EPiGRrt2's Guide on MCPQ Strategy

The guide on this page was created for an older and outdated version of Maplestory and is now inaccurate to the current gameplay and no longer deemed useful. Please do not edit or delete this article.

Hello. My IGN is EPiGRrt2 and I play on the Windia server.

This is a guide on strategy in the Monster Carnival. This is targeted to Monster Carnival 1 (at level 30~50). No one does MCPQ2 anyway.

All of the following information is for the people who know how to MCPQ without trading wins. (Seriously, trading is dumb...)

What is MCPQ?

Read Spiegelmann's rules in game, since I don't want to waste 50 min of my life typing them...

Vocabulary

• CP = Carnival Points
• Mobbers = People with skills that can hit multiple monsters.
• Mob (noun) = Monsters
• Mob (verb) = Skills that multiple monsters (e.g. Slash Blast)
• OHKO = One Hit Knock Out (One Hit Finish)
• 2HKO = Two Hit Knock Out

The Basics

• You should not use CP unless:
  • you are losing by a moderate margin (>10 points)
  • your opponents have already used CP.
• Generally, try to keep your available CP above your opponent's. Obviously.
• Don't use anything in the Skill tab. Waste of CP.
• Don't summon mobs unless you can effectively buff them.
  • A common tactic for people with low accuracy is Master Chronos + Avoidability Up.
  • If you can't afford to buff them, your opponents get more CP by killing them
• Not every buff is worth its CP value (obviously).

Those are the dead basics, that people could probably figure out for themselves.

The Rooms

There are three different types of rooms in MCPQ. Yeah, you'd better know this. >:] Rooms 1-2 (2~4 players) are notorious for giving very little CP. Rooms 3-4 (2~4 players) are notorious for giving a load of CP. Rooms 5-6 (3~6) are for large parties or for people who can kill Rombots easily.

Each room favors certain classes and is harder for others:

Rooms 1 and 2

• Favors:
  • Long range (Assassins, Bowmen, Magicians, Night Walkers, Wind Archers, Blaze Wizards)
  • Non-mobbers (Thieves, Fire-Poison Wizards, Clerics)
• Does not favor:
  • Short range

Rooms 3 and 4

• Favors:
  • Mobbers (Arans, Evans, Ice-Lightning Wizards, Bowmen, Warriors, Cygnus Knights)
• Made more difficult for:
  • Assassins, Bowmen, Gunslingers because they have a minimal range requirement. (Bowmen are better because they have effective mob attacks.) Wind Archers can push things away with Storm Break, so they're fine.

Rooms 5 and 6

• Favors:
  • Long range
  • Thieves with Haste - to move quickly
  • Assassins - especially dexless ones, because they overkill Rombots
• Easier for non-mobbers because there aren't many grouped monsters.

Keep these in mind when selecting a room for the party.

Party Member Selection

• No amount of strategy will help you if you have all level 30 party members. Players should be as good as possible.
• Having a mix of weapon and magic attack is helpful, so that one of Cancel Weapon Attack or Cancel Magic Attack cannot nullify your entire party.
• Clerics are unnecessary. This is not LPQ or something. You won't save pots with a Cleric, and there aren't many undead monsters either.
• The Robos are strong against fire and ice. Mages must use magic claw (or suffer crappy damage) in rooms 5-6 unless fighting Rombots, and on half the monsters in rooms 3-4. (Thunderbolt is OK, but Poison Breath is bad in the first place.)
• Try to get Blaze Wizards who trained Fire Pillar first and I/L wizards who trained Thunderbolt first for rooms 3-4.
• Someone who can't type coherently probably won't be very good.

• Set up a system for gathering Maple Coins before the match, so people don't waste too much time trying to get them or fight over them.
• It's better to have people who you know will cooperate. (People you know in real life, or friends.)

Individual Jobs: Pros/Cons

Warriors/Dawn Knights/Arans/Brawlers/Thunder Breakers

• Pros:
  • Mob skills
  • High singular damage
  • High HP
• Cons:
  • Low accuracy
  • Short ranged

Bandits

• Pros:
  • High singular damage (insane if dexless)
  • High accuracy
  • Haste
• Cons:
  • No mob skills
  • Short ranged

Assassins

• Pros:
  • High singular damage (insane if dexless)
  • High accuracy
  • Haste
• Cons:
  • No mob skills
  • Minimal range requirement

Night Walkers

• Pros:
  • Very high singular damage (past insane if dexless)
  • High accuracy
  • Haste
• Cons
  • Bad mob skills
  • Minimal range requirement

Blaze Wizards/Ice-Lightning Wizards

• Pros:
  • Mob skills
  • Decent singular damage
  • Teleport
• Cons
  • Elemental attacks fail on Robos

Fire-Poison Wizards

• Pros:
  • Semi-high singular damage
  • Teleport
• Cons
  • No mob skills
  • Elemental attacks fail on Robos

Clerics

• Pros:
  • Teleport
  • Heal (little bonus)
• Cons
  • Bad singular damage
  • No mob skills

Wind Archers

• Pros:
  • Mob skills
  • High singular damage
  • High accuracy
• Cons
  • None really

Hunters/Crossbowmen

• Pros:
  • Mob skills
  • High singular damage
  • High accuracy
• Cons
  • Minimal range requirement

Gunslingers

• Pros:
  • Mob skills
  • Semi-high singular damage (low damage but fast attacks)
  • High accuracy
• Cons
  • Minimal range requirement

The above info is vital for the next section.

Using CP Well

• Damage isn't everything.
• CP efficiency is important to winning. (Duh...?)
• The best thing to use are Protectors.
• Generally, the differences between you and your opponents' classes can make a difference: if you Protect correctly, you can change a loss to a win.
• The main principle is this: when you use Protectors on your opponent, your opponent tends to copy you, especially if they're winning. That way they know that they won't be spending more CP than you.
  • But you can use the pros and cons to your advantage:
  • Sample party: Bandit lv 45 and Ice-Lightning Wizard lv 47 vs 2 Blaze Wizards lv 47 and 49 (obviously Blaze Wizards are generally stronger) -- Bandit/IL team uses Avoidability Up. Blaze Wizard team copies them. While Blaze Wizards are trying to cancel the Avoidability Up, I/L goes to cancel the Avoidability Up on the opposite side while Bandit remains fighting. The Blaze Wizard, having only decent accuracy, is almost helpless while the Bandit can hit about 60% of the time (dexless) and still gain CP. Yes, this is a real scenario and I was the Bandit.
  • Avoidability Up is very effective on Warriors and Brawlers and semi-effective on Blaze Wizards. You should only try that tactic if your team has higher accuracy than your opponents.
• The most dangerous jobs are probably level 50 Thieves and Archers, especially strless/dexless ones that can OHKO or 2HKO monsters in rooms 1-4, since Avoidability Up does almost nothing.
• Use no more CP than you need. For example, against Warriors, Avoidability Up is almost as effective as Cancel Weapon Attack and may even be better on magic/weapon party mixes. And it costs less than half the CP. In a close game, wasting CP like that can cost you the match. Cancel Weapon/Magic Attack is only worth it when you have much more CP or Avoidability UP is significantly less effective. Generally it is bad against mixed parties.

Killing/Destroying Efficiency

Increasing the efficiency of killing is not hard, and can increase your CP score considerably. Also, being able to destroy orb towers quickly is also very helpful.

• Spread out, especially in rooms 1-2 and 5-6. The maps are wide and clumping all your players into one area wastes CP. Also, this gets rid of Maple Coin disputes.
• Don't move too much, or you'll defeat the purpose of spreading out. (Short range players move more.)
• In rooms 5-6, have only one player at the Rombots. More becomes inefficient, since they spawn slowly anyway.
• Pre-arrange who cancels which Protections. It does not make sense for a magician to be canceling Cancel Weapon Attack. Have the people who are most affected by a Protection cancel the effect.
• Don't cancel bad Protections like Magic Up and Speed Up if you can avoid it. However, if the opponent summons more, you may be unable to distinguish which is which.
• In rooms 1-2, sometimes the color of the orb tower is blocked by the timer.
• In rooms 1-2, Magicians are the best at canceling because they can Teleport on the blocks at the top.

Miscellaneous Tips

• Sins: recharge your stars. :P

• Archers without Soul Arrow: buy arrows.
• As mentioned earlier, set up a system for Maple Coin gathering.
• Occupying a room to wait for challengers is better than selecting from Spiegelman's Office (the lobby), since you can choose your opponents.

Conclusion

I hope this guide helped you in some way at least. If it didn't, you're a really good MCPQer or you can't read English.

Credits

• ahuang422 [Windia] - For getting me to rejoin MS.
• HalfxxFallen [Windia] - Cooperative Partymate - 8 wins in a row
• DeathPointe [Windia] - Cooperative Partymate - 4 wins (discluding one where we invited a noob) in a row