Bowmaster In-Depth Job Guide

Welcome to the Dexless Bowmaster Guide! Please note that there are several sections in this guide, such as a Build section, containing 5th Job and 6th Job information, and a Gameplay section, which covers Culvert strategies. Click on the tabs at the top of the guide (above this message, right above our cute Bowmaster girl) to switch sections.

Want to discuss or need help with Bowmaster for things that this guide doesn't cover? Or you just want to join in on some cool Bowmaster discussions? We're the most wholesome job Discord server in all of Maple! Join the Bowmaster Discord Server here: Bowmasters Hideout

Want another perspective? Things might not always be perfect, or maybe you just need something explained a bit differently! See the "Book of Bowmaster" guide by Møusë here: Book of Bowmaster (Google Docs)

Table of Contents - Overview Section ↓

• Why Bowmaster?
• Link Skills
• Legion
• Inner Ability
• Hyper Stats

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↑ Why Bowmaster? ↓

Bowmaster is a ranged, utility-filled, and varied class. But yet, so straightforward. Whether you like it or not depends on what sort of play style you prefer.

If you're on the fence of playing Bowmaster, I'd recommend you just try playing it because the best way to know that you like (or dislike) a class is by simply playing it! Getting to level 200 (and even 260 with Hyper Burn events) is super easy nowadays. Try Bowmaster out for a bit with bosses such as Chaos Root Abyss, Chaos Zakum, and even Normal Lotus and see if you like how Bowmaster flows.

The general pros and cons of Bowmaster are listed below:

Pros

• Best HP recovery skill in the game - Blood Arrows are toggled on/off with Magic Arrows without restriction. When enabled, every hit has a 70% chance to recover 5% Max HP, which is insane considering how many hits per second Bowmaster does.
  
• Strong damage - Bowmaster is overall a great damage dealer. In GMS, Bowmaster may be relatively lower (due to Attack Speed differences in KMS vs GMS) but it doesn't make Bowmaster absolutely weak or anything. It might be mid-30's or so ranking in GMS when it may be mid-20's in KMS.
  
• High mobility, versatile grinding - has left, right, upwards, and downwards flash jump, along with Blink Shot to teleport to specific locations with almost no cooldown. It even has a hover/second jump after its flash jump! Arrow Blaster in certain maps can allow for braindead grinding, especially when combined with Blink Shot.
  
• High constant Status Resistance in the game - quickly stackable 120 Status Resistance from Focused Fury while attacking monsters. You'll easily maintain this high Status Resistance when attacking.
  
• Mobile attacking - while using Hurricane, you can jump and move at full speed with no cast delays or movement speed reductions.
  
• Strong summons - utilizing Arrow Blaster, Inhuman Speed, Guided Arrow, Quiver Barrage, and Storm of Arrows can allow you to attack effectively for over half a minute while not pressing a single button.
• Sharp Eyes - good for buffing parties, and no need for Decent Sharp Eyes (saving a node slot). Additionally, Bowmaster does not require Decent Speed Infusion either due to being a Hurricane class.
  
• Low amount of buffs - buffs last 5 minutes at minimum and only has two. If you have three pets, you have free slots for Decent Combat Orders, Decent Advanced Blessing, and two other skills as you wish (e.g. Decent Holy Symbol and Decent Speed Infusion, although Bowmaster does not need the latter for any sort of bossing).
  
• Great mobbing - Arrow Blaster can take a platform (and then some) and Arrow Stream provides nice vertical mobbing. Storm of Arrows and Quiver Barrage/Fury of the Wild can be rotated in 5th Job for very excellent post-5th mobbing. Speed Mirage provides excellent coverage when it procs to clear out stray mobs.
• Built-in Ignore Enemy Defense - Armor Break gives a flat +40% IED and Marksmanship gives a flat +25% IED.
  
• Simplistic 5th Job Nodes - Bowmaster's nodes are easy to understand and it's relatively easy to obtain perfect trios compared to other jobs.
• Great 6th Job - Bowmaster's Origin skill is a concentrated single point attack and then an 3-sec CD FMA for 30 seconds after. Its Mastery skills are sharp with a great buff to multiple key skills such as HEXA Hurricane and HEXA Arrow Blaster/Arrow Stream, in which the latter and Advanced Final Attack significantly.

Cons

• Skill rotation-heavy - you need to keep your skills up for optimal damage; Bowmaster is NOT a single-button class, BUT it's NOT one where you need to press stuff every 3 seconds like Kinesis or Evan.
• Lack of concentrated burst - in KMS, BM is somewhat known as the "30-second Master" for a reason. Bowmaster needs to cast multiple buffs and summons; but after that, it's easy sailing by just holding Hurricane until your buffs/burst is back up.
  
• 120 second burst - Bowmaster's burst cycle for its own skills all have 120 second cooldowns, and is high on DPM for 30-40 seconds. This reduces Bowmaster's effectiveness in the Oz ring meta 15 sec bind-burst cycle.

Choose a class that you have fun with, not a class that simply does more damage. All classes are more than capable of dishing out awesome damage!

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↑ Link Skills ↓

Bowmaster's Link Skill (same as Marksman and Pathfinder. Stacks up to level 6 by sharing them into one character.):

Adventurer's Curiosity [Master Level: 6]: Your curiosity and attention to detail grants you bonuses to Critical Rate and the chance of adding monsters to your Monster Collection. This bonus is multiplicative rather than additive.
This Link Skill can be stacked up to 3 times, once for each unique Explorer Bowman job character you have on this world.
This skill can also be used by one character you have in this world.

Chance to add monsters to Monster Collection: +35%, Critical Rate: +10%

Bowmaster has a standard set of Link Skills. Here are my recommendations.

For Bossing

1. Fury Unleashed (Demon Slayer) - up to Lv. 3
2. Wild Rage (Demon Avenger) - up to Lv. 3
3. Light Wash (Luminous) - up to Lv. 3
4. Solus (Ark) - up to Lv. 3
5. Empirical Knowledge (Explorer Magicians) - up to Lv. 6
6. Terms and Conditions (Angelic Buster) - up to Lv. 3
7. Thief's Cunning (Explorer Thieves) - up to Lv. 6
8. Phantom Instinct (Phantom) - up to Lv. 3 - used for 5th Job's Vicious Shot during burst
9. Judgment (Kinesis) - up to Lv. 2
10. Focus Spirit (Beast Tamer) - up to Lv. 3
11. Unfair Advantage (Cadena) - up to Lv. 2
12. Spirit of Freedom (Resistance) - up to Lv. 8

If you're not using the Spirit of Freedom link (for DPS focus, e.g. Culvert or Dojo): use Tide of Battle (Illium) (jump in place with Hurricane to easily activate) - up to Lv. 2, or Elementalism (Kanna) - up to Lv. 2

For Grinding

1. Elven Blessing (Mercedes) - up to Lv. 3
2. Rune Persistence (Evan) - up to Lv. 3
3. Combo Kill Blessing (Aran) - up to Lv. 3
4. Wild Rage (Demon Avenger) - up to Lv. 3
5. Solus (Ark) - up to Lv. 3
6. Judgment (Kinesis) - up to Lv. 2
7. Thief's Cunning (Explorer Thieves) - up to Lv. 6
8. Elementalism (Kanna) - up to Lv. 2
9. Bravado (Hoyoung) - up to Lv. 2
   
10. Nature's Friend (Lara) - up to Lv. 2
11. Tide of Battle (Illium) - up to Lv. 2
12. Time to Prepare (Kain) - up to Lv. 2

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↑ Legion ↓

Legion Grid
Prioritize Critical Damage and Boss Damage first, then Ignore Defense like other classes use. After all of those are maxed, either place into Critical Rate so that Vicious Shot is stronger for bursts, or into DEX for consistent damage.

Use Xenogent's Legion Solver to effectively place your Legion blocks!

For a more in-depth guide on Legion and how it works and what Legion effects there are, see Jushiro's Legion Guide.

DEX Legion Effects

• Bowmaster
• Pathfinder
  
• Wind Archer
  
• Xenon (STR/DEX/LUK)
• Angelic Buster
• Kain

Critical Rate Legion Effects
These are useful to boost Vicious Shot in 5th Job.

• Marksman
• Night Lord

Sample 8k Legion Board Setup


Legion Artifact
The priorities for Legion Artifact boosting damage-wise is as follows:

1. Critical Rate (due to Vicious Shot in 5th Job)
   
2. +%Damage and +%Boss Damage
3. Ignore Enemy Defense and Critical Damage
4. Attack
5. Final Attack Damage Increase
6. Cooldown Skip

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↑ Inner Ability

Bowmaster doesn't need +1 Attack Speed as it's a primarily key-down skill class. It also doesn't need buff duration as Bowmaster only has to cast Sharp Eyes and Maple Warrior for buffs, which can easily be placed on pet autobuff.

If you have Legendary Ability, the first Ability line is always Legendary, but the other two will be Unique or Epic. Consult the guide here for more information.

Best Inner Abilities for Bowmaster's damage output:

1. Boss Damage - up to +20% Boss Damage on Legendary tier. Highly recommended to be first line, unless if you just simply don't do or care about bosses.
   
2. Critical Rate - up to +20% on Unique tier. Recommended for DPS to increase Vicious Shot's Critical Damage boost. Very rare.
3. Damage Increase when attacking monsters inflicted with Abnormal Status - up to +8% damage on Unique tier. If you have the Explorer Mage link skill, it's essentially a pure +8% Damage increase. Recommended for DPS. Very rare.

Other Inner Abilities of note (grinding/farming):

1. Attack - up to +21 Attack on Unique tier. Rare, but also not very good compared to any of the three lines above. Could be a good temporary line or one on a drop rate or meso rate preset.
2. Meso or Drop Rate Increase - up to 20% on Legendary tier, up to 15% on Unique tier.

↑ Click to return to the Table of Contents - Overview Section

Please note that there are several sections in this guide, such as a Build section, containing 5th Job and 6th Job information, and a Gameplay section, which covers Culvert strategies. Click on the tabs at the top of the guide (at the top of the guide) to switch sections.