MapleStory/Bowman/Skills

The skills of Bowmen are varied and unique. Bowmen are capable of inflicting various effects upon opponents while bringing them down. Defensive and tactical skills compensate for an archer's low hit points.

Basic attack refers to the base damage in the Statistics window when a bow or crossbow is equipped.

Job 2: Crossbowman or Hunter

 * (Cross)Bow Mastery : This is a necessary skill. Mastery increases the minimum damage of your attacks, which greatly increases damage consistency and thus your training speed. 20 Mastery does the exact same thing as 19 Mastery in terms of damage, so it is pretty much worthless to get 20 Mastery.
 *  Final Attack : There is a great amount of debate surrounding this skill. Refer to the FA vs FA-less discussion. In essence, when maxed, you shoot another arrow 60% of the time with the power of 250% (350% with critical) when using Arrow Bomb, Iron Arrow, AB, or DS. More commonly used with AB builds than DS build.  Also more common for xbowmen to use than hunters.  Requires 3 points in Mastery
 * (Cross)Bow Booster : This is a necessary skill; however, it does not become more effective with additional points spent into this skill. The timer grows and the HP/MP cost decreases when points are added, and thus level 1 Booster has basically the same effect as level 20 Booster. The difference in timer and HP/MP cost between level 20 and level 1, however, is quite significant. Refer to the speed section for more information. Requires 5 points in (X)Bow Mastery.
 *  Soul Arrow : This is yet another necessary timer skill. Like Bow Booster, it does not become more effective with additional points spent. This skill gives you an infinite amount of arrows for the duration of the timer. When maxed, provides 10 minutes of Soul Arrows. Requires 5 points in (X)Bow Booster.
 *  Power Knock-Back : This is the first melee skill archers get. You may notice that when you bow-whack low leveled enemies, they sometimes slide across the screen. Power Knock-Back can do this to up to six enemies when maxed. It also adds to the (X)Bow's percent chance to cause a Knockback, as well as claiming to do +200% whack damage.

It is somewhat a mysterious skill that appears to factor in level or KB resistance from the enemy. The attack damage equation is also unknown, as it has extremes of highs and lows. You can also use it to kill mages by knocking Golems or other large creatures into them. Just keep in mind, Nependeaths will never slide from any amount of PKB, no matter how hard you try.

Most people think that PKB adds the % KB rate weapon and the skill. Aka, a lvl 90 Metis will give a 100% KB rate. Unfortunately, this has been proven wrong with several different bows, and a large amount of tests. Leaving us with the conclusion that no one really knows how this skill works. Current tests point at having a 60% "KnockBack" cap, but even this is uncertain.

The test was simple: At level 40, keep using PKB against Stone Golems until they jump back. Easily, you can see that it is less than 5% of the time when Golems get KBed, or even flinch. Even with Max PKB, you don't get the theoretical 70% or 80% Knockback. Some variables that may effect the PKB level are monster's level, an unknown monster "size" variable, and maybe even how many enemies you hit. But all are just theories and are not even tested.

PKB takes advantage of a glitch or a "feature" that afflicts crossbows. Often, when an enemy is close, the crossbow will shoot, but because of slowness, the enemy will advance upon you and the crossbow will bash the enemy instead of shooting. While on the surface that would appear to be a disadvantage compared to a bow that does not suffer that problem, it is in fact a feature that allows a combo. If the Crossbowman anticipates bashing the monster, instead of continually shooting, he can activate PKB and cause it to chain in a combo after the previous shot, forcing the enemy back far enough to be shot again, or knocking them back, assuming their KB number is lower than the damage done. The point is that if you are going to be forced to bash the enemy against your will, you increase your chances of knocking them back by activating the PKB skill. If you don't do it, you only get the chance for KB inherent to the crossbow, but if you use the PKB skill you get the KB% from the crossbow plus the unknown bonus you get from PKB.


 *  Arrow Bomb : The signature move of Hunters. It is definitely one of the most flashy second job skills there is. When maxed, Bomb provides a 130% damage (up to 260% with critical as Arrow Bomb, unlike other skills, does twice the dmg with critical instead of +100%), while also providing a 60% chance of stunning them up to 6 monsters! The first monster that gets hit by the arrow itself does not receive the full damage from the bomb, instead, it is more 40. Also, the 60% chance of stunning is not actually a real percentage, the formula seems to involve the level of the monster, the Knock-Back level of the monster, your level, as well as of course, your bomb level. Nonetheless, Bomb is definitely a skill to be maxed.


 * (Erik) From experience I believe that the initial hit of AB doesn't take targets def into account or your damage either. the initial hit is less then my min damage and then the splash damage erupts from the point of impact doing greater damage as it goes. Being FAless its easy for me to keep monsters in a line rather then in 1 big pile. The best damage is caused to those mobs about 2inches from the initial hit of AB. Thus a pile of mobs will get hit for 600 damage each where as if they are strung out in a line the first 2 get 600 then next takes 1000, then 1500. the outer monsters take roughly double the damage the creatures near the inital impact. So if you have FA it will kill the lead monster and your inital hit will be on a mob. On a side note since def isn't taken into account at lvl 54 I could stun a Werewolf and do 200-600 damage where as DS did 1 and 1 and AB did 100 damage...(being FAless I trained AB and DS max)

(Erik) Iron Arrow without FA is great synergy whereas being interrupted 60% of the time by FA causes the terrible synergy.
 *  Iron Arrow : Iron Arrow is the defining skill of the Crossbowman. It is unique to your class, and as such it should hold some measure of respect and awe regardless of how strong it actually is. Luckily for you, it is actually pretty strong. Iron Arrow has 180% natural power, and can go up to 280% thanks to Critical Shot. It gets slightly weaker with each enemy it goes through, but the exact rate of dropoff is unknown. Iron Arrow is an attack that goes for over half of a screen's length in a straight line in front of your character, and does not home. While Iron Arrow does not have the stun capabilities of Arrow Bomb, Iron Arrow has the firepower to quickly shred any mob of enemies that it can flinch with endless waves of damage. The downside is that Iron Arrow has quite terrible synergy with the skill Final Attack.

Job 3: Sniper or Ranger
Again; Wizet shows their superb creativity by making Snipers and Rangers differ in 2 skills... and one of those skills still does the same thing.

So here is the only true difference in 3rd job skills for Snipers and Rangers:


 *  Inferno (also known as Fire Shot) : Hotly debated skill right now; few facts known. Hits up to 6 opponents for 150% damage at max level. No one knows how Elemental weakness/advantage works for this skill. Unlike Blizzard, if you get this skill; it is for the kill. Because of the unknown damage formula; it is difficult to compare this skill at all to other skills. Untested theories/hunches right now place Fire Shot to do up to 375% or maybe its max is only 300% damage with critical.


 *  Blizzard (also known as Ice Shot) : No sniper should get this skill over level 21. At level 21, you got 100% chance of freezing your enemy for 3 seconds (unless it is strong to ice). Even at max level; Ice Shot does pathetic damage as it receives no critical. Similarly to Fire Shot; no one knows the damage formula. The difference is that Snipers don't care for the damage formula cause this skill is too pathetically weak. Nonetheless, get it for the 3 seconds of freeze.

The rest of the skills are exactly the same, except for minor graphic differences, for Crossbows and Bows. The notation will be Ranger Skill/Sniper Skill. Ex: Arrow Rain is the Ranger skill below, and Arrow Eruption is the Sniper Skill.


 * Arrow Rain/Eruption : This is a mob skill that hits 6 enemies for 160% damage (260% with critical). This is one of the two "must max" skills in the archer. It has no minimum range; and thus can be activated any time you are on the ground. requires 5 Mortal Blow as a prerequisite. Only the animation is different for Bowmen and Crossbowmen. For Bowmen, the arrows fall from the sky, for Crossbowmen, the arrows come from the ground. There is one believed difference, Arrow Rain may have more vertical range while Eruption may have more horizontal range. However; because of the differences in animation; it is very difficult to test whether or not this is true.


 *  Mortal Blow : This skill replaces your "bow-whack" 70% of the time with an actual arrow shot. This is a passive skill, so it takes place automatically. The 10% instant hit is generally seen as a happy bonus to this skill, but the true usefulness of this skill is the fact that you stop whacking your bow and can finally shoot at close range.


 * When the skill is activated; you will fire a single shot at 250% damage that has a 10% chance to kill if the HP of the monster is below the halfway point. You can do a OHKO on a full HP monster; the 10% chance to kill is taken after the damage is calculated. Example: Zombies have 4500 HP. If mortal blow does 3000 damage, you have a chance of doing instant kill on the opponent. Pretty good; compared to the fact you would have bow-whacked instead. This skill does not stack with PKB. This replaces the passive bow-whack with an actual shot.


 * Strafe : This is the stumper skill for all bowmen. Strafe does 4 shots of 100% at the enemy; with max damage of 800%, minimum damage of 400%, and average damage of 560%. This is the 2nd "must get" skill for archers.


 * Thrust : This skill adds permanent speed to your stats. There is much controversy with this skill; as with a speed candy; level 70/80/90/100 bow, Icarus cape and some lucky scrolling on your shoes and the skull helmet; you'd have max speed anyway and this would be a waste. On the other hand; if you get as low as 5 thrust, replace the Icarus cape with the Icarus jump cape instead, and use a jump bow instead of the speed bow and get some more lucky scrolling on shoes and pets; you'd have max speed and jump. 10 thrust will make your scrolling easiest for max jump and speed without the need to spend real money on pets. Archers are in 100% agreement that anything over 10 thrust is a waste of SP points.


 * Hawk/Eagle : A very handy skill that at high levels that will almost always stun the enemy. The hawk/eagle will follow you around hitting enemies every 2 seconds or so. The bird does pretty weak damage; but it is noticeable. The true reason to get this bird is that it stops enemies in their tracks with stun. Very useful skill, but it costs a lot of money. Each summon stone costs 5k to buy; but that won't be much when you are high level. Also, it can be noted that this skill is somewhat superfluous since Rangers have Arrow Bomb which can stun, and Snipers have Ice Shot, which at level 21 freezes enemies for 3 seconds.


 * Puppet : The most unique skill in this game is probably puppet. When you cast puppet; all monsters "chasing" you will instead follow the puppet. This skill works on all monsters; including bosses and works on all monsters that are chasing you. Puppet's defenses are also very high; while a Yeti and Pepe stomp may do 1000+ damage on an archer, puppet receives only 300 damage. Because of this reason, some arches are planning to get only 18 puppet to max out the timer, and not the HP. Other archers feel that perhaps some stronger monster will come in the future and you really will need all 6000 HP for puppet.


 * A popular trick to show how good puppet really is is to place puppet on the spot where enemies cannot reach it. For example, after Jr. Balrog starts hitting you; you can place a puppet on the top of the level. Because Jr. Balrog cannot attack the top of the level, it will run back and forth trying to hit a thing it cannot hit; giving you 100% open room to destroy him. This can be done on mobs of as big as you wish. 20 Spirit Vikings can be "hypnotized" by your Puppet and will run around trying to hit it when they can't (because the puppet is out of reach on a higher or lower platform).  A somewhat unfortunate note, is that at first glance, a person who doesn't know the skill may think of it as a vacuum hack, in that all the monsters are gathered in one spot.


 * Another trick that allows Archers to take on boss monsters that can otherwise kill them in one hit is known as the Double Cast. It works on the principle that if you cast puppet while you already have one in action, the monsters chasing the original puppets will return to a neutral state. However, if you do not cast a second puppet before your first one is dead, the monsters will resume their chase on you. Therefore, the archer can attack the boss monster once or twice while out of the monster's reach then casting the puppet twice, returning the boss monster back to neutral state and continue the cycle.