rangifer’s diary: pt. xxiii
Sorry for the delay on this one, hehe… Had a bit of difficulty, thanks to some adverse weather conditions.
R>1 pog ranged for blue mushmom run
Dealing ungodly quantities of single-target DPS to boss monsters has long been a fascination of maplers. Many maplers aspire to mow their oversized enemies to shreds with the most brutal possible efficiency, and in pre-BB (pre-Big-Bang) MapleStory, playing a terribly squishy and ranged character is usually the choice way to do it. And if we’re talking about ways not to do it, we might consider instead playing a peepee poopoo garbo odd-jobbed character.
But what if you could do both?
Some odd jobs retain the ability to use ranged DPS skills; and if you’ll remember, in pt. iv of this diary, we explored the damaging capabilities of the third-job STRmit. We also compared the model STRmit to an equivalent model pugilist, although the pugilist is a little out of scope here; the pugilist suffers too much from a lack of range and inability to surmount any significant quantity of WDEF. The pugilist is more specialised in crowd control, survivability, and general, jack-of-all-trades, ass-whoopin’.
Here, I want to look at one (or two, depending on how you count) other third-job odd-jobber who can also reasonably fill the role of “ranged DPS” in an odd-jobbed context: the woods(wo)man. Woods(wo)men have historically been understood as a kind of “fancier” or “jobbed” version of permabeginners, because they are pure STR by definition. But the fact remains that woods(wo)men are, nevertheless, technically capable of using any archery skill in the game, from first through fourth job. This is of utmost importance when differentiating the two varieties of woods(wo)man: bow-using (hunter/ranger/bowmaster), and crossbow-using (crossbow(wo)man/sniper/marks(wo)man).
Crossbow-using woods(wo)men are usually understood to be somewhat superior, although in second job, Arrow Bomb at least proves to be more generally applicable than Iron Arrow. The reasons to believe that crossbows would be superior to bows here are two:
- Crossbows differ from bows in the general sense that crossbows deal more per-shot damage (better damage “range”), at the cost of having larger attack periods (slower attack rate). This would seem* to work in favour of the woods(wo)man — who has a relatively depressed (albeit considerably narrower) damage “range” in comparison to the DEX-based archer — because their target’s WDEF chews away so much of their raw damage before it can be multiplied by their skills (including crits).
- Crossbow-users get Snipe as their main new (“new” excludes Strafe, which the woods(wo)man already has by third job) attacking skill in fourth job. This is ostensibly** more fruitful than the bow-user’s main new fourth-job attacking skill: Hurricane. The reason is simply that Snipe’s efficacy doesn’t depend on the woods(wo)man’s stats (DEX, STR, WATK); in fact, it doesn’t depend on much at all, save the skill level of Snipe itself.
Oh geez, look at those asterisks. We won’t be going into the doubly-asterisked (**) bit above, because that’s getting a little too in the weeds with fourth-job stuff. But it’s worth investigating the singly-asterisked (*) bit above, using similar model characters to the STRmit and pugilist used before.
The model woods(wo)man
- 525 STR (25 of which is from gear)
- 105 DEX (80 of which is from gear)
- 128|131 WATK (90|93 from bow|xbow + 20 from Cider + 3 from cape + 10 from gloves + 5 from arrows|quarrels)
And we take the target to be the same level as the woodsman.
Let’s consider how the basic attack damage (assuming no (x)bow-whacks and no crits) compares between bow and xbow, as we modulate the target’s WDEF; the basic attack damage is indicative of the raw advantage that one weapon type has over another, because damage modifiers from skills and crits are applied after WDEF. We won’t be looking at the dispersion of the values in question here, because the vast majority of the dispersion that matters for woodwomen who are engaging in archery is in the form of crits. The reason for this is that so much of the woodsman’s damage comes from STR (not DEX), which does not differ in its damage contribution from the minimum damage to the maximum damage (unlike damage due to DEX, which is subject to mastery as well as a constant 0.9 multiplier when calculating minimum damage).
Comparing basic attacks
The numbers here are crunched using my damage calculator. The winner of each matchup is bolded.
0 WDEF
Example: Orange Mushroom.
Bow:
- Range (avg): 918〜1 128 (1 023.4).
- DPS: 1550.5.
Xbow:
- Range (avg): 955〜1 182 (1 068.5).
- DPS: 1 548.6.
200 WDEF
Example: Red Slime.
Bow:
- Range (avg): 798〜1 028 (913.4).
- DPS: 1 383.9.
Xbow:
- Range (avg): 835〜1 082 (958.5)
- DPS: 1 389.2.
400 WDEF
Example: Female Mannequin.
Bow:
- Range (avg): 678〜928 (803.4).
- DPS: 1 217.2.
Xbow:
- Range (avg): 715〜982 (848.5).
- DPS: 1 229.8.
600 WDEF
Example: Eliza.
Bow:
- Range (avg): 558〜828 (693.4).
- DPS: 1 050.5.
Xbow:
- Range (avg): 595〜882 (738.5).
- DPS: 1 070.3.
800 WDEF
Example: Angy Fanky.
Bow:
- Range (avg): 438〜728 (583.4).
- DPS: 883.9.
Xbow:
- Range (avg): 475〜782 (628.5).
- DPS: 910.9.
1000 WDEF
Example: Pianus (L).
Bow:
- Range (avg): 318〜628 (473.4).
- DPS: 717.2.
Xbow:
- Range (avg): 355〜682 (518.5).
- DPS: 751.5.
Of course, WDEF values can go much higher than 1 000, but we will stop there.
As you can see, the bow-user only wins in cases where the target has very low WDEF, and even then, only w.r.t. DPS; their per-hit damage is still inferior on even a 0 WDEF target.
It’s worth noting again that this assumes the use of level 64 maple weapons. Woods(wo)men who are hunters/rangers/bowmasters have another option: the Bow of Magical Destruction (BoMD). Obviously it depends on scrolling outcomes, but the BoMD has, on average, the same WATK as the Kandiva, but is one speed category slower than the Kandiva. So using the BoMD will make the bow-user comparatively worse here (in terms of DPS; the per-hit damage would be unchanged), still assuming that the xbow-user is using the Nishada.
Oh, remember when I said that “[t]he reasons to believe that crossbows would be superior to bows here are two”? Well, maybe they’re three now, in MapleLegends…?
Comparing Strafes
In MapleLegends, the sniper version of Strafe was changed to fire five projectiles, rather than the ranger version’s (and original sniper version’s) four. The per-projectile damage multiplier was adjusted accordingly, with the sniper version only having a multiplier of 75% at max level, versus the ranger version’s 110%. This would naïvely seem to work out in favour of the ranger, because 110% ⋅ 4 = 440% > 375% = 75% ⋅ 5.
But critical hits work by adding the critical’s damage multiplier to other sources of damage multiplier, and then taking that sum and multiplying it by the after-WDEF damage. For snipers/rangers with no SE, their critical multiplier is 100%, so for a critical line of the sniper’s Strafe, that’s a total multiplier of 75% + 100% = 175%, and for the ranger’s Strafe, 110% + 100% = 210%. Because (again, assuming no SE) 50% of lines are crits, we expect the total damage multiplier for a line of the sniper’s Strafe to be (75% + 175%)∕2 = 125%, and for the ranger’s Strafe, (110% + 210%)∕2 = 160%. Taking into account the number of projectiles/lines per Strafe, we have 160% ⋅ 4 = 640% > 625% = 125% ⋅ 5. So the ranger still wins here, in terms of damage multiplier, just by a smaller margin (both in absolute and relative terms).
Since, after all, we are worried about shredding boss monsters with as high of a single-target DPS as possible, let’s throw together all of the variables into the calculator here. And this time, we will assuming 600 WDEF, since that is reasonably representative of many low- or mid-level boss monsters:
- Bow DPS: 6 725.3.
- Xbow DPS: 6 690.6.
So, indeed, the ranger still wins here, albeit by a similarly small margin as the xbow-user won when basic-attacking: 6 725.3∕6 690.6 = 1.005 19. It looks like rangers are still, after all, the (very slight) favourite for single-target DPS in third job. Remember, though, that xbow-users still have a number of advantages, even before fourth job!:
- They deal more single-target DPS in first and second jobs, as we saw above.
- Iron Arrow, while somewhat more difficult to pull off than Arrow Bomb (and lacking stun), deals considerably more damage than Arrow Bomb.
- The xbow-user’s access to Blizzard means that they pull ahead of bow-users in terms of crowd control during third job. This generally makes up for their lack of Arrow Bomb (not to mention that Arrow Bomb has a measly 60% proc chance at max level).
Almost all-Oddjobs LPQ…
Around the time that we had just got a new addition to the guild, a permabeginner by the name of FairRow, I noticed we had a few people online who could LPQ:
- FairRow was in level range;
- I had my DEX spearwoman, rusa;
- Mings had his blood brigand, MingsToo;
- Outside had his F/P gishlet, TestChars;
- and doiob, a STR cleric, was in level range.
Together we actually formed a technically-functional LPQ party: doiob and TestChars had Teleport, and MingsToo was capable of covering both the thief portal (due to having Dark Sight) and our range (due to having Keen Eyes). I prepared by gathering up some potions for us, as well as a claw, stars, and even a LUK earring for MingsToo.
We were very nearly ready to go, but unfortunately doiob was having some serious internet connectivity issues with the MapleLegends servers, so we eventually were forced to give up the dream… Oh well, maybe next time.
I did, however, get to try out Outside’s Maple Scorpio:
I love how it looks on rusa!!
capre lays waste to the island we know as Victoria
I recently got a Duey package from Voxtagrams, who very kindly supplied me with the jewels necessary to complete various monster book rings:
…So it looks like it’s time to do more card-hunting. 😎
I had already started my woodswoman, capreolina, on her way towards the T2 ring! With maxed Arrow Rain, it’s much more effortless and relaxing to simply run around and Arrow Rain the shit out of everything. With my STR priest, cervid, card-hunting has the possible advantage of being more engaging; in order to be efficient, I have to pay a lot of attention to where I position myself, how I use Teleport, and exactly how much damage each one of my hits deals. As a STR priest, my damage is wildly unstable, so the number of hits that it takes me to kill a given monster can vary quite a bit. But when using a bow with capreolina, it’s smooth as butter:
capre lays waste to Vic
capre is now at 49 card sets! Sick!! And I met a few big bad guys along the way:
Hi, Bob.
Gah! Dyle!!
A showdown with Zombie Mushmom results in a card for a set that I will likely never finish:
Not gonna lie, I expected Zombie Mushmom to put up more of a fight…
hashishi & Gambolpuddy-chan train in preparation for permanoob KPQing
And then, I was ready for more training fun times with my besinner hashishi, and Kelsey’s (Taima, Tacgnol, Boymoder, Yotsubachan) DEXginner Gambolpuddy:
So that by our powers combined, we could achieve level 21, for great KPQ! Yes!!