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Tips for my Dual Blade Character?
Hello, I started playing Maplestory again recently and I picked up on Level ~130 Dual Blade that was stuck in a pile of dust. Taking advantage of MONAD event (until Act 3 Fembris...) and pre-existing daily boss battles and Monster Park free entries, I currently brought it up to Level 173.
Grinding was honestly painful until I reached Level 170. Every fast spots require Star Forces and enchanting gears with Star Forces seemed like a terrible idea, as Level 120 gears I had when I got back on saddle were sure to be thrown away as I kept leveling up. I had to spend a long time in fields where I had to press Reindeer's Milks every time my avoidability RNG failed me. Thankfully, I got more competent with using Flashbang and Dummy Effect and knowing to use Sudden Raid every cooldown.
So Level 170 happened and Asura's Fury made my life 2000 times easier - in grinding and boss battles. But my main concern is the general damage output.
To describe the overall range, I get 150-200k without Final Cut and 180k-250k with Final Cut when I grind in the field or in Monster Park. My Dual Blade can obviously nuke Normal Zakum in less than 4 seconds. Normal Horntail takes a bit depending on how often the heads use that bs skill that makes it take 1 damage from everything but otherwise Phantom Blow is around 400-550k according to my rough memory and Asura's Fury shows something around 700-850k.
Here is where problems happen. I started doing Root Abyss bots more actively to farm 'sealed boxes' in hope that I can get Root Abyss gears some day. The damage I do to Von Bon and Pierre without Critical hits have been fairly disappointing - it was around 120k-200k. With critical hits, Phanton Blow did about 230k-340k. Again, this my rough memory. I suck and I can't do Crimson Queen but for some mysterious reason, I can solo Vellum. To vellum, non-crit Phantom Blow has 70k-15k range, and with crits, 120-150k. Asura's Fury on that does about 370k-440k.
So I want some diagnostics on my Dual Blade's general damage output. According to what I hear from experienced players, damage is pretty much what defines Dual Blade (or at least an acceptable amount of damage that will be spammed with Mirror Image and Blade Clone) and I am very concerned at this point. I currently have Raven Horn set (Hat, Overall, Shoes, Blade, Gloves, and Cape) without any Star Force enchantments because I am planning on switching to Root Abyss gears some time later in the future. I tried honor EXP thing but the three blocks are all showing gray locks. I put only a little Ignore Defense (will refer as ID) on hyper stats because Dual Blade naturally has a high ID anyway and Asura's Fury ID's by 100%. I am investing just about every possible Hyper Stats to damage but it doesn't work. I have a few vacant character slot in the Demethos World so no inheritance might be an issue too.
Any relevant feedback is welcome. Thanks in advance.
Comments
For the honors/Inner Abilities, there's quests through your quest notifier (light-bulb on the left) that you need to do to unlock (iirc, the quests are like "First/Second/Third Inner Ability" or something along those lines).
Links/Legion bonuses do really help.
What most people don't realize is high damage doesn't usually come from gear, it comes from good potential (the lines of stats [usually main stat%]). (Given, yes, good gear also helps with that.) So if you're a (at least semi-) pay to win or are funded in mesoes, buy some red/black cubes and try getting some good potential on your gear (on at least the gear you're planning to keep on the long run and not switch out).
If you want to scroll your gear but don't have a lot of spell traces, get a level 120 item eg hat, spell trace with 100% and star force it 2 times, then press the blue hammer icon in the inventory (transfer hammer). Now, if you put a level 130 hat in the right side box, you will be able to transfer the potential over, star force stars minus one and the remaining slots will be filled in with 100% spell traces of your choice. Repeat with your 140 and 150 items as neccessary
Honestly though, it would probably be much faster to start again in Reboot if thats your highest level. Much easier to gain damage over there, and there are many people who can help with bosses/etc.
Thanks a ton for feedbacks. Would you recommend me to start as Dual Blade in Reboot server and focus on Boss Battles? Dual Blade is quite difficult to raise due to difficulty with grinding its terrible range and increased HP from monsters and bosses (as well as meso grinding).
What world are you currently in?
And a DB is tougher to raise and nurture un Reboot.
As far as non crits go, always set your mirrored target next to the bosses, regardless if they focus on it and not on you, as long as they hit the mirror target, it procs shadow meld.
Don't worry about inner ability just yet, if anything, just roll to unique and leave it there.
Hyper stats: don't just put all points into one, distribute them evenly to the stats you want raised; attack- boss-crit dmg is what I did, since shadow meld is 100% crits, crit dmg is useful for us DB. (I main a DB)