More Progress

After a couple of days break, I got back into Maple with 14 trades to get through with various individuals from Basil Market. I spent most of my first hour on looking for the people and actually managed to get through 5 trades - all for things I was buying. I hope in the near future, I'll be able to resolve some of my selling trades so that I can recoup the costs of those items.

Other than that - it was back to training at Camp 2. New Leaf City came out yesterday, but I didn't see much sense in heading over there and fighting with others over training territories that are all unknown to everyone.

Instead, I'll stick to the camp for a few more days - possibly until I hit level 74 and then maybe go exploring. I might just do it with my Lizard though - since he likes to explore more these days...

At the camp, I was able to train undisturbed for about a net of 2 hours to the tune of 16% or so. I wasn't really focused on running as fast as I could through the screen, so I'm not too worried about the overall speed in that time. When I need to go repot - I might see if someone is in Ludi to pick up some speed pills for me though (just to help a bit).

I'm still working through the 500 mana elixirs given to me by a buddy of mine. I think I went through ~150 of them last night (which, when combined with the ones I already had - leaves me with 500), but only 20 ice cream pops or so - maybe even less.

I didn't get a single drop last night though, which is almost nice since the Independance Day hats don't drop anymore. Still - if I am able to get some items to sell - that would help my finances some.

For the trades I did finish last night, they include a pair of level 80 boots, a pair of level 90 pants, and a few more scrolls. I've decided to pick up a few cape str scrolls (60% and 30%) to scroll up my Goblin Cape (with 60%s) and to see if I can't make a "godly" Gaia cape with 30%s. The 30% cape str scrolls are all over the place for price - so I'll just pick them up when they are cheap. Who knows - I could end up with a +15 str cape and keep it in lieu of my goblin cape if that doesn't scroll so well.

Level 73 and Camp

Made some more solid progress this weekend - spending the entire time at Camp 2 near Perion. Pressured to find out how good it was, I timed it out at 9% per hour with my 105% speed and picking up everything manually. In other words - very decent.

I've gotten a few drops there and even sold a few of them - so that's always a good sign. With 500 mana elixirs given to me from a friend - I will have extremely low potion costs for a while and have only been using ice cream pops sparingly while there (one pop lasts me about 40-50 hits from my opponents...). I advanced late on Saturday night and boosted my Combo attack up to 9. Last night, I trained part of the time with Tim and we split the screen with him on the top portion and me on the bottom. At the end, I had about 2:1 on the ETC drops of the two types of skeletons (with more of the weaker ones) - which shows well about the proportion of opponents on the bottom section. I think the top has more of the tougher skeletons - so it'd be nice to test that out later. I'm at about 19% into level 73 - so progress is steady.

For trades, I got a few more done this weekend, including selling two brown lorin gloves (500k, 600k) and purchasing a few more 1-handed sword scrolls. I'm trying to keep up a number of auctions on Basil to help keep the flow of money coming in. That said, my profit at Camp 2 is so great with just meso drops that I wouldn't need the items, but I'm not turning them away... I will need to boost my attack glove at some point after all...

I finished off the night by playing my wizard for a little bit at stirges and quickly earned 10% there. With how well my warrior has been going, it is more difficult to justify playing the wizard, but it is a refreshing change.

I'm also working on changing around my crusader build. Originally, I planned for Combo -> Coma -> Panic -> Shield Mastery -> Relax (to 10) -> Shout -> Armor Crush (1). Now I'm planning on putting Shield matery between coma and panic. Shield mastery only takes 7 levels to get through - and I'd like to benefit from it earlier rather than later.

Getting there - slowly but surely...

Just a quick update - but I managed to earn about 20% yesterday and got a whole bunch of trades done. Most of the time training was spent at Yetis with Thrythwig, but later on I moved on to solo at Camp 2 again. I'm still impressed with the rate there and for profit, well I guess this is the most telling:

Less than 1 hour: +130k mesos, used 10 ice cream pops (22000 mesos), 5 mana elixirs (3000 mesos), 30 salads (12000 mesos). In other words, I netted about a 100k profit after a short time there. I also got a Brown Lorin drop (lvl 70 mage glove), put it up on Basil and someone auto-won it by the morning.

That's pretty much it for now. Only 20% to go to level up, so I'm hoping to finish it off this weekend.

Yetis and Camp

Haven't done much over the last couple of days, but trained a little at Icy Cold Field with Tim. The exp rate there improves with a second player, and improves even more when both of us are using our speed equipment. I think I need to improve my damage capacity a little more to make training there just a little better as I have just a few too many times when I have to use 5 hits to kill one.

Other than that - I'm just making solid progress on training and am up to 60% to level 73.

I'm also working on some trades and won a few scroll auctions at Basil (1 10%, 2 30%, 1 60% scrolls for 1-handed swords) and selling a bunch of the junk I'm still holding onto. Not 2 minutes after I put them up - I already have a bid on a Bronze Platine top I still have...

There's also been a very tasty 106atk, +9 str Kahn up for sale on Basil, but has yet to earn even one bid. If I see the price drop, I might just jump on it and save the 10% and 30% scrolls for a level 90 sword later on... maybe even a level 100 sword...

I'm still sitting on about 30 million cash, and probably have a few more million in readily sellable items. I'm hoping to get a few decent drops to improve my cash flow soon.

I was also comparing my damage capacity to a few posters on SW the other day and found that I was being outdamaged a fair amount - even by other 1-handers. Then of course, I found out that many of them had Zakum helms... which isn't exactly a fair comparison (since I don't have 150+ million to shell out to buy one even if I was inclined to do so...

Anyway - I probably have from 4-8 sessions left before I finally level up to 73. Hopefully the damage increase from the raised combo attack will be enough to make training a little easier.

More updates from the front

Well, haven't posted in a while and I am actually playing maple story again. I have gone to training both my wizard and my crusader now - just to keep things interesting. This weekend though - I got interested in running my crusader more and actually managed to boost up ~30-40% on him - so he is well on his way.

I've been reading some of the posts and having conversations about training locations for a crusader and everyone pretty much just says "Dude, go to FoG..." with some variation or another. Since the last time I went to FoG I found all 20 channels to have 4+ people in them, it seems to me there might be a place that is better for me. Let me stress that - for me.

I trained at Icy Cold Field (Yetis, Transformed Yeti and Jr. Yetis) for about 17% on Saturday and found it to be enjoyable. It too about 2 hours (give or take) to earn that much, but I wasn't training heavily. With a 107% speed - I don't think that's too bad. With a sin to party with - I suspect I would have done a spot better.

Last night, I moved back to Victoria and trained at Camp 2 (Skeletons and Officer Skeletons). This screen could use to be split by a party member whom you never care to see (so - someone you don't need to buff and who doesn't need your own buffs). Without it - I still managed 9% per hour or so (again - I'm not precisely sure because I don't often watch the time or my exp). If it weren't for the flipping independance day hats that drop - I think it would be a very good screen to train on.

Both of these places have very few people coming through - which, to me, is a big plus. If you cite the drops from FoG - you can take a look at the drops of the creatures above and I think you'll find an equivalent selection of valuable drops.

On another note - I noticed a thread about money-making ability at various screens and at various levels. One consistent item in most of the areas was that many people rely on drops in order to turn a profit. I can't think of a single area that I've trained in recently that didn't turn a profit - including the Cave of Trial I that I tried out the other day... If this is because of my superior play - I would be surprised. If this has to do with my focus on defense, well - I guess that's telling. The other day, while at Yetis, I was partied with another warrior. We both had power guard on, but he was taking 150-200 or so with it on, while I was taking from 50-80 or so. Over the course of training - that difference is quite significant.

For money, my warrior is sitting on around 30 million in cash, and has a fair amount in sellable items (+4 luk Dark Identity, 60% scroll for Spear Attack, 125+ elixirs, ~100 power elixirs, 600+ cure alls, etc)

On my wizard - I've been stuck at stirges for a bit - but its good exp - so I can't very well complain. As his thunderbolt gets stronger, I'm sure he'll be more and more fun to play... I'm still not sure what build I will use for him though. He's still autonomous from my warrior, and already has a mystic shield, a scrolled fairy wand (gift from a former lizard - can't use it for a few more levels though), and a few other nice items. He's boasting about 1 million mesos in cash on hand though - so he's not hurting for money and at stirges he is actually gaining potions rather than using them.