Sup guys! Today's blogpost is that "special column" I've mentioned I was going to write about. In this (hopefully informative) post we're going to take a look at a sword that was a popular weapon for only a moment - Ryude's Sword!
Ryude's Sword had an interesting life so far. When it came out, a vocal majority went nuts for it - it was deemed a top tier sword for a very long time, and it was used in many major builds. It even was unaffordable to many players and it has remained a tough-to-find weapon. Then, a fair balancing adjustment happened to this weapon when it became too popular... Suddenly nobody talked about it any longer, and people moved on with their lives.
MapleStory has a respectable list of special(ized) equipment that allow for certain gimmick builds. The majority of this list involves equipment that has a specific stat modified to distinct itself from the norm, or it has a special effect or skill applied to it. These things have been around since almost the beginning of the game, and even to this day, new ones are released almost each year.
Gimmick builds are usually not a popular choice among the majority of the community (although there are exceptions every now and then), and they often require players to have advanced knowledge and experience in order to pull this off. That, or at least an insane budget in order to afford said items or to even get them running in the first place.
Although, Ryude's Sword has fortunately been a rather easy-to-implement-sword in most cases. This is due to its special effect it has to offer. One that is still pretty much unique to Ryude, and can be outright broken in the right hands.
"So, what does Ryude's Sword do?"
It's simple. According to the item's description, it has a 70% chance to increase the number of attacks by 1 when using a skill. "Not applicable to all skills".
Imagine your main attack has 10 lines. Using this skill with Ryude's Sword gives you a 70% chance to get another line on top of that. That makes 11.
Now, of course there is an actual ruling behind the "Not applicable to all skills" part. It almost takes the same general ruling as the "increases the amount of targets on multi-target skills by 1" from Monster Life and Inner Ability.
Imagine your main attack with 10 lines affects three targets. This means it falls under Ryude's ruling so it gets that 70% chance to get another line. But imagine you also have another attack, which only affects a single target. This attack will not be affected by Ryude. This is an essential difference that is very important - it's the reason why Ryude's Sword is broken for a class like Hero or Kaiser, but loses a lot of appeal for a class like Paladin.
Anyway, as you probably can tell from the blogpost's title (or, if you're a frequent reader of my blog), we're only going to take a look at the skill tree of Hero. And we're also going in-depth for some of these skills, in order to explain why they are affected by Ryude, or why they aren't.
Soul Driver
Soul Driver is a basic skill that doesn't follow any special rulings or whatever, but I'm glad to be able to confirm that it does work with Ryude. At least it's interesting to see that Ryude works with certain Beginner skills, now doesn't it?
Not many Hero/Paladin/Dark Knight mains nowadays have Soul Driver, but as I keep mentioning on my blog: it is definitely worth getting Level 5. The damage may be low for today standards and it has no enhancement support on 5th job, but if you can one shot enemies with this skill, it really helps a lot. It is still the fastest attack that Hero has, its hitbox is very useful and it also has no cooldown.
Sengoku Secret Manual
Perhaps an even more trivial skill, but Ryude does work with Sengoku Secret Manual. I do use it often myself at places where it one shots enemies though. Its high cooldown makes it a bit tough to use it often.
No, I won't go for the 101% completionist route and look at all possible Beginner skills with Ryude. That's already more effort than I'm willing to give, and it's also unlikely for me to cover all those skills anyway. I'm sure that one of my particular recurring readers would love to see me go for the 101% though. Not going to happen.
Slash Blast
Slash Blast works, which is as expected.
It's one of the three multi-target skills of Hero that only does a single line, so seeing another line on Slash Blast is not something I'm used to.
Brandish
Brandish works. Makes sense.
In terms of hitboxes, Brandish hasn't aged well. Its hitbox is almost identical to Slash Blast, but has a lower Y while the X-range is almost the same. It's hard to believe that Brandish is undergoing the same fate as Ground Smash.
Combo Force is usually the better option on 2nd Job, especially once you start one shotting enemies with it. The only real advantage of Brandish over Combo Force is that Combo Force has a slight delay between attacks to prevent it from being spammed. Even this delay is shorter than the time it takes to use a single Brandish though! Just use Combo Force instead. Speaking of which...
Combo Force / Combo Hookshot
Combo Force is an interesting case. You can tell that Combo Force works with Ryude's Sword from the image above, which is as expected. But once we take a look at Combo Hookshot, we're diving into one of those "special cases".
You can tell that Combo Hookshot *is* affected by Ryude's Sword. Wait, is that necessarily correct?
In theory, Ryude's Sword should *not* affect Combo Hookshot, because Combo Hookshot can only target one enemy. The reason why Ryude's Sword affects Combo Hookshot is most likely a developer oversight.
There's a variable in the game that decides if a skill is either a mobbing skill or not. Even if it only targets a single target, the game can still classify it as a mobbing skill. A good evidence of what happened in Combo Hookshot's case is the fact that it used to target multiple enemies in the past.
This was later changed because it was obviously too powerful. Perhaps they did not remove the "mobbing skill" variable when they nerfed Combo Hookshot. So when they reduced the amount of targets from 8 to 1, it still remained classified as a mobbing skill. Maybe this is not intended, but it doesn't take away the fact that it currently works with Ryude.
And no, Combo Hookshot cannot be expanded with the "increases the amount of targets on multi-target skills by 1". There's a number of another variables in the game that overrules the "this is a mobbing skill" variable. We're going to get back to this particular ruling with Sword of Burning Soul and with Erda Nova.
Brave Slash
No surprises here.
Interesting trivia: Brave Slash is one of the few skills to activate a different sound effect when (Advanced) Final Attack triggers. Usually, Final Attack would use the default hitting sound, which also occurs with Soul Driver or with the default attack/ground poke. This different sound effect is nothing more than the same sound of Brave Slash itself, but it still stands out as an oddity from the norm.
Shout / Down-Shout
Shout is the first Combo-consuming skill on this list, and as expected: it does work with Ryude.
Fun fact: Shout actually stuns surviving (non-boss) targets when they are hit. Before the current Shout was implemented, Shout was known for having an absurd high chance to apply the stun status effect. They have taken this status effect away with the Reboot update in favor of increasing Shout's hitbox, but normal targets still become immobilized when they are hit. So essentially, they are stunned, but without the stun status effect. This is most likely because otherwise the skill Chance Attack would kick in, which gives Hero an additional bonus damage against stunned targets.
Anyway: Shout, like with Combo Force, also has an alternate mode. Will this be any different?
Of course, the answer is no. There's no reason for Down-Shout to be any different, so common sense applies here as well.
I've also came across the common question of "why on Maple World should we ever use Down-Shout in any case?". It's actually simple: to guarantee Panic and Puncture to apply on enemies. Down-Shout does a debuff against enemies. Against non-boss targets, it stuns - but against boss enemies, it gives a 6 seconds debuff that give status effects a 100% chance to occur as long as this debuff is active. It is guaranteed to help with your own status effects, but it does not seem to guarantee to work for party members or other players.
"But doesn't Panic already have a 90% chance to succeed and Puncture 102% at Level 31?"
Yes, that is true. But that's only true for enemies at your own level or lower. There's actually a reduced success rate if you try to apply "normal" status effects at higher level enemies. So that's where Down-Shout's debuff might come in handy. It's not that much of an issue to be honest - failing to apply Panic or Puncture is just a minor inconvenience that is often better responded with "try it again" rather than putting Shout on cooldown.
Just to clarify: Down-Shout does not reset or bypass a target's status resistance. It's only to guarantee landing status effects as long as the Down-Shout debuff is shown above your target. So skills such as Magic Crash or Erda Nova cannot be stacked or spammed as Nexon took away this cheese more than six years ago. Dunas runs in Neo Tokyo became a bit too easy so the changes were justified.
Just don't be that guy that tries to apply Panic or Puncture on the Black Mage at Level 255. He'd have twenty levels worth of penalty on you.
Rush
Rush is the second skill in line that goes from a single to two lines with Ryude.
Ryude's pretty useful with Rush if you cannot one shot enemies without it. But that's something extra funding can always fix, unless we're talking about (5th Job) raid bosses or something.
Anyway, did you know that Rush on attacking speed 0 is faster than Flash Jumping with 153% speed on a Hero? Rush is *that* fast. I guess its name should've given that away. I expect nothing less from *the* hidden technique invented by Taurospears.
... nobody will get that reference. (PS: Rush actually uses the same sword as Brave Slash, which is a nice detail)
Panic
The second Combo-consuming skill on our list. The list is becoming pretty damn predictable, now doesn't it?
Anyway, Panic works with Ryude. Of course doubling the amount of lines does not increase Panic's success rate of applying blind. Status effects are a separate property in skills.
That's our last 3rd Job skill! On to 4th Job...
Raging Blow
We're starting the 4th Job list with our good ol' Raging Blow! As expected, Raging Blow does apply to Ryude. However, when we're going to look at the different variants of Raging Blow, we're diving into some more interesting stuff...
So, with Enraged Raging Blow (ERB) - a specific version of Raging Blow that appears when using Enrage, you would not expect Ryude to work. Why so?
The player is chronologically first introduced to Enraged Raging Blow (or, in official terms: "Enhanced Raging Blow") through the skill Enrage. Heck, even the skill description of Raging Blow states "While you are Enraged, your single attacks are more powerful". And of course, Enrage just changes all of your attacks to a single target, so one could assume that Ryude would simply not work with ERB "because you will only be hitting a single target".
But wait, why does Ryude's Sword not work with Paladin's Blast, but does work with Enraged Raging Blow? In order to explain this, I should get to the skill Valhalla first and explain how the game uses different skills with only having one mutual skill hotkey.
Ever noticed that when you use Enrage or Valhalla, your game feels like it gets a slight moment of lag where you can't do anything? Or, even a better example: using Final Transfiguration on Kaiser makes the lag spike even more apparent.
In Hero's case that is because there are two different Raging Blows in the game files, and you use both with the same Raging Blow hotkey. So essentially, the moment you press any skill that activates "Enhanced Raging Blow", the game needs to redirect that hotkey to a different skill that just shares the same name and has a same number of lines programmed. But in terms of programming, they are really two distinct and separate skills.
So the game needs to update everything at that point - your hotkey, your user interface, the damage calculation, etc. This is also for when the game needs to revert to its original state.
So in Hero's case, we don't have many of these kind of skills. At the moment we only have Raging Blow and Sobs that uses this system. In Kaiser's case however, there's a whole lot more skills to adjust, so that is why it always feels like the game freezes for about a quarter second when you use Final Transfig and when you transform back into Nova state.
Anyway, what does this have to do with Enrage stacking with Ryude's effect?
The answer is simple: both Raging Blow's are programmed with the same number of default enemies. So no matter if you use Valhalla, Sobs or Enrage, they are linked to the same Enhanced Raging Blow, which affects multiple targets.
Ryude's effect only looks for the default number of enemies from the base skill itself. Any additional boosts from Inner Ability, Monster Life, Hyper Skills, 5th Job and such are treated independently from this ruling. Enrage reduces the amount of targets you can attack to one, but that's an additional layer on top of everything else, and is considered as one of the final adjustments priority-wise. So by virtue of what is calculated first and how the calculation is programmed, Hero gets away with this one.
So, just to clarify another example for the sake of explanation:
Kaiser's case is a different one. Kaiser has various skills to affect multiple targets, but unlike Hero, he has a main attack specifically designed for bossing; Gigaslasher.
Gigaslasher is a single-target attacking skill like Paladin's Blast. But when Kaiser uses Final Transfiguration, a lot of his skills changes in appearance, similarly to what happens with Raging Blow. The changed skills includes Gigaslasher.
Gigaslasher under Final Transfiguration uses a different set of skill data, which increases this attack's spread to now affect three enemies and thus allows Ryude to kick in. So, to summarize: Ryude's boost can work for Gigaslasher, but only under the effects of Final Transfiguration.
Puncture
Our final 4th Job skill for this list. As expected, Puncture works with the effects of Ryude.
What? Expected some additional trivia about Puncture? This already covers most of that for you. Actually, Puncture is going to be buffed *again* very soon. Its attacking speed is going to be increased by a significant amount. Again.
Rage Uprising
Rage Uprising works with Ryude.
Fortunately most Hyper Skills and 5th Job are not allergic to damage-related upgrades which involves additional targets and/or additional lines, given that all of those skills are quite allergic to any of the time-related upgrades that involves cooldown adjustments. There are some rare exceptions, of course. I won't dive too much into that here, as that can easily warrant its own blogpost.
Erda Shower
Erda Shower is once again a straightforward skill that works with Ryude. At least it's good to see that Erda Shower works with Ryude, as skills that are commonly shared with (almost) every class in the game often have the most harsh balancing rulings in order to prevent imbalance and advantages between classes with the same skill from happening.
Blitz Shield
Blitz Shield might play and feel a bit different compared to other Hero skills, but the explosion itself is programmed as a standard area of effect - just without any delays. Because the explosion is standard, it works with Ryude. And that's the only part of the entire skill that matters with Ryude's ruling.
Combo Death Fault
Combo Death Fault works with Ryude. Like, why shouldn't it?
Sword of Burning Soul
Oh no! What is happening here? We just went through 19 previous instances where Ryude works, and suddenly we hit a road block. Sobs Swing does not work with Ryude. How so? Is this intended?
Sobs is a summon. This is a very important starting point. A lot of players seem to have been mistaken by expecting this skill to be a normal active buff, while the skill description has been refering it to as a summon since day 1. Let alone that the sword actually follows you around and can lag behind like other summons in MapleStory do.
That Sobs is a summon is also proven further by the fact that Summon Duration used to extend Sobs while Buff Duration did not. But of course, Summon Duration's influence on 5th Job skills was later patched after too many players exploited with it.
Summons are entirely separated from the player, and there's only a limited amount of upgrades that you can apply to a summon. Sobs is a good example of a skill where adding additional targets through Monster Life and Inner Ability *does* work, but Ryude's effect does not. The additional targets upgrade works with Sobs because it already affects more than a single target and it does not have any specialized variables that would block this upgrade (i.e. Illium has a few mobbing skills that have the variable to disable target upgrades), regardless by the fact that Sobs is a summon.
So, knowing this, we can safely assume that Ryude does not work with *any* summon in the game. Just for the sake of proof, let's take a look at the other three variants of Sobs to reconfirm this statement.
Sobs comes in four distinct variations, which is the largest amount of variations in a single skill that Hero currently has. So like with Raging Blow, every variant of Sobs that looks different is also a different set of data. And here's the interesting thing about Sobs: if Ryude would've been implemented to work with Sobs, it would work for both the Enraged and default versions.
Similarly programmed as Raging Blow, all four versions of Sobs are programmed to target 8 enemies by default. So, the Enraged versions of Default and Stationary are programmed to hit 8 enemies, but because those variants are only available while Enrage is active, the amount of targets is set back to 1. But that does mean it *should* be affected by Ryude, but that is also under the circumstance *if* they would ever make an exception with this skill.
Honestly I doubt Nexon would fork out the effort to make an exception for this skill. Just don't forget that Nexon has no reason to do so. Summons do not work with Ryude's effect, so it would be a rare exception if that would ever change in the future.
Erda Nova
Erda Nova is another interesting case, as there will be a change to this skill that will hit EMS in less than three months. And how this particular change is implemented will ultimately decide if it will stop working with Ryude's Sword or not.
If you look closely to the image, you can see that I fire two Erda Nova's at once. This is a particular oddity that I mentioned on my blog last year, where said oddity has most likely been around since day 1 of 5th Job. I run target extensions on my Hero but I've only managed to obtain my first of three-planned extensions around that time, so I didn't know about this particular case prior to that.
So because I have a +1 target extension for all multi-target skills, Erda Nova should actually not be applied, right? Its description specifically mentions to affect a single target, so it seems to be a bug. And indeed it was, because KMS had a fix for this particular case not long after I posted my findings. This particular fix is stated to remove the ability to increase the amount of targets on Erda Nova, and thus leaving the skill's maximum amount of targets to 1.
Either way, Erda Nova is a rare exception where Ryude works on a single-target skill. Even if Erda Nova is programmed to a single target, it is still classified as a mobbing skill (which explains why you can extend the amount of targets for this skill until the fix is here). So in that sense, Erda Nova is currently in a similar position to Combo Hookshot.
However, the incoming bugfix can either go two ways. Either Erda Nova is changed to become a single target skill, does not allow target extensions but keeps the current classification, or Erda Nova becomes a single target skill, does not allow target extensions and loses its current classification. If the former case happens: Ryude's effect would still apply to Erda Nova, and the skill undergoes the same life cycle as Combo Hookshot. If the latter case happens: well tough shit; a bind skill with a cooldown of 5 minutes and 10 seconds at max level loses one additional line. It's not like having an additional line on Erda Nova will increase the bind's duration by a landslide or something. *shrug*
Aura Weapon
Alright, we just confirmed that Ryude does not work with Sword of Burning Soul. But you can tell that Ryude works with Aura Weapon. Ryude's effect still applies without connecting the attacking skill! Why does this happen?
Aura Weapon's behavior is caused by the fact that it is programmed to copy the amount of lines from the skill that triggers it. So in the case of the image above: Slash Blast does only a single line, and it is increased to two lines through Ryude's Sword. Aura Weapon is triggered through Slash Blast, so it copies the amount of lines from Slash Blast; which at that moment was two.
I would love to say "Aura Weapon works with Ryude because it's a projectile skill such as Kaiser's Wing Beat skill", but I'm fairly confident that it's because of the copy ability from AW. Unfortunately I cannot test out Ryude on a 5th Job Paladin/Soul Master/Kaiser because I don't have one. And neither would I fork out six thousand Reward Points just to verify if Aura Weapon triggered through a single-target attacking skill would cause to Ryude to kick in. Ask someone on Reddit or something. That Aura Weapon at least seem to work with virtually any Hero skill that can trigger it seems good enough or reasonable for this blogpost.
I will pretend that this unanswered question does not concern me. Noooope. I. Have. Absolute. Control. Over. My.
"I need to know how everything works" behavior. Totes. Let's move to the next skill before I have trouble sleeping tonight.
(Advanced) Final Attack
Last but not least, it's time to cover Final Attack. Wait, is that coverage really necessary?
Well, I think it is because Advanced Final Attack (AFA) is an important contributor to Hero's overall damage. It procs a lot of times and the damage pushes Hero's total output to even higher numbers because it essentially adds more than two lines worth of Raging Blow damage to each RB you do.
Especially with the most recent changes to how AFA's hitboxes work in KMS (where AFA's hitbox is now entirely dependent on the skill that triggers it, instead of it being a hitbox that only procs very close to your character's current position), AFA's presence will start to actually exist in bosses where keeping your distance with ERB caused AFA to never hit them. But as you can tell from the image above: AFA is not triggered by Ryude.
The reason for that is simple. Advanced Final Attack only affects a single target. This amount cannot be increased so the skill is essentially classified to be a single-target-skill and not a mobbing one.
Perhaps this might change after most recent changes to AFA from KMS? I suppose we'll get to know that somewhere early next year. But I'm not betting my lunch on it.
Bonus fact!
Ryude does increase the number of default attacks by one. But it doesn't make it count as two attacks. Just one attack worth of two lines.
Did you know there is another sword in this game that also increases the number of default attacks by one? It's different from Ryude however, as it doubles the amount of default attacks to two attacks of one line each. Essentially it gives the player the same two-step attack that Dual Blade does.
What sword does this magic you'd ask? Nope, I'm not going to spoil the beans!It's Crescent Blade, duh.
So, is Ryude's Sword actually worth using?
If you have paid attention the title of this blogpost, then you can expect me to say "yes, this sword is still pretty damn good". Assuming that the sword isn't bugged right now and that I have a mathematically impossible streak of proccing Ryude without fail in the past few months and that the success rate of adding an additional line is truly 70% as it states in the in-game description.
Having an additional line on virtually any spamable Hero skill and in every 5th Job skill except for Final Attack and Sword of Burning Soul is a way too valuable addition to simply ignore or not to consider.
Most people would argue that having an Arcane 2h Sword or a Genesis 2h Sword would outperform a Ryude's Sword.
I would say the opposite - but only under the circumstance that you actually put some effort in getting it to work, and have a basic understanding on how to build a Hero in MapleStory. Especially the latter requires more than just reading popular guides or asking on forums.
Plus: if you're really going to do an Arcane/Genesis 2h Sword VS Ryude's Sword debate, please don't. If you're going to debate for min/maxing and who gives the higher output performance, you should actually pit an Arcane/Genesis 2h Axe against a Ryude's Sword. It's almost embarrassing to see people still not realizing this after five damn years.
Anyway. An additional line might not sound so game changing at first, because going for higher level swords usually comes with a higher range. In Hero's case, you're pretty much running permanent low range anyway, so the actual range difference is far less existing than on a class like Kaiser or Soul Master. Just don't forget that nowadays a weapon proportionally doesn't contribute for too much of your entire output - with so many ways of upgrading gear, it is pretty much the opposite of before Big Bang where accessories were just a mere icing on the cake. Plus, range doesn't say much in terms of output.
As an insult to injury, Ryude's additional line is actually the most effective on Hero out of all sword classes. The reason for this is because of how Hero uses a shitload of multipliers. Ryude's additional lines are virtually the same as any other line done with the skill that is used with Ryude. This means that in case of Raging Blow, you would not only get an additional Raging Blow line... but an additional Raging Blow line multiplied by Enrage, multiplied by Chance Attack, multiplied by Puncture, multiplied by Cadena's Skill Link, multiplied by Advanced Combo Attack which is then further enhanced by Combo Death Fault AND also Combo Instinct soon... We haven't even talked about having even another pair of multipliers called Boss Damage and Critical Damage, and what I just mentioned isn't even all multipliers Hero has in total or can obtain.
The higher the skill damage, the more Ryude even benefits from this. Raging Blow's skill damage is excellent - it's even high for warrior standards. But keep in mind that Ryude is even way more effective with Combo Death Fault or Blitz Shield - that's a pretty interesting fact. 5th Job will be chock full of high skill damage numbers, so I would almost say that running Ryude has only become much easier by virtue of what 5th Job does add to the table.
Last but not least: don't forget that Ryude still pretty much has all the basic goods that you want to have with a main weapon. It receives actual proper Additional Options. It has access to 25 Star Force. It might only have 6 slots clean, but I could almost say that trading one slot for an additional line is a criminal offense and hardly any drawback. Its base attack is the expected norm, it also gives 10% Boss Damage and 10% Defence Ignore (which isn't even a standard thing, and only limited to the highest level weapons in the game). Heck, Ryude is actually affordable ever since people stop giving a damn. Getting replacements for Star Force should be no big deal. Even affording a clean one if you just started Hero shouldn't be an issue if you save up some mesos.
So unless there will be more sword/axes like Ryude's Sword, it will always remain a weapon with one additional line of advantage. No matter what sword you pick, and no matter who you are, Ryude will always have one additional line. But of course: whatever equip you want to decide to run is up to you. Only use Ryude's Sword if you can pull it off.
Hopefully this blogpost has been informative to the majority of you all. It has taken me over a week to write and gather all of the recordings to get this thing out there. I'm planning to add a "Ryude's Ruling" column to each upcoming 5th Job "next skill wave" blogpost (like with the Black update arriving later this year), just for fun trivia and to be a bit more complete on my coverage on all the new skills Hero gets.
Speaking of 5th Job skills... If the upcoming Combo Instinct skill will apply to Ryude's Sword. Holy F-.
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| Ryude's Sword, without upgrades. |
MapleStory has a respectable list of special(ized) equipment that allow for certain gimmick builds. The majority of this list involves equipment that has a specific stat modified to distinct itself from the norm, or it has a special effect or skill applied to it. These things have been around since almost the beginning of the game, and even to this day, new ones are released almost each year.
Gimmick builds are usually not a popular choice among the majority of the community (although there are exceptions every now and then), and they often require players to have advanced knowledge and experience in order to pull this off. That, or at least an insane budget in order to afford said items or to even get them running in the first place.
Although, Ryude's Sword has fortunately been a rather easy-to-implement-sword in most cases. This is due to its special effect it has to offer. One that is still pretty much unique to Ryude, and can be outright broken in the right hands.
"So, what does Ryude's Sword do?"
It's simple. According to the item's description, it has a 70% chance to increase the number of attacks by 1 when using a skill. "Not applicable to all skills".
Imagine your main attack has 10 lines. Using this skill with Ryude's Sword gives you a 70% chance to get another line on top of that. That makes 11.
Now, of course there is an actual ruling behind the "Not applicable to all skills" part. It almost takes the same general ruling as the "increases the amount of targets on multi-target skills by 1" from Monster Life and Inner Ability.
Imagine your main attack with 10 lines affects three targets. This means it falls under Ryude's ruling so it gets that 70% chance to get another line. But imagine you also have another attack, which only affects a single target. This attack will not be affected by Ryude. This is an essential difference that is very important - it's the reason why Ryude's Sword is broken for a class like Hero or Kaiser, but loses a lot of appeal for a class like Paladin.
Anyway, as you probably can tell from the blogpost's title (or, if you're a frequent reader of my blog), we're only going to take a look at the skill tree of Hero. And we're also going in-depth for some of these skills, in order to explain why they are affected by Ryude, or why they aren't.
Soul Driver
Soul Driver is a basic skill that doesn't follow any special rulings or whatever, but I'm glad to be able to confirm that it does work with Ryude. At least it's interesting to see that Ryude works with certain Beginner skills, now doesn't it?
Not many Hero/Paladin/Dark Knight mains nowadays have Soul Driver, but as I keep mentioning on my blog: it is definitely worth getting Level 5. The damage may be low for today standards and it has no enhancement support on 5th job, but if you can one shot enemies with this skill, it really helps a lot. It is still the fastest attack that Hero has, its hitbox is very useful and it also has no cooldown.
Sengoku Secret Manual
Perhaps an even more trivial skill, but Ryude does work with Sengoku Secret Manual. I do use it often myself at places where it one shots enemies though. Its high cooldown makes it a bit tough to use it often.
No, I won't go for the 101% completionist route and look at all possible Beginner skills with Ryude. That's already more effort than I'm willing to give, and it's also unlikely for me to cover all those skills anyway. I'm sure that one of my particular recurring readers would love to see me go for the 101% though. Not going to happen.
Slash Blast
Slash Blast works, which is as expected.
It's one of the three multi-target skills of Hero that only does a single line, so seeing another line on Slash Blast is not something I'm used to.
Brandish
Brandish works. Makes sense.
In terms of hitboxes, Brandish hasn't aged well. Its hitbox is almost identical to Slash Blast, but has a lower Y while the X-range is almost the same. It's hard to believe that Brandish is undergoing the same fate as Ground Smash.
Combo Force is usually the better option on 2nd Job, especially once you start one shotting enemies with it. The only real advantage of Brandish over Combo Force is that Combo Force has a slight delay between attacks to prevent it from being spammed. Even this delay is shorter than the time it takes to use a single Brandish though! Just use Combo Force instead. Speaking of which...
Combo Force / Combo Hookshot
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| Combo Force, variant #1: Pull |
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| Combo Force, variant #2: Hookshot ("Combo Hookshot") |
In theory, Ryude's Sword should *not* affect Combo Hookshot, because Combo Hookshot can only target one enemy. The reason why Ryude's Sword affects Combo Hookshot is most likely a developer oversight.
There's a variable in the game that decides if a skill is either a mobbing skill or not. Even if it only targets a single target, the game can still classify it as a mobbing skill. A good evidence of what happened in Combo Hookshot's case is the fact that it used to target multiple enemies in the past.
This was later changed because it was obviously too powerful. Perhaps they did not remove the "mobbing skill" variable when they nerfed Combo Hookshot. So when they reduced the amount of targets from 8 to 1, it still remained classified as a mobbing skill. Maybe this is not intended, but it doesn't take away the fact that it currently works with Ryude.
And no, Combo Hookshot cannot be expanded with the "increases the amount of targets on multi-target skills by 1". There's a number of another variables in the game that overrules the "this is a mobbing skill" variable. We're going to get back to this particular ruling with Sword of Burning Soul and with Erda Nova.
Brave Slash
No surprises here.
Interesting trivia: Brave Slash is one of the few skills to activate a different sound effect when (Advanced) Final Attack triggers. Usually, Final Attack would use the default hitting sound, which also occurs with Soul Driver or with the default attack/ground poke. This different sound effect is nothing more than the same sound of Brave Slash itself, but it still stands out as an oddity from the norm.
Shout / Down-Shout
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| Shout, variant #1: Area of Effect |
Fun fact: Shout actually stuns surviving (non-boss) targets when they are hit. Before the current Shout was implemented, Shout was known for having an absurd high chance to apply the stun status effect. They have taken this status effect away with the Reboot update in favor of increasing Shout's hitbox, but normal targets still become immobilized when they are hit. So essentially, they are stunned, but without the stun status effect. This is most likely because otherwise the skill Chance Attack would kick in, which gives Hero an additional bonus damage against stunned targets.
Anyway: Shout, like with Combo Force, also has an alternate mode. Will this be any different?
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| Shout, variant #2: Status Effect ("Down-Shout") |
I've also came across the common question of "why on Maple World should we ever use Down-Shout in any case?". It's actually simple: to guarantee Panic and Puncture to apply on enemies. Down-Shout does a debuff against enemies. Against non-boss targets, it stuns - but against boss enemies, it gives a 6 seconds debuff that give status effects a 100% chance to occur as long as this debuff is active. It is guaranteed to help with your own status effects, but it does not seem to guarantee to work for party members or other players.
"But doesn't Panic already have a 90% chance to succeed and Puncture 102% at Level 31?"
Yes, that is true. But that's only true for enemies at your own level or lower. There's actually a reduced success rate if you try to apply "normal" status effects at higher level enemies. So that's where Down-Shout's debuff might come in handy. It's not that much of an issue to be honest - failing to apply Panic or Puncture is just a minor inconvenience that is often better responded with "try it again" rather than putting Shout on cooldown.
Just to clarify: Down-Shout does not reset or bypass a target's status resistance. It's only to guarantee landing status effects as long as the Down-Shout debuff is shown above your target. So skills such as Magic Crash or Erda Nova cannot be stacked or spammed as Nexon took away this cheese more than six years ago. Dunas runs in Neo Tokyo became a bit too easy so the changes were justified.
Just don't be that guy that tries to apply Panic or Puncture on the Black Mage at Level 255. He'd have twenty levels worth of penalty on you.
Rush
Rush is the second skill in line that goes from a single to two lines with Ryude.
Ryude's pretty useful with Rush if you cannot one shot enemies without it. But that's something extra funding can always fix, unless we're talking about (5th Job) raid bosses or something.
Anyway, did you know that Rush on attacking speed 0 is faster than Flash Jumping with 153% speed on a Hero? Rush is *that* fast. I guess its name should've given that away. I expect nothing less from *the* hidden technique invented by Taurospears.
... nobody will get that reference. (PS: Rush actually uses the same sword as Brave Slash, which is a nice detail)
Panic
The second Combo-consuming skill on our list. The list is becoming pretty damn predictable, now doesn't it?
Anyway, Panic works with Ryude. Of course doubling the amount of lines does not increase Panic's success rate of applying blind. Status effects are a separate property in skills.
That's our last 3rd Job skill! On to 4th Job...
Raging Blow
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| Raging Blow, variant #1: Standard |
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| Raging Blow, variant #2: Enhanced (activated through Enrage) |
The player is chronologically first introduced to Enraged Raging Blow (or, in official terms: "Enhanced Raging Blow") through the skill Enrage. Heck, even the skill description of Raging Blow states "While you are Enraged, your single attacks are more powerful". And of course, Enrage just changes all of your attacks to a single target, so one could assume that Ryude would simply not work with ERB "because you will only be hitting a single target".
But wait, why does Ryude's Sword not work with Paladin's Blast, but does work with Enraged Raging Blow? In order to explain this, I should get to the skill Valhalla first and explain how the game uses different skills with only having one mutual skill hotkey.
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| Raging Blow, variant #2: Enhanced (activated through Valhalla) |
In Hero's case that is because there are two different Raging Blows in the game files, and you use both with the same Raging Blow hotkey. So essentially, the moment you press any skill that activates "Enhanced Raging Blow", the game needs to redirect that hotkey to a different skill that just shares the same name and has a same number of lines programmed. But in terms of programming, they are really two distinct and separate skills.
So the game needs to update everything at that point - your hotkey, your user interface, the damage calculation, etc. This is also for when the game needs to revert to its original state.
So in Hero's case, we don't have many of these kind of skills. At the moment we only have Raging Blow and Sobs that uses this system. In Kaiser's case however, there's a whole lot more skills to adjust, so that is why it always feels like the game freezes for about a quarter second when you use Final Transfig and when you transform back into Nova state.
Anyway, what does this have to do with Enrage stacking with Ryude's effect?
The answer is simple: both Raging Blow's are programmed with the same number of default enemies. So no matter if you use Valhalla, Sobs or Enrage, they are linked to the same Enhanced Raging Blow, which affects multiple targets.
Ryude's effect only looks for the default number of enemies from the base skill itself. Any additional boosts from Inner Ability, Monster Life, Hyper Skills, 5th Job and such are treated independently from this ruling. Enrage reduces the amount of targets you can attack to one, but that's an additional layer on top of everything else, and is considered as one of the final adjustments priority-wise. So by virtue of what is calculated first and how the calculation is programmed, Hero gets away with this one.
So, just to clarify another example for the sake of explanation:
Kaiser's case is a different one. Kaiser has various skills to affect multiple targets, but unlike Hero, he has a main attack specifically designed for bossing; Gigaslasher.
Gigaslasher is a single-target attacking skill like Paladin's Blast. But when Kaiser uses Final Transfiguration, a lot of his skills changes in appearance, similarly to what happens with Raging Blow. The changed skills includes Gigaslasher.
Gigaslasher under Final Transfiguration uses a different set of skill data, which increases this attack's spread to now affect three enemies and thus allows Ryude to kick in. So, to summarize: Ryude's boost can work for Gigaslasher, but only under the effects of Final Transfiguration.
Puncture
What? Expected some additional trivia about Puncture? This already covers most of that for you. Actually, Puncture is going to be buffed *again* very soon. Its attacking speed is going to be increased by a significant amount. Again.
Rage Uprising
Rage Uprising works with Ryude.
Fortunately most Hyper Skills and 5th Job are not allergic to damage-related upgrades which involves additional targets and/or additional lines, given that all of those skills are quite allergic to any of the time-related upgrades that involves cooldown adjustments. There are some rare exceptions, of course. I won't dive too much into that here, as that can easily warrant its own blogpost.
Erda Shower
Erda Shower is once again a straightforward skill that works with Ryude. At least it's good to see that Erda Shower works with Ryude, as skills that are commonly shared with (almost) every class in the game often have the most harsh balancing rulings in order to prevent imbalance and advantages between classes with the same skill from happening.
Blitz Shield
Blitz Shield might play and feel a bit different compared to other Hero skills, but the explosion itself is programmed as a standard area of effect - just without any delays. Because the explosion is standard, it works with Ryude. And that's the only part of the entire skill that matters with Ryude's ruling.
Combo Death Fault
Combo Death Fault works with Ryude. Like, why shouldn't it?
Sword of Burning Soul
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| Sword of Burning Soul, variant #1: Standard ("Sobs Swing") |
Sobs is a summon. This is a very important starting point. A lot of players seem to have been mistaken by expecting this skill to be a normal active buff, while the skill description has been refering it to as a summon since day 1. Let alone that the sword actually follows you around and can lag behind like other summons in MapleStory do.
That Sobs is a summon is also proven further by the fact that Summon Duration used to extend Sobs while Buff Duration did not. But of course, Summon Duration's influence on 5th Job skills was later patched after too many players exploited with it.
Summons are entirely separated from the player, and there's only a limited amount of upgrades that you can apply to a summon. Sobs is a good example of a skill where adding additional targets through Monster Life and Inner Ability *does* work, but Ryude's effect does not. The additional targets upgrade works with Sobs because it already affects more than a single target and it does not have any specialized variables that would block this upgrade (i.e. Illium has a few mobbing skills that have the variable to disable target upgrades), regardless by the fact that Sobs is a summon.
So, knowing this, we can safely assume that Ryude does not work with *any* summon in the game. Just for the sake of proof, let's take a look at the other three variants of Sobs to reconfirm this statement.
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| Sword of Burning Soul, variant #2: Standard + Enrage ("Enraged Sobs Swing") |
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| Sword of Burning Soul, variant #3: Stationary ("Sobs Turret") |
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| Sword of Burning Soul: variant #4: Stationary + Enrage ("Enraged Sobs Turret") |
Similarly programmed as Raging Blow, all four versions of Sobs are programmed to target 8 enemies by default. So, the Enraged versions of Default and Stationary are programmed to hit 8 enemies, but because those variants are only available while Enrage is active, the amount of targets is set back to 1. But that does mean it *should* be affected by Ryude, but that is also under the circumstance *if* they would ever make an exception with this skill.
Honestly I doubt Nexon would fork out the effort to make an exception for this skill. Just don't forget that Nexon has no reason to do so. Summons do not work with Ryude's effect, so it would be a rare exception if that would ever change in the future.
Erda Nova
Erda Nova is another interesting case, as there will be a change to this skill that will hit EMS in less than three months. And how this particular change is implemented will ultimately decide if it will stop working with Ryude's Sword or not.
If you look closely to the image, you can see that I fire two Erda Nova's at once. This is a particular oddity that I mentioned on my blog last year, where said oddity has most likely been around since day 1 of 5th Job. I run target extensions on my Hero but I've only managed to obtain my first of three-planned extensions around that time, so I didn't know about this particular case prior to that.
So because I have a +1 target extension for all multi-target skills, Erda Nova should actually not be applied, right? Its description specifically mentions to affect a single target, so it seems to be a bug. And indeed it was, because KMS had a fix for this particular case not long after I posted my findings. This particular fix is stated to remove the ability to increase the amount of targets on Erda Nova, and thus leaving the skill's maximum amount of targets to 1.
Either way, Erda Nova is a rare exception where Ryude works on a single-target skill. Even if Erda Nova is programmed to a single target, it is still classified as a mobbing skill (which explains why you can extend the amount of targets for this skill until the fix is here). So in that sense, Erda Nova is currently in a similar position to Combo Hookshot.
However, the incoming bugfix can either go two ways. Either Erda Nova is changed to become a single target skill, does not allow target extensions but keeps the current classification, or Erda Nova becomes a single target skill, does not allow target extensions and loses its current classification. If the former case happens: Ryude's effect would still apply to Erda Nova, and the skill undergoes the same life cycle as Combo Hookshot. If the latter case happens: well tough shit; a bind skill with a cooldown of 5 minutes and 10 seconds at max level loses one additional line. It's not like having an additional line on Erda Nova will increase the bind's duration by a landslide or something. *shrug*
Aura Weapon
Alright, we just confirmed that Ryude does not work with Sword of Burning Soul. But you can tell that Ryude works with Aura Weapon. Ryude's effect still applies without connecting the attacking skill! Why does this happen?
Aura Weapon's behavior is caused by the fact that it is programmed to copy the amount of lines from the skill that triggers it. So in the case of the image above: Slash Blast does only a single line, and it is increased to two lines through Ryude's Sword. Aura Weapon is triggered through Slash Blast, so it copies the amount of lines from Slash Blast; which at that moment was two.
I would love to say "Aura Weapon works with Ryude because it's a projectile skill such as Kaiser's Wing Beat skill", but I'm fairly confident that it's because of the copy ability from AW. Unfortunately I cannot test out Ryude on a 5th Job Paladin/Soul Master/Kaiser because I don't have one. And neither would I fork out six thousand Reward Points just to verify if Aura Weapon triggered through a single-target attacking skill would cause to Ryude to kick in. Ask someone on Reddit or something. That Aura Weapon at least seem to work with virtually any Hero skill that can trigger it seems good enough or reasonable for this blogpost.
I will pretend that this unanswered question does not concern me. Noooope. I. Have. Absolute. Control. Over. My.
"I need to know how everything works" behavior. Totes. Let's move to the next skill before I have trouble sleeping tonight.
(Advanced) Final Attack
Last but not least, it's time to cover Final Attack. Wait, is that coverage really necessary?
Well, I think it is because Advanced Final Attack (AFA) is an important contributor to Hero's overall damage. It procs a lot of times and the damage pushes Hero's total output to even higher numbers because it essentially adds more than two lines worth of Raging Blow damage to each RB you do.
Especially with the most recent changes to how AFA's hitboxes work in KMS (where AFA's hitbox is now entirely dependent on the skill that triggers it, instead of it being a hitbox that only procs very close to your character's current position), AFA's presence will start to actually exist in bosses where keeping your distance with ERB caused AFA to never hit them. But as you can tell from the image above: AFA is not triggered by Ryude.
The reason for that is simple. Advanced Final Attack only affects a single target. This amount cannot be increased so the skill is essentially classified to be a single-target-skill and not a mobbing one.
Perhaps this might change after most recent changes to AFA from KMS? I suppose we'll get to know that somewhere early next year. But I'm not betting my lunch on it.
Bonus fact!
Ryude does increase the number of default attacks by one. But it doesn't make it count as two attacks. Just one attack worth of two lines.
Did you know there is another sword in this game that also increases the number of default attacks by one? It's different from Ryude however, as it doubles the amount of default attacks to two attacks of one line each. Essentially it gives the player the same two-step attack that Dual Blade does.
What sword does this magic you'd ask? Nope, I'm not going to spoil the beans!
So, is Ryude's Sword actually worth using?
If you have paid attention the title of this blogpost, then you can expect me to say "yes, this sword is still pretty damn good". Assuming that the sword isn't bugged right now and that I have a mathematically impossible streak of proccing Ryude without fail in the past few months and that the success rate of adding an additional line is truly 70% as it states in the in-game description.
Having an additional line on virtually any spamable Hero skill and in every 5th Job skill except for Final Attack and Sword of Burning Soul is a way too valuable addition to simply ignore or not to consider.
Most people would argue that having an Arcane 2h Sword or a Genesis 2h Sword would outperform a Ryude's Sword.
I would say the opposite - but only under the circumstance that you actually put some effort in getting it to work, and have a basic understanding on how to build a Hero in MapleStory. Especially the latter requires more than just reading popular guides or asking on forums.
Plus: if you're really going to do an Arcane/Genesis 2h Sword VS Ryude's Sword debate, please don't. If you're going to debate for min/maxing and who gives the higher output performance, you should actually pit an Arcane/Genesis 2h Axe against a Ryude's Sword. It's almost embarrassing to see people still not realizing this after five damn years.
Anyway. An additional line might not sound so game changing at first, because going for higher level swords usually comes with a higher range. In Hero's case, you're pretty much running permanent low range anyway, so the actual range difference is far less existing than on a class like Kaiser or Soul Master. Just don't forget that nowadays a weapon proportionally doesn't contribute for too much of your entire output - with so many ways of upgrading gear, it is pretty much the opposite of before Big Bang where accessories were just a mere icing on the cake. Plus, range doesn't say much in terms of output.
As an insult to injury, Ryude's additional line is actually the most effective on Hero out of all sword classes. The reason for this is because of how Hero uses a shitload of multipliers. Ryude's additional lines are virtually the same as any other line done with the skill that is used with Ryude. This means that in case of Raging Blow, you would not only get an additional Raging Blow line... but an additional Raging Blow line multiplied by Enrage, multiplied by Chance Attack, multiplied by Puncture, multiplied by Cadena's Skill Link, multiplied by Advanced Combo Attack which is then further enhanced by Combo Death Fault AND also Combo Instinct soon... We haven't even talked about having even another pair of multipliers called Boss Damage and Critical Damage, and what I just mentioned isn't even all multipliers Hero has in total or can obtain.
The higher the skill damage, the more Ryude even benefits from this. Raging Blow's skill damage is excellent - it's even high for warrior standards. But keep in mind that Ryude is even way more effective with Combo Death Fault or Blitz Shield - that's a pretty interesting fact. 5th Job will be chock full of high skill damage numbers, so I would almost say that running Ryude has only become much easier by virtue of what 5th Job does add to the table.
Last but not least: don't forget that Ryude still pretty much has all the basic goods that you want to have with a main weapon. It receives actual proper Additional Options. It has access to 25 Star Force. It might only have 6 slots clean, but I could almost say that trading one slot for an additional line is a criminal offense and hardly any drawback. Its base attack is the expected norm, it also gives 10% Boss Damage and 10% Defence Ignore (which isn't even a standard thing, and only limited to the highest level weapons in the game). Heck, Ryude is actually affordable ever since people stop giving a damn. Getting replacements for Star Force should be no big deal. Even affording a clean one if you just started Hero shouldn't be an issue if you save up some mesos.
So unless there will be more sword/axes like Ryude's Sword, it will always remain a weapon with one additional line of advantage. No matter what sword you pick, and no matter who you are, Ryude will always have one additional line. But of course: whatever equip you want to decide to run is up to you. Only use Ryude's Sword if you can pull it off.
Hopefully this blogpost has been informative to the majority of you all. It has taken me over a week to write and gather all of the recordings to get this thing out there. I'm planning to add a "Ryude's Ruling" column to each upcoming 5th Job "next skill wave" blogpost (like with the Black update arriving later this year), just for fun trivia and to be a bit more complete on my coverage on all the new skills Hero gets.
Speaking of 5th Job skills... If the upcoming Combo Instinct skill will apply to Ryude's Sword. Holy F-.
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