Ye olde Brigand's guidebooke to Monstroklepty, Perilous Purloinery, Shiny Swipery & Sleight-o-hands, Felonius Foraging, Yoinkery, Loot Liberation, and Reclaiming possiblee already-stolen goodes from monstrous Fiends ~~~ This guide is intended to give you mechanical, functional, and technical insight into an easily overlooked and ignored skill--the very skill that defines the bandit class tree--and how to best benefit from and make Steal work for you, instead of collect dust in your skill tab. >>What is Steal, and how does it work? Spoiler Steal is the Bandit's signature calling card. What RPG party is complete without a sneaky thief to secure shiny, powerful goods or resources? (Bandit's Signature, with a capital S for MapleStory would be Savage Blow, but for the class, Steal's the heart and soul). In 2nd job, Bandits can invest in a 30 point, 5 haste requirement Steal skill. Kinda a big investment, but it's easily affordable in 2nd job (or later) given your options [more in SP guide later] [skill image/anim placeholder] How Steal even works is a mystery to many as well, due to it being so overlooked for other skills. You're able to steal from any non-boss enemy. When attempting to steal from a monster, you can either steal mesos, or an item from it's loot table. You're able to steal mesos infinitely, but if you steal an item, you can no longer steal any additional mesos or items. You cannot steal duplicates of the same item. When something is stolen, the drop SFX will play for both mesos or items. The stolen-something launches and falls to the ground normally (like when killing a mob or looting something, or dropping something), but will always arise from the center of the mob's hitbox. This is notable for: 1), tracking what is stolen (perhaps the ground is a mess from items on a map you've been busy at, and to differentiate it from normal loot drops when a monster dies. And 2), You can steal items/mesos on the death strike, so you will be able to spot them because they won't fall in line with the other items on death, stolen items will tumble out independently still of the death loot, and will fall on top of them, or over them, dead center, when normal loot spreads in a line on the ground, behind. This helps with cluttered floors, especially if you're actively item hunting something in particular. In big groups of identical enemies surrounding you, it can be trickier to track who you've stolen from. If there could be one vanilla suggestion to Steal as is, would be to ignore mobs that have been stolen from, and target ones nearby that haven't been, if possible. Pickpocket can work at the same time as steal, but it's usually easy to differentiate because the PP coins are often a much lower value than stolen mesos, and because PP coinage has a slight delay, and appears behind your steals or normal loot. Any item on the monster's loot table is stealable, including their monster book cards (which isn't technically on the loot list): Weapons+armor Potions Scrolls (you can steal ws/cs from golden mushrooms even before you kill it) Skillbooks Quest items! Yes really Monster Book Cards (you don't know the high of steal until 3/5 Lycanthrope cards were from just pressing Steal ) All ETC.s (including quest items) Anything they can drop, you can steal! You can't steal mesos/items from boss-flagged entities, or mobs that have already had an item stolen from it (but you can still damage them with Steal) Stolen mesos value is affected by taunt and meso-up, and can be exploded with ME like normal dropped or pickpocketed mesos. Accuracy doesn't matter: You are also able to steal items/etc using Steal even if you MISS (due to darkness/low acc) and deal no damage, but the steal proc is not affected by the miss, the miss only means you won't do damage in this case, but you're still able to steal items at your current rate just fine. Eyes on the prize! Useful for washing bandits that want to participate in PQs as well (you can use steal to collect coupons/keys etc w/o killing) >>Why should I use Steal? And, why shouldn't I just kill everything as fast as possible or make a mage? Spoiler First of all, it's extremely fun, especially the earlier you start using it. Stealing items when questing (quest items are stealable!) or item hunting, working on the monster book, or just using it for fun can help you in many cases and it gives you a nice DIY satisfaction on top of the normal amount of treasure you can find on your own. Steal has great use and function as soon as you get it, early game (especially before you can mob) and all the way to end game when you also have Taunt. So why should you try stealing every now and then from mobs? Simply put, it can give you a great statistical edge in many situations, and in general. It forces one extra item drop from the monster. And, if you steal an item before you kill a mob, and don't get what you want, you then still have an additional chance they will drop the sought item on death. This is why stealing before killing can be so helpful, but as I said, steal can also happen in the death hit, independently of the death loot, so it gives you a chance to get +1 item from monsters! If you can already 1hko a monster with Steal, this is great. However you can still only steal mesos sometimes so, when doing a concentrated item hunt, like for example Gold Teeth, equipping a low att dagger, or reducing your range to put Miner Zombies in 2-4 hit range from steal (and always at least two hits when hunting with taunt) is important, in case you steal mesos instead. I've stolen tons of gold teeth from miner zombies (I sometimes sell gold teeth bundles for fun) it can really help you speed things up because their spawn is kinda low and spaced out, and steal gives you extra chances for items. Obviously you can obliterate maps with mage ultimates and run around looking for items, but for ironmen, or the adventurous hearted, stealing (and taunting) are class specialties that help you out your own way. Bandits/Chief Bandits/Shadowers are also very quick classes, so deliberate stealing or taunting or both is hardly noticeable once you're in the habit of using them, and no bother at all if you enjoy them. Steal is perfect for low/slow spawning mobs, mobs with smaller loot tables (steal really increases your chances here, the lower the better actually, steal will force 1 item drop), or monsters with really high hp. >>Great situations to Steal Spoiler So now we know why Stealing can be so helpful and fun, but here are some particular scenarios to get the most from of your loot hungry mitts: 1) Quest Items + PQs: If a quest requires a unique quest only item, it can still be stolen. Using steal on some mobs during your quest can give you a +1 item advantage, and can definitely speed things up if you apply it, especially early game when you can't mob, and late game when you also have Taunt. Steal being a 2nd job skill works in all PQs. Notable PQ uses are Stealing slime shoes from King Slime (he's not boss-flagged) Can steal Quest items from the robots in the protect Dida pq, this guarantees a 100% drop since it's all they drop but have a chance not to, and they have annoying high HP Can steal stones from the Karta's hero will pq enemies for 100% drop Can steal party potions in CPQ 1/2, and Dojo summons Can steal Door keys in PPQ without needing to kill the mob 2) Monster Book: Steal is amazing for this. I personally found 3/5 Lycan cards merely pressing Steal. Few things in maple feel more satisfying than seeing the item you're looking for, especially such rare ones, come tumbling out of a still-living mob via thievery. Hundreds of others were stolen as well helping my monster book. (Unfortunately MT-09 is boss-flagged. But Chief Grey isn't!) Bacal is very easy to get with steal, so is imperial guard, and any of the CWK mobs because of their low tables. 3) Monsters with shallow item pools or with low spawn or difficult kills: As mentioned earlier, the tricky mobs that meet these conditions are perfect targets to steal from: Mobs that are rare or spawn slowly are given a +1 forced item drop. Mobs with smaller or very low loot tables similarly give you an easy forced item drop from their smaller loot pool, helping your odds. And mobs with high hp, like monks, or neo Tokyo mobs (who also have generally lower loot tables, and the quest items can be stolen) give you an early present, or the chance to just try another mob to steal from to save time Some examples: Did you know King Slime is not boss-flagged? That means you can Steal squishy shoes right off him, or increase your chance of finding them by +1 (and he only drops three things, shoes, coupon, or his card. Steal guarantees one of these, plus his death loot. EZ!) Tauromacis/spears, Kargos, Drum Bunnies, Voodoos are somewhat slow and low spawns. All have quests or sought after items (yes the blue storybook from tauros is stealable). Mobs that meet these conditions are great examples to get the extra chances out of Steal Crimson Guardians are annoying and not easy to 1hko, stealing hearts while they're stunned isn't that hard due to their low pool, even with the weird CWK rates, and feels great helping the party speed things up. Imperial guards only drop their card or an etc item. 50/50 are great odds to steal cards on a D2 run or IG grind! You can easily get your whole party each imperial guard sets on a D2 run. Thanatos/Gatekeeper, the wooden fish statues outside shao, werewolves, Lycans, baby typhons etc etc etc 4) Stunned mobs: Shads can stun from both bstep and assaulter, this is a great time to get some swipes in. Stun+Disorder (de-aggros) is also a helpful, and cautious macro, especially before you can stun 5) Endgame+Taunt: Combined with Taunt, Steal can really up your treasure hunting capabilities. Taunt at max increases monster drop rates +40%, but also reduces your damage 40%, turning monsters into minibosses of themselves. Taunt deals damage when you throw it out, and if you 1hko a mob in this case, they won't get the effect, mobs must be at least 2hko. If you're really focused on stacking the odds, Stealing an item before using taunt can boost your odds even more (steal forces one item from the table, then taunt adds +40% rates to the rest of the drops) However, Taunt is also great because it lowers your damage a lot on taunted mobs, making it so they can take more steals before dying, a great synergy (I recommend getting zero points in Venom if you want to hunt items this way, as the venom DOT will sink all low level mobs to 1hp quickly--and also why I suggest venom to be able to be toggled on/off for QOL. This means you'll just have one steal to use before they die, but again, it's for a more hardcore treasure hunting tactic. Steal and Taunt can both proc venom status.) For example, Steal and Taunt are great to bring to help a I/L on their blizzard quest. If you steal from, then taunt Lycans, it forces one item drop, then increases all droprates +40%, greatly boosting your chances for a card and then the I/L chances to find their special blizzard quest item because of the odds stacking, double great! 6) Merching/Funds Not only will you passively get more mesos/items with steal (and taunt), if you're specifically looking for rare, merchable items, this also helps. It's worth it to try to get a steal in on any monster that drops valuable items, since steal guarantees one item drop, plus their normal drops. Taunt also increases item rates, as well as meso rates. Why people sleep on these skills is a mystery... It's great for silver coins, heartstoppers (voodoo's loot table is somewhat small, making a stopper steal easy, or stacking your odds), scrolls, SBs, pieces of time (I fondly remember the high of stealing PoT from ToT mobs to make my 120 gear), or annoying to get ETC like crimson hearts, Typhon feathers, crimson wood (steal guarantees a drop) or cwk badges, gold teeth, nependeath honey, and tons more. >>SP Guide Spoiler Going off the most linear vanilla Bandit build, here is how you can incorporate Steal as you level: Vanilla: Dagger Mastery [max] Savage Blow [max] Dagger Booster [6] Haste [max] = 76 points, which puts you exactly freshly at level 55. From here you can raise booster to a more comfortable level, or start Steal. Max Steal and Booster are still possible in the vanilla build if you ignore Endure. If you didn't max Steal in 2nd, it's easily maxed in 3rd, where pickpocket and chakra are often ignored. I personally did a 2nd job build that maxed Endure and Steal, just by leaving Booster at a lower level until the end of 3rd job, where I was able to max Chakra as well. (Max Endure+Chakra are phenomenal in Dojo, and Endure's passive MP regen is great for seduce, and in general of course for potions, I highly recommend my build) >>Extra Tips+Tricks Spoiler ~ Keeping a handful of low att daggers helps pace your (X)HKO amount. You'll often find yourself not wanting to 1hko everything when you're stealing and taunting (taunt won't work if you 1hko with it) like for monster book hunts on super difficult to obtain cards such as dark yetis. Taunt will also help with this, as it will reduce your total damage by 40% at max to taunted mobs, giving you extra padding/time to steal if you haven't already (stealing before taunting is recommended in the most ideal situation for odds, and the best tactic for very low/slow spawning mobs, or ones with shallow loot pools) ~ As I said I personally recommend 0 points in Venom to make the most of these situations, and hopefully one day it can be toggled on/off. It's not the best skill anyway and you really don't lose much damage you can't do tenfold with continuous attacks than the limited DOT, and not all mobs can be poisoned. ~ You can macro Steal+Disorder for nearly danger free stealing. Imperial Guards are not immune to disorder by the way, and you can de-aggro them with disorder to keep them off your back if you need. Bigfoot can also be de-aggrod with disorder, and sairs Hypnotize for some reason. Both really helpful to get the big hairy guy off your tail to fly some HS in ~ 4/5 of the same monster cards gets you a monster's drop list to conveniently view any time in your monster book. This gives you a great DIY insight into your loot prospects . Mobs with high amount of drops are generally better to just be taunted or killed quickly, unless they are currently dropping a quest item, or something of value, in which case Stealing is still recommended to force drops ~ Taunt. As mentioned before, if you kill a mob (1hko) that isn't already under Taunt-effect (steam coming from their head), they won't be issued the taunt and you won't get the bonuses. This isn't a big deal since bstep is insanely fast, so even if you have a taunt+bstep macro or attack as soon as possible after issuing taunts, you're good. They have to be taunted, and survive the taunt, to get it's +40% effects! Taunt's animation speed is affected by booster. This skill rules, I recommend getting it ASAP in your build ~ No accuracy=no problem. As mentioned before, you don't need to hit/damage a monster to steal from it. Even if you miss, are in darkness, or have 300 INT, while you won't do damage via the skill, you still have the same chance to proc a steal regardless of a MISS. >>Treasure! [section for upcoming multimedia. visual examples/tips/trix/banditry] ~~~ I hope this guide helped you understand and appreciate your power and ability as a bandit a little better, and would love to hear about your best steals! (or your favorite things to steal. Mine is definitely SE20 books from cold sharks, such a rush to see that beautiful, bright neon emerald SB tumble out from a living cold shark into the deep blue, with the sunken ship and treasure chests around...) [related link about tons of bandit skills, & possible suggestions and improvements, including Steal: here]
Skimmed through it, pretty thorough Good job. Not sure if I missed it somewhere, but I believe when you steal an item from a monster, that monster will no longer drop that item when you kill it. Example, you steal a crimson heart out of a crimson guard, that specific crimson guard will no longer drop a crimson heart when killed.
That's correct, I forgot to add that in the first section, but I think I said it indirectly, I will definitely add it in directly. (I am aware of that mechanic, and this does not take away from the advantages Steal already gives when item hunting! You can not get duplicate items from Steal, but it still does increase your items from a mob/force one drop by +1. Meaning if you steal an ACA SB from a crimson guardian, you still have a chance to get a heart when it dies!) There will be images and videos added soonTM (and if you have any vids of you getting good steals, pm me, I'd love to see them and add them in a media section!)
When I was playing the official maplestory LPQ , I heard that if you steal the pass of the top ratz and Bloctopus at stage1&3 instead of killing , the HP of Alishar will decrease. This is my only impression of the application of steal. . Of course, I have no way to verify whether this is true.
I think I very vaguely remember this rumor. I don't know if keeping certain mobs alive and behind or wether a coupon was acquired but a mob being alive would be checked/flagged by the game but it doesn't sound totally impossible from mechanics standpoint, and is one of those things I kinda wish there were a few more instances of, needing a party member with steal, or perhaps stealable-only items, but I dream
How does it work with low drop stuff? Those Krexel summons won’t drop a card after hundreds of steal.
Unless something was changed very recently, it should work. Even Matt himself used stealing from Bacal as an example just a week ago, and that he tested it himself. Is your Steal maxed?
@Matt Am I suppose to hit it several hundred times to try and get it to drop card Note: Im not familiar with how the skill works on drop rates, so if the drop rate is 1% and steal is 40%, then does that mean everytime I use steal, I have a 40% chance to trigger the item to drop at 1% rate?
FYI you do not need accuracy to steal, you can land a miss using Steal and do no damage, but still can steal items on the MISS. Neat trick I forgot to add to the guide [amended]. Found this out on Thanatos stealing their cards (they blind you).
Yeah they have an unusually low drop determination, but it's a guaranteed drop with Steal, instead of banking on it dropping on a kill
Mission Available: Looking for confirmation on two different steals, as well as any media/gifs of folks getting various types of item steals for the guide: If the Ellin Crystal is stealable from Ellin forest mobs (since they can also drop it) If HPQ quest items are stealable. I mentioned a loooong time ago I was unable to confirm them to be stealable, leading me to believe they had some accidental/unusual flag that makes them unstealable. I spent a ton of time trying confirm if the HPQ mobs quest items, such as Typhon eggs, etc, were stealable. In-game confirmation (or staff!) would be cool And any gifs/files for the guide of you getting various steals (preferably making the , , or face and looking very bandity) You'll be credited in the guide!
I still remember the talk we had a couple years ago about the wonders of this skill. pretty much like a grandfather teaching his grandchild about the arts behind their craft. you've done a lot of research for one of the most cool and underrated skills indeed. incredibly amazing and well put guide. ♥
Hey Rad its me Luffyz. Add my new character if you still play IGN: Shintaku Ps, ive been spamming steal on mobs like you suggested when training... it actually helped me get some scrolls and skill books!.
Just to confirm; If we are talking about regular spawning enemies, let's say we are hunting for an item that drops at a 50% rate, using a 1-hit-kill attack. That's a 50% chance to get the item per attack. If we use steal instead it takes about 4 attacks before you get any drop, and then another attack to kill which is guaranteed too not drop that item anymore, so thats a 20% chance to get the item *per attack*. Even with lycanthropes, it seems like 1hit killing the bottom 2 in a channel and then ccing and killing the next 2 is way faster drops than using steal. using steal just makes you waste time, and then they drop a toenail instead of a card so you have to resort to killing them anyway. i just don't see the advantage anywhere, except maybe that bacal situation
Enemies with shallower item pools, high hp, and lower than normal spawn, and lowered drop rates make the effort worth it. Just killing or taunt killing is of course the option for every other class, but Bacal as an extreme example, the same principles apply to a bunch of mobs. Having one extra drop chance in these scenarios where clicking steal a few times won't impact spawn or kill time overall, then yes it's worth it. Lycans are a good example too. If you find it to not help vs a certain mob, don't do it. It's a great quick skill that can help when you're used to using it in these situations
