu Lung's Night Troupe, and I've decided to push my Sia to Level 260 for faster weekly bosses. Speaking of Mu Lung... You may be surprised to hear that after obtaining Level 2 Mu Gong, my collecting habit for Mu Gong shards continued and that's how I've supplied my army of mules with Mu Gong souls. Anyway, that's three billion mesos every week and my equips now have 18 Star Force... pretty good.

But you know what's not pretty good? The aftermath of the second purge. You may recall I kept track of the numbers, so I was able to compare it with the rankings after this purge. I expected Reboot to be hit much worse than Luna, but it seems my expectations were off. Reboot (Kronos) lost 800.000 characters, which is a lot, but relative to seven million, that's not even one-seventh. Compared to Luna, we lost one third (960k → 680k). Solis got a slap on the wrist (700k → 660k), so that rules out a lack of European player retention. It's depressing to think that our secondary server will be the larger server by proxy, or that we're less than one-fifth of what we used to be. The aftermath of the past nine years under Nexon US is getting a bit ridiculous, and I can't imagine it's going to be any better once Classic is added to our world selection list. Their expenses are at an all-time high and with how little effect it has on their returns, there barely is a sense of profit. I doubt that there's even a real plan for us past 2027, other than trying to see if any of their monthly experiments stick. It's hard to believe that any of this is sustainable, but I digress. It's pay to lose, y'all. Remember that.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post. Metroid Prime 4 will be out in four days. Let's see if it's any good.

[EMS] Level 289, and a lot more!

2025-10-21T16:26:00.001+02:00

Hi guys! Time to catch up on a bunch of stuff that has happened since late July.

October is usually the busiest month here with the games I play running their annual Halloween events. In particular, the contracts from Team Fortress 2 is a diabolical time sink and they get worse by the year. But I digress. With these tasks done, I should be able to start working on next year's Galidor blogpost. That said, I can only occasionally work on it as I'm too exhausted from all kinds of things. But give it some time and it'll be ready before you know it.

Now, let's talk about the latest achievements. Exactly two months ago, I've reached Level 289. As of today, I'm already past 66%! With the current event providing plenty of VIP Boosters, 3x EXP coupons and Advanced EXP Vouchers, I'm expecting to reach Level 290 next month. There's going to be another major milestone in November as well.

As for 6th Job, I've maxed out Incising VI and Aura Blade VI. What's left are Spirit Caliber and Silent Cleave. After that, I'll bank my Sol Erda (Fragments) and start upgrading my Union Champions. I'm currently at a minimum of two billion mesos each week, which can buy a lot of progress. I have enough to purchase one of the Limbo/Baldrix Eternals, but I'd rather wait for lower prices as they have been declining in value for a while. Folks can't get them sold, y'know.

Speaking of equipment: all of the essentials have Legendary Potential. There's still a handful of Additional Potential left to rank up, as that's limited by events because we aren't allowed to have proper updates. Eh, it's just a matter of time.
I should be able to solo Black Mage and Hard Seren now, but at the moment I can't be arsed. I'll do those next year.

Union progress has been going surprisingly well. I got lucky with finding a large number of Pitched Boss this year, so my Wild Hunter is coming along nicely. I'd rather not buy gear from Auction House because I can source most of these myself. Union Champions is really a long-term thing, and I treat it as such. As for Union levels, I've reached 9500+ and my Marksman and Bowmaster are Level 260. Sia from Challenger World got past Level 250. Thanks, I hate this class.

Anyway, I've procrastinated enough. Now that my schedule's free, I'll be spending the next three weeks contacting everyone to get their accounts unflagged, as discussed last month. To be honest, I'm dreading some conversations I'll be having (not everyone was on board last time), but the alternative (doing nothing) is much worse... Well, off I go.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

[EMS] 18 years of Rayque!

2025-09-30T17:32:00.009+02:00

I hope you've brought your gokiburi hoi hoi plus today, because you should've brought the whole damn aisle.

Today is day 6576, the 30th of September - which means I've been playing EMS daily for 18 years now!

As promised in last year's blogpost, I'd like to take the opportunity to continue the evaluation about the state of EMS. In particular, this year is very important historically as it's the point of equilibrium where EMS has been as long under its current management of Nexon US as it has under Nexon EU. The contrast between these two nine year tenures is concerning at times, and while I would love to write a more in-depth post I just don't have enough time for that.

However, what I can do for today's blogpost is to write a concise evaluation that probably communicates the point a lot better than something of the length of last month's blogpost. Besides, a more casual conversation like this might be a good palette cleanser after all that raw data. I can always revisit certain topics that we'll discuss today in a future post. With a more casual approach to this blogpost, I'm also just going to be yapping in a less organized, impromptu matter.

So, I'll just rip the band-aid off by addressing the Shrelephant in the room: EMS has not been performing well under the current management of Nexon US. You'd be hard pressed to find people who would disagree with this statement.

I do believe this is a well-understood fact, but what is not is how damaging Nexon US and its community has been to EMS. Understandably not the prettiest topic to discuss, but it is unavoidable in today's topic given we'll discuss how little EMS has recovered from the migration purge and why that is. Understand that this topic is nuanced but I'll try my best to write it as best as I can within the week I've given myself. To my surprise, this wasn't the type of blogpost I was expecting to write because I was saving it for an autopsy whenever EMS kicks the bucket - yet here we are.

Table of Contents

1. 3% across the pond

"Also, if I can add a little to that, Europe is a very interesting market. It definitely has a lot of countries -- different countries. You mentioned about color in major areas. We cannot really divide into countries, based on performance, but I can give you a couple of examples, such as, first person shooting games -- they tend to do much better in the UK, Germany; Poland is one of the most important emerging markets. Another example, with Turkey, whereas, games like MapleStory tend to do better in The Netherlands or Israel, a new -- another new market.
So it really depends on which genre and which country we're talking about, but overall, Europe is a very exciting market for us, and we expect to see continuous growth there. And I think I mentioned in our previous call, we set up our Luxembourg office at the end of last year, and we are shifting our business from Korea to Luxembourg, and I think will -- that will provide us with a better infrastructure to stabilize and expand our business in the future." - Seungwoo Choi, the CEO of Nexon during Q2 2012.

Nowadays it's hard to believe, but Nexon EU is, or rather was, quite a financial powerhouse for how small it was. Even as early as 2011, the combination of Nexon EU, SEA, Taiwan, and Thailand surpassed the Nexon US branch. There's been many years where "Europe and Others" was evenly matched with the US despite the differences in population, with the former group even doubling the US performance in some quarters as well. This is because of the distribution of wealth and cultural differences as they are not equal. But it's a fact that all of these different regions have different needs, and it's financially justifiable to have regional versions that can cater towards these demands. However, this is easier said than done. Nexon acknowledges from time to time in their quarterly conference calls that they struggle to find the right balance - an observation that plenty of us have made by now.

Now, you might be wondering why Nexon EU no longer exists and why EMS is under the same management of GMS. Looking at the quarterly reports of that time, Nexon EU was doing quite well. So much in fact, that by Q1 2015 they were upgrading their Luxemburg office to a grander location in Germany after three years, and were mass hiring new staff. However, by 2016 the company was silently liquidated and finding evidence of Nexon EU S.A.R.L.'s existence was difficult for a while. Unfortunately what these quarterly reports don't tell us are the performances of each individual game per region and when it mentions "Europe and Others", that would include all other Nexon games in this region.

We've seen with MapleStory 2 that Nexon will shut down servers before they operate on a loss. We've also seen many regional versions come and go and never return in any capacity whatsoever. However, EMS has remained financially interesting enough to maintain as otherwise they wouldn't have continued it, unlike our Brazilians who were forced to play on EMS after BMS shut down in 2011. Now, if you've paid attention, you've noticed that 2016 is the year that EMS changed management from the late Nexon EU to Nexon US. The important question is: of all years, why 2016?

Obviously, you don't need to be a genius to understand it's about revenue. However, what caused this to happen is slowly been forgotten over time and I'm constantly reminded that not everyone remembers things as vividly as I do...

Return to Table of Contents

2. Hackwave of 2012

"Next question is, what's going on in North America and Europe? Why are the sales still declining?"

"In North America and Europe, we have high hopes for these areas since last year, but we're disappointed that these areas are not performing the way we hoped or expected. As we have addressed throughout this year we have had several operational issues we need to fix to grow our user base again and to bring our growth rate back to where it was two years ago that 30% to 60% year-over-year.
So right now, our focus is on fixing the operational side of the business as well as securing good titles for these western markets so that we can return to growing our user base again. In the meantime, we are cutting our forecast for those two territories because we do not expect the business to turn around yet in Q4. Next question please." - Seungwoo Choi, the CEO of Nexon during Q3 2012.

For the uninitiated, the most devastating blow to have ever hit EMS was the hackwave of 2012. This is an incident that I've referenced thrice throughout the past 14 years that I've been blogging, but I've never quite talked about it at length as I'm about to do. The hackwave of 2012 was an unfathomable security breach. It's really difficult to convey in words how much of a disaster it was, but I'll try. But make no mistake: unless you were there, you really can't comprehend it.

Nexon Europe's database got hacked, and all of the log-in data was stolen. As a result, all accounts were in jeopardy overnight. But what was done with this information is what truly showed us the scale of this operation, and how well-prepared and professionally done it was. None of us were adequately prepared for what was going to happen.

It was made clear very early on that this hackwave wasn't some kind of ransomware or an attempt to steal accounts. It was an endless, 24/7 operation where a large group of folks would log onto every single account as many times and destroy as much as possible. The goal wasn't to have your account; the goal was to make everyone give up and quit.

When I say endless and 24/7, it was endless and 24/7. These operators would delete all of your items, but keep all of your characters. Once that's done, they'll repeat this process indefinitely as long as they could log onto your account. And because they were with many, they could log onto accounts en masse ensuring it wouldn't take more than a few days before they'll get back to your account and undo whatever you've managed to recover. This affected everyone.

There were only two ways to combat the hackwave: change your passwords or deny them logging onto your account by being logged in 24/7 yourself. Neither were waterproof solutions. There was no silver bullet. If you've changed your password, you would only delay the inevitable. Lots of people tried to change their PICs but the operators brute forced their way in. If you disconnected or if a maintenance happened, you'd better log back in quick because they'd catch ya off-guard within a few hours. So, as you might've guessed: people sleep. The next morning: an emptied account.

Worst of all is that these were the early days of the internet. People made their accounts between 2007 and 2010. In order to change your password, you'd have to log onto your assigned e-mail and confirm your account details such as your name. This normally wouldn't be a problem... assuming everyone didn't fill in their account creation fields with random gibberish, just so they can get past the log-in screen to play the funny mushroom game with their classmates.

So uhm... I probably don't have to explain the aftermath. I don't have to explain the post-apocalyptic wasteland. I don't have to explain the social fallout. I don't have to explain how many caved in, gave up and never came back. The only thing I will explain however, is for how long this operation was able to continue.

Just because I said that this is the hackwave of 2012, doesn't mean it was over by 2013. In fact, Nexon EU has tried a lot of things but even they were powerless against such an endless operation. I'm sure you can understand that there is not a lot you can really do against this. This was almost a decade before Two-Step Verification became standard. Everyone who couldn't change their passwords would contact customer support, and if everyone flooded them at once then nobody could get helped (in time). To make things worse, how do you even debunk false account details and prove you are the original owner, if there's nothing you can give customer support other than "please trust me"?

To be honest, I don't precisely recall anymore if the following happened in 2013 or 2014, but Nexon EU decided to lock everything away. The idea is, if the hackers can't log on your account, no further harm can be done. Users would have to contact customer support themselves to unlock that account, and this would allow them to change passwords and such. As you can imagine, nobody can be arsed to do this. Furthermore, the damage has already been done. Those who gave up were unlikely to return. Those who stayed already accepted their loss and lived within this new normal.

Unfortunately, locking everything up did more harm long-term than good, but at the time it was the correct move. To this very day, we still have no idea who were behind the hackwave. Some people told me it was a group of Eastern foreigners, others believed it was one of the terminally online gangs that wanted revenge on Nexon EU for banning them. Either way, all of it remains baseless speculation because Nexon has never named the culprits behind it.

Ultimately, the only thing that proved to work against the hackwave was creating a new account and start from scratch, which hardly is a solution and it had the same outcome as being robbed by the hackwave itself. And if it couldn't get any worse, I can attest to those who created a new account but would be purged in 2016. You're screwed either way.

Now, what is interesting to point out is that this incident was significant enough to be indirectly referenced during the quarterly conference calls around this time, as an example given in the quote at the start of this chapter. But always read between the fine lines. If Maple has been doing well enough, Nexon will try to butter up their investors. If it's not the case, they'll avoid talking about it unless their investors specifically ask about it (i.e. regional underperformance).

Return to Table of Contents

3. Point of no return

"And also and I noticed that Europe and North America continues to be quite weak, so I was hoping to get some color on when you expect those two regions to turn around"

"Going in product by product I'd say we're watching Maple Story very closely. We've got a tier one content update going on in Q2 for MapleStory. It's had a rougher road in the last couple quarters than it did previously and so we're watching that closely.
Switching to North America and Europe, we -- switching to North America and Europe we're -- we are working very hard on a couple fronts. One that we've talked about before is operational improvements that happen sort of under the hood in both those regions, so better execution." - Owen Mahoney, Q1 2013.

So, you can imagine that an incident of such proportions wouldn't be without ramifications. In fact, it's even worse that this happened to one of the few games that Nexon EU had to offer, and it was among their most important cash cows.

For the years that followed, reading the conference call transcripts show that Europe as a whole has consistently been forecasted to underperform. Not that these forecasts meant that Nexon EU was doing poorly - far from it. There have been quarters where Europe has performed beyond expectations, but those have unfortunately been rare and too few.

Now, in terms of the actual state of MapleStory Europe around these couple of years - it was rough. For starters, in the aftermath of the hackwave, Anna had to leave her position as the producer for EMS. I know I should dedicate an entire chapter about Anna herself, but I think what I wrote back in 2021 pretty much sums it up. If anything, not having her to continue to run EMS was a big mistake on Nexon's end because it only got worse from here.

As someone who made sprites around this time, I participated in 2011's "design a pet for EMS" contest.
The concept for remote-controlled pet vehicles may not have won but we did see the Mini Bus pets later.

I honestly do not know who was responsible for the period between 2013 up till 2016, but all the wind was blown out of the sails of EMS at that point. Updates were rolled out on a snail's pace, certain updates were delayed by a full year. A notable difference around this time was the declining amount of EMS exclusive content. Our World Tour Veracent and the Supreme server were developed during the tail end of Anna's first tenure (2007~2013). EMS was also known for its European (themed) events; their quality and quantity of which steadily declined as well. Another feature that slowly dwindled over time was player-based polling for content. We had some influence on which updates we could choose, there were contests where players could design their own cosmetics (i.e. Shark, designed by Cristophery from EMS) and we even had a crossover event with MSEA where we could compete with SEA players for rewards. Most notably, an unfulfilled contest was one for an EMS exclusive class; the winning entry was an Early modern Europe era* fencing class which ultimately became the inspiration for MONAD's Alika, which also happened to continue Veracent's story.

*Early modern Europe was a frequent inspiration for the look and feel of EMS exclusive content. One notable example is our event NPC Charles.

However despite this period, slowly but surely EMS recovered both in terms of players and revenue. In fact, around 2015~2016 it felt like the hackwave never happened. The environment to play around in was also really good. Game Masters were frequently involved with the community both in-game and on the forums. The Terms of Use mattered so you couldn't get away with exploiting bugs, bullying other players through megaphones, using inappropriate names on characters and bots were pretty much non-existent. If there were problems, contact with Nexon Europe was not too far away and the developers were working together with us - a fact that will be important in the next chapter. So it may not have been all that great in terms of an update schedule, but everything else catered towards our needs in spades.

Around this time, Owen Mahoney - who promoted to CEO - saw an opportunity to bolster business in the EU.

"Turning to Europe. The financial contribution from this region remains small, but our efforts to reignite the business took a meaningful step forward in Q1. Specifically, we will be relocating Nexon Europe from its current base in Luxembourg to new space in Berlin. This relocation is intended to put us in a better environment for hiring, as Germany is now a leading talent center in the European game industry. The move should be completed in the third quarter." - Owen Mahoney, the CEO of Nexon during Q1 2015.

Unfortunately, this decision was seemingly not enough for Nexon Europe to get back on track. Even if playing EMS around this time was in a much better state than 2012~2013, EMS alone isn't enough for the EU branch to live off. And looking back at the quote from Q1 2013, it does seem that the aforementioned "operational improvements that happen sort of under the hood in both those regions" was possibly hinting towards preparations for the migration in 2016.

Return to Table of Contents

4. Migration and purge

"Lastly, I'd like to touch on our business in the West. We have recently made several changes to our Western organization by centralizing and integrating some of our operations there to better serve our Western player base. Previously, we had three entities responsible for operations in the West: Nexon America for PC publishing in North America, NEXON Europe for PC publishing in Europe, and NEXON M for mobile publishing in the U.S. and the EU. We've now consolidated Nexon America and NEXON Europe, and all of our future PC and console publishing operations in the West will be managed out of Nexon America." - Owen Mahoney, the CEO of Nexon during Q4 2017.

The migration of 2016 has probably been the most important update in the history of EMS. So many things changed - for better or worse. And while I am mostly negative about the migration and its long-term consequences, not all of it has been inherently bad as evident from the few positives we'll discuss in a bit. It's just that there has been little to no effort to support EMS under the new management of Nexon US because it only caters to the interests of GMS. Even worse, some of their decisions in favor of GMS have had grave consequences for the longevity of EMS as a whole.

Now, what even is this "migration" I speak of, and why was it beneficial to EMS during the first couple of years? The idea is to consolidate the EU and US branches and all of their product offerings. For MapleStory, they'd consolidate the launcher and unify the update schedule moving forward. They would migrate all the account data to Nexon US.

An understandable decision, if we were to look at the European underperformance at the time. While profitable, you'd still run the costs of the EU office. With a consolidation, you would only have to pay for the European servers. At least, that is the theory. In practice, it is incredibly complicated and it's very likely that the preparations for the migration has been worked on between 2013 and 2016 by whichever team succeeded Anna's in the aftermath of the hackwave.

Despite Nexon EU and US would consolidate, GMS and EMS remained separate entities. This is an important detail*, and the main reason why I'm always correcting anyone who erroneously uses the term merge over migration. Nexon US has always-but-once been referring to the process as a migration. When looking at the finer details, there's a good reason why in the case of MapleStory this wasn't called a merge but a migration.

*Not all games during this consolidation were as fortunate as EMS. While EMS accounts and its servers were migrated over to the new client, other games like Mabinogi Europe were not so lucky. European Mabinogians would have to start from scratch on the American servers on a new account.

The abridged answer is that everyone owns an American and an European account. I'll save you the technical details of the migration process but essentially there is no singular account. It's a two-in-one package and internally they do make the distinction between the two because they are separate. If you charge cash in EMS, you can only spend it in EMS. If you've unlocked an achievement in GMS, that's only for GMS. There is no "GMS Luna", because characters created on Luna are assigned to your European account. This also means that "once per account" results in "once for GMS" and "once for EMS", like how you can't do 3x Urus on both Scania and Bera but you can in Scania and then on Luna. If it truly was a merge, you'd have characters from Luna thrown in Scania. So yes, by all technicalities you can double-dip events but then I'll also remind you that if you are MVP Black in GMS, you are MVP Bronze 0 in EMS*.

*Because billing for GMS and EMS are separate, Nexon could in fact cook the books by exploiting players to pay on both as they've consolidated the American and European financial results starting Q1 2020. This may be something they could resort to if they ever need to appease investors.

While there's nothing wrong with the idea behind this migration, everything surrounding its process has been a mess. Consolidating both Nexon US and EU had the risk of being unable to cater to the needs for one of either playerbase, seeing as the needs for GMS are not the same as those for EMS. In an ideal world the consolidated Nexon branches can offer for both. However, that is simply not something that could ever happen for a branch as small as Nexon US, who has also been underperforming for many years around this time. And if anything has been proven in these nine years under the management of Nexon US, is that whoever's behind the wheel for MapleStory is important as they get to decide which of the two continents they'll cater towards the most. We've seen both sides catered with mixed results.

But before we dive deeper, let me explain the lead-up and what followed around the migration's announcement. It might be hard to believe for players from GMS, but the way Nexon EU treated their customers was much more long-term oriented than Nexon US. Yes, while it was true that we had many things in common - Slash Blast DEM and vac bots, mass duplication exploits ruining the economy and its customer support having an awful reputation - but never would your account be deleted, or your characters removed every once in a while. Because Nexon EU was small, it could not afford to lose players. The entire game operated on this idea that you could always return and pick up where you left, like OSRS. This is how our community worked and it also thrived on it, as any MMO should.

Now, Nexon US did not understand or care. One of the first major missteps they did was not delivering on the promise that Nexon EU gave us. The biggest problem with the migration was the purge. The process of migrating required us to opt-in to the Nexon US Terms of Use to have your stuff transferred. Y'know, standard procedure. After the migration happened, Nexon EU promised that whoever missed out during this half year period could still migrate, but would be placed in a queue for later. Basically, transfers were scheduled to be done regularly, like public transport. Anyone that missed out were in time for the next. Because what company is retarded enough to delete accounts in short notice?

You've already guessed: none of these promises were kept. Only anyone that migrated in this half year could continue on their account. Everyone else that missed out had their entire account deleted. Customer support will not help you to restore your account. And you know what the worst part is? It's not the sheer amount of accounts lost, or the fact that everyone that had their account locked (because of the hackwave) could not migrate unless they unlocked it first. It's also not that numerous transfers were not properly done (where characters ended up on wrong accounts) or that GMS accounts using the same e-mail as your EMS accounts caused many problems. The worst phenomenon is that Nexon accounts were migrated over, but not together with the corresponding MapleStory account details. These so-called "half-migrated" accounts that have the log-in but none of their characters are the bane of my existence.

As I am affiliated with many in EMS, I did try to get as many players migrated as possible. Obviously, there's no way I could get everyone across the finish line. For someone as introvert with ASD/CFS as I am, it was incredibly difficult to get in touch with everyone, assuming I could still reach out to them. It was a race against the clock, and for everyone that I failed to migrate over, it's a burden I'm cursed to forever carry. So, you might ask: how bad can it possibly be?

On the last day before the migration, there were three million characters made in EMS between the 12th of April 2007 and the 16th of November 2016. This includes characters made during the Alpha/Beta on either the Kradia, Demethos and Supreme servers. On the first day on Luna... three-hundred thousand. 90% of the playerbase, gone overnight. My biggest concern was not those who got migrated and would continue to play. It were those who would inevitably return with no account left simply because they were out of the loop for a few months. That's such a stupid policy to have...

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5. Starting with 300k

"You can't migrate them all Ray, but focus on those you can." - Carthager, member of FallenAngel.

We were off to quite a challenging start on our new server. But how exactly did we even get to the server name Luna?

Well, as you probably have guessed by now: the EMS tradition of polling. We were presented a handful of names to choose from. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to keep Kradia or Demethos because these already exist in GMS - even though EMS Kradia/Demethos predates the American counterparts. That's bollocks.

There was a poll for the new server name of Kradia, and another for Demethos. As you can imagine, server discord is a tale as old as time, hence why this was immortalized in the Kradia Pride and Demethos Pride medals to remind us of that fact. Kradia was by far the largest server of the two, and we were as petty as humans can be. Anyone could enter the polls, so we voted for the best name for Kradia, and the worst one for Demethos. Demethos did the same to us. As we reap what we sow, Nexon US took the piss on us before the new servers even started. Yup, we had it coming.

Officially, Kradia won the name Elysium, and Demethos won the name Luna. This was the original plan. Nexon US decided last minute to consolidate both Kradia and Demethos into Luna on the very last minute. This was so much of a late revision that on the day of the migration, the name for our new server was a mixed tomfoolery of Elysium, Luna and Scania. There was no consistent naming scheme and it was all over the place. But the reason why they settled on Luna is because the combined votes from both polls had accumulated in Luna's favor, so us voting to force Demethos with Luna backfired. Elysium was given to a server in GMS later, but ironically we could've easily just stuck with Kradia in the end because not even GMS Kradia, Demethos or Elysium have survived the many GMS server merges.

Now, what about the new server? In some ways it was awful, really. You see, we actually had more content than GMS around this time. When the migration happened, most content that did not exist in GMS were not carried over, such as the first Neo Tokyo. And because so many accounts were deleted, many worthless items we had an excessive amount of became the most expensive items on the server. This is still true today. Furthermore, marriages, the friend list and guilds were all reset. Some items were permanently deleted too, and we received no compensation including for paid items or paid systems no longer present. As you can imagine, this is not a good first impression of our new managers.

Even worse, a lot of great fundamental features of EMS were not carried over*. All those Game Masters I mentioned? Fired. Forum moderation? Missing. The Terms of Use? Spineless; bloody useless. Bots? Now everywhere. Duey was removed, as much as the (offline) message system that's commonplace in most other versions including KMS. To say that it was an infuriating experience is an understatement. GMS fully lived up to its abysmal reputation it had built up. We went from having a zero tolerance policy to having no policy at all. Recent incidents has proven that's a bad idea.

*An extensive list is out of scope for this blogpost but let's not forget the many problems caused by Additional Options and Star Force during the migration and the problems caused by their later reworks including the infamous "double-flamed" items and the few of these that still exist on EMS.

Consider yourself lucky if you are either oblivious or ignorant to what other versions of MapleStory are doing. For me, having such an extensive knowledge has certainly soured my enjoyment of EMS. In particular the handling of the past two years of content, with the most egregious being (permanently) skipping major content updates and fun events. Now, imagine the many problems we're inevitably going to face when they'll backport all of it, after "Go West" is over.

Of course, not everything was bad. For starters, we went from 14 to 20 channels. And we were going to need them, because the migration had a terrific rejuvenated interest from both EMS and GMS players alike. Our small ass server became the second largest populated server of both EMS and GMS, after Reboot. This is no small feat, especially not after the hackwave and purge. Despite all the shit, getting EMS back on track somehow worked...

However, all of this good fortune would not last very long. Because simply put, Dennis did not flipping care for EMS.

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6. Stranglehold

"Looking at the data and their future patch plans, he said that they need to correct the mistakes that they made 10 years ago. Therefore, Reboot World will be changed to be the same as regular worlds over three updates." - Max from Orange Mushroom's Blog, transcript from KMST ver. 1.2.177, 2024.

The true test of time had begun. Under normal circumstances, all regional versions of MapleStory are region blocked. For most of the existence of EMS up till the migration, players from Europe could only play EMS. But since, everyone has the freedom of choice to choose between servers from either EMS or GMS. This of course, goes both ways.

During the heydays under Nexon Europe's management, Kradia would see all of its channels at least half full during prime time. This was around the early days of 4th Job. This was quite good, and for the longest time I believed this is the best EMS could do. As the migration shone the light on Luna, we've seen an unbelievable player count by 2018.

In particular, 2018 saw the Black update. This update was heavily advertised, and of course it was a historical update because it released the Black Mage as the next raid boss. The main event was a server-wide invitation for everyone to participate in, where the true MMO experience came to life. Even with six additional channels, Luna managed to get every channel 75% full around prime time at minimum! This became the new record for EMS, and it has never seen these numbers ever again. However, this has proven that even under Nexon US, we can achieve success together.

Though this was also a great time of discord. With the removal of the official EMS website and its forum, we basically got tossed in the American cesspool. Unfortunately, there's quite a stark difference in politeness and ideology. Culture gap, or cultural differences - if you will. Going into the history of Reboot's exceptional popularity uniquely to GMS is a completely different subject matter that I will never do the displeasure of ever writing, because that's the equivalent of a career suicide and I already have too many who have wished me dead since I was born. But, to say that Reboot's popularity has been very polarizing and invasive is an understatement. I probably shouldn't have to explain any of this.

However, what I will say about it, is that Reboot has not helped EMS at all. For the longest time, any criticism towards it has been swept under the rug by those who want Reboot to be successful. Obviously, pot meets kettle. But nobody can deny that because Reboot is by far the largest population within the conglomerate, it has siphoned players away from all other servers. It has taken many years and pushback from the oppressed for it to be socially acceptable to criticize Reboot. However, at this point this cesspool has been ongoing for so long, that irreversible harm was done.

When asked by players to which server they should go to - the default answer has always been Reboot. You can't just suggest anything else without pushback. You can't even reason with most of them, or with the hive-mind mentality that it brought. With 90% of EMS accounts deleted, those who wished to return would be sent to Reboot by majority vote. Even if those who sent them shouldn't be allowed to meddle with our region to begin with, or speak in behalf of us. But that's the reality of the situation, and it's shown the stupid amount of power GMS could exert over EMS post-migration.

Now, you might rightfully point out: "well, if you don't like this, do something about it or suck it up". Believe it or not, but my work did not stop with the migration as I've continued to support and help players from EMS - Reboot or not. I'll tell you this: social responsibility is a full-time job. For as many conversations I have with everyone, there's not much I can do against the freedom of choice. Sometimes, it's as simple as "my friends told me to play on Reboot". And as much as I can spend hours in conversations lecturing why they shouldn't play Reboot and stick to Luna, you should be able to understand that by the time they've picked servers, they've already made up their mind. I can only do/try so much.

But nothing relays the damage as good as some ol' fashioned numbers. As you can recall, in the first nine years under Nexon EU, the combination of Kradia, Demethos and Supreme produced three million characters. Since the migration, we started out with three-hundred thousand. Nine years later... we're still under a million. That's not a lot, now is it?

To give context on how few this is, let me remind you that during the first nine years, owning more than five characters wasn't commonplace until at least after the Legends update of mid 2012 which introduced us to Link Skills. Nowadays, anyone that's seriously invested will easily surpass fifty characters - artificially inflating the numbers. Going from 300k to 960k is concerning because it says we've barely garnered players after nine years. By comparison, GMS Reboot (Kronos) has accumulated seven million characters since the 2nd of December, 2015. Not even the record-breaking results from Black managed to be meaningful for Luna. It was an isolated incident; an exception to the rule.

It's not that MapleStory has been struggling to find players. Far from it. Solis (the European Reboot), has only existed since the 25th of July 2018. It hasn't even run more than half of Luna's lifespan yet it now has 700k characters, that's more characters created than on Luna since the migration. This proves that it's not a problem of a lack of players, but it proves that Luna now has to compete with too many servers. We only have enough time to play on one, after all.

We'll discuss additional reasons for Luna's decline in the next chapter, but first I'll have to mention a key observation in all of this. In a way, the region block that forces Europeans to play EMS during Nexon EU's tenure has proven itself to be paramount for its success. With it gone, it's shown that even under the best of circumstances, when left rudderless without Nexon's intervention, it simply cannot stand on its own because players are siphoned away. With region block, you'd at least stick players together and it would be protected from what unwanted foreigners have to say about it.

But I hope you can at least (start to) understand why I believe that GMS and EMS cannot simply co-exist in its current state. As they say: those who seek to please everybody please nobody.

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7. Watermelon

"Global MapleStory also exceeded our outlook, but declined year over year compared to the record-high sales in Q1 2024 driven by a large and highly anticipated update. However, service in the Western markets continued to demonstrate strength with a 35% year-over year revenue growth, driven by the hyperlocalized content developed by our team in Los Angeles." - Shiro Uemura (CFO), Q1 2025.

Don't listen to the Go West propaganda spewed by the likes of Inkwell. I'd much rather take the words of Nexon's CFO than the dirtbag with an ego the size of a planet. Because if there's something that has been more damaging than the invasive species that is the Reboot hive-mind, is bad management from Nexon US that doesn't properly care about us.

Actions speak louder than words. That is a life lesson I've had to learn the hard way after paying the ultimate price for it. As mentioned before, the migration wasn't off to a great start, nor has been the support for regular servers like Luna. This support has declined even further in the past couple of years as not only are we skipping (parts of) major events, we're also deliberately not including updates that would've greatly improved the game's experience. The most drastic update in over a decade was the (Additional) Potential revamp, which infamously has remained exclusive to KMS for over a year now. It's diabolical that highly desirable updates are withheld from us. It only fuels player dissatisfaction.

This doesn't help if Nexon wants to have a better position on the (European) market. It's not going to happen without effort; we're too smart for that. But Europeans will certainly throw money at our screen if you've earned it. I'll remind ya that while we are technically part of the GMS conglomerate, we're rarely included for official GMS contests, the merch store, or MapleFest for that matter. They want to have their cake and eat it too, but refuse to put in the required work.

For starters, Nexon has not been investing enough to promote the game in the west. While it certainly doesn't warrant the monstrous advertising budget that KMS has earned, something would still better be nothing. While it's true that we do see advertisements for the conglomerate, it's only for big updates like Black. That update has proven that it works and that advertising should be done regularly. It may not convince everyone, but it increases the odds of seeing older players return and possibly entice new ones. Because if you don't, the alternative is that other games who frequently advertise will take the initiative. In this industry, we're all competing for a limited amount of customers, after all.

And if the lack of enticing players doesn't help, the current state under Inkwell's rule is undoing years of hard work as he's disfiguring the game for short-term revenue, without concern for the irreparable damage his decisions will cause. Not to mention the way they treat their staff, in particular the revolving door of community managers, is a meatgrinder compared to Nexon EU. They've certainly chosen to not to improve their otherwise poor reputation, if anything.

While it's true that ever since the migration we've seen a genuine improvement on frequent bugfixes and patches (yes, this wasn't even commonplace from Nexon EU in the aftermath of the hackwave), the quality of Nexon US has been incredibly inconsistent. It's entirely decided by whoever's behind the wheel, and has proven to be nowhere as good as what we had pre-migration. If you ask me, Nexon US has only seen one good producer in these nine years.

As I've said earlier, Nexon US caters towards GMS, for better or worse. Long-term commitment, a healthy economy and stable client are exchanged for spectacle, short-term growth and unwise ideas. Players refuse to read and have increasingly become against anything from KMS, forming conclusive judgement before even seeing anything but are willing to give the likes of Inkwell a free pass to dupe them. Post-migration EMS has seen at least four producers*, the results of which have been varied. Not in a good way. But what has been fascinating to see is the divide in reception between the GMS folks and us players from Europe for each producer's body of work. The only producer that was in favor of EMS was our producer Anna herself - who returned for a second tenure in 2020, which only lasted two years.

*The reason why I emphasize "at least four" is because we know little to what happened to Anna's understudy, Sally. We only know that she was supposed to succeed Anna alongside Mjolnir but we've never heard anything from her. Mjolnir took over and brought back Dennis until Inkwell.

To say that her second tenure was controversial for GMS players is an understatement. However, the decisions she's made has been typical of how EMS was ran before the migration. Hard calls are made and unhealthy meta's are dealt with but I cannot understand the polarizing reception from certain players. Of course, I understand that vocal minority doesn't represent all of GMS, as much as I was not involved with this (if I was, I would've told them they are naïve and should know better by now) but it does show us that GMS and EMS really do have different needs and should never have been consolidated under the same management. But I'll be remiss to not acknowledge the fact that whenever EMS is underperforming, it now has the benefit of its rivalling servers dragging its corpse through the mud so that it can live another day. It's at least something because I'm sure they would've shut EMS down, were it still independent.

I'll probably also have to talk a bit about the Dutch Trade Restrictions. If you aren't from EMS, you might find it hard to believe that a majority of EMS players are from The Netherlands. Heck, if you've paid attention in chapter 1, even the CEO at the time acknowledged this himself during the 2012 Q2 conference call in the midst of the hackwave. You can imagine that these restrictions have done a lot of damage. In fact, Nexon had to get rid of these in their other games after it costed them a fortune. But for whatever reason, the MapleStory conglomerate is one of the few that has yet to remove it, which leads me to believe they'll only remove it out of necessity. At least, we're allowed to smuggle items...

Either way, I find solace in the fact that Nexon shouldn't have to fear us players boycotting, but the impossible task of satisfying the demands of their investors until the end of time. That's the grave they chose to dig for themselves.

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8. So, what now?

"The numbers appear green from the outside, but it's red from the inside like a watermelon." - My dad.

To be honest, Inkwell returning to helm another MapleStory project could not have been timed worse. EMS has gone through so many incidents against it and Inkwell is yet another bad day. Recovering and thriving again seems such an impossible task, but looking at how KMS managed to make a full recovery after Inkwell's disastrous first tenure* has proven that with the right amount of diligence and commitment, it can happen. But who am I even kidding, am I right?

*Out of scope for this blogpost, but Inkwell's first tenure burned everyone's goodwill in no time. It did so much damage that Nexon had to admit and apologize to their investors, start the Donxon campaign and they had to develop an entire game with MapleStory 2 as a contingency plan. KMS was bleeding much worse than either GMS or EMS at the time, and it costed Nexon a fortune to steer that ship, especially with MapleStory 2 bombing.

Reading the conference calls of the past few years, it appears that Nexon will continue to (as they call) "hyperlocalize" their regional versions of MapleStory. But as I'm sure you've painstakingly read this blogpost, you realize... this is not anything new. It's been how MapleStory has always operated. In fact, I'll go so far as telling you that the pretentious slop that is "Go West" isn't special and that every other version is doing the same right now, as it has always been. It's just that they slapped a fancy label to it, which means nothing to anyone who hasn't religiously kept up with the latest news. Though GMS is known for its subpar localization and has a history of unnecessarily labelling/renaming things.

What is even worse about this campaign is that it somewhat works. While there's an increasing amount of dissatisfied players who try to push the needle, there's still a baffling amount of ill-informed players who either mistakenly praise updates that originate from other regional versions (including KMS) and erroneously give Inkwell credit for it (as GMS exclusives), or pretend that we wouldn't have gotten the content without him.

Besides, every once in a while I do genuinely wonder why Nexon US hasn't tried more of the TMS playbook or other low hanging fruit such as the Master Label set, MVP-exclusive channels or Maple Coin Exchange. They keep shooting themselves in the foot and after all this time I'm still not quite sure if it's because they fear backlash or are just stupid.

I also find it bizarre that they put so much emphasis on bringing back Kwang-hyun Lim and assigned him as the GMS Development Lead. As he was the former KMS Art Director, one might not expect someone of his stature to be suited as a development lead, but who am I to judge? Good for him, I guess. I'll be remiss not to mention the observation that the artstyle of our "exclusive" Go West content returns to his more familiar, old-fashioned style... Not a coincidence.

Now, unfortunately the timing of this blogpost has been incredibly poor, or poignant - depending on who you ask.

It's been nine years since the purge, and two weeks before I started writing this blogpost, but Nexon confirmed: what better way to celebrate it, but with another one? We don't even have the luxury of six months. In less than two months, anyone that didn't log in since 24 September 2022 will be deleted. However, unlike last time I'm not concerned. While I can assure you that I'll try to save as many as possible, I do so with knowing that at least this time it'll hurt Reboot way more than it would hurt us. "Een kale kip kan je niet plukken". The big question is... how many will we lose this time?

But as I said that today's blogpost is nuanced, that's also because despite the lackluster state EMS is going through, I have no reason to believe it's going to close any time soon. Even if Nexon gives up on the European market, Luna has many high-profile spenders who have been lavishly spending for years and show no signs of slowing down. The reality of the situation is a cynical one: EMS is unlikely to end in a climactic manner and operates between a rock and a hard place until either someone at Nexon gives it a mercy kill like how Changseop did for Reboot, or someone who shows with the same interest in Europe as Seungwoo Choi or Owen Mahony did a long time ago. It's quite an uphill battle.

The current campaign is scheduled to at least continue until 2027, but I'm very curious to see if the campaign will even last that long. By now, everything has been broken by Inkwell's circus, and while they can tryhard exclusive content all they want, we know there's a limit to how much you can steer away from KMS until the system collapses under its own ambition. But if anything, exclusivity in Nexon's terms just usually means highway robbery and nothing more. I'd wish EMS could exist in a better environment and I would've been convinced to recommend this game if we had the major updates and events we missed out on. I've been increasingly starting to envy our South Korean neighbors by the year.

Anyway, I'll wrap it up for today. To be honest, this casual write-up has been good for my state of mind. My outlook on life hasn't been stellar lately, to say the least. Do not misunderstand me when I say that MapleStory is by no means important to me. I have too much time on my hands and it's a pastime like anything else, but it's also suffering from the same problems. The eternal status quo; the decline of the few I enjoy, and a losing battle I'm unlikely to overcome. It's David and Goliath, but as long as it continues, there's always a chance. And that's all it needs: a perpetuated chance.

Cheers everyone, let's hope the next nine years on EMS isn't going to be hell. We're all in this together, whether if you like it or not. EMS is like gokiburi. We've survived much worse, and you'll find it quite difficult to get rid of us.

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[EMS] 6th Job - The first three waves

2025-08-18T09:23:00.076+02:00

6th Job is everything a new Job Advancement should strive to be. Learning from 5th Job's shortcomings, it recaptures the impact that both 3rd and 4th Job had during their heyday. Not only are the new skills splendid, the new mechanics and utilization of the updated game engine advances the game(play) in many ways the Destiny revamp couldn't.

In today's blogpost, we'll discuss the impact that 6th Job has and examine the many new skills we're given. Similar to 5th Job, 6th Job is an ongoing work in progress as new skills and updates are released in batches. Thus, this blogpost can only cover the first three skill waves but I'll continue to write for future updates to 6th Job as I have done with 5th.

As always, I've tried to be as comprehensive as possible. Writing this blogpost took a few months and a bit more effort than I expected. It's obviously not as long as the nightmarish behemoth that was the Destiny blogpost, but it's the long promised sequel to it. But first, as is the tradition: before we dive into the subject, it's time for another history lesson.

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1. Food for the Sol
Long ago, 4th Job was considered the final job advancement. This era established (most of) the core gameplay for all classes. Not much has changed since, as for Hero you'll always see Combo Attack with some form of Brandish. As the game progressed, 4th Job's requirements were lowered and it made room for Hyper Skills to support late-game.

Hyper Skills, while a significant addition, felt very safe. It didn't strive to break the game or to revolutionize it. Instead, every class would only receive three new skills, up to five enhancements for existing skills and for most classes, their impact were modest. By comparison, a dedicated class revamp (such as RED) proved to be far more significant.

It took Nexon ten years to release 5th Job. The first Job Advancement in a long time; you can't say it wasn't a big deal. However, with that came the expectations that 5th Job would redefine every class the same way 4th did. Interestingly, Nexon decided to maintain the status quo, explaining that 5th Job would "not radically change existing battle patterns". By doing so, it damned itself before it even started and they stuck to that plan. Nexon preordained 5th Job to become a successor to Hyper Skills, not 4th Job. We didn't get a new class name, we didn't see the successor to Raging Blow or Combo Attack. Instead, the vast majority of 5th Job skills are samey: long cooldown, short duration. And as we see in practice, there's only so much you can do with this concept of many skills being the same. They all blur together.

Why couldn't 5th Job replicate 4th Job's impact? For better or worse, it wasn't allowed to. As a result of streamlining, everything (including bosses, equipment and classes) became homogenized. Nothing is allowed to truly stand out or be too unique. Bosses are now immune to all kinds of skill effects, movement options became favored over strategy*. The expedition system for up to 30 party members is gone, time limits have gone from 10+ hours to under 30 minutes and boss HP continue to skyrocket. None of these were issues during the early days of 4th, but were made one in the years leading up to 5th Job, and have persisted since. By design, it just wasn't allowed to challenge this status quo.

*Technically speaking, boss manipulation is the only strategy that has stood the test of time, but that's a skillset only obtainable to a handful because it requires a near complete understanding of the enemy behavior scripting and then you still need the appropriate in-game experience to utilize it.

However, with the change in directors, Changseop has been actively trying to fundamentally fix the game. One of the ways he intends to achieve this, is through 6th Job. By embracing power-creep, it reduces the minimum requirements for late-game content, so players receive better rewards sooner. Furthermore, 6th Job is designed to be integral to the game - far more than previous Job Advancements, as it's designed around daily and weekly content. Unlike 5th Job, these tasks reward you a healthy and steady progress on 6th Job, which is handled far better than Nodestones.

In a way, 6th Job benefits immensely from the twelve years of working on 5th Job, which itself learned from the ten years of working with 4th Job. Because of all of that know-how, 6th Job is off to a strong start. Let's take a closer look.

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1.1 Job Advancement

6th Job is available starting Level 260. It goes without saying that it requires you to have advanced to 5th Job. 6th Job can be finished before starting Cernium, even though Cernium is required to unlock the "final" 5th Job skill. Story-wise, 6th Job is an expansion to the events that occur after the defeat of the Black Mage. Like the Genesis weapon, it does not really affect the main story as much as it should, but it does build on some story elements introduced with 5th Job.

That said, I did thoroughly enjoy the overall presentation of the 6th Job Advancement. Using the latest technology, this job advancement felt grand - a cut above its predecessors. Furthermore, I'll give another shoutout to the quality in the English voice acting, which has come a long way since the early 2010s.

Though the process of advancing to 6th Job wasn't without its fair share of problems, unfortunately. To advance to 6th Job requires an unbelievable amount of EXP; even worse during its first year. 6th Job's storyline progression is divided in chapters, and each ends on a cliffhanger that requires you to grind to start the next. Each chapter required 50 billion EXP (!), but Milestone lowered this to 10 billion and consolidated the first three chapters. Nowadays all of that can be done within 10 VIP Boosters when using the commonly available 3x EXP and 50% vouchers - it's not as bad as it was.

Personally, I don't mind the cliffhanger approach. As I was invested in the storyline, I looked forward to seeing how this story unfolds. If anything, my biggest gripe was that they didn't fully commit to the immersion by disabling your Arcane Symbols and having to grind in their respective regions to restore them. However, I understand gradually lowering the difficulty, as the requirements were steep. Even with the advantage of access to Shangri-La (which at the time had the highest EXP yield in the game), it was still a three hour grind. Now imagine that for new players on a fresh account.

Advancing to 6th Job unlocks the VI Matrix and the ability to obtain Sol Erda (Fragments). This time around, you'll only receive your first Origin skill for free (at Level 1) and you'll have to unlock all other 6th Job skills manually. This freebie is only given once when advancing from 5th to 6th Job; when using Open Job Advancement you'll have to buy this skill for the class you switched into but any Matrix skills bought are kept on that character, just in case you want to go back.

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1.2 VI Matrix

A new Job Advancement, a new Matrix.

As explained in the ninth skill wave blogpost, 5th Job's modular skill system didn't work out. 6th Job returns to a direct and simpler approach, where you invest in available options. You no longer have to spend time opening Nodestones to unlock skills at random, sift through dozens of cores, extracting, crafting and calculate how many duplicates you'll need. For 6th Job, there are no more slot enhancements*, Ability Points or certain level requirements (i.e. Spider in Mirror and Crest of the Solar being locked behind 235 and 260, respectively) and we're back to Level 30 skill caps.

*The reason why 5th Job ended up with an unusual cap of Level 25 is because during the early rounds of Tespia, the cap for 5th Job skills were Level 50. Skills would've had a better duration/cooldown ratio and damage output. After they decided to settle for Level 25, they had to readjust every skill to compensate. Though even to this day do these Level 25 skills remain inferior to their original Level 50 counterparts.

However, a noticeable change from 5th Job is a predetermined amount of skills. This time, there'll only be eighteen skills, and we're already halfway. You see, when 5th Job came out, it wasn't made clear how many skills we would be getting. This has proven time and time again to be an incredible benefit to 5th Job, as new skill waves could come out at any moment to generate hype and this could continue forever. It's such a strong marketing tool and I'm disappointed that 6th Job will not continue this. It means that every skill counts more than ever, but on the bright side: we no longer have to deal with choosing between too many skills for not enough Matrix slots; a problem that early 5th Job faced.

Patch	Korea	Europe	6th Job content
New Age	Mid 2023	Late 2023	Spirit CaliberRaging Blow VIEnhancement SkillsHexa Stat 1
Dreamer	Late 2023	Mid 2024	Rage Uprising VISol Janus
Milestone*	Mid 2024	Late 2024	Hexa Stat 2
NEXT	Late 2024	Mid 2025	Aura Blade VIIncising VIHexa Stat 3
Assemble	Mid 2025	TBA	Silent Cleave

*Milestone saw no 6th Job skill wave, but overhauled the V Matrix to acommodate for it, alongside a new 5th Job skill after a three year hiatus.

Saving Hexa Stats for its own chapter (→ chapter 6), the VI Matrix provides us four groups of 6th Job skills:

There will be six new Origin skills, exclusively to your class. Currently, we only have Spirit Caliber.
There are four Mastery skills for our pre-5th Job skills. In total, these four masteries provide enhancements and new effects for: Raging Blow, Rage Uprising, Incising, Final Attack, Valhalla and Aura Blade. The latter mastery also provides us with a new passive skill: Furious Edge.
There are four Enhancement skills that increase the damage of a select few 5th Job skills: Sword of Burning Soul, Combo Instinct, Combo Death Fault and Sword Illusion. Nothing more, nothing less*.
The final group are four Common skills, available to every class. Currently, we only have Sol Janus.

*There are a few Enhancement skills that give additional effects, but unfortunately Hero was not among the lucky few classes to receive one.

Something from 5th Job that is missing for 6th Job are skills shared by specific groups (i.e. warrior exclusives like Aura Weapon and Body of Steel, or a skill only for Adventure warriors like Blitz Shield). You'll either get something exclusive to a class, or something available to everyone. There's no in-between, but perhaps this may change for later waves.

All of these skills are available for purchase from the start, after advancing to 6th Job. Unlike 5th Job, none of these are locked behind certain levels, and you do not unlock (additional) slots by reaching a higher level. What you see is what you get. There are some requirements for Mastery and Enhancement skills, which I'll mention when relevant.

While 5th Job cores can be unequipped, 6th Job skills are permanently unlocked and cannot be reset.
Some 6th Job skills require certain 5th Job skills to be equipped. If you were to unequip the required core, their related 6th Job skill effects become disabled until the correct 5th Job skills are equipped again.
6th Job skills are disabled at Urus, but exceptions include passives effects of Sol Janus and Furious Edge.
Warning: once you equip Incising VI, you can no longer use Final Attack for this fight! See chapter 3.4.

Last but not least, a late addition to the VI Matrix is the Erda Conversion tab. Here, you can extract surplus Sol Erda by banking it to other characters (though there's a hefty exchange rate involved*) or craft HEXA Boosters (one day duration). Unlike VIP Boosters, HEXA Boosters have no daily limit and thus it is only limited by your Sol Erda supply.

*Currently, cost is 70%. For each Sol Erda, you'll only transfer 300/1000 points. The next chapter explains how this point system works.

Now, let's talk about how to unlock 6th Job skills in the next chapter.

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1.3 Sol Erda (Fragments)

Unlocking and leveling 6th Job skills is done through payment by Sol Erda and Fragments. No refunds after paying! Opening Nodestones for random skills are no more. No more crafting or extracting. The new currency takes a similar role to Nodeshards. Each level requires you to pay the right amount in both Sol Erda and Fragments, and there's an emphasis on different costs for each skill type. Certain 6th Job skills are more expensive or cost-efficient than others*.

*If you need help figuring out what to unlock first, you can read my recommendations and thought process in chapter 7.1.


10 / 1000	200 / 1000	500 / 1000	1000 / 1000

Sol Erda is accrued through Sol Erda Energy. These are smaller chunks of Sol Erda, and consider it a point system. When you collect enough energy (a thousand points), it'll be automatically exchanged into one Sol Erda. Depending on the source, the game can either give you whole Sol Erda directly or smaller chunks of points. You can only store up to twenty Sol Erda in total, but you'll quickly learn that everything related to Sol Erda is a non-factor.

You must have advanced to 6th Job in order to unlock Sol Erda and Fragments as drops. If obtained through events, you cannot use them on that character until 6th Job. Outside of events, there are several ways to obtain them:

Fragments and Energy are rare drops from monsters in Grandis Force maps. Fragments obtained this way are the only non-exhaustive source for tradeable fragments, which makes it a very important method.
Energy can be extracted from any 6th Job character by using Erda Conversion, though with exchange rate.
Energy and Fragments are obtained from supplementary (either) daily/weekly quests that go with your daily Grandis Symbol quests. Not available and tradeable in every region; most notably absent in Korea.
Fragments (and Energy) are obtained (in decent amounts) from the weekly Epic Dungeon content.
All weekly bosses starting from Silver 2 (Hard Lotus/Damien) drop Energy (in small amounts).
Erda and/or Fragments can be bought (in limited quantities) from the Cash Shop. This includes the Reward Point and Mileage shops. Not available in every region; most notably the latter method is absent in Europe.
Fragments can be obtained (in decent amounts) as a Weekly Reward from Guild Castle. This requires you to have completed the Weekly Mission "Cache of Greed" during the previous week, and have unlocked the necessary Personal Research skills. Not available in every region; most notably absent in Korea.

Suffice to say, the quantities and acquisition rates of either Fragments and Energy greatly vary between sources. In particular, if something can only be done once a week, that doesn't mean it provides the best amount or that it's the most time efficient. All of these numbers don't really communicate well on their own, so let's give it some context:

Let's say you just reached 6th Job and want to unlock Raging Blow VI. The first level costs 3 Sol Erda (which equals 3000 Sol Energy "points") and 50 Sol Fragments. If you have to grind this manually, it will take forever because on average you can expect between 1 and 3 Fragments every 3000 kills, and only a few hundred Energy points. However, if you do the daily quest Erda's Request, you'll receive 600 Energy and 12 Fragments for only a few minutes of work. It's likely that you'll have this unlocked in four days.
Unlocking 6th Job skills is slow by design. The early levels are cheap, but these required costs ramp up quickly. Few dozen fragments per level quickly becomes a few hundred. One Erda quickly becomes a few. In total, expect several thousand fragments and over one hundred Sol Erda per 6th Job skill. It can take months to max out a skill, but you'll commonly raise a skill's level every week. On the bright side, 6th Job provides the most amount of gains for the mesos spent*. It is exceptionally cost-efficient and rewarding.
Not all weekly content will provide an equal amount of fragments or Sol Erda for the time invested. Weekly bosses will only give you a few dozen energy points each, even if some of these bosses can take up to half an hour to defeat. Clearing a single Epic Dungeon guarantees you at least one Sol Erda and 10 Fragments for about 15 minutes of work. Cache of Greed (5000 mobs) guarantees you at least 16 Fragments for 17 minutes of work; up to 31 Fragments for Level 5 Castles. However, each additional source does adds up.
Because you can trade for Sol Fragments, this is going to be the most common method of obtaining large amounts for those more expensive unlocks. However, as Sol Erda can only be accrued over time, weekly content that provides seemingly small amounts of Sol Erda Energy become all the more important. It is not uncommon to choose Sol Erda (Energy) over Sol Fragments from events that can only give you one or the other. Thankfully, the combination of Sol Erda being time-gated and its maximum storage capacity keeps the prices of Sol Fragments in check. This avoids one of the major issues we saw with Nodestone pricing.
Events will be a common source for high quantities of Sol Erda and Sol Fragments. It is not uncommon to receive several Sol Erda and hundred(s) of Fragments from events every (two) month(s).
Any Sol Erda or Fragments bought directly from the Cash Shop is poor value because you would've been better off selling the Maple Points for an absurd amount of mesos (to buy way more fragments with it). It's important to mention that items such as the Sol Erda Booster Pass cannot be bought with Maple Points.
As 6th Job continues, more sources for Sol Erda (Fragments) are added and higher amounts too. It's very similar to Nodestones, as they were exceptionally scarce during the first years. It was only after many years that we saw events give dozens of EXP Nodestones and over a thousand Nodestones for free.

*It cannot be understated how much even a single level up on a 6th Job skill adds, let alone maxed out. 4504 Fragments and 166 Sol Erda sounds like a ridiculous amount of materials for maxing out only two 6th Job skills; but I can assure you that this alone more than doubles the damage for Raging Blow. An another example would be 6268 Fragments and 208 Sol Erda for a 100% passive EXP skill that clears an entire map by itself. For reference, clean Kalos Eternals can be exchanged for 1800 Fragments each. A vac pet is worth over 27500 fragments! 6th Job is insanely cheap.

I personally find Sol Erda (Fragments) to be a significant improvement over Nodestones. This is mainly because of the daily quest and the "day 1" integration of 6th Job into a good amount of side content. It adds so much gas as you're able to unlock those new skills much faster than the original 4th or 5th Job. Reminder that, during its first years, it took forever to progress on either. Another advantage of how Sol Erda (Fragments) are handled are the consistent rates of acquisition; you should have no issues with getting those skills maxed out by just playing a few minutes daily. I find it funny that the first two years of 6th Job so far has been a much better experience than the nine years of 5th Job.

As mentioned earlier, both Energy* and Fragments can be found from monsters in any of the Grandis Force maps. It's very convenient that you can find those while working on your daily symbol quests, and this further helps to boost the acquisition rate on top of Erda's Request. The storage limit of twenty Sol Erda is negligible; fragments are so easy to source that you'll rarely have to be concerned about it. 6th Job brings an interesting dynamic where you gain so much raw power, it gives you access to more valuable boss crystals which in turn can be exchanged for more fragments.

*Energy from monsters are found in quantities of 10 points per drop, and sometimes you can even find 200 points. Because you'll find the later often on top of the other sources for Energy, Sol Erda isn't really as strongly time-gated as most would suggest - even with the daily limit of 400 energy sourced from monsters that exists in some regional versions. In short, Sol Erda is superfluous and it's only there to keep Fragments affordable.

So, you could say that incorporating 6th Job into the current gameplay loop (as an additional reward) works in its favor as it avoids having to create or justify a lot of new content around it - which was one of the struggles seen in the early days of 4th Job. It's fascinating to see that letting 6th Job run in the background as a "highly rewarding system that requires little effort" became an ideal approach. Now that we know how to level these skills, let's take a closer look.

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2. Origin Skills

Currently, we have only one Origin Skill: Spirit Caliber. Even though there are a four more skills planned, we can only judge this type skill (effectiveness, cost) with the one we got. The second Origin skills have just been released in KMS, but that's outside the scope of this post. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. While it's true that some classes have received better Origin skills than us, I don't believe that alone makes for a good comparison because it means something else had to give. As you'll soon understand, if our current Origin skills are any indication for the others, I'm glad we took the worse Origins because in exchange we got one of the better selection of Mastery Skills in the game.

What sets Origin Skills apart are the introduction of new game mechanics, exclusive to them. The first skill introduces us to skill cutscenes and the Origin bind. We'll discuss the second skill's new game mechanics in a future blogpost.

Skill cutscenes are exactly what the name implies, as the souped-up game engine is now ironically able to catch up with this innovation found in plenty other mobile gacha game slop. During this skill cutscene, you'll receive your typical invincibility - though for outliers like receiving Damien's 7th brand during the cutscene, you'll be killed after it ends if it didn't finish off the boss. Thus, skill cutscenes cannot prevent True Death and its rulings, but it can briefly delay it.

Similar to Combo Death Fault, the invincibility lasts slightly longer than the skill cutscene itself; this gives you ample time to reposition yourself before the invincibility ends. For example, you can use Rush twice during this short period.

During the skill cutscene, you are stuck in a state where you can't do many things. You cannot activate other skills* manually, interact with NPCs or portals. You can remove buffs, use potions, drop items and interact with some of the UI. Pet loot is allowed and if you collide with Combo EXP orbs (i.e. Elite Bosses), they will be collected. Skill cutscenes are allowed to be ended early by the game when it forcefully moves you to another map (i.e. to the next boss phase).

*This includes no delay skills; detonation of Blitz Shield is disabled. Interestingly, you are allowed to cast Noblesse Guild Skills through the Guild UI.

The Origin bind is a higher tier bind that allows you to bind most bosses that are immune to the regular bind. It's the same way Superstance succeeded Power Stance in 2017. We'll take a closer look at the Origin bind in chapter 2.1.1. Furthermore, the beefier game engine allows Origin Skills to do an overwhelming amount of damage; dealing over 1000 lines is now a common feat among 6th Job skills, which previous was only found in a few skills in the game*.

*One of the few skills prior to 6th Job that could (theoretically) achieve over six thousand lines (!) of damage was Beast Tamer's Aerial Relief.

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2.1 Spirit Caliber

Spirit Caliber is Hero's first 6th Job skill, and it's the only skill you'll receive for free with your job advancement. It's a skill that's designed to hit hard while applying a bind. However, nothing is simple in this game so we'll take a closer look at its nuances; Spirit Caliber is somewhat of a double-edged sword. But let's start with looking at its leveling cost.

Spirit Caliber			Skill damage #1	Skill damage #2	Skill reinforcement
Level	Sol Erda	Fragments	33x 14 lines	48x 15 lines	PDR reduction	Boss Damage	Cooldown
1	5	100	240%	238%	-	-	6 minutes
2	1	30	248%	246%	-	-	6 minutes
3	1	35	256%	254%	-	-	6 minutes
4	1	40	264%	262%	-	-	6 minutes
5	2	45	272%	270%	-	-	6 minutes
6	2	50	280%	278%	-	-	6 minutes
7	2	55	288%	286%	-	-	6 minutes
8	3	60	296%	294%	-	-	6 minutes
9	3	65	304%	302%	-	-	6 minutes
10	10	200	312%	310%	20%	-	6 minutes
11	3	80	320%	318%	20%	-	6 minutes
12	3	90	328%	326%	20%	-	6 minutes
13	4	100	336%	334%	20%	-	6 minutes
14	4	110	344%	342%	20%	-	6 minutes
15	4	120	352%	350%	20%	-	6 minutes
16	4	130	360%	358%	20%	-	6 minutes
17	4	140	368%	366%	20%	-	6 minutes
18	4	150	376%	374%	20%	-	6 minutes
19	5	160	384%	382%	20%	-	6 minutes
20	15	350	392%	390%	20%	20%	6 minutes
21	5	170	400%	398%	20%	20%	6 minutes
22	5	180	408%	406%	20%	20%	6 minutes
23	5	190	416%	414%	20%	20%	6 minutes
24	5	200	424%	422%	20%	20%	6 minutes
25	5	210	432%	430%	20%	20%	6 minutes
26	6	220	440%	438%	20%	20%	6 minutes
27	6	230	448%	446%	20%	20%	6 minutes
28	6	240	456%	454%	20%	20%	6 minutes
29	7	250	464%	462%	20%	20%	6 minutes
30	20	500	472%	470%	50%*	50%	6 minutes
Total	150	4500

*The 20% PDR reduction bonus unlocked at Level 10 is raised and becomes 50%. You do not receive two separate lines of 20% and 30%.

Spirit Caliber activates a whopping total of 81 separate attacks spread throughout the skill cutscene, and all of these separate attacks do a tremendous amount of damage. Most of it is towards the end of the skill, like Sword Illusion. If anything, Spirit Caliber is similar to Sword Illusion as it shares a lot of the same quirks - for better or worse.

As you can see from the table above, Spirit Caliber's cooldown never changes and the only improvement it sees is the damage you'll only do once every 6 minutes*. Yes, the 8% damage increase per level, PDR reduction and boss bonus are significant because it's applied to all 1182 lines. However, Origin skills are the second most expensive skills. There are far better skills to invest in that yield greater results at half the cost! Because of that, Spirit Caliber should remain Level 1 until much later (see chapter 7.1). As Sol Erda are time-gated, leveling this too early will only slow you down!

*Even with the Assemble update's skill cooldown reset at boss entry, it still doesn't solve the many issues including its six minute cooldown after using it. Though this does make bossing easier and convenient (i.e. Union Champions), as you can now breeze through a row of weekly bosses.

Compared to what other classes received as their first Origin skill, ours is pretty straightforward. Spirit Caliber hits like a truck, applies the new Origin bind and grants invincibility during its duration. There are no additional effects during or after the skill (which some classes have), but Spirit Caliber is designed with some of our other skills in mind:

Each separate attack can charge Combo Orbs and activate Sword of Burning Soul when possible.
Every tenth attack summons one Furious Edge (→ chapter 3.3.2), guaranteeing at least eight of them.
Spirit Caliber cannot activate Combo Instinct's rifts as this remains exclusive to Raging Blow, so using both together is a waste. Some form of compatibility between the two will be added in a future update, though unfortunately this won't be as good as it sounds. I'll write about it in the next 6th Job blogpost.
Spirit Caliber is treated as a Swordsmanship skill. It can activate Valhalla's afterimages and the 81 attacks it will expend all 15 of 'm, though for some reason this never happens outside Fog Forest Training Center.
Each separate attack can activate (Advanced) Final Attack (VI). Spirit Caliber has an unlisted 100% chance to activate Final Attack (confirmed by Nexon), but a quick Battle Analysis reveals this is not true.
Aura Weapon can only activate once after the skill ends, not during it. As we know it can activate (multiple times) on other (similar) skills, this leads me to believe Spirit Caliber's incompatibility is an oversight.
Every separate attack can activate 5th Job's Special Cores and item skills such as the Continuous Ring.
Spirit Caliber works with Ryude's Sword, which further increases its damage output past 1200 lines!

While Spirit Caliber's long invincibility is incredibly useful, it's not as versatile as Aion of Creation's because you can't really do much while being stuck inside the skill cutscene. The way Spirit Caliber interacts with the game is identical to Combo Death Fault: a "get out of jail free card". It's a fantastic defensive skill that binds and deals a lot of damage, but because it lacks the extra post-skill effects that other classes have with their Origin skills, ours isn't ideal for bursting.

Out of all skills we have access to, Spirit Caliber has the largest hitbox. It reaches beyond the borders of the screen, but not by a huge amount. Those specialized mini maps are incredibly useful to learn about these hitboxes.

Spirit Caliber can be used in mid-air, which is invaluable because this allows you to abuse being stuck in the cutscene to your advantage. Wherever you start the skill will remain your current location, so in example use Upper Charge to jump above Damien's damage-reduction spheres and receive maximum damage on Spirit Caliber. Be mindful where you use it, as this can work against you: lingering hazards (i.e. Ride or Die) can kill you after the invincibility wears off.

High Mountain is the only area where we can see Spirit Caliber's true potential as a mobbing skill.

As Spirit Caliber activates 81 separate attacks, each separate attack can hit up to 15 enemies. In theory, it could clear up to 1215 enemies - though we've yet to see this many. That said, when you grind it's worthwhile to save it for the occasional Stormwing Hunter Portal or Elite Boss. Spirit Caliber's duration is shorter than the respawn timer, so it can only clear up to one wave of mobs. However, in special maps such as Cache of Greed, it can clear two if timed well.

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2.1.1 Origin bind

When taking a closer look at how the Origin bind mechanically works, there are a few oddities that stand out.

As one might expect, Origin binds are not treated as the same as regular binds. They are considered their own unique status effect. Because of this, Origin binds do not share the same immunity cooldowns as regular binds, so you're able to extend the total bind time by applying one after the other. However, with Spirit Caliber's six minute cooldown, it's not a skill you can use often. It's also a lengthy skill and the long skill cutscene eats away at the bind's 10 second duration.

When using Spirit Caliber, it creates two separate area of effects: one continuously applies the Origin bind, the other deals damage. This ensures the bind to always apply before dealing damage, preventing targets from escaping. The two area of effects do not share the same hitbox; it's possible to have far-away enemies bound, but not damaged.

Origin bind can be applied to enemies that are immune to regular bind, such as Black Mage. However, general rules still apply. Hidden enemies, ally enemies and reactors are still immune, however I suspect "Invincible Monsters" are fair game (as evident by pre-Destiny Panic being able to apply Blind). Boss attacks that visibly show them leaving the field are not affected by Origin binds; the bind will miss its target. I would've loved to test Hekaton as I suspect he is immune. Urus should be easy, as there was a time where you could stun-lock him. But that's a post for another day...

Because enemies within range are immediately affected by Origin bind, the bind will always apply first the moment you activate the skill, even before damage calculation's done. As Origin bind only lasts ten seconds, its effective duration after the skill cutscene ends is only five seconds. This does diminish its usefulness, as you cannot do anything while the cutscene remains active. So if you're pairing this with Erda Nova for 20 seconds bind, 5 seconds will be wasted as Spirit Caliber's damage output is lower than an all-out burst. Try not to use Spirit Caliber together with Combo Instinct, even after we have the skill change that allows Spirit Caliber to activate the (60% chance) variant of Combo Instinct.

As learned from the Magic Crash lock, enemies struck by Origin bind become immune for 100 seconds. This leads me to believe we'll receive two more Origin bind skills for a self-sufficient rotation. Make sure to use the debuff display to time your binds, because it tells you the remaining time left on Erda Nova and Spirit Caliber's binds by subtracting ten seconds from the starting time (i.e. if the immunity starts at 100 seconds, the bind will end at 90 seconds left).

Anything else? Well, because Origin bind can be used against a lot more bosses, it opens up defensive and strategic options. In my opinion, the best use of binds are to deny boss mechanics by cancelling them out. A notable example of this is Dusk. Its biggest threat is the Fear Gauge, and having five seconds of full invincibility means you can skip half of it while forcefully extending the time Dusk's eye remains open. For Dunkel, you can use it when the fight becomes too claustrophobic with all the hazards spawning in. True Hilla ensures a safe passage into reset, and for Will it's an easy way out of phases 2 and 3 when combined with the Citizen Resistance link and CDF. It's very practical.

But remember, as with Power Stance and Superstance, it's just a matter of time before newer bosses become immune to Origin binds the same way as regular ones, and we'll do this all over with 7th Job and again until the end of time.

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2.1.2 Post-Dreamer Spirit Caliber

Perhaps my contribution to this discussion is far too late, but I feel like it's important to have mentioned it nonetheless. Spirit Caliber's damage output of the 81 separate attacks spread throughout the skill cutscene, was originally different.

You see, the original Spirit Caliber would only do 12 separate attacks of 14 lines of 3900% damage each. This lasted for half a year until the Dreamer update. As you've seen in chapter 2.1's table, they drastically lowered the damage-per-line, but increased the amount of separate attacks more than six times. People believed that this was a nerf, but as I always tell everyone: the way MapleStory handles damage calculation, a higher line count is always superior.

To further prove this point (and having learned a bit from the Destiny blogpost), here's a before and after. While at face value the damage on Spirit Caliber is slightly lower, there's a drastic difference caused by Advanced Final Attack. This was also a year ago; Final Attack VI and Furious Edge now exist, which makes the difference night and day. Under the old Spirit Caliber, Furious Edge would've only activated one, rather than eight (!). A change for the better, I'd say.

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3. Mastery Skills

Mastery Skills are currently the meat and potatoes of 6th Job. Seeing as we only have one Common and Origin skill at of the time of writing, most of 6th Job's bulk and contribution are found here. Hero has one of the better selection of Mastery Skills, as it's also one of the few to receive a ridiculous amount of damage reinforcement for its main attack.

Cost-wise, Mastery Skills are arguably the best of the four skill types. For the price of one maxed out Origin skill, you could've maxed out two of these instead! Heck, Common skills are even worse because you could almost buy three Mastery skills for that price - though we'll get into that discussion later as Sol Janus is a tough one to argue against.

But to give you an idea on what to expect: every line on Raging Blow is more than doubled, even more so in a future update. This would only cost 4502 Fragments, which is just enough to max out Spirit Caliber. The other two Mastery Skills are not insignificant either, as Furious Edge is a fantastic addition and the higher damage on Final Attack and Valhalla are huge. The buffs are so tremendous, that 5th Job is no longer our main source of damage. These are now.

If I was able to have this blogpost out during the first wave of 6th Job, I would've correctly predicted Rage Uprising, Aura Blade and Incising as the remaining three Mastery Skills. Unfortunately this selection is quite boring, as with only four slots I would've preferred to see something more daring. Though they've added enough effects to shake things up. Besides, for some of the skills that got nothing from 6th Job (i.e. Flash Slash), they'll receive some changes soon.

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3.1 Raging Blow VI

Requires Enhancement Core (5th Job) for Raging Blow to be at least Level 40 and equipped.

Hail to the king, the master of Y. Raging Blow VI (RB6) is upon us, and it has decimated the landscape as our one and only supreme overlord. Raging Blow VI is the type of skill that 5th Job needed, and is update has been long-overdue.

Ever since the introduction of 4th Job, one of Hero's characteristics has been its signature bossing skill. Brandish did not only have a great damage output, its reliable hitbox remained leagues above its competition. It's this consistency that has remained consistent throughout most of Hero's lifespan*, and 6th Job continues this trend with Raging Blow VI boasting an impressive hitbox increase and a staggering damage output - which is going to be even higher soon!

*The only time this was missing was between the Champions (2012) and RED (2013) update, with the original Raging Blow falling short.

Let's start with the bigger hitbox first. Hero's horizontal reach is drastically improved, making grinding effortless. There aren't many classes that have such a reliable skill. It is exceptionally good, though unfortunately it's not as large (in all directions) as the skill animation suggests. Most notably, its vertical hitbox remains identical. Fortunately, Sol Janus is incredibly forgiving as it tends to compensate for these questionable design choices (→ chapter 5.1).

A 6th Job variant for base Raging Blow exists, but as you know, you'll never really see it. However, this Raging Blow VI also increases the hitboxes of Sword of Burning Soul and Combo Instinct, as otherwise they'll fall behind. The former's horizontal length becomes even greater than Raging Blow VI's, though it's a missed opportunity to improve its vertical hitbox because it's still not as good as Raging Blow. Even worse, the larger hitboxes for CI only applies to the first and third attack. I have no idea why Nexon insists in making one of CI's most notable flaws even worse. It's oddly specific.

Raging Blow VI			Changes skill damage per line
Level	Sol Erda	Fragments	Base Raging Blow	Enhanced Raging Blow
1	3	50	324% → 356%	348% → 387%
2	1	15	324% → 362%	348% → 394%
3	1	18	324% → 368%	348% → 401%
4	1	20	324% → 374%	348% → 408%
5	1	23	324% → 380%	348% → 415%
6	1	25	324% → 386%	348% → 422%
7	1	28	324% → 392%	348% → 429%
8	2	30	324% → 398%	348% → 436%
9	2	33	324% → 404%	348% → 443%
10	5	100	324% → 410%	348% → 450%
11	2	40	324% → 416%	348% → 457%
12	2	45	324% → 422%	348% → 464%
13	2	50	324% → 428%	348% → 471%
14	2	55	324% → 434%	348% → 478%
15	2	60	324% → 440%	348% → 485%
16	2	65	324% → 446%	348% → 492%
17	2	70	324% → 452%	348% → 499%
18	2	75	324% → 458%	348% → 506%
19	3	80	324% → 464%	348% → 513%
20	8	175	324% → 470%	348% → 520%
21	3	85	324% → 476%	348% → 527%
22	3	90	324% → 482%	348% → 534%
23	3	95	324% → 488%	348% → 541%
24	3	100	324% → 494%	348% → 548%
25	3	105	324% → 500%	348% → 555%
26	3	110	324% → 506%	348% → 562%
27	3	115	324% → 512%	348% → 569%
28	3	120	324% → 518%	348% → 576%
29	4	125	324% → 524%	348% → 583%
30	10	250	324% → 530%	348% → 590%
Total	83	2252

But let's talk about the damage output. Looking at the skill description at face value, you'll receive a consistent 6% damage increase per level for base Raging Blow and 7% for Enhanced Raging Blow. It sounds like any other damage reinforcement... but it is not that straightforward. The thing is, this effect is way stronger than most people understand.

What Raging Blow VI exactly does is changing the numbers of your 4th Job skill, rather than adding them later as a 6th Job effect. The 348% damage per line becomes 590%, which already is a huge increase on its own. But because it overwrites 4th Job, the 2.2x multiplier from 5th Job becomes a multiplier for 6th. Rage Uprising VI (→ chapter 3.2) further boosts the damage per line to 738%. Each damage line is more than doubled, and with five lines the increase from these two skills is staggering. In a future update, Raging Blow VI's damage per line is raised to 700%*, for a total of 848% damage per line when combined with Rage Uprising VI. Truly numbers worthy of Raging Blow's reputation.

*This upcoming change is only for Enhanced Raging Blow VI. The damage per line for Base Raging Blow VI remains the same. Not that it matters.

Though because 6th Job overwrites the 4th Job values, Combat Orders isn't as good anymore as it used to be. None of the Level 31 or 32 stats are carried over, except for the higher damage on Aura Blade. To be honest, with how much 6th Job adds, this hardly is an issue - but I do find this interesting as it teaches us how 6th Job interacts with the old.

Last but not least, let's talk about the animation. I've grown to really like the post-Destiny animations, so it's a shame to see it go this soon. However, what's clever about Raging Blow VI is how Nexon improves the clarity of the animations, by separating the single animation for five swinging motions into two and alternating between them. You see, for the longest time Enhanced Raging Blow had five swings but as the game became faster, so were the animations. In doing so, some animations became a cluttered mess - too fast for the eyes. You could hardly see what was going on, so it makes sense that they'd split Raging Blow in half. It's such a simple change but the results are nice.

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3.2 Rage Uprising VI

Requires Enhancement Core (5th Job) for Rage Uprising to be at least Level 40 and equipped.

My opinion on Rage Uprising VI (RU6) is mixed. Generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan because it hardly addresses any of the issues I've had since the Destiny revamp. RU had to find a new niche it could fulfill as it lost the competition with our other skills in damage, hitbox and speed. Rage Uprising VI doesn't really add enough. Its damage is modest, its new hitbox is subpar and when compared to Aura Blade VI and Incising VI, RU really got the short end of the stick.

Unfortunately, the only real reason why Rage Uprising VI is so important is only because it further boosts Raging Blow VI's damage per line. Without this effect, RU6 would've easily been the worst of our four Mastery Skills. Furious Edge (→ chapter 3.3.2) has certainly made Rage Uprising VI more useful, but it doesn't really address its shortcomings.

Rage Uprising VI			Changes skill damage per line	Raging Blow VI: additional skill damage per line
Level	Sol Erda	Fragments	1x 8 lines → 4x 8 lines	Add	Base (at Level 30)	Enhanced (at Level 30)
1	3	50	560% → 154%	32%	530% → 562%	590% → 622%
2	1	15	560% → 158%	36%	530% → 566%	590% → 626%
3	1	18	560% → 162%	40%	530% → 570%	590% → 630%
4	1	20	560% → 166%	44%	530% → 574%	590% → 634%
5	1	23	560% → 170%	48%	530% → 578%	590% → 638%
6	1	25	560% → 174%	52%	530% → 582%	590% → 642%
7	1	28	560% → 178%	56%	530% → 586%	590% → 646%
8	2	30	560% → 182%	60%	530% → 590%	590% → 650%
9	2	33	560% → 186%	64%	530% → 594%	590% → 654%
10	5	100	560% → 190%	68%	530% → 598%	590% → 658%
11	2	40	560% → 194%	72%	530% → 602%	590% → 662%
12	2	45	560% → 198%	76%	530% → 606%	590% → 666%
13	2	50	560% → 202%	80%	530% → 610%	590% → 670%
14	2	55	560% → 206%	84%	530% → 614%	590% → 674%
15	2	60	560% → 210%	88%	530% → 618%	590% → 678%
16	2	65	560% → 214%	92%	530% → 622%	590% → 682%
17	2	70	560% → 218%	96%	530% → 626%	590% → 686%
18	2	75	560% → 222%	100%	530% → 630%	590% → 690%
19	3	80	560% → 226%	104%	530% → 634%	590% → 694%
20	8	175	560% → 230%	108%	530% → 638%	590% → 698%
21	3	85	560% → 234%	112%	530% → 642%	590% → 702%
22	3	90	560% → 238%	116%	530% → 646%	590% → 706%
23	3	95	560% → 242%	120%	530% → 650%	590% → 710%
24	3	100	560% → 246%	124%	530% → 654%	590% → 714%
25	3	105	560% → 250%	128%	530% → 658%	590% → 718%
26	3	110	560% → 254%	132%	530% → 662%	590% → 722%
27	3	115	560% → 258%	136%	530% → 666%	590% → 726%
28	3	120	560% → 262%	140%	530% → 670%	590% → 730%
29	4	125	560% → 266%	144%	530% → 674%	590% → 734%
30	10	250	560% → 270%	148%	530% → 678%	590% → 738%
Total	83	2252

Rage Uprising VI does two things: it redesigns Rage Uprising from scratch and it boosts Raging Blow VI's damage. The latter has already been discussed in the previous chapter, so we'll look at the new Rage Uprising itself.

Rage Uprising VI takes an example from our other skills like Sword Illusion and Combo Instinct, as it now attacks four separate times. With how damage calculation works, this is always an improvement. However, it is notable that the damage per line (at Level 30) is more than halved and this hurts it more than it needs to. Though its saving grace is that RU6 can now activate other skills (and Ryude) up to four times, including Final Attack VI (→ chapter 3.4.2).

The four separate attacks behave identical to Sword Illusion, in that attacks occur at set intervals within a short period of time. This means you can pull off the same kind of tricks Sword Illusion does, however RU6 happens so fast (blink and you'll miss it) it's going to be much harder to do. Attacks can miss if a boss teleports away, though because Rage Uprising VI and its attacks are instantaneous you might only see this happen once in a lifetime. At least its new attack speed is considerably better than the state the Destiny revamp left it in, it feels better to use.

Rage Uprising VI comes with a larger hitbox, however in practice the difference is negligible. It keeps the problem of the animation being much larger than the hitbox, and then there's the inherent disadvantage of a hitbox that can only hit in front of you when Hero already has other skills that do the same, but better. There's one significant advantage that Rage Uprising VI has over others, though. The beauty of quadrupling the amount of attacks means that one RU6 can now clear up to 52 enemies. While you're unlikely to see that many monsters in range, you will often have more than 15, which is the hard cap on many skills. For such occasions, RU6 is simply better than our other options. I just would've liked to see Rage Uprising VI be changed to hit in all directions, as the vacancy left by Shout is still felt today.

So I hope you understand why my opinions on Rage Uprising VI are mixed. In a vacuum, this skill is pretty good and worth using for the small burst of damage. It's even better once you have a cooldown hat for this and Sword Illusion. "Pretty good" is a tough sell once it requires 2252 Fragments, now doesn't it? Would we still be as enthusiastic if the skill never came with the Raging Blow VI boost? I feel that this Mastery Skill is missing that little bit extra, y'know?

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3.3 Aura Blade VI

Requires Enhancement Core (5th Job) for Aura Blade to be at least Level 40 and equipped.

Out of the four Mastery Skills, Aura Blade VI (AB6) changes the skill mechanically the most. Not only does it greatly increase the skill's damage, it halves the cooldown and adds two new skills. What makes the damage even better are the Enhancement Core bonus from 5th Job. Most people forget that because Aura Blade is a 3rd Job skill, the bonus is 3% Final Damage per level as opposed to the usual 2%. This turns Aura Blade VI into a legitimate bossing skill.

In case you wonder, yes: Aura Blade VI continues the unusual attributes introduced with Destiny, as explained here.

Perhaps the most significant change to Aura Blade is the rework of its cooldown. It is replaced with the ammunition system. One Aura Blade is prepared every four seconds, and up to two can be stored. This means that Aura Blade no longer works with effects such as chance to skip cooldown. However, we get to use the skill earlier and shooting twice opens up more gameplay options. In particular, Aura Blade VI pairs strongly with Sol Janus: Dusk (→ chapter 5.1.1).

Interestingly, Aura Blade VI is supported by Skill Alarms and will notify you each time ammunition is prepared. Usually, these types of skills are not supported (as seen with Maple World Goddess' Blessing and Aura Weapon) but it appears AB6 is an exception to this rule. Perhaps because it was already supported previously, like Ryude's Combo Hookshot.

Unfortunately, despite the significant damage increase and cooldown cut, AB6 isn't a huge improvement. Its projectile is big, but it's all show and no substance - the amount of enemies it can hit has remained unchanged. Great hitbox, but you can't get the most out of it. Furthermore, I'm surprised to see that Aura Blade's horizontal distance is rather short.

That said, the reworked cooldown helps to give this skill some legs (as we can use it twice as often), but it's still not a direct improvement over Shout. No matter how you slice it, a single-direction projectile will never have the versality of an AoE. As mentioned in Destiny's Rage Uprising, we have many skills competing with each other whereas Shout had no competition. But if you are creative with Aura Blade VI, you will find that being able to shoot projectiles in different directions certainly has a value that none of our other skills can currently offer. If only this skill shot like Optic Barrier...

Aura Blade VI			Changes stats of skill		Final Blade	Furious Edge
Level	Sol Erda	Fragments	Skill Damage*	Monster Damage	Skill Damage*	Skill Damage
1	3	50	5x 180% → 5x 317%	180% → 203%	5x 519%	3x 132%
2	1	15	5x 180% → 5x 322%	180% → 206%	5x 525%	3x 137%
3	1	18	5x 180% → 5x 327%	180% → 209%	5x 531%	3x 142%
4	1	20	5x 180% → 5x 332%	180% → 212%	5x 537%	3x 147%
5	1	23	5x 180% → 5x 337%	180% → 215%	5x 543%	3x 152%
6	1	25	5x 180% → 5x 342%	180% → 218%	5x 549%	3x 157%
7	1	28	5x 180% → 5x 347%	180% → 221%	5x 555%	3x 162%
8	2	30	5x 180% → 5x 352%	180% → 224%	5x 561%	3x 167%
9	2	33	5x 180% → 5x 357%	180% → 227%	5x 567%	3x 172%
10	5	100	5x 180% → 5x 362%	180% → 230%	5x 573%	3x 177%
11	2	40	5x 180% → 5x 367%	180% → 233%	5x 579%	3x 182%
12	2	45	5x 180% → 5x 372%	180% → 236%	5x 585%	3x 187%
13	2	50	5x 180% → 5x 377%	180% → 239%	5x 591%	3x 192%
14	2	55	5x 180% → 5x 382%	180% → 242%	5x 597%	3x 197%
15	2	60	5x 180% → 5x 387%	180% → 245%	5x 603%	3x 202%
16	2	65	5x 180% → 5x 392%	180% → 248%	5x 609%	3x 207%
17	2	70	5x 180% → 5x 397%	180% → 251%	5x 615%	3x 212%
18	2	75	5x 180% → 5x 402%	180% → 254%	5x 621%	3x 217%
19	3	80	5x 180% → 5x 407%	180% → 257%	5x 627%	3x 222%
20	8	175	5x 180% → 5x 412%	180% → 260%	5x 633%	3x 227%
21	3	85	5x 180% → 5x 417%	180% → 263%	5x 639%	3x 232%
22	3	90	5x 180% → 5x 422%	180% → 266%	5x 645%	3x 237%
23	3	95	5x 180% → 5x 427%	180% → 269%	5x 651%	3x 242%
24	3	100	5x 180% → 5x 432%	180% → 272%	5x 657%	3x 247%
25	3	105	5x 180% → 5x 437%	180% → 275%	5x 663%	3x 252%
26	3	110	5x 180% → 5x 442%	180% → 278%	5x 669%	3x 257%
27	3	115	5x 180% → 5x 447%	180% → 281%	5x 675%	3x 262%
28	3	120	5x 180% → 5x 452%	180% → 284%	5x 681%	3x 267%
29	4	125	5x 180% → 5x 457%	180% → 287%	5x 687%	3x 272%
30	10	250	5x 180% → 5x 462%	180% → 290%	5x 693%	3x 277%
Total	83	2252

*Remember, Raging Blow raises this further by 71%, so Aura Blade VI's damage should become 533% damage per line and Final Blade's 764%.

However, the new skill features that come with Aura Blade VI are its main appeal, and we'll discuss these in the next two chapters. But remember the notion to change traditional skill cooldowns into ammunition; this'll become a relevant through line for the next 6th Job blogpost as Aura Blade is not going to be our only skill to have received this rework.

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3.3.1 Final Blade

If it took more than one shot, then you weren't using a Jakobs...

As is tradition, Hero has an unusual obsession with alternate modes for skills. Historically, they've been hit or miss and more have been deleted than have stayed. This time it's Aura Blade's turn, but thankfully it's a pretty good one.

So, because Aura Blades can be stored, you can use the skill twice in a row. However, Aura Blade VI adds a gimmick: if you fire it again within two seconds after shooting the first, the second shot becomes a stronger one. This effect is called Final Blade, and as always it's treated as a separate skill entirely, but it does seem to be treated as Aura Blade so it does receive all of Aura Blade's external support (i.e. 5th Job Enhancement Cores, Raging Blow's passive effect).

What is interesting about Final Blade's attack delay is that there is virtually none. You can activate Final Blade after Aura Blade VI as fast as you can pull the trigger. This further helps its usage because you can have Final Blade out as quickly as you can use Raging Blow or Rage Uprising, meaning there's no penalty for using this skill as it's not slower to do so. This is also important because rapid firing counts twice for Furious Edge (→ chapter 3.3.2). Plus, while kiting I find myself often having free potshots, which further helps to mitigate the downtime when no damage is dealt.

Now, the only real difference between Aura and Final Blade is the damage output, or should I say damage calculation. Remember when I said that Aura Blade's Monster Damage is not as good as it ought to be? Oops, it appears I may have convinced Nexon because Final Blade addresses almost every single complaint - even to the point where Hunter Portals have been deleted in KMS entirely. Well, shit. I can't argue for Hunter Portals if they no longer exist...

That said, Final Blade's damage output is really good, in part due to the staggering Final Damage bonus from its 5th Job Enhancement Core. Final Blade also forgoes the Monster Damage, so it's all raw skill damage now. As I said in the previous chapter, AB6 has become a legitimate bossing skill alongside RU6 because the output is good enough. And because of that, I find myself rarely saving the second Aura Blade for later, though both styles have their uses.

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3.3.2 Furious Edge

Noticed those red scars appearing in a couple of GIFs so far? That's our new skill, Furious Edge.

Furious Edge is such a weird phenomenon. When reading the skill description, it gives the impression that it's top-tier: when directly attacking five times, it summons Furious Edge. It's like a passive mini Combo Instinct: for a short period of time, everything nearby is hit multiple times. You can even have up to five of these summoned at the same time! Whenever it activates, it's a lot of extra damage and generally speaking I'm happy with this addition to our toolkit.

However, devil is in the details and when talking about Furious Edge the following observation just can't be avoided: in practice, the skill is worse than the description would suggest. It's a reminder that we can only judge a new skill once we get our hands on it. Calibrate your enthusiasm with this one, as what would've been an incredible skill and an easy win for Nexon is dragged down by its many hidden (and obtuse) nuances that are only apparent once you examine it.

The culprit is the improper use of the term direct attack. The way the skill description uses it, is not what this means. We'll get to the nitty-gritty in a bit, but what the description should've mentioned is that only a select few skills count as a direct attacks for Furious Edge. In fact, the amount of skills that can activate Furious Edge is very limited, and this nuance is the reason why the skill activates far less than it should. Single or multiple targets makes no difference.

In practice, what constitutes as a direct attack in MapleStory is incredibly broad. Basically, if it's treated as a separate attack instance, for a lot of scenarios the game would treat it as a direct attack. If it can activate skills like Sol Janus and Panic, it's a direct attack. Most summons are not treated as such. Examples of what are (not) direct attacks:

Basically, any non-summon that's reflected by Damage Reflect, is a direct attack.
Skills such as Rage Uprising VI and Sword Illusion ("chase cuts") are treated as multiple direct attacks.
Damage over Time, caused by Incising or Rune of Destruction are not treated as direct attacks.
Rune of Giant is treated as a direct attack, but it cannot activate our other skills.
Final Attack is treated as a direct attack as it can activate a lot of other skills, including SOBS and Panic.
Sword of Burning Soul is treated as a direct attack and it can activate Sol Janus.
Soul Driver and Blitz Shield are shared skills with Paladin and Dark Knight, but are direct attacks.
Both Sol Janus and Aura Weapon are treated as direct attacks. They can activate other skills too.
Last but not least, basic attacks are treated as direct attacks.

So basically, what should happen is that Furious Edge should activate very often, as Raging Blow is considered by the game's own rules to attack several times as other skills like Final Attack VI, SOBS and Aura Weapon are used with it.

Now, what happens in practice is Furious Edge only occurs once every five Raging Blows. What's even worse is which skills are allowed to activate it, and those that are not. In example, Sword of Burning Soul, Soul Driver and Final Attack do not count, while Rage Uprising VI counts (up to) four times and Sword Illusion (up to) seventeen. There's also this arbitrary rule where Valhalla, Combo Instinct and Spirit Caliber will only count as half an activation*, but each rift from either Valhalla or Combo Instinct are thankfully treated as direct attacks, so with three rifts per attack it adds 1.5 each.

*Half activations are simply treated as 0.5 in the tally. The tally number is reset each time Furious Edge is summoned. Surplus half points are lost.

The limit of up to five Furious Edge summons might as well not exist, as in its current form you're never going to see this happen. They just disappear faster than you can summon them. Two are common, but above three is only with Sword Illusion or burst and even then it's a "blink and you'll miss it". Hero is just not fast enough to reach that limit.

Compatible with Furious Edge	Incompatible
Slash Blast	Attack (CTRL)	Event skills
Upper Charge	Three Snails
Leap Attack	Mikhail's Soul Driver	Mikhail's Soul
Brandish	Sengoku Secret Manual
Flash Slash	Aion of Creation
Brave Slash	Fury of Mars	Kurama's Claw
Rush	Yorozu's Wisdom	Ibaraki's Spirit
Aura Blade (VI)	Soul Weapons	Summon Familiars
Raging Blow (VI)	Rage (Reflect)
Incising (VI)	Incising (VI) (Damage over Time)
Rage Uprising (VI)	(Advanced) Final Attack (VI)
Valhalla (VI)	Blitz Shield
Combo Instinct	Aura Weapon
Combo Death Fault	Spider in Mirror	Crest of the Solar
Sword Illusion	Sword of Burning Soul	Furious Edge
Spirit Caliber	Erda Nova	Erda Shower
Final Blade	Sol Janus: Dusk	Sol Janus: Twilight

Pedantry aside, let's talk about the technical details of Furious Edge. See table above; not enough are compatible because only two skills on this list can be used in conjunction with Raging Blow. For all other compatible skills, only one of these can be used at any given time. Though because Valhalla, Combo Instinct, Rage Uprising and Sword Illusion are the fastest skills to activate Furious Edge, it's yet another reason why cooldown hats are so important.

Furious Edge cannot recharge Combo Orbs and it can't activate Final Attack. Furious Edge is not treated as an eligible direct attack, so it cannot summon itself. Ryude's Sword does not work. It can activate Sol Janus: Dusk, however.

Furious Edge receives its own skill icon in the top right corner. In fact, it receives two (but these appear identical):

The first skill icon is your tally; it keeps track of your eligible direct attacks and on the fifth it goes away.
The second skill icon is the amount of active Furious Edges on the field. You cannot exceed five at any given time, but this ceiling can be raised temporarily to ten while Combo Instinct is active.
Both are supported by the Buff Display expansion, but you cannot choose one or the other.

When Furious Edge is summoned, it is summoned at the current location of a target. It stays there for four seconds or until it has attacked four times, regardless of the target(s). Now, four attacks with three lines of 277% is great on paper, but remember that Furious Edge doesn't activate enough so its main appeal is to increase burst damage. Thankfully, a future update will make each Furious Edge stay around longer and it'll hit the same enemy more times.

Now, a common complaint I've seen regarding Furious Edge has to do with it being a stationary summon. Bosses tend to move around, so there will be times when they'll step away from Furious Edge, causing it to miss. This complaint is certainly valid, although it's not anything new. It's a common problem that's also found with SOBS, Valhalla, Swilo and Combo Instinct. But if anything, Furious Edge is among the least worst skills for this to happen because out of the five skills mentioned, it has the second lowest damage but it's also the most commonly seen. Besides, these skills matters the most during bursts, which are pretty much always done with binds, anyway. In practice, this is not really an issue.

This inherent flaw however can be advantageous at times, only limited by its short duration. Having a hitbox stuck on the field that can damage anything nearby is great. For whatever reason, each can attack up to eight enemies, which is ridiculous. Though its practical applications for grinding are limited. It's made worse by the fact that the future update turns Furious Edge into a single-target skill. In the grand scheme of things, both have a rather unremarkable impact on grinding because the skill is not allowed to last long on the field. If only these could last for more than four seconds...

I'd recommend to unlock Furious Edge after RB6 and Sol Janus, as it gives a huge damage boost*. Unfortunately, the damage increase per level is not all that great compared to our other options, so I can't recommend leveling it until you have maxed out the other Mastery Skills (and Sol Janus). Even if Furious Edge receives a solid 5% damage boost per level, the skill doesn't activate often enough to justify a higher priority and neither does it have the Enhancement Core support that the other Mastery Skills have. Until those are maxed, Level 1 Furious Edge is plenty and will do just fine.

*The recommendation is because Furious Edge is a three-in-one bundle. Once Silent Cleave is available, that becomes a higher priority unlock.

But what's perhaps the most fascinating aspect about Furious Edge are its future prospects... I believe it has changed the way Hero plays, how you interact with the game and that moving forward there'll be more emphasis on activating Furious Edge as part of Hero's new core gameplay. We see evidence of this with a few skills working extremely well with it, and I expect more skills will follow their example in future skill revamps and skill waves...

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3.4 Incising VI

Requires Enhancement Core (5th Job) for Incising to be at least Level 40 and equipped.

Because we only have four Mastery Skill slots, giving one to Incising is kind of a waste. However, it's clear that Nexon understands this, as they made sure to make it worthwhile. Incising VI is excellent for its boosts to Final Attack and Valhalla. After maxing out the Raging Blow duo and Sol Janus, Incising VI is easily the next best one to max out.

As mentioned in chapter 1.2, 6th Job skills are disabled at Urus. Once you learn Incising VI, Final Attack is turned off indefinitely for this fight*. In order to restore Final Attack, you must unequip enough levels of Incising's Enhancement Core until you reach below the Level 40 requirement. This also means that your Enhancement Core set-up matters!

*Remember, we're the only ones left with Urus. It's no longer supported by KMS since the Dreamer update, so anything released after its official discontinuation causes ridiculous oversights like these to happen. It's not the first time this has caused major issues, nor will this have been the last.

Incising VI			Changes stats of skill		Valhalla VI	Final Attack VI
Level	Sol Erda	Fragments	Skill Damage	Damage over time	Skill Damage	Skill Damage
1	3	50	4x 403% → 4x 437%	168% → 179%	2x 520% → 2x 575%	3x 172% → 3x 179%
2	1	15	4x 403% → 4x 444%	168% → 182%	2x 520% → 2x 590%	3x 172% → 3x 182%
3	1	18	4x 403% → 4x 451%	168% → 185%	2x 520% → 2x 605%	3x 172% → 3x 185%
4	1	20	4x 403% → 4x 458%	168% → 188%	2x 520% → 2x 620%	3x 172% → 3x 188%
5	1	23	4x 403% → 4x 465%	168% → 191%	2x 520% → 2x 635%	3x 172% → 3x 191%
6	1	25	4x 403% → 4x 472%	168% → 194%	2x 520% → 2x 650%	3x 172% → 3x 194%
7	1	28	4x 403% → 4x 479%	168% → 197%	2x 520% → 2x 665%	3x 172% → 3x 197%
8	2	30	4x 403% → 4x 486%	168% → 200%	2x 520% → 2x 680%	3x 172% → 3x 200%
9	2	33	4x 403% → 4x 493%	168% → 203%	2x 520% → 2x 695%	3x 172% → 3x 203%
10	5	100	4x 403% → 4x 500%	168% → 206%	2x 520% → 2x 710%	3x 172% → 3x 206%
11	2	40	4x 403% → 4x 507%	168% → 209%	2x 520% → 2x 725%	3x 172% → 3x 209%
12	2	45	4x 403% → 4x 514%	168% → 212%	2x 520% → 2x 740%	3x 172% → 3x 212%
13	2	50	4x 403% → 4x 521%	168% → 215%	2x 520% → 2x 755%	3x 172% → 3x 215%
14	2	55	4x 403% → 4x 528%	168% → 218%	2x 520% → 2x 770%	3x 172% → 3x 218%
15	2	60	4x 403% → 4x 535%	168% → 221%	2x 520% → 2x 785%	3x 172% → 3x 221%
16	2	65	4x 403% → 4x 542%	168% → 224%	2x 520% → 2x 800%	3x 172% → 3x 224%
17	2	70	4x 403% → 4x 549%	168% → 227%	2x 520% → 2x 815%	3x 172% → 3x 227%
18	2	75	4x 403% → 4x 556%	168% → 230%	2x 520% → 2x 830%	3x 172% → 3x 230%
19	3	80	4x 403% → 4x 563%	168% → 233%	2x 520% → 2x 845%	3x 172% → 3x 233%
20	8	175	4x 403% → 4x 570%	168% → 236%	2x 520% → 2x 860%	3x 172% → 3x 236%
21	3	85	4x 403% → 4x 577%	168% → 239%	2x 520% → 2x 875%	3x 172% → 3x 239%
22	3	90	4x 403% → 4x 584%	168% → 242%	2x 520% → 2x 890%	3x 172% → 3x 242%
23	3	95	4x 403% → 4x 591%	168% → 245%	2x 520% → 2x 905%	3x 172% → 3x 245%
24	3	100	4x 403% → 4x 598%	168% → 248%	2x 520% → 2x 920%	3x 172% → 3x 248%
25	3	105	4x 403% → 4x 605%	168% → 251%	2x 520% → 2x 935%	3x 172% → 3x 251%
26	3	110	4x 403% → 4x 612%	168% → 254%	2x 520% → 2x 950%	3x 172% → 3x 254%
27	3	115	4x 403% → 4x 619%	168% → 257%	2x 520% → 2x 965%	3x 172% → 3x 257%
28	3	120	4x 403% → 4x 626%	168% → 260%	2x 520% → 2x 980%	3x 172% → 3x 260%
29	4	125	4x 403% → 4x 633%	168% → 263%	2x 520% → 2x 995%	3x 172% → 3x 263%
30	10	250	4x 403% → 4x 640%	168% → 266%	2x 520% → 2x 1010%	3x 172% → 3x 266%
Total	83	2252

As for Incising VI itself, it's alright. The skill's less clunky than its Destiny counterpart, so there's that I guess? Its hitbox is unfortunately not as large as I would've liked. There's also a missed opportunity to increase its debuff duration or its bonus damage effect. The damage over time is pretty much irrelevant until they decide to make it a few thousand %.

Remember, like with Aura Blade VI, the amount of enemies that Incising VI can hit remains unchanged. So while it does have a slightly larger hitbox, in practice it's not as effective as it could've been. It's a shame that not much is done with Incising, even though the Mastery Skill is called Incising VI. Though its other skill effects are pretty good...

3.4.1 Valhalla VI

Valhalla VI pushes Valhalla's damage into absurd amounts. At max level, the damage per line is almost doubled and this is on top of the 5th Job Enhancement Core boost. Even with the hard limit of 12 attacks every two minutes, these attacks dealing three sets of two 1010% lines on a 2.2 multiplier is ridiculous. It's easily one of the strongest skills in the game, and for how much I lament its limited activations; 6th Job at least makes them count.

That's also everything to it. There are no changes to the buff duration, cooldown, effects or the amount of activations. It would've been nice to see more, but the outstanding damage increase and Final Attack VI more than makes up for it. That and Valhalla also has good synergy with Furious Edge, which further improves both skill's effectiveness.

What's important to mention were Valhalla's performance issues introduced with the Destiny revamp. Can confirm this problem is resolved as of the NEXT update. What's really interesting though is what seemingly caused it to happen: it was the GMS encryption, which is notoriously known to be the worst one out of all MapleStory encryptions.

Encryptions are related to the handling of code. In particular, the server heartbeat. Handling of things like pet loot and quest tracking. Explaining how it works is way out of scope but it's apparent that they've modified the encryption with the NEXT update so that the new UI could work. Evidence for this are the faster updating of the quest tracker and it's safe to assume fixing Valhalla's performance was a byproduct of this modification, rather than the intended bugfix.

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3.4.2 Final Attack VI

Final Attack has come a long way. It's the first time in nine years (5th Job's Enhancement Cores in 2016) that the skill has seen a major damage boost, even longer for a new mastery as Advanced Final Attack came out during the Jump update back in 2011. Final Attack VI (FA6) is the fabled "Expert Final Attack" that I've wanted to see for over a decade.

As with other Mastery Skills, Final Attack's damage is drastically increased. It's by far the second highest output boost for our skills by virtue of FA6 having a near guaranteed activation off so many skills. Even better is that we now have more than just Sword Illusion to activate multiple Final Attacks off a single skill; look no further than Rage Uprising VI.

The difference that Final Attack VI makes is significant. Before this Mastery Skill existed, AFA's damage contribution was rather small because Raging Blow VI and 5th Job dealt so much damage. But to my surprise, 5th Job fell behind once the third skill wave arrived as Final Attack VI adds way more damage than any of our 5th Job Enhancements or Furious Edge, because Final Attack VI's frequent activations makes up for its relative low line count and skill damage.

Unfortunately, Nexon did not take the opportunity to further increase Final Attack's activation chance or line count. Regardless, Final Attack has made a full comeback and the damage output alone makes it our third most important Mastery Skill. It's the most significant part about the Incising VI package, more so than either Incising VI or Valhalla VI.

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4. Enhancement Skills

Each Enhancement Skill requires their related 5th Job skills to be at least Level 25 and equipped.

Enhancement Skills are in a tough spot. Not only are these quite expensive, they don't add crazy effects to any of our 5th Job skills nor additional stats like the 5th Job's Enhancement Cores do. It's only Final Damage for only four skills.

Enhancement Skill			Raises Final Damage of skill
Level	Sol Erda	Fragments	Add	Total
1	4	75	11%	11%
2	1	23	1%	12%
3	1	27	1%	13%
4	1	30	1%	14%
5	2	34	1%	15%
6	2	38	1%	16%
7	2	42	1%	17%
8	3	45	1%	18%
9	3	49	1%	19%
10	8	150	6%	25%
11	3	60	1%	26%
12	3	68	1%	27%
13	3	75	1%	28%
14	3	83	1%	29%
15	3	90	1%	30%
16	3	98	1%	31%
17	3	105	1%	32%
18	3	113	1%	33%
19	4	120	1%	34%
20	12	263	6%	40%
21	4	128	1%	41%
22	4	135	1%	42%
23	4	143	1%	43%
24	4	150	1%	44%
25	4	158	1%	45%
26	5	165	1%	46%
27	5	173	1%	47%
28	5	180	1%	48%
29	6	188	1%	49%
30	15	375	11%	60%
Total	123	3383

It's worth pointing out, that unlike our Origin and Mastery Skills, Enhancement Skills do see an appropriate higher stat yield for the more expensive levels. As explained earlier, skills like Spirit Caliber and Raging Blow VI see a consistent increase, despite that we can see that certain levels are considerably more expensive. Be mindful of cost efficiency!

Enhancement Skills are only for Sword of Burning Soul, Combo Instinct, Combo Death Fault and Sword Illusion. The first two picks are perfect, the latter not so much. We have plenty of other 5th Job skills that needed the enhancement more than CDF/Swilo: Blitz Shield, Erda Shower, Body of Steel, Aura Weapon and SIM/COTS come to mind - though I understand that 6th Job's Enhancements Skills are only meant for class exclusive 5th Job skills, and not shared ones.

Interestingly, we do see a handful of Enhancement Skills on other classes receive additional effects. Though these are exceptions; Hero is not among the lucky few. Personally I would've preferred to see Sword of Burning Soul's duration be increased, though not long after starting writing this, there'll be a duration increase for stationary SOBS soon. While Raging Blow VI does increase the hitbox for SOBS and Combo Instinct, because it was not part of the Enhancement Skill package, it means that Combo Death Fault and Sword Illusion get nothing extra from 6th Job (at the moment).

As it stands, Enhancement Skills are the second lowest priority as investing in almost anything else is simply better. Out of the four, Combo Instinct is clearly the best one because its Final Damage applies on every separate attack, and CI occurs as many times as you can use RB. SOBS is good, but you must understand its once-per-second activation rate greatly diminishes its effectiveness. This is especially true with the upcoming skill change reducing SOBS' burst mode to only 20 seconds. You'd spend 3383 fragments for only twenty SOBS activations every two minutes!

People like to make fun of Combo Death Fault's Enhancement Skill being useless, but dare I say Sword Illusion does not fare better. Even ignoring Sword Illusion's shortcomings, I can't justify spending 3383 Fragments on either skill. I'm going out on a limb by saying to never touch these, not even Level 1. They are not required by the game. As long as you don't have six SSS-Rank Union Champions capable of soloing Champion Mode Kalos*, they're not worth it. Heck, even if I did, I'd much rather sell the Fragments and convert the Sol Erda into HEXA Boosters for Level 290+ because people forget the daily meso cap is per character, not account. I fail to see why you'd ever want to level these two.

*Reminder that Union Champions provide stats, therefor wasting resources on CDF/Swilo's Enhancement Skills is at the cost of better stats.

I understand that not many would agree with me in not investing anything in Combo Death Fault and Sword Illusion's Enhancement Skills. But to those I'm genuinely curious: you really think they're really going to do anything? And if it somehow does, do you really think it's worth the 6766 Fragments? Remember, this is CDF/Swilo we're talking about.

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5. Common Skills

Currently, we only have one Common Skill: Sol Janus. This is quite possibly one of the best skills in the game, if not a contender to be number one. Sol Janus is a masterclass in skill design and one that's so ridiculous it warrants the title of being 6th Job's most expensive skill*. You pay a premium, but you also receive a premium skill worthy of that price.

*For comparison: for Level 30 Sol Janus, you could've almost bought max Raging Blow VI, Rage Uprising VI and Aura Blade VI for the same cost.

5.1 Sol Janus

What defines a masterclass in skill design? Is it a skill that trivializes the game's difficulty so much that it immediately becomes best-in-slot? Is it a skill that tackles a fundamental problem of the game in a new and exciting way? Is it the innovation or creativity that a skill brings to the table, or the logical evolution that moves the game forward? Or is it the unexpected - a delightful surprise where you receive something far better than you could've imagined?

Truth is, a masterclass in skill design is not so different from a masterclass in writing. It is one thing to write a dialogue between two characters. It's a good dialogue if it gives us insight(s) about the characters. It's even better if it's integral to the story, possibly advancing it and setting up one or multiple payoffs for later. But the moment you are also able to add subtext and challenge the reader to engage with the medium, you end up with something special. This degree of layering requires many rewrites and a dedication to the craft; Sol Janus may as well be considered as such. Deem it adjacent to art: Sol Janus is dense enough to be the answer to all the questions asked in the previous paragraph.

Sol Janus is skill with two modes: Dusk and Twilight. You can only have one of either active at a time, and both have their strengths and weaknesses. You'll receive two skills that can be assigned to the keyboard: one toggles between Dusk and Twilight (this has a three second cooldown), the other skill is for using whichever mode is selected. You are allowed to run all three with Skill Alarms, and the two modes are compatible with the expanded Buff Display features.

Sol Janus			Sol Janus: Dusk		Sol Janus: Twilight			Passive
Level	Sol Erda	Fragments	Activations	Skill Damage	Summons	Duration	Skill Damage	EXP
1	7	125	9	6 x 600%	Max 1	60 seconds	6 x 400%	10%
2	2	38	9	6 x 615%	Max 1	60 seconds	6 x 410%	12%
3	2	44	9	6 x 630%	Max 1	60 seconds	6 x 420%	14%
4	2	50	9	6 x 645%	Max 1	60 seconds	6 x 430%	16%
5	3	57	9	6 x 660%	Max 1	60 seconds	6 x 440%	18%
6	3	63	9	6 x 675%	Max 1	60 seconds	6 x 450%	20%
7	3	69	9	6 x 690%	Max 1	60 seconds	6 x 460%	22%
8	5	75	9	6 x 705%	Max 1	60 seconds	6 x 470%	24%
9	5	82	9	6 x 720%	Max 1	60 seconds	6 x 480%	26%
10	14	300	9	6 x 735%	Max 2	70 seconds	6 x 490%	37%
11	5	110	9	6 x 750%	Max 2	70 seconds	6 x 500%	39%
12	5	124	9	6 x 765%	Max 2	70 seconds	6 x 510%	41%
13	6	138	9	6 x 780%	Max 2	70 seconds	6 x 520%	43%
14	6	152	9	6 x 795%	Max 2	70 seconds	6 x 530%	45%
15	6	165	10	6 x 810%	Max 2	70 seconds	6 x 540%	47%
16	6	179	10	6 x 825%	Max 2	70 seconds	6 x 550%	49%
17	6	193	10	6 x 840%	Max 2	70 seconds	6 x 560%	51%
18	6	207	10	6 x 855%	Max 2	70 seconds	6 x 570%	53%
19	7	220	10	6 x 870%	Max 2	70 seconds	6 x 580%	55%
20	17	525	10	6 x 885%	Max 3	80 seconds	6 x 590%	67%
21	7	234	10	6 x 900%	Max 3	80 seconds	6 x 600%	69%
22	7	248	10	6 x 915%	Max 3	80 seconds	6 x 610%	71%
23	7	262	10	6 x 930%	Max 3	80 seconds	6 x 620%	73%
24	7	275	10	6 x 945%	Max 3	80 seconds	6 x 630%	75%
25	7	289	10	6 x 960%	Max 3	80 seconds	6 x 640%	77%
26	9	303	10	6 x 975%	Max 3	80 seconds	6 x 650%	79%
27	9	317	10	6 x 990%	Max 3	80 seconds	6 x 660%	81%
28	9	330	10	6 x 1005%	Max 3	80 seconds	6 x 670%	83%
29	10	344	10	6 x 1020%	Max 3	80 seconds	6 x 680%	85%
30	20	750	11	6 x 1035%	Max 3	120 seconds	6 x 690%	100%
Total	208	6268

Understandably, this table contains an overwhelming amount of information but we'll look at the finer details in the next three chapters. But what are important are four specific levels when upgrading Sol Janus. Dusk receives an additional activation at Level 15 and 30, while Twilight receives an additional summon at Level 10 and 20. Furthermore, Twilight's duration increases every 10 levels, with the most significant increase for its duration (40 seconds) at Level 30.

I almost forgot to include this, but at Level 30 you'll also receive a 30% Monster Damage bonus on both. Pretty much a nothingburger of a bonus with how insignificant Monster Damage is when you're 6th Job... But it's something, I guess.

Some additional remarks that apply to all modes of Sol Janus. Their duration, cooldown and line count are static; they cannot be improved any further. Increasing the amount of monsters only applies to Twilight, because Dusk is a single-target skill. Ryude's Sword has no effect and both cannot activate Final Attack or Furious Edge (→ chapter 3.3.2). As is common for all skills, both become disabled while using mounts, but Dusk (and COTS) can be used with Proto-suit.

It is said that Sol Janus cannot be used in boss maps*, but this is not entirely true as there are exceptions. Sol Janus can be used at the Shaolin Monk, The Boss and Kaede Castle daily bosses. Furthermore, Sol Janus can be used in any of Epic Dungeon's non-boss maps, which is especially useful with Angler Company's abundance of mini-bosses. But most notably: Sol Janus can be used at Inferno Wolf and against Monster Park Extreme's Bigfoot, where it shreds.

*This includes the pre-boss maps (i.e. Hilla, Gollux and Root Abyss). When Sol Janus is banned in a map, the quick slot icons are grayed out.

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5.1.1 Sol Janus: Dusk

I guess we're playing Gunvolt now. Just tag anything and the game plays itself. We've gone full circle!

Sol Janus: Dusk is an exceptionally powerful skill, and I'd argue it is the stronger of the two modes available. It bears a striking resemblance to Rune of Thunder, but it's even better. After engaging combat*, Sol Janus automatically fires a volley of attacks, targeting random enemies within range. This effect is continuous, and it's what makes the skill great. Because Sol Janus: Dusk is a passive skill effect, the only way to turn it off is to switch to Sol Janus: Twilight.

*It's the usual, you know the drill. Pretty much everything other than the skills from the Beginner tab will suffice. Things like familiars, Secret Manual, Kurama's Claw, Soul Driver and Rage's Reflect cannot activate Dusk. Runes and events cannot either, but High Mountain's Mitra Skills can!

Sol Janus: Dusk is designed to solve the discrepancies between classes by simply giving every class such a strong map-clearing effect, that no class really stands out anymore. The advantage that comes with Dusk is that it greatly reduces the time required for completing daily quests. These quests provide you with more Sol Erda and Fragments, which in turn can be spent to upgrade Sol Janus even further. Beyond that, Dusk has a profound effect on the game as its map-clearing effect is useful anywhere it's allowed to be used. So much so, unlocking this skill is a priority.

When I examined the Destiny revamp last year, I noted that the revamp as a whole didn't contribute much in improving Hero's mobility. Monster Park and Maple Tour runs did not become shorter, which was in part due to some of the poor decisions made in revising Hero's toolkit even though Nexon aimed to improve it. With Sol Janus: Dusk, the average run for Park and Tour have become 10 seconds shorter, which is a significant difference. Proof is in the pudding.

But how exactly does Sol Janus: Dusk work? Dusk is a three second buff, and all the magic happens there. When it activates, it searches enemies in range and fires high-damage single-target attacks*. How many times Dusk is able to attack depends on its skill level. It starts with 9 attacks, becomes 10 at Level 15 and at Level 30 you'll have 11 of them. However, in case there are less enemies in range, it can focus multiple attacks on the same target (i.e. Inferno Wolf gets destroyed by Dusk) and if there are no enemies left, Sol Janus: Dusk will hold onto them for the remainder of the skill's duration. This is an important nuance and why the skill is designed as a buff; it ensures that the skill is ran as optimal as possible. Though with its short duration, you aren't going to see withheld attacks be fired later very often.

*The damage on these attacks are among the highest in the game. If your main attacks can't one shot just yet, it's likely that Sol Janus: Dusk will. This is such a help when you've just unlocked the next continent and the monster HP are a bit too high. Also, single-target attacks. Enrage.

It goes without saying, but because Sol Janus: Dusk is treated as a single-target skill, you cannot increase the amount of monsters it can hit. It'll always be between 9 and 11 enemies, depending on its skill level. And remember: no Ryude.

Because Sol Janus: Dusk is a buff, you can activate it and take it with you to another map. However, as per the rules of the game, entering a portal keeps your state of engaged in combat (i.e. can't Change Channel) but summons and skills like Dusk will not do anything (even if the buff is active) until you start a new attack in the current map.

Sol Janus: Dusk is not treated as a summon like Spider in Mirror or Crest of the Solar. In fact, the attacks are treated like any other normal skill. It can activate several skills including SOBS, apply debuffs and recharge Soul Weapons. It is able to charge Combo Orbs and any kills by Dusk contribute towards Erda Fountain. In that regard, Dusk has more things in common (mechanically) with Night Lord's Mark of Assassin than it does with its own likeness Spider in Mirror.

Speaking of Erda Fountain: back when I discussed it during the Destiny blogpost, I stated that you should never use Erda Fountain over Erda Shower because it's simply too slow. I've also mentioned that the moment Fountain would be better, the state of the game would be drastically different. With Sol Janus, that is the case because it easily doubles the amount of enemies killed. Dusk is an effective pair with Fountain because it trivializes its activation requirements*, making it a viable option after unlocking 6th Job. If anything, that just speaks volume of Dusk's impact on the game.

*So much so, it's common to reach the activation requirements twice. As explained in the Destiny blogpost, when this happens the skill will correctly be activated twice in a row, but as you know there's always the hard one second cooldown (by design) between these attacks.

What about Sol Janus: Dusk's range? Turns out, pretty much any monster in view can be hit. That's the main reason why this skill is so great. Remember when I complained that Hero's new toolkit leaves us unable to clear all platforms? This is no longer much of an issue as long as the remaining monsters are in range. It's not the prettiest solution, but because Sol Janus: Dusk brute forces its way through, it kinda makes up for the shortcomings in the latest series of lackluster class revamps. However, this inevitably means Dusk becomes a crutch for lousy class revamps, and I'm not sure if that's the right approach to this. A good example of this, is how Aura Blade became better because of Dusk.

Now, let's discuss the unspoken learning curve that comes with Sol Janus: Dusk. At face value, when Dusk activates, it seemingly attacks monsters at random. Some claim the game is programmed to give priority to the oldest monsters in a map first, but in practice this theory falls apart under scrutiny. Regardless, it's a fool's errand trying to control its randomness. What is a far better approach is to work with its random nature, by reducing the variables. You may not be able to tell Sol Janus what to do, but you can control which enemies you leave for Sol Janus to pick off. There's no better way to learn this when trying to clear Monster Park (as Hero) under 50 seconds. It simply cannot be achieved without a plan that utilizes Sol Janus: Dusk to the fullest extent. You'll have to rewire your brain a bit to get there.

In terms of raw numbers, I've ran some tests with Sol Janus: Dusk to see how far I'm able to push Hero's kill rate. My current map of choice as a Level 288 is Sunken Ruins 4, and together with a Chains of Resentment and VIP Boosters I was able to clear 27.000 monsters in half an hour. Tracking was done through the Champion Burning event. Granted, this was back in January before the third skill wave and the permanent uptime of SOBS. At the time of testing I could not one shot and I did not skip the Hunter Portals. Due to Dusk's single-target attacks, 9999 Combo EXP is achieved in about 42 minutes. This wouldn't be as fast with Sol Janus: Twilight, but we'll discuss why that is in the next chapter.

The last bit I want to discuss about Dusk is its cooldown. On paper, its cooldown is equal to its duration: 3 seconds. In practice, it's actual cooldown is only two seconds because the skill itself takes one second to perform. Funnily enough, because of Dusk's short cooldown you're able to grind AFK. Normally the game would disable skills like Crest of the Solar after a while but Sol Janus: Dusk is treated as engaging in combat*. So Dusk reactivates COTS, which itself can activate Sol Janus again in an infinite loop until COTS expires. This phenomenon is also true for SOBS and Fountain.

*This proves that Sol Janus: Dusk is programmed in such a way that, if its cooldown would've been removed or if it's attack pattern could last longer than its cooldown, the skill could reactivate itself indefinitely and the only thing that could stop you would be the rune curse or GM. Every activation of Sol Janus: Dusk costs 1% HP, but Self Recovery completely circumvents that plus any anti-AFK monster as Dusk would clear these out as well.

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5.1.2 Sol Janus: Twilight

If Sol Janus: Dusk is best compared to Rune of Thunder, Sol Janus: Twilight's closest comparison is Erda Fountain. While not as good as Dusk, Twilight has its own clear strengths and scenarios where it's better than Dusk. The only reason why it's not as good as Dusk is because there are some really dumb things about Twilight that holds it back.

On paper, Sol Janus: Twilight sounds fantastic. It's everything Erda Fountain, but better. You can summon up to three and place them almost wherever you like, and these will attack automatically like stationary SOBS. Even better, you can install these mid-air to further increase its potential map coverage. That said, that's where all the positives end.

The skill gets worse the closer you examine it. First, the hitbox. It's another one of those cases where the skill's hitbox is smaller than the skill's appearance. And while you can summon up to three, you cannot summon these too close or too far away from each other. You'll always have to summon them around the same vicinity, which limits its usefulness. Even worse, each summon can only attack up to 10 enemies, which even if boosted is far too few for its hitbox size.

Second, the attack intervals. There's this unspoken rule that people don't read descriptions, and Sol Janus: Twilight is a living example that confirms this statement. Somehow, someone at Nexon thought it was a great idea for Twilight's attack intervals to become slower with the more Twilights you summon. This means that having Twilight unlocked early on (with only one summon) does not represent its performance on later levels once you are allowed to summon more.

Now, how bad is it? Not atrocious, but the difference is significant. It's enough for Sol Janus: Dusk to potentially beat it. You see, Twilight starts with an inherent attack interval of once per second. With two summons out, the skill becomes half a second slower. At three, all summons attack only once every two seconds. Two seconds might not sound much, but in the current landscape that's three, if not four Raging Blow VI casts. This then leads to the inevitable paradox of demanding larger maps so that you can dedicate a section of the map to justify Sol Janus: Twilight's usage. However, as explored previously with things like loading zones and MSD you end up with a worse grinding performance than if you would've picked an extremely dense map with Dusk that doesn't waste a lot of time on traversing the map itself.

If you aren't using RB6 twice a second for an average of at least thirty monsters, you aren't grinding fast enough.

Third, Sol Janus: Twilight's damage is not as high as it should be. Ideally, a skill like Sol Janus should be higher than, let's say, Raging Blow VI. This ensures one shots across the board with all key skills. Dusk's damage is indeed higher than RB6 even with all the additional modifiers from 5th Job and Hyper Skills. Twilight's damage however, is lower. If you can't one shot with Twilight, you'll need more funding - and everyone knows that's easier said than done.

Fourth: the damn tedious summoning method. Nothing kills a grind more than downtime. The last thing you want when grinding is not to accrue more kills. The worst part about having three summons is that you can't replace or switch out each summon individually. Once you have three out, reusing the skill resets it back to summoning your first one, and you'll have to summon the others again manually. You have to actively spend time traversing the map to use this skill; time spent on not grinding. Why bother, if you can grind without downtime with Sol Janus: Dusk? Sounds inefficient to me. This is why I keep saying that skills with two modes always ends up competing with each other; Twilight requires a lot of effort and the payoff is nowhere as close as Dusk's. Even worse: you have to do this every two minutes*. Unless you're maining one of the scant few classes with a teleporter, you gotta spend time walking. I also probably don't have to point out the following, but as is common for all stationary summons: they are lost when leaving the map or dying.

*Jokes on you if you are one of those that leaves Sol Janus at Level 20 while preferring to use Twilight. Not that you'd read this blog, anyway. Heh.

It's also important to mention that when resetting Sol Janus: Twilight, each subsequent installation resets the state of all other Twilights. This completely screws over Sol Janus: Twilight because if you're going to install three of these, the skill won't do anything until two seconds after installing the third one. You see, as explained in point two, Twilight can only attack at set intervals. Resetting the state of all other Twilights also means resetting their shared intervals. When you summon a single Twilight, it can only attack once per second so you must wait one second before it starts doing anything. If you were to summon the second before this interval has occurred, both summons will immediately go on the one-and-a-half-second cooldown even if the first Twilight hasn't done anything yet. All three goes on a two second cooldown the moment you install the third one. You are punished for installing them too fast, but being too slow comes at the cost of EXP. Having all summons share the same attack intervals is a dumb decision and the worst part about it is that this was an update to the original Sol Janus: Twilight, which had individual attack intervals for each summon!

Fifth: unlike Dusk, Twilight follows the same anti-AFK rules found in skills such as Spider in Mirror. The skill won't do anything unless you are constantly engaged in combat. This is especially counterproductive when you have to refresh the summons. If you don't attack in-between summoning new ones, the ones already on the field will stop attacking. To avoid this, you must use stationary SOBS and/or Erda Fountain, or move around by Upper Charge/Flash Slash/Rush. By the way, not that Hero has a problem with the following thanks to Self Recovery, but each summon costs 10% HP. If only Union Artifact carried over the passive HP recovery effects from Monster Life when the artifacts superseded it...

Sixth, a problem that's shared with Erda Fountain is that once you place Sol Janus: Twilight, there's no way to resolve misplacement of these summons. Because Twilight runs a small hitbox, there are instances where the room for error is small. In long grinding sessions, mistakes will happen and when they do, you're out of luck. Twilight is stuck in that position until you can reuse it again after a minute, which is awful. SOBS at least has the decency of allowing you to move it around, which is a feature that should come standard with all stationary summons. It's in moments like these where I lament Nexon for not implementing the mouse more often. Imagine clicking and dragging summons around.

Now, what actually are the scenarios where Sol Janus: Twilight is better than Sol Janus: Dusk? From all the rigorous testing that I've done, there is only really one place where it manages to barely stand out. It's the one place I'm unable to convince enough people to give a damn about: the final Cache of Greed, as seen in the GIFs of this chapter. There, consistency is king. The custom respawn timer and map layout aligns perfectly with Twilight's ideal use-case scenario. Though the only reason why it's better is because SOBS and Erda Fountain can pick off the few monsters that Twilight leaves behind. You can clear the map all the same with Dusk before monsters respawn, but in that comparison lies the true strength of Twilight: laziness. For better or worse, it requires less effort. Until you have to reset the summons. And then you still end up with worse results. Thus, Twilight is truly Erda Fountain's successor: lackluster and outclassed.

But aside from the Cache of Greed, I've noticed that Sol Janus: Twilight excels in the rare case scenario where kill rate consistency is preferred above all else. In particular, when using VIP/HEXA Boosters, defeating their special monsters is your priority as they provide much greater EXP. Furthermore, these monsters run on a separate respawn timer and their spawn locations are always the same, which allows you to get the most out of Sol Janus: Twilight. However, while this might sound great on paper, it's somewhat of a paradox. You see, you'd have to play maps that are small enough to have three summons cover the entire field. Not only are these extremely rare (i.e. Sunken Ruins 4), you'll also run against the problem that not every good map is equally good with boosters. Optimizing booster EXP is a can of worms by itself, but it requires the highest level monsters available and a map that has the most special monster spawns. No matter how you slice it, you'd have to sacrifice one thing or the other, but the consistency of Twilight is nice at times.

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5.1.3 100% Bonus EXP

Perhaps an unusual subject to dedicate a chapter for, but it's important. While it's true that Sol Janus provides a huge 100% permanent EXP boost at Level 30, not many understand how this works. In fact, this effect is not as strong as you'd expect. You see, Sol Janus does not truly double your EXP, it only adds a 100% of the base EXP. If something gives one million EXP, you'll get one extra million for free. But what happens if we add many more EXP multipliers?

The stacking of EXP multipliers and how effective they are, are decided by groupings. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to focus on the most common sources and leave out the esoteric ones (i.e. Eluna, Ring of Torment, Fishing set).

Group 1: Base EXP: "You received EXP"
Group 2: "Equip Item Bonus EXP": equipment items such as Pendant of Spirit.
Group 3: "Bonus EXP": progression-related sources (i.e. passive skills, Hyper Stats, Union and events).
Group 4: "Buff Bonus EXP": runes, active skills and use items (incl. 50% MVP) except for EXP coupons.
Group 5: "Burning Field Bonus EXP": well, what else could this be?
Group 6: "Accumulated Hunt Bonus EXP": EXP coupons, only the highest will apply.

Groups 2~4 are additive, and because of Sol Janus we should mainly focus at Group 3. To get a better understanding of the example case I'm about to discuss, let's take a look at all the multipliers I had. I left out the 50% coupons from weekly bosses because this was a quick test. You'll understand how it would've worked after reading this, anyway.

Group 1: Priest of the Source, which has a base EXP of 5118587.
Group 2: For this test, I had no Pendant of Spirit available as you don't have them all-year round.
Group 3: Level 3 Mercedes Link (20%), SSS-Rank Zero (12%), Hyper Stat (10%), Union grid (10%), Union Artifact (12%), Level 30 Sol Janus (100%), Event (15%). Total: 179%.
Group 4: Extreme Gold Potion (10%), Decent Holy Symbol (35%) and a Rune (100%). Total: 145%.
Group 5: Level 10 Burning Fields are everywhere because... EMS. Total: 100%.
Group 6: Union Buff (or any 2x EXP coupon) as they're always available. Total: 100%.

With all of these sources known, we can confirm the in-game numbers and verify if they're correct. Let's see, shall we?

In-game screenshot for good measure; no smoke and mirrors. Looking at the results, the (expected) math checks out.

Group 1: 5118587
Group 2: N/A
Group 3: 9162271 (5118587 * 1.79 = 9162270.73)
Group 4: 7421951 (5118587 * 1.45 = 7421951.15)
Group 5: 5118587
Group 6: 5118587
Total EXP: 31939983

Here we can see the tangible proportion that Sol Janus gives. The base EXP of Priest of the Source is 5118587, and Sol Janus at Level 30 just provides exactly that. Another five million. Without it, Group 3 would've been 4043684 EXP. As Group 3 is additive, you can see that Sol Janus contributes a huge chunk. However, in the grand scheme of things, it's only five out of a near-32-million-total. Though it's certainly not insignificant as this is per monster. It definitely adds up over time, but as you can tell the 100% Bonus EXP from Sol Janus is not as grand as it might've implied otherwise.

Unfortunately, this is just the way the EXP calculation works. Long gone are the days of Premium Mini Dungeon's EXP rates where you see an outrageous 32x multiplier*. In the example above, the sources contribute towards a multiplier of 6.24x (total of 524%). That's nowhere near what it used to be. But with Level 290 being the most important objective and the inevitable long grinding sessions, there's a case to be made that Sol Janus has a return on investment due to the Grander Symbols stats and the skill bolstering your grinding prowess to find more Sol Erda (Fragments).

*You can blame Inkwell for not only co-creating such an aggressive monetization, but to also turn it into the heavily kneecapped system it is today.

Of course, a higher EXP multiplier is simply always better. In particular, the boost that Sol Janus provides has become really interesting when VIP/HEXA Boosters or Hunter Portals* are involved, seeing as these come with a tremendous base EXP per monster. Even better when event perks boosts this further. Remember: HEXA Boosters are unlimited.

*Sol Janus' bonus EXP is available during Especia's Totem Slash, which is one of the best places where this passive effect truly shines.

Now, here's an even more interesting question: how much does Sol Janus make a difference, assuming you do dailies without much additional grinding? While Monster Park Extreme is now weekly content, back when it was still daily I've kept track of the overall contribution in preparation for this blogpost. Basically, the rule of thumb: MPE, the Daily Quest EXP and the 3000 kills to get there are at a 2/2/1 ratio. If MPE gave 0.4%, quests yield 0.4% and the remaining 0.2% were monsters. Before Sol Janus, this was about 50/50, rather than 40/60. Admittedly, that's not a huge difference. However, without Sol Janus boosting my EXP I wouldn't have been Level 288. Furthermore, the change from daily MPE to weekly has reduced its EXP. In its place, we got HEXA boosters, which works better with Sol Janus anyway.

So, while the 100% Bonus EXP is a rather nuanced topic and doesn't provide as great of a result as I'd hope to see, I'm still an advocate for giving Sol Janus the highest priority as the first 6th Job skill to max out. Due to symbols, Hyper Stats and Union, levels are the most valuable resource. With how long it takes to unlock the later symbols and the inherent level requirements for Destiny weapon (i.e. Baldrix), you're going to need all the EXP modifiers you can get.

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6. Hexa Stats

I originally dismissed Hexa Stats during the early days of 6th Job. But as Fragments became tradeable and affordable in bulk, I got a better understanding of its place once I coached players to Genesis in the months leading to NEXT.

You see, when you progress in regular server there's a certain point where cost efficiency is king. Once you have all the low-hanging fruits, spending a (few) billion in Fragments to unlock Hexa Stats gives the most bang for your buck. Unlike other 6th Job investments, Hexa Stats is the only one that's inherently not time-gated by Sol Erda as you only have to pay Sol Erda to unlock "Level 0". Then you can immediately get Hexa Stat to max level. This is such a great opportunity at any given point to obtain a significant amount of stats, especially early on for Union Champions.

At the time of writing, only the first two Hexa Stats are available in EMS. We don't know when we'll see stats 4 to 6.

You unlock one Hexa Stat every five levels, and with two Hexa Stats starting Level 265, you can pretty much buy more than a max symbol's worth of stats - for a fraction of its price. While normally I'd advocate for stats like total damage or boss damage, the game has progressed to such a point where we get plenty of that elsewhere and Hexa Stat doesn't really give enough of them to justify it until Hexa Stat 4. It's way more interesting to focus on a STR and Attack boost.

Skill	Sol Erda	Fragments	Additional requirements
Hexa Stat 1	5	10	-
Hexa Stat 2	10	200	Level 265	Level 20 Hexa Stat 1
Hexa Stat 3	15	350	Level 270	Level 20 Hexa Stat 2

Now, how does Hexa Stat work? It's quite simple. You pay Sol Erda and Sol Erda Fragments to unlock Hexa Stat 1. Then, you can dump several hundred fragments until you reach the cap of Level 20. We'll discuss the costs in a bit. Maxing out Hexa Stat 1 unlocks Hexa Stat 2 for Level 265 and above. Max out Hexa Stat 2 and be at least Level 270 to unlock Hexa Stat 3, etc. You get the idea. It's safe to assume Hexa Stats 4 and above will follow the same rule.

When leveling Hexa Stats, you can choose three stats. The first becomes the primary stat, the other two secondary. Which one you choose to be the primary doesn't really matter; with up to six Hexa Stats you are going to have every stat selected as one. Each level will boost one of the three stats by one level*. The end results can vary a lot. If you are concerned about getting the most out of Hexa Stats without rerolling them, you can change the three stats for 100 million mesos after they're maxed out. Basically, max all your available Hexa Stats first, then change the three stats on all of them as you see fit. This way you can at least ensure some good results by making the most out of it.

*There's a Sunny Sunday perk that doubles the chance to succeed in boosting the primary stat. However, this effect will only activate once your primary stat reaches Level 5. By that time your Hexa Stat is almost maxed out, so even in the unlikely situation where you have a Level 5 primary, you won't get a lot of mileage out of it. To make matters worse, this Sunny Sunday perk only occurs a few times a year. It's not worth postponing your progress on Hexa Stats by waiting forever for this Sunny Sunday to appear. Not to mention, it'll not always work out with your Sol Erda reserve.

Hexa Stat		Success rates to level up (default)			Success rates to level up (20% event)
Level Primary	Fragments	Primary	Secondary 1	Secondary 2	Primary	Secondary 1	Secondary 2
0	10	35%	32.5%	32.5%	35%	32.5%	32.5%
1	10	35%	32.5%	32.5%	35%	32.5%	32.5%
2	10	35%	32.5%	32.5%	35%	32.5%	32.5%
3	20	20%	40%	40%	20%	40%	40%
4	20	20%	40%	40%	20%	40%	40%
5	20	20%	40%	40%	24%	38%	38%
6	20	20%	40%	40%	24%	38%	38%
7	30	15%	42.5%	42.5%	18%	41%	41%
8	30	10%	45%	45%	12%	44%	44%
9	50	5%	47.5%	47.5%	6%	47%	47%
10	50	0%	50%	50%	0%	50%	50%

The exact costs to max out a Hexa Stat depends on your luck*. In particular, the stronger your primary stat becomes, the higher the fragment cost also becomes. As seen in the table above, at Level 0 you'll only have a 35% chance to level up your primary stat and the cost doesn't go up until Level 3. Thus, it's possible to fail the 35% success rates enough times for the cost to never go up. In a way, maxed out Hexa Stat can also be described as "pay fragments for 20 rolls, and each roll that levels primary stat makes subsequent rolls more expensive". But let's take a closer look.

*The minimum cost is 200 fragments (for 0/10/10 distribution). Explanation in the next paragraph. On average, expect to need around 300 to 400.

To understand the cost calculation, we have to look at how the game balances success rates between the primary and secondary stats. Each stat has their own success rate, and the sum of all three is always 100%. The success rates for secondary's are always equally divided until either is maxed out (see image above). Each roll only selects one of the three stats, based on their success rates. The maximum amount of times the same stat can be selected is 10. If that happens, the remaining rolls will be between the other two. If the primary stat becomes Level 10, the success rate for secondaries become 50/50. If a secondary becomes Level 10, the success rate for the primary doesn't change and the residual (100% minus the primary stat's success rate) becomes the success rate for the remaining secondary.

Due to the way the success rates are balanced, it's very likely to level your primary stat at least thrice. Even though it's possible to max out both secondary stats, the chances of this happening are astronomically low. This is also true for maxing out primary stat. But as the success rate of primary stat drastically decreases at set intervals, it's reasonable to expect something among the lines of 4/8/8 with a tolerance of one level in either direction for all three stats. No matter the distribution, the sum of levels will always be 20 because you're guaranteed to always level one of the three stats.

Hexa Stat	STR		Attack		Critical Damage		Boss Damage		PDR Reduction		Total Damage
Level	Prim.	Sec.	Prim.	Sec.	Prim.	Sec.	Prim.	Sec.	Prim.	Sec.	Prim.	Sec.
1	100	100	5	5	0.35	0.35	1	1	1	1	0.75	0.75
2	200	200	10	10	0.70	0.70	2	2	2	2	1.50	1.50
3	300	300	15	15	1.05	1.05	3	3	3	3	2.25	2.25
4	400	400	20	20	1.40	1.40	4	4	4	4	3.00	3.00
5	600	500	30	25	2.10	1.75	6	5	6	5	4.50	3.75
6	800	600	40	30	2.80	2.10	8	6	8	6	6.00	4.50
7	1000	700	50	35	3.50	2.45	10	7	10	7	7.50	5.25
8	1300	800	65	40	4.55	2.80	13	8	13	8	9.75	6.00
9	1600	900	80	45	5.60	3.15	16	9	16	9	12.0	6.75
10	2000	1000	100	50	7.00	3.50	20	10	20	10	15.0	7.50

With an expected average of 4/8/8 for every Hexa Stat, we can refer to the table to form a reasonable expectation on how much stats we'll get. As every stat appears once as a primary and twice as a secondary, with the 4/8/8 ratio we can take the Level 4 primary values and add them with two Level 8 secondary values. We can expect 2000 STR, 100 Attack, 7% Critical Damage, 20% Boss/Total Damage and 15% PDR Reduction from all six Hexa Stats combined.

But seeing as Hexa Stats have high level requirements and the fact that we only have two Hexa Stats available, what stats would I suggest to prioritize? My opinion is not any different from other proper guides out there; Attack, STR and Critical Damage are the first that come to mind. You can never have enough Attack and STR. Crit Damage is not going to be a lot, but even a few % is significant and it doesn't eat up another Skill Link slot and is at least guaranteed to some extent. The other three stats are always good, but in the current landscape we already have loads of them.

If we look at Boss Damage, Total Damage or PDR Reduction as a Hexa Stat, a few % is only interesting for stats 4 to 6 because at that point that's all we have left. Only Hexa Stat 1 to 3 are truly important. Hexa Stat 4 to 6 not as much but they are still a worthwhile investment, certainly towards late game when most resources have been exhausted.

As alluded before, you have the option to reset your Hexa Stats to roll it again. If you ask me, it's absolutely not worth rerolling at all. You can imagine that each Hexa Stat costing less than a billion is a steal, but this also means it costs a billion for each reroll and there's no guarantee it'll amount to anything meaningful. Just invest in Hexa Stats once, and leave it be. The fragment cost per Hexa Stat isn't too much of an investment, but if you're thinking about redoing you're still better off using your Fragments and/or mesos elsewhere. Don't fall for this trap. Remember: cost efficiency is king.

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7. Verdict

As I have talked about my thoughts on 6th Job at length, I'll take the opportunity to throw some additional thoughts in here in the same way I have for the Destiny blogpost. Basically, anything else that I wasn't able to fit elsewhere.

If you ask me to look back at 5th Job in its entirety, I'd say it feels incomplete. You could say, abandoned. For it is a layered and complicated phenomenon that I'll try my best to explain why it is - it does affect the way I look at 6th Job. What I'm about to say (specifically 5th Job, but also applies to everything else including the unresolved criticisms for the Destiny revamp) doesn't change anything I wrote in the past. I still stand by those words, just making that clear.

While 5th Job has introduced us to many great (and dare I say, now iconic) skills, it's also all over the place. What sets 6th Job apart from 5th Job is the fact that lots of skills are passives without a cooldown. It is a return to form, but it also means 5th Job sticks out like a sore thumb. It's become more of a bona fide system rather than Job Advancement, as it became a platform for class balancing with a greater emphasis on common skills compared to what came before*.

*Earlier attempts include common skills on earlier job advancements, skills obtained from equips, Potential or quests like Ultimate Adventures.

As we're moving towards the new era, 6th Job takes over 5th Job's role for class balancing and as evident from the few skills we currently have (i.e. Spirit Caliber, Sol Janus) and the upcoming fourth skill wave (Ascent Skills) it's going to continue 5th Job's marketing strategy by incorporating quality of life updates disguised as new 6th Job skills.

5th Job was designed as a modular system that could continue for as long as needed, but as Maple moves on it risks becoming a product of its time; stuck in an era we're leaving behind. It's also much a more difficult system to revamp or revisit because it inherently is a progression system like Potential or Star Force. Players have to invest Nodeshards in everything and it's the reason why we've haven't seen 5th Job skills deleted on existing classes* until last Thursday, nine years since the release of 5th Job. The latest KMST update reworked Ice Age and Unstable Memorize into brand new skills, the kind of hard calls to fundamentally fix the game that were long-overdue. According to Changseop, these reworks will continue in the next months so whatever's relevant for Hero will be discussed in the next 6th Job blogpost.

*To clarify, when I refer to deleted skills, I mean those that are outright no longer in-game, regardless if there was a replacement/compensation.

Before this KMST update, the closest we got to deleting 5th Job skills on existing classes was Shadower's Eviscerate, which got reworked within a year of its original release. It's not as drastic as what's happening now, but that's the only time something comparable has happened before. When talking about deleted 5th Job skills, Dragon Warrior, Beast Tamer and Jett come to mind even though these classes were reworked into Mo Xuan and Lynn. My point being is that it's historically proven that Nexon is reluctant to drastically alter 5th Job skills, but thankfully we're seeing a change for the better. 5th Job skills being reworked can be beneficial for Enhancement Skills, as explained in chapter 4. So if you have been stuck with lackluster Enhancement Skills for two years, all bets are off now.

To be honest, with 6th Job being a streamlined (and arguably better executed) system I would go so far as declaring I'd prefer 5th Job reworked into a traditional skill tree (i.e. 1st to 4th Job) with Skill Points and incorporating the bloat in other systems (i.e. Union) while they still can. Though with how complex such a transition is and the fact that there are far more pressing matters to prioritize on, that's not gonna happen. As such, we're kinda stuck with 5th Job as it is in all of its flawed glory: a true successor to Hyper Skills, condemned as it is. It's also why they haven't backpedaled on slot enhancements by raising the master levels on 5th Job skills to Level 30 as the current cap was a consequence of not committing to the original plan. That by itself encapsulates how 5th Job has been shaped: improvised as they go.

As 6th Job came out of nowhere, it also confirmed they were done with 5th Job. At the time, I couldn't understand why they did so and I still don't because 5th Job was pretty much good enough to continue forever. People were hyped for 6th Job, but my initial response was "wait, that's it for 5th Job?". Further updates solidified its fate, and future support will be limited. I'll remind you that while 5th Job has 30 slots, you'll only have four exclusive skills, which is the least amount of exclusive skills per Job Advancement for the majority of classes; only rivaled by the Beginner tab. Painful.

However, while I said that future support for 5th Job will be limited, we do see signs of Nexon slowly changing their stance on how restrictive 5th Job is allowed to be and opening up to the idea of giving 5th Job a more prominent role as a proper Job Advancement. That is what I originally wrote before the latest KMST update, because it was already true then. But since that update, it's even more true now. We have seen several 5th Job skills gradually becoming passive or have their uptime improved, though in some cases of skills becoming passive (i.e. Speed Infusion) has made leveling them rather pointless. In Hero's case, stationary SOBS's duration will soon match its cooldown. Maybe one day we'll see them allow summon duration, Passives +1 and CO to work with 5th Job skills (again)... But if there's a low-effort change I'd like to see, is having enough Matrix Points/Hyper Skill SP to have them all unlocked/maxed.

I'd wish that 5th Job had a greater emphasis on signature skills. Sword of Burning Soul, Combo Death Fault, Combo Instinct and Sword Illusion just isn't a lot. We didn't get more Combo Orbs, which breaks the tradition. Ghost orbs just isn't the same. Seeing how 6th Job greatly enhances older skills like Raging Blow VI, it's exactly what 5th needed to do. When thinking of 5th Job, most of its contribution and legacy are the tremendous amount of support skills. They're all terrific and each of them have made a huge impact, but as they're all common skills they're no different from their predecessors. As proven by them, they could've easily been sourced elsewhere. At its core, 5th Job is bare-bones as evident by the Job Advancements that came before and after. Which is why despite the shortcomings on certain skills on a technical level (i.e. Rage Uprising VI) I'm happy to see 6th Job leans more towards signature skills, as it should.

During its first two years, 6th Job became the default way for class balancing, as much as 5th Job was during its time. I do not fully agree with this approach because there's such a significant gap until Level 260 and then you still need to pay expensive amounts of resources for what are essentially a couple of quality of life improvements. The proposed idea to rework classes for the next few months is a step in the right direction, though most changes so far are related to damage and attack speed, which doesn't solve discrepancies between classes on a more technical level. As it's still early, perhaps we'll see more fundamental issues resolved later but we'll have to see if any of this improves the pacing to Level 260. 6th Job is so good - perhaps too good - that getting to it a drag. It makes the game rather backloaded as all the good unlocks like Raging Blow VI and Sol Janus isn't until much later. For many classes the stretch between 4th and 6th remains samey. This is why I feel that 5th Job needs a rework and the only real way to achieve this is to turn it into the proper Job Advancement it always should've been. A common phenomenon that even the best MMOs struggle with is the handling of (the true) early and mid-game; all of MapleStory's regions are no exception to this*.

*A great tangible example of this would be doing Challengers World without Hyper/Item Burning. You don't get enough Nodestones and you'd have to sacrifice event rewards from your main server just to get enough progress done on 5th Job, let alone get to Level 260 or obtain high tier rewards.

In practice, Hyper Burnings aren't always available and I have to actively persuade those I coach to not spend much time trying to boss, upgrade gear or grind before 6th Job. In other words, to not engage with really anything the game has to offer until you reach 6th Job. Understand that your average (returning) player isn't aware how much it makes a difference, or that Level 260 and the 6th Job Advancement are only trivial under the right conditions. What is common sense to us experienced players isn't to them; you gotta tell them even if it's stating the obvious.

But as far as 6th Job is concerned, the first three waves' pretty good in a lot of ways. Game development's never been easy, nor is anything in life. 6th Job is a testament of MapleStory's long history of not being shy to try out a lot of stuff, and finding the nuance of what ultimately works. The only "bad" skills on this list are the Enhancements for CDF/Swilo, and that's more of a problem caused by 5th Job's limited amount of signature skills, rather than to blame 6th Job for it. Everything else is at least exceptionally good, with a few outstanding skills like Sol Janus: Dusk and Raging Blow VI.

In general, 6th Job adds a lot to our overall gameplay. As mentioned at the start of this blogpost, 6th Job advances the game(play) in many ways the Destiny revamp couldn't. While Destiny replaced important skills with downgrades, it's 6th Job that takes a skill like Aura Blade and pushes it further with Final Blade and Furious Edge. Sol Janus drastically changes the way the game is played, more so than any of 5th Job has ever done. And while it has added tremendous support skills (i.e. Erda Nova, Blink, Holy Fountain), looking back at the most impactful updates made during 5th Job, it was actually Upper Charge/Leap Attack that did much more for Hero than Combo Death Fault/Blitz Shield ever did, and it was Blink's rework that pushed this even further until the combination of skills became a standard for all classes.

Now, what's really interesting to talk about is how many issues caused by the Destiny revamp have been resolved by now - through either 6th Job or other small (upcoming) skill changes. It's only been a year since I published my critique but somehow most of my main complaints have been resolved in some capacity since then. Remember that during the twenty-one months of writing this blogpost, Hero was one of the few that hardly saw any adjustments until they started to appear a few months after it was published. While I'll never know how much of an influence my niche blog has been in all of this, I can however observe the differences before and after. Any of the issues I have left about the revamp are obviously minor in the grand scheme of things, but at least having the major flaws addressed gets us a step closer to that envisioned class overhaul Changseop strived for. There are still many things left to improve on... *cough* orange *cough*

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7.1 Leveling priorities

As explained in chapter 1.3, value for price is very important when considering which 6th Job skills to unlock first. Sol Erda Fragments are still hard to come by and expensive in bulk, and investing too much in certain skills too early is a significant setback. It's very much how 4th Job was in its early days. Because it's such an integral problem to 6th Job, it's why this blogpost has a placed a greater emphasis on raw data over technical stuff, which doesn't happen often.

Besides, I've frequently stumbled upon the issue that I miss good informational (re)sources while working with 6th Job. In a way, this blogpost intentionally is written as such to fulfill this niche as it collects all the raw data into one place. For instance, you can find all of this data scattered on different websites but none have really contextualized the level boost relative to the cost, or (as seen in the table below) how drastic the costs differ on a per-level-basis between the 6th Job skill types. As always, I strive to deliver among the best and most comprehensive work as possible - for free.

Origin Skills (1/6)			Mastery Skills (4/4)			Enhancement Skills (4/4)			Common Skill (1/4)
Spirit Caliber(Silent Cleave)			Raging Blow VIRage Uprising VIAura Blade VIIncising VI			Sword of Burning SoulCombo InstinctCombo Death FaultSword Illusion			Sol Janus
Level	Sol Erda	Fragments	Level	Sol Erda	Fragments	Level	Sol Erda	Fragments	Level	Sol Erda	Fragments
1	5	100	1	3	50	1	4	75	1	7	125
2	1	30	2	1	15	2	1	23	2	2	38
3	1	35	3	1	18	3	1	27	3	2	44
4	1	40	4	1	20	4	1	30	4	2	50
5	2	45	5	1	23	5	2	34	5	3	57
6	2	50	6	1	25	6	2	38	6	3	63
7	2	55	7	1	28	7	2	42	7	3	69
8	3	60	8	2	30	8	3	45	8	5	75
9	3	65	9	2	33	9	3	49	9	5	82
10	10	200	10	5	100	10	8	150	10	14	300
11	3	80	11	2	40	11	3	60	11	5	110
12	3	90	12	2	45	12	3	68	12	5	124
13	4	100	13	2	50	13	3	75	13	6	138
14	4	110	14	2	55	14	3	83	14	6	152
15	4	120	15	2	60	15	3	90	15	6	165
16	4	130	16	2	65	16	3	98	16	6	179
17	4	140	17	2	70	17	3	105	17	6	193
18	4	150	18	2	75	18	3	113	18	6	207
19	5	160	19	3	80	19	4	120	19	7	220
20	15	350	20	8	175	20	12	263	20	17	525
21	5	170	21	3	85	21	4	128	21	7	234
22	5	180	22	3	90	22	4	135	22	7	248
23	5	190	23	3	95	23	4	143	23	7	262
24	5	200	24	3	100	24	4	150	24	7	275
25	5	210	25	3	105	25	4	158	25	7	289
26	6	220	26	3	110	26	5	165	26	9	303
27	6	230	27	3	115	27	5	173	27	9	317
28	6	240	28	3	120	28	5	180	28	9	330
29	7	250	29	4	125	29	6	188	29	10	344
30	20	500	30	10	250	30	15	375	30	20	750
Total	150	4500	Total	83	2252	Total	123	3383	Total	208	6268

Let's start with a refresher by looking at the numbers again. When presented like this, we can see the cost ratios for each type of 6th Job skill. If we take Origin skills as our base price, we can observe that per level, Mastery Skills are 50% of that price, Enhancement Skills are 75%, but Common skills are gradually more expensive than Origin skills: 25% for the first 9 levels, 50% every tenth level and 37.5% for all remaining levels. Values are always rounded up.

With such drastic differences between prices, and the fact that you get so much stuff for Mastery and Common Skills, Enhancement and Origin skills have to take a back seat. Even though Sol Erda and Fragments will become easier to accrue in time, this does not change our leveling priorities. This is also true if costs are ever reduced. The only times we'll re-evaluate our leveling priorities is when any of our 6th Job skills are drastically altered, i.e. cooldowns reduced.

Now, you might be surprised to hear that my suggestions aren't anywhere close to what others recommend. Lots of folks suggest an optimal balance between skill bonus and cost efficiency. For instance, a common advice is to raise Raging Blow VI and Rage Uprising VI simultaneously. I'd go so far as saying this is not the correct way of doing things. It is under the assumption that two skills provide (enough of) an equal yield to justify this approach. That's simply not the case; it's like 5th Job where you'd focus on one skill at a time. Then, there's another nuance: Union Champions.

So, simply put: the best leveling priority takes one of two routes - main character or Union Champion. For mains, it takes the objectively best route that puts a greater emphasis on long-term goals with the greatest payoffs, factoring goals like Grander Symbols as the utmost priority. Champions however have different needs as they also come after you've properly established your main, and thus have access to shortcuts your main didn't have. The Champion route has a greater emphasis on short-term goals like Genesis as soon as possible, but this would genuinely also be a good approach for seasonal and/or casual players that are not planning to seriously commit to play for a long time because you'll otherwise be stuck accruing over six thousand Fragments for a long time (Sol Janus), which could've been spent maxing out both RB6 and RU6 instead (which is enough to solo Hard True Hilla) with 1739 Fragments left to spare.

Hero as main				Hero as Union Champion
Skill	Level	Sol Erda	Fragments	Skill	Level	Sol Erda	Fragments
Raging Blow VI	1	3	50	Raging Blow VI	1	3	50
Sol Janus	1	7	125	Sol Janus	1	7	125
(Spirit Caliber)	(1)	(5)	(100)	(Spirit Caliber)	(1)	(5)	(100)
Silent Cleave	1	5	100	Silent Cleave	1	5	100
Aura Blade VI	1	3	50	Aura Blade VI	1	3	50
Incising VI	1	3	50	Incising VI	1	3	50
Rage Uprising VI	1	3	50	Rage Uprising VI	1	3	50
Sol Janus	30	201	6143	Raging Blow VI	30	80	2202
Raging Blow VI	30	80	2202	Rage Uprising VI	30	80	2202
Rage Uprising VI	30	80	2202	Incising VI	30	80	2202
Incising VI	30	80	2202	Aura Blade VI	30	80	2202
Aura Blade VI	30	80	2202	Combo Instinct	30	119	3308
Combo Instinct	30	119	3308	Sword of Burning Soul	30	119	3308
Sword of Burning Soul	30	119	3308	Silent Cleave	30	145	4400
Silent Cleave	30	145	4400	Spirit Caliber	30	145	4400
Spirit Caliber	30	145	4400	Sol Janus	30	201	6143

The big difference is the fact that Sol Janus has a much higher priority on a main. As explained, this is because levels are currently the most important objective. Not only does it unlock the Level 290+ Symbols to bolster money making, it's also a necessary requirement for Destiny weapon progression as entering bosses such as Baldrix are inevitable. It is faster and more efficient to start with max level Sol Janus and then the others, instead of the other way around.

The leveling priorities are pretty straightforward. Unlock the essentials first. Ignore the Enhancements and Origins until much later. As explained in chapter 4: don't bother with CDF/Swilo, they are not worth it. You should never choose to level another skill if the argument is that it's cheaper to do so. If it takes a few additional days to invest in another good level up, so be it. The end result will always be better. Anything else is at the expense of your time, and as it's common for 6th Job skills to require months to max out. Every decision matters as the degree of the game's punishment will be according to the severity of your misstep. It is what it is. It's a necessary evil that comes with Sol Erda's design.

To further elaborate on the order of maxing out: anything Raging Blow is first because it makes the largest difference, assuming Sol Janus is already Level 30. Incising VI is the second greatest investment because of Valhalla and Final Attack. Furious Edge is not better because it's damage output is proven to be far behind Final Attack. This is because Final Attack activates so many times and it has a major damage reinforcement through 5th Job, which as explained in chapter 3.1 also applies to 6th Job. That said, Furious Edge is easily the best option after Final Attack because it's the last option that applies all the time. Enhancements Skills (→ chapter 4) are prohibitively expensive; SOBS/CI are only worth it after you've maxed out the four Mastery Skills. The upcoming Silent Cleave is powerful, but if it doesn't make short work of your weekly bosses, it's best left at Level 1 until you've exhausted all other low hanging fruit.

For Union Champions, the main goal is to build five characters that can solo Hard True Hilla. That's currently the sweet spot. With how much 6th Job embraces power-creep, it is by far a much lower hanging fruit than most give it credit for. Almost everything is now a budget options because most of the costs are upgrade-related. With all of the modern tools and a properly established main, sourcing 17 Star Force Pitched Boss, Eternals and a good Seed ring isn't much of an investment because trading and banking carries the game; even for those trade-restricted. The entry requirements for Hard True Hilla has been lowered so much that it's better to settle for two lines on (Additional) Potential and start using cubes for Union Champions, as triple lines requires an incredible amount of cubes. Events play a pivotal role because you'll frequently get hundreds of 100% ICOGs, Black Flames and premium attack scrolls for Pitched Boss and Android hearts. Each Union Champion would then be able to provide you one billion mesos weekly alongside additional rolls on every reward chest. This establishes a proper cashflow and the way to afford further progression. The alternative's a fool's errand because you waste billions and gear for a zero sum; don't even bother with it until you have an account established that can quickly generate the necessary revenue because it objectively is a much better strategy.

For Union Champions, you also do not need to have maxed out everything if Champion Mode True Hilla is the current objective. You do not need over 5000 Fragments to reach the minimum requirements; the remaining funds should go in gear. Of course, more 6th Job skills makes the goal easier to achieve if boss difficulty is a concern. Once you clear True Hilla on your Union Champion Hero, it'll be more cost effective to start funding your next character.

Sol Janus can be relevant for Union Champions once you'll start running against the (per-character) daily meso cap on your main and want to expand your repertoire, or if you are planning to grind your Champions to reach certain levels earlier. It'll be a very expensive optimization as long as there's low hanging fruit left, so this should only be relevant to those willing to commit MapleStory as a full time job. Though at that point I'd say you should value your life more...

Now, you might have noticed I left out Hexa Stats. This is simply because Hexa Stats are best leveled the moment it becomes your cheapest upgrade at any point. It's not time-gated and it can be measured with a price. Furthermore, you might not always be at the required level. This will especially be true for Union Champions, as they'll level slower than your main. Apply common sense. If, hypothetically, one Hexa Stat costs a billion you obviously shouldn't prioritize it over something impactful like Ring of Restraint Level 3 when it's a fraction of the cost. I'll leave it to your descretion.

Return to Table of Contents

7.2 Recommended Hyper Skills

As a lot of things about the game changes with 6th Job, as much does it affect the importance of certain Hyper Skills. In the past, I would've recommended certain Hyper Skills over others. But with a couple of changes introduced with 6th Job, that information is no good. Time for an update, with the necessary explanation of why.

Outdated recommendation		New recommendation
ACA - Reinforce	Raises Final Damage per Combo Orb by 2% points	ACA - Reinforce	Raises Final Damage per Combo Orb by 2% points
ACA - Boss Killer	Adds 2% Boss Damage per Combo Orb	ACA - Boss Killer	Adds 2% Boss Damage per Combo Orb
RB - Reinforce	Adds 20% Total Damage to Raging Blow	RB - Reinforce	Adds 20% Total Damage to Raging Blow
RB - Bonus Attack	Maximum line count for Raging Blow: +1	RB - Bonus Attack	Maximum line count for Raging Blow: +1
RB - Extra Target	Maximum targets for Raging Blow: +2	AFA - Bonus Chance	Raises AFA chance by 15% points

To be honest, there's only one change: "Raging Blow +2 targets" to "Advanced Final Attack +15% activation chance".

The reason for this is simple: Sol Janus. Even with the much larger hitbox with Raging Blow VI, Sol Janus changes so much that the extra 2 for RB rarely comes into play. Not even the return of spawn modifiers or the fact that it's not too difficult to find service can really justify to "preset" Hyper Skills because the spawn density for even the best 6th Job maps are unfortunately not ideal. I'll accept the case that can be made for those that're planning to grind serious hours between bosses, but understand these folks are an exception to the rule and that the difference per hour is not much.

Final Attack VI is also an important factor for all of the reasons explained in chapter 3.4.2, so it's become worthwhile to invest in AFA's only good Hyper Skill again. I'm going to say that I'd still like to see a proper Hyper Skill rework...

7.3 Who will be the NEXT ONE?

With all of the Mastery and Enhancement Skills out, there are only four Origin skills and three Common skills left to be released. Silent Cleave will be our next skill wave, and as always I'll start writing about it around the time it comes out.

It'll be very interesting to see whether if the remaining Origin and Common skills can continue the introduction of new ways to play the game. Each one of them has been refreshing and adds to the overall gameplay experience. They set the bar really high, perhaps even impossibly high with Sol Janus. I'll be looking forward to see what's next.

Judging by how long it took for every class to receive Hyper Skills, or the long history of 5th Job skill waves, it's going to take another four or five years before the remaining 6th Job skills are released. But as we know all too well about MapleStory, nothing is quite set in stone. If anything, I'll go so far as making a prediction: the current amount of matrix slots is just a mere suggestion. There'll be more 6th Job skills after, unless they decide to reset the cycle with 7th Job.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

Return to Table of Contents

[EMS/LEGO] New skills, new parts, Donkey Kong Bananza!

2025-07-24T01:16:00.001+02:00

Hi guys! It's time for this month's news roundup.

The first round of Hyper Burning is pretty much done in less than three weeks. Marksman is already Level 253, so two more level ups for it to be ready for Union Champions. The next round of Hyper Burning should be available after that.

The new skills are also out, and they're great. Of course I'll have the 6th Job blogpost out somewhere next month, and for the time being I'm doing the usual dissection before I'll add their chapters to the current draft. Seeing how busy I've been lately, I'm expecting to have it published late August. The sooner the better, as the lineup of the next blogposts are pretty much locked at this point... There's a lot of work to be done, in particular next year's Galidor blogpost.

Speaking of LEGO: new parts have arrived! The majority of which are the new joint pieces I've talked about in the past few months. As I'm trying to get the 6th Job blogpost out as soon as possible, I haven't been able to build a lot with 'm, but they are promising. As always, it'll take a couple of weeks to see if these are of any help for the Ouroboros project.

Last but not least, Donkey Kong Bananza has been out for a week now! It's wonderful. Comparisons with Super Mario Odyssey are inevitable... but gameplay-wise Bananza is an improvement over its predecessor. You might be surprised to hear that I initially was not planning to get it, but the contagious speculation about its story and the fact that I had a good time with Odyssey won me over. Though after reaching the 100% completion rate I feel that Bananza's greatest moments were too sparse and that Odyssey handled a lot of things better. For that reason I'm genuinely curious to see how Bananza will age and what fans of the collect-a-thon genre have to say. If you're planning to own a Switch 2, I'd say you can't go wrong with this one. Despite my nitpicks, it's been fun and worth my time. I certainly have no regrets.

If you don't mind, I'll get back to work. I'll see you guys again next post!

[EMS] Level 288!

2025-06-25T05:59:00.003+02:00

Ding! Time to catch up. I hit Level 288 at the end of last month and with the abundance of EXP rewards from current events, I'm already past 20%. There's going to be a lot of Advanced EXP Vouchers starting July, which is another big boost. I should also note that I now have four Eternal equips and all the important Pitched Boss accessories. What's left are the more expensive ones like Mitra's Rage and the Limbo/Baldrix Eternal equips for which I'll be saving up for the time being, as these continue to drop in price. I have a bunch of (Additional) Potential to get to Legendary again...

Hyper Burning is going effortless. I should have my Marksman done somewhere in July. There's another burning at the end of this event, so I'll probably use that to get my Bowmaster to Level 260. After that, the only Union Champion left to burn is my Wind Breaker as I haven't quite decided yet who'll be my sixth. I've been leaning towards Paladin, which might not be ideal but it'll do the job. Especially with all the skill and knowledge I have. It certainly is a very safe bet...

I'm not really participating in the Challenge World because our version is quite abysmal. I can't be arsed to grind for weeks as I also don't even have character slots for it. What I am doing however is casually working on a Sia for its Skill Link and on-grid Union effect. It's already Level 210+ without much effort, so for the remainder of the Challenge World event I'll be coasting. Ya know, it would've been nice if we knew in advance whether we'll get the Kaling pass.

But forget about all of that: it's time to talk about the juicy news. The silver lining in not doing well means my insomnia is at an all-time high. With so many restless hours I've been speeding through the 6th Job blogpost as it's nearly done. The only chapters left to write are the new skills that'll arrive next month. Give it the usual 2 weeks of in-game testing and by that time, it's already late July. Until then, I'll be finalizing everything else. The 6th Job blogpost is pretty much locked for an August release. I'll give a better estimate on which week I'm expecting to publish it in the next blogpost.

I was also given the opportunity to own a Switch 2 a month earlier than planned, so I took it. I believe it's the first time I've actually bought a console in its release week. Not gonna lie, from the perspective of someone who's sunk years in MKDS: Mario Kart World is a bit all over the place. It's been a reality check and a reminder why the series is struggling to recover from MK Wii's legacy. Don't get me wrong, on a technical level the game's quite the achievement. Loading times are non-existent, the attention to detail is meticulous. The racing experience's both effortless and comfy. But on the other hand, free roam is quite barren and its façade crumbles after some playtime. The game then also becomes a completionist's nightmare as all of the modern Mario Kart issues accumulates into a frustrating experience trying to tackle its final challenges. It's where the game falls apart as winning races becomes a grind for hours, fishing for that one lucky run. No matter how well prepared and skilled you are, the homestretch will take away your agency. Going from F-Zero (G)X on Master Difficulty to this has certainly been a whiplash. Donkey Kong Bananza on the other hand looks to be in good hands. I'm looking forward to play that one next month, and I'll probably share my thoughts then.

Now, what about my thoughts on Cyber Shadow, as I've now played it? It's great. In fact, I'd like to save the topic for its own blogpost as there's a lot of good stuff to talk about. Kudos to its sole developer; he really understands what made the NES Ninja Gaiden trilogy tick and it's clear to see the inspirations he got from some of the other works he's played.

But that's it for today as I'll get back to work on that 6th Job blogpost - I'll Sia guys again next post!

[EMS] Hyper Burning #7!

2025-05-18T23:55:00.003+02:00

Another Level 260 character done; this be my eighth mule past Level 250. It'll be my second Union Champion, once that's out. Next up is Marksman, and moving forward we should have Hyper Burning Max to make this process easier.

Usually I would maximize the event's duration and reach 260 towards the end, but due to recent circumstances I opted to sacrifice some of the EXP rewards that would've gone on my main. Quite frankly, I haven't been doing well lately as setbacks keep piling up faster than I'm able to manage them. Things continue to get worse, and this leads me to be less harsh on myself by softening the grind. I have to preserve myself for the long and arduous road ahead, y'know.

That said, with all of these Hyper Burnings in the past couple of years, I'm now two burnings away from reaching 9500 Union. Level 288 guaranteed within two weeks; I'm still on schedule for Level 290 this year. I now have time to work on that 6th Job blogpost again, as I've wrapped up the building session for Ouroboros. Conclusion? None worked; going back to the build developed by James Bruton. Unfortunately, translating this into LEGO requires* up to 48 of the new clutch joints, which aren't available from LEGO's store until later this year. I aint paying those current Bricklink prices.

*To give you an idea: I've built several prototype legs this year (without clutch joints) to determine the viability of James Bruton's build in LEGO. Leg frames (without decoration) can easily weigh 1 kg, and they're going to have to carry a tremendous amount of weight. Technic turntables can work, but they necessitate a large amount of connectors and pins, all of which adds weak points to the frame. These become a liability with the speed and weight of the model. The new joints simplifies the build process and requires less parts. In doing so, it provides a much sturdier and compact frame.

Anyway, next month is the Summer update reveal for KMS; I'm looking forward to that. Also, by then I should have my copy of Cyber Shadow so I can finally play that one. It can't be worse than last year's ninja game, right? Right!?

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

[EMS/LEGO] The busy month of April...

2025-04-25T23:00:00.006+02:00

It's been a jam-packed month. Let's unpack what we got.

EMS had its 18th anniversary this month; that also means in September I'll be playing for 18 years daily as well. Of course I haven't forgotten my plans for that blogpost; but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

With the essential weekly bosses now on the menu, I've achieved my short-term goal in preparation for the NEXT update. Upgraded all of the low-hanging fruit, so back to saving up mesos for the remaining Eternal equipment I go. As I've paid off the symbol fees, I'm now done with them until the next one unlocks at Level 290. Combo Instinct's 6th Job enhancement is maxed out, so until the new 6th Job skills arrive I'll be working on enhancing Sword of Burning Soul.

Earlier today I've wrapped up the grind for the Tanjiro class. Do I even want to open the can of worms and start writing about anime and literature on this blog? No, I don't think I will. That said, I've played my cards right so the Level 260 grind was without much effort. Maple has always been about resource management. I've been frugal with my stuff so I had the perfect use for this month's Chains of Resentment. You'd be surprised how many people called me a madman for "wasting" it on Tanjiro. I'll remind you that none of these guys got theirs to Level 260. The event provided more than you need as it was trivial to reach the one-shot ceiling with 1764% bonus EXP - a hard cap of about 68% every hour between 250 and 260. The only thing that would've made it faster was to add Holy Symbol, but I was too lazy to use my Bishop laptop next to me. Anyway, off to become a Paladin you go, and it even managed to recuperate some cost.

The Hyper Burning coupon from the Tanjiro event is currently used on my first Union Champion mule; a Wild Hunter. Just the plain ol' daily quest to Level 260 approach, so I'll get there by the end of next month. I now have the time to resume writing the 6th Job blogpost, which had to give because of this month's busywork. I've reserved 31 chapters (Destiny blogpost-style), and I've just start writing about the first skill in chapter 5. I'll try to get as much work done as possible in the next months, and the current plan does include adding in the upcoming skills once we have them.

But more importantly, at the end of March I was given the opportunity of a lifetime. About ten years ago I've started to write about Mokarr: an unreleased LEGO set that you could consider my white whale. During my hunt, I've become somewhat of a Galidor journalist within the community. I've had plans to write about the other parts that I got my hands on years ago, but I never really found time for that due to the four years lost to the production hell of ill-fated projects.

The silver lining of having delayed the Galidor blogposts meant that I was able to get far better information during that period, and I stumbled upon a group effort with other LEGO fans as I've helped theqelement website with cataloging Mokarr and other unreleased Galidor sets. One thing led to another, and by coincidence we now have a complete list of all cancelled Galidor sets for the first time in 23 years after its cancellation. To make up for keeping you all waiting, I'm planning to write a proper blogpost going through everything I know and (now) have once I have the time for it.

That said, my blog is always a low priority. I will always give priority to more important matters. Right now, my portfolio for LEGO will always be first as it's my life's work. At the end of last year I've talked about the plans for Ouroboros and I have been looking into ways to get this bipedal robot to walk. Next month I will spend several weeks in research and development to determine how feasible a particular solution is. It might not sound much, but if this works... I might've accidentally solved everything. And by everything I really mean everything... Even the dreadful projects MK. 7 and 11.

So uhm, what are my thoughts about the DEX? What could I possibly add to the conversation that hasn't already been said at length? Perhaps that, whatever was originally planned is thrown out of the window. They reprinted the artbook for the occasion but any of the grand plans it reveals means little now. It feels like they just rushed this port because the Switch 2 was around the corner and they made sure to kill off any prospects for a sequel. And even if there's going to be one - it's going to need to be something truly special to make up for it. Caveat emptor; just stick to the original.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

[EMS] Levels 286 and 287!

2025-03-08T12:50:00.005+01:00

Hi guys! With the DEX releasing in twelve days, I'm clearing this month's stuff early so my schedule is free. While I'm looking forward to do a second playthrough, the tonal shift with the revised user interface, brighter colors, particles and sound hurt my soul. Not to mention the worse performance; let's hope it can handle them diskbombs. Despite these changes, I'm sure it retains the fun experience as it's still Xenoblade X, after all... That's all that matters, doesn't it?

But back to the main subject matter. Two days ago, I hit Level 287! It took seventy days, which is pretty good. To stay on schedule, there has to be one level every three months. With each level up requiring an additional 20%, I'm curious to see how it'll go. The event rewards will determine if Level 290 is either happening this year or early 2026.

Though Level 287 isn't the only major milestone that happened this week. After four months of upgrading, I've gone from being unable to clear Hard Lucid to soloing Hard Tenebris for the first time! Events weighed in a lot, as with the many rewards it was trivial to get double Legendary and proper ICOG results. The damage boost from 6th Job carried the rest; skipping Abso, Arcane, Gollux and potable rings entirely with only a single 22 SF item. The extra mesos is going to replace the five remaining Amaterasu sooner with what's left from the Eternal set. There's still a lot left to do.

Work on the 6th Job blogpost has begun. There's not much on paper yet (only the foreword), but give it some time.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

[EMS] Carcion Symbol MAX, Hyper Burning #5!

2025-02-24T11:44:00.005+01:00

Hi guys! Time for this month's news roundup.

I've maxed out Carcion's symbol, which was faster than I expected. Because symbol selectors are readily available from events all year round, it only took five months. It could've been faster but I opted for rewards of a higher priority because I'm going to continue daily quests for their EXP, anyway. That said, I have yet to pay the required meso fees to unlock the final levels as the mesos are better spent elsewhere - it'll make more sense as I'll explain later this year.

The fifth season of Hyper Burning (and the Milestone update) wrapped up about two weeks ago and it was slightly more challenging than the previous two. You see, what sets apart the fifth season from the others is that you could Hyper Burn up to two characters - one being either Aran or Eunwol, as part of their class revamp during this update.

Seasons three and four of Hyper Burning were rather trivial as the combination of daily EXP and event support meant you could easily reach Level 260 within the event period. However, daily EXP is only for one character and Milestone's event support was not as generous as last season, as the change in events into the second month reduced the overall EXP yield. I also wanted to maximize the EXP yield for my main as Level 290 is currently the most important goal in the game right now, so I did not waste any EXP voucher or growth potion on the two Hyper Burning characters.

Manual grind on the second character was simply unavoidable, though it wasn't as bad as the original two Level 250 Hyper Burning seasons because New Age reduced the EXP to Level 260 significantly. That and Eunwol has access to Loaded Dice and Soul Splitter. Furthermore, 3x EXP coupons are now standard and we ended up with so many VIP Boosters that I couldn't even use all of them on my main with that daily limit. The surplus went to both burnings and by the time they hit Level 260, I still had dozens left that expired as these boosters were only usable during the event.

For this season, I picked Mercedes and Eunwol specifically for their on-grid Union effects. It was my plan to select future Hyper Burnings the same way, but as the NEXT update (pun not intended) introduces Union Champions, I will now select Hyper Burnings based on which classes I want as Union Champions. You might be surprised to hear I'm almost going exclusively bowman for this, however if you've been an avid reader of my blog it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm selecting characters based on my knowledge and experience with this game. Though the selection process is an entire blogpost on its own, the succinct explanation is that all pre-2011 bowman have the easiest time bossing because they attack from a distance, hold-down attacks allow for the best response time and they all have either heal on-hit or an aggro puppet. For Union Champions I'm not going to be messing around and there's no reason not to pick the best classes to take full advantage of one's proficiency. Better be caught well-prepared for this one.

Anyway, I should be Level 287 next month, so I'm still on schedule to 290 at the end of this year. I'm expecting to work on the 6th Job blogpost soon as I've done enough research and development on Ouroboros until the March parts (i.e. this and that) are available, though with the DEX releasing next month, some more medical status quo limbo, Cyber Shadow finally having a physical release soon and the Switch 2 around the corner, I'm not sure how much work I'll be able to get done before NEXT arrives. Oof. I've been doubting for a while if I should combine the two blogposts. As I've alluded before, the upcoming skill wave is so intertwined with the first two that it's difficult to examine any of these on their own. So the plan is to just write as much as possible and see where we go from there. I'll keep y'all posted.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

[EMS] Milestone - 5th Job's ninth wave!

2025-01-25T09:34:00.013+01:00

Finally, a weapon to surpass Metal Gear.

Before delving into the 6th Job territory, there is one 5th Job skill left to discuss. Released after the Milestone update, Holy Fountain is the latest 5th Job skill after a three year hiatus. As alluded in my coverage of Crest of the Solar, Holy Fountain proves that there's still a place for new 5th Job skills in the current 6th Job environment.

Even though Holy Fountain is a 5th Job skill available to everyone, I would go so far as saying it's one of the better 5th Job skills, period. In today's blogpost we'll take a look at Holy Fountain, alongside a quick coverage of changes made to Hero's skills and examine how much any of this update addresses the Destiny revamp.

Reminder that this blogpost will act as a prelude to future 6th Job blogposts, but as with the COTS blogpost, it is not mandatory to have read either in advance. Where necessary, I will refer back to this blogpost in the same way I have referred back to certain chapters of the Destiny blogpost in the past.

Table of Contents

1. Changes to Hero skills

Echo of Hero's cooldown has been cut from two hours (!) to five minutes. We basically have Echo of Hero available all the time, and we no longer have to rely on Time Leap mules or the occasional Rune of Skill to maintain uptime.

Maple Warrior and the 5th Job equivalents for both Speed Infusion and Advanced Blessing are now passive. MW finally addresses its compatibility issues with Maple World Goddess' Blessing, as it's no longer possible for someone else to grief your damage output. Keep in mind that the original (and Potential) Speed Infusion and Advanced Blessing remain active buffs, and they do not stack with their relatives as only the effects of the strongest version are applied. That said, 5th Job SI being passive makes for a great investment on every character as it only costs 140 Nodeshards.

Having less active skills is better too. Not only does this make room on pet auto buff, it also removes icons from the top-right corner. Especially with Hero's issue having too many yellowish orange skill icons, any improvement is good.

Maple World Goddess' Blessing has been drastically changed. Prior to this update, the skill would require 3 minutes to recharge itself, and you could then hold up to two casts for an one-minute buff. For some reason, they reverted it to its original form and conform it to the two-minute burst cycle. It's now a bog-standard one-minute-duration skill with a two-minute cooldown. Unfortunately, this means you no can no longer opt to save Blessings for a two-minute duration.

I would've preferred a fundamental fix for losing prepared skills upon logout, seeing as exempting Blessing does not fix the root cause. Aura Weapon and the upcoming Aura Blade VI still has this issue. Speaking of Aura Weapon...

Aura Weapon now has a slightly larger vertical hitbox. Finally, it now has a proper hitbox where it can hit stuff in front of you! This has been long overdue, to say the least. It took them eight (!) years to fix this.

Upper Charge, Sword of Burning Soul and Sword Illusion now activate faster. In particular, Upper Charge received the largest speed increase (not that it really needed one, but any is better nonetheless). Personally, I believe this boost should've gone to Leap Attack instead, which still suffers from jank and being unaffected by attack speed. SOBS being faster helps to address some of the issues created by the Destiny revamp, but the speed boost isn't significant enough (according to Nexon: only an approximated 7%) and more importantly: toggle cooldown isn't affected by this change.

The base damage for Rage Uprising (including RU6), Valhalla and Combo Instinct have been raised. In particular, Valhalla sees the most substantial boost in base damage, and also the afterimages themselves activate quicker.

Traversing this distance used to be more difficult with only 153% movement speed.

Perhaps the most substantial change from this update is for Warrior Mastery. It raises our maximum speed to 160%, which used to be 153% (until Monster Life was replaced by Union Artifact). Monster Life was the only source for more maximum speed, with the Pumpkin Bat giving a 3% increase. However, as Union Artifact only carried over the basics, a lot of unique Monster Life resources were lost in the transition. Remember this; it will be relevant later.

160% has been the (minimum) standard for a lot of melee classes for many years now, so it's good to see we're not being left behind*. Not only does 160% make for easier kiting, it is significant for War Leap as it gains more distance.

*Assuming you've read the Destiny blogpost, you know that's been the recurring treatment where Hero often ends up with the short end of the stick.

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2. Buff Display expansion

While the poor post-Destiny skill icon designs remain unchanged (for every skill that has yet to be superseded by a VI Mastery on 6th Job), a fascinating upgrade to the UI came out of nowhere that indirectly solves part of this issue.

So, the main issue that I had with the post-Destiny skill icons is that it's hard to tell the difference between them, right? The easiest fix would be to edit the bad ones and that would've sufficed. Instead, the madmen at Nexon went the extra mile by creating two entirely new UI elements, which could not have been easy at all. Impressive, to say the least.

The first UI element is to automatically sort skill icons in the top-right corner into four groups (upwards of 13 icons a row, which after it creates a second row). While not perfect, it does greatly reduce clutter and is easier to read.

The first group are all skills that are included in your character's class lineage and must already be owned.
The second group are external sources without involving other players. Includes equipment (i.e. Petite Luna set effect, Reaper's Pendant, Pendant of the Spirit, Custom Title), skills not part of your class lineage (i.e. Wings of Fate, Mapae Specials*, Noblesse Guild Skills, Mounts, Skill Links), Housing Buff and Runes.
The third group revolves around the use inventory, including shared consumables (i.e. Guild Blessing), consumables from other players that specifically target you (i.e. Maplemas Party Potion), and items disguised as buffs but evade going into your inventory (i.e. the buff from touching Combo Kill marbles).
The fourth groups are buffs received from other players, which either must be from a different class lineage or are skills included in your class lineage but you do not own yet (otherwise they are sorted into group 1).

*While regular Special cores are sorted into the first group, all five Specials obtained from Mapae Nodestones are sorted into the second group.

Quiz time! If you share Rage with another Hero (assuming this guy has no Skill Points invested in Rage), in which group is it sorted? Answer: it will always sort Rage into the fourth group until he invests at least one SP in this skill.

As long as there is at least one Skill Point invested, Rage remains "owned", to which subsequent instances of Rage are sorted into the first group, regardless of its skill level and who casted it. Rulings! They keep me awake at night.

~~Which snowman buff did you just receive? You can't tell while using the new sorting feature...~~

Though for some weird reason, sorting buffs in this new UI disables the descriptions of all icons when you hover your mouse over them, so you have no access to this information as long as you use this sorting feature. I doubt that it's ever going to cause major problems, but it can be annoying for the few events as shown above.

EDIT: This now has been fixed.

Thankfully, you can still remove buffs by right-mouse clicking them. So, at least that still works with the new UI.

However, what truly makes the new UI element powerful is combining it with the other new element: Buff Favorites. What if I told you it's possible to remove skill icons of choice from the top-right corner, and to have them displayed elsewhere? That's what this new feature does. It isolates skill icons of choice (though only from the first group*).

*There are exceptions. Several skills from equipped items (second group) are allowed, such as Reaper's Pendant and the Petite Luna set effect.

While I have no influence on Nexon's poor skill design endeavors, I now have control over what skill icons I can assign to this new UI. Remember when I said I have a hard time telling if Enrage was active or not? Toss it in Buff Favorites. Done. Hard time finding Valhalla or Body of Steel? Throw it in there as well. It's such a simple but effective solution. The layout settings are quite flexible. Even better: you can drag this window to any location on your screen!

But if you ask me, Buff Favorites is at its best when you keep it to a minimum. It is tempting to go ham on many rows and columns, but you really only need one for a handful of skills. Its strength is not found in seeing skill durations, but the fact that you can remove icons from the top-right corner and always see through Buff Favorites if skills are active.

For that reason, the most effective use of Buff Favorites are (in my opinion) for the following skills*:

Enrage: to immediately see whether if it's active or not.
Body of Steel: to keep track of Superstance duration.
Valhalla: same reason as Body of Steel.
Terms & Condition: Cooldown Skip means reading quick slots is no longer as reliable.
Mu Gong: same reason as Terms & Conditions.
Sol Janus: to see Dawn's duration and to keep track of the three-second cycles of Twilight.
Familiars: not only to see whether if it's active, but also to keep track of remaining fuel for the day.

*This list is only relevant until the implementation of the Skill Sequence, at which point including skills such as Terms & Conditions and Mu Gong are no longer necessary as they'll always be activated through Skill Sequence. Though you'd still need to know when to recast them when CD skipped.

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3. V Matrix expansion

As Nexon focuses their efforts on 6th Job, support for 5th Job will dwindle. The maximum amount of 5th Job slots has been greatly expanded, which marks the end an unfulfilled potential of 5th Job that never really materialized.

During the original pitch for 5th Job, one of the unique selling points was “I will make my own choices for the 5th job skills that make me stronger!” although anyone that has been playing MapleStory long enough will be able to tell you that choosing between options has never really worked. Everyone always choosing the same approach is inevitable.

At some point different 5th Job routes was an idea that was thrown around, quite possibly a way for classes to branch out into different specialist roles like those found in ARPGs such as Path of Exile. Though 5th Job ended up becoming very much the same as the original 4th Job, just executed better. With the way how 6th Job has a definitive number of skill slots and without the ability to unequip them, Nexon's straightforward plans for 6th Job are made very clear.

That said, we have so many 5th Job skill slots that we can now have everything equipped in one preset. In fact, you start out with even more 5th Job skill slots for a stronger early game. With the abundant slots, you can now have every Self skill at maximum level to min/max passive stats, alongside three pairs of trinodes to ensure every important skill is boosted. Furthermore, you are also going to need these extra trinodes to unlock certain 6th Job skills later.

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4. Holy Fountain

Ya know me, I'm always a fan of practical stuff. This is way more difficult without Holy Fountain.

At first glance, Holy Fountain appears to be just another run-of-the-mill 5th Job skill. On the contrary, it's a true game-changer on the levels of Upper Charge or the Blink revamp, as it drastically reduces the game's difficulty for everyone.

Holy Fountain is a skill that originates from Bishop. Bishop can switch between variants of certain skills, including turning Holy Fountain into Fountain for Angels, but 5th Job's Holy Fountain is its own thing. While these variants can co-exist in the same map at the same time, there can always only be one instance of Holy Fountain in the same map - no matter if it was the 5th Job Holy Fountain or Bishop's. You can deny others Holy Fountain by summoning your own.

Casting Holy Fountain installs the summon at the location it's used. It cannot be summoned on top of a (yellow) portal, but it can be summoned very close to one. It cannot be placed in mid-air, and unlike Sword of Burning Soul you cannot summon or interact with it while using the Soaring skill. Holy Fountain can be summoned on conveyor belts, although with the lack of accessible moving platforms nowadays I'm unable to tell you how moving platforms interact with it.

When standing anywhere inside the fountain's sprite (regardless of height), you can press ↑ to attempt to drink from Holy Fountain to restore 35% HP, and there is no cooldown between sips. You can restore health even while under the effects of status conditions such as Potion Lock, Seal and Zombify. The input for drinking becomes ↓ while under the effects of Crazy Skull. You cannot use Holy Fountain to bypass healing restrictions from bosses (i.e. Will or True Hilla).

Higher level Holy Fountain sees a longer duration, a shorter cooldown, higher HP restoration and more sips. If you are serious about bossing in MapleStory, it is highly recommended to have this skill at Level 30. Only at maximum level will it have a permanent uptime of 60 seconds with a 60 second cooldown, with the 35% HP-per-sip restoration. Even though it is a Self skill, Holy Fountain is the only Self skill in the game that can be shared with party members. You cannot extend Holy Fountain's duration, lower its cooldown or improve its healing proficiency any further.

An example of Holy Fountain running out of restorations. Notice the skill's appearance changing into Holy Trace.

While it provides a tremendous healing support, you can only drink from the same fountain up to 20 times (Level 30). Once it is emptied, Holy Fountain becomes dormant. Its appearance then changes into Holy Trace, to indicate that this fountain no longer has any restorations left*. Regardless of state, you must wait until either Holy Fountain or its trace expires before you can summon a new one. Even if you leave the map, it'll remain there for its remaining duration.

*This transformation only happens to the 5th Job Holy Fountain. The original one used by Bishop leaves the field after running dry.

Because you aren't allowed to heal while under the healing restrictions of certain bosses (including Lucid's debuff), attempting to drink Holy Fountain will not deduct a sip because the skill cannot successfully heal you. Remember to always play with sound effects on: a successful restoration from Holy Fountain will play a distinct sound.

An example of a Nightmare Golem removing Holy Fountain as it destroys the platform along with it.

It is possible to lose a Holy Fountain by allowing it to be destroyed. This is an unlikely scenario that can only occur under a very specific condition. For this to happen, Holy Fountain must have been summoned on a platform that can be removed. There are three locations where this scenario is most likely to occur (though also easily avoided):

During Dusk, when the giant eye opens up and two tentacles form temporary platforms to stand on.
During phase 2 Lucid, whenever bullet hell occurs or when platforms are destroyed by Nightmare Golems.
During phase 3 Lotus, when he transforms platforms (top-row only) into homing projectiles.

Once these conditions are met, Holy Fountain is lost as it disappears together with the platform. In a party, another player can then summon a new Holy Fountain. However, if this happens when going solo, you'll have to wait until the cooldown has run out. An unlikely scenario to happen (most likely a misplay), but a fascinating one nonetheless.

Additionally, here are a few other locations to keep in mind, though these will almost never (but can) happen:

During Urus, when temporary platforms appear to climb on top of the boss during grab/eating attacks*.
During Guardian Angel Slime, the basement that opens up every three minutes.
During phase 2 Zakum, where the floor becomes lethal and you have to climb on six smaller platforms.
During phase 3 Black Mage, temporary platforms that appear before the Creation/Destruction attacks.

*Though 5th Job's Holy Fountain cannot be used at Urus, Bishops can use the original one as it's a 3rd Job skill.

As for the 20 drink limit: it is very difficult to use all of these up by yourself. This is because you can only attempt to drink from Holy Fountain when your HP is not full, and it will only consume a sip when it successfully heals you. You can in fact cast Blitz Shield at full health (which reduces your health by 5%) and consume a sip to offset the skill cost while keeping the barrier. This is such a powerful combo as Holy Fountain makes it trivial to keep your health full at all times, and with the appropriate cooldown hat investment you can have Blitz Shield's barrier half of the time. Keep in mind that Holy Fountain is much more likely to run dry in a party, as it becomes a drink limit of 20 for the entire party.

With all of that in mind, I can assure you that Holy Fountain is as good as it sounds. One of Hero's greatest struggles has always been chip damage, because Hero lacks the strong, instant and reliable healing options that most classes have. Power Elixirs on a cooldown is a rough experience, because even with one of the best movement options in the game and CDF, there are still times where the amount of incoming damage is too great to overcome. But not anymore.

This changed with Holy Fountain, as having it all to yourself makes short work of chip damage. This has the added benefit of pairing nicely with Body of Steel, as you can afford to take damage to build up stacks. You can be greedy with Holy Fountain and hardly get punished for it. 20 restorations every minute is more than plenty, and it's possible to brute force your way through certain bosses. You no longer have to worry about losing HP for casting skills such as Spider in Mirror and Crest of the Solar. Self Recovery healing only 4% HP is no longer a concern, and it also solves the finite supply of Fairy Tears* by offering an alternative. Holy Fountain is an unlimited resource - which makes it far more economical as it doesn't touch your potion supply and while bossing it is preferred not to be on potion cooldown. My advice: always prioritize using Holy Fountain over potions, and save potions as your last resort.

*As Monster Life was replaced by Union Artifact, you can no longer obtain Fairy Tears as the Monster Life shop is gone.

Because of its 60 second cooldown however, you must be wary when using Holy Fountain if a boss is about to change maps, as you cannot summon a new fountain as long as it's on cooldown. For Will's first phase, both dimensions are treated as the same map, so even in a party there will always be one dimension without. Despite the few drawbacks that Holy Fountain has, it is a very generous skill that turns a large number of difficult boss encounters into something much more forgiving. Though with such a powerful skill, staples such as Khali's Skill Link become less necessary...

To summarize: Holy Fountain is more than just a 5th Job skill - it's a quality of life update. And with Union Champions on the horizon, it becomes an essential skill and a worthwhile investment for any of your bossing characters.

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5. Mapae Nodestones

Well, I hope there's a sequel in the pipeline, because Kazax did jack shit. Where is Vale when you need him...

Surprise, surprise. In the midst of 6th Job, Nexon created another jellybean nodestone, and I'd be remiss not to write about them. I know that have I haven't talked much about Special 5th Job cores on my blog, as these have remained straightforward so there isn't much to talk about (until now). With so many underwhelming special cores - and the rule you can only equip one at a time - you'll inevitably end up with only a few that are worth mentioning.

Mapae Nodestones are timed exclusives, introduced with the lukewarm Ride or Die event. Basically, they give unique Special 5th Job cores. But as we all know from experience, items like these are doomed.

However, for how much I despise these intentionally designed short-lived content like Mapae Nodestones, they have interesting effects that'll make their fleeting existence all the more frustrating. It's such a shame too, because all of that time and effort spent on development is wasted into something that'll inevitably cause more bugs in the long run.

The first problem with Mapae Nodestones is that they are considered Special 5th Job cores. As you can only have one special core equipped at a time, you must unequip your current one to use it. No presets; this must be done manually.

The second problem with Mapae's are that while they are considered Special 5th Job cores, they do not follow the same rules as the original specials and are exempt from the updates that affect them. You cannot extend them*. You can also not craft them, like all other jellybeans. Mapae Specials are exclusively sourced from Mapae Nodestones, and these skills will only last a week. This wouldn't be a problem if they were always available, but we've seen many times before that developer support for events (Sengoku Badge, Phantom Forest Sundays) are upwards of 3 years.

*Even though you can extend regular Special 5th Job cores, it is not recommended to do so because the game charges a premium of Nodeshards to do so. It charges double the amount to extend in advance - you might as well just craft a new one every two weeks.

The third problem is where you source Mapae Nodestones. They can only be obtained from the Ride or Die event, which I don't have to explain how cumbersome it is to obtain these in bulk. These Mapae Nodestones are incredibly rare, not to mention exorbitantly priced. They will also expire after 10 days, so you cannot stockpile them.

Remember: Mapae Nodestones, Sol Janus and the Tallahart symbol were released in the span of a year.

The fourth problem is that there are five possible Mapae Specials you can find when opening a Mapae Nodestone. While all of these are useful, god forbid we are allowed to choose... so good luck trying to get the one you need.

Luck Power: 20% Item Drop Rate. Duration 20 seconds. Cooldown 30 seconds.
Wealth Power: 20% Meso Drop. Duration 20 seconds. Cooldown 30 seconds.
EXP Power: 10% EXP. Duration 20 seconds. Cooldown 30 seconds.
Inspector Power I: 40% Boss Damage. Duration 20 seconds. Cooldown 30 seconds.
Inspector Power II: 40% PDR reduction. Duration 20 seconds. Cooldown 30 seconds.

While in a vacuum these specials are good, these directly compete with Fatal Strike and Auto Recovery for that single special core slot. Furthermore, once we compare Mapae Specials with the likes of Sol Janus (providing 100% EXP) and Tallahart's symbol (50% EXP, 15% Mesos and 15% Drop Rate), the stats are quite frankly, underwhelming. It just further shows the stark difference in design philosophy between the two teams, and not in a good way. Do I even have to point out other event staples, including large EXP modifiers on all daily content, VIP Boosters and EXP Vouchers?

Anything else? Well of course there is a fifth problem, dammit. Unlike the real Special cores, Mapae's cannot activate until half a minute has passed after you've equipped them, even though that won't discourage anyone from switching to these when necessary. They're making it very difficult to say anything positive about these Mapae skills. It's that "no fun allowed" mentality that brings out the worst aspects of this game, even though anyone can understand that Mapae Nodestones could've been an easy way for Nexon to win players over. Did it really need to be this way?

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6. Verdict

Holy Fountain is a fantastic skill. The changes to Hero skills are good, but there's still a lot about post-Destiny Hero that can be improved on. Fortunately, 6th Job will address a lot, that much I can tell you in advance. However, Mapae Nodestone is the kind of shit that should never have been made. We all know from two decades of update history that non-KMS content comes at a great risk of making the game client unstable, and that sometimes you'd be better off not trying. In fact, for many years now has Nexon gone through great lengths of cleaning up the client to a point where we were in a good spot. With Inkwell retreading old ground, one could wonder why they even bothered to begin with.

Mapae Nodestones will certainly cause severe issues with the 5th Job coding in the future. If we have to judge based on the current situation, Inkwell's code monkeys regressed the game by ten years and I am not looking forward to the long-term damage it'll cause. The paradox of FOMO-inducing content like Ride or Die, is that the dumb amount of emergency maintenances, bugfixes and future issues will inevitably cost Nexon more than it generates short-term.

Somehow, my complaints about Changseop rushing content around Destiny is put into perspective, as while KMS has since found its footing, the few months of "Go West" has been far more damning. And here I thought I've seen it all.

Reminder: they can't just remove Ride or Die and Mapae Nodestones without causing issues. Once tainted, there's no turning back. That's how it always has been, and that's why the EMS client size is so large for a game that's relatively small. Out of necessity, there's always been a large amount of unused or dormant code. So much in fact that it could warrant its own blogpost. If anything, the next few years will only see this issue compound the more junk is added in.

And that's how I'll end my coverage on 5th Job for now. Not on a high note with Holy Fountain, but with the obnoxious invasion of one man's unchecked greed. Time will tell how bad it'll be, but I'm confident in my foresight & experience. 6th Job will be the next subject to write about, and thankfully I have many good things to say about it. I'll take a short break for now, build something for Ouroboros and then start working on that 6th Job blogpost for the first two waves.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

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[2024] What happened this year to Rayque?

2024-12-31T15:06:00.002+01:00

Another year's end, another summary.

This year marks the 14th summary on this blog. As always, the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2025!

2024's been more or less much of the same as last year. It's been rough, but I'll manage. At least in terms of progress on my LEGO portfolio I've made some promising breakthroughs thanks to the financial aid that started last year. It's a small victory, but there's still a long and arduous road ahead.

The past couple of months have been busy, hence the lack of the usual Maple updates or anything related to the one LEGO project (Ouroboros) I've spent most of this year on. This year summary will double as a bit of a catch-up, but I'll definitely revisit these topics in future posts so that they are properly recorded on this blog. Keep in mind that because so much time went into Ouroboros this year, a lot of plans for this year couldn't happen. Sometimes it do be like that.

In my ongoing efforts to find a healthier balance with how much time I should be spending on my blog, I am going to scale down these year summaries moving forward but also take a more casual approach; matching my usual writing style. The statistical side of these summaries requires the most amount of work, and seeing as our Youtube channel has been plateauing in viewership and subscribers for many years now, I'll stick to only the interesting figures instead.

That said, I will share my plans for the next few months of blogposts. Because it involves LEGO, MapleStory and this blog, it made more sense to discuss that here seeing as the year summary covers all topics of interest.

The Youtube Department (Rayque3 Staff)

Published three videos this year. There have been some videos for my blogposts (in particular, the Destiny blogpost) and a bunch of shitposts not intended to go public (I mean, dumb videos used to be a staple) but these do not count unless it was like Ludo. Of course, we always have plans for new videos, it's just that we haven't gotten to them yet.

Hey, at least my Wii works again. After some diagnosis and with the help of Gio we have possibly found the culprit: a dead Wifi Module. I should just get a replacement module and swap the old one out, however I still want to do some further testing as I suspect the video output on the motherboard is on its last legs. That has been a problem ever since recording the ill-fated Xenoblade Single-Part-Video, believe it or not. I'll probably end up transferring the backup data from my Wii to a donor Wii as that'd be much easier and less destructive. However, that will be for another time.

Top 10 Most Viewed Videos for this year

1. Endless Ocean - The Abyss & Finding the Giant Squid (62.000 views)

2. WarioWare: Smooth Moves - All Microgames (22.000 views)

3. Mario Party 7 - All Mini-Games (16.000 views)

4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl - 100% Subspace Emissary (13.000 views)

5. Pokémon Battle Revolution - All Masters Battles [HeartGold] (11.000 views)

6. Kirby's Return to Dreamland - All Mini/Main/EX Bosses (7.600 views)

7. Donkey Kong 64 - All main bosses (2.800 views)

8. Borderlands 2 - Sound effects: Constructor's Digistruct (1.300 views)

9. [WALKTHROUGH] - HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS (PC) - PART #1 - THE WHOMPING WILLOW (1.100 views)

10. [WALKTHROUGH] - HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE (PC) - PART #1 - FIRST LESSONS (1.000 views)

Our Endless Ocean video is our best performing video of the year because of the renewed interest in the franchise thanks to the release of Endless Ocean 3 for the Switch. It's a bit of a trend where some of our older videos climb up the ranks based on whatever's relevant for the year. It's so close to hitting 100.000 views, though! Makes me wonder if part 1 of our Croc 2 walkthrough will reach 100.000 next year, seeing as the first game is going to be re-released...

Also, our Mario Party 7 video has reached 7 million views! Took forever, but it's nice to see it finally there. Aside from these aforementioned videos, there seems to be no other video that will reach a major milestone any time soon.

The MapleStory Europe Department

Reached Level 286! Seems that Level 290 will be possible next year... We got the Guild Castle expansion a few weeks ago, so that 4x higher EXP yield is going to weigh in. Let's also not forget next month's Angler Company.

Quite possibly the biggest achievement of the year has been the release of the Destiny blogpost. Y'know, the thing I was working almost two years on. I've also published the Crest of the Solar blogpost. Now, I was initially planning to start with the 6th Job blogpost first, but seeing as we received Holy Fountain early, it is better to write that one first.

In general, I'm going to distribute the workload more evenly between these blogposts. All of the skill changes made during Milestone will be included in the Holy Fountain blogpost, not the 6th Job one. I also do not want to wait until NEXT (which brings us more 6th Job skills) as otherwise the workload will become too much. But seeing how integral the skills from NEXT are to our existing kit, they will be mentioned and take into consideration as they do affect the way I look at skill such as Rage Uprising VI. NEXT will have its own blogpost the same way I wrote 5th Job per wave.

Anyway, back to the in-game achievements for this year. I now have unlocked all of the standard Grandis symbols, and all of them are maxed except for Carcion's (which should be next year). I now have the Eternal top and bottom, and a bunch of items had their Additional Potential rank up to Legendary. I've maxed out Sol Janus and Raging Blow VI, alongside triple Meister profession and obtained every Urus medal. Trade restrictions? Easy to work around.

For Union, I've hit a 9217 total. Monster Life's been replaced with Union Artifact, which is now Level 45. I've obtained the Abyssal Expedition Union block, and I should have the Ride or Die block soon. Guild contribution score remains at a perfect score (FallenAngel just recently hit Level 28) and we've finally obtained the Enhancement Room blueprint for Guild Castle. We should have it unlocked late next year. I'm very close to clearing Hard Lucid; just a bit more 6th Job.

Any other closing thoughts that I haven't already discussed at length? All the timed exclusive content doesn't live up to the hype. Even if we ignored the emergency maintenances, the many bugs, false bans and how much QOL we traded away, what we ended up is underwhelming. I would go so far as saying the "Dark Ride" is a poor imitation of the EMS Darkness content (where Monad, Veracent, Supreme and the Dark Doom totems came from) but without any of the game-breaking rewards or signs of technological advancement (EMS became a testing ground for what ultimately led to Reboot/LAB, Hunter Portals and instanced content). In short, our Milestone has been a mess. Thankfully more players are doing their homework and starting to realize that Inkwell is not good for the game's longevity. We're in the process of repeating the shitshow that was Inkwell's previous tenure (reminder: I was there), and to be ready for that I'm upgrading my equipment. For as many veterans as we may have, far too few seem to understand what's coming.

The LEGO Department

Speed. Is. Everything.

Work on my projects continue. The most significant breakthrough is that Ouroboros now finally works. Most people will probably never be able to understand why it took a fortune and two years to get it to work. But there is a saying where you have to build something a thousand times before it works. The sheer amount of inertia behind this thing is nothing to scoff at. There's still a lot to do; what you're seeing is only the main gimmick (though very consistent and reliable now, thanks to two years of optimization). Getting this brick to walk is going to be a challenge in itself.

What finally made the main gimmick work is part 46490. Gearing down the servos the traditional way wasn't enough. Even with a perfect frame design, gears and axles ended up breaking under the severe load. The servos inherently doesn't provide enough torque for counterweights to matter. Ultimately, part 46490 proved that it was the best, cost-efficient and most compact solution. Its effectiveness has convinced me to use this part for more projects moving forward. I just wish LEGO made this part more compact (or build it into the servos), as the triangular pin set-up, CV joint and towballs makes it cumbersome and hard to work with. It's not as much of a natural fit as I'd want it to be.

Speaking of servos, working several years with the Powered Up components for both the Ouroboros and Constructor projects have only further solidified my preference for this ecosystem when designing these large and heavy models. Not only do the Powered Up components have the most convenient mounting options out of all LEGO electronics, the ability to run six heavy-duty motors on a single Mindstorms brick is unmatched. Yes, while it is true that you can stack as many 12V, 9V or Power Function cables as you want, the problem that I had to learn the hard way is that there's a limit to how much electric current you can draw from their battery boxes. Being newer allows Powered Up to run better technology, which allows the gen 4 Mindstorms brick provide a whopping 2,1k mAh. From a design perspective, I now understand why they made this new platform. I no longer regret leaving the EV3 ecosystem behind, even after having invested a small fortune on it. Pybricks further expands your options and it greatly reduces the boot-up time, too.

But seeing as getting the main gimmick to work has been such a financial blowout alongside purchasing a 64DD in the same year (oops), I will have to take a long break to financially recuperate. Which is perfect as I want to write the next blogposts for Maple (i.e. Holy Fountain and 6th Job), and I still have yet to start on my Inti Creates gaming backlog.

So, regarding both the Hailfire Droid and the Constructor. LEGO has started to develop new types of angled beams, which have been a lifesaver for the Hailfire Droid. Again, I haven't had time to redesign the frame to accommodate these, but that's basically the plan for that one. The many things I've learned during the development of Ouroboros will prove to be invaluable for the Constructor, which I will fully redesign from scratch (again) so that it can accommodate the high-torque solutions found in Ouroboros. This does mean the Constructor needs to become larger though, as otherwise the servos and/or planetary gears won't fit inside the legs. We shall see next year, but speed is everything.

Other

Densha de Go 64, together with the controller that was exclusively made for this version.

Now that I finally have some stable income for the foreseeable future, I can now be serious with my wishlist and start saving up for some items on that list to make my day-to-day life less miserable. The 64DD is quite the achievement and I'm looking forward to continue to work my way through that wishlist, whether LEGO, games or other interests.

While I've always shared stuff from my wishlist in the past (in particular, the many sealed LEGO sets), it's always been limited up to a certain price ceiling. Now there's room to save up for the big ones. Ones like the 64DD, that are now within reach. That's also the reason why I'm able to expand my LEGO portfolio with projects like Ouroboros, and will continue to do so. Because ultimately, I like a lot of stuff and I also like to share that enthusiasm. That's the reason why this blog exists, and having more breathing room means I can continue to share my enthusiasm for niche things...

... such as Densha de Go 64 and the giant Substitute plush! Continuing the rabbit hole of Japanese N64 exclusives to get the most fun out of my console, this port of the Densha de Go 2 arcade is a true novelty of a game. It's surprisingly enjoyable yet brutal with one of those learning curves you can sink your teeth in. The later Wii and Switch games just doesn't hit the same charm as the N64 one, even though the Wii version includes my favorite train design.

As for the giant Substitute plush (first image), it's something from Pokémon that most even wouldn't recognize it's from Pokémon. I know it's been a while since I've talked about Pokémon on this blog, but to summarize I've never left the generation 4 ecosystem that still continues to evolve. I love the nitty-gritty of generation 4's battle system and this doll represents that world. Back in 2019 my parents brought me a Substitute plush from their return trip to Japan, but as you can imagine I want the largest one. You have no idea how chonky this guy is. He doesn't even fit in my chair! But yes, this plush is just one big meme and it continues to provide humor around the house. His face is such a mood.

Continuing the Metroid talk from last year, I've tackled Metroid Dread on Dread Mode and two days ago I've finished Metroid Prime Remastered's 100% Scan Log on Hard Mode. In fact, I've gone through Dread Mode in its near entirety in tabletop mode while running on a treadmill - easier said than done. I've only had to sit down in front of a TV for three bosses. Honestly, Dread Mode felt more like fighting against the controller not registering inputs, rather than fighting against the game. Hard Mode on Metroid Prime Remastered was more a test of patience, if anything. I will inevitably try out the other (Prime) games, but so far I prefer 2D Metroid over the first-person ones. Both do have their merits.

As for next year, we'll be entering the next Nintendo console generation. Of course I'm excited for another fresh batch of games. If I had to make a prediction, I'm expecting two Xenoblade X sequels to complete the intended Wii U trilogy. We know about the cut content from the artbook and that a sequel was greenlit around the same time as Xenoblade 3. The announced Xenoblade X port for the Switch (which I'll refer to as DEX) appears to run worse than the original, even with lowered textures and polygon count. It is everything I feared it would be after playing the first game's DE for over 500 hours. I don't like the sudden character redesigns (there's a narrative reason for their original appearances), especially not when they kept them consistent for almost a decade now. To make matters worse, it's already confirmed that all of the free content is now paywalled behind NSO, instead of futureproofing the offline mode. I doubt they'll fix the localization errors and they're certainly not going to remove the censorship (I fear they'll double down, seeing how brutal X can be at times). It's just going to end up in the same poor state as the DE, and even the few good things it adds will never stack up against the losses. The worst part about these Switch ports of varying quality is that only a handful are appropriately criticized, but lesser known ones such as Kirby's Return to Dreamland and both Xenoblade 1 and X will get away with it. I just hope that it'll somehow stick the landing and that getting the collector's edition won't be as much of a pain as the others were, because reminder that the limited editions for Xenoblade X were still in stock even years into the Switch, lol. Anyway, we'll see in three months. Now, what is Treasure cooking? Could it be..!?

That it's for 2024 - I'll see you guys again next year!

[EMS] Neo - 5th Job's eighth wave!

2024-11-12T09:39:00.000+01:00

The power of the suuuuuuuuuunnn! - Dave Rodgers, probably.

Released back in 2021, the Neo update brought us our next 5th Job skill: Crest of the Solar (COTS). For a while, it became the final 5th Job skill wave as later that year the Pangyo truck protests happened. This incident changed the course of the game forever, as it assigned Changseop as the next KMS director, who had different priorities in mind.

The next following years, we've had the Destiny, Ignition, New Age, Dreamer and Milestone updates. These updates placed a greater emphasis on fundamentally fixing the game, rather than padding the game with more 5th Job skills.

More importantly, New Age saw the introduction of 6th Job. As our latest Job Advancement, sporadic releases of new 6th Job skills are now the next big thing. Thus, with all the attention going there, we haven't seen new skill waves until two months ago. This out-of-nowhere release has taught us that there's still a place for 5th Job in the modern era with the latest skill (Holy Fountain), as 5th Job is perfect for closing the gap between classes through new support skills.

In today's blogpost, we'll take a closer look at Crest of the Solar. I initially planned to publish the big 6th Job blogpost later this year after finishing the Destiny blogpost, but because Ouroboros had some unforeseen development issues, most of my time this year was lost fixing that. I'll start working on the 6th Job blogpost next year.

Crest of the Solar is very similar to another 5th Job skill, released during 2018's Ark update: Spider in Mirror (SIM). It's the second 5th Job skill that's obtained from a boss that drops a special colored Nodestone, which gives the player a modified version of one of the boss attacks. Comparisons between the two are inevitable for this blogpost. Yet at the same time, Crest of the Solar and Spider in Mirror are quite different despite their similarities.

Ah yes, Mitra. The Grandis equivalent of Maple World's Maha. Basically, they are (intentionally) the same character.

To unlock Crest of the Solar, the player must open a Mitra's Nodestone. Crest of the Solar cannot be crafted with Nodeshards. Opening Mitra's Nodestone requires the completion of Burning Cernium (Level 260 and above). These requirements makes it likely the final 5th Job skill to be unlocked, even possibly unlocked after 6th Job advancement.

For many years, this was certainly among the most difficult 5th Job skills to obtain. Back when it was released in 2021, Burning Cernium had an even higher level requirement of 265. It also was several years before the introduction of Ignition's high EXP yield through daily quests and Monster Park Extreme, but it was also before the reduced levelling curve from New Age. For reference, it took me all the way until late 2022 before I met the initial requirements.

Unlike Spider in Mirror, you do not receive a free copy after completing Burning Cernium. Mitra's Nodestones can only be dropped by Seren (Hard and above), so at the time this skill could only be sourced by whales. Thankfully, these nodestones aren't a few billion each anymore. Like Spider in Mirror, you will only need one Mitra's Nodestone to max out the skill. Use 18 EXP Nodestones. They are incredibly easy to source in high quantities nowadays, and this keeps the prices of Mitra's Nodestones in check. This way, you can afford another one once you'll inevitably run boss mules.

At face value, Crest of the Solar and Spider in Mirror appear to be functionally identical. A big AoE explosion, followed by a barrage of continuous attacks on select targets. They even share the same concept for duration and cooldown.

However, both skills excel at different scenarios because of their nuanced differences. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and you could say that used together the other makes up for their counterpart's weaknesses.

Both initial AoE explosions ignore the Enrage 1/3 split rule, but both will receive Enrage's bonus damage.
SIM installs a stationary summon that attacks nearby enemies in range. COTS however, is a summon that follows the player instead. Because SIM is stationary, it is lost once you change maps. This is not the case for COTS. For example: you can cast COTS before entering Inferno Wolf, but SIM must be used inside.
SIM cannot be used against Will, but COTS can*. Conversely, COTS cannot be used against Seren, but SIM can. You can smuggle COTS into Seren, but the skill will be disabled as long as you stay in the map.
SIM boasts an impressive attacking range out of necessity. COTS has a "smaller" range as it can follow the player, but in practice the difference between the two is non-existent. They're both great in that department.
SIM attacks a lot of enemies, but it can only attack enemies one by one. Unlike SIM, COTS attacks groups, so it's eligible for MultiKO's and passive effects that increase its target count (Inner Ability, Union Artifact) while SIM cannot. Furthermore, COTS deals slightly higher damage if it targets a single enemy.
SIM always cycles between attacking and reloading, so there's a lot of downtime (over half of its duration) where it does nothing. How quickly it goes into downtime depends on how quickly it reaches the threshold limit. COTS has a consistent rate of fire instead, but it'll only activate once every two seconds.
SIM will forcefully end attack mode after a short while and go into reloading if there aren't any nearby targets, even if it hasn't attacked any enemies at all. COTS will wait until there are eligible targets.
The damage on COTS is slightly lower than SIM due to its lower line count and less frequent attacks, but it is comparable enough. Regardless, having either skill on the field provides a significant damage increase.
Neither skills can activate (Advanced) Final Attack, whether the initial AoE explosion or summon. Only the initial AoE explosion from COTS can activate Ryude, because SIM's explosion is already capped at 15.
Neither summons can activate Panic or Sword of Burning Soul (SOBS) by themselves, but both summons can activate Sol Janus Dusk, which is able to activate both Panic and Sword of Burning Soul afterwards.
SIM will attack regardless if the player is engaged in combat, similar to stationary Sword of Burning Soul. COTS however literally checks if the player is in alert mode, and only that. If you are in a neutral state, it'll stop after the third attack until you are back in alert mode (by either attacking or being successfully hit by an enemy). Although you can easily circumvent this drawback by letting COTS activate Sol Janus Dusk.

*Honestly, I never understood why they thought it was a good idea to disable major 5th Job skills against the bosses these are sourced from. By that logic, we should disable boss souls appropriately and no longer allow UA skills against Cygnus, or the Genesis weapon skills against Black Mage.

But that's Crest of the Solar in broad terms - let's take a closer look at the numbers.

Crest of the Solar has a cooldown of 250 seconds. Its duration is 51 seconds, one second longer than Spider in Mirror to accommodate for its unusual attack interval. These parameters are the same for all levels of the skill.

The damage of the initial explosion on Crest of the Solar is much higher (1650% twelve times) than Spider in Mirror (990% fifteen times). Because it's also under fifteen times, Ryude can activate another COTS AoE 1650% line for free.

If Crest of the Solar finds any nearby target, it will attack as many enemies it's allowed to and then this attack will not occur again for 2,1 seconds. In total, Crest of the Solar can activate up to 24 times within its duration, whereas SIM can activate up to 30 times against a single target.

Crest of the Solar will always attack up to two targets. Because the summon can only activate up to 24 times, there's a maximum of 48 enemies. With Union Artifact, this can go up to 72. Add Inner Ability for 96.
Spider in Mirror takes about 7 seconds to defeat 10 enemies before it goes on a three second cooldown, so it has an unmentioned physical limit of five attack modes for up to 50 enemies in total.

The damage of Crest of the Solar against multiple enemies is a solid 440% per line, six times. Against a single target it becomes sixes lines of 605%. Spider in Mirror will always deal eight lines of 385% damage, but it can attack the same enemy up to five times before starting its three second cooldown. There are no further enhancements on 6th Job yet.

Generally speaking, Spider in Mirror will always be better than Crest of the Solar damage-wise. This is only because damage calculation has always favored sheer line quantity over lower-but-stronger damage lines, due to the nature of how MapleStory's multipliers work. In the grand scheme of things however, both skills perform very similar. Especially in the current 6th Job environment, the damage contribution of either skills become smaller by the year. That's not to say that either skill's damage output is not insignificant - it does matter as more damage is still more damage, after all.

So, if I have to choose one or the other... that entirely depends on the situation. There are times where I do not like the fact that Spider in Mirror cannot be taken into other maps. But there are also times where I feel like Crest of the Solar is less impactful because of its lower damage, less frequent attacks and limitations being a summon. For bossing, stacking both skills for a significant damage boost is great. These days I can't imagine playing without either skills.

Crest of the Solar is basically more Spider in Mirror, and I'd say that's great. Sure, it aint on the level of SOBS, but seeing as how many 5th Job skills are ridden with durations too short or cooldowns too long, these "jellybean nodes" are among the better half. They have certainly aged better than, let's say... Body of Steel. If the worst complaint about COTS I can come up with is that the AoE is barely visible half the time, I'd say they have designed a pretty good skill.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!