Hi guys! Time for this month's news roundup.
I've maxed out Carcion's symbol, which was faster than I expected. Because symbol selectors are readily available from events all year round, it only took five months. It could've been faster but I opted for rewards of a higher priority because I'm going to continue daily quests for their EXP, anyway. That said, I have yet to pay the required meso fees to unlock the final levels as the mesos are better spent elsewhere - it'll make more sense as I'll explain later this year.
The fifth season of Hyper Burning (and the Milestone update) wrapped up about two weeks ago and it was slightly more challenging than the previous two. You see, what sets apart the fifth season from the others is that you could Hyper Burn up to two characters - one being either Aran or Eunwol, as part of their class revamp during this update.
Seasons three and four of Hyper Burning were rather trivial as the combination of daily EXP and event support meant you could easily reach Level 260 within the event period. However, daily EXP is only for one character and Milestone's event support was not as generous as last season, as the change in events into the second month reduced the overall EXP yield. I also wanted to maximize the EXP yield for my main as Level 290 is currently the most important goal in the game right now, so I did not waste any EXP voucher or growth potion on the two Hyper Burning characters.
Manual grind on the second character was simply unavoidable, though it wasn't as bad as the original two Level 250 Hyper Burning seasons because New Age reduced the EXP to Level 260 significantly. That and Eunwol has access to Loaded Dice and Soul Splitter. Furthermore, 3x EXP coupons are now standard and we ended up with so many VIP Boosters that I couldn't even use all of them on my main with that daily limit. The surplus went to both burnings and by the time they hit Level 260, I still had dozens left that expired as these boosters were only usable during the event.
For this season, I picked Mercedes and Eunwol specifically for their on-grid Union effects. It was my plan to select future Hyper Burnings the same way, but as the NEXT update (pun not intended) introduces Union Champions, I will now select Hyper Burnings based on which classes I want as Union Champions. You might be surprised to hear I'm almost going exclusively bowman for this, however if you've been an avid reader of my blog it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm selecting characters based on my knowledge and experience with this game. Though the selection process is an entire blogpost on its own, the succinct explanation is that all pre-2011 bowman have the easiest time bossing because they attack from a distance, hold-down attacks allow for the best response time and they all have either heal on-hit or an aggro puppet. For Union Champions I'm not going to be messing around and there's no reason not to pick the best classes to take full advantage of one's proficiency. Better be caught well-prepared for this one.
Anyway, I should be Level 287 next month, so I'm still on schedule to 290 at the end of this year. I'm expecting to work on the 6th Job blogpost soon as I've done enough research and development on Ouroboros until the March parts (i.e. this and that) are available, though with the DEX releasing next month, some more medical status quo limbo, Cyber Shadow finally having a physical release soon and the Switch 2 around the corner, I'm not sure how much work I'll be able to get done before NEXT arrives. Oof. I've been doubting for a while if I should combine the two blogposts. As I've alluded before, the upcoming skill wave is so intertwined with the first two that it's difficult to examine any of these on their own. So the plan is to just write as much as possible and see where we go from there. I'll keep y'all posted.
That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!