Oh boy, 5th Job is here. Well, to be exact, it's been out since the 14th of December. "But Ray, why has it taken you two weeks before you'd actually published something?" - It's because unlike most people, I prefer to go through something new first, collect my mind and give it some time to find the right place. And especially with something like 5th Job, which has been one of the most significant updates for this game in years, I rather give it the patience and time it deserves.
I can't get myself to the right judgment for something on the first day. Fortunately not many people can, so I can't blame myself for giving it two weeks. However, that did buy me enough time to figure out a thing or two about my final thoughts for 5th Job's first wave. And it also allowed me to work on some sweet GIFs for this blogpost because they take days worth of my spare time to create, and with the holidays around December, it's difficult to find the right moments to work on them. And yes, you read it correctly: it's only the first wave. Apparently it is one of many to come. That means, I will most likely share my thoughts about those too when they arrive.
Because it has taken me two weeks to get this blogpost to air, you should be damn sure to expect one lengthy blogpost. Because I will most likely cover a lot. So to prevent my blog from taking forever to load because of all the GIFs and become even more laggy than the Reboot server from Global MapleStory, there will be a jump break. This won't be a 5th Job guide, it'll be an extensive collection of my thoughts about it. I will only cover the cores I think are worth to mention. So stuff like Erda Nova and Blink are pretty straightforward and there's no need to cover those today.
So, let's start with the actual Advancement itself. Sounds like a good start to me.
Level 200. It does make a lot of sense. It feels like the perfect start for 5th Job. Two-hundred is still a significant milestone in any one's career in this game, and even if the maximum Level is 250, two-hundred goes all the way to the roots of this game. Level 200 isn't something you'd "just do". It's not a give away. You still have to put some effort into it. And imagine that less than 0,1% of all EMS characters is Level 200 or higher. Which means 5th Job gives that exclusivity that 4th Job seems to give people back in its day.
In 2013, just after the development for 5th Job was confirmed during the Summer Conference for KMS (which was the RED update) it was expected through data-mining that 5th Job would happen at Level 160. Given how MapleStory does its Skill Trees, in example, having around eight skills with an often maximum level of 30, Level 160 would make sense. Which would get you close to actually nine skills to be maxed out if you'd hit 250.
I have asked quite a number of players about their opinion on the 160 thing. And I would definitely agree with one thing almost everybody pointed out: Level 160 feels so... early? It doesn't give that grand feeling. So most people either suggested 180 or 200. For the usual Skill Tree system in Maple, I would think 180 would be the best choice. Only fifty levels worth of Skill Points to max out would feel odd. Another thing that some people pointed out: what about Hypers? Given they start and 140 and go all the way to 200. I personally would've expected Hypers to go along 5th Job and that some would've been re-adjusted (i.e. if there would be Expert Final Attack, the Hypers for Advanced Final Attack would be changed to Expert Final Attack, if Raging Blow would be replaced, it'll be Hypers for the new one) and that post-200 you would have Hypers skills for 5th Job.
Well, for the people who are 5th Job or have been into the basic "what there is to know about it", we all know that 5th Job is beyond Level 200 and does not use any of the traditional Skill Points and Level Up thing that we've been used to. And I'm pretty sure that going for the traditional route has been on the table at Nexon's. But I do think that how the V Matrix works and the stuff you can get from it has been an interesting and refreshing solution which would avoid a significant amount of issues. One of which is the fact that there just aren't many people who can get to Level 250 without dramatically changing the grinding speed of this game beyond 200. But, I will get back to the V Matrix in the next chapter, given I have barely even started on talking about the Advancement itself.
There's six things I do like about what they've done with the 5th Job Advancement. Here they are:
The game expects a certain level of competence from the player, which seems to be fair given the "exclusivity" of how many Level 200s are there in comparison to the entire playerbase. You need to have unlocked a part of Helisium (which is the most basic map of the entire Helisium continent to unlock) to have access to at least Easy Magnus (not even Normal or Hard, just only Easy Magnus), you need to have finished the blockbuster Heroes of Maple (Final Chapter-only already suffices) to unlock Destroyed World Tree and you need to have done most of the Temple of Time's "Door to the Past" quests to start and finish the questline from the Amnesiac Temple Keeper. While that seems like a mouthful to complete, most of this is really basic unlocking of certain continents that do have some significance at late 4th Job.
The game does at least put some effort in explaining how 5th Job works in comparison to the previous Job Advances you've been through. While I am sure a lot of people would just skip it all because "Why should you read all that text anyway" - that it's there is something I will appreciate because it goes for something new and it might be overwhelming to most players, including the most experienced ones. Now, for the people who know me in-game: please stop asking me how Nodestones work or the V Matrix, because the Memory Keeper already explains it. There's plenty of guides out there for that, anyway.
Like the ooooooooold original 4th Job, you start with almost nothing. You have to get all your Skills yourself. From scratch. I've met plenty of people who did like that concept of old 4th Job and I'm glad that they reintroduced that concept. And boy, am I glad that Nexon didn't go for the same execution. While a lot of people go nostalgic over Skill Quests which I have covered in my past on our Youtube Channel, they are for today's standard outdated and flawed. Trust me, you do not want to have the toxic fights for every Manon, Griffey and Pianus any longer. Or that you need to do a party quest that about nobody knows how to even do it in the first place. Forced with six other people, and if one disconnects, you're screwed. Or that you're forced to join a specific class Skill Quest to get your own skill, and if you won't participate, good luck finding somebody who sells it because trading your Skill Book requires Nexon Cash. And that isn't even the worst of the bunch... Nodestones are much better in my opinion, but I will get back to that in the same chapter together with the V Matrix.
To go further on the fact that you start with almost nothing, I'm glad that the game gives you your signature first 5th Job Skill for free. It also comes from a Nodestone you receive from the Advancement itself, so it's a good way to show players how it works. Show, don't tell.
The Advancement animation feels grand and important. It also goes very well with the entire Erda theme that Road of Vanishing been going for. The old Advancement animations were rather small and didn't have that feel that 5th Job gave if you'd compare it to today...
Last but not least, perhaps an overlooked thing about 5th Job: they kept your class names. They didn't go for "the next step in your profession's name" like they most likely would call Hero something like "Legend" on 5th Job. While it is true that 4th Job brought new names to the table, 3rd Job wasn't as long lived as the "final advancement" like 2nd Job, and since the entire community is used to the current 4th Job names for that long, I do believe that that was the best balance Nexon could go for. I am pretty sure that Nexon might have discussed this as an option, but at least I am glad that I kept my 4th Job name. Perhaps having an indication on those Character Card to show which people are 5th Job, might not hurt...
Well, there are some things I do not like about 5th Job Advancement too, and here are some of those points:
Despite that 5th Job does require you to unlock some continents, the game doesn't make that clear until you'd actually come across the part where it's too late. In example, if you haven't done Heroes of Maple in order to unlock Destroyed World Tree while the 5th Job Advancement requires you to get there, the game just mentions "Finish the Heroes of Maple Blockbuster to gain access to this continent". That's all it does. It does not prematurely warn you about "Hey, you do need to have finished some stuff in this game to proceed", or neither does it help you to explain how to get to that content. While I may have done over five-thousand quests on Rayque, I do care about the accessibility of this game for the majority of players (to come), and I can imagine a lot of people (including a significant amount of friends who do not care about questing at all or have the knowledge about what the heck quests actually even do in this game) struggle with this one. The solution would've probably be simple: just make sure that when you start the actual Job Advancement's first quest, the game should check what stuff you have completed already, and which you haven't yet. There are plenty of quests that have other quests in it as a quest objective, so...
The waiting time is pretty extensive, even for somebody like me. Yes, I know that they reduced the cooldowns in Korea recently, but the fact that you need to wait a lot of hours before you can Job Advance is rather harsh. Especially when you need to have all three stones first before you can start the two-hour timer - you're not allowed to just obtain one stone and activate it so you could do Heroes of Maple in the meanwhile to get the next stone ready. I think that would be a much better execution of that forced "waiting". Also, we all know that even if I can be incredibly patient, I still have my inner child, so I just want to get to my 5th Job ASAP.
Even if the game generously gives you your first signature skill by default, I think that the game should give you more than just one Nodestone to get you going. Perhaps they should give you one Nodestone for each type of Core or give you some Node Shards for free as a welcoming gift.
Return to Table of Contents
The V Matrix
The V Matrix is where it begins. Remember Evolving System where you could insert Cores to upgrade your dungeon? That is how 5th Job works now. Not familiar with Evolving System? With 5th Job, you have the choice to choose what skills you want to use. And 5th Job has a large variety of types of skills (called Nodes or Cores, I prefer Cores to be honest). A lot of them. Thankfully there is no limit to the amount of Cores you can hold in that Matrix' inventory, so you can always hold the stuff you don't need or park Cores you temporarily don't need to use until a later moment.
The V Matrix can be opened through your Skill Window. Every core that you insert into the V Matrix, can be found in the "V Tab" of your Skill Window. When they appear in the "V Tab", it's really like any other Job Advance where you can drag and drop those skills as a hotkey on your keyboard, or to view the stats in general. I really like this feature and it keeps your stuff well organized.
5th Job comes with three different kind of skills you can choose from. And this is something they've done right. You have Enhancement Cores, Skill Cores and Special Cores.
Enhancement Cores are versatile cores which improves the final damage of your 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Job skills. They are most similar to the "Hyper Skills" enhancements. Enhancements are passive, and can cover attack skills, and some of them are even buffs or passives (i.e. Final Attack, Quiver Cartridges). There will always be at least one skill to be the "main" skill it would improve (as stated by the name of that Core, it describes the primary skill), and it can take up to two of your other skills with it. So for instance, if you'd have a core that would focus on Raging Blow, it would be stated in its name. What the other two skills could be, that's random.
Every skill has a fixed percentage of final damage increase per Level, so it doesn't matter if it's the main skill or not. However, you could only equip one "distinct" core at a time. So in example, a "Brandish" Core would be considered as one distinct "unique" Core focused on Brandish (Core A), so a Core which is focused on Puncture (Core B) could be used together with the Brandish one (Core A), but you're not allowed to use two Cores of "Brandish" (both would be considered as Core A). However, because that Puncture (Core B) one could increase Brandish as well, you could in theory use multiple different Cores which would all give reinforcement to the Brandish skill. So in another theory you could have over ten reinforcements (!) for Brandish, because you could get that many different options (i.e. Raging Blow featuring Brandish, Puncture featuring Brandish, Shout featuring Brandish, Rush featuring Brandish, Combo Force featuring Brandish, etc). The reason why I used Brandish as example is because continuously writing "Raging Blow" makes that example difficult to read.
The higher level an Enhancement Core becomes, the more additional stats you'll get for that particular skill, which includes additional defence ignore and an additional target for multi-target skills or critical rate for single target skills.
Skill Cores are new cores to bring you new skills. These are the more traditional "5th Job" Skills most people would imagine or expect from MapleStory. And boy, these are lots of fun. I will get to these in-depth in a later chapter of this blogpost. Every class has at least their own unique Skill Cores (i.e. Hero only, Bowmaster only, Shadower only, Arch Mage Ice/Lightning only). Some Skill Cores are shared throughout multiple classes, like how Maple Warrior and Hero's Will is a 4th Job skill for all classes in general, or how every Adventure gets Epic Adventure at Level 200, or how every Nova gets Vertical Grapple from the start, etc. Some Skill Cores give you skills from other classes, which is mainly focused on the Self Skills from Potential. So there's plenty of different kind of Skill Cores to obtain, some of which are attacks, some are buffs, and some are even convenience-related!
Special Cores are cores that surprisingly expire after two weeks. They are distinct cores that often uses a template where "if something happens, then the following occurs" - increasing damage every few hits you land, recovering HP every half a minute, etc. These seem rather underwhelming, I can understand why people prefer not to use them. They could often be unreliable, but I think that they should've made these last permanently instead. That would've increased the appeal a lot, I'd expect. Another thing they should change is the fact that you can only use one Special Core at a time... Is that really necessary?
So, as you would expect: every core takes one slot on the V Matrix. You start with a generous number of four. Every six levels after Level 200 (206, 212, 218, all the way up to 248) gives you an additional slot. And Nexon has implied that there will be more ways to expand those slots - however, as the time of this blogpost, that feature has yet to be implemented.
You can freely swap Cores whenever you like, however, you're not allowed to quick swap Cores back and forth as long as they have been used and thus are on cooldown. This is something I do support: if there's one thing I dislike about how the community plays Maple, is how a lot of people just swaps equipment in the middle of a boss fight to cast a Self Skill and swap it back to their "main equipment". Feels like cheating to me, but the choice is really up to you if you want to have that agony.
One thing that I definitely like about the concept behind Cores is that players are allowed to run what they like. Personal preferences. And I especially appreciate when multiple methods work. You could, for instance, run loads of Raging Blow Enhancement Cores and dish out ridiculous amounts of damage and obtain multiple stacks of Defence Ignore so you don't even need those Potential lines or Defence Ignore from equipment. You could run Skill Cores for additional Skills to improve your class experience; in case of Hero, Sword of Burning Soul does a ridiculous amount of additional damage on a target. You could even run Special Cores to get your damage or sustainability raised in a pinch. There's no "right or wrong" answer for what to pick, which also applies to how you build your character - and you could tailor your choice of cores based on what Equipment, Skill Links, Character Cards, Inner Ability and Hyper Skills you run. You could even tailor it to your needs as a pilot behind your character.
Having no "right or wrong" answer also translates back to the Equipment, Skill Links, Character Cards, Inner Ability and Hyper Skills you run. As mentioned before, you could, for instance, run plenty of Enhancement Cores that only focus on your main skill so you can reinforce and dramatically improve your damage - this would allow you to run a different set of equipment rather than "the cookie cutter elite community build", because you would get that much damage reinforcement and so much Defence Ignore that you could make space for different Equipment, Skill Links, Character Cards, Inner Abilties and Hyper Skills. Another example: if you run loads of Hurricane Cores, you would gain additional Critical Rate (only) for Hurricane, which means you could make better use of other slots (Potential, Nebulites, Skill Links, Character Cards, Inner Ability, Hyper Stats) that were invested in Critical Rate before. Having many Enhancements for a skill like Raging Blow, would increase the amount of targets, which would leave that expensive skill point for "Raging Blow - Additional Targets" Hyper Skill to be invested better in something else.
This also applies to certain Skill Cores, mainly the Potential and Nebulite Self Skills - if you want, you can get the 5th Job variants, so you could make space for a different Potential line or Nebulite slot. Heck, you could even obtain Self Hyper Body as a Skill Core, which could allow you to run an Overall. And while there is a Nebulite variant of it, Self Hyper Body Nebulite isn't a Nebulite most people would want to run on an Overall because there's so many other good options to choose from.
So, how do you obtain these awesome Cores? Through Nodestones. Whenever you are in any of the Arcane River, which is 5th Job's continent, you could find Nodestones. Which are those big chunks of white rock you can see in the image above. Nodestones are larger than usual drops, so they should not be hard to spot! Unfortunately you can only trade these within your own account through the bank, so you cannot trade them away or sell it in the Free Market or Auction House. Nodestones give you one random core, which... may wield one of many possible cores. But do not fear, my dear fellow reader, there is a solution to that!
In the Road of Vanishing, which is the primary town of 5th Job, there is the NPC called Archelle. He is "the Node Master" (there are a few other NPCs with this same functionality, but most people will most likely get to know Archelle first). For every core you obtain which you either don't need or cannot use, you can ask him to extract these for Node Shards! Enhancement Cores are the most common, so of course, they would give the least Node Shards. Special Cores wield the most Node Shards but are also the most hard to find: so the fact that you probably don't want to use it doesn't matter - they expire, so you might want to get those fancy 50 (!) Node Shards! What can you do with those Node Shards? This is the gem of 5th Job's V Matrix, which is a much better execution of the concept "starting with nothing and obtaining all your skills one by one" that 4th Job went for - it's called Nodecrafting.
If you got enough Node Shards, you could literally craft any of the Cores you'd like to have. Every Enhancement Core, every Skill Core and every Special Core is available for you to use, including the ones you don't need! No limits in how many you can craft. This also means that if there would be a new set of Skill Cores and you'd want to have them Day 1, as long as you have enough Node Shards, you can purchase them straight away when you get to Archelle! This is something that makes me incredibly happy.
Archelle also gives you the opportunity to use Node Shards to craft a tradeable (!) Nodestone, which is interesting if you want to make some revenue with 5th Job. I would most likely buy a lot of Nodestones to get those shards, because trying to find them instead requires hours and hours worth of grinding... I'll leave that to other players who can afford those grinds but also are smart enough to multiply their droprates to over eight (!) times. Leveling cores is the next thing I'll talk about.
Every core, of course, starts at Level 1. In order to level those cores, like as you would invest Skill Points in your Skills to raise their level, you would need to spend Node Shards for the same core as the one you want to level up. These cores are merged together to increase its level. So to get your cores to a higher level, you'll need multiples of the same core. Pretty straightforward, right? As long as you obtain enough Nodestones (which most likely are bought in the Free Market or Auction House) for enough Node Shards, you could level your skills without needing to level up for more SP because grinding to Level 250 kinda sucks. Hooray! You would need a lot of Node Shards though, but at least you don't need to grind endlessly...
So all in all, having these Node Shards makes 5th Job accessible to the majority of Level 200 players.
This also allows you to freely level any cores you want, without being limited to a system as Skill Points that is much harder (and expensive) to reset to re-invest those points, or is limited to a set amount of points you may invest at all. Of course, based on the rarity of the core, it costs more Node Shards to craft one - Skill Cores are more expensive than Enhancement Cores. Special Cores cannot level so they always wield the maximum bonus at Level 1.
Cores can only be purchased, extracted for Node Shards or leveled through Archelle. Or you'd find a new core through Nodestones. Which means, you can't accidentally get rid of a core you are using while playing. I'm glad that they kept that separate, that was a good choice.
The V Matrix is where it begins. Remember Evolving System where you could insert Cores to upgrade your dungeon? That is how 5th Job works now. Not familiar with Evolving System? With 5th Job, you have the choice to choose what skills you want to use. And 5th Job has a large variety of types of skills (called Nodes or Cores, I prefer Cores to be honest). A lot of them. Thankfully there is no limit to the amount of Cores you can hold in that Matrix' inventory, so you can always hold the stuff you don't need or park Cores you temporarily don't need to use until a later moment.
The V Matrix can be opened through your Skill Window. Every core that you insert into the V Matrix, can be found in the "V Tab" of your Skill Window. When they appear in the "V Tab", it's really like any other Job Advance where you can drag and drop those skills as a hotkey on your keyboard, or to view the stats in general. I really like this feature and it keeps your stuff well organized.
5th Job comes with three different kind of skills you can choose from. And this is something they've done right. You have Enhancement Cores, Skill Cores and Special Cores.
Enhancement Cores are versatile cores which improves the final damage of your 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Job skills. They are most similar to the "Hyper Skills" enhancements. Enhancements are passive, and can cover attack skills, and some of them are even buffs or passives (i.e. Final Attack, Quiver Cartridges). There will always be at least one skill to be the "main" skill it would improve (as stated by the name of that Core, it describes the primary skill), and it can take up to two of your other skills with it. So for instance, if you'd have a core that would focus on Raging Blow, it would be stated in its name. What the other two skills could be, that's random.
Every skill has a fixed percentage of final damage increase per Level, so it doesn't matter if it's the main skill or not. However, you could only equip one "distinct" core at a time. So in example, a "Brandish" Core would be considered as one distinct "unique" Core focused on Brandish (Core A), so a Core which is focused on Puncture (Core B) could be used together with the Brandish one (Core A), but you're not allowed to use two Cores of "Brandish" (both would be considered as Core A). However, because that Puncture (Core B) one could increase Brandish as well, you could in theory use multiple different Cores which would all give reinforcement to the Brandish skill. So in another theory you could have over ten reinforcements (!) for Brandish, because you could get that many different options (i.e. Raging Blow featuring Brandish, Puncture featuring Brandish, Shout featuring Brandish, Rush featuring Brandish, Combo Force featuring Brandish, etc). The reason why I used Brandish as example is because continuously writing "Raging Blow" makes that example difficult to read.
The higher level an Enhancement Core becomes, the more additional stats you'll get for that particular skill, which includes additional defence ignore and an additional target for multi-target skills or critical rate for single target skills.
Skill Cores are new cores to bring you new skills. These are the more traditional "5th Job" Skills most people would imagine or expect from MapleStory. And boy, these are lots of fun. I will get to these in-depth in a later chapter of this blogpost. Every class has at least their own unique Skill Cores (i.e. Hero only, Bowmaster only, Shadower only, Arch Mage Ice/Lightning only). Some Skill Cores are shared throughout multiple classes, like how Maple Warrior and Hero's Will is a 4th Job skill for all classes in general, or how every Adventure gets Epic Adventure at Level 200, or how every Nova gets Vertical Grapple from the start, etc. Some Skill Cores give you skills from other classes, which is mainly focused on the Self Skills from Potential. So there's plenty of different kind of Skill Cores to obtain, some of which are attacks, some are buffs, and some are even convenience-related!
Special Cores are cores that surprisingly expire after two weeks. They are distinct cores that often uses a template where "if something happens, then the following occurs" - increasing damage every few hits you land, recovering HP every half a minute, etc. These seem rather underwhelming, I can understand why people prefer not to use them. They could often be unreliable, but I think that they should've made these last permanently instead. That would've increased the appeal a lot, I'd expect. Another thing they should change is the fact that you can only use one Special Core at a time... Is that really necessary?
So, as you would expect: every core takes one slot on the V Matrix. You start with a generous number of four. Every six levels after Level 200 (206, 212, 218, all the way up to 248) gives you an additional slot. And Nexon has implied that there will be more ways to expand those slots - however, as the time of this blogpost, that feature has yet to be implemented.
You can freely swap Cores whenever you like, however, you're not allowed to quick swap Cores back and forth as long as they have been used and thus are on cooldown. This is something I do support: if there's one thing I dislike about how the community plays Maple, is how a lot of people just swaps equipment in the middle of a boss fight to cast a Self Skill and swap it back to their "main equipment". Feels like cheating to me, but the choice is really up to you if you want to have that agony.
One thing that I definitely like about the concept behind Cores is that players are allowed to run what they like. Personal preferences. And I especially appreciate when multiple methods work. You could, for instance, run loads of Raging Blow Enhancement Cores and dish out ridiculous amounts of damage and obtain multiple stacks of Defence Ignore so you don't even need those Potential lines or Defence Ignore from equipment. You could run Skill Cores for additional Skills to improve your class experience; in case of Hero, Sword of Burning Soul does a ridiculous amount of additional damage on a target. You could even run Special Cores to get your damage or sustainability raised in a pinch. There's no "right or wrong" answer for what to pick, which also applies to how you build your character - and you could tailor your choice of cores based on what Equipment, Skill Links, Character Cards, Inner Ability and Hyper Skills you run. You could even tailor it to your needs as a pilot behind your character.
Having no "right or wrong" answer also translates back to the Equipment, Skill Links, Character Cards, Inner Ability and Hyper Skills you run. As mentioned before, you could, for instance, run plenty of Enhancement Cores that only focus on your main skill so you can reinforce and dramatically improve your damage - this would allow you to run a different set of equipment rather than "the cookie cutter elite community build", because you would get that much damage reinforcement and so much Defence Ignore that you could make space for different Equipment, Skill Links, Character Cards, Inner Abilties and Hyper Skills. Another example: if you run loads of Hurricane Cores, you would gain additional Critical Rate (only) for Hurricane, which means you could make better use of other slots (Potential, Nebulites, Skill Links, Character Cards, Inner Ability, Hyper Stats) that were invested in Critical Rate before. Having many Enhancements for a skill like Raging Blow, would increase the amount of targets, which would leave that expensive skill point for "Raging Blow - Additional Targets" Hyper Skill to be invested better in something else.
This also applies to certain Skill Cores, mainly the Potential and Nebulite Self Skills - if you want, you can get the 5th Job variants, so you could make space for a different Potential line or Nebulite slot. Heck, you could even obtain Self Hyper Body as a Skill Core, which could allow you to run an Overall. And while there is a Nebulite variant of it, Self Hyper Body Nebulite isn't a Nebulite most people would want to run on an Overall because there's so many other good options to choose from.
So, how do you obtain these awesome Cores? Through Nodestones. Whenever you are in any of the Arcane River, which is 5th Job's continent, you could find Nodestones. Which are those big chunks of white rock you can see in the image above. Nodestones are larger than usual drops, so they should not be hard to spot! Unfortunately you can only trade these within your own account through the bank, so you cannot trade them away or sell it in the Free Market or Auction House. Nodestones give you one random core, which... may wield one of many possible cores. But do not fear, my dear fellow reader, there is a solution to that!
In the Road of Vanishing, which is the primary town of 5th Job, there is the NPC called Archelle. He is "the Node Master" (there are a few other NPCs with this same functionality, but most people will most likely get to know Archelle first). For every core you obtain which you either don't need or cannot use, you can ask him to extract these for Node Shards! Enhancement Cores are the most common, so of course, they would give the least Node Shards. Special Cores wield the most Node Shards but are also the most hard to find: so the fact that you probably don't want to use it doesn't matter - they expire, so you might want to get those fancy 50 (!) Node Shards! What can you do with those Node Shards? This is the gem of 5th Job's V Matrix, which is a much better execution of the concept "starting with nothing and obtaining all your skills one by one" that 4th Job went for - it's called Nodecrafting.
If you got enough Node Shards, you could literally craft any of the Cores you'd like to have. Every Enhancement Core, every Skill Core and every Special Core is available for you to use, including the ones you don't need! No limits in how many you can craft. This also means that if there would be a new set of Skill Cores and you'd want to have them Day 1, as long as you have enough Node Shards, you can purchase them straight away when you get to Archelle! This is something that makes me incredibly happy.
Archelle also gives you the opportunity to use Node Shards to craft a tradeable (!) Nodestone, which is interesting if you want to make some revenue with 5th Job. I would most likely buy a lot of Nodestones to get those shards, because trying to find them instead requires hours and hours worth of grinding... I'll leave that to other players who can afford those grinds but also are smart enough to multiply their droprates to over eight (!) times. Leveling cores is the next thing I'll talk about.
Every core, of course, starts at Level 1. In order to level those cores, like as you would invest Skill Points in your Skills to raise their level, you would need to spend Node Shards for the same core as the one you want to level up. These cores are merged together to increase its level. So to get your cores to a higher level, you'll need multiples of the same core. Pretty straightforward, right? As long as you obtain enough Nodestones (which most likely are bought in the Free Market or Auction House) for enough Node Shards, you could level your skills without needing to level up for more SP because grinding to Level 250 kinda sucks. Hooray! You would need a lot of Node Shards though, but at least you don't need to grind endlessly...
So all in all, having these Node Shards makes 5th Job accessible to the majority of Level 200 players.
This also allows you to freely level any cores you want, without being limited to a system as Skill Points that is much harder (and expensive) to reset to re-invest those points, or is limited to a set amount of points you may invest at all. Of course, based on the rarity of the core, it costs more Node Shards to craft one - Skill Cores are more expensive than Enhancement Cores. Special Cores cannot level so they always wield the maximum bonus at Level 1.
Cores can only be purchased, extracted for Node Shards or leveled through Archelle. Or you'd find a new core through Nodestones. Which means, you can't accidentally get rid of a core you are using while playing. I'm glad that they kept that separate, that was a good choice.
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Sword of Burning Soul
Oh boy. Sword of Burning Soul, called "Burning Soul Blade" in EMS, which I rather prefer to call "Sobs" just because it's a fun acronym and much easier to write anyway. It's a sword that looks strikingly similar to Valhalla (Hero's Level 150 Hyper) and follows you around. Most of you recurring readers would probably want to know my opinion on Hero's first signature 5th Job skill. And you will get it, because there is a lot to cover.
Sword of Burning Soul is a versatile summon which gives Hero the ability to deal additional attacks. The summon comes in two forms and the player can manually swap back and forth between these two as long as the summon is still active.
In addition, Sobs changes Raging Blow to its Enraged form, which has a much larger hitbox, and allows Enraged Raging Blow (ERB) to hit the same amount of targets as default Raging Blow because Enrage is not applied - the same boost Valhalla gives. So it doesn't matter which of both forms you pick, you'll always have the ERB ability. Last but not least, Sobs does not trigger Damage Reflect, but it does not ignore it either.
I will get straight to the point. I think that Sword of Burning Soul is one of the best and most game changing skills Hero has gotten in years. And I rarely get to say that. Nexon really seems to know and understand what Hero needs.
Ever since RED introduced a new mechanic in several Hero skills (having two variants of one skill, and being able to swap back and forth), I was curious about whenever this system would also be implemented in 5th Job. I was also curious if Raging Blow would ever be replaced on 5th Job, and I am glad that they decided not to.
I think it's good to start with Sword of Burning Soul's default form ("Sobs-sweep"). This is also the form you automatically get when you activate Sobs. Every second, Sword of Burning Soul would sweep forward and deal a low amount of hits but a strong amount of damage per hit. The damage done by Sword of Burning Soul will scale quickly per level, which means Sobs will do more damage than Raging Blow early on, and will be ridiculously high in comparison at maximum level. Because Combo Attack now multiplies your range instead of keeping it hidden, Hero no longer has the issue with summons (Boss Souls, but also Sobs) having incredibly weak damage.
The skill seems pretty straightforward at first, but there's a lot more to it. Sobs counts as a different additional attack, which means if Raging Blow or a different skill kills one target, Sobs would not hit that same target but hit something else that is in range (or, nothing if there is nothing in range). This sweep gives Hero an advantageous amount of more separate attacks, similar to Advanced Final Attack, and goes in between attacks you already have, instead of being some new skill to replace your old ones that just "only attacks faster". It does mean that Durability on equipment gets burned almost twice as fast, though...
Sobs' default form always has a larger hitbox than Enraged Raging Blow. The height of the hitbox is rather the same as ERB, which also means Sobs cannot hit mobs below you. Because Sobs follows you from behind, Sobs actually starts behind your character, which allows you to hit enemies behind your back too! This means that Sobs has an incredible long horizontal hitbox, reaching further than ERB up front and also hitting behind you.
However, when the sweep triggers, its location will be the exact spot where you triggered it. This means that if you would trigger Sobs in mid-air, it will sweep in mid-air. If you're quick enough, you could get Sobs to sweep behind you entirely by turning around, activating it so it would start from that position, and turn back to attack (i.e. with Raging Blow) in the opposite direction. This ability gives Hero the ability to create "after image attacks", which essentially means every second, the game would do the Sobs hitbox on the spot where you just attacked.
Sword of Burning Soul has even an additional ability to be changed by Enrage. Similar to how Raging Blow changes to Enraged Raging Blow, Sobs becomes even bigger in hitbox, but also does MORE damage per line by default, which gets boosted AGAIN by the one-versus-one boost from Enrage. This makes Sobs-sweep an incredible skill to burst damage. If Advanced Final Attack wasn't enough, you also get Sword of Burning Soul... AND Aura Weapon, but I will get back on Aura Weapon on the next chapter.
Sobs-sweep (both default and Enraged sweep) can be triggered by (Advanced) Final Attack, Slash Blast, Brandish, Combo Force (Pull AND Hookshot), Brave Slash, Rush, Panic, Shout (No-stun AND Stun), Raging Blow, Puncture and Rage Uprising. It cannot be triggered by Three Snails, Soul Driver or Sengoku Secret Manual. Using your default attack cannot trigger this sweep either. I think it's safe to assume that Beginner Skills cannot trigger Sobs-sweep, or skills that are triggered after using a skill (Aura Weapon, Advanced Final Attack). This does mean however, that you're able to force Sobs to sweep when/where you want to if you'd use Soul Driver to hold Sobs at least one attack longer and then let it sweep somewhere else after with a non-Beginner attack.
In addition, Sobs has a 50% additional Critical Rate. While that won't do much for me on my Hero, I can imagine plenty of Heroes struggle or are still on their way to 100% Critical Rate, so having 50% additional Critical Rate on their Sobs is interesting
Sword of Burning Soul's second form places the sword in the floor ("Sobs-turret"). Unlike Sobs-sweep, Sobs-turret automatically attacks every second. You swap Sobs-sweep to turret mode by pressing the skill key again. Imagine an On/Off where On is Sobs-sweep and Off is Sobs-turret.
Sobs-turret has a much larger hitbox than Sobs-sweep. Instead of focusing on forward coverage, Sobs-turret focuses on covering a wide area. This doesn't only make Sobs-turret more suitable for mobbing compared to Sobs-sweep, it also is able to gather more enemies at the same time. So, Sobs-sweep requires you to attack by yourself and Sobs will attack near you. But Sobs-turret will become independent of you and will attack on its own automatically, while you're able to move freely around it and do whatever you want.
The ideal use of Sobs-turret is knowing its hitbox but also its limitations. Sobs-turret only affects eight enemies at once, and it only activates every second. But that it only affects eight enemies seems to be one of the few drawbacks it has; it's fantastic at stationary bosses like Zakum, Horntail or Krexel.
Because the hitbox is a large square (or well, rectangular) that hits above and below, I think that the best use of that hitbox would be somewhere where Sobs would be placed up higher in the map rather than the ground floor. So when you have three platforms, try to place Sobs in the middle: you're most likely to hit all three platforms at once if the enemies have a large hitbox too. Hint: the sword is the center of the square hitbox (see image above).
It does less damage than Sobs-sweep, which is mainly for bursting, but it does automatically attack - this is another gem for Sobs-turret. You can literally just sit on a chair and still hit stuff.You can mount and still hit stuff (*patched). You can be petrified, stunned, sealed or seduced, but you will still hit stuff. You can rebuff and Sobs will go on. Heck, if you want a toilet break, just cast Sobs-turret and you're good to go I guess.
There's even more to Sobs-turret. It also has an Enraged variant which focuses the turret on a single target, as expected. However, what makes that interesting is that Sobs-turret instantly can be quick changed between Enraged and non-Enraged variant, so summons from bosses can quickly be disposed of by just pressing your Enrage key to remove the one-versus-one ability. Although I wouldn't recommend exclusively using Sobs-turret for bossing, as the difference in damage scaling between turret and sweep is quite significant. Only use Sobs-turret when it's an absolute must.
Because Sobs (both sweep and turret) do not trigger Damage Reflect, it's also an incredibly safe way to engage bosses like Pink Bean. Because Hero has access to Magic Crash and Erda Nova, you could bypass Damage Reflect, however, both skills will be set on cooldown. Nowadays when I defeat Pink Bean I just start with Magic Crash, so I force him to waste his first Damage Reflect by Magic Crash, and then immediately bind Pink Bean with Erda Nova. When the bind's finished, I change Sobs from sweep back to turret mode, so I can sit back and let Sobs finish of Pink Bean so I do not have to worry about last minute Damage Reflect. It would also conveniently get rid of those Mini Bean summons.
Sobs-turret is also synchronized with the server's heartbeats. Which means, if an enemy spawns, Sobs will immediately spawn kill it. It's damage priority (a system which decides which skills counts first if multiple skills are launched on the same moment) is incredibly high, so you can definitely ninja a lot of people.
Last but not least, Sword of Burning Soul's turret mode, has one "drawback": if you are too far away from it, Sobs will return to your back and go back to sweep mode. The absolute distance seems to be about half of your screen on maximum resolution, so if Sobs already hits the "borders" of your screen, it should be back to you already. This is actually an interesting gimmick, because during bosses like Horntail, you could place Sobs to finish off his legs, tail, arms and wings, and when you climb up higher to his heads, Sobs would return so you could burst damage there.
Here's some additional thoughts for Sword of Burning Soul: it's duration is still rather short, even at current maximum level. I would love to see it last longer, but thankfully, its duration is increased with % Summon Duration (i.e. Captain and Jett Character Cards). Perhaps we might come across an increase for maximum levels in Cores, like how we have Mastery Books for 4th Job.
The best way to use Sobs is to know when to use which of either forms. I do slightly prefer the sweeping variant, but I'm slowly learning to find a place for both of them. I often see Heroes prefer the turret variant, and there's nothing wrong with that. At least both Sobs variants immediately apply to Chance Attack, so if you'd trigger Sobs after Panic or Puncture, it will get those extra damage because the debuff applies before triggering it. No, Sobs unfortunately does not charge Combo Orbs.
Keep in mind that activating Sobs costs 350 MP, but also swapping its form costs another 350 MP. This means you will use 700 MP if you place the turret immediately. Thankfully, if Sobs is in turret mode, pressing the hotkey again brings you back to Sobs-sweep. So you don't need to walk out of range, however, that does allow you to save those 350 MP because Sobs automatically going back to you is free and does not cost MP.
I do think that makes Sobs great isn't only the ability to gain additional damage. The fact that you can often cast Sobs and Valhalla after each other to extend the duration of ERB mobbing is a fantastic feature and I hope that Sobs will last longer in the future to almost get 24/7 of that goodness, or get a third skill to extend the ERB mobbing.
As far as I can tell, Sobs will be the first 5th Job skill to max out first as soon as possible, because its duration gets increased every level. It starts with a very short duration at Level 1, and becomes a bit more respectable at Level 25. This also means you leveling up Sobs will allow you to use ERB to hit multiple targets longer. Its damage however, scales up incredibly fast, so leveling Sobs first will be even more rewarding than it already seems!
Oh boy. Sword of Burning Soul, called "Burning Soul Blade" in EMS, which I rather prefer to call "Sobs" just because it's a fun acronym and much easier to write anyway. It's a sword that looks strikingly similar to Valhalla (Hero's Level 150 Hyper) and follows you around. Most of you recurring readers would probably want to know my opinion on Hero's first signature 5th Job skill. And you will get it, because there is a lot to cover.
Sword of Burning Soul is a versatile summon which gives Hero the ability to deal additional attacks. The summon comes in two forms and the player can manually swap back and forth between these two as long as the summon is still active.
In addition, Sobs changes Raging Blow to its Enraged form, which has a much larger hitbox, and allows Enraged Raging Blow (ERB) to hit the same amount of targets as default Raging Blow because Enrage is not applied - the same boost Valhalla gives. So it doesn't matter which of both forms you pick, you'll always have the ERB ability. Last but not least, Sobs does not trigger Damage Reflect, but it does not ignore it either.
I will get straight to the point. I think that Sword of Burning Soul is one of the best and most game changing skills Hero has gotten in years. And I rarely get to say that. Nexon really seems to know and understand what Hero needs.
Ever since RED introduced a new mechanic in several Hero skills (having two variants of one skill, and being able to swap back and forth), I was curious about whenever this system would also be implemented in 5th Job. I was also curious if Raging Blow would ever be replaced on 5th Job, and I am glad that they decided not to.
I think it's good to start with Sword of Burning Soul's default form ("Sobs-sweep"). This is also the form you automatically get when you activate Sobs. Every second, Sword of Burning Soul would sweep forward and deal a low amount of hits but a strong amount of damage per hit. The damage done by Sword of Burning Soul will scale quickly per level, which means Sobs will do more damage than Raging Blow early on, and will be ridiculously high in comparison at maximum level. Because Combo Attack now multiplies your range instead of keeping it hidden, Hero no longer has the issue with summons (Boss Souls, but also Sobs) having incredibly weak damage.
The skill seems pretty straightforward at first, but there's a lot more to it. Sobs counts as a different additional attack, which means if Raging Blow or a different skill kills one target, Sobs would not hit that same target but hit something else that is in range (or, nothing if there is nothing in range). This sweep gives Hero an advantageous amount of more separate attacks, similar to Advanced Final Attack, and goes in between attacks you already have, instead of being some new skill to replace your old ones that just "only attacks faster". It does mean that Durability on equipment gets burned almost twice as fast, though...
Sobs' default form always has a larger hitbox than Enraged Raging Blow. The height of the hitbox is rather the same as ERB, which also means Sobs cannot hit mobs below you. Because Sobs follows you from behind, Sobs actually starts behind your character, which allows you to hit enemies behind your back too! This means that Sobs has an incredible long horizontal hitbox, reaching further than ERB up front and also hitting behind you.
However, when the sweep triggers, its location will be the exact spot where you triggered it. This means that if you would trigger Sobs in mid-air, it will sweep in mid-air. If you're quick enough, you could get Sobs to sweep behind you entirely by turning around, activating it so it would start from that position, and turn back to attack (i.e. with Raging Blow) in the opposite direction. This ability gives Hero the ability to create "after image attacks", which essentially means every second, the game would do the Sobs hitbox on the spot where you just attacked.
Sword of Burning Soul has even an additional ability to be changed by Enrage. Similar to how Raging Blow changes to Enraged Raging Blow, Sobs becomes even bigger in hitbox, but also does MORE damage per line by default, which gets boosted AGAIN by the one-versus-one boost from Enrage. This makes Sobs-sweep an incredible skill to burst damage. If Advanced Final Attack wasn't enough, you also get Sword of Burning Soul... AND Aura Weapon, but I will get back on Aura Weapon on the next chapter.
Sobs-sweep (both default and Enraged sweep) can be triggered by (Advanced) Final Attack, Slash Blast, Brandish, Combo Force (Pull AND Hookshot), Brave Slash, Rush, Panic, Shout (No-stun AND Stun), Raging Blow, Puncture and Rage Uprising. It cannot be triggered by Three Snails, Soul Driver or Sengoku Secret Manual. Using your default attack cannot trigger this sweep either. I think it's safe to assume that Beginner Skills cannot trigger Sobs-sweep, or skills that are triggered after using a skill (Aura Weapon, Advanced Final Attack). This does mean however, that you're able to force Sobs to sweep when/where you want to if you'd use Soul Driver to hold Sobs at least one attack longer and then let it sweep somewhere else after with a non-Beginner attack.
In addition, Sobs has a 50% additional Critical Rate. While that won't do much for me on my Hero, I can imagine plenty of Heroes struggle or are still on their way to 100% Critical Rate, so having 50% additional Critical Rate on their Sobs is interesting
Sword of Burning Soul's second form places the sword in the floor ("Sobs-turret"). Unlike Sobs-sweep, Sobs-turret automatically attacks every second. You swap Sobs-sweep to turret mode by pressing the skill key again. Imagine an On/Off where On is Sobs-sweep and Off is Sobs-turret.
Sobs-turret has a much larger hitbox than Sobs-sweep. Instead of focusing on forward coverage, Sobs-turret focuses on covering a wide area. This doesn't only make Sobs-turret more suitable for mobbing compared to Sobs-sweep, it also is able to gather more enemies at the same time. So, Sobs-sweep requires you to attack by yourself and Sobs will attack near you. But Sobs-turret will become independent of you and will attack on its own automatically, while you're able to move freely around it and do whatever you want.
The ideal use of Sobs-turret is knowing its hitbox but also its limitations. Sobs-turret only affects eight enemies at once, and it only activates every second. But that it only affects eight enemies seems to be one of the few drawbacks it has; it's fantastic at stationary bosses like Zakum, Horntail or Krexel.
Because the hitbox is a large square (or well, rectangular) that hits above and below, I think that the best use of that hitbox would be somewhere where Sobs would be placed up higher in the map rather than the ground floor. So when you have three platforms, try to place Sobs in the middle: you're most likely to hit all three platforms at once if the enemies have a large hitbox too. Hint: the sword is the center of the square hitbox (see image above).
It does less damage than Sobs-sweep, which is mainly for bursting, but it does automatically attack - this is another gem for Sobs-turret. You can literally just sit on a chair and still hit stuff.
There's even more to Sobs-turret. It also has an Enraged variant which focuses the turret on a single target, as expected. However, what makes that interesting is that Sobs-turret instantly can be quick changed between Enraged and non-Enraged variant, so summons from bosses can quickly be disposed of by just pressing your Enrage key to remove the one-versus-one ability. Although I wouldn't recommend exclusively using Sobs-turret for bossing, as the difference in damage scaling between turret and sweep is quite significant. Only use Sobs-turret when it's an absolute must.
Because Sobs (both sweep and turret) do not trigger Damage Reflect, it's also an incredibly safe way to engage bosses like Pink Bean. Because Hero has access to Magic Crash and Erda Nova, you could bypass Damage Reflect, however, both skills will be set on cooldown. Nowadays when I defeat Pink Bean I just start with Magic Crash, so I force him to waste his first Damage Reflect by Magic Crash, and then immediately bind Pink Bean with Erda Nova. When the bind's finished, I change Sobs from sweep back to turret mode, so I can sit back and let Sobs finish of Pink Bean so I do not have to worry about last minute Damage Reflect. It would also conveniently get rid of those Mini Bean summons.
Sobs-turret is also synchronized with the server's heartbeats. Which means, if an enemy spawns, Sobs will immediately spawn kill it. It's damage priority (a system which decides which skills counts first if multiple skills are launched on the same moment) is incredibly high, so you can definitely ninja a lot of people.
Last but not least, Sword of Burning Soul's turret mode, has one "drawback": if you are too far away from it, Sobs will return to your back and go back to sweep mode. The absolute distance seems to be about half of your screen on maximum resolution, so if Sobs already hits the "borders" of your screen, it should be back to you already. This is actually an interesting gimmick, because during bosses like Horntail, you could place Sobs to finish off his legs, tail, arms and wings, and when you climb up higher to his heads, Sobs would return so you could burst damage there.
Here's some additional thoughts for Sword of Burning Soul: it's duration is still rather short, even at current maximum level. I would love to see it last longer, but thankfully, its duration is increased with % Summon Duration (i.e. Captain and Jett Character Cards). Perhaps we might come across an increase for maximum levels in Cores, like how we have Mastery Books for 4th Job.
The best way to use Sobs is to know when to use which of either forms. I do slightly prefer the sweeping variant, but I'm slowly learning to find a place for both of them. I often see Heroes prefer the turret variant, and there's nothing wrong with that. At least both Sobs variants immediately apply to Chance Attack, so if you'd trigger Sobs after Panic or Puncture, it will get those extra damage because the debuff applies before triggering it. No, Sobs unfortunately does not charge Combo Orbs.
Keep in mind that activating Sobs costs 350 MP, but also swapping its form costs another 350 MP. This means you will use 700 MP if you place the turret immediately. Thankfully, if Sobs is in turret mode, pressing the hotkey again brings you back to Sobs-sweep. So you don't need to walk out of range, however, that does allow you to save those 350 MP because Sobs automatically going back to you is free and does not cost MP.
I do think that makes Sobs great isn't only the ability to gain additional damage. The fact that you can often cast Sobs and Valhalla after each other to extend the duration of ERB mobbing is a fantastic feature and I hope that Sobs will last longer in the future to almost get 24/7 of that goodness, or get a third skill to extend the ERB mobbing.
As far as I can tell, Sobs will be the first 5th Job skill to max out first as soon as possible, because its duration gets increased every level. It starts with a very short duration at Level 1, and becomes a bit more respectable at Level 25. This also means you leveling up Sobs will allow you to use ERB to hit multiple targets longer. Its damage however, scales up incredibly fast, so leveling Sobs first will be even more rewarding than it already seems!
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Aura Weapon
Aura Weapon, the skill available to all warrior classes in Maple. Or... Weapon Aura, as it goes in EMS. Who comes up with all these unnecessary name changes? I just shorten it as AW for convenience sake.
Aura Weapon is a buff that increases your final damage and gives you a little bit of Defence Ignore. Every four seconds, Aura Weapon fires a blade automatically forward after you've attacked with a skill with the exact number of hits (but with a proportion of the damage) of the skill that activated it. This is the most interesting part of Aura Weapon, and to me personally, the most important feature it offers.
The reach of the "Aura Weapon crescent" is long. It moves forward for a long distance. This improves the coverage for any warrior dramatically. The crescent cannot trigger Damage Reflect, but it cannot ignore it either.
While I won't cover Aura Weapon for every warrior class, I will focus on the impact it has on Hero. Just let's think about it. We already have Advanced Final Attack (AFA), and we also got Sword of Burning Soul (Sobs). We get an additional auto-fire-after-interval skill, and unlike Sobs or AFA, the amount of lines is high because you are most likely to activate it with Raging Blow. Using Sobs and Aura Weapon simultaneously is fantastic because of that. Aura Weapon also indicates when it's ready to fire the next crescent, by giving a distinct dark blue / orange glow around your character's feet. Convenient!
Aura Weapon benefits greatly from using it with Sobs (sweep mode) to get a ridiculous amount of burst damage. The time I require to beat Chaos Mori Ranmaru went from four minutes to two (!) because of the enormous burst increase by using both skills at the same time. Thankfully, there is even more to Aura Weapon that it initially seems...
First things first, Aura Weapon is the first official legit non-bugged skill for Hero that is not affected by Enrage. Because the crescent does not stop and always moves forward at a fixed distance, every target in line will be hit. Every target counts as "a single" enemy anyway. This means Aura Weapon becomes incredibly versatile, allowing a Hero to wipe out summons automatically every four seconds without the need for quick toggling Enrage on/off in a pinch. In addition, because Aura Weapon takes a proportion of the damage you've dealt with the skill that activated it, that skill was already enhanced by Enrage's damage reinforcement for one-versus-one combat, so Aura Weapon will already do more damage than you would with default non-Enrage combat. For the people who care, Aura Weapon can trigger MultiKO's.
Another thing that is a pleasant surprise is that Aura Weapon can be triggered with a skill without actually landing that skill on a target. Which means you can snipe enemies that are far away from you, without the need to Rush/Combo Force yourself to them. You could, for instance, in a map with three platforms, start at platform 3, jump from it to platform 1, and cast a skill in mid-air, so that the crescent would move to the mobs in platform 2 and killing them while you're going down. This kind of coverage looks very promising to use and fills in a gap of map control what Hero previously couldn't do. Unfortunately, the height of Aura Weapon's crescent is rather short, so you have to practice timing otherwise the crescent would only visually go through enemies and not hit them.
Because of that, you could use Aura Weapon and Sobs-turret mode to never land a skill but still hit a target with both the turret and the crescent. This is an interesting technique for bosses like Pink Bean where you always want to be sure you won't trigger Damage Reflect. You could leave Pink Bean occupied with your Sobs-turret, but throwing crescents in his face together with Sobs-turret deals with him faster.
Aura Weapon starts already with a duration longer than Sobs at Level 25, so Aura Weapon does not have to be maxed out immediately. However, it is worth to mention that its cooldown is also much longer than Sobs. Thankfully, Aura Weapon gets way more duration increased per level than Sobs does, so I suggest other Heroes to max AW after Sobs.
The crescent can be activated with exactly the same set of skills as Sobs. So Aura Weapon can be triggered by Slash Blast, Brandish, Combo Force (Pull AND Hookshot), Brave Slash, Rush, Panic, Shout (No-stun AND Stun), Raging Blow, Puncture and Rage Uprising. It can't be triggered by (Advanced) Final Attack, Three Snails, Soul Driver or Sengoku Secret Manual. Using your default attack cannot trigger the crescent to happen either. I think it's safe to assume that Beginner Skills cannot trigger crescents, or skills that are triggered after using a skill (Sobs, Advanced Final Attack). This does mean however, that you're able to force the crescent to spawn when/where you want to if you'd use Soul Driver to hold it at least one attack longer and then release Aura Weapon somewhere else with a non-Beginner attack.
Keep in mind that similar to Sobs, Aura Weapon crescent gets boosted by stuff like Chance Attack immediately if it's triggered by Panic/Puncture, because the skill that triggers it goes before and instantly applies the debuffs on your targets. And no, unfortunately, Aura Weapon does not charge Combo Orbs.
Aura Weapon, the skill available to all warrior classes in Maple. Or... Weapon Aura, as it goes in EMS. Who comes up with all these unnecessary name changes? I just shorten it as AW for convenience sake.
Aura Weapon is a buff that increases your final damage and gives you a little bit of Defence Ignore. Every four seconds, Aura Weapon fires a blade automatically forward after you've attacked with a skill with the exact number of hits (but with a proportion of the damage) of the skill that activated it. This is the most interesting part of Aura Weapon, and to me personally, the most important feature it offers.
The reach of the "Aura Weapon crescent" is long. It moves forward for a long distance. This improves the coverage for any warrior dramatically. The crescent cannot trigger Damage Reflect, but it cannot ignore it either.
While I won't cover Aura Weapon for every warrior class, I will focus on the impact it has on Hero. Just let's think about it. We already have Advanced Final Attack (AFA), and we also got Sword of Burning Soul (Sobs). We get an additional auto-fire-after-interval skill, and unlike Sobs or AFA, the amount of lines is high because you are most likely to activate it with Raging Blow. Using Sobs and Aura Weapon simultaneously is fantastic because of that. Aura Weapon also indicates when it's ready to fire the next crescent, by giving a distinct dark blue / orange glow around your character's feet. Convenient!
Aura Weapon benefits greatly from using it with Sobs (sweep mode) to get a ridiculous amount of burst damage. The time I require to beat Chaos Mori Ranmaru went from four minutes to two (!) because of the enormous burst increase by using both skills at the same time. Thankfully, there is even more to Aura Weapon that it initially seems...
First things first, Aura Weapon is the first official legit non-bugged skill for Hero that is not affected by Enrage. Because the crescent does not stop and always moves forward at a fixed distance, every target in line will be hit. Every target counts as "a single" enemy anyway. This means Aura Weapon becomes incredibly versatile, allowing a Hero to wipe out summons automatically every four seconds without the need for quick toggling Enrage on/off in a pinch. In addition, because Aura Weapon takes a proportion of the damage you've dealt with the skill that activated it, that skill was already enhanced by Enrage's damage reinforcement for one-versus-one combat, so Aura Weapon will already do more damage than you would with default non-Enrage combat. For the people who care, Aura Weapon can trigger MultiKO's.
Another thing that is a pleasant surprise is that Aura Weapon can be triggered with a skill without actually landing that skill on a target. Which means you can snipe enemies that are far away from you, without the need to Rush/Combo Force yourself to them. You could, for instance, in a map with three platforms, start at platform 3, jump from it to platform 1, and cast a skill in mid-air, so that the crescent would move to the mobs in platform 2 and killing them while you're going down. This kind of coverage looks very promising to use and fills in a gap of map control what Hero previously couldn't do. Unfortunately, the height of Aura Weapon's crescent is rather short, so you have to practice timing otherwise the crescent would only visually go through enemies and not hit them.
Because of that, you could use Aura Weapon and Sobs-turret mode to never land a skill but still hit a target with both the turret and the crescent. This is an interesting technique for bosses like Pink Bean where you always want to be sure you won't trigger Damage Reflect. You could leave Pink Bean occupied with your Sobs-turret, but throwing crescents in his face together with Sobs-turret deals with him faster.
Aura Weapon starts already with a duration longer than Sobs at Level 25, so Aura Weapon does not have to be maxed out immediately. However, it is worth to mention that its cooldown is also much longer than Sobs. Thankfully, Aura Weapon gets way more duration increased per level than Sobs does, so I suggest other Heroes to max AW after Sobs.
The crescent can be activated with exactly the same set of skills as Sobs. So Aura Weapon can be triggered by Slash Blast, Brandish, Combo Force (Pull AND Hookshot), Brave Slash, Rush, Panic, Shout (No-stun AND Stun), Raging Blow, Puncture and Rage Uprising. It can't be triggered by (Advanced) Final Attack, Three Snails, Soul Driver or Sengoku Secret Manual. Using your default attack cannot trigger the crescent to happen either. I think it's safe to assume that Beginner Skills cannot trigger crescents, or skills that are triggered after using a skill (Sobs, Advanced Final Attack). This does mean however, that you're able to force the crescent to spawn when/where you want to if you'd use Soul Driver to hold it at least one attack longer and then release Aura Weapon somewhere else with a non-Beginner attack.
Keep in mind that similar to Sobs, Aura Weapon crescent gets boosted by stuff like Chance Attack immediately if it's triggered by Panic/Puncture, because the skill that triggers it goes before and instantly applies the debuffs on your targets. And no, unfortunately, Aura Weapon does not charge Combo Orbs.
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Rope Lift
Ah, Rope Lift. One of the few current Skill Cores that is a more supportive/convenience core, rather than gaining a buff or attack instead. Rope Lift is an interesting skill, as in, it's similar to stuff like Self Skills from Potential, which gave a (previous) signature skill from a classs (or multiple classes) to everyone. Rope Lift is close to Vertical Grapple from Kaiser/Angelic Buster. The interesting part about Erda Nova, Rope Lift and Blink are the fact that even if you would have one of those skills on your class by default somewhere between Beginner and Hyper Skills, you would have two of them. Is that a bad thing? Actually not, having two binds, or two grapples at the same time can make things more interesting than it initially seems. But that's for another day to cover, I think.
I think that Rope Lift is worth to get on a Hero because Combo Force requires you to connect with an enemy to travel. One of Hero's greatest weaknesses in this game is simple: ropes and ladders. Rope Lift removes that flaw and also enables you to fasten your gameplay because you get to those platforms quicker. It also allows you to reach certain platforms in some maps more conveniently, and it also makes mistakes by accidentally falling between-platforms more forgiving.
Rope Lift isn't as straightforward as it may seem. Yes, it's incredibly easy to use. Press the hotkey and move up to a platform above you. But there's more to it. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, a simple skill like that having more to it, but that is why I'll cover it anyway.
You are able to influence how much you actually move up. Not just how many platforms you go up, but also the speed of travelling up and whenever if you almost land straight on the platform's floor or get a momentum and go past the floor initially and land after that.
Similar to most skills where you need to hold down the hotkey to "charge" it, Rope Lift has a semi-sensitive function where if you'd press the key swiftly, you'd go very fast and take the absolute maximum distance available. If you would hold down the key, you will move slowly up, but also you might not even get to the platform you grappled even. If you would press the hotkey and move up, and hold down the key in mid air while you're going up, you would decelerate, which enables you to move up less high than usual.
So, in example, Rope Lift prefers to grab onto the highest platform possible in reach. If you would have more than one platform, and you would want to get to the middle, using Rope Lift would get you onto the highest, so you have to downward jump. Which is an unnecessary and rather annoying procedure in certain maps. You could grapple onto the highest platform by quickly pressing the hotkey, and start pressing the hotkey again right when you start to move up. By doing this, you decelerate, and if your timing is right, you will land on the middle platform. Convenient!
Another interesting thing about Rope Lift is using that skill to go straight up, but to never actually reach the platform. This works well with skills like Shout, Aura Weapon or Sword of Burning Soul. By going straight up, you might be able to hit more targets with square/rectangular hitboxes, or to fire that Aura Weapon crescent into a platform further along the way you wouldn't be able to do otherwise through Combo Hookshot/Flash Jump. You could even keep things more efficient by using Rope Lift + Raging Blow instead of Flash Jump + Puncture to save those orbs... This technique does require a platform above you, though.
One thing I absolutely love is the corner technique, where you use Rope Lift to go straight up, and use Combo Hookshot immediately after to snap onto an enemy far away to get up close to it. In maps where enemies have a fixed location or where they are conveniently placed, you might want to mess around with this technique to get some crazy distances you wouldn't be able to otherwise. Also, Rope Lift is its own thing, so you can use Flash Jump after using Rope Lift, or before even to get even a greater height coverage.
Rope Lift gives the player an incredible acceleration worth of speed, so I can only imagine a Jett using her double upward Flash Jump with that maximum speed of hers after using Rope Lift... I think Rope Lift is worth to use on most classes, even on classes that do not have a Flash Jump but a Teleport instead.
Ah, Rope Lift. One of the few current Skill Cores that is a more supportive/convenience core, rather than gaining a buff or attack instead. Rope Lift is an interesting skill, as in, it's similar to stuff like Self Skills from Potential, which gave a (previous) signature skill from a classs (or multiple classes) to everyone. Rope Lift is close to Vertical Grapple from Kaiser/Angelic Buster. The interesting part about Erda Nova, Rope Lift and Blink are the fact that even if you would have one of those skills on your class by default somewhere between Beginner and Hyper Skills, you would have two of them. Is that a bad thing? Actually not, having two binds, or two grapples at the same time can make things more interesting than it initially seems. But that's for another day to cover, I think.
I think that Rope Lift is worth to get on a Hero because Combo Force requires you to connect with an enemy to travel. One of Hero's greatest weaknesses in this game is simple: ropes and ladders. Rope Lift removes that flaw and also enables you to fasten your gameplay because you get to those platforms quicker. It also allows you to reach certain platforms in some maps more conveniently, and it also makes mistakes by accidentally falling between-platforms more forgiving.
Rope Lift isn't as straightforward as it may seem. Yes, it's incredibly easy to use. Press the hotkey and move up to a platform above you. But there's more to it. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, a simple skill like that having more to it, but that is why I'll cover it anyway.
You are able to influence how much you actually move up. Not just how many platforms you go up, but also the speed of travelling up and whenever if you almost land straight on the platform's floor or get a momentum and go past the floor initially and land after that.
Similar to most skills where you need to hold down the hotkey to "charge" it, Rope Lift has a semi-sensitive function where if you'd press the key swiftly, you'd go very fast and take the absolute maximum distance available. If you would hold down the key, you will move slowly up, but also you might not even get to the platform you grappled even. If you would press the hotkey and move up, and hold down the key in mid air while you're going up, you would decelerate, which enables you to move up less high than usual.
So, in example, Rope Lift prefers to grab onto the highest platform possible in reach. If you would have more than one platform, and you would want to get to the middle, using Rope Lift would get you onto the highest, so you have to downward jump. Which is an unnecessary and rather annoying procedure in certain maps. You could grapple onto the highest platform by quickly pressing the hotkey, and start pressing the hotkey again right when you start to move up. By doing this, you decelerate, and if your timing is right, you will land on the middle platform. Convenient!
Another interesting thing about Rope Lift is using that skill to go straight up, but to never actually reach the platform. This works well with skills like Shout, Aura Weapon or Sword of Burning Soul. By going straight up, you might be able to hit more targets with square/rectangular hitboxes, or to fire that Aura Weapon crescent into a platform further along the way you wouldn't be able to do otherwise through Combo Hookshot/Flash Jump. You could even keep things more efficient by using Rope Lift + Raging Blow instead of Flash Jump + Puncture to save those orbs... This technique does require a platform above you, though.
One thing I absolutely love is the corner technique, where you use Rope Lift to go straight up, and use Combo Hookshot immediately after to snap onto an enemy far away to get up close to it. In maps where enemies have a fixed location or where they are conveniently placed, you might want to mess around with this technique to get some crazy distances you wouldn't be able to otherwise. Also, Rope Lift is its own thing, so you can use Flash Jump after using Rope Lift, or before even to get even a greater height coverage.
Rope Lift gives the player an incredible acceleration worth of speed, so I can only imagine a Jett using her double upward Flash Jump with that maximum speed of hers after using Rope Lift... I think Rope Lift is worth to use on most classes, even on classes that do not have a Flash Jump but a Teleport instead.
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The V for Verdict
Wah-wah. Puns aside, I think it's clear that I genuinely love 5th Job and that I'm looking more than forward to the next waves. While Nexon might have taken about 3 years on/off with developing 5th Job, I think that this is the best compromise they could've done. I'm pretty sure they tried to develop a full fledged set of Skill Trees for 30+ Classes at once, but that would require so much time that Nexon wouldn't be able to make any other updates at all.
Most people forget that 4th Job took months to prepare in Tespia for only the original Adventures and Evan/Aran. Including Dual Blade, but without Knights of Cygnus and Cannon Shooter. 5th Job is still rather young, so keep in mind that 5th Job might have a few (dramatic?) changes along the way. 4th Job is already 10 years old as a system, and there has been a lot of in-depth changes to it. Whenever if Nexon removes 5th Job Cores like they've done with certain 4th Job Skills is a question for another day, but I don't expect that to happen.
At least by releasing the 5th Job skills in waves, it allows Nexon to focus properly with one skill per class each, but it also allows them to readjust previous released skills better, based on community feedback. The V Matrix is something refreshing and versatile, which allows Nexon to keep adding skills, perhaps even beyond the usual "eight per Skill Tree". It is a much better balance of results, giving us already something to digest, and it's also much easier to keep in control. Imagine if 5th Job took 5 years to develop, so we had to wait 5 years eagerly without any patience left, to see the results being far from what the community wants or needs, and still needs months of readjusting in Tespia before the actual servers get to play with it...
That's all I have to share for now. Wave 1 is in my opinion the right way to start 5th Job. I will definitely cover Wave 2 and the ones to follow when they hit EMS. Hopefully has this blogpost been very informative for other fellow Heroes around the world, but also to players who do not even play it. At least this took a fair amount of days for me to prepare (only one-and-a-half to write all of this + converting the GIFs), and I'm very curious on how 5th Job will hold the test of time.
That's it for today! Tomorrow is the 31st of December, which means we'll get back to that annual tradition of summaries! I'll see you guys again next post!
Wah-wah. Puns aside, I think it's clear that I genuinely love 5th Job and that I'm looking more than forward to the next waves. While Nexon might have taken about 3 years on/off with developing 5th Job, I think that this is the best compromise they could've done. I'm pretty sure they tried to develop a full fledged set of Skill Trees for 30+ Classes at once, but that would require so much time that Nexon wouldn't be able to make any other updates at all.
Most people forget that 4th Job took months to prepare in Tespia for only the original Adventures and Evan/Aran. Including Dual Blade, but without Knights of Cygnus and Cannon Shooter. 5th Job is still rather young, so keep in mind that 5th Job might have a few (dramatic?) changes along the way. 4th Job is already 10 years old as a system, and there has been a lot of in-depth changes to it. Whenever if Nexon removes 5th Job Cores like they've done with certain 4th Job Skills is a question for another day, but I don't expect that to happen.
At least by releasing the 5th Job skills in waves, it allows Nexon to focus properly with one skill per class each, but it also allows them to readjust previous released skills better, based on community feedback. The V Matrix is something refreshing and versatile, which allows Nexon to keep adding skills, perhaps even beyond the usual "eight per Skill Tree". It is a much better balance of results, giving us already something to digest, and it's also much easier to keep in control. Imagine if 5th Job took 5 years to develop, so we had to wait 5 years eagerly without any patience left, to see the results being far from what the community wants or needs, and still needs months of readjusting in Tespia before the actual servers get to play with it...
That's all I have to share for now. Wave 1 is in my opinion the right way to start 5th Job. I will definitely cover Wave 2 and the ones to follow when they hit EMS. Hopefully has this blogpost been very informative for other fellow Heroes around the world, but also to players who do not even play it. At least this took a fair amount of days for me to prepare (only one-and-a-half to write all of this + converting the GIFs), and I'm very curious on how 5th Job will hold the test of time.
That's it for today! Tomorrow is the 31st of December, which means we'll get back to that annual tradition of summaries! I'll see you guys again next post!
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