Ask a Warrior Thread.

Hi everyone,
I haven't played in what feels like ages, I think the raising of the level cap was just hitting the KMST servers at the time. I ended up stopping at 187 I think it was and just had a few questions before I get completely lost.

-From what I've been reading, mastery books are sold by NPCs now? I had already passed all my other mastery books sans Maple Warrior and Hero's will (if that one even had one). Since the dark knight branch was thoroughly redone, do I still need the mastery books for these new skills or will the skill cap transfer over?

Some skills were "changed" and some are "new". The changed ones' mastery level stayed, but the new ones need new books.
The books are sold by NPC Iliad in Leafre (by Mo), and by the potion shops in Henesys and Leafre. There are just two books: Mastery Book 20 (which is 100% to raise the max of whichever skill you choose to 20) and Mastery Book 30 (which is 100% to raise the max to 30). Yes, they work for Maple Warrior too.

-Is the stronghold still the best place to grind until eternity?

Yes. But tomorrow's patch brings us a new level 190+ area that is supposed to be better. We will see.

-I glanced over the skills a few times and is stance really at 100% now and passive? That's huge!

Yes, it is

-How are bosses nowadays? I see pictures all the time of max damage characters just solo'ing everything it seems. Are these the top 1%'s or is it easier to hit the damage cap now?

Top 1% and even less.
But the general attitude is "if you can't solo the boss, don't bother with it at all." Few people boss in groups (other than one person solo'ing and the rest being loot mules).

-Similarly, have guilds gotten more useful?

Guilds now have some useful skills, such as revive and teleport. But those are for high-level, active bossing guilds, mostly.

-It also looks like dark knights have a lot of room to max out skills (using this as a guide: http://www.basilmarket.com/MapleStory-Gu...e-280.html). Is this a suitable one to follow up with?

You get enough SP to max all your 4th job skills by level 140. So you don't really need a guide.

-Is there still an hp cap? Way back I remember 30k before hyper body but I can't recall off the top of my head it ever changing?

It's 500k now, I believe.
But it doesn't matter much, because the bigger bosses all have %HP attacks, that will take off 90% (or w/e) of your HP
whether you have 5k or 500k

-I guess most importantly, do people still play/enjoy the game?

Some do. Not as many as there used to be, but enough to not be lonely if you don't want to be.