A Guide to Marksman or How To Shoot Slowly and Accurately

A Guide to Marksman or How To Shoot Slowly and Accurately

Guide in 'Archer' published by Babble, Jun 25, 2018.

It's a guide on how to play Marksman from someone who's been playing Marksman for a good 7+ years and just 250'd on it. Take a look, it's not in a book, some font may be rainbow.

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      What Marksman is about:
      ​
      You picked this up or you're reading this because you're confused whether or not you want to make a Marksman. Or you're inebriated and on a Maplestory guide site for some reason. Marksman is a ranged character in the Explorer faction that attacks fairly slowly but hits large lines with a deflated range. Please refer to the other tabs in this guide for information pertaining to that section.What you'll find in the following section is information about the class:
      1. Pros, cons, do it or or don't
      2. Inner Ability
      3. Link Skills
      4. How each job plays out
      5. Hyper ap/sp/skill distribution
      6. Node guide

      Do it or don’t?
      ​
      Pros
      • SPLIT SHOT IS A FAIR AND LEGITIMATE FMA THAT’S UP 50% OF THE TIME
      • Don’t need to cube for PDR, ever.
      • Hookshot, hookshot everywhere.
      • Thicc lines for minimal investment.
      • Edgy puppet for aggroing when you’re 1v1ing bosses.
      • Cheese bosses by outranging most of their attacks.
      • Lie down and take some shots at the boss every 3 minutes with your MLG clicking.
      • Everything gives you crit and crit damage.
      • SPLIT SHOT IS A FAIR AND LEGITIMATE FMA THAT’S UP 50% OF THE TIME
      • After 200 just find a nice map and you can effectively become a turret on crack 50% of the time.
      • Phantoms want your 150 hyper.
      • No mechanics involved except for knowing how far your attacks can and can’t hit.
      • Everyone wants SE. Except the 3 other people that play archers.
      • SPLIT SHOT IS A FAIR AND LEGITIMATE FMA THAT’S UP 50% OF THE TIME

      What are these? Pros? Cons?
      • Deflated range, you’re literally half the range of everyone else with the same gear. Damage output is still up there though so you can go hehexd at your friends.
      • No one plays mm, free dojo gloves.
      • Every animation is a bow. No crossbows, just a bow. You’re a bowman after all.

      Cons:
      • You attack slowly.
      • You don’t actually have lines until way later and even then, not a heck of a lot. You'll learn to hate events with line-based bosses.
      • You attack real slowly.
      • You ain’t mobbing until after 200.
      • Any boss with 3+ mobs/bodies at the same time will have you crying.
      • You attack slow enough that you’ll never hit speed cap. Ever. Unless you have bishop/bucc/really good rng re: Queen Soul (Don't do magnificient).
      • If the boss wants to come hug you you lose damage for letting him do so and you lose damage re-positioning yourself.
      • Your first job is shit, mobbing is ass but hey, double-jump.
      • Your second job is shit, but hey booster, soul arrow, and rangefinder are a relevant buff. Also final attack actually won’t hit anything. Ever.
      • Your third job is shit, exploding goes nowhere, Articuno is garbage but hey, hookshot! Everywhere! To your arrow that you won’t get until 40 levels later! To the mob! Into a 1hko!
      • Your fourth job is shit, piercing arrow means the first 2 mobs won’t die but the other ones will take excessive amounts of damage. Snipe nerf means you don’t get free exp to 200.
      • Your MLG clicking is ping-reliant.
      • PEOPLE GET ANGRY BECAUSE SPLIT SHOT IS A FAIR AND LEGITIMATE FMA THAT’S UP 50% OF THE TIME
      • If you haven't gotten the fact your attacks are slow at this point then Marksman matches you well.

      THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER IS YOUR RANGE
      Credits to Snek, please click this      ​

      Inner Ability:
      First line: +1 att speed. No tradeoffs ever.
      Second and third line: Att and Boss if you can. Buff Duration is also okay. Item drop is dead, and every other line is actually garbage. Unless you want meso gain because you couldn’t be bothered to make a Kanna in Reboot.

      Why attack speed? Because as Marksman the only way you're touching hard cap is with real SI or another attack speed modifier (Kanna reallytallFMA, Bishop Benediction Crimson Queen RNG non-mag Queen buff, etc). Crossbows are naturally 6 speed, booster drops it to 4, dSI and inner to 2, green to 1.

      Link Skills in order of importance:

      Character Name What it does for you
      Demon Avenger/Kanna %damage is good, we don't get a lot in our kit so anything that gives more always helps.
      Hayato Flat damage and flat attack? Yes please.
      Phantom Extra crit means more crits and since we have a ton of %crit damage, well. More damage.
      Beast Tamer Crit rate, survivability, boss damage. Yes, good stuff.
      Kinesis Extra crit damage, crit damage crit damage crit damage.
      Xenon More free stats is good. Very good.
      Zero Damage reduction, IED. Mainly the reduction for grinding.
      Luminous IED is good. Always.
      Mihile We naturally have 0% stance, with a 140+ mech and a good buff duration line (35%+) as well as L100 Empathy, it's almost 100% up-time at L2. (God help you if you go for 210 with Mihile).
      If in Reboot and Zero isn't available Angelic for Perfect shot boosting, Shade/Cygnus/Jett if you're crazy
      Alternatives Evan/Mercedes instead of Luminous/Zero for grinding.


      Beginner:
      Everyone gets the same shit, everyone hits stumps for 10 minutes and then takes a boat after fighting a snail that wants his goddamned pre-launch crumpets on the cruise. Enjoy a YouTube video in-game. Warning: It's LOUD.

      ABOUT SKILLS:
      You'll want to do passives, then buffs, then attacks. 1 into everything is a GOOD start.      ​


      First job:
      You can jump! Congratulations! So can everyone else! Shoot green bolts everywhere! The mobbing is wonky, you’ll experience the same in third job down the line unless you go Bowmaster to 200.


      JOB ADVANCEMENT:
      You’re at Golems, where you’ve (probably) been for the past 20 levels anyways. Get some ball bearings and go party hard in second job.


      Second job:
      Welcome to Rangefinder! Here’s where you’ll do one of two things:
      • A: Staying the hell away from mobs and shoot because you need the damage.
      • B: You’re a lazy with apples and training gear that you’re hitting 500k+ per line and you won’t learn how to use Rangefinder until like 200+.
      Rangefinder: [​IMG]
      [​IMG]
      I like this info-graphic so you'll see it a lot (credits to Snek). Rangefinder is a core Marksman mechanic, enabling us to do massive amounts of damage far away and giving us ied/whatever you want to name it up close.In the line with the black 0, the pink ones left of the 0 are the values for how much final damage % you gain based on distance, the yellow numbers indicate ied/your-term-here. Innately Marksman has a ton of ied/aylmaor built into their skills/passives so you won't need to cube for it as much or worry about optimising your additional sources for it. The bottom line is for a future skill you'll be seeing.

      JOB ADVANCEMENT:
      Go to El Nath, find The Big House, talk to a rock, kill a clone, walk out. Yeah, that made sense didn’t it?


      Third job:
      You made it past second job, hooray! Enjoy a mobbing move that goes nowhere, a bird that will hit anything but the things you want to clear behind you, a dragon that does nothing or bugs mobs to fly everywhere, and pretty good buffs. Also hookshot. That toggle? You’ll press that the instant you log in every time. Aggressive Resistance is f a n t a s t i c. Repeat it out loud. F. A. N. T. A. S. T. I. C.

      JOB ADVANCEMENT:
      Find a fat dragon, a fatter bird, relieve them of their jewelry a la Robin Hood. With a crossbow.


      Fourth job:
      You’ve made it! Home stretch to the party zone and surprisingly all the skills here are worth the points.

      [​IMG]

      [​IMG] | Vital Hunter | Look at that image again, see those numbers in blue at the bottom? Keep that distance when bossing and it's 50% IED for free.

      Hyper passive points:
      • All the snipe ones.
      • +1 line and +20% damage on Piercing Arrow. +2 mobs if you’ve a consistent source of mob increase from Kishin/Frenzy/3rd party programs (sacrificing either +1 or +20% is fine).

      Hyper skill points:
      You get 1 point for every skill. C’mon.​

      Hyper ability points:
      Get ‘em up to 7 then move onto the next one. when they're all at 7, max 'em to 10
      1. Damage
      2. Crit Rate (Or until you hit 100 if not yet at 7)
      3. Crit Damage
      4. Boss Damage
      5. IED/fuckyoucvel/lotus/damien/lucid/other300%def bosses
      6. Status Resistance
      7. Dex

      JOB ADVANCEMENT:
      Okay everyone literally does the same thing here. Walk to Hene, get a portal, walk to Pantheon, kill Easy Mag unless you fucked up, then do Normal Mag (you can do Hard Magnus instead too, enjoy finding a carry). Walk to Deserted Camp, run up the tree and don’t die; Aggressive Resistance means you won’t instantly die to everything looking at you. Charge your rocks and sit around dreaming for like, 14 hours or whatever cracked number Nexon’s decided now.


      Nodes:
      • SPLIT SHOT IS A FAIR AND LEGITIMATE FMA THAT’S UP 50% OF THE TIME
      • If you’re not running Decent Speed Infusion on your gloves or a Bucc/Phant mule, dSI is fuckballsamaze.
      • Decent Combat Orders is actually good since it boosts Piercing’s mob count up by 1.
      • Erda Nova is good since Marksman don't naturally have a bind
      • Fury of the Wild is okay. Its range is its main selling point, the hitbox is similar to High Speed Shot/Big Bow but can hit above you instead of always below you.
      • SPLIT SHOT IS A FAIR AND LEGITIMATE FMA THAT’S UP 50% OF THE TIME
      • Core trinode: Snipe, Piercing, High Speed Shot/Long Range True Shot/Wow I’m using a goddamned bow to shoot 15 things in a row.
      • SPLIT SHOT IS A FAIR AND LEGITIMATE FMA THAT’S UP 50% OF THE TIME
      • Utility if you’re insane: Bird, Hookshot.
      • Why the actual fuck do you have this much money: Explosive Bolt, Dragon Breath, Iron Arrow, Final Attack, Net Toss.
      • Perfect Shot is a great 1 point wonder, you can have a window that ignores every single status (because you’re invincible) like Hilla’s Cage, Damien’s Rune proc, Lotus lasers, Lucid/Ursus bomb and shit out 70 lines. You’ve never seen lines because you play Marksman.
      • Rope Lift is a good node to have when traversing later grinding areas. Other than that, useless.
      • ULTRA SHARP EYES is a skill from an upcoming KMS patch. Get a Crit Shift ring from Oz runners/free market/auction house/Oz(haha who actually does this) and thank me later.
      • SPLIT SHOT IS A FAIR AND LEGITIMATE FMA THAT’S UP 50% OF THE TIME
      • Guiding Arrow is trash, will be trash, and most likely will still be trash after the recent KMS update.
      • Decent Bless and Decent HS are extra, very extra.
      • SPLIT SHOT IS A FAIR AND LEGITIMATE FMA THAT’S UP 50% OF THE TIME

      Levelling your nodes:

      If you're not running dSI gloves, get a dSI node and level that up enough for you to feel comfortable with the cooldown/duration blockiness.
      If you're not 1hkoing with Piercing, level that boost node ASAP.
      If you are 1hkoing with Piercing, level Split Shot to boost your grinding and bossing.
      Snipe should be on your Piercing node anyways so it's a bit redundant to talk about.
      Perfect Shot is good utility and burst damage, leaving it at 1 is fine until you've maxed the other nodes.
      EYEYOUMELOVE
      Babble, Jun 25, 2018
    2. Guide Author Babble, Find all guides by Babble

  • Build

    First job:
    Max everything, in order of:
    1 into Arrow Blow. Unless you’re a masochist that’s going to basic attack to 30.
    1 into Double Jump: Mobility mobility, and no one wants to be ksed.
    Archer Mastery, go faster, arrows go further, is good.
    Critical Shot: Rng favors you. Kinda.
    Now you can max Double Jump.

    Second job:
    1 into Iron Arrow (You’ll find that putting 1 into your new attack skill is a good thing), 1 into Crossbow Booster, 1 into Soul Arrow.
    Max Soul Arrow, more free arrows and more passive attack.
    Max Crossbow Mastery, more damage is what people like right.
    Max Iron Arrow finally.
    Max Booster (unless you have pet buff, then just leave it at 1). Leave booster at 1 until the end pretty much if you have pet buff.
    Max Physical Training, more numbers more damage.
    Max Booster if you haven’t.
    It’s between Net Toss and Final Attack. Both won’t be useful damage-wise so do whatever.

    Third job:
    1 into Explosive Bolt, 1 in Marksmanship, 1 into Reckless Hunt. Damage, good passive, your only toggle.
    1 into Aggressive Resistance, 1 into Hookshot, and 1 into Marksmanship. Mobility, tankiness, good passive.
    Max Marksmanship, yadda yadda damage and ied.
    Max Reckless Hunt, yadda yadda epeen.
    Max Aggressive Resistance, live forever so long as you shoot your bolts everywhere.
    Max Evasion Boost, passive dodge is grand. You’re a thief now!
    Max Explosive Bolt if you haven’t yet. Even if you’ve stopped using it by now.
    Max Hookshot, passive HP pool increase is good and works nicely with Aggressive Resistance.
    Max Bird or Pain Killer, bird won’t be doing much and nor will Pain Killer this early on but both have good passives.
    Dragon Breath and Mortal Blow are pretty much shit, but Mortal Blow comes with a higher proc chance with more points.

    Fourth job:
    1 into Bolt Surplus, 1 into Piercing Arrow, 1 into Crossbow Mastery. Bolt is what makes Snipe good, it makes Pierce better. Piercing is Iron Arrow on some level of bath salts compared to Explosive Bolt; you know how Mastery works, right?
    Get Maple Warrior to a level you’re comfortable, 10 is pretty reasonable.
    Max Bolt Surplus, good skill, good Rangefinder boost.
    Max Crossbow Expert, you know how this works. Please.
    Max Sharp Eyes, now you crit forever. And ever. And maybe not if you’re lacking some % crit rate.
    Max Piercing Arrow, you’ll probably need the damage at this point.
    Max Illusion Step, more dex, more dodge, and more tankiness.
    Max Snipe, you never really need Snipe this early but you probably want to go poke Zakum/Horntail with something other than Piercing at this point.
    Max Maple Warrior, grow that range.
    At this point your core’s maxed, Arrow Illusion’s hp differs per level but duration and cooldown remains the same, Hero’s you’ll use like once a day or something. Vital Hunter is extra pdr but you don’t really need it for anything much.
    Max Arrow Illusion. HP is good for it. Still doesn't do much.
    Max Hero’s Will. It's Pain Killer all over again but without a passive.
    Max Vital Hunter. You don't need IED early so just max this off last.

  • Skill Info

    First Job:
    Max everything because you have to and you want to.

    Skill Icon Skill Name What it does
    [​IMG] Archery Mastery Attacks go further, move faster when walking.
    [​IMG] Double Jump You can jump again. Mash your jump key to hop around like a maniac, jump then press you up arrow twice to get a high jump (I'll refer to this as upjump if ever in this guide), or jump then down arrow twice to have an edgy stance (I haven't ever found a use for the down jump, you're probably safe ignoring it).
    [​IMG] Arrow Blow It's either this or Three Snails to kill mobs with skills and I'm sure your basic attacks do more than Three Snails by now.
    [​IMG] Critical Shot Less rng, more damage for you.


    Second Job:
    Don't max Iron Arrow, really.

    Skill Icon Skill Name What it does
    [​IMG] Iron Arrow Shoot an arrow! In a straight line! That does damage!
    [​IMG] Net Toss Net Toss now gives you a backstep. It's clunky to use because it doesn't fluidly queue with your other skills but it'll save your life a few times. Probably.
    [​IMG] Crossbow Booster Godsend. Faster attacks means it won't be 1 attack every 3 minutes but 1 attack per minute.
    [​IMG] Soul Arrow Soul Arrow is your standard infinite ammo buff (that doesn’t eat arrows, get rekt Shurrikaners)
    [​IMG] Crossbow Mastery More damage! Raises your minimum damage so your damage "stabilises". Accuracy is a useless stat, this is a clue to what Marksman skills turn out to be,
    [​IMG] Final Attack: Crossbow Final attack will not hit anything at max range, and when it does hit, does next to nothing damage-wise. Congratulations, you played yourself.
    [​IMG] Physical Training It's free stats. Not too big now, not too big later.


    Third Job:
    Don't max Dragon Breath or Mortal Blow. You won't touch or proc either realistically.
    Skill Icon Skill Name What it does
    [​IMG] Explosive Bolt Here's your new mobbing/bossing attack! It's got a wonky horizontal hitbox but a great vertical one. Honestly if you still can, use Iron Arrow to mob and not this.
    [​IMG] Dragon's Breath IRL it is a flower, a dessert, a pepper, and a Pokémon move. In Maplestory it's hot (trash) like that pepper, pretty like that flower, and isn't part of a good set of attacks like that dessert. It is a move so there's that going for it; push(?) your non-boss mobs around if you're lagging they'll fly right back to you.
    [​IMG] Frostprey IceBirb does some damage and investing points into this increases your defense. The freezing effect is okay at best (good with Cadena's link) and it'll hit anything and everything it's tiny claws can reach.
    [​IMG] Reckless Hunt: Crossbow Avoid is a dead stat, here's 25% crit damage you can toggle on. Notice how I didn't say toggle off? Don't do that, only villains toggle this off.
    [​IMG] Pain Killer Hero's Will with a shorter cooldown and shorter debuff immunity. Doesn't actually kill pain.
    [​IMG] Hookshot Y'know that video of some kid? Now you do and that's what hookshot is. At 4th job you can hook to your Arrow Illusion by pressing down arrow + Hookshot, ignore super-knockback effects by timing this (video below soon), combo with upjump/Rope Lift and hook to enemies (tap to go to the furthest away). You can also attack while hooking around (Pierce's hitbox is sized nicely enough that where it stops is slightly before the futhest possible target). You're now single-shot Spiderman, congrats! Oh and putting points in increases max HP.
    [​IMG] Evasion Boost Passive 30% dodge rate and free crits? You can ignore the second half of that sentence since you'll have a ton of %crit but the first part is really important.
    [​IMG] Marksmanship Ya'll into big numbers? This is how to get there. Accuracy is still a dead stat.
    [​IMG] Mortal Blow If you ever see this proc, that's amazing. It doesn't work on bosses and your summons can't proc it either.
    [​IMG] Aggressive Resistance Your bowmaster friends got fancy healing arrows did they? Don't need to heal if you just tank less damage, 60% less damage from this alone so long as you're attacking. Zero's link skill stacks additively with this to avoid 75% of the damage that'd hurt you


    Fourth Job:
    You max everything here, the numbers work out fine.
    Skill Icon Skill Name What it does
    [​IMG] Last Man Standing Units don't make sense in this game, just keep whatever you're shooting at alone and you do more damage.
    [​IMG] Bolt Surplus Everything gets an extra line if it does 2 or more lines. Snipe is now 3 lines, Piercing is now 5, Perfect Shot 10, Split Shot 6! Oh, and more damage/ied from Rangefinder.
    [​IMG] Piercing Arrow Explosive Bolt was that weird friend in middle school sending you Candy Crush requests, this is your old friend from elementary school but they're inviting you to play better games. Each monster hit after the one previous has Piercing's damage multiplicative 1.15x of the previous monster's so 1, 1.15, 1.32, 1.52, 1.74, etc.
    [​IMG] Vital Hunter Look at that image again, see those numbers in blue at the bottom? Keep that distance when bossing and it's 40% ied for free. If you want to hug that's 50% ied but you've plenty of that already.
    [​IMG] Crossbow Expert More damage, more damage, more damage.
    [​IMG] Arrow Illusion Remember how I brought up that you could hook to this in third job? Well, you can hook to this. In fourth job. It also draws aggro from bosses provided no one else hits them (solo bosse story) and that you're currently top on the aggro list (solo boss story). Also has a magnetizing effect to keep bosses away further for maximising Rangefinder and Vital Hunter.
    [​IMG] Hero's Will It's Pain Killer! On a longer cooldown! With a hi- I've said these already. Both can clear darkness, skill lock, zombify, reverse direction, seduction, poison, and slow. They cannot cure anything else, please remember this list.
    [​IMG] Snipe Your new main bossing skill; stand far away and hold this down (hey that's also the entirety of the bossing info section!)/ Goes further than Pierce and High Speed Shot horizontally and has an auto-target feature unlike Pierce.
    [​IMG] Illusion Step Free stats? Extra avoid (warning dead stat)? Even less damage taken after Aggressive Resistance? Thanks Nexon!
    [​IMG] Sharp Eyes Squint real hard and you'll see this is at the top of a pyramid. Your only party buff, it gives crit rate and crit damage to everyone and you. You're included for once.
    [​IMG] Maple Warrior If this is not your first character skip this. If this is your first character I'm wowed you're here and the laughing how you have 150 levels to the end of this. The stat you gain is based off your base dex, not your total. Don't be fooled by Nexon's incompetency.

  • Gameplay

    When training as Marksman you want to find NICE. FLAT. MAPS. BECAUSE YOUR SKILLS HAVE NO VERTICAL RANGE.

    For the un/not very well funded
    Level Where to go
    1-10 Sit on your island and beat things to death
    11-30 Go to Golems and be confused about Arrow Blow
    31-50 Gold Beach, hop, skip, Iron Arrow
    50-60 Copper Drakes + Iron Arrow, Skeledog Tower Suites are an appropriate alternative (Military Camp 1 at Excavation Intermission Area)
    60-70 Ice Valley 2 is nice. Could stay at Drakes for a bit longer if you wanted to
    70-80 Sandrats at Sahel 2, mm, mm, hookshot Iron Arrow
    80-90 Lab Area: C-2, mm, mm, hookshot Iron Arrow and Explosive to clear out the ones on top.
    90+ Zakum can boost you to like 110 with a ton of exp multipliers really.
    90-100 Rashes at Leafre are nice
    100-120 Robos/Master Robos at Ludibrium: Toy Factory <Apparatus Room>
    120-130 Thanatos at Ludibrium
    130-140 Pirates Den 2 at Herbtown
    140-170 Kerning Tower, whatever map you can 1hko at
    170-180 Omega Sector Ship Corridors
    180-190 Future Perion: Desolate Hills
    190-200 Future Perion: Forbidden Excavation Site 2
    200-210 (Vanishing River) Repose's Below the Cave if you can 1hko, Extinction's Blazing Erdas if you can't. REMEMBER TO USE SPLIT SHOT.
    210-220 (Chu Chu Chu Chu SingalongWithMe Island) Slurpy Forest's Slurpy Forest DepthsDepths or Below the Waterfall if you can somehow manage to use the lures. REMEMBER TO USE SPLIT SHOT.
    220-225 (Lacheln) Nightmare Clocktower 1F. REMEMBER TO USE SPLIT SHOT.
    225-250 (Arcana) Cavern Lower Path. REMEMBER TO USE SPLIT SHOT.

  • FAQ

    Is levelling as Marksman the best way to go to 250?
    Getting a feel for the class is good but if you really don't want to, play Bowmaster to 200 and then swap.

    How do I know what range I benefit from PDR or final damage from Rangefinder?
    Credits to Snek

  • Guide Version

    257

    Game Version

    1

    Changelog

    Formatting, information, spice.
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