Today started out a lot different than the other days as today was the start of the first year anniversary of Maple Global. After downloading the latest patch I started by checking out the new quests and then spent the first hour just wandering in a circle around Victoria Island looking for the Candle and Cake monsters. I found quite a few of them and in the process picked up two Birthday Candles however because they don’t give any experience or mesos and that they drop the candles so rarely I didn’t bother to keep it up.

I spent the majority of the day just wandering from area to area, killing the same basic monsters as before but the server was rather crowded with high levels fighting to get Maple Weapons and Candles so times were annoying for me. Over and over again I kept running into the same tired things where I’d get to an area either to be told to “Change Channels” after I killed my first few monsters or I’d just have the high level kill steal the whole time.

I ended up settling in at the Wild Boars after a while as someone had been using the new megaphone item to hold a public auction of a Maple Kandayo, the new claw. I headed over to where he had set up his shop to see if I could get a glimpse of this new item and found out in the process that the Maple Claw dropped from Wild Boars. So I spent some time fighting Wild Boars and got no drops of anything but mesos and potions.

Being such a poor assassin at the moment and seeing how crazy the prices on the Maple items are I knew that all I had to do to finish this quest of mine would be to grab one Maple item and sell it for a high price. With the money I’d bring in I would be able to buy a whole stack of new throwing stars and fully outfit my character again. In fact, I’d end up having enough money left over to last me for a very long time.

Finally, I got bored and because I heard that the Maple Shield dropped in the Bubbling section I headed back to Kerning. Most people say that the bubblings are not worth it due to their lack of good drops and experience but that really came in handy for me as that meant that I didn’t have to fight to be able to kill them. The bubblings worked great for me for a while, though I wasn’t getting any real item drops from them, and eventually Joe98789 came online and we hunted together for a while.

For some reason with Joe around I started getting item drop after item drop of Sapphire Ore and I was making great progress towards my next level. We eventually went to train at the Subway Construction Site: B1 where all the bubblings spawn at the end. This location is great for a mage who has abilities that hit multiple enemies however it doesn’t work to great for an assassin who is trying not to take damage. I found out during this time that the bubblings in this area can attack through Dark Sight, not something that seems to be widely known.

During a trip to town to recharge my stars I found out that I had almost 40k again so I stopped and sold off the Birthday Candles that I picked up earlier in the day. I thought I got a good price for the candles at 35k for the two of them only to see people selling the candles late for 50k each. I think the 50k price was just regular supply and demand as they are a brand new thing which only makes me want to get a Maple item more as the prices will drop soon. This gave me enough cash to buy some level 30 top wear so now I look a little more like a real player again and I take a little less damage.

I also managed to hit level 34 during the bubbling hunt and sat and looked at my new skill points for a while. It’s been tough hitting the second job as there’s so much good stuff that I could get and there’s a limited amount of things I can do each time. I’ve been going for the critical throw ability as it helps me get my damage up which helps me level faster but I was tired of always having no MP. Mages are lucky as they have very large amounts of MP and they can recover it very quickly without having to stand still. Assassins get the short end of the stick with MP as they get 3 MP back every 10 seconds. This means that assassins need an incredible amount of cash as not only do they need to make most of their items (Gloves, Shoes, Claws) and purchase expensive stars but if they are using MP to speed up the killing process they run through giant amounts of magic potions.

So I ended up settling on picking up one point of Endure as well as two points of Critical Throw. Most of the assassins reading this are probably thinking I’m really crazy now as I’m not following all of the guides out there but each person needs to play based on their own style and for me the less potions I can use the better. At level 34 there are not very many enemies that are easy enough to beat and drop enough cash to make major magic potion use a profitable arrangement.

I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that Endure is bugged and bugged in a good way. Endure is supposed to recover 3 HP and 1 MP extra every set period of time. That period of time starts out every 29 seconds and works its way down to 10 seconds but it’s stuck at 10 seconds even for level 1. This means that when I’m not standing still I pick up 4 MP every ten seconds which is a 33% improvement. In most guide builds Endure happens to be one of the last things an Assassin should get before they start to work on drain but I’m considering going for a custom build that uses Endure. I do know that when I reach level 35 I will put two more points into it so that my MP regeneration is doubled. This way I don’t limit my choices as I can still go either way. (Afterwords: In the mean time I found out that Endure does take 29 seconds to recover but only if I am hanging from a ladder/rope. MP regen is always the regular 10 seconds)

After the giant bubbling hunt Joe and I were going to work our way down into the Ant Tunnels and fight Evil Eyes but in the way that Joe has he suddenly announced he had to go and took off. I ended up heading back up and training for a while on the Horned Mushrooms right outside of Sleepywood which is always a crowded spot. By this point it was nearing midnight so there were not as many people as normal but I was still getting the normal “Change Channel” creed from everyone and I kept flipping until I found a good one.

This channel had a level 70+ Cleric named LotsaLuk on the bottom which left me to clear the top and that worked out great for me. I started talking to this cleric when people who were passing through kept trying to kill all my monsters until they realized that the cleric on the bottom wasn’t going to let them have any kills on the bottom. I talked about how frustrating it is for a low level character and she said that she still gets people kill stealing her. I told her how nice it was to not get the normal “Move along please” from someone as high of a level as I’ve found that being thankful for finding someone polite is always a good idea.

Eventually LotsaLuk asked where my pants were as I hadn’t been able to afford them yet and I explained how I lost all of my stuff a few days back. I talked about how I was trying to find a Maple item so I could recover and she said she was there looking for Maple items as well. She ended up coming up the ladder and dropping off all of the Horned Mushroom caps that were sitting around on the bottom and also dropped off two pieces of armor for me to try and sell. I thanked her for the items and famed her and between those two items and my only rare drop for the day, a Mithril Spear, I have enough cash that I can buy either some pants or some Wooden Tops.

I’ve found it rather funny how it seems each day if I play for a decent amount of time I run into a person who helps me out and I use my fame on them. In the case of LotsaLuk I don’t feel bad for taking the items as her helping me out with 50k worth of equipment is like me passing out level 15 and 20 drops that I get to the lower level characters. I’m hoping that the people who are reading this are gladdened by the people in the Maple world who are kind to others and that you all help out others in this same way. If you’ve enjoyed reading this so far you could always pass out some fame to the people who’ve helped me along my way.

So far I’m only four days into this and I’ve come back greatly from the start. I still need to regain a healthy stock of throwing stars and potions. I also need shoes, gloves, bottom wear earrings and a hat. On the other side I’ve picked up a Meba and some top wear, purchased a decent supply of White and Mana Elixer potions and managed to pick up 65% experience to get another level. This has gone much faster than I really expect it would. I can understand that it would be taking me longer to attempt to recover from this if I was in or near the third job change but all of the people I’ve seen who claim to have been scammed or hacked are in the thirty to forty level range.

Maybe today will be the big day where I’ll be able to gain and sell a huge item that will put me back in the running so as I have been since the start I remain hopeful.

Today’s pictures are of me running fully out of throwing stars thanks to the extra speed of the Meba and of me regaining extra HP even though I only stood still for 10 seconds.