Yo, here’s the leveling/grind guide if you want it. Pretty similar for most ranged classes. Apologies for poor formatting in advance. I did level 160s crossbowmaster before big bang back in official. ** = HS+SE+SI+monster card exp boost to shred through levels if funded. level 1-10(12). Maple island + Olaf’s quest in lith harbor. Have a pig head ready. 1st job -Level 10-14(16-17) Job instructor quest chain. Fixing black bulls house 1 (firewood), the stump horror story (tree branches), I’m bored 1, fixing the roof (tree branches floating market), joining the defense squad (floating market), miss ming mong’s first worry (pig ribbons, pig head, slime bubbles). Green and orange mushrooms at Henesys hunting ground 1 (left of henesys). Pig beach in Lith harbor. -Level 15 to 21. Bubblings in kerning subway. Nice with party. Or if funded, si+hs+monster card. -Level 17-19. NLC mayor’s quiz/questionnaire. talking to Stan, Mano quest line(snail shells) -Level 21 to 30. KPQ, wild boars at land of wild boar in perion+Nora’s reflection quest, genins at ninja castle. If funded, fire boars at burning land. Party grinding favored. Note: evil eyes and Magatia rats/scorpions not recommended for ranged classes. 2nd job. Note: Bowmen suck at both CPQ 1 and 2. Not worth grinding there. Still amazing leech for any class though with an enough points per round. There is a case for a funded Full strength power knockback build for CpQ1. Pretty janky build but the exp can be decent. For the funded people with full dex and early mastery, you can grind at monsters 20 levels over current level and hit them consistently. This can help avoid some of the slower leveling ranges. **-Level 31 to 35. Brown teddies. Terrace hall in ludibrium. -Level 35 to 40. LPQ. Platoon chronos (path of time 1). Jr wraiths in NLC (hallowed grounds) or kerning subway line 1 area 3. Paper lantern ghost+purple cloud fox in mushroom shrine (A night in the forest). -Level 41-45 master chronos (path of time 4). Truckers (suburban area 2) in Singapore (duo preferred). Paper lantern ghost+purple cloud fox in mushroom shrine/zipangu (a night in the forest). Wraiths in kerning subway area 1 line 4. -**Level 50-60 straw target dummy in MU lung. Roids at c-2 on magatia. Coolie zombies at Forest of dead trees. Muddy banks 1 in Singapore (duo preferred) Note: forest of golem not recommended for ranged classes. -**Level 60-65 pythons (deep jungle) of Thailand-floating market. C-3 in magatia (duo preferred). Ghost ship 2 jr selkies (duo preferred). -Level 65-70 MP3 (duo preferred). LMPQ (rush pq). Goblin forest 2, sage cat. Saite (authorized personnel only), only if funded or duoing with a close combat/martial class. 3rd job One of the best designed and easiest 3rd jobs for grinding along with DK, hermit, CB, and F/P mage. - Level 70-80 PPQ. Red nose pirate den 2, kru and captains (duo preferred). Tae Roon and King sage cat questline at 77. - **Level 80-95(100) Gobies at deep sea gorge 2. Especially if you have a crash mule, although unnecessary. Risel squids (dangerous sea gorge 2) are also good if unfunded and damage is not enough to 2-3 shot goby houses+bone fish with strafe. Yeti questline at level 90. If you can manage your HP, Wolf spiders in NLC. Elderwraiths (the evil dead) in NLC phantom forest are decent for level 90-95. Galloperas in entrance to the spooky world at FTP Singapore is decent after the exp buffs from 90 to 105. - **95-110. Himes (dreamy ghost in mushroom shrine/zipangu at shrine of the buddha) duo preferred especially with a priest for hs. Headless horseman. Captain Latanica. - Level 110-135 sniping JR. Newties (the dragon nest left behind) in Leafre, ellin PQ. Papalatus duo starting at level 120. Chao solo or duo at 120. Temple of time lane of memories 4, path of regret 5, Road to oblivion 5. 4th Job - level 135-170+ LHC, chief oblivion guardian temple of time Road to oblivion 5 is decent up to 154?160? Shao duo at level 145.
So what's the word on the bird.... in bosses? I only have 1 stat in Frostprey so far so I mainly use it for heartstopper farming. But once I lvl it more, I'm wondering if I should be using it in more bosses. Obviously in solo/duo bosses it's a no-brainer to have it out the whole time for free damage. But what about Zakum, for example? There's some downsides, right? For one, it's very distracting. There's already a lot happening on screen visually during a boss like Zakum, and it can be hard to keep track of your character on those crowded platforms while fighting arms. Adding a bird is even more clutter and can make you or party members more likely to fall off. I also have a feeling it adds a bit more lag the same way spamming Genesis does (or am I imagining things?). Later in the body phase, I feel like the bird is even more of a liability, because it will hit a bunch of the summons and draw them all towards you so that they get in the way more (it probably doesn't ever get strong enough to 1hit these, right?) So is the considerate thing to do just not using Frostprey during bosses like this? Or am I just overthinking it?
Level 1 bird isn't super impressive, and the time it takes to summon it is probably better spent firing off a strafe or something. The sad reality of most summons is that the time spent summoning them costs more DPS than it nets. Once you get some points into it though, the only places I probably wouldn't use it is Horntail or Von Leon. You don't care if you draw summons in Zakum, you shred them with pierce. Drawing mobs in HT blows, especially if Dark Wyverns. Von Leon you just wanna be able to see everything. If you wanna be considerate, you can ask the party if you can Frostprey, and just follow their lead.
Frostprey is very useful in Shao. Can freeze the clones and more easily split them with PKB. Outside of that, not used in bossing
MMs are the most preferred range attacker for LHC as they have passable AoE, benefit from SI, and have SE. They are leagues more wanted than BM, Sair, NL. Bearwolves priority is probably: Bucc>Shad>Hero=Drk>Paladin>FP>MM>Sair>BM>NL>BS>IL You max pierce arrow asap for LHC after xbowmastery, SE, and perhaps snipe, you can push PA before snipe if you know you’ll be lhcimg
MM's are pretty solid in Rose Garden. Frostprey helps to keep a few mobs frozen, Pierce just shreds everything, and your 1v1 damage is good enough to kill the boss relatively fast. It's also the only place (in my opinion) where Dragon's Breath isn't utter garbage; I'd still keep it at level 1 until you have nothing else to put points into, though. Definitely the best ranged attacker there (mages excluded, obviously).
Here's a few questions specifically of what I had in mind regarding RG 1. Best map? 2. 5 speed Pyrope/Raven vs 6 speed Dragon Shiner 3. Average Bee Rates w/ apple (during event)
1. I think Roses personally. Golems are fine if you wanna get energy, but Roses the easiest since they're slow and usually attack from afar. 2. Whatever has higher attack honestly. The 1 speed difference isn't enough to improve your strafes per snipe (so same 1v1 DPS), and the very slightly faster recovery time on Pierce is, like, okay, but not worth a damage downgrade for. 3. Unfortunately I don't have that number for you, though when I appled before event I was getting anywhere from 20-30 bees on my MM.
I agree on first map being best. I think the Roses have the least hp (?), the map layout is pretty good, and they move slow and are big targets. The second map is the worst for us IMO because the platforms are too small and spread out such that it breaks up the mobs and makes it hard to line up good piercing shots. The golems in the last map are a little bit problematic because they're short so it's harder to jump-shot them, they move too fast so they can run into you and mess up your shots, and I also feel like they tend to get spread out more so you have to do more gathering. So Map 1 > Map 3 > Map 2. For the first map, the bottom part is the best. You can run in a single direction and alternate between dragon's breath -> (running jump-shot) piercing arrow. The Dragon's Breath pushes them into a clump, and you can have a piercing arrow fully charged during the time it takes you to move forwards to catch up with them. You lose a lot of time when climbing the ropes, so only go up when the mobs up there grow to like 4+. Note that you can charge piercing arrow while climbing ropes, so take advantage of that to have a fully charged shot by the time you reach the top. It's also possible to line up your shots to hit mobs across two different platforms, if you're on the lower platforms (eg: --_ or _--). The timing is a bit tricky though. You need to time your jump-shot to release the arrow just a little below the peak of your jump, so that it connects with the tip of their heads of the mobs in front of you and the feet of the mobs on the platform above you. Lastly, if you have a mount you can use the increased speed/jump to clear the gaps between platforms to stay up top and save time having to climb the ropes again. That's a bunch of random tips that maybe you didn't ask for, but hopefully they're helpful if they're not already obvious to you. I'm lvl 180 and probably considerably weaker than Post, but I have been getting about 20 bees during the event using a single apple on just the boss and energizers for the rest. My record so far is 30 bees.
this is really good to hear! I have a 185 shad and i'm averaging about mid 20s in room 1 myself using heart stoppers. I'm making a MM right now (level 155) and I was afraid it wouldn't do well in RG but your post here gives me confidence! Ty for this post
Can someone who likes math (not me!) confirm how many targets it takes until Piercing Arrow > Strafe/Snipe? I know for 4+ targets Pierce is much better, and for 1-2 Strafe/Snipe is better, but what about for exactly 3? With and without SI? I read somewhere else on the forums that for 3 targets we should just use Strafe/Snipe, so I've been running with that assumption so far. It seems pretty close either way. But I'd love to know for sure if someone is willing to crunch some numbers for us
If Snipe is supposed the deliver a lethal blow, what is the benefit of it being followed up by Strafe? Would you not want Snipe to follow a set of Strafe attacks?
yeah, theoretically Snipe is a "finisher move" that's supposed to 1 hit K.O stuff (which is like ~90% of all normal mobs), but it has a 199k damage cap AND has a 4 seconds delay in order to use it again. the reasoning behind putting it as a (Snipe > Strafe) macro: - you should only do this on bosses or sturdy monsters that do not die with a single Snipe. - ^ this means you should simply use Snipe alone, not in macro, when hunting normal monsters. - Snipe > Strafe has a smoothest and quicker animation inbetween so you save DPS. - Snipe goes first so you can save up those miliseconds after using it for it to cooldown faster. so your main attacking combo should look like (Snipe > Strafe x6) and repeat. but in a fashion sense, yeah it should be used as a last move.
After play testing MM in RG bonus I can now say its a lot better than I initially thought. For both BM and MMs, it benefits us greatly since we have low avoid to drag the Golem Boss to left corner. When it does the big KB you’ll be kbed into the wall and not have to move much. Do Bonus Map 1: Pierce Arrow dmg scales off mobs hit, so you need to group at least 3, pref 5-6 Dragons Breathe works well now and you only really need 1 SP Keep frosprey up as much as possible to inflict freeze so its easier to group them Most Important RG bonus tip: You must get used to hitting the top plat and the middle plat at the same time from jumping at the middle platform You can hit both middle/top platform if you Pierce Arrow at vaguely the bottom of the top platform It’ll hit both hitboxes of the middle platform and top I can post pics/gif later