[EMS] Neo - 5th Job's eighth wave!

The power of the suuuuuuuuuunnn! - Dave Rodgers, probably.

Released back in 2021, the Neo update brought us our next 5th Job skill: Crest of the Solar (COTS). For a while, it became the final 5th Job skill wave as later that year the Pangyo truck protests happened. This incident changed the course of the game forever, as it assigned Changseop as the next KMS director, who had different priorities in mind.

The next following years, we've had the Destiny, Ignition, New Age, Dreamer and Milestone updates. These updates placed a greater emphasis on fundamentally fixing the game, rather than padding the game with more 5th Job skills. 

More importantly, New Age saw the introduction of 6th Job. As our latest Job Advancement, sporadic releases of new 6th Job skills are now the next big thing. Thus, with all the attention going there, we haven't seen new skill waves until two months ago. This out-of-nowhere release has taught us that there's still a place for 5th Job in the modern era with the latest skill (Holy Fountain), as 5th Job is perfect for closing the gap between classes through new support skills.

In today's blogpost, we'll take a closer look at Crest of the Solar. I initially planned to publish the big 6th Job blogpost later this year after finishing the Destiny blogpost, but because Ouroboros had some unforeseen development issues, most of my time this year was lost fixing that. I'll start working on the 6th Job blogpost next year.

Crest of the Solar is very similar to another 5th Job skill, released during 2018's Ark update: Spider in Mirror (SIM). It's the second 5th Job skill that's obtained from a boss that drops a special colored Nodestone, which gives the player a modified version of one of the boss attacks. Comparisons between the two are inevitable for this blogpost. Yet at the same time, Crest of the Solar and Spider in Mirror are quite different despite their similarities.

Ah yes, Mitra. The Grandis equivalent of Maple World's Maha. Basically, they are (intentionally) the same character.

To unlock Crest of the Solar, the player must open a Mitra's Nodestone. Crest of the Solar cannot be crafted with Nodeshards. Opening Mitra's Nodestone requires the completion of Burning Cernium (Level 260 and above). These requirements makes it likely the final 5th Job skill to be unlocked, even possibly unlocked after 6th Job advancement.

For many years, this was certainly among the most difficult 5th Job skills to obtain. Back when it was released in 2021, Burning Cernium had an even higher level requirement of 265. It also was several years before the introduction of Ignition's high EXP yield through daily quests and Monster Park Extreme, but it was also before the reduced levelling curve from New Age. For reference, it took me all the way until late 2022 before I met the initial requirements.

Unlike Spider in Mirror, you do not receive a free copy after completing Burning Cernium. Mitra's Nodestones can only be dropped by Seren (Hard and above), so at the time this skill could only be sourced by whales. Thankfully, these nodestones aren't a few billion each anymore. Like Spider in Mirror, you will only need one Mitra's Nodestone to max out the skill. Use 18 EXP Nodestones. They are incredibly easy to source in high quantities nowadays, and this keeps the prices of Mitra's Nodestones in check. This way, you can afford another one once you'll inevitably run boss mules.

At face value, Crest of the Solar and Spider in Mirror appear to be functionally identical. A big AoE explosion, followed by a barrage of continuous attacks on select targets. They even share the same concept for duration and cooldown. 

However, both skills excel at different scenarios because of their nuanced differences. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and you could say that used together the other makes up for their counterpart's weaknesses.

• Both initial AoE explosions ignore the Enrage 1/3 split rule, but both will receive Enrage's bonus damage.
• SIM installs a stationary summon that attacks nearby enemies in range. COTS however, is a summon that follows the player instead. Because SIM is stationary, it is lost once you change maps. This is not the case for COTS. For example: you can cast COTS before entering Inferno Wolf, but SIM must be used inside.
• SIM cannot be used against Will, but COTS can*. Conversely, COTS cannot be used against Seren, but SIM can. You can smuggle COTS into Seren, but the skill will be disabled as long as you stay in the map.
• SIM boasts an impressive attacking range out of necessity. COTS has a "smaller" range as it can follow the player, but in practice the difference between the two is non-existent. They're both great in that department.
• SIM attacks a lot of enemies, but it can only attack enemies one by one. Unlike SIM, COTS attacks groups, so it's eligible for MultiKO's and passive effects that increase its target count (Inner Ability, Union Artifact) while SIM cannot. Furthermore, COTS deals slightly higher damage if it targets a single enemy.
• SIM always cycles between attacking and reloading, so there's a lot of downtime (over half of its duration) where it does nothing. How quickly it goes into downtime depends on how quickly it reaches the threshold limit. COTS has a consistent rate of fire instead, but it'll only activate once every two seconds.
• SIM will forcefully end attack mode after a short while and go into reloading if there aren't any nearby targets, even if it hasn't attacked any enemies at all. COTS will wait until there are eligible targets.
• The damage on COTS is slightly lower than SIM due to its lower line count and less frequent attacks, but it is comparable enough. Regardless, having either skill on the field provides a significant damage increase.
• Neither skills can activate (Advanced) Final Attack, whether the initial AoE explosion or summon. Only the initial AoE explosion from COTS can activate Ryude, because SIM's explosion is already capped at 15.
• Neither summons can activate Panic or Sword of Burning Soul (SOBS) by themselves, but both summons can activate Sol Janus Dusk, which is able to activate both Panic and Sword of Burning Soul afterwards.
• SIM will attack regardless if the player is engaged in combat, similar to stationary Sword of Burning Soul. COTS however literally checks if the player is in alert mode, and only that. If you are in a neutral state, it'll stop after the third attack until you are back in alert mode (by either attacking or being successfully hit by an enemy). Although you can easily circumvent this drawback by letting COTS activate Sol Janus Dusk.

*Honestly, I never understood why they thought it was a good idea to disable major 5th Job skills against the bosses these are sourced from. By that logic, we should disable boss souls appropriately and no longer allow UA skills against Cygnus, or the Genesis weapon skills against Black Mage.

But that's Crest of the Solar in broad terms - let's take a closer look at the numbers.

Crest of the Solar has a cooldown of 250 seconds. Its duration is 51 seconds, one second longer than Spider in Mirror to accommodate for its unusual attack interval. These parameters are the same for all levels of the skill.

The damage of the initial explosion on Crest of the Solar is much higher (1650% twelve times) than Spider in Mirror (990% fifteen times). Because it's also under fifteen times, Ryude can activate another COTS AoE 1650% line for free.

If Crest of the Solar finds any nearby target, it will attack as many enemies it's allowed to and then this attack will not occur again for 2,1 seconds. In total, Crest of the Solar can activate up to 24 times within its duration, whereas SIM can activate up to 30 times against a single target.

• Crest of the Solar will always attack up to two targets. Because the summon can only activate up to 24 times, there's a maximum of 48 enemies. With Union Artifact, this can go up to 72. Add Inner Ability for 96. 
• Spider in Mirror takes about 7 seconds to defeat 10 enemies before it goes on a three second cooldown, so it has an unmentioned physical limit of five attack modes for up to 50 enemies in total.

The damage of Crest of the Solar against multiple enemies is a solid 440% per line, six times. Against a single target it becomes sixes lines of 605%. Spider in Mirror will always deal eight lines of 385% damage, but it can attack the same enemy up to five times before starting its three second cooldown. There are no further enhancements on 6th Job yet.

Generally speaking, Spider in Mirror will always be better than Crest of the Solar damage-wise. This is only because damage calculation has always favored sheer line quantity over lower-but-stronger damage lines, due to the nature of how MapleStory's multipliers work. In the grand scheme of things however, both skills perform very similar. Especially in the current 6th Job environment, the damage contribution of either skills become smaller by the year. That's not to say that either skill's damage output is not insignificant - it does matter as more damage is still more damage, after all.

So, if I have to choose one or the other... that entirely depends on the situation. There are times where I do not like the fact that Spider in Mirror cannot be taken into other maps. But there are also times where I feel like Crest of the Solar is less impactful because of its lower damage, less frequent attacks and limitations being a summon. For bossing, stacking both skills for a significant damage boost is great. These days I can't imagine playing without either skills.

Crest of the Solar is basically more Spider in Mirror, and I'd say that's great. Sure, it aint on the level of SOBS, but seeing as how many 5th Job skills are ridden with durations too short or cooldowns too long, these "jellybean nodes" are among the better half. They have certainly aged better than, let's say... Body of Steel. If the worst complaint about COTS I can come up with is that the AoE is barely visible half the time, I'd say they have designed a pretty good skill.

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