Marksman Skills Analysis

A Brief Mathematical Analysis of Marksman Skills

Table of Contents:

(I) Introduction

(II) Background Information

• (II.1) Critical Shots

• (II.2) Mastery

(III) Marksman Skills

• (III.1) Sharp Eyes

• (III.2) Marksman Boost

• (III.3) Piercing Arrow

• (III.4) Snipe

(IV) Conclusion

• (IV.1) Basic Build Comparison

• (IV.2) My Proposed Build

(I) Introduction

I play a level 10x Sniper on Broa (ImCompiling), and I've been thinking a lot lately about what I'm going to do at 120. The rules keep changing, and it's hard to find up-to-date information on how everything works. There's a standard build, but especially with some of the recent changes powering up Snipe and Piercing Arrow, I'm not content to just follow the beaten path without at least doing my research first. ^_^ This guide is intended as much to organize my own thoughts and research as it is to present it to those who follw.

This guide is intended for those who are in a similar boat as me. High level Snipers or just people curious about Marksman skills. Bowmasters might find my calculations for Sharp Eyes and Marksman Boost helpful: just substitute in the equivalent Ranger/Bowmaster skills whenever I mention Arrow Eruption of Marksman Boost.

Of course there's this rumored”Big Bang” update which may or may not be heading our way and which may or may not do any number of things to any umber of skills so obviously this guide isn't up to date on that. If and when that update does come, I'll update this guide to account for it as soon as there's reliable information on the changes. I've seen what's at least rumored to be the new damage calculations, and that wouldn't change almost anything in this guide, except perhaps the specifics of the Snipe discussion. For now, I'm assuming most of the skills remain relatively unchanged, at least with respect to eachother.

In case you're new to doing bowman calculations here's a bit of helpful background:

WARNING: THAR BE MATH AHEAD! PROCEED WITH CAUTION! ^_^

(II) Background Information

(II.1) Critical Shots

Hopefully you know by now that Critical Shot does not actually do 200% damage! Rather, it adds a flat 100% damage to your shot. This is why Double Shot does more damage than Arrow Blow, because it can critical twice per shot and each critical adds 100% for up to 460%. The 260% in Arrow Blow doesn't double, it just gets 100% added to it for 360%.

(I actually prefer Arrow Blow, but that's more personal than anything else. Just so nobody makes a fuss over it the average damage for Arrow Blow is 300% and for Double Shot it's 340%, so not all that different actually. You'll see how I got these values in a second ^_^)

Bowmen, as you know, have remarkably unstable damage, and Critical Shot only makes it worse by upping our maximum damage without moving the minimum damage at all. Thus, knowing the maximum damage we can do isn't very useful, it's much better to know the average.

So how do you calculate the effect of a Critical Shot that may or may not go off on your average damage? The equation is simple:

Average damage = 
(Chance of Critical)*(Critical Bonus + Normal Damage)+(Chance of Non-Critical)*(Normal Damage)

If you rearrange the equation a bit, you'll see that we can get:

Average damage = 
(Chance of Critical)*(Critical Bonus)+(Chance of Critical+Chance of Non-Critical)*(Normal Damage)

and since the chance of getting either a critical OR a non-critical hit is 100%, that's just

Average damage = (Chance of Critical)*(Critical Bonus) + (Normal Damage)

In other words, you can just add a flat (Chance of Critical)*(Critical Bonus)% to the base damage done by a skill to figure out its actual average damage with critical.

For example, if your critical does +100% damage 40% of the time, which it does if you have maxed Critical Shot but not Sharp Eyes, then your bonus average damage is (100%)*(40%) or +40%

So take for instance Arrow Eruption. It has a base damage of 160% per enemy. With critical, that's 200% damage on average per enemy.

Similarly, Strafe does 140% average per arrow after critical, or an average of 560% damage per shot.

(II.2) Mastery

Mastery is what determines your minimum damage. Mastery will be a certain percentage value, and you simply multiply that by your maximum damage to get your minimum damage. Archers begin with only 15% Mastery, but bump it up to 60% in the second job advance with Crossbow Mastery. If you have 60% Mastery, you will on average do 80% of your maximum damage. Why? It's a simple average. Your arrow could hit anywhere between 60% and 100% of your maximum, so simply take the average: (100% +60%)/2 = 80%.

Note that that's the damage not counting Critical Shots. Critical shots move your damage all over the place overall. But in general, a non-critical shot will on average hit 80% of what a non-critical shot could, and on average a critical shot will hit about 80% of what a critical shot could. However, this is multiplicative not additive like Critical Shot bonus damage. If a skill does 100% damage, it will hit about 80% of your maximum damage range on average. If a skill does 500% damage, it will hit about (500%)*(80%) = 400% of your maximum damage range on average.

Since Mastery applies to all skills equally, it's not generally counted in “average damage %” equations that you'll see here or in most other guides. It's omnipresence is simply assumed ^_^

However, understanding how it works will be important for our discussion of Marksman Boost later on in this guide.

Anyway, on to the guide itself!

(III) Marksman Skills

There is a nearly universal consensus among marksmen that the first four most important Marksman skills to get are Sharp Eyes, Marksman Boost, Piercing Arrow, and Snipe. This guide represents everything I have been able to learn about these four skills and my arguments about which order to get them in.

(III.1) Sharp Eyes

The description for sharp eyes is somewhat misleading. The description would lead you to think that at level 1, Sharp Eyes adds a 1% critical chance and an additional 11% damage per critical, for example, that a critical which used to hit a bonus of 100% would now hit a bonus of 111%. Similarly, that at level 30 it will add a 15% bonus to critical chance plus an additional 40% damage per shot, so the equations for how much this would improve your average damage per shot would be:

Level 1 : 40%*11% + 1%*111%  = 5.51% average damage increase
Level 10 : 40%*20% + 5%*120%  = 14% average damage increase
Level 30 : 40%*40% + 15%*140% = 37% average damage increase

However, this is not how Sharp Eyes works! Sharp Eyes is such a coveted skill because where it says “11%” it actually means “111%!” Some people have described this as the critical damage from Sharp Eyes “stacking” with existing critical damage. In other words, a warrior with a level 30 Sharp-Eyes applied will hit a critical 15% of the time at an additional 140% damage on top of what they would normally deal. On the other hand, an archer who already hits critical 40% of the time with a +100% bonus to damage would now hit 55% of the time with a 240% damage bonus. That means 340% on a normally 100% damage shot such as in Strafe! This is why Marksman and Bowmasters often triple or more their damage on critical vs non-critical hits!

So the equations REALLY are:

Level 1 : 40%*111% + 1%*211%  = 46.51% average damage increase
Level 10 : 40%*120% + 5%*220%  = 67% average damage increase
Level 30 : 40%*140% + 15%*240% = 92% average damage increase

Whereas before you would add 40% to an average damage equation to account for critical hits, you would now add the following value to %damage per shot:

No SE : 100% damage * 40% chance = 40% average bonus
Level 1 SE : 211% damage * 41% chance = 86.51% average bonus
Level 10 SE : 220% damage * 45% chance = 99% average bonus
Level 30 SE : 240% damage * 55% chance = 132% average bonus

In other words, this would be the damage from Strafe:

No SE : 4*(100% + 40%) = 560% average Strafe damage
Level 1 SE : 4*(100% + 86.51%) = 726.24% average Strafe damage
Level 10 SE : 4*(100% + 99%) = 796% average Strafe damage
Level 30 SE : 4*(100% + 132%) = 928% average Strafe damage

This represents, overall, a 65% increase in average damage output.

This would be the per-enemy damage from Arrow Eruption:

No SE : 160% base + 40% critical = 200% average Arrow Eruption damage
Level 1 SE : 160% base + 86.51% critical = 246.51% average Arrow Eruption damage
Level 10 SE : 160% base + 99% critical = 259% average Arrow Eruption damage
Level 30 SE : 160% base + 132% critical = 292% average Arrow Eruption damage

This represents, overall, a 46% increase in average damage output.

So as you can see, Sharp Eyes gives you a significant (~50%) increase to both mobbing and single-target damage, and best of all, will affect your entire party, though warriors and mages will only experience about a 21% increase in damage, since they don't have an existing critical to build on that's 140% bonus * 15% = 21% That's just flat added, so less than that overall, I suppose. Feel free to do the math yourself if there's a particular skill you're curious about, you know how to do it now! ^_^ Using these equations, you should be able to figure out the effects of Sharp Eyes on any other skills.

(III.2) Marksman Boost

Marksman Boost is a skill which increases both Mastery and Weapon Attack. Unlike Sharp Eyes, the mathematics behind this is fairly simple to understand:

Mastery affects your minimum damage. If you have 60% Mastery, your minimum damage range (before critical! See Mastery discussion above!) will be 60% of your maximum damage range (also before critical!). In other words, with 60% Mastery you will do an average of:

(100% max + 60% min)/2 = 80% of maximum damage on average.

Note that this does not account for critical shots, which is why at level 100 you might be able to hit 5,000 damage per strafe shot in theory (for a theoretical maximum of 20,000 damage) but you will hit far less than 16,000 damage on average with those stats, because only 40% of your shots, on average, will be critical.

What Marksman Boost does is to increase your Mastery to 90% and your Weapon Attack by +10. The effect of the Mastery increase will be an average 15% overall increase in damage across all skills. Why 15% and not 30%? because this is an average:

(100% maximum + 90% minimum)/2 = 95% average

As compared with 80% from before.

How much 10 Weapon Attack will improve your character depends on how much Weapon Attack you have already. Because the equations for damage are based on your Dexterity multiplied by your Weapon Attack, the key is to increase Weapon Attack by ratios. In other words, if your Weapon Attack increases by 1%, your damage will increase by 1%. So if you have 100 Weapon Attack total from your weapon, gloves, cape, etc, and you add +10 Weapon attack, that's an increase of 10% and you'll see a corresponding increase in damage. If you have 150 Weapon Attack, that would be a 6.7% increase in Weapon Attack and thus, in total overall damage. How much Dexterity you have will not affect what amount of increase you see here, just how much Weapon Attack you have.

So from this you can see that combined, you will have approximately a 15% + ~8% = 23% overall increase in damage across all skills with maxed Marksman Boost. Though 90% Mastery may sound amazing from the description, this is actually less than half the increase you'd see from Sharp Eyes and perhaps not quite as powerful as it sounds.

(III.3) Piercing Arrow

Piercing Arrow is an interesting skill. It requires a short charge-up, but when maxed, can do an amazing 850% damage to up to 6 enemies. Its real power, though, is that it increases in damage as it passes through each enemy, approximately doubling by the time it reaches the 6th enemy. When maxed, the increase is 150% per enemy, so:

850% + 1,000% + 1,150% + 1,300% + 1,450% + 1,600% = 7,350% damage against 6 enemies.

And that was before accounting for criticals! Though admittedly, an extra 40% or even 132% average damage per shot won't make a significant difference since the base damage values are already so high.

I'm not sure how much the increase per enemy is at lower levels of Piercing Arrow, but for these equations I'll assume that the damage will approximately double by the last enemy. In the next set of equations, we'll look at Piercing Arrows average damage against the maximum number of enemies, assuming 40% critical at 100% (no Sharp Eyes). For the sake of readability, the percent-per-enemy values shown already have average critical damage calculated in. Bear in mind that at level 1 Piercing Arrow can only hit 4 enemies but by level 30 it can hit 6:

Level 1 : 360% + 460% + 560% + 660% = 2,040% damage
Level 11 : 560% + 685% + 810% + 935% + 1,060% = 4,050% damage
Level 30 : 890% + 1,040% + 1,190% + 1,340% + 1,490% + 1,640% = 7,590% damage

And with a level 30 Sharp Eyes:

Level 1 : 452% + 552% + 652% + 752% = 2,408% damage
Level 11 : 652% + 777% + 902% + 1,027% + 1,152% = 4,510% damage
Level 30 : 982% + 1,132% + 1,282% + 1,432% + 1,582% + 1,732% = 8,142% damage

Sharp Eyes thus increases the overall damage output or Piercing Arrow by about 7%, not very much. As with all other attack skills, Marksman Boost will increase the average damage output of Piercing Arrow by about 23%, a much larger increase.

However, since the question is which order to do skills in, let's do a bit of comparison work. It should be fairly obvious that by the time Piercing Arrow, Sharp Eyes, and Marksman Boost are all at level 30, Piercing Arrow will be your most powerful mob skill. However, at level 120 you can increase your mob damage either with Piercing Arrow OR with Sharp-Eyes, and Piercing Arrow's stiffest competition will come from Arrow Eruption. So, let's run some equations!

Based on observation, Arrow Eruption, can fire approximately 2.5 times for each time a Piercing Arrow is fired, due to Piercing Arrow's charge-up time. Thus in the time it takes to fire a single Piercing Arrow, without Sharp Eyes Arrow Eruption can do:

200% * 6 * 2.5 = 3,000% damage

Not even as much as a level 11 Piercing Arrow. However, this isn't really relevant since if you don't get Piercing Arrow first you will almost certainly have gotten Sharp Eyes. So here's what Arrow Eruption can do with a level 30 Sharp Eyes:

292% * 6 * 2.5 = 4,380% damage

About as much as a level 11 Piercing Arrow, but not even close to a level 30 Piercing Arrow. Piercing Arrow represents a potential 153% damage increase over your old non-Sharp Eyes Arrow Eruption mob skill, as compared with Sharp Eyes increase of only 46%. Even if we are generous and assume you can get off 3 or even 4 Arrow Eruptions in the same time as one Piercing Arrow it still doesn't compare. Remember that Marksman Boost will increase both Arrow Eruption and Piercing Arrow proportionally to the damage they already do, so there's no change in the comparison there.

The one drawback to Piercing Arrow is that the damage will be very back-heavy. In other words, enemies 5 and 6 will take much more damage than enemies 1 and 2, so you'll often be left with the front few monsters still standing, and need to Strafe them away since even a mob skill as powerful as Piercing Arrow is not particularly effective against a lone target compared with your single-enemy skills.

Some people would say that there is a drawback in that Piercing Arrow only fires in a straight line, like Iron Arrow, and you will not always be able to hit 6 enemies. However, I don't view this as much as a problem, and here's why: Marksmen have a specialty. We're often thought of as generalists. We can do pretty good single-target boss damage, but can't compare to Corsairs, Night Lords, or even Bowmasters in that department. We're one of the top mob-killing classes with Piercing Arrow, but ultimately in terms of pure damage output can't really compare with high level Bishops or Arch-Mages just from spamming our attack skills like they can. But at level 120, you'll have Puppet, a 3-second Blizzard, Power Knock-back, Dragon's Breath, and Frostprey. How often do you find yourself with a nice big clump of enemies, neatly tucked into a corner and either flailing helplessly about your Puppet or frozen and incapacitated, just waiting to receive whatever punishment you choose to dish out? Assuming you're a Marksman or Sniper, I'm willing to bet it's not that uncommon for you, either! With only half these skills, it's not hard at all. With all of them, it should be a breeze! Mob control is our specialty, and getting our enemies into tight, controlled clumps is what we do best. Thus, in my opinion, Piercing Arrow compliments a Marksman's existing abilities brilliantly!

It's my general opinion that this skill is underrated. Just take for example the fact that “not getting Hurricane” is often listed as a “con” of being a Crossbowman as opposed to a Hunter. I think it's the other side that's missing out! This is also largely due to the fact that the charge-up for this skill was recently halved, which has powered up Piercing Arrow in relation to other mob skills considerably. If you can get off 5 or 6 Arrow Eruptions in the time as one Piercing Arrow instead of 2 or 3, it doesn't stack up nearly as well.

(III.4) Snipe

Snipe, if you don't know, is a skill which basically does 200,000 damage on every shot. It hits one enemy, and will kill any non-boss monster in the game in one hit. It also has a cool-down timer which is 4 seconds once maxed. This means you can fire Snipe approximately once every 5 seconds, for an additional 2,400,000 damage per minute!

Snipe is not affected by Critical Shot or Mastery and will do between 190,000 and 200,000 damage every shot regardless of your stats, skills, or equipment. Thus, in some ways it is a great equalizer because a Marksman with a level 12 Crossbow and no armor will do the same damage with Snipe as a Marksman decked out in half a dozen pieces of billion-meso gear.

It's hard to compare Snipe directly to other skills since it's not based on a percentage of your damage range. However, think of it in this way: based on online videos and Marksmen I've met in Maplestory, around level 130 you might expect your Strafe to do 20,000 to 30,000 damage, total for all four shots. Let's assume it's an average of 20,000, because you don't have Sharp Eyes (because you maxed Snipe!) but you have some fairly good equipment. In that case, you can fire 83 shots per minute with your crossbow. That's:

20,000 damage per shot * 83 shots per minute =  1,660,000 damage per minute.

With a level 30 Sharp Eyes, that would be increase by 65%, or 33,000 damage per shot average which comes to:

33,000 damage per shot * 83 shots per minute = 2,739,000 damage per minute

Let's compare that with Snipe. With a level 30 Snipe, you'll be doing 12 Snipes a minute, which leaves 71 shots left over, which will be Strafes:

(20,000 damage per Strafe * 71) + (200,000 damage per Snipe * 12) = 3,820,000 damage per minute

Which is a 130% increase in single target damage as compared with only a 65% increase from Sharp Eyes. Or, to think of it another way, that's 39% more total damage than you'd be doing with Sharp Eyes and Strafe. Of course, you'll eventually have both, but this is just a comparison of which skill to get first.

Now, sadly it's not all good news with Snipe. This is the damage you'll get while bossing, but against normal monsters it's a different story. Since ordinary monsters, even very high-level ones, don't have 200,000 hit points to begin with, a lot of that extra damage is “wasted.” It doesn't do you any good against a Skelegon, for instance, to do 200,000 damage as opposed to just 100,000 so you've lost a huge chunk of Snipe's massive damage advantage.

There's another drawback, which is that Snipe is essentially a bossing skill but ultimately it's not your best one. If you intend to solo bosses a lot, it's a very good skill to have as early as possible. However, since most of us fight bosses in groups, Sharp Eyes wins out. Just in terms of damage output, “you'll” do more damage when Sharp Eyes is affecting 6 people than simply by upping your own damage. You'll also be in higher demand in parties for your party skill than just for your damage output. If you maxed Snipe by 1evel 30, I predict you would do more damage than even a level 130 Corsair. But the other bossing classes will quickly catch up to you since Snipe doesn't improve as you level, and for that reason when parties go looking for a Marksman, massive damage output is usually not their highest priority compared with Sharp Eyes and sometimes Puppet, so Sharp Eyes is what will get you into those parties in the first place.

A third drawback is that, as it currently stands, at level 1 Snipe has a cool-down time of several minutes. Snipe's power is based on how quickly you can fire it, so right now it's power actually quadruples (that's x4 ;p ) in the last 3 points. What does that mean? It means that this skill is basically just for showing off until it's maxed out.

There's also a rumor that the new “Big Bang” updates may be making Snipe more powerful, but pushing it's cool-down back to 10 seconds. This would potentially maintain it's power against bosses, but result in even more wasted damage against ordinary monsters. Doing half a million damage to a Skelegon is no better than doing 200,000, or 80,000, if it comes right down to it. So in ordinary training, Snipe means you would instantly kill one monster half as often if the damage and cool-down timer are both doubled.

For all these reasons, awesome as it is, Snipe should probably not be the first skill you max out.

(IV) Conclusion

(IV.1) Basic Build Comparison

The traditional build is to go for Sharp Eyes and Marksman Boost before anything else. These equations have shown us that if you do that, you'll experience an overall 88% increase in your single-target damage and a 69% increase in your mob-skill damage by level 140, not including the increase from higher stats and new equipment.

Were you to take Piercing Arrow and Snipe, you would experience a 130% increase in single-target damage, and a 153% increase in your mob-skill damage by the same level. In terms of damage, the second build clearly wins out. Secondary considerations could guide this decision, though, since damage isn't everything and Snipe in particular has quite a few drawbacks.

(IV.2) My Proposed Build

So what am I planning on doing when I get to 120?

120 : 1 Frostprey, 1 Dragon's Breath, 1 Snipe

Level 1 Frostprey has been pretty much universally regarded as necessary. It does more damage than even a level 30 Golden Eagle, it freezes multiple opponents automatically, and it doesn't require and summoning stones.

Dragon's Breath is useful for mob control, which I see as the Marksman's greatest strength. Level 1 should be more than sufficient for this.

Level 1 Snipe – it doesn't do anything for you and the “smart” thing to do would be to put a point in Sharp Eyes or something more useful. But here's my reasoning: At level 1 Snipe isn't going to be a big training booster, but it will occasionally have it's uses. That one monster that sneaks up behind you just as you have your mob under control? Snipe it! That one really nasty enemy you can't take a hit from even though it's just a normal monster? Snipe it! These situations don't come up every few minutes, in general, so it's a nice utility skill even if it can't be used that often.

And here's my ACTUAL reason: I want to go to the Mu Lung Dojo, 1-hit kill a Crimson Balrog, and then brag about it to my friends :p It's may mostly only be good for showing off, but hey, what can I say, showing off is fun ^_^

121-123 : 9 points in Sharp Eyes

Why? Because it increases your damage for both mob and single target damage, which is nice. Because even level 1 Sharp Eyes is extremely useful but I don't want to have to cast it every 10 seconds so level 9 for a more reasonable 90 second timer. Most of all, so that I can get into parties that will expect me to have it.

123-133 : 30 points in Piercing Arrow

Piercing Arrow blows all our other mob skills out of the water while complimenting our mob-control skills very nicely. Bossing can be fun, but 90% plus of Maplestory is just slaying hordes, and I intend to take full advantage of marksman's superiority in that area. ^_^ Piercing Arrow will become worthwhile by 11 points (level 126 for me), and will then be my main way to level up pretty much forever. Having that in place will help me get to and through all the other skills faster. At least, that's the idea.

From there, I'm not entirely sure.

If I find I'm doing or want to be doing a lot of bossing, and that 9 Sharp Eyes is enough to get into parties, I'll go for Snipe. If I'm wanting to do a lot of parties and don't care to much to be soloing bosses, then Sharp Eyes.

If I find that I'm still mostly training and happy doing it, probably Marksman Boost, since that will power up Piercing Arrow more than maxing out Sharp Eyes would. Sharp Eyes, if I find I'm using more Strafe than I anticipate using, which will probably be true but I'd still go for Piercing Arrow first since it will do the main mob damage and that's the best way to level. I did Arrow Eruption before Strafe as a Sniper, I guess mob skills are just what I lean towards the most ^_^

Probably Sharp Eyes, since it seems to cover so many bases, but I'm leaving my options open at this point.

At level 14x I'll most likely go for Snipe or Sharp Eyes since I'll probably be thinking more about bossing by then. And then after that, whichever skill I still have left and that brings us to 160 ^_^

Of course all of this is dependent on getting skill books at the right time, and also it might all get scrambled up if the “Big Bang” update ever actually comes through.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the early bits of Marksman. I hope you find them useful!

Note: This guide was also posted at Hiddenstreet.net