Thorns + bucc with no stun mastery = bossing bucc?

Thorns is difficult because of the way they seemed to have coded types of crit bonuses.

From what i can see, there are a few types of crit "slots" a character has. A base crit slot (critical punch, critical throw/toss, etc), a buff crit slot (thorns, SE), and an equipment crit slot. You can have as many equipment crit slots as you do number of equipments. That is, if every one of your equipments gave crit, they are totaled and added to the equipment crit slot. Buff crit is self explanatory, as well as base crit slot. Thorns only affects classes with their base crit slot filled if the crit chance is lower than 35%. This explains why evans are affected by thorns.

Unfortunately, stun mastery seems to fit in the base crit slot but with the condition that the monster must be stunned. This is why "thorns only affects buccaneers if the monster is stunned". However, since the crit chance is higher than 35%, thorns adds no effect to stunned monsters.

Huh. Wouldn't this mean "even though it would utterly fail in practice) in theory a Bucc could skip out on Stun Mastery (or leave it to the point where it was >35%), and get the Thorns boost for bosses? Not interested in ruining a Marauder build to test it out or anything, however it seems like an interesting premise for someone wanting a "decent bossing and terrible training" Bucc to use.

I would test it out and see if thorns works on a marauder without stun mastery/level 1 stun mastery first. If that works and said marauder had a max thorns mule, then that's perfectly reasonable. Though you couldn't really take a thorns mule on bosses or anything.

Does anyone see this as a viable build? The 20 points in stun mastery could go towards lolwave, and if you have a thorns mule training and bossing becomes much easier.

Does anyone see this as a viable build? The 20 points in stun mastery could go towards lolwave, and if you have a thorns mule training and bossing becomes much easier.

No.

Getting a character to level 130ish just so you can add 20 points into a skill you won't even use often doesn't seem like a good idea.

You missed the point of the thread. I never said i wanted lolwave.

That idea would completely destroy the existence of currently existing Vipers. All Vipers would have to remake, if a new wave of Vipers came in with no Stun Mastery for the sake of Thorns. Not to mention that it doesn't seem like a viable option, since you won't have Thorns 100% of the time.


We just need Nexon to help us, rather than continue to shaft us.

I'm not going to remake my bucc for the sake of damage. This is merely more viable for people who have the resources to do this.

Thorns mule = thorns 90% of the time, btw.

I'm not going to remake my bucc for the sake of damage. This is merely more viable for people who have the resources to do this.

Thorns mule = thorns 90% of the time, btw.

I'm not just talking about the sake of damage. If this idea were to come into place and no one ever got Stun Mastery again and there were enough Thorn mules to go around, any Viper with Stun Mastery wouldn't be wanted for bossing. Ever. "Do you have Stun Mastery?" "Yes." "Get the f'uck out, noob!" You know it'll happen, just like back when Rage wasn't wanted AT ALL by anyone in party quests because it would "affect Mages' defense." >_> Your Viper will be as void and useless as my Viper is in JMS now if every other Viper had a better damage boost in comparison.

If i cared that much i would just reset stun mastery, but i don't care. Lol. There was a time where i would have done that, but now i have better things to use the money on.

What if critical doesn't work the way you think? What if it depends on the class itself? Even though a Viper may not have Stun Mastery at all, Thorns may not have an effect, since it would look for the class or the class' ability to cause critical without Thorns itself. Even tough there's 0 points, it would still look for stunned monsters before the critical would activate.

Because that's an extremely un-robust way to code something. They would have to add another case for every single new class they plan to make. Why waste time when you could code it based on what i've said here?

It appears as if he very well knows the "if and then"s. It doesn't appear as if this thread is made to tell him the hazards of trying this, but merely to inquire as to whether or not this would be a plausible idea based on the circumstances.

How much would lacking stun mastery affect 3rd/4th job non-Thorns damage? Like would it kill training completely? I don't know all the damage combos but maybe there are new ones that would emerge if you were just trying to invincibility-dance without adding stun in. (eg. not using Backspin blow perhaps)

Considering the mobs have to be stunned, not much. If anything it means you will have a tougher time killing things in 3rd job since blast would be stunning at that point. 4th job, not much. I would recommend having max thorns before anyone try this though...

Backspin blow is still useful in itself though.

I was under the impression that thorns only worked if a monster wasn't stunned... did you test this in kMS, or is this speculation? o_o

I was under the impression that thorns only worked if a monster wasn't stunned... did you test this in kMS, or is this speculation? o_o

According to Insoya, it only works for Vipers if the monster is stunned. There was some thread about it a while ago with the Korean text. Translated, it says it only works when stunned monsters are attacked or something along the lines.

The way thorns works is that it applies to passive critical, and stun mastery only applies when the monster is stunned. So on unstunned monsters, it would be 35% chance for 175% critical, and on stunned monsters, stun mastery overrides thorns for 60% chance for 160%. Maybe it's just wonky for stuns, or maybe whoever wrote that typoed or didn't test it properly.

The way thorns works is that it applies to passive critical, and stun mastery only applies when the monster is stunned. So on unstunned monsters, it would be 35% chance for 175% critical, and on stunned monsters, stun mastery overrides thorns for 60% chance for 160%. Maybe it's just wonky for stuns, or maybe whoever wrote that typoed or didn't test it properly.

Do you have any reasoning to refute the claims made in the first quote of the first post?

Thorns works so long as there's no passive critical, and stun mastery doesn't work without stun. It's best just to ask someone to test it in kMS.

Thorns works so long as there's no passive critical, and stun mastery doesn't work without stun. It's best just to ask someone to test it in kMS.

I believe the stuff posted on Insoya about how Thorns worked was based on real experimentation. I don't think anyone in KMS is high enough of a level on KMS (MAYBE KMST, but I doubt you'll get anyone to test it well enough or anyone to have the patience to get a Viper up high enough to test it) with a Dual Blade or knows anyone that's a fourth job Dual Blader with Thorns to test it. So, until it comes out in JapanMS/MapleSEA/Global MapleStory, we won't see any real results.

Thorns works so long as there's no passive critical, and stun mastery doesn't work without stun. It's best just to ask someone to test it in kMS.

Coding wise, the way i see it, stun mastery is basically just regular crit with an if condition stating that the monster must be stunned. Just because bosses can't be stunned doesn't mean stun mastery isn't still there.

The statement "Thorns works so long as there is no passive crit" only holds ground until used on buccaneers (the only class with condition based crit), which results in thorns needing a new definition. There isn't any proof of a bucc critting without stun when thorns is active.

I'm actually more interested in resetting criticals for archers and night lords to the point where they can use thorns. People should try that with low level archers on KMS.