[2014] What happened this year to Rayque?

Several hours left for 2014, I (and the rest of the Rayque3 Staff) wish you a great 2015. For me, 2014 had some major milestones, but didn't feel as successful as previous years. As the tradition to every year on this blog, this post is a summary of what happened to me, Rayque.

[EMS] Eunwol Skill Link Level 2 GET!

Sup guys! Recently I managed to obtain my second level of the Eunwol Skill Link.
It gives 10% chance to survive an enemy hit that would've killed you - enabling you to ignore the death-and-respawn mechanic and immediately resume battle. This skill is rather useful during bosses like Root Abyss, Magnus and Suu, consider those boss battles often have instant or near-instant death moves.

Since I have 12 Skill Links already (maximum amount of transferable Skill Links), I had to replace my Xenon Skill Link for this one. As mentioned several times before, Skill Links that only increase damage is low priority for me, consider that's easier to get by just more funding, compared to other increases - such as Percentual Damage Reduction ignore, Critical Rate/Critical Damage and Status Resistance. As long as there's a maximum amount of transferable Skill Links, I wouldn't level these damage-increasing links until the cap is raised. This would make sure the damage loss, after swapping it with another link, being lower.

I've been actually curious about the mechanics of this Skill Link - so I tried another Easy Magnus solo. As you might remember from earlier this year, I managed to solo my first Easy Magnus while being inexperienced with the boss itself. I'm happy to say that I managed to defeat another Easy Magnus solo! It's actually quite a large improvement compared to the previous solo, but that's mostly because of this Skill Link. It saved me about three to five times - so there's still a lot of improvement left.

That's it for today. I'll see you guys tomorrow, where we have our annual summary of the year! I'm looking forward to it, see you then!

[YT] Donkey Kong 64 - All main bosses has reached 200.000 views!

Hi guys! Just before the end of the year, Donkey Kong 64 - All main bosses, has reached 200.000 views! This is the second Rayque3 Staff video that has reached 200.000 views, with our first being the Mario Party 7 - All Mini-Games video.

Early on next year, we expect the Super Smash Bros. Brawl - 100% Subspace Emissary and Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards - All main bosses videos to reach 100.000 views.

Our most recent video, the Kirby's Return to Dreamland - All Mini/Main/EX Bosses seems to have an interesting growth - having 1500 views within 5 weeks, is a high growth for our standards. It's also worth to note that the current generation of walkthroughs from Luxatus Patella (Croc 2, Toy Story 2, Dinosaur, Tarzan Action Game) also looks promising, taking over the top 125 of our most viewed videos a month!

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

[EMS] Level 6 Cygnus Blessing GET!

Gosh... three blogposts in such a short time. Sorry for the overload guys! It's not something I'm used to either. I'm pretty sure the next blogpost will have to wait several days. If not, I'll just hold the post as a draft for a short while.

So just several minutes ago I've managed to level my Striker to 120 - this means I managed to obtain Level 6 Cygnus Blessing! This is currently the highest level we can get, consider Flame Wizard and Night Walker aren't revamped to this new system yet.

So... what's next? Consider I still have to work on my Eunwol to Level 120, I'll try to manage that later this week and presumably finish it next week.

At this moment, there is a maximum limit of Skill Links that you can link to one specific character. This means I have to prioritize of what I would use and what not. Long story short: all links that can be obtained with more funding (total damage, all stats) are in less priority than things that are harder to obtain (defence ignore, critical rate, %HP or other "odd" game mechanics). This is why I actually leave Skill Links like Xenon/Demon Avenger/Kanna at Level 1, because when I would have to substitute them with a more valuable Skill Link, the decrease in damage on my Hero will be less notable. I hope Nexon would consider to remove the maximum limit - I wouldn't be surprised if they either raised the limit or just entirely remove it - consider there's quite some demand from the community about removing it. We'll see in the future. If it happens, I'll be glad to raise these Skill Links to Level 2 eventually!

Off-topic: because Striker is a class that has Sharks as its signature - I couldn't resist equipping the entire Blue Mesoranger set, which is modelled after a shark! That's it for today, until next post!

[YT] 5.000.000 total upload views!

Whoo! Just a few hours ago, we hit 5.000.000 total upload views! Thanks for the great support guys, keep it up!

[Other] A wild Giovanni appeared!

Remember that one guy from that one video? Yeah, it's Giovanni!
If only he was a Level 7 Mii for Streetpass Quest...

[EMS] So, Eunwol came out...

And I have been so #@%ing original as I could ever be.
I won't start playing this one yet, since it's still day 1, every average low level map is just flooded with Eunwols everywhere.

[EMS] Level 5 Cygnus Blessing GET!

Hi guys! A few minutes ago, I managed to train my Wind Breaker to Level 120, which means I now have Level 5 Cygnus Blessing!

Cygnus Blessing, unlike most Link Skills, is dependent on more than one character.
For every Lv 70 for the following classes, you'll get one Skill Point in Cygnus Blessing:
- Soul Master
- Wind Breaker
- Striker
- Flame Wizard
- Night Walker

For every Lv 120, you'll get two Skill Points instead of one.

Every Skill Point actually gives 2,5% increase in Status & Elemental resistance. However, MapleStory doesn't round up these numbers, so having one point will increase only 2%, but having two will increase 5%.

Currently MapleStory Europe is in the You & I update (first part). This means we don't have Flame Wizard and Night Walker available to increase the Skill Link - thus the highest level possible for now is Lv 6. Existing Flame Wizards and Night Walkers don't have the possibility to increase this link until their respective revamps, which is during the second Cygnus Returns update, after You & I.

Eunwol (Shade) will be released in a few days. This will mean I'll level an Eunwol to Level 120 - as other classes, I'll take my time. I actually expect having my Striker Level 120 after my Eunwol. Hopefully I can get them both to Level 120 before the Flame Wizard & Night Walker revamps are released.

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

[EMS] Level 206!

Hi guys! Earlier today I managed to reach Level 206. It has been a while since my last level up.

At first glance I expected to level up to 206 in a few weeks but recently we received a free Storm Growth Potion that increased my experience points by 20%. In fact, with the You & I update now in EMS, I've been hunting some Elite Bosses with a few friends - those hours at the Warrior Grounds location really helped a lot for gaining a bunch of experience!

I'll be hunting some more Elite Bosses the next months, so it'll probably be another recurring activity for a while. I'm also gaining some more Honor EXP for the next batch of resets for trying to get the Legendary Ability. Defeating the Kerberos boss from Veracent daily really helps with getting Honor EXP. I already have 60 resets ready, but I'll get more ready before I'll start resetting (I prefer to have a bunch of resets instead of immediately consuming them).

That's it for this one, until next post!

[YT] Behind the scenes - Single-Part-Videos

Footage from the Xenoblade Chronicles' final hour of its storyline

Hi guy! With the recent kick off for the Kirby's Return to Dreamland - All Mini/Main/EX Bosses video, I would love to talk about something that's not very frequently talked about on our Youtube channel. Let's take a look behind the scenes for creating Single-Part-Videos, shall we?

[EMS] Legendary Ability?

Dear reader, this blogpost is related to the following post(s):
-  [EMS] Legendary Ability GET!

In case you would be interested in more information, please check out those above. Thanks for reading!

Every reset costs 100 Honor EXP. Resetting may either rank up or de-rank your ability.
It took me months to reach this amount of Honor EXP. Months of preparation.
To reach Legendary Ability, you'll need to succeed the following chronological order:

[Rare] -> [Epic] -> [Unique] -> [Legendary]

You can't get Legendary if you have either Rare or Epic Ability. Even if you have Unique, it can easily drop back to Epic or even Rare... Do your maths for the amount of resets I've been through.

I won't give up that easily.

[EMS] Lania's Triple Lunch Box GET!

Sup guys! After approx 2 weeks of attending daily events, I finally managed myself obtaining the Lania's Triple Lunch Box. This permanent badge is part of the Delicious Lunch Event, an event that has been running since mid-November until this Tuesday (2nd of December 2014).

This event is based on leveling up a badge (equipment), in the form of a lunchbox. By looting various leftovers from any non-World Tour-based enemies, you can craft these leftovers in various consumable lunchboxes. Depending on what leftovers you have used and your luck, you can craft either horrible looking lunchboxes (like ones with icky green stuff that you musn't touch) or ones that might look delicious to eat. All of these consumables can be used for your own (for example, increasing experience rates for several minutes) - or they can be traded in at the Happy Picnic Ground event map.

You'll have to craft four consumable lunchboxes and trade them in at either Chief Stan or Lania, depending on what level your badge is. Depending on what type of lunchboxes you'll trade in, you'll have a variable percentage of convincing Chief Stan/Lania to enjoy your lunch. This percentage is presumably based on what lunchboxes you trade in (for example, horrible looking lunchboxes may wield low succession rates). Having them enjoying your lunch will upgrade your badge, having them hate it will trigger a battle between you and them, or having them just be "meh" about it will trigger nothing. Once you've reached the final badge Chief Stan can offer, Lania will offer a better deal if you would give the next lunchboxes to her (although you'll start with a very weak badge but it'll exponentially grow better the more you can upgrade it).

So, if you would have multiple icky lunchboxes, you'll might up ending getting hurt by the hostile picnic friends (and yes, they do hit a lot... - near 17k damage on my Level 205 Hero) - but they do drop some empty lunchboxes which you can trade in for any of the possible consumable lunchbox, depending on how many of these you own. Saving these up might increase your chance to win, because you can force "spawn" a good lunchbox in your inventory. During crafting you might end up with a "Random Lunchbox" (a lunchbox with a question mark in it), which might up the odds or totally screw you over.

Don't worry, there's more - the further you progressed in leveling your badge, the easier it might be to reach the next stage. So getting through the first stages at Chief Stan might take several days, but the last several upgrades from Lania might be done in no time. However, it'll be important to note that you'll probably need to start this event from day one... consider you can only turn in these lunches a few times per day (worst of all, the daily limit may vary per day). Unfortunately, crafting lunchboxes is limited per day as well, so there's not really a decent way of "cheating" yourself through this event by continuously trading in good lunchboxes by throwing the icky ones away.

That's it for this post. I'll see you again next post! Oh by the way...

The You & I update is speculated to be soon in MapleStory Europe... (although that speculation has been going on since the start of this year) - if you have been reading my blog for several years by now, you'll know what that means.

By then, I'll be trying to obtain either Decent Speed Infusion through Elite Monsters or obtaining a similar effect with the Inner Ability system. It'll all depend on if we either get the GMS or KMS You & I update, and which I can get the most opportunity or luck from (for example, I already have collected over 4500 Honor Medals in preparation for the Inner Ability revamp). I actually expect to have the Inner Ability version earlier, but time will tell.