Updates
v1.12: Revamped accuracy table, added Omega Sector monsters accuracy information, revamped equipment builds for beginner in two parts (level 30-39 and level 50+), corrected minor inaccurate details.
v1.11: Major update on quest section, tidied up Q&A, and added information of Sake Bottle (released in MapleSEA) in the guide.
v1.10: Put the Accuracy Table in a separate section, added MapleSEA Gachapon items and MapleGlobal event items into the various weapons and armour discussions.
v1.09: Added "ShaoxNoob's build" section
v1.08: Added Ludi PQ advice, corrected names of Aqua Road monsters, changed all instances of "OMS" into the more politically correct "MapleGlobal" (following hidden-street's labelling standard), and added and editted a few minor things
v1.07: Added more FAQ, accuracy table and recommended hunting grounds for Aqua Road monsters, and added Pure DEX beginner varient
v1.06: Removed the "Implemented Soon" section and wrote stuff for FAQ
v1.05: Added Accuracy Table For Ludibrium Monsters, updated the recommended hunting grounds for Ludibrium monsters and recommended equipment for each level range, wrote a bit more for Avoid VS Jump Beginners
v1.04: MapleSEA quest updates, editted Quests Beginners Can Do
v1.03: Added more information regarding beginner-exclusive weapons in chapter 12
v1.02: Added new section: Quests Beginners Can Do
v1.01: Added colours and formatting, and corrected some minor details
v1.00: Guide released

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Starting a New Character
3. Accuracy Table
4. Level 1 to 9
5. Level 10 to 19
6. Level 20 to 29
7. Level 30 to 39
8. Level 40 to 49
9. Level 50 and beyond
10. ShaoxNoob's Current and Future Build
11. Maple Island Beginners
12. Other Beginner Varients
13. Quests
14. FAQ
15. Acknowledgements


1. Introduction

Back in the beta days, I wondered if anyone remembers a little character called AmherstLord in GMS East. He stayed on Maple Island and levelled to 26, collecting orange mushroom caps, ores, and rare equipment drops from the snails and mushrooms there, occasionally giving some to other beginners who would leave the island before level 10.

Then beta split into what we know today as MapleGlobal and MapleSEA, and passed away after its unicellular division. In MapleSEA, Bootes server, a new beginner, ShaoxNoob, was born, from the creator of AmherstLord.

Ok cut that crap. Anyway i decided that Maple Island Beginners were too much of an ordeal to recreate, so i thrashed it out and went ahead with normal Permanent Beginners, using some information from Navi's beginner guide, some information from Hidden-Street, a little of my own thinking, and a great deal of patience. And it worked.

There're a lot of negative things about being a permanent beginner. You have terrible HP. You do terrible damage. You have limited crowd control capabilities. And as such, everyone can KS you. Not just those mages and assassins; EVERYONE can KS you if they wanted to. You also have limited equipment options, and that means your weapon defence is going to be mad low, eventually lower than that of even a mage. And you gotta explaining to everyone else why you choose to stay as a beginner instead of going for job advancements. About 50 times a day.

But when people ask me the same question, i formulated an easy answer for them. Cos beginners are cool. Actually that's not answering the question, but who says i'm supposed to answer their question anyway? Anyway, beginners are cool primarily because they are unique. You don't see high level beginners around everywhere. A high level beginner would show the user's great level of patience and endurance.

In more practical aspects, beginners don't lose any exp when they die. This also means that dying is a fast way to return to the nearest town. Speaking of towns, beginners don't actually need town scrolls in victoria, because taxis are 90% cheaper for us. It's half the trouble to get from Orbis to El Nath or vice versa, without statue teleporting scrolls; to get to El Nath, die at the 7th floor and to get to Orbis, die at the 8th. And thers's always the huge ass, high weapon attack beginner weapons to talk about, from the level 20 Frozen Tuna and level 30 Sake Bottle which are currently available in MapleSEA, to the level 36 Maroon Mop which has not be released in either MapleSEA or MapleGlobal.

Hopefully that's enough motivation for you to decide if you really want to start a beginner or not. I would prefer there be less beginners, actually. Less people to clamour for a Maroon Mop if it actually gets released ;)


2. Starting a New Character

So you want to start a beginner! Well, you have to decide what kind of beginner you want to be. Actually there are not many choices, but you got to decide if you want to stay on Maple Island forever, or leave Maple Island and be a worldwide superstar.

If you want to be a Maple Island permanent beginner, you should aim to roll this particular stat:
STR: 13, DEX: 4, INT: 4, LUK: 4

An average person would take hours to roll this configuration out. And if you click too fast and roll again after you get that configuration, too bad You can let your DEX or LUK be 5 or 6 (1 more point of avoidabilty isn't too bad either). Once you're done, please remember to choose a sensible name, face, haircut and hair colour. Remember not even Cash Shop can change any of that should you decide to stay on Maple Island forever.

After you're done creating your Maple Island beginner you can go ahead and skip chapters 3 to 8, and go straight to chapter 9. It's a chapter all for your Maple Island beginner.

Ok, now that we're done with Maple Island beginners, let's go back to look at our conventional permanent beginner (from now on i would simply write "permanent beginner" as "beginner". Saves time.). For beginners, you should aim to roll the following:

STR: ?, DEX: ?, INT: 4, LUK: 4

STR and DEX can be anything, actually, because as you level you'll need to add points in both of them.

(of course, ShaoxNoob has INT 5 and LUK 5. But whatever )

Also, choose a sensible, easily typable name, so that people can find it easier to trade with you. It's up to you to decide what name you want, but try to refrain from choosing "xXxAzNB0io0o" or anything similar i see around all the time.


3. Accuracy Table

This table below is going to be very important for you. It shows how much accuracy you need to 100% hit monsters of various monster avoidabilities, and you should adjust your equipment and add your AP to DEX according to the type of monsters you think you would be facing. Take note this is for you VS monsters that are of the same level or lower level than you. If the monsters you are facing are higher level than you, more points of accuracy are needed depending on the level difference, to obtain a 100% hit rate for monsters. Use the accuracy calculator (mentioned in acknowledgements) to calculate the exact accuracy you need if it so happens. The brackets beside the name states the level of the monster.

If you are a math person, there are two formulas we can use here that links the monster's avoidability to your accuracy needed for a 100% hit. If you are not a math person, just used the accuracy calculator.

(if your level >= monster's level)
Accuracy Needed = 55 * Monster Avoidability / 15

(if your level < monster's level)
Accuracy Needed = (55 + 2*level difference) * Monster Avoidability / 15

Accuracy Table For Victoria and Ossyria Monsters

Monster Avoidability | Accuracy Needed | Monster examples
-------------------------------------------------------------
0 | 0 | All Snails(1,2,4), Shroom(2), Stump(4), Pig(7), Dark Stump(10)
1 | 3 | Slime(6), Orange Mushroom(8)
2 | 7 | Ribbon Pig(10)
4 | 14 | Octopus(12)
5 | 18 | Green Mushroom(15), Axe Stump(17)
7 | 25 | Blue Mushroom(20), Horny Mushroom(22)
8 | 29 | Dark Axe Stump(22), Jr Sentinal(23), Zombie Mushroom(24), Wild Boar(24)
10 | 36 | Bubbling(15), Stirge(20), Evil Eye(25), Fire Boar(32), Curse Eye(35), King Slime(40), Nependeath(42), Jr Cerebes(43)
12 | 44 | Ice/Fire/Normal Sentinal(30), Ligator(32)
13 | 47 | Leatty(32)
15 | 55 | Jr Kittens(33), Dark Leatty(33), Cold Eye(40), Tortie(46), Dark Nependeath(47), Stone Golem(55), Tauromacis(70)
17 | 62 | Jr Wraith(35)
18 | 66 | Jr Pepe(35), Lorang(37), Iron Hog(42), Copper Drake(45), Dark Stone Golem(58), Drake(50)
20 | 73 | Lupin(37), Wraith(48), Croco(52), Hector(55), Malady(55), Wild Cargo(62)
21 | 77 | Star Pixie(35)
22 | 80 | Clang(48), Luster Pixe(52), Red Drake(60)
24 | 88 | Lunar Pixie(45), Yeti(65)
25 | 92 | Jr Necki(21), Fierry(30), Zombie Lupin(40), Jr Yeti(50), Big Cats(53), Zombies(57), White Pang(58), Werewolf(75)
26 | 95 | Dark Yeti(68)
27 | 99 | Jr Boogie(35), Mushmom(60), Dark Jr Yeti(56)
28 | 103 | Flyeye(41), Jr Effy(51), Lucida(73), Lycanthrope(80)
30 | 110 | Pepe(60), Cerebes(72), Taurospear(75), Y&(78), Jr Balrog(80), dY&(82)
31 | 114 | Dark Pepe(64)
35 | 128 | Pachu(66)
36 | 132 | Puco(63)
37 | 136 | Punco(67)
38 | 139 | Bain(90)
40 | 147 | Cuzco(69), Crimson Balrog(100)
50 | 183 | Opachu(70)

(Iron Boar, Mix Golem and Zombie Mushmom have unknown avoidability)

Accuracy Table For Ludibrium Monsters

Monster Avoidability | Accuracy Needed | Monster examples
---------------------------------------------------------
10 | 36 | Trixter(23), Chirppy(31)
12 | 44 | Green Trixter(28), Brown Teddy(30), Drum Bunny(30), Block Golem(42), Time Sphere, Papulatus Clock(125)
13 | 47 | Ratz(32)
14 | 51 | Pink Teddy(32), Tick(34), King Block Golem(45)
15 | 55 | Dirty Ratz(34), Bloctopus(35), Tobo(41)
16 | 58 | Roloduck(34), Panda Teddy(36), Rombot(47)
17 | 62 | Helly(36), Tweeter(39)
18 | 66 | Propelly(37), King Bloctopus(38), Toy Trojan(39), Master Robo(43)
19 | 69 | Planey(38)
20 | 73 | Chronos(37), Tick Tock(40)
22 | 80 | Platoon Chronos(41)
23 | 84 | Buffy(61), High Dark Star(71)
24 | 88 | Master Chronos(46)
25 | 92 | Soul Teddy(63)
26 | 95 | Alishar(56), Lazy Buffy(66), Clock(70)
27 | 99 | Master Soul Teddy(67), Buffoon(74), Dark Clock(76), Ghost Pirate(83), Death Teddy(85)
28 | 103 | Deep Buffon(77), Low Dark Star(80), Dual Ghost Pirate(87), Master Death Teddy(89)
37 | 136 | Spirit Viking(93), Phantom Watch(95), Grim Phantom Watch(95), Gate Keeper(108)
38 | 139 | Gigantic Spirit Viking(98), Thanatos(108)
40 | 147 | Papulatus(125)

Accuracy Table for Aqua Road Monsters

Monster Avoidability | Accuracy Needed | Monster examples
---------------------------------------------------------
7 | 25 | Pinboom(22)
8 | 29 | Krappi(24), Cico(25)
9 | 33 | Cicle(23)
10 | 36 | Bubblefish(28), Flowerfish(29)
12 | 44 | Krip(30)
14 | 51 | Mask Fish(32)
15 | 55 | Sparker(43)
18 | 66 | Scuba Pepe(36), Jr Seal(38), Poopa(40), Posion Poopa(40)
20 | 73 | Freezer(42)

(please contact me if you have any information of the avoidability of Aqua Road Dungeon monsters)

Accuracy Table for Omega Sector Monsters

Monster Avoidability | Accuracy Needed | Monster examples
---------------------------------------------------------
16 | 59 | Mateon(41)
18 | 66 | Barnard Gray(40), Plateon(44)
20 | 73 | Zeta Gray(42), Mecateon(46), MT-09(54)
21 | 77 | Ultra Gray(45)
25 | 92 | Chief Gray(49)


4. Level 1 to 9

It's Maple Island Heaven for all of you! Here's the only place where you can basically out-damage most of the other people around you, since they havent got their job advancement yet.

Equipment

Early level equipment doesn't really matter much, actually. Just get something with defence to wear, and remember to get your headband / cap from Maria's Quest. And for the kicks, go to Amherst and purchase a Wooden Bat, because it has 19 watt as compared to the 17 or 15 watt of the weapon you may be using. If you complete Bigg's Quest you will get either a Razor (20 watt) or a Fruits Knife (22 watt), and that's where you'll change your weapon. If you're in MapleSEA, complete Pio's Quest in Amherst for a Relax Chair; it will certainly save healing time by a great deal.

Hunting Grounds and Associated Monsters

The best levelling ground in Maple Island is, without a doubt, Split Road. It has tons of snails and shrooms for levelling up, and you can collect all the snail shells you may need for your quest here.

You would need to hunt Orange Mushrooms too, if you want to complete your quests. For that, i'll recommend The Field East of Amherst. There are certain platforms where you can stand on and hit Orange Mushrooms without them ever touching you. You could try a Hidden Street, Tomato Field, for Orange Mushroom hunting as well. This can be accessed from The Field East of Amherst.

AP and Accuracy Concerns

One of the biggest long-term problems of beginners is the lack of accuracy. The lack of accuracy causes you to have a chance to miss monsters possessing higher avoidability, causing levelling to be real painful. Beginners got it worse than everyone else, even warriors, because beginners do not have mastery at 2nd job to add a good 20 points of accuracy to. And apparently no cleric likes to party with a beginner, so unless you have nice cleric friends, forget about bless too. I will highlight how much accuracy you can choose to need at various levels, and how you might want to add your AP points from there.

At the early levels though, it's pretty simple. 5 points to STR all the way until level 10. This is about the only way you get an early damage advantage over the other classes. AP considerations will only get a little more complex when the monsters with larger avoidabilities come in.

The only monster on Maple Island where you need any accuracy at all is Orange Mushroom, for which you need a grand total of 3 points. And I'm sure you start with more than 3 accuracy.

Beginner "Skills"

Beginners will never have skills. You will never have any flashy attack, or any supportive stuff that helps you add weapon attack or accuracy or decrease the monster's defence. You will never have any skill points to add to anything that will help you in your maple adventures. And you will never need MP. Your only combat skill is "Attack", and your only supportive skill is "Jump".

But that does not mean you cannot perfect your attack and jump to ease the pain of your levelling process. Start cultivating the healthy practice of letting your beginner take as little damage as possible. As long as you always keep that in mind, levelling will be more peaceful and much less taxing on your potions. Oh, and you know we are going to use potions soon right?

You can experiment with basic monster avoiding and crowd control techniques. Everyone know how to knockback the monster so that you can continually rain blows on it until it dies. Perfect it for weapons of different speeds against monsters of different speeds. You should also know when to jump over monsters when you consider that it is too close to attack safely. And there are certain "stairways" where when you crouch down, the running monster (pig or wild boar or kittens) will simply jump over the stairway and avoid hitting you completely. When a crowd of pigs/fire boars/jr grupins/dark stone golems dash towards you, you should try to focus your attacks on one or two of the monsters, killing them before you attack the rest. Of course you'll get hit along the way, it's just how much you want to reduce the chance of getting hit by.

Magic/Special attack monsters are bitches. Avoid them at all costs, unless you want to entertain yourself by occasionally demonking a lupin along the way. Monsters with knockback values of more than 1 are bitches too, because you cannot confidently apply your knockback attack skills on them (you do know your minimum damage is going to be really small right?). Avoid too, unless they are freaking slow. Unfortunately you will realise that there are no monsters above level 50 with a knockback of 1. More on that in the later chapters.

And definitely, monsters with high avoidabilities are bitches too, because your attacks will miss them often, if they even hit at all. Fortunately for you I'm here to help. I'll advise you on the way on how to configure your accuracy so that you can hit those certain monsters that you want to hit.


5. Level 10 to 19

After cruising through the first ten levels, the difficult part begins to set in. Everyone else gets their job advancements. More hp. More cool skills. Everyone except you. But don't give up; your character is still very much playable at this point in time.

To Stay or To Leave?

In short, leave.

You can purchase your better equipment at Victoria Island. There are so many things more to do at victoria island. Heck, you can even take 10 trips of taxi all over the place and it would only cost you as much as what one person takes for one trip. You can get a shield if you're using a one handed weapon, and that means even more defence.

True, Maple Island is much less crowded than victoria. But there're so many things for your beginner to do at Victoria! So go. Migrate to Victoria when you can.

Equipment

Weapons/Shields

If you are extravagant: Nothing is cooler looking an Aqua Snowboard (ave watt 30, max watt 34) at the teenage levels. It's released for a limited time in both MapleGlobal and MapleSEA, but the prices have been falling steadily as the supply increases and the people who wants them already have them. If you have another character supporting your beginner, get it for him/her. But if you're using a 30watt or less Aqua Snowboard and want a very little bit more damage from level 15-19, get a Leather Purse (watt 34) at 6K mesos from Henesys weapon shop. But if you have a 31 to 34 watt Aqua Snowboard, don't bother changing your weapon.

If you are frugal: At level 10, you can buy a Long Sword (watt 27) at 3K mesos from your friendly neighbourhood weapon shops at Henesys or Perion. Or you can hold on to your Razor/Fruits Knife from Maple Island until you reach level 15, where you can get a Leather Purse. Be sure to get a Stolen Fence (wdef 5) to accompany your weapon though, at 2K mesos from Lith Harbour. Or a Panlid (ave wdef 10, max wdef 12), if you have a supporting character who happens to have one. But if you already have a supporting character you should just get an above average Aqua Snowboard for your beginner.

There are some flashy looking MapleSEA Gachapon-exclusive weapons that you may consider using, even though they are probably worth more than their stats are supposed to be worth. The best of them is the Thermometer, a 2H sword with ave watt of 30, MP +80 (of no use to us) and wdef +10. There is also the Yellow Mop (polearm) and Red Brick (1H BW) you can consider using, even though their damage is nothing to wow about.

Do check out the damage comparisions of various weapons at 4v.

Headgear: If you don't have a Mark of the Beta, the next best headgear you can opt to wear is a White Bandana at level 10 at 2K mesos from Lith Harbour equipment shop and a Metal Gear at 3K mesos from Kerning City equipment shop. Or if you are absolutely extravagent, you can get a coloured Bandana for your beginner. Blue Bandana would be the best at level 10 since it adds strength. Do note it drops from Lunar Pixies. At level 15, you can also opt to upgrade your Metal Gear to Blue Metal Gear with 1 Mithril Plate and 500 mesos at Perion. Personally i don't think there is a need for either relatively costly upgrades. If you are really poor, you can even choose which equipment changes to skip, and this might be one of them.

In MapleSEA Gachapon, there are six different coloured bandanas you can obtain. There’s pink (+3 speed), yellow (+1 dex), purple (+1 luk), grey (+3 jump), brown (+5 accuracy) and green (10 slots), and they’re a nice colourful alternative for a supported beginner

In both MapleSEA and MapleGlobal, there’s an event available for a limited time that has a possible reward of a Maple Bandana. It comes with different colours of white, yellow, red and blue, giving +0, +1, +2 and +3 to all 4 stats respectively. As you can see, a Red or Blue Maple Bandana would be a serious alternative to the ugly Green Bamboo Hat you would otherwise wear in level 25, but do note they are extremely expensive.

Top: If you only want to upgrade one piece of clothing at the early teenage levels, buy the top. You will be stuck with this top from level 11 all the way to level 30. For males, there is Blue One-Lined Shirt and Orange Sporty T-shirt and for females, there is Red striped T-shirt and Pink Starry Shirt, all from Lith Harbour equipment shop at 3K mesos each. Blue snails can drop the 12 or 13 wdef (above average) Blue One-Lined Shirt / Red Striped T-shirt, so if you pick one up, be sure to wear it.

Bottom: At level 11, only males have a bottom equipment change. That is the Grey Thick Sweat Pants at 2.8K mesos from Lith Harbour equipment shop. At level 16, though, there is a choice between two unisexual pants, Ice Jeans and Sand Blasted Jeans. Sand Blasted Jeans add 3 HP, but 3 HP isn't really important, even for a beginner, so choose whatever you think looks better. The level 16 pants will stay on until level 26 for males, and to level 30 for females, so you can skip the level 11 equipment change but not the level 16 one.

Shoes: At level 11, Black/White/Smelly Korean Rubber Shoes are available at 2K mesos from Kerning City equipment shop. At level 16, Brown/Green/Bronze Aroa Shoes are available at 5K mesos from Lith Harbour. The defence added is not much, so if you're not rich, you can avoid getting one or both equipment changes and save some money.

Glove: Beginners can use the humble Work Glove. You can make your Work Glove at Kerning City with 15 Leathers and 1K mesos, but why make when you get it for free later? The last part of Nella's level 15 quest gives you the Work Glove as a quest reward. If you are rich and supported and from MapleSEA, Gachapon gives 6 different coloured work gloves you can use too. They come in colours of yellow (+1 int), red (+1 str), blue (+1 dex), purple (+1 luk), grey(+1 mdef) and brown (7 slots).

Hunting Grounds and Associated Monsters

From level 10 to 19, there are many places where a beginner would be relatively safe at. In fact, there's at least one near every one of the four towns. Here they are:

Henesys Hunting Ground: Don't you love your blue and red snails? It's still good for the early teenage levels with the crazy spawn of snails, especially if slimes still do too much damage to you.

Tree Dungeon, Southern Forest I: AKA Slime Cave. Once slimes start doing less than several points of damage to you, train here. This place is pretty much a must for low levels.

Kerning City Construction Site: In particular, Orange Mushrooms and Stumps are good stuff. You can try to take on the few Green Mushrooms that hang around here. The large spawn of Octopuses may be too fast and dangerous for you though, until you reach level 20s.

The maps left and right of Perion: Stumps, Dark Stumps and Axe Stumps are good for levelling as you near lvl 20. You might spot a few Green Mushrooms too. Avoid the Dark Axe Stumps, though.

Tree Dungeon, Forest Up North VI and Tree Dungeon, Southern Forest II & III: Slimes and more importantly, Green Mushrooms. I started on Green Mushrooms by level 18, and you can try it too.

There definitely are a few million other places where a teenage beginner can hunt, but these are the few places i feel are most productive for levelling purposes.

AP and Accuracy Concerns

Let us consult part of the accuracy table:

Monster Avoidability | Accuracy Needed | Monster examples
-------------------------------------------------------------
0 | 0 | All Snails(1,2,4), Shroom(2), Stump(4), Pig(7), Dark Stump(10)
1 | 3 | Slime(6), Orange Mushroom(8)
2 | 7 | Ribbon Pig(10)
4 | 14 | Octopus(12)
5 | 18 | Green Mushroom(15), Axe Stump(17)

These are the monsters that you would meet before level 20, so i recommend you to put points in DEX such that you have 18 accuracy when you reach level 15, which is the level of Green Mushrooms. That would be around 20 DEX, since 1 DEX gives 0.8 accuracy and 1 LUK gives 0.5 accuracy. I would put DEX right away from level 10 onwards until i have enough, so that i don't have to worry about my AP until level 20, while i put the rest of my points into STR. At level 20, that would be 92 STR.

Try not to put any less unless you have no intention to fight Green Mushrooms or Axe Stumps before level 20. Anyway, you will almost definitely have to add more points to DEX later on, so why not put the necessary points down now?

Even if, for some reason, you are opting for an ultra-low DEX build, by having enormous amounts of DEX additions through equipments, it would be good to have at least 20 or 30 DEX. Just add your AP to 20 DEX first when you reach level 15.

Navi's guide suggested DEX should always be 2 times your own level. I believe that is quite an oversimplification; it would make you end up with more DEX points than you actually need. True enough, DEX adds to minimum damage, something beginners have low amounts of since we do not have mastery of any weapon. But this is at a compensation of STR, which adds to quite a few times more of maximum damage as compared to the adding of DEX. Hence, I would put points into STR whenever possible to see much greater numbers pop out on the screen.

But if you do choose the 2*level-DEX build, your stats will end up as follows: 72 STR, 40 DEX.

Damage Comparisons

We will compare damages between a reasonably best weapon (not including +watt gloves or scrolling or any frilly shit), and a more normal weapon. This is just to give you an idea of around how much damage you should be doing at various levels.

Reasonably best gear in this case is a perfect 34 att Aqua Snowboard (level 12)
- At level 15, with STR/DEX stats of 67/20: 12 - 120
- At level 20, with STR/DEX stats of 92/20: 15 - 163

Using store bought gear of a 34 att Leather Purse (level 15)
- At level 15, with STR/DEX stats of 67/20: 13 - 107
- At level 20, with STR/DEX stats of 92/20: 15 - 144

Using Navi's 2*level-DEX build:

Reasonably best gear in this case is a perfect 34 att Aqua Snowboard (level 12)
- At level 15, with STR/DEX stats of 57/30: 15 - 107
- At level 20, with STR/DEX stats of 72/40: 20 - 136

Using store bought gear of a 34 att Leather Purse (level 15)
- At level 15, with STR/DEX stats of 57/30: 15 - 95
- At level 20, with STR/DEX stats of 72/40: 20 - 121

The damage difference isn't that great yet, so don't worry if you cannot find/afford a perfect Aqua Snowboard. Your Henesys Leather Purse will do fine.

Levelling by Horns / Leeching

People have asked me if i levelled by purchasing solid horns and exchanging them with Staff Sergeant Charlie at Orbis, or whether i leeched from friends to get to my level. Well, it is possible, but i don't do it, as it squashes the fun of training a beginner. However, no one can stop you from doing so if you wish.

Remember, beginners can start parties and join parties and they can join party quests as well (more on that later). Leeching is quite automatic; just use another account and another character, leave your beginner to afk at a safe spot in a place with a good spawn of similar levelled creatures, and hunt away. It takes the fun from training your beginner, but who would stop you doing that?

Horns is an interesting issue. For every 100 horns you exchange with Staff Sergeant Charlie, you get +500exp and a bunch of crap items.

Assuming we spend 5K to purchase the horns (at 50 mesos each), to exchange for 500 exp, we spend a total of 10 mesos per 1 point of exp. Using a spreadsheet, i made a table of how much mesos you need to invest if you wish to level by trading horns all the way, using the assumptions above and considering you start exchange quest at level 15, and i don't include the price of taking the boat ride to Ossyria (MapleGlobal and MapleSEA have different boat ride prices). I won't paste the whole table here; it's far too large, but i'll put some of the results here.

From level 15:

To reach level 20: total of around 573K spent
To reach level 25: total of around 2m 5298K spent
To reach level 30: total of around 5m 283K spent
To reach level 35: total of around 11m 495K spent
To reach level 40: total of around 22m 423K spent
To reach level 45: total of around 40m 371K spent
To reach level 50: total of around 68m 313K spent

Now to reach level 70 from level 15 through pure horn trading, you need around:
- 315,249,560 mesos

Level 100:
- 1,804,347,790 mesos

Level 120:
- 5,361,402,430 mesos

And that's all in my assumptions of 10 mesos per exp. It could be quite a bit less if you manage to sell your items that you gain from the exchange quest. If you're good at it i would think it takes about 30%-40% off your money spent. It could be more if the market price of horns increase.

Of course, if you have another multi-million meso character and you wish to kick start your beginner, you can invest 5 million plus mesos to push a level 15 beginner to level 30, then a few more million to purchase good gear for your beginner to continue levelling up. Or IF Maroon Mop is ever released, you can push your beginner to level 36 (a total of 13 million plus), purchase a Blue Mop for whatever the market price is (possibly many millions), and continue leveling away. It takes away a lot of the fun on training beginners, but here's just an illustration of what you can do with lots of mesos.

Back to real life: if you don't have that kind of mesos or that kind of nice people to let you leech from, you will have to level by yourself. Don't worry, it doesn't get that difficult yet.


6. Level 20 to 29

Things start to get difficult at the 20s. Many beginner wannabes quit here, though the more resiliant ones reach the 30s before dying off. Don't quit! With the right mindset, you may find levels 20 to 29 a good deal of fun and diversity.

Equipment

Weapon/Shield

Assuming you don't have a Frozen Tuna (MapleSEA, Gachapon prize reward), read the below. If you have the tuna though, use it at all costs. It's 80+ watt at level 20! Who cares if it's slower attack speed

If your financial status is not fantastic, get a Hand Briefcase at level 20 from Henesys at the cost of 12K. At 39 watt it will easily outdo the damage by whichever weapon you are using prior to it. But if you are rich enough get a high watt Fish Spear. At an average of 42 watt (max of 47), with additions to speed and accuracy, you cannot go wrong here.

Compared to the Fish Spear, a Silver Snowboard doesn't seem too good, as it's the same watt without the stat modifiers, with a level 24 requirement. But if you don't intend to get a Fish Spear and you reach level 25, you can always turn to Henesys again for their excellent blunt weapons. You can purchase a Plunger there, 44 watt at level 25 for 20K mesos. Plungers are pretty common drops for some monsters, so perhaps you can ask around for an above average plunger if you do choose to go the one-handed weapon route. I have a 48 watt plunger with me, and i bought it from a friend who managed to get one drop from Jr. Lioners, so it's entirely possible to find such things.

Alternative weapons include the Red Flowery Tube, which is good for some speed boost but has only 40 watt and is probably expensive since it's limited edition. Also, for MapleSEA players, if you complete Utah's quest, you may get Utah's Pig Manual. It's very fast attack speed for 42 watt, with 10 extra accuracy to top it off. I don't think you need to use this, however, because i would think the extra damage from the other weapons i recommend will cover the advantages of the Manual. Besides, you won't really need the extra accuracy if you follow my AP guide later.

There’re interesting selections from the MapleSEA Gachapon as well. At level 20, there’s Bamboo Spear (ave watt 43 spear), and at level 25, there’s Bamboo Sword (ave watt 43 1H sword) and Light Purple Umbrella (ave watt 41 1H sword). Of these, Bamboo Spear is a good substitute for Fish Spear, even though it may be a little pricy.

And if you're using a one-handed weapon, shield choice should be obvious. If you have a Pan Lid, use it. if you don't, continue with your Stolen Fence. Don't purposely purchase a Pan Lid if you don't have it and if you're not that well supported financially, because you will need the mesos later. If you get one to drop, however, that would be a different story. In MapleGlobal event and MapleSEA Gachapon, you can also get the Maple Shield, with 10 wdef and mdef, +1 avoid and 10 slots. That’s likely to be extremely expensive though.

Headgear: Level 25 will be the time where you change your headgear (unless you are using a previously mentioned Red or Blue Maple Bandana), and this headgear will stay for a very very long time, possibly forever. Personally i recommend a Green Bamboo Hat, because it adds 3 points of DEX. You may choose a Blue Bamboo Hat for 3 points of STR, but it's really up to you. I choose DEX because i want to add as few points of DEX as possible to my AP so that i can buff it up with all my DEX equips later. Purchase the hat by asking around the Kerning Party QUest people, because it's a common party quest reward for the paticipants. Anyway, I won't recommend a Starry Bandana though, because 3 extra points of defence doesn't cover the obvious AP benefits. For MapleSEA players, a Ribboned Pig Headband from Mrs. Ming Ming's quest may be good for the extra 50 HP they give, since we know how pathetic the HP for beginners are. Ultimately though, I decided stat points are more important, but i kept the headband for decorative purposes and do jump quests with, since the bamboo hat gets in the way for jump quests. Your next possible headgear change is at level 42, the elusive and expensive Bone Helm

Top: No change. Keep your level 11 top on you until level 30.

Bottom: For males, there is an equipment change at level 26. You can purchase Camo Pants at Henesys for 14K mesos. For females though, keep your jeans on until level 30.

Shoes: You can get your Dorothy Shoes at level 21 (10K from Lith Harbour) or your WhiteBottom SHoes at level 26 (15K from Henesys). it's entirely up to your financial status to decide if you wish to purchase these shoes or not, but i would recommend the WhiteBottom shoes for a slight addition to speed they have.

Glove: Any change in your Work Glove will be by scrolling, so glove considerations would be in the scrolling section in the future.

Cape: The very important level 25 quest of Niora Hospital will give you an Old Raggedy Cape with +10 avoidability, which will be very useful for you. The next cape upgrade will be at level 42

Earring: If you don't intend to buy any earrings but want to wear one for the looks, just complete the Leaf Earring quest, which gives you 2 mdef in addition to some MP which you don't need at all. Wait, you probably still need to buy Weight Earrings to complete that quest. The other earring quest is Alex's quest. Just wear whatever he gives you... mdef does not really concern you right now.

Scrolling Considerations

Having discussed about equipment up to level 29, we can now properly start on equipment scrolling.

You can consider scrolling your Green (or Blue) Bamboo Hat, or whatever level 25 hat you are wearing, because you are staying with it for a very long time. If you have a reasonable financial support character, it would be good to scroll your headgear with 7 100% scrolls. They cost 35K each and 7 would cost you 245K.

You have a choice of 100% Helmet Def scroll or Helmet HP scroll, the former adding 1 wdef and the latter adding 5 to MaxHP. I chose wdef, but if 35 more HP appeals to you more than 7 wdef you can choose the latter.

If you are rich enough, you can buy your own 10%s and 60%s to try. After all, the hats aren't expensive, even if the scrolls may be. Nobody else scrolls Bamboo Hats, by the way, so you shouldn't hope to buy a ready made one from elsewhere. And do tell me if you manage to get a +210 HP Green Bamboo Hat

You can also start scrolling your glove too. If you are filthy rich and is sure you want lots and lots of damage, go for high attack gloves. They are readily available in the market for many many many millions. If you are reasonably rich but not rich enough for attack gloves, dex gloves are a good alternative too, and that's what i'm using. Dex gloves mainly add to your accuracy, so that you do not have to spend too many points of AP on DEX. If it's well scrolled with 10%s and 60%s, you can get some points of DEX and avoidability out of it too.

So if you do have quite a lot of money, purchase or scroll a good dex glove and stay with it. From there on, since you have your added accuracy and DEX, you can make wiser AP considerations as you level. But if you are unsupported, leave the glove scrolling to later. If you plan to keep your DEX as low as possible, however, you can purchase 100% glove dex scrolls from your local scroll dealer to add a total of 5 accuracy points from your glove (and that's 35K each again, 5 scrolls being a total of 175K). 5 accuracy points is not a lot, but it saves you 6 points of DEX from AP compared to if you decide never to use dex scrolls on your glove.

Hunting Grounds and Associated Monsters

At level 20s, there are quite a few monsters that you can now consider hunting, because they give you a fast rate of experience and with not too much potion cost.

Pig Beach: Superb for fast levelling. The Pigs and Ribbon Pig spawn fast enough for you, and you can stay here to hunt to gather quest items as well. Or even gold ores for the money. In fact, you can stay here throughout the 20s and possibly even the early 30s, if you have the patience, because that's where the rate of experience these pigs give start to drop immensely.

Dungeon: Damp Forest: Look in hidden-street.net if you don't know where this is. Avoid the Jr Neckis, but if you want your Octopus legs and your Octopus levelling, this is the place to be at. Octopuses are quite fun to fight with, if you have the potions for them, because your HP will go down quite quickly here. And besides, you do need those octopus legs for quests, and also to sell to others once you finish your quest.

Tree Dungeon, Forest Up North VI and Tree Dungeon, Southern Forest II & III: As mentioned previously. Now, you'll be really comfortable with Green Mushrooms, so kill as many and as long as you can for a chance of an elusive Pan Lid. That's potentially the fastest way for you to leave your life of poverty.

Subway Line 1: I'm not that sure about Bubblings in the 20s. They seem a little too fast, and of course the 10 avoidability is going to be quite a pain in the ass, unless you're following the X2 DEX formula. However, fellow beginners have reported a lot of fun and amusement hunting these creatures in the late 20s and early 30s, so you'll do well to heed their advice.

Blue Mushroom Forest: Again I'm not sure with these guys. They're cute, and they drop gold too, along with the blue mushroom caps that you need for your quests or to sell to noobs who don't know about the existance of blue mushroom forest. They are quite fast, and they're painful to fight too, so i won't really recommend them.

Rocky Mountains: I'm referring to East and West Rocky Mountain maps. The gathering of a large number of light and dark stumps and axe stumps are good for levelling (although the levelling speed itself isn't fast), and i do come here if i'm bored with Pig Beach or Green Mushroom Tree Dungeon. Just remember not to go too high East Rocky Mountains, because either the Fire Boars or Copper Drakes will eat you alive.

Orbis Tower, 20th to 18th floor: Jr Sentinals are really interesting. You need to pay your boat fee to Ossyria first, and once you're in Ossyria you can only stay on these guys because they are the only guys you can hope to touch at your lowly level. They are slow, does the same amount of damage as a Ribbon Pig, give 40 exp, and stay in small groups. Seriously worth considering, even though they have some weapon defence and relatively high HP at 600. If you're not at MapleSEA with the exhorbitant boat ride, you can travel to Orbis Tower if you are sick of Victoria and start cracking these stoneballs. Also worth considering if you are going to exchange horns to help level (read 4vii for more information of horns exchange). Make sure you have the appropriate accuracy first though, as mentioned in the section below.

AP and Accuracy Concerns

Bottomline, i recommend at least enough accuracy to hit monsters with 10 avoidability, because that opens up monsters like Bubblings, Evil Eyes and Fire Boars, which you will face in the late 20s to the 30s. That would mean an accuracy of 36. So add your points to DEX to bring your accuracy up to this point, while keeping in mind the accuracy or DEX adding equipments you may want to wear in the 20s and onwards.

So i would recommend having the following stats at level 30: 120 STR, 42 DEX, 4 INT and LUK (also known as "my recommended build"). Coupled with a Green Bamboo Hat / Fish Spear / Utah's Pig Manual / Dex Work Glove, that will give you more than enough accuracy to hit your 10 avoid monsters. If your equipment stat modifiers are large enough (to bring accuracy up to 44) you can even hit 12 avoid monsters, which is essentially Ligators. Of course, if you adopt different AP adding techniques, such as Navi's 2*level-DEX build, you'll end up with 102 STR, 60 DEX, 4 INT and LUK, which isn't too bad, since 60 base DEX is something you may want to get eventually. But it may not be as wise to continue with 2*level DEX after level 30, as we'll see.

If you are a low DEX wannabe, you can cap your DEX at as low as 30 or 40. In that case make sure you have a lot of money, and get your scrolled DEX items ASAP. Things you can scroll to improve your accuracy or DEX includes overalls (level 30), gloves, shoes and cape.

Damage Comparisons

Let us test out two AP builds with two different weapons at two different levels. The builds we have in mind are my recommended build and 2*level-DEX build (we will assume, at level 25, the different builds will have 106/31 and 87/50 STR/DEX and at level 30, the different builds will have 120/42 and 102/60 STR/DEX respectively). For weapons we have an uber 47 watt Fish Spear VS the humble Henesys-made 44 watt Plunger.

My recommended build with 47watt Fish Spear:
- At level 25: 28 - 263
- At level 30: 34 - 301

My recommended build with 44watt Plunger:
- At level 25: 27 - 218
- At level 30: 33 - 250

2*level-DEX build with 47watt Fish Spear:
- At level 25: 34 - 227
- At level 30: 41 - 267

2*level-DEX build with 44watt Plunger:
- At level 25: 33 - 190
- At level 30: 39 - 223

Don't take the damage values for the Fish Spear too seriously though, i doubt you'll get a perfect one anywhere. But it does show you can hit 300 damage at level 30 even with a logical AP build

Kerning City Party Quest?

Yes, beginners can do party quest. Yes, if you follow 2*level-DEX build you'll be able to hit the Slime King pretty well near level 30, even though your damage isn't anything to wow at. You might have trouble getting a party though; most people won't want a beginner to do party questing with since the beginner might be perceived as a handicap to, say, a mage or something.

I didn't level on party quest though, but many other beginners do. Read the Q&A for some exclusive beginner advice for Kerning City PQ.


7. Level 30 to 39

Here's where most beginners quit playing, and that's because the damage gap between the beginner and every other class starts to widen greatly especially when the others get their 2nd job advancement. This means that you can only level at a fraction of a rate of the others (especially when compared to mages). When you think of quitting though, just remember that you don't lose experience when you die. Once you hit the monster the experience is there for you, for good. Hopefully that's enough motivation for you to keep going on.

Equipment

Weapon / Shield

If you are in MapleSEA, you should by hook or by crook lay your hands on a Sake Bottle, level 30 beginner only weapon with ave watt 100. It is by far the best thing you can use right now. If you do so, you can ignore everything else in this section.

An interesting weapon to take note of at level 30 is the Aluminium Baseball Bat (ave watt 48, max watt 53). These things, especially the above average ones, do not come cheap. I would think it sells for a few hundred thousand mesos. If you have the money (after spending on sauna robe and related scrollings), i would still try to purchase this from someone though. I had one of these, fully scrolled with 100%s, and that was just before Golden Snowboards came out. And that's at level 36. With an average watt of 54 and a max watt of 59, this item is quite a must get, because you would probably stay with it until level 48.

If you wish to skip Aluminium Baseball Bat, though, you could stay with your Plunger / Fish Spear until level 36 before changing your equipment. If you like one-handed weapons, take a good look at the Red Whip and Korean Fan when you get to level 35. Red Whip has average watt of 48 and max watt 53, and an average of +15 speed. If you would compensate raw weapon damage for some significant movement speed, and you have the mesos to burn, get it. Korean Fan has average watt 50 and max watt 55, and an average of +5 avoidability and +5 accuracy. All the stats are welcomed, but i feel the raw damage of Golden Snowboard still surpasses this weapon. Even with a good shield thrown in the equation. It's your choice.

There are some interesting weapon additions via MapleSEA Gachapon. At level 30, there is the Brush (ave watt 48, hp +30 1H axe) and the Frying Pan (ave watt 49 1H BW), and at level 35, there is one common class Maple weapons that are also available via limited edition drops in MapleGlobal. The Maple Sword is a one handed sword with ave watt 48 with +20 accuracy. The watt is quite weak, especially since it’s a one handed weapon, but the accuracy is real cool, and will help low DEX beginners by a great deal.

Palatte, the level 30 common shield, is also out on MapleSEA via Gachapon. If you have the money and you're playing one-handed, get it. You don't need any LUK points though, so you can purchase cheaper Palattes without any consideration for the LUK additions of it (from 0 to 2)

Headgear: No change here. Keep your hideous Bamboo Hat on. (Apparently there is a level 35 hat you get as a quest reward from Ludibrium, but that hat only adds to wdef and mdef, the quest cannot be done by beginners, and worst of all the hat cannot be traded. Keep the Bamboo Hat on for the 3 more stat points)

Overall: No more tops and bottoms once we reach level 30. Change to a Blue Sauna Robe (or red, if you are playing a female character), and this probably be permanent, so no more overall category for the subsequent section either. At 30 def and +10 avoidability, who doesn't want this Sadly, beginners can't do the sauna robe quest from Jack at the VIP sauna room, so you will have to buy this from someone. The scrolling guide below will tell you what to do with this after you get it.

Shoes: At level 31, there's Sneakers available. You can either buy them from Henesys, or get them from completing the whole of Nella's quests. But of course, I recommend staying with the level 26 whitebottom shoes, because for 3 defence less you get 3 points of speed, which is a good bargain actually. Whichever shoe you choose, that will be the final shoe you're ever going to get to wear, so not more shoe category subsequently either.

Cape: No change here either; they're not going to release level 30+ capes anytime soon, i guess.

Earring: You might want to change to a good pair of Lightning / Emerald / Star Earrings at level 30 and Sapphire Earrings at level 35. Since they drop from party quest, they won't be too expensive for you. But mdef is relatively useless for you at this point, so i'll suggest keep this equipment upgrade until you fulfilled the basic needs of your other equipments and scrolling.

Scrolling Considerations

In my opinion, the most important thing to scroll once you reach level 30 is your Sauna Robe. You could either scroll it up with def or DEX, but it is fairly obvious that DEX is going to be much better for your beginner. So if you're unsupported but have 350K after buying your sauna robe, which you should have if you are careful on your mesos right from the start, scroll it fully with 10 100% DEX scrolls, which you can buy from Toolcas, one of your local friendly scroll dealers at Kerning City Swamp. If you choose to go def though, you can get your 100% scrolls from Barn at Ossyria, Orbis Tower. 10 100% DEX scrolls gives you an immediate +10 to your DEX, increasing your accuracy by 8 points and your minimum damage by a number of points too, so you can see how important this is.

If you are supported, you can look out for well-DEX-scrolled Sauna Robes. People do scroll these kinds of things, and some do it very well. Try to get at least one with 2 10%s working, because 10%s add 3 accuracy and 1 speed in addition to the 5 dex it's supposed to add. You have 6 more points of accuracy and 2 more points of speed if you compare a 10 100% to a 2 10% sauna robe. These will probably cost you a few million, but if you're supported, this is one of the best investments you can make for your beginner. If you are gung-ho enough, you can buy Sauna Robes and 10% overall scrolls and do it yourself. You can end up with a 3 or 4 10%s working on a single robe, in which case keep at all costs :)

The next thing you should scroll, if you have the mesos, is your level 35 or 36 weapon (be it the Korean Fan, Red Whip or Golden Snowboard or Maple Sword or Sake Bottle), whichever you decide to stay with for a long time. Your next weapon upgrade is at the late 40s (or never at all, if you are a Bottle user, until Maroon Mop comes out), so you'll be stuck with this weapon and really tedious levelling for a long time, so the least you can do for yourself is to give yourself 7 permanent weapon attack points. If you think it's a good idea and have 490K to burn, get 7 100% scrolls of the correct type from Toolcas or Barn and scroll away. Do remember that Korean Fan is a daggar, Red Whip is a one-handed sword, and Golden Snowboard is a polearm, so don't get the wrong scroll. I don't really recommend blasting your money on 10%s and 60%s on these though (unless it is a Sake Bottle, in which case you can spam it with 60%s), it's quite very expensive for not too much benefit :S

And since you are not going to change your shoes anymore, you can scroll them as well. There are three different type of shoe scrolls, and if you are unsupported, you'll most likely just plonk down 5 100%s on a shoe. Between avoidability, speed, and jump, i chose +5 avoidability. I suppose you can mix-and-match if you really want to (+1 avoid, +2 speed and +2 jump, LOL), but i feel avoidability is the best stat to add out of the three. You could, of course, scroll another shoe with speed for travelling purposes and another one with jump to fight certain monsters who are a little tall or long (i would think it works well with Wraiths and Crocos, but you don't need this until level 50+).

When you are rich enough to do 10% scrolling for shoes, you can try either 10% DEX for +5 avoidability, +3 accuracy and +1 speed or 10% jump for +5 jump (which is quite a lot), +3 DEX and +1 speed. Both sound good, so once again you can make your own decisions on this. 10% shoes add only 3 speed, so don't bother. When you manage to get a 10% to work, fill the other slots with 60%s of either DEX or jump, where jump gives +1 DEX with the +2 jump, while DEX gives +2 avoidability with +1 accuracy. More on this on the very next section.

Of course, you should play around with all these, together with hat and glove scrolling mentioned earlier. And you can carry all the advice given all the way after level 30.

Equipment Scrolling Builds for Beginner

Level 30 may be a little early to bring this up, and by right this should be in the level 40+ section, but i'm bringing this up early so that it will keep your eyes open on what equipment you should use and how you decide to scroll your equipment in the future. By the way, this is a concept i came up with myself :)

A jump beginner is one who tries to obtain as many points of jump as possible so that he can make use of it during his fighting to help him. Remember, beginners have only two skills, and other than attack, the other skill is jump. As for jump, you can have a maximum of 123% of it, which means 23 points of jump. And you can obtain that with a wise choice of equipment and cool scrolling. Icarus Cape III (+5 jump), Bone Helm (+5 jump), and a reasonably perfectly scrolled jump shoes with 1 10% and 4 60% (5+2+2+2+2=+13 jump), and there you have +23 jump. The former two items can only be worn at level 42. As for the jump shoes, good luck with trying to get them, heh.

As you can obviously see, the main barrier for jump beginners is cost, especially since the Bone Helm quest is not easy to do as well (for one, you have to hunt hundreds or thousands of Nependeaths to get the honey). I have never tested how well beginners work with more jump, but i would think that with some skill, you can use your new-found jump ability to help you hunt difficult higher level monsters who have large or long bodies, like Wraiths, Crocos and Drakes. I must emphasize that I have never tried jump beginners before, so go down this route at your own risk. Should be quite fun though.

An avoid beginner is one who has as many points of avoidability as possible. You can already have 25 extra points of avoidability by level 30, if you wear the sauna robe, old raggardy cape and scroll your damn shoes. If you get to level 42 and change to Icarus Cape I (+15 avoidability), and scroll your damn shoes perfectly (+13 avoidability), together with your sauna robe (+10 avoiability) that will be a cool 38 extra points of avoidability in total. You can also afford to put more DEX, or have even better scrollings to your sauna robe and cape and gloves, as every 4 DEX gives 1 avoidability. But, as usual, i don't advise adding too much more DEX than you need because it is at the expense of STR which gives you the bulk of your damage.

I have no official statistics of how much this extra avoidability is going to help reduce hits, and thus damage. But i can tell you this would save you a lot of pots and effort, no matter whether you jump into a swamp of monsters or fight against large, singular monsters who dish out a lot of damage on every touch. Again, this is not really tested, but i'm quite sure 38 more points of avoidability will go a very long way, especially since your weapon defence is going to be terribly low.

A speed beginner has his main focus on speed, which is a good thing, since you will be able to max your speed with a proper assortment of equipments together with the usage of speed pills. And maximum speed is a desirable trait since it makes movement so much easier and less tedious. With a Bone Helm (+8 speed), Icarus Cape 2 (+10 speed) and speed pills (+10 speed), you already have +28 speed. The remaining 12 points will come from shoe scrolling (recommended with WhiteBottoms, since they already have +3 speed) and 10%s working on Sauna Robes (+1 speed for each 10% working). You can even get some points of jump from those shoes, giving you around 9 to 10 jump in total. This can be very useful for avoiding monsters and skipping platforms as well.

A weapon defence beginner is very different from these three previously mentioned beginners. Very simply, the focus is on weapon defence. Bone Helm scrolled with defence, higher levelled capes scrolled with defence, using a top and bottom scrolled with defence (that's 14 slots of defence for top and bottom!), and a good shield scrolled with defence. And if you're from MapleGlobal, accompany all that defence with Pain Relievers! They add 30 wdef for 30 mins, and are obviously a good levelling asset for the slightly wealthy beginner.

The main disadvantage to this build is that you compromise DEX from your overall and speed/jump from your shoes and cape. Compromising DEX means you will need to top it up with AP points in DEX, meanign less STR, meaning lower damages. And if you are using a shield, one handed weapons will mean even lower damages. Consider properly if you should decide on this build. Of course, to maximize the benefits on this build, try to level on creatues whose damages are not very high, because a reduction of 50 damage to 5 is obviously a much better percentage damage reduction than that of 300 to 255.

A HP beginner is as much an oxymoron as a defence beginner; beginners are traditionally not known to have either high defence or HP at all. But HP beginners can be good in their own way. Other than the obvious advantage of easier training (even though you don't lose exp on death), there is also the hope among all beginners that they can eventually get a Zakum Helm. If somehow you are able to provide enough HP and defence to tolerate a hit from Zakum or a Zakum summoned monster, you might be able to survive a Zakum party and if the party is nice enough, they may let you have the helm as a reward (yeah fat hope)

A few main equips define a HP beginner: a HP scrolled Pig Headband (which already adds 50 hp itself), a HP scrolled high defence cape, and probably a +150 HP Emergency Rescue Tube, at level 60. And at around that level, with good scrolling you may have about 1400 hp, or even more if you choose to spend AP on HP (not recommended though). Combined with elements of a defence beginner, you may be able to survive a successful Zakum experience and come out of it with a Zakum helm.


All builds have their obvious advantages, and you might want to think about it as you gradually level your beginner up.

Other Ways of Attacking

So far, you should be quite good at the normal way of attacking, which is to stand in front of the monster and hold down your attack buttom while the monster gets hit and knockback slightly backwards, while your character shift forward when necessary. This works pretty well for most monsters that you meet up to now, which means it would fail when you encounter the following:

1) Monsters with avoidability values higher than what you can hit with your current accuracy
2) Monsters which are very very fast, especially when you use a slow weapon (they will recover and move forward to hit you even before you can swing your weapon again)
3) Monsters which are tough for your level and gather in large groups
4) Monsters with high knockback values, higher than what you can constantly hit
5) Monsters with special, often magical, attacks

Point 1 can be easily avoided if you have diligently added your DEX points according to which monster you would like to fight around your level. Still, in maps like Curse Eyes or Evil Eyes, there'll be maps with the occasional bunch of Fierries and Jr Boogies with very high avoidabilities. So if you want to hunt in those maps with these high avoidability monsters, make sure you either have someone else in the map who can easily kill that creature, or you can go kill it yourself if your chance of hitting it is around 50% or more, because otherwise it can get really really irritating.

I actually havent had too many problems with point 2 as of now. But it could happen if you are using a short ranged one handed weapon, with it being normal speed or slower, and the monster you are talking about is something like a Lorang or even faster. For this, you could hit it a few times, then quickly leap over it, turn around while it runs in the opposite direction, and repeat. It works, and if you're good at it, it works very well. And this is one good reason to be a jump beginner.

Point 3 is something you will meet pretty often, and it is one good reason to be a avoid beginner this time round. For this, there are certain unorthodox ways to get around it, like find places to snipe the monsters (snipe is defined here as being able to hit the monster without the monster being able to hit you), sometimes across platforms or on uneven separation on the same platform itself (you might not understand what this means, but get to the level 50 section and i may explain more about it). Or try to draw a monster out, kill it singularly before going back in to draw another one out. Or jump into the mess and try to aim one monster at a time while performing frequent jumps to avoid getting touched by the other monsters. All of these work to varying degrees, so take your pick and try them out.

As for Point 4, if the monster is very slow and large, like Stone Golems, there's actually a good way to hunt them. I call it Reverse Knockback. It basically goes like this: hit the monster a number of times until it gets very close to you (since it's not going to get knockback-ed frequently as well), jump backwards, while turning forward ASAP to swing your weapon towards it, and repeat when he gets close enough again. For Stone Golems you can get anything from 2 to 6 hits before jumping backwards, and you won't get hit by him if you are skilful enough. and i call it reverse knockback because it looks like you are getting knocked-back yourself.

If the monster is jump-over-able, like Crocos, you can hit it a few times (depending on whether it gets knockbacked anot), jump over it, turn around and hit it, and repeat, a little like how you handle monsters from point 2, except this works more often if the monster is slow enough. I tried it on Wraiths and it works sometimes, but having good points of jump will help you jump over the Wraith much more frequently, as is with Crocos.

Finally, regarding point 5. Try not to have anything to do with them until you can kill them quickly, because they are pretty beginner-unfriendly to deal with. Once they start their magical attacks, you will be knocked back and out of range to attack them, while they continue throwing shit at you. If you do have to hunt them, try to be able to overpower them quickly. Or have your back towards a wall so that even when they throw something at you, you can continue hacking them as you don't get flung back at all. For monsters like Star Pixies with the slow bolt, there's a proper technique to avoid getting hit by the projectiles all the time, but it takes alot of practice... try it out!

Hunting Grounds and Associated Monsters

For the early part of level 30s, you can in fact still hunt some of the ones recommended for level 20s. But let's look at some of the other options you have now.

Bubbling Subway: Late 20s to early 30s would be a good time with these guys. You have a chance of 1HKO-ing them, and according to many beginners these guys are real fun to hunt. And they drop Fish Spear!

The whole Ant Tunnel Stretch: At level 30+ the horny and zombie mushrooms, with the odd evil eye, will be quite standard and consistant levelling material, giving a fair amount of exp, mesos and drops. Going a bit deeper down will ensure that you have a place for yourself in one of those maps down there. You could even hang out deeper inside Ant Tunnel and repot using the 24-hour mobile store. Oh, and you know that beginners only need 1K to take the VIP taxi right?

Land of Wild Boar I or II: Around the mid 30s, swamps of wild boars should already be quite managable, even though you may need quite a lot of pots. Wild Boar I has more boars but is more crowded, Wild Boar II has less boars and is less crowded. Take your pick.

Evil Eye Caves: Around mid 30s to late 30s, you can start hunting at the evil eye caves, although you would need a numbers of pots too. These guys are where i got my best drop (59 att Golden Snowboard, but it's not available anymore, heh), so i do remember them pretty fondly.

The Burnt Land: I started hunting Fire Boars at late 30s. They are solid levelling material for beginners and they give lots of mesos, even though the item drops aren't very spectacular. You can either stay here (or evil eyes) all the way to level 40 and a little beyond, or you can pick the ossyria route and choose one of the two levelling areas below.

Orbis Tower, levels 7 to 3: Leatties and Dark Leatties are slow, small, and gather in fairly large clumps, making them comfortable levelling material and good experience sources. The meso and item drops may not be too good, but dark leatties do drop the Blue Moon Earrings, something which you can either wear at level 40 or sell off for some good mesos.

Garden of 3 Colours: Jr K