Most of you frequent readers know by now that I've been playing MapleStory Europe on my Hero for more than nine years by now. I've been trying to find a build that suits the needs not just for only my class, but also for myself. There are many ways to gain damage, and a lot of builds gives you plenty of everything and nothing, however, classes between themselves play very different from each other and every person plays the same class different too.
It's easy to just read a guide and take whatever everyone is recommending. While that might be good for starting this game or to remain casual, eventually when you play for a while it's probably better to find something that works for you instead. Knowing what you gain from your build is one thing, but what most people seem to forget is to consider what you won't get from your choices. Slots like Inner Ability, Skill Links, Character Cards and Hyper Skills/Stats aren't the only limited choices that will influence a lot, even to the fine details of what equipment you choose but also how you upgrade them would matter as much. You can all take the most fanciest guides out there, but in the end, if the pilot isn't suitable for his/her vehicle, don't expect too much in your performance on the field.
That said, my build centers around three things: my Ribgol Sword, having 120 base DEX and myself. I want something that is typically myself to pull off. I don't play games to compete against others, I play games to have fun. And when I have (genuine) fun in something, I tend to excel in competence and knowledge of the regarding subject.
This will be one of those rare blogpost on my blog where I would want to show you my equipment and thoughts behind it on a rather broad spectrum. I know that in my environment outside my blog, I have a lot of talk about my upgrades and stuff, even almost to a daily basis or so, but I'm aware that I rarely get to share this on my blog, so a lot of viewers who never really talk to me in-game would miss out on a thing or two. Without further ado, let's get to it.
Several years ago, I started to collect several pieces of Lionheart gear because it suited my demands a lot better than my hybrid of Reverse/Van Leon with Auf Haven Circlet. Keep in mind that that hybrid build was more than four years ago - but the directions of my build hasn't changed a lot in the past seven years or so. Somewhere along the way, I accompanied my Lionheart equipment with Alien Visitor equipment (a belt, pendant and ring), until recently I managed to replace my Alien Visitor Ring with a Dark Critical Adventure Ring because the equipment restrictions were changed, which allowed me to equip the Dark Critical with three other Adventure Rings. That is why I currently run only two pieces of Alien Visitor.
Eventually I slowly grew tired of Lionheart with Alien Visitor. It's not because of the Lionheart equipment, but the Alien Visitor. It's definitely one item set that adds a lot of good stats but it felt a little bit bland to me. Alien Visitor also wouldn't really give me the stats I was looking for, after all. I would definitely recommend giving the set a try though, even if it's as a temporary gear when you hit late 4th Job and start funding your way up!
Keep in mind that I haven't worked on Additional Potential that much yet, because I rather invest into scrolling upgrades, Potential and Enhancement first. Additional Potential requires a lot of resources to pull off in EMS, so you can imagine that my mesos would be better spend elsewhere where I would get more for the same price. So for now, all the Additional Potential you'll spot is really only to have the lines ready for in a distant future, and the equips who don't have any Additional Potential lines, will eventually get them. That said, I don't have to repeat myself over and over in the following paragraphs...
Most of my equipment have been upgraded through Miracle Chaos Scroll of Goodness. These are rare scrolls that can only increase random stats between 0~10. I've been talking about these scrolls for years on my blog, but it might not hurt to point it out again here just in case.
Both my Alien Visitor belt and necklace are fairly minimal upgraded. Both these equipment were on very low priority to me to upgrade, and because I rather focused on my Lionheart equipment, it kinda became neglected.
My Alien Visitor Belt has only been upgraded with one Accessory for Attack scroll, it has an Additional Options of +184 Accuracy and through an Epic Potential Scroll, I raised the Potential from Rare to Epic. It only has one slot left because I failed one 50% Hammer and it took two attempts to get the Accessory for Attack to work. It was planned to reclaim those two failed slots, but it was on low priority so I never really got to reclaim those.
This belt will be replaced with my Amaterasu Belt, which doesn't have any upgrades yet because none of the scrolls I've used have worked. I will have to reclaim those slots first before I can attempt any new scrolls. The Unique Potential has been achieved through using an Epic Potential Scroll (E-Pot) and further cubing it with Master Cubes found through daily bosses.
Because I already have Level 100 Charm, I cannot obtain the 80 Charm Experience from this equip.
As with my Amaterasu's Shoulder and Amaterasu's Helm, I have crafted these myself after Additional Options became unavailable. Both the Shoulder and Belt were actually unreleased and thus unobtainable during the time of Additional Options in EMS.
My Alien Visitor Necklace was probably one of the very few equips that could be upgraded that didn't end up being upgraded that much. Not only was this piece of equipment on low priority, it immediately came with 4%-STR, so there was no immediate need to cube or E-Pot it.
Similar to my Alien Visitor Belt, my pendant has been upgraded with the same Accessory for Attack scroll. It has an Additonal Options of +20 Weapon Defence. Fortunately, there hasn't been a failed slot on this piece of equipment yet.
My Alien Visitor Necklace will be replaced by my Ani Pendant. In the past, I had a plan to use two Mark of Naricains at the same time, but because of the upcoming migration, one of my Mark of Naricains became slotless so it lost all the upgrades and Potential I have applied to it. Thankfully I came across an opportunity to get my hands on a Ani Pendant and it felt like a good back up in case things would change against my favor. The Ani Pendant has the exact same stats as a Mark of Naricain and it even has one extra slot!
My Ani Pendant only has an Additional Option of 1% All Stats. Its Epic Potential came through an Epic Potential Scroll. The reason why this Pendant seems rather clean is because at the time, I wasn't sure how feasible obtaining all Amaterasu equipment would become, and thus I rather parked this equipment until recently. However, I won't start throwing scrolls at it yet, because I rather focus my scrolls on one equip at a time to start Enhancements, rather than upgrading all of them simultaneously.
I will start cubing it to Unique soon, given all of my Amaterasu Equips are Unique or higher, which only makes a handful of accessories and my Emblem the only ones left. Err, well, I know my Ribgol is still Epic, but we'll get back to that another day okay?
My Lionheart Battle Boots is probably my favorite piece of Lionheart equipment I own. It gained a whopping 20 attack through scrolling, and this equipment itself already gives me maximum Jump and almost maximum Speed by default. After Enhancing it to 12 Stars, the STR and DEX was boosted further to a staggering 87 and 78, respectively!
The reason why this equipment has five Scissors Usages Available, is because this equipment was upgraded with the original Additional Options, before Nexon Europe disabled them until the formal release a handful of years later. I'm not going to sell this thing though!
This was one of my first equips to have Unique Potential, which was gained through doing a month worth of attendance on eighteen (!) characters for Unique Potential Scrolls. Other equips that were upgraded to Unique within the same attendance were my Lionheart Gloves, Lionheart Overall, Perfect Red Rex Earrings and my Virtue's Medal.
After several (failed) attempts to cube this shoe to Legendary, I parked it at 12% All Stats for the time being. My Lionheart Shoes is also one of the only seven equips I ever used in a lifetime that have been fully upgraded with both Hammer slots. The other six equips are my Ribgol Sword (three times!), my old Night Raven's Wing, my Van Leon glove and my Lionheart Gloves, Cape and Shoulder.
My Battle Boots will be replaced with Amaterasu's Shoes, which actually the first Amaterasu equip I've obtained, together in a single lot which also came with my Amaterasu's Glove. The Additional Options for my Amaterasu's Shoes gave 2% All Stats and 7 INT.
In a similar fashion with my Lionheart Battle Boots, my Amaterasu's Shoes is one of the first equips to have Legendary Potential (actually, it was the first). Because it gives Self Combat Orders and 9%-STR, there is no need to recube this piece of equipment for a long while. In case you wonder how I got this thing to Legendary; I used an Epic Potential Scroll and manually cubed it to Legendary through Master and Meister Cubes found from daily bosses.
Both my Lionheart and Amaterasu shoes have the Spike for Shoes upgrade applied, which doesn't only remove slippery movement on slippery platforms, but also removes (de-)acceleration when walking and reduces forced Super Knockback.
My Lionheart Battle Bracers have probably been one of the easiest equips to fully upgrade, because it has been upgraded with Great Glove for Attack scrolls, one of those Miracle Scrolls that we used to have a lot of in EMS.
It has Self Sharp Eyes, which is a fundamental skill to make my build work. The INT, LUK, Avoidability, Accuracy and Speed were obtained from Additional Options. Together with the twelve Enhancements, it gave another fat bonus of 70 STR and 59 DEX!
My Lionheart Battle Bracers will be replaced by my Amaterasu Gloves. My Amaterasu Gloves will probably be one of the most important pieces for my build. YES, IT HAS SELF SPEED INFUSION! You read it correctly! It took me only six godawful years to obtain it, but I finally got it! Man, I really need to get used to this incredible increase in Attacking speed, because y'know, I use a Ribgol.
B-b-but wait, where's the Sharp Eyes you mentioned? Wouldn't you wait until you would have both Sharp Eyes (SE) and Speed Infusion (SI) before you would replace your Lionheart with Amaterasu? Yes, that is definitely true. At the time of this post I don't have Sharp Eyes anymore, which is a temporary hit for my build. However, I will make great use of the Reward Point shop to force a Self SE + SI through using Black Cubes, so that I would avoid losing Self SI for an unknown time before I would "RNG" Self SI + SE. Because I can only have five Black Cubes each month from the Reward Point shop, re-obtaining Self SE might take a while I guess. In worst case I can always use a V-Core for Sharp Eyes as a temporary measure until I have the "real" thing through Potential.
Back on the upgrades of this glove though. It gained 3% All Stats and 2 Jump from Additional Options. Because Miracle Scrolls cannot be traded with other people other than within your own account since the migration preparations, I need to upgrade this glove through Spell Traces instead. So getting this equip to nine upgrades will take a little bit longer than it would've with Miracles.
Similar to my Amaterasu's Shoes, I started with using an E-Pot on this glove first, followed by Master and Meister Cubes found from daily bosses.
I will definitely get back to this glove on another blogpost, I mean, for the moment I get both Self SI + Self SE.
Ah... my Lionheart Battle Mail. This overall has been looking very promising right from the start. The feel I got from obtaining this equip more than three years ago was right. That kind of "right" that you can feel this equip would wield fantastic stats if I put enough effort and love into it.
I've always been fan of Overalls in MapleStory. I know that this is a rather controversial opinion to have. Most people want to have a Top/Bottom given they can get more Potential, more Slots, etc. For a long time people have even run 6/7-set Cygnus layout with a Top/Bottom, and before Cygnus equips came out, I have seen some clever Bowman using the highest level Top/Bottom (which was Level 40 because we didn't have Stirgeman or Sports Day equips back then) because that would result in obtaining more lines of % DEX than a 3rd tier Overall.
Good lord. This Lionheart Battle Mail has been the third most important equip from my Lionheart Item set (the other two being my shoes and gloves), giving an incredible 95 STR and 18 Weapon Attack, while this thing hasn't used all of its slots! On top of that, this thing has no Enhancements, so imagine how much STR it would have after twelve Enhancements...
The Additional Options didn't only give INT and LUK. The only reason why it has so much STR is because it also gave a lot of Additional Options to STR as well.
The "Invincible for 1 more seconds after getting attacked" has been a very important feature for reducing the fraility of my class. It has been on my "to obtain" list for a rather long while before I actually managed to cube it on my overall. While a single second didn't seem a lot, it did influence my character positively in the long run. I would definitely want to increase that number, however, I never came across the opportunity to cube for a better one.
My Lionheart Battle Mail will be replaced by my Amaterasu's Armor. Being raised in Tokyo for several years in a distant past, I've quickly grew to love Japanese architecture and the broad culture around it. One subject that fascinates me a lot within the architecture is the medieval era of Japan, y'know, those castles and designs of weapons and armor. When the Amaterasu equipment was released in Japan MapleStory several years ago during the Sengoku update, you could imagine my inner child squealing to finally see a samurai-inspired equipment design done right. I know that there's been a handful of samurai related equipment in MapleStory before, but never did this game had such a faithful and true-to-the-source-material design. And boy, Amaterasu's Armor is one hell of a centerpiece for the set.
Not just does this overall looks fantastic in my opinion, compared to my Amaterasu's Shoes, the scrolling on this one has been very fortunate! While there is still a lot of slots left on both my shoes and overall, time will definitely tell where the stats will end up reaching.
The Additional options for my Amaterasu's Armor are been 2% All Stats and 10 Jump. The Unique Potential has been obtained through using an E-Pot on this equip first and cubing it afterward with Master Cubes found from daily bosses. For the time being, that 12% STR with -2 seconds worth of Abnormal Status Duration is definitely one to keep though.
My Amaterasu's Armor is the first equip that I use to have a Nebulite. To resume my desire and need for extended invincibility, this Nebulite gives a whopping 2 seconds of extension! This Nebulite format is superior in comparison to the Potential line. Why so? This 2 seconds of extension cannot be knocked off by Potential Seal. So this is a permanent anti-cripple-bonus that will definitely change things in my favor.
My Lionheart Battle Shoulder has always been a strange thing for me. It feels like a very important equip, and it definitely is - but there is this other strange feel I cannot trace for where it comes from or what it does.
That aside, this piece of shoulder decoration gives a lot of attack for just three slots! The twelve enhancements increased the STR and DEX to another whopping number of 49 and 46 respectively!
Unfortunately, I never really got into Cubing this thing. It has 2%-STR on the Additional Potential though...
My Lionheart Battle Shoulder will be replaced by my Amaterasu's Epaulet. It took me a while to figure out where this shoulder is placed if you had to draw it on your character, given the Amaterasu's Armor already gives two pieces of shoulderpads, right? Well, after some extensive unnecessary thinking, would probably this shoulder equipment gives spikes to one of the existing shoulderpads. Probably nobody will care about this, so let's get to the stats.
While the first scroll didn't do so much, I'll definitely hold my prejudgemental expectations until after I finished scrolling it. The Unique Potential was gained through, well, if you have read all previous paragraphs already, the following shouldn't be a surprise: starting off with an E-Pot and following with Master Cubes found through daily bosses! Ha, and people say Maple became "Pay 2 Win" several years ago... who needs to buy NX if you can simply cube if you invest some freaking effort in a genre of a game that pretty much always needs effort to begin with. It's not that killing Zakum or several other rather easy bosses at Level 214 with rather minimum funds takes forever, so I'd dare to say that Maple has been more "Pay 2 Win" before Big Bang happened back when it would've taken years until they updated the game so you could actually find Cubes from bosses (which back then, only went to Epic, by the way).
Oh, by the way, for the American readers on my blog out there. The reason why neither of both Shoulders have Additional Options, is because Shoulders cannot have Additional Options at all (the only exception to this rule is the Scarlet Shoulder). Surprised? Only if you didn't do some hard-to-find research behind it, so I can't blame you for not knowing. There are several pieces of equips that couldn't have Additional Options, so be careful if you really want to have Additional Options instead of Nebulites... Why can't we decide to ask for both?
My Lionheart Battle Cape has been an equip that has proven me to be very unlucky with nine Miracle Chaos Scroll of Goodness... only increasing its Attack to a total of 8. However, there is some absolutely redeeming factors behind it that my Amaterasu's Cape will never really get to.
First of all, it gives so much additional HP and MP. Just look at that. The reason why I had over 61.000 HP was partially because of that. It also gives 32 Speed and 17 Jump, which by itself, is already incredible (but rather obsolete when you add my Lionheart Shoes in the same Equip Inventory...). Well, the latter is a matter of RNG though, so we'll have to see how my Amaterasu's Cape will end up going for.
At least did I craft my own Lionheart Battle Cape! Wait, why the hell did I really get the painful amount of 200 Dream Fragments? Back then, believe it or not, crafting with a painful amount of 200 Dream Fragments was way cheaper than buying the cape itself. And the Tempest Coin shop made you able to get 200 Dream Fragments within a month or two if you would farm daily for coins.
Similar to my Lionheart Battle Boots, this cape gained its Additional Options prior to the formal release of Additional Options, which is why it has the Scissors Usages Available.
That said, I already mentioned it, my Amaterasu's Cape will replace my Lionheart Battle Cape. And good lord, the "Rayque Number Generator" has proven itself. Well, to be fair, with Miracle Chaos Scroll of Goodness, +11 Attack in 4 slots seems rather as an expected result. Beating +7 Attack from my Lionheart Cape wasn't too hard anyway, that was really a ton of bad luck...
The Additional Options for this fancy cape was another 3% All Stats to add on the list. The Potential was manually cubed from Epic to Unique through Master Cubes after using an E-Pot.
Last but definitely not least, my Lionheart Battle Helm! The infamous "broomstick" helm was actually the last Lionheart equipment I was working on, until the possibility to run Amaterasu became feasible to me. This is why this sponge-on-top-of-your-head seems rather unfinished in comparison to my other Lionheart equipment.
Cleaning up the streets of MapleStory with a respectful 6 Attack, it also protects me from dirt because of a whopping number of almost 1700 additional Health Points, obtained through Additional Options. Additional Options also gave 24 Magic Defence, which surprisingly makes this the only Lionheart piece of armour to not give Magic Defence at all...
From all the pieces of the Amaterasu set, the Amaterasu's Helm just screams to be used. This hat is huge. It is the attention getter of the set. And having a Kabuki Helmet is much better than using something where I'm running out of names to give this thing right now.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get this hat during the time of Additional Options. Though I did craft this hat! The stats from the first scroll made a statement to my Lionheart's: RNG is too RNG. This is the only Amaterasu equipment that I own at the time of this blogpost that objectively has higher STR/DEX *and* Attack compared to my Lionheart.
The Unique Pot was obtained through using Master Cubes (obtained from daily bosses) after using an E-Pot on it. Similar to my belt, because I have Level 100 Charm, I cannot obtain the 100 Charm Experience from this equip.
The following stuff will be lost if I stop using my Lionheart with Alien Visitor:
- A lot of bulk, including about 8000 HP, about 3000 MP and more than 2000 Weapon Defence, a little bit over 1000 Magic Defence. I'll also lose a few thousands worth of Accuracy and Avoid.
- About 100 STR and 100 DEX. A lot of Weapon Attack. This is because my Amaterasu equips are barely upgraded in comparison to my Lionheart equips.
- 30% Boss Damage and +2 points to unmaxed non-4th Job Skills (Brandish and Brave Slash) from the Lionheart item set.
- The Lionheart item set does not require a belt slot and gains the 30% Boss Damage from 6/7 items (which allows hybrid builds to fuction objectively much better), and to gain a similar boost on the Amaterasu set, you'll need to run all Amaterasu pieces, which means I would have to stop using Ribgol. And we all know, that is not going to happen.
- All Lionheart equips are definitely in favor for good Additional Options, objectively speaking, the possible Additional Options are unmatched compared to what Amaterasu ever could get. This only applies if Additional Options will ever come back to EMS, and never say never. Just saying.
- All of my Star Force enhancements, which would disable me to actually hit Star Force enemies. Because I would keep my Lionheart equips, I could always swap back if I need Star Force, in example, for Papulatus.
- Both Alien Visitor equipment are the only equips that I wear to have 4th tier Potential.
- I've spent several years on my Lionheart equips. While I won't throw them away, some people might agree that it is a lot work that is being parked in my inventory. This doesn't have to mean getting my Amaterasu on the same progress as my Lionheart takes an equal amount of time; MapleStory does improve, and my Lionheart equips have provided me to supply me with things that I couldn't farm back then, such as cubes. One of the things that the game recently added that we didn't have in the past, in example, was the ability to hammer twice without the need for NX.
- Perhaps an underestimated part of my Lionheart layout, but I have grown very accustomed to it. Not just the damage or the stats, but also the attacking speed. I've been using Fast 5 weapons since Pre-BB and thus I have more than six years worth of Fast 5 weapon experience. Because I'm going to use Self Speed Infusion, I need to fully readjust my reflexes and play style to a quicker Ribgol Sword, and I also need to readjust myself to having a temporary drop in damage.
- Subjectively speaking, this is really something I can be happy to run. This just feels much more like myself, so why shouldn't I strive for being myself if I have the ability to do so?
- Even though I'll lose 30% Boss Damage, I'll gain 7% Total Damage and 8% Critical Rate. On a grander scale, that means I'll have 7% Total Damage passive which cannot be knocked off with Potential Seal, and because I already run 100% Critical Rate without Potential or Inner Ability, I could potentially open up more slots because I currently use things like the Marksman Card, Hyper Stats, Phantom Skill Link etc. I'll probably become less boss-focused because of the 30% loss, but my character will be more versatile.
- Amaterasu's base stats will result in having more bulk when I get to finishing upgrades. This includes raw defence - I might lose about 8000 HP, but the total defence I would gain from this layout is much higher than Lionheart's. Especially after 5th Job where the maximum defence is raised from 9999 to 99.999, this will definitely come in handy.
- A significant amount of passive % All Stats, which cannot be knocked off through Potential Seal, and does not touch any Additional Potential, Potential or Nebulite slots. This also has indirectly influence to my bulk, because STR and DEX gives defence too.
- Because I'm not a big fan of the Meister, Gollux or Alien Visitor set, my belt slot will be utilized much better with Amaterasu's.
- My %-STR is raised from 52% to 69%.
- Even if my damage per line has dropped, because I use a lot of new indirect improvement (Self Speed Infusion, Level 31 and 32 Skills through Self Combat Orders, additional Total Damage from the Amaterasu Set), the actual time for a lot of bosses comes *very* close to my Lionheart set up. And because my Amaterasu is barely scrolled, this does mean that ultimately, my Amaterasu will outperform my Lionheart. The reason for why it outperforms is not "oh because you don't want to Neb it, you didn't Additional Options it to % All Stats and further upgrade your Lionheart", but especially because of the bigger picture - both my Lionheart and Amaterasu are not some standalone and randomly chosen pieces of equipment, they both compliment and compensate a lot of things in my build. And by coincidence, Amaterasu is more suitable than Lionheart.
- To go further on what I just mentioned in the bullet point above, with my Lionheart layout I only had a total of 21 slots left on my Lionheart (including Hammers, Alien Visitor equips), while my Amaterasu (including Hammers, Ani Pendant) has a total of 49 slots left.
Everything else that is not mentioned here, is either because both layouts kinda gives the same, or I simply forgot to mention it. But if there is one thing that my build will definitely gain what I didn't mention above, it's...
That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!
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