[Journal] Journey of xMagus the Ironman Mage.

[Calendula]

Hello! New player here, I joined this server roughly a week ago and have been playing a few hours consistently these past few days.

The forum seems kind of inactive so I thought I'd post a bit of something here lol. The main purpose of this thread is to document the journey of my Ironman mage xMagus for fun as you can tell from the title.

I've also been streaming my playthrough the past few days on youtube and recently on twitch, (no commentary though since I don't have a mic and conditions aren't fit for voice recording.) mainly to gather footage of my progress I can screenshot later.  

Do note that this is not a guide, the methods shown will have imperfections and is by no means meant to be a correct how-to. On top of running on Ironman mode, xMagus is also running on 0.5% EXP.
 

Overview

Well enough about that, the goal for xMagus is simple, to equip this with ideally 48 Base LUK. 

 

"But why bother, just go LUKless instead that's the meta."
True, but pursuing meta purely for meta's sake isn't a concept that's particularly fascinating to me, if anything I find it dull and boring to only fixate on meta for the height of end-game and little else.

This is a matter of preference, and if that is a journey you find most fulfilling, that's perfectly valid too, it's just not the experience I'm looking to build while playing Maplestory specifically, I find my calling in other aspects of this game. 

And of course the other reason that's more common; I like how it looks on characters. 
 

"Why specifically this version of the eq?"
"Dark" equipments typically are not sold by NPCs (with the exception of Fitted Mail, it's the silver version that isn't sold), and only drop from monsters, making them kind of a rare or unique item though not quite comparable to items like pan lid in terms of rarity. (Also not all armors with 'dark' in its name qualify for this e.g Engrits and Hunter's top/bottom)

They also usually come with slightly better stats than their not-dark counterparts. It's just something extra edgy players could get to stand out from others or get an extra boost from the stats.

You could even consider it a fun trophy item because some of them require 20 Fame to equip, because it's...extra edgy. I just think it would be a fun goal to aim for and also it looks good. 

Note that the not-sold-by-NPCs aspect only applies for equipment that are Lv. 35. (some incl. 30 and 38) after which higher level equipment will only be obtainable from mobs (or crafting) still doesn't make it any less edgy though.

For most of my journey, I'm going to work towards getting LUK from equipment as part of my progression this will also go into xMagus equipping higher levelled weapons along the way until I reach my goal.

Once I've achieved my goal of equipping the Dark Bazura, I will then work towards scrolling it and maybe embarking on the journey of Dragon Weapon crafting and seeing how far I can go in scrolling those items.

Some of you might already be thinking that this is too unrealistic and non-feasible of a goal, and that I'll just be spending most of my time farming. Which, that's the whole point of my journey lol. It's what I'm in this server for. I'm letting this journey run for as long as it takes to see how far I can go. 

I mentioned that I'm planning on equipping the OA with ideally 48 Base LUK, depending on how things go I might have to pump in a few extra values as a last resort but it's something I'll be saving late game for end-game equipment.

Obviously this item according to the HS database so far, only drops from mobs that haven't been released in Phoenix yet, Arnah seems to have plans on releasing ToT sometime in the future so there's hope at least that I'll be able to go against Lilynouch for the drop.

I think that's enough for the first post in this thread, in the next post I'll be sharing my progress on xMagus thus far.   

Btw, does anyone know how I can put things under spoiler tags in a post? The BB code doesn't seem to work here and there's going to be a lot of stuff I'll have to put under a cut.

The Journey So Far #1 Beginnings
 

Humble beginnings nothing too exciting with the noob process. Made my character, rolled my desired stats and went clearing the tutorial on Maple Island for starters. Went with a wooden club for the extra att, I need all the help I can get trying to hit things as a mage to be.

 

It was nice to see New Life being added after the v54 update, those sporty caps are emblematic of the old maple experience, got it in blue too, perfect for xMagus.



I wasn’t very lucky with Lucas’s quest and got plain work gloves but I wasn’t betting too much on that and converted it into extra mesos lol.
Off to Victoria Island to start my first job and did Olaf’s and all of the training quests given by Grendel for some free pots and return scrolls.

In between, upon reaching level 10 I also finished Wing’s homework, entertained Icarus and reunited Bruce and Ayan for some extra pots and mesos.





And helped Claudia with her hair gel only for her to give me a bowl cut.

At this point I’m pumping all my AP into INT until I reach level 25 where I will then start pumping into LUK entirely until I stop at 48.

I travelled entirely by foot from Ellinia → Perion → Kerning and Ellinia → Henesys to save on mesos for later, having extra pots from the quests came in handy to tie me through the levels for a bit. At this point xMagus had reached level 12, the next step was to train till level 15 to activate the next set of quests.

The Journey So Far #2 Level 15 things
I hopped over to Mushroom Forest in Mushroom Shrine to grind on Orange and Green mushrooms from level 12-14. 

It costed me 3k to get to which could be too much at early levels when I could train at other maps but I saw it as an investment I can earn back later anyways, there’s a nice ratio of Orange and Green mushrooms that I can switch around between mobs I can hit (Orange Mushroom) and mobs I can kind of hit but give extra EXP (Green Mushrooms). 

It’s also a map I had many fond memories of training at, and the atmosphere and music of the place just makes for a more relaxing grind.


After using up all my mana pots at Level 14, I moved back to Vic (because Zipangu pots are just out of my budget range at this stage) and upgraded to the Green Mushroom infested Tree Dungeons until I finally hit level 15.

I didn’t add any SP to Magic Guard at this point, mostly on MP recovery and a few into Magic Claw while I rely on potting efficiently and pulling out the relaxer in safe spots.

Had to be careful not to overuse my blue pots since I can’t afford purchasing them in bulk at the moment, Energy Bolt has been a trusty friend throughout the grind hitting fairly well even at 1 SP and it only consumes 6 MP.

Timing the MP recovery rate to plan the number of hits in while manoeuvering xMagus cleverly to a safe distance helps a lot with tight resources. Potting at 50% and double potting becomes a reflex you gotta unlearn for a bit at times like this lmao.

I could only afford 50 blue pots for each 20% EXP I hit with the mesos I have (roughly 90% of all the mesos I had) but that’s not too big of a deal since I earn back enough from the grind and drops to break even each time. 

Mesos will accumulate along the way, so having just enough to afford pots to allow me to keep hitting is good enough for now. For HP, the relaxer works well enough for me.

The lower level Tree Dungeons are bound to contain pesky slimes jumping about and knocking you off platforms or dealing damage, on top of the caveat of how these layered platforms could obstruct casting/firing pathways. 

At least that’s where Magic Claw comes in handy, it costs a little more MP but helpful for mobs blocking the way in finicky corners.

Of course once upon hitting level 15, first thing I did was to accept the newly available quests from the NPCs around Vic. Circling from Ellinia to Perion on foot where I camped for a bit to help Blackbull fix his house for that shield that I can convert into mesos.


Sorry Blackbull 😞

Then it’s off to Kerning to start on Nella’s chain quest of community service. It’s a long process but the rewards come in pretty handy for lower levels. I can’t hit Bubblings very well at this level, so I’m saving it for later.



Heading over to Lith to help John get his anniversary present for his wife, putting me right on the path to Sleepywood to find that sign board in the dingy forest with the daunting task of exterminating 99 Green Mushrooms, and stopping by Henesys on the way to help Maya get her meds.




And help Luke get ingredients for his spooky smoothie.



Jump quest was a piece of cake, I remember back when doing this for the first time brought me pain but not anymore!


I’ll be needing these later.

And then it’s back down here again to exterminate 199 Green Mushrooms for Arwen and the Rememberer. I needed the EXP that comes out of these fellas anyways so it’s all good.

*There was something weird here where I couldn’t tell if it was a server bug or feature of v54 where my 99 kills for the Rememberer’s quest did not register or carry over to Arwen’s, (had to kill 100 Green Mushrooms for that one).

It started registering after I pulled up the quest helper for Arwen’s quest after I’m done with the Rememberer’s. I can’t tell if it had to do with the quest being completed first or me pulling up the helper later, did anyone else have this problem? Lol.*

Either way, the extra 100 kills gave me more EXP and got me to level 16 upon completion!


Switched to Forest of Wisdom for a change of environment.

It was tedious but the rewards give me what I need.

Well that’s it for this entry. There’s still a bit more to cover which I’ll get to in the next posts.

The Journey So Far #3 Community Service and Bubbles
So that’s pretty much half of the Lv. 15 quests completed, at this point I’m working on focusing on Nella’s quests but I still can’t really hit Bubblings well and they are a beast to deal with for low levels. Instead, I worked on farming what Nella will ask for later.


Hunting Octopus at Kerning Construction Site, bittersweet times.

During this time, I wasn’t aware that the construction site on the right, had better spawn for Octopus and spent a good half of my time just scavenging and channel switching while dealing with the abysmal drop rate of Octopus legs.

I managed to get enough tree branches I needed from the Stumps in the area which I’ll also be needing for Nella’s later request though.

In the end I headed over to the other construction site, thankfully. And things sped up a little, the spawn and drop were slightly better. And I got all 120 Octopus Legs, some of which I’ll be needing for Maya’s quest later. And levelled up to 17 just in time!  



After that, it’s time to face the Bubblings.
I managed to get some hits in but I still missed a few times and these things move fast, it’s hard to manoeuver on the same platform unless I’m taking them down one to one with enough space to move about. They hit pretty hard too sob.



There isn’t much area I can effectively jump over without getting hit one way or another, but I make do with what I can. Unfortunately overconfidence got the better of me and xMagus experienced her first death.


And another one.



I was able to finish the deed fairly quickly enough. And got some sweet MP pots just as I was pretty much out of pots lol.


And on to the next line of quests in this chain.




(These 2 quests aren't happening at the same time, I'm just laying out screenshots.)

The rest is pretty much a breeze since I’ve already collected the stuff beforehand. All I had to do was to travel to Florina Beach with the help of a return scroll on the way to get Pure Water and have JM turn tree branches into Processed Wood.




At this point Nella doesn’t have anymore new requests until I hit a higher level. So I’m off to Ellinia to farm some slime bubbles for a future quest and mesos. Given that it’s the one ETC. that NPCs for the most mesos for Vic monsters under level 30. While trying to get xMagus to level 20.


Also took out some Dark Stumps while I’m at it to get 50 Leaves for Maya’s quest.


I made it my goal to farm 100 Slime Bubbles but while the spawn is great, the drop rate for the slime bubbles in the tree dungeon was very infrequent with only 5ish bubbles for every slot I max with Squishy Liquids.

I’m making more mesos than I did though, furthermore I didn’t have to replenish on pots since I’ve got plenty from Nella’s quests, not to mention slimes aren’t a threat to me at this level. 

Reached Lv. 18!

 

It got tedious crossing the maps back and forth and I didn’t have time to spend any longer waiting for the bubbles to drop in the tree dungeon so I just hopped on to the Forest North of Ellinia to finish up the farming there. For some reason drop rate is much better and getting slimes to spawn right back up is no problem and finally got 100 bubbles soon enough.  

And hooray for over 50k mesos!


Well that’s where my journey’s at so far, next I’ll be getting xMagus up to Lv.20 and finish up Maya’s quest before moving on to Luke and then onto the Lv.20 quests that are available.

Edited May 23, 2021 by Calendula

[Bellocringe]

Very good! I will be sure to add you in game and answer you if you have any questions or want to discuss ironman strategy/lifestyle. It looks like you acknowledged your goals are lofty and nigh unachievable as an ironman, since scrolls are extremely sparse in availability, but I am interested to see how you plan to tackle all of that. I am at level 92 with a total of 14 used scrolls (excluding 100%s), most of which were random 10% drops. Glad to see others take up the challenge.

[Calendula]

9 hours ago, Bellocringe said:

Very good! I will be sure to add you in game and answer you if you have any questions or want to discuss ironman strategy/lifestyle. It looks like you acknowledged your goals are lofty and nigh unachievable as an ironman, since scrolls are extremely sparse in availability, but I am interested to see how you plan to tackle all of that. I am at level 92 with a total of 14 used scrolls (excluding 100%s), most of which were random 10% drops. Glad to see others take up the challenge.

Nice to see another Ironman here! I think there's a lot of untapped potential and interesting perspectives that comes with playing Ironman in Maplestory especially old school maple, as intimidating as it may seem due to the odds presented in the game, I'm quite interested myself to see how the goals I've set can be tackled haha. 

I'm personally a fan of PvE challenges so finding fun or meaningful ways in grind/farm sessions fascinate me I guess. 😄 I also didn't have the chance to explore much of mid to late game content in the classic version back in the day so I see it as a chance to rediscover what it's like to experience those conditions. 

I'm actually logged in right now to continue with my progress, so an update can be expected tomorrow. 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Calendula
Forgot to add quote

[sheepy]

What a cool post! It was great to read through your post and see your progression. I appreciate the effort that goes into putting it all together, not to mention  the journey you've commited xMagus to is pretty crazy already :P. I truly commend your efforts.

As a mostly solo player these days, I sort of wish I went Ironman, as it seems like a fun twist on the game and makes Mesos less critical, which I imagine is sort of freeing.

Looking forward to following your journey going forward!

[kenjamode]

Not much to say except this is cool! Keep it up!

[Calendula]

Entry#5 Killing a mushroom in a way that matters.

(This entry is going to have more text than pictures because stream quality wasn’t good enough for me to take pics properly. :()

Update! This entry will cover my progress over the past 2 days. The short version is, I made it to level 20! Hooray! There’s gonna be stuff that’s a little quirky.

I’ve been making it a point to level up once at least during my play hours which is roughly 2-3 each day. Though sometimes longer when I just feel like playing early or spending more time in-game.

I don’t strictly play daily since I have other things to do on some days but I’ve been pretty motivated to be consistent.

So, after xMagus’s bubbly task I made another return to Mushroom Forest to tackle some Blue Mushrooms to get to level 20.

At first my plan was to farm for Blue Mushroom Caps and Maple Special Bento since the caps are 2nd in line for the highest amount of mesos you can NPC for Vic monsters level 20 and under. (1st being slime bubbles 3rd being Green Mushroom caps.) And Maple Special Bentos heal 500 HP and MP, which can help a lot once I get to second job.

It’s not a lot of course, but a little goes a long way for first job and things add up as you train that will help with the journey.


(Blue Mushrooms drop Magic Potions too!)

So, my initial goal was to aim for 50 Blue Mushroom Caps as a gauge to see how I’ll fare in terms of hitting and gains. Unsurprisingly, I only had one single platform of less than 10 spawns of Blue Mushrooms to work with, so the drop rate isn’t the best.

On some rounds, no caps will drop at all and I mainly had to work with farming 2-3 of them at a time when the drops were better. Suffice to say, it took time lol. That said, Blue Mushrooms still do give nice EXP and a better meso rate in addition to the Orange and Green mushrooms in the area.

Maple Special Bento didn’t drop for me at all so that was a bummer, but I suppose it is to be expected with the spawn I’m working with.

I did manage to achieve my initial goal of 50 Blue Mushroom Caps and levelled up in the process to Lv.19!
 



After selling off the 50 caps I got and the extra orange/green ones I picked up along the way. My mesos totalled up to over 90k! (Note that this amount is reached by the meso drops I picked up along the way too)


Then I returned to grinding towards Level 20. In the process of grinding, I had a thought.

What will happen if I kill only 1 type of each mushroom in the map? It aroused my curiosity for a bit regarding how the map spawns so I decided to do a little experiment.

Basically, I started off targeting only Orange Mushrooms in the map until none spawn on each platform, and what happened was that they were in a sense, replaced by Green Mushrooms thereby increasing the number of Green Mushrooms on the platform, though I’ve also observed that this is limited to the capacity of mobs allowed to appear on each platform.

*I ignored the top right platform in the map since xMagus can’t survive it at her current level.


(I know this isn’t the best screenshot to demonstrate it, the stream’s also laggy so I couldn’t get a good shot in to illustrate my point but I did effectively rid the map of Orange Mushrooms for a good while.)

I also made it a point to pick up Orange Mushroom Caps as a gauge to see how much I can collect with this exercise.

Which, isn’t much despite how Orange Mushrooms have the best spawn in this map,(roughly in the range of 70) but I suppose it makes sense in retrospect when the Orange Mushroom’s spawn has been ‘replaced’.

This was just an initial observation into this experiment however.

I continued the next round this time targeting only the Green Mushrooms. Orange Mushrooms started to spawn instantaneously the moment those Green Mushrooms went down and started repopulating platforms. I did this for all 3 channels to see if the mobs I took out will respawn on their own after a while.

They haven't when I cycled back to the channel until I started clearing the mobs present.

xMagus also died a few times because I was careless rip. ⚰️

I also learned that Green Mushrooms don’t respawn as much after being wiped whereas for Orange Mushrooms I had to scour the area to double check for any spawns I missed for each round. Likely because of Green Mushroom's lower spawn frequency/mob count in this map.

There were a few tricky challenges while performing this experiment given that I had to make sure not to accidentally kill the monster I wasn’t targeting.

So in this case, I had to carefully navigate around Green Mushrooms during Orange Mush rounds (since they still deal a considerable amount of damage to xMagus), and avoid 1 or 2 hitting Orange Mushrooms in the way during Green Mush rounds. (I did accidentally kill 1 Orange Mush but it didn’t cause too big of a compromise thankfully.)

I mentioned that the 70ish Orange Mushroom Caps I amassed in the first round didn’t seem like much at first, but apparently that’s actually the highest rate I could get for a specific monster drop there, reflecting the Orange Mushroom’s higher spawn count.

It was quicker for me to max out a slot with Orange Mushroom caps than for Green and Blue Mushroom Caps. (3 times to be exact equating to 1.6k mesos that’s 8 Blue Potions. 1 maxed orange cap and 1 maxed green cap slot gives 2.8k = 14 Blue Potions. Do this 7 times and it’s 98 Blue Potions.)

After getting an idea of how the spawn worked I decided to clean each platform in sequence to see how much I can amass for drops until I maxed my available slots with Orange and Green Mushroom Caps.

After selling those caps and the eq drops I picked up, my mesos totalled at 125k!


By the end of the process at this stage I was a few % away from levelling up and finally hit Level 20!


After that, I decided to experiment by incorporating Blue Mushrooms, I tried including Blue Mushrooms in the Orange Mushroom round at first but that didn’t seem to produce as much of a spawn like it did when I targeted only Orange and Green Mushrooms. Although…

I did find out that cycling once from Bottom > Right > Middle > Left resulted in a spawn of 2 mobs on the platform with Blue Mushrooms. So I did this consistently for a few times, checking the Blue Mushroom platform each cycle to see how much the spawn has increased.

I can safely say that it does indeed spawn in twos though not always two Blue Mushrooms, sometimes a couple Green Mushrooms will be mixed in and the platform caps at 6 mobs.

So depending on the spawn pattern, there would be 3-6 Blue Mushrooms based on how many Green Mushrooms are spawned too (I’ve observed only 2-3 so far.) *This isn’t a definitive technical spawn formula btw. Just a layman observation.


(The spawn on my 2nd cycle)


(3rd cycle)


(With Green Mushroom spawn)

With that knowledge, I tried repeating this method to quickly respawn as many Blue Mushrooms I can to collect blue caps.

Unfortunately it was already pretty late by then and I’ve spent enough hours on the game so there’s still more caps to collect (currently carrying a quarter of 100) but I’m looking forward to testing the waters further lol.

One final note, Mushroom Forest is a pretty underrated map, it doesn’t seem like much on the surface but the Orange, Green and Blue mushrooms provide a nice levelling curve for players level 10-25 I would say.

As of Level 18 the Orange Mushrooms provided 0.05% EXP per kill, with Green Mushrooms providing twice that value around 0.08-0.1% and Blue Mushrooms providing 0.12%. At current, xMagus is at 65% EXP simply going by the cycling method alone to spawn Blue Mushrooms at only a few hours since levelling up, (probably would've been higher if I hadn’t let her die a few times. :()

The monsters respawn quickly enough as well, as long as you are constantly killing, the cycling nature around the map makes navigation very efficient for training.

Especially for ranged hitters like Archers and Mages (I say this because I’ve trained on this map in those two classes before and I’ve mained archers enough to know how annoying training gets with the auto close distance bow whacking on certain platforms in early levels lmao)





This map has plenty of safe spots to rest on, and it’s designed to allow players to lure enemies you can’t effectively tackle yet to the edge and take them out that way.

With the exception of the top right platform that is infested with Blue Mushrooms without a safe spot to attack from a distance, the rest of the platforms provide somewhere to stand on.

Even the Orange Mushrooms crowding on the bottom can be taken out from the edge of the map since they never cross pass the bridge to where the portals are.

I’m aware that there are other good options too that don’t require a 3k access fee and better accessibility to affordable pots, or that going straight to Horny Mushrooms would give a higher yield with better efficiency.

Just thought this is something I’d share or point out for any potential inexperienced players who prefer something easy to tackle or ease into for a start in the early levels.

Even without the accessibility to affordable pots, Red Potions do drop from Orange and Green Mushrooms from time to time, that I reserve for times when I’d be bumping into monsters more and just relying on the relaxer when I’m not attacking.

Orange Mushrooms drop plenty of arrows too, and MP recovery isn’t too much of a concern since Archers can rely on melee and Mages recover quickly enough with MP Recovery.

While I have yet to test this out for sure, I imagine that having a party with you on this map could work great and seems to pair nicely with the Warning! Green Mushroom extermination quests for free pots. Also the music and scenery is great.

Been racking in lots of Bronze Ores too! 

And latest meso count of the day!


Until the next entry!

19 hours ago, sheepy said:

What a cool post! It was great to read through your post and see your progression. I appreciate the effort that goes into putting it all together, not to mention  the journey you've commited xMagus to is pretty crazy already :P. I truly commend your efforts.

As a mostly solo player these days, I sort of wish I went Ironman, as it seems like a fun twist on the game and makes Mesos less critical, which I imagine is sort of freeing.

Looking forward to following your journey going forward!

 

13 hours ago, kenjamode said:

Not much to say except this is cool! Keep it up!

Thanks for the positive feedback! It's nice to see that there's people who enjoy and appreciate looking at a progression like this. :)

[twerp]

I've actually came back to this a few times to see your progress. Very fun idea. Good luck!