Maplestory is one of the oldest MMORPGs out there. It was released back in April of 2003 and gone through several major updates since then. Furthermore, a plethora of new classes has been added to the game throughout the years, bringing the total number of classes to more than 40 classes.
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This guide was written by the Korean KMS2 priest mentioned in my last post so thanks to them! They have been helping us out a lot! Translated by Ristretto (+ thanks Snowbean for finding the translator!) Cleaned up by meGuideFirst off, the thing you need to to do when playing this game during closed/open beta test would be to explore the contents with the help of more experienced players and decide if you want to continue playing this game, play it casually, or just not play this game at all.Note: Some of these classes may not be available on GMS2 release.Newbie Guide 1 - Which Class?A lot of newbies ask this question a lot, so I will list out some specifics. First, there isn't really any differentiation between 'damage dealers' or 'supportive characters' because they all can be played to deal damage or provide some support for your team mates. The only class that kind of has this difference a bit more defined would be the Knight and Priest class, as their supportive abilities are a bit stronger then the other classes, and their damage skills are a bit weaker compared to the other classes as well.
There are a grand total of 11 different classes in MS2 so far, but instead of classifying them as 'damage' and 'supports,' you should actually classify them in terms of 'short, mid, and long range' classes.Short distance classes: Knight, Berserker, Thief, Striker Mid range: Priest, Rune Blader Long range: Wizard, Ranger, Heavy Gunner, Assassin, Soul BinderThe only downsides fall on short distance classes, as they suffer the most penalties and have a lot of disadvantages in dungeons, raids, and PVP later on. When fighting a boss, you have to actively dodge boss skills and run around the map. Long distance classes are at more of an advantage, due to the fact that they can just run away a long distance and still be able to damage the boss. The short range classes however, cannot do this, as they mostly have to keep chasing after the boss to keep in range and deal damage.There will be times when the short range classes take a lot of damage while trying to get close to damage the boss. This gets especially harder the higher the raids you do, as the bosses in those higher level raids tend to use debuffs. This isn't much of a problem for long range, once again, as they can just kite around the boss and deal damage. The short range classes will suffer 2 times the penalty, as they are not only taking a lot of damage, but they also have to deal with the debuffs from these bosses.
Due to these reasons, the amount of players playing short range classes are diminishing, even if the short range classes have some of the highest DPS in the game.Knight (short range, protects and shields allies, difficulty level: medium)A class that contains a lot of buffs that will shield and protect allies. The Knight also utilizes a skill called 'Throwing Shield' which can be used to tank aggro of monsters and bosses for your allies.
They also have the highest defense stat in the game, with damage being their second. However, they are more of a supporting class rather than a damage dealer class.Berserker: (short range, have their own special trait and unique skill gauge, difficulty level: mid-high) The Berserker's passive is called 'Power of the Darkness,' which causes you to deal explosive amount of damage the more you stack this passive.
It gets a bit difficult to keep the stacks up while fighting bosses, due to all the running around you have to do, but if you can keep your stacks up, your damage is very strong. They also have the highest HP stat in the game.Thief: (short range, damage depends heavily on their skills, difficulty level: the highest in the game)They have 2 core damage dealing skills that are super short ranged, so it makes it difficult to land your abilities on bosses or enemies without taking a lot of damage.
Even if you are a master at dodging and evading, this class is still very very hard to play and position around. Theoretically speaking, if you can somehow land all of these core skills to the enemy perfectly, then you would have the highest DPS in the game. However, that's usually impossible to do. Even if you mess up once with this class by taking unwanted damage, then you could be permanently ruined or just heavily ruined for a while. This class might be the class for you if you think your macro and micro control is impeccably good, but with the current state of the bosses and their damage, it makes it very very hard for thieves to stay alive in those dungeons. I do not recommend this class.Striker: (short range, continuous chain combo skills for damage, difficulty level: high) The problem with this class is that you want to play around one skill called 'Missile Knuckle,' which is your main source of damage. The other problem is, as mentioned before, the bosses in higher leveled dungeons give a lot of debuffs, and for strikers, that's a bad thing.
This is because most of the striker's skills make you move toward the enemies to allow you to combo hit your skills. However, due to debuffs from the bosses, it gets increasingly hard for you to deal damage.
You also suffer a lot of damage because you have to chase after the bosses or monsters instead of kiting around them like some other classes. This class is pretty much a failed class. I do not recommend this class.Priest: (mid range, a very supportive class, difficulty level: low) This class is the only true 'healing class' for your allies in this game (although soul binder does have some healing skills, they rarely use it). The priest class does not have a lot of damage dealing skills, and even the damage dealing skills are pretty low in damage.
However, they make up for this lack of damage with a lot of special buffs that make your allies super strong and protected. The priest's main skills are 'Heal,' which heals allies, and 'Angel Ray,' which does some damage.
However, the buffs that truly makes this class powerful are 'Heaven's Blessing, Holy Symbol,' which provides incredible buffs for allies, and 'Holy Spirit's Energy' which exponentially increases allies' damage. This class is not meant for just anyone, and if you wish that you had more damage, then do not play the priest class.Rune Blader: (mid range, easy to control and has a crit buff for allies, difficulty: low-mid) A very easy to play type of a class. Rune Bladers can switch back and forth, mid and long range, and each of these skills allows you to have a flashy combo for visual. The strongest point of Rune Bladers is the fact that they have a buff called 'Rune Square' which allows you to increase you and your allies' critical damage. They were heavily nerfed in the past, so the current amount of Rune Bladers in KMS2 is very low.Wizard: (long range, very easy to control and has ally buffs, difficulty level: mid tier) They are very easy to play and control, much easier than the Rune Blader.
They also have a lot of long range damage abilities that are very strong; this combined with the fact that they have a buff that increases the magic damage of your skills and your allies makes them a very ideal class for most people. Highly recommended.Ranger: (long range, very high damage and has some critical damage buffs for allies, difficulty level: low) If you wanted to compare this class to another game's character, it is probably most similar to Soldier76 in Overwatch (season 1).
They are pretty easy to play and control and they have a constant stream of reliable damage. However, they are just way too easy and boring to play. Even if you have really great control, most of your abilities are just single targeted, making them a very 'simple' class to play.
They also lack some mobility. The best thing about them is their critical damage buffs.Heavy Gunner: (long range, high cooldown nuking class, difficulty level: mid-high) They are a heavy and slow class, but have a very long range. They also have very high cooldowns, but all of these skills are very powerful and nuke down your enemies fast. This class is difficult, in the fact that you need to understand how to properly cycle your damage, by knowing when your skills are up, and when you should use certain skills, and how you should use certain skills. This class is pretty hard to play against bosses, cuz if the bosses are not staying in the same position, then it gets hard to get your damage in. They also lack some mobilty. That's why I do not recommend this class.Assassin: (long range, the Best Nuker in MS2, difficulty level: high) They do not have any buffs for allies.
This class is just a straight damage-dealing class. It's difficult to play because they lack a lot of armor compared to other classes. This makes it so that you have to really dodge and evade all of the bosses' attacks perfectly. They have a skill called 'Fatal Blow' which turns all of your attacks to crit damage for 20 seconds.
Learning to cycle and maintain skills for damage is very easy with assassins, and due to the meta being about crit damage right now in KMS2, it makes this class very very strong for damage dealing.Soul Binder: (long range, nuking class. Have their own unique skill gauge, and has a lot of debuffs, difficulty level: high) Just like the Berserker class, they have their own unique skill gauge called 'Gate of Mantra' and 'Liberation of Nirvana.' These charge a unique skill called 'Mantra Core' which buffs all of your attacks to deal a lot of powerful damage.
It also applies debuffs to the enemy, giving it a supporting effect. Although they have a lot of mobility, the animation cast is very long, so it gets very frustrating to play this class sometimes. If you can deal with this frustration, the rewards are great, so I recommend this class.
I played Thief in the KMS2 back in 2015 and I never had any issues. I personally think that all the talk about why people shouldn't play Thief is a bit silly.If you are a more casual player or someone with low mmorpg experience or can't do many things at the same time then I could understand the idea of not recommending it as first class.Overall, if you like the Thief type of class then I would recommend it to 100%. If you are a person that just want to have fun, you probably won't care much about reaching the top damage anyways and if you are a person that likes to 'tryhard' and min/max stuff, you will be able to reach the top damage.If you ever have trouble with your damage or survival there will always be other Thieves out there that knows a trick or two, just ask them or check for tips on the forum/reddit/youtube. All classes needs to know how the bosses work to maximize their damage and survival. I never had any problem with my dps rotation as Thief with the old skills/skill tree.I do not have experience about the new skill tree and I have no clue if we will have the new or old on GMS2 when it comes out. Will the new skill tree make it easier or harder? Who knows.I personally hope that they will keep it 'hard' because I don't want to stand afk and press 1-2 buttons over and over to do my damage.
Too many games nowadays becomes easier and easier which is really sad. I looked up some KMS2 streams on Afreeca and Youtube most of the raiding groups was playing Rune Blader/Berserker, Wizard or Assassin. Many of them seems to hide the damage list so it's hard to tell what dps the classes had. But most of the time when there was a Thief in the group, they seems to have top-3 damage and scored the damage/crit damage award during the rank results.I don't think the damage is the issue with Thief, looks more like it's just not a popular class overall together with some other classes that you rarely see in the raid groups. Can you link it please? I've been looking at 30+ pink bean fights and there were only two with thief so far, and both had the dps meter active. For one the thief was 65 like most of the others and they got out dps'd by even the knight for most of the fight.
Most fights I saw went like this: Sin, Archer, Sin, Archer, Bers, Bers, everything else. Sometimes a wizard, soul binder, or heavy gunner would sneak into the rotation. The second video had the thief actually doing decent I think they came in 4th for dps but put in a lot more effort than the ranged who came in 1st-3rd.Anyway, if those videos are from 2017 or newer I would love to see them please. Also I most definitely think it's a class issue and not a popularity issue leading to the lack of thieves. I'd say it's hard to say if somone is '#1'.
Ontop of that, due to the low amount of players playing Thief (atleast what it seems like), there will also be a low amount of good Thief players. If gears really are all there is to it, any class can be the top DPS. No matter how many videos people look at, there is no way to tell how fair the gear is between the players on the DPS meter and also how good they all are playing their classes.With luck we hopefully get rid of the P2W stuff here in GMS2.