In the KMS Post Savior Update there were changes to boss which decreased the high difficulty of some unreasonable patterns. Not all of them have been addressed because sometimes the way bosses are implemented are not ported over equally to GMS, due to ping and server latency, Non-KMS content, or poor boss design that has not aged well.
Black Mage Phase 2 and Seren have pillar attack patterns that normally cycle overtime spawning individually which can be dodged with proficiency and mastery. However in GMS these patterns seem to generate all at once instead of generating overtime making into a full map attack pattern more often when comparing to other regions operating MapleStory. In Seren this becomes worse because pillars can be stacked on-top of each other making a double or triple pillar pattern.
Will Phase 3 the attack for the singular leg or "white eyes" where it targets the player's current position. This has a high skill ceiling for teleport classes when introducing server latency or ping making the attack unpredictable to react to where other classes can "flash jump" to avoid this attack with little difficulty.
Princess No Hieizan Temple 1st Floor and 2nd Floor Mikagami and Oda Swordsman takes fixed amount of damage. The Hieizan Temple 3rd Floor when defeating the summoned eels that also take fixed damage does not speed up spawning Oura Shogun. Finally the Hieizan Temple 4th Floor and 5th Floor Miroku and Princess No have the cage skill with low cooldown that cannot be avoided without using Hero's Will Skill or Invincibility Skill. If the cage is destroyed the player is still immobile until the duration ends which is the same time as the cooldown for the cage skill. Princess No also cannot be bound. Classes that do not have generate certain number of lines will take longer to clear and lack of invincibility skills have a harder time to clear. This deters players from challenging Princess No outside of obtaining a Secondary or Kanna's Treasure.
Akechi Mitsuhide has high movement speed with a swing attack that is fast with an insanely large hitbox that does a special knockback. The dive attack has a linger hitbox that does damage longer than it should. The bind counterattack cannot be avoided. Finally the damage reflect cannot be cancelled or negated by Magic Crash. Classes that rely on close-combat have a harder time fighting Akechi forced to dodge attacks with no room to attack back resorting to forcibly taking hits to do damage instead of being able to damage and kite like in other bosses.
Hard Mori Ranmaru's touch damage and attacks are not dealt in hp percentage, but are high attack values that can deal fatal damage to characters that do not have a lot of defense and with a low cooldown seduce making it near impossible to dodge these potentially fatal attacks. This deters from challenging Mori Ramaru even when players have enough damage to clear.
Gollux Phase 2 has a "reverse bomb" pattern that can only be avoided by being outside of range. When hit by the debuff at the end of it the player takes 99% damage. Combined with the map attack that Gollux can cast making it fatal to be under the "reverse bomb" status.
Changes need to be made to said bosses to promote better challenges to the players that can be overcome with skill and not only by brute-forcing the bosses with high damage and invincibility skills or completely avoiding the fight altogether.
Some of the best shortcuts includes completing Maple Guide stamps in order to warp to areas close enough to travel to the boss. An alternative is to use the Interdimensional Portal at Sixth Path Crossway.
Easiest way to get to Sixth Path Crossway is Dimensional Mirror, Mushroom Shrine/Alishan, Henesys, Taxi, Sleepywood. Another option is if you have the Maple Guide Level 60 Sleepywood (Copper Drake) Stamp completed.
To travel back to town for some areas it would be wise to carry a few return scrolls in-case Maple Guide fails.
Boss Travel List
Lord Balrog - Use Maple Guide Level 60 Sleepywood (scroll down, the one on-top of Lord Balrog), or alternatively use the other Maple Guide Sleepywood. Walk the rest of the way to Lord Balrog.
Zakum - Use Interdimensional Portal and travel to El Nath, then talk to your 3rd Job Instructor at Chief's Residence. To return safely to El Nath talk to Adobis.
Ursus - Boss Queue teleports you there instantly, no actual queue.
Hilla - Use the Dimensional Mirror and travel to Fight for Azwan.
Von Leon - Use Maple Guide 110 or Taxi in El Nath to Lion King's Castle. Walk to Fourth Tower to Luden to receive The Knight's Magic Scroll to warp to Audience Room Corridor.
Papulatus - Use Maple Guide 110 to Bottom Clocktower Floor or Ludibrium Castle. Alternative to take Taxi in Ludibrium to Path of Time. Speak to Flo for the Piece of Cracked Dimension before heading to Deep Inside the Clocktower.
Ranmaru - Use Maple Guide 120 or Taxi in El Nath to Dead Mine. Walk to Dead Mine III and speak to Tukugawa Ieyasu.
Root Abyss (Von Bon, Pierre, Crimson Queen, Vellum) - Use the Dimensional Mirror and travel to Root Abyss.
Horntail - Use Maple Guide 130 or Taxi at Leafre to travel to Dragon's Nest. Walk the rest of the way to Horntail.
Pink Bean - Buy Return Scroll if needed. Use Maple Guide Level 140 Past of Venture Stamp, 150 Frozen Past (use return scroll for this one), 160 Burning Past (use return scroll for this one), 160 Destroyed Henesys. An alternative is to go to Leafre and travel to Temple of Time, Time Lane: Three Doors. Collect your Marble of Chaos from Temple Keeper then head to the door on the right and warp to Broken Corridor. Walk the rest of the way to Pink Bean.
Arkarium - Use the travel methods above for Pink Bean. At Time Lane: Three Doors walk all the way to the right end where you see the Goddess State and see a circular golden portal, press up, there should be a cracked mirror, enter Dimensional Schism/Distorted Temple of Time. Walk the rest of the way to Arkarium.
Julieta - Boss Queue teleports you there instantly, no actual queue.
Gollux - Dimensional Mirror and travel to Crimsonheart Castle. Walk the rest of the way to Gollux. To warp out of Gollux use Maple Guide.
Easy Magnus - Use Maple Guide Level 90 Heliseum Stamp. Alternative Sixth Path Crossway, Interdimensional Portal, Pantheon, Heliseum. Enter the Command Barracks.
Normal/Hard Magnus - Buy Return Scroll. Use Maple Guide Level 90 Heliseum Stamp. Alternative Sixth Path Crossway, Interdimensional Portal, Pantheon, Heliseum. Walk the rest of the way to Tyrant's Castle. When leaving Tyrant's Castle, at Tyrant's Castle Sitting Room Entry use Return Scroll.
OMNI-CLN - Use Maple Guide Level 160 or Interdimensional Portal to Omega Sector. Walk the rest of the way to OMNI-CLN.
Easy Cygnus - Boss Queue teleports you there instantly, no actual queue.
Normal Cygnus - Use Maple Guide 180 Hall of Honor, 170 Knight Stronghold Entrance, 170 Armory, or other ways mentioned for Pink Bean/Arkarium. Walk the rest of the way to Cygnus.
Lotus - Use Maple Guide 200 Haven. Walk the rest of the way to Lotus.
Damien - Use Maple Guide 200 Deserted Camp. Walk the rest of the way to Damien.
Lucid - Use Maple Guide 220 Dream Defender, or Lachelein The Dreaming City and walk the rest of the way.
Will - Use Maple Guide 230 Esfera: Origin Sea and walk the rest of the way.
I posted my findings in a different thread, and I found a bit extra from Orange Mushroom.
- Papulatus can use the clocks hands to smash the ground and hits nearby players dealing % damage.
- A small light blue clock spawns on the space. Anyone who doesn't dodge left/right away from the space dies.
- A blue cog circle appears underneath. Anyone who doesn't get out of the space or jump onto a platform when cogs appears dies.
- A blue and red beam appears. If both beams touch together it'll cause a map AoE and kill all surviving players. Standing infront of the beam blocks it.
- When Papulatus enters sleeping phase the party has 60 seconds which is displayed on top of the green clock. By killing Dark Stars they drop times to move the clock hands clockwise. Each value that the clock hand touches, you can press up a portal on the middle left to erase the said value from the clock. Failing to remove the remaining values from the clock will heal Papulatus by the combined added total.
- At the top of the screen, below the timer, there is a red clock that starts ticking down from 3:00 minutes. Once it hits 0, Papulatus will summon falling winding keys (like Magnus meteors). They will fall randomly for 30 seconds. They do not one-shot and there’s two kinds, yellow and purple.
- When a player and Papulatus has a counter above them if the timer reaches 0, the character's skills will be temporarily sealed. Killing Tick-Tocks and Chronos around the map can drop items that increase the timer by double or decrease by half.
- Papulatus can put a time bomb on someone and the damage can be divided by the number of players hit by it.
- Papulatus can force teleport other players.
Semi-related, but how does the Item Sort organize stuff? I have a lot of stuff from past events/no longer obtainables and I liked to keep them in chronological order but the Item Sort button messes that up. =l
From what I've seen they most likely organize by item id (via numbers) in the database. From a programmer's perspective it makes sense but for many players it's more frustrating than what it's worth.
