AcornStory: -- Playing a Post-Chaos Aran

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Welcome to AcornStory, our ongoing feature helping players get started in Maple World everything from choosing a class to finding friends to understanding combat to tips for participating in an online community. MapleStory is easy to learn, but once you learn the basic game mechanics, where do you go and what do you do? Read on to find out!

Playing anAran -- Post Chaos!

In a previousAcornStory, we discussed how to pick a character type that fits your play style. In this AcornStory, we're focusing on Aran, one of the two "Hero" classes in the game. Unlike Explorers or Cygnus Knights, Hero classes are based on a specific character concept and work a bit differently than other classes. First, Heroes start out fairly powerful and work with a specific weapon or combat style. Second, while they do grow in power and gain new abilities, their advancement path is fairly linear. You won't be able to develop a specific "type" of Aran, nor will you be as versatile as an Explorer or a Cygnus Knight. The offset to this is that Hero classes have unique gameplay mechanics and abilities that aren't shared by any other class. Aran is a melee fighter that has access to a unique "combo" system that when used by a skilled player can unleash some impressive damage.

Post Chaos information:Advanced players looking through this edition of AcornStory are advised to watch for this tag. The Chaos "Age of Heroes" update made significant changes to many existing Aran skills and added three new skills that will be very important to Aran.

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Who is Aran?

Unlike Explorers or Cygnus Knights, Aran comes with his own specific backstory and character concept that will reveal itself as the character levels up. In summary, Aran was one of five great heroes who confronted the Black Mage during his first attempt to rule Maple World. In their final confrontation with the Mage, the evil wizard was defeated, but at a terrible cost -- the loss of the five great heroes. Contrary to popular belief though, the five heroes were not destroyed. Aran was frozen inside a glacier for thousands of years. When he was finally freed, most of his great powers were lost and he had to begin retraining to get them back.

Starting your Aran
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You'll start your career as Aran at level 200. Your first adventure is actually a flashback to the final days of the last war against the Black Mage, just before Aran faced off against the evil ruler. Once you finish this initial adventure, you'll see an exciting scene showing how Aran found himself trapped in ice for thousands of years. When you wake up, you'll meet a girl named Lilin who explains what happened, offers you a new polearm, and sends you out to a penguin village to begin training to relearn your forgotten skills..

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The Aran Combo System

One of the most appealing aspects of Aran is the unique "combo system" that's only usable by this character. Aran uses a polearm to attack monsters and to trigger various skills with a combination of key presses. For example, "Double Swing" is one of the earliest Aran skills and is triggered by pressing the "CTRL" key twice. More advanced skills will require more advanced combinations of keys.

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To find out the correct chain of keys to press, simply open your Skill Book (default key: "K") and hover your mouse over the skill. A pop-up skill tip will appear showing you the required combination. When you have Skill Points in certain combo skills and when the combo meter is high enough for you to use them, a "help" window will also pop up informing you of the keys you'll need to press to perform those skills.
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One of the most exciting things about the combo system is that with the Combo Ability skill, as you string together long chains of combos, the amount of damage you'll do goes up.

Post Chaos information: After the Chaos update, several high level skills had their key combinations changed.

Final Charge: This skill combination is now Back --> Forward --> Attack (Forward is the direction you wish to charge).

Final Toss: This skill combination is now Down --> Up -- > Attack

These key combinations were changed due to the addition of a new skill called Sudden Strike which allows you to use Final Charge or Final Toss without performing Triple Blow beforehand. In testing it was found that the previous key combinations caused difficulty if the player tried to attack while moving.

<strong>Aran Skills and Skill/Ability Points

Dat PA.

Primary Attributes -- Aran

Strength (STR): Strength is by far Aran's most important Ability. The higher your STR, the more damage you'll do when hitting a monster with a polearm.

Dexterity (DEX): Dexterity plays an important role in improving your accuracy and helps you avoid getting hit.

right....more like "completely useless until we dumbasses decided to invent equipment requiring 170dex."

right....more like "completely useless until we dumbasses decided to invent equipment requiring 170dex."

They are partially correct.

1 point in DEX adds like a 0.0000000000000000001% chance of not getting hit.

Also, accuracy is needed at higher level bosses and whatnot which have high evasion. Of course, that accuracy requirement can easily and most likely will be made up by equipment that give insane accuracy boosts.