Ding! I've decided to consolidate this month's three blogposts into one, in order to prevent overloading the homepage. Level 267 happened the day after I've published my year summary, which would've been too soon for another post.
But as is somewhat of an unintended tradition on my blog, here's the annual "start the year with a level up in January".
And not just one, but two! The daily EXP from Monster Park Extreme and (Burning) Cernium are fantastic, topped with seven (!) Maximum Growth Potions spread out over this season's event schedule. I haven't claimed all of those, so I expect to hit 269 next month. I can't wait to unlock Hotel Arcs at 270, for that next symbol and even more daily EXP.
Now, I've also managed to complete the Hyper Burning event on my I/L. In 2019, I've participated in the Breakthrough event to grind an I/L to 220 from scratch for Maple Points. After that, I threw most of the leftover resources (over a thousand Arcane Symbol selectors, Growth Potions and hundreds of Master Cubes) on this character for over two years. As a result, my I/L started at Level 231, decked out and was more-than-qualified for a serious grinding session.
This was the sole reason I was willing to try out the Hyper Burning event, as otherwise I wouldn't even have bothered.
With Hyper Burning lasting over two months, I took the slow-but-steady approach of grinding 10% every day during the event. My I/L was more than capable of one-shotting anything at any given level with Chain Lightning, with either two or three ticking mobs with Ice Age. At Level 231, getting 10% was manageable within half an hour. This continued until I hit closer to 240, where it started to become 45 minutes. Before I knew it, the last stretch was more than an hour every day, for over a month. This was without any spawn modification, but was done with as many non-exhaustive EXP boosters that I had. With the current trade restrictions, I wasn't allowed to buy bonus 50% EXP coupons off Auction House, but I probably wouldn't have bought them before Level 246, anyway. Either way, I got my I/L to 250.
That said, I'm not planning to fully participate in the next Hyper Burning event, that comes with the Savior update. The next character would be my Level 220 Bishop, but that one doesn't have the same level of preparation as my I/L, and neither will it have one in time. You see, the next Hyper Burning is definitely not going to be as easy as this one, due to the lack of the Clover Guild event (20 EXP Nodestones a month should not be underestimated), and next time you can no longer claim any milestone rewards below your starting level. Even with the softening of the EXP curve post-Savior, it's just not going to be as easy to hit 250 as it was this time (let's not also forget Savior's complete butchering of the Elemental Staves classes). I'll definitely aim for the low-hanging fruit, but I'm not quite sure just yet whether if I'll leave my Bishop at 230 or 240. I guess that by then, I'll just start without much of a thought and see where I'll end up with.
But that's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!