There are TOO MANY ARCHER GUIDES with the SAME BORING information. So i will not touch on level 1-70.
I just kinda kinda not happy about the lack of hunter guides, Im a level 9X Ranger playing in MapleSea Aquilla and i think its time a voice from Aquilla stood out.
Ranger Pros and Cons :
Pro's
Good speed
All you need is a + 10 speed snowshoes , Icarus 2 cape + 10 dex, a speed pill,and a +10 speed bow to make your speed 40. Therefore you land faster than Assassins and have a faster shot repeating rate than them.
High-damage and Good Skills in Maplestory Powerleveling
A hunter has many skills that are a combinations of other jobs, for example,Strafe is a varation of savage blow WITH critical. Therefore you have stable medium high damage. Rain is like slash blast for a warriors pole-arm, but without the loss in damage per enemy hit.Inferno is like OMG!! It totally overpowers Fire mages explosion in terms in speed. And unlike Snipers ice shot, it has the ability to critical.
Good stalling ability
Two stalling skills, Puppet and Hawk, while totally useless with higher level boss monsters due to the fact that they have massive aoe(area of effect) spells.It works very well and saves you thousands of mesos. Because one hit recieved in higher level dungeons is equal to one unagi or higher wasted. Hunters are useful in zakum for stunning the mobs zakum spawns out.
TOO MANY MOB KILLING SKILLS
Just too many mob killing skills, you got bomb, rain and inferno, what else do you want?
Con's
Archer is boring to train for 80 levels Firstly, youre using the same skill Double shot or Arrow blow for 80 levels,since level 1 strafe is not efficient and costs you more pots. And if you take Arrow rain and decide to train at forest of golem maps. You will suffer until level 82 before you master rain and start owning those mobs.
Archer items are HARD TO FIND(but rather cheap)I spend hours trying to look for my overalls and bows in the free market.
Archer is a upper-tier character.The tier order goes this way. Dragon knight, Bandit, Sniper,Ranger,Assassin,Crusader/Knight, Ice/lit wizard, Fire/Poison Wizard, and Priest is in the lowest tier.This goes in the order of damage range.Therefore archer is not the best, But is still high up.
Archer is straining on your fingers.Later ill be discussing on techniques for hunting. Consistently spamming jump strafe makes you out match assassin if youre good enough.
Lastly archer is lousier that SNIPER.No matter how i dont want to admit it, Snipers have way better damage. But we still look cool right xD? Hehehe.
The Misconception of archer is hard to train.Its harder than sins due to lack of jump evasion at level 40-60, but the speed of training is PRECISELY the same due to the same amount of exp needed to level therefore archers are NOT hard to train at all but its ONLY IN YOUR MIND that makes you not want to train archer. Comparing it with other classes.
BANDIT class is the hardest to train due to lack of ranged skills and only a single hitting enemy attack which can be compared to any other jobs first job attack skill.And is easier to train at higher levels compared with a ASSASSIN due to the fact that archer has become a good handler in and out of enemy mobs. And you don't have to repetitively climb the ladder to hit one of Zakums upper hands.
Techinques
Normal training techniques
The jump over small monsters,turn around shoot theory.This works for small monsters only. Example : Trapped in a corner with a agro'ed fire boar walking towards you. Simply Jump over it and shoot.
Momento Abuse(Movement)
using monsters to intentionally propel you foward, which requires lots of practise.This involves a monster spawning directly on you, and pressing jump + a
left or right direction and propels you forward a further distance.(pretend you got hit by a lupin banana in midair and thats the motion im talking about)
Momento Abuse part two
Ever had a large monster spawn on you? Where you usually took 2 bump hits from it trying to get out from its center,Stone golem for example.Use the momentum by the direction it knocked you in to escape the second hit.
Invincibility frame abuse
For example, in Santuary 3, where you see a Taurospear ready to poke you,just bump into a cold eye and recieve 70 damage instead of 1600
Jump raining
This method is the best way to lure and kill large mobs asap. Its equivalent to the mages teleport and cast. Unless mages jump cast and then teleport(which I don't see often).Just jump rain into a group of monsters and repeat cast it.
Rope Escaping
Using a rope to evade damage from a charging attack(monster bumping into you),or an projectile.
Order of skills
Close proximity to medium proximity to far away. Use Arrow rain to lure,puppet to provoke,and when the enemies are stalling in that other direction, you get to arrow bomb/strafe/inferno them at your own disgression. Using the correct skills at the correct time is very important.
Cliff Sniping
Stand on an area where enemys cant hit you and... SHOOT
Knowing when to run
Do not stick in a corner when you have a mob charging towards you. Monsters usually have a patrol radius of half a screen left and right from their target(YOU).Therefore if youre cornered with no mob hitting skill at close proxmity, you may have to waste potions just to get out.Advanced Training Techniques
Jump Shooting (3 parts)
Binding-The perfect button,SPACEBAR!! Its in close proximity within your probable keyboard setting. Mine is Z - Arrow Bomb, C - Arrow Rain, V - Fire shot, F - Puppet, X - Strafe.
As you can see. binding jump to a common key with a big surface area is easier than haveing a cramped key setting like u,i,h,j,k,n,m. With j as your jump key.Finding the perfect key is important otherwise you may suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome(hand joint disfiguration)
Technique- A jump shot must be executed with both buttons pressed at the same time in the same frame.A tap will suffice, holding it will just increase the effort needed to lift your fingers and hit them again. I suggest you try practising a light bounce of the keyboard with your fingertips.To save money,practise chair-hopping. This involves a chair(relax chair,sky-blue wooden chair). Press at the correct time, and you will see your character jumping without changing the animation to a jump animation, and you will see your character in the sitting position "jump".Jump shooting also saves the time you stop moving for 16 frames when you cast a support skill like Soul arrow.
Timing- Jump shooting needs proper timing, not for the initial jump, but for the exact time you can do another jump shot again. You have to estimate the amount of time needed to land if you hit a monster. For example you jumps fowards into a mixed golem,and you have that knockback animation in the air where your character freezes for a frame without moving when the monster hits you. This lag time will cause you to lose out on a split second advantage with your ksing foe.
Using Monsters/Background objects to propel you fowards.For example in the ice caves,using the geysers to knock yourself forward and slip past a mob.
How to earn money in mapleSea
Scrolls scrolls SCROLLS and more scrolls. Not those cruddy scrolls you get in PQ, but by training hard you get at least one every two levels. In maple sea,scroll prices are HIGHLY INFLATED due to high demand and high availability.The fastest way to make money in maplesea is to make maplestory accounts,train each of them to level 40(can be done in 4 weeks) and complete all the quests that gives you 60% glove for attack or 10%. This means either 2-3m for each character. And then they can put their eqips found in storage and delete the character and start over.(This may be considered abuse, but i dont think many know about it)
Train at efficient places. Since monsters have a 60% chance of dropping maplestory mesos and an etc drop. So one shot one kill = 60% chance a money roll will drop. This means more loot and more chances of rare drops.
Scroll Equipment and sell them at higher prices. Since godly equips in aquilla are high in demand. And each goes for about 4m-54m depending on the stats. We have high rollers spamming 10% scrolls on weapons these days.And high rewards if they suceed.