Well, by now it’s nothing new; just about every bowman in the 7x to 8x range knows one thing now:

Ever since the introduction of 3rd job in gMS back in December 2005, there was one and only one skill that really mattered up until level 80, and that would’ve been Strafe. With coolie zombies being the best way to gain EXP through the first 10 first job levels, Strafe was the only skill that required it, and the stronger the better. That being said, many ranger skill builds told you to max Strafe from the get-go, (with maybe a point randomly thrown into Puppet) which of course would take 10 levels to do with a max level 30 skill. This would also become very effective past level 80 as well with Death Teddies, as rangers and snipers alike could take advantage of a nifty little glitch both there and at Spirit Vikings.

Fast forward to now: The pure strafe build is a thing of the past, and anyone unlucky to either get to a high level or up into the low-80s using that build (including myself) have been screwed over.

In a sense it kind of started earlier than it did, plus we kind of had time to adapt, so you can’t really blame the low 8x pure strafers out there for not looking at this first bit here as a warning that their build was going to be obsolete soon. Back in patch 0.33 in January, (see this post) we saw the addition of the Forest of Golem map at the bottom of Sleepywood Dungeon. This was not just a viable place to train for the 7xers, but was also a fairly effective party map if you could get a small three person party together and find a channel all for themselves.

For rangers and snipers though, because of the golem’s size and how they can spawn in large numbers, and especially with how they all gather on that extremely small top platform; bowmen needed something for close range, thus showing the need for Arrow Rain or Arrow Eruption (depending on job) for training on this map. (A pure strafer might not have a problem on the lower two platforms, but it usually becomes apparent when they try to clear the very top.)

This, of course, spawned a new type of early skill build; of course, the 1 SP on advance would still go into strafe, but some people might have only gotten it up to level 5 or so and then start putting points into Mortal Blow so that they could get Rain/Eruption. Some, like one ranger I know only had the one point into strafe before going right for MB and Rain.

At the beginning of this year, you could either be a pure strafer or have a combination of strafe and rain/eruption and be able to have a place to effectively train. That would only last a couple of months though.

In March, with patch 0.35, Nexon killed the pure strafe build by modifying coolie zombie maps to have ledges instead of hills, plus adding an upper platform on all maps. (This was most likely done to try to cure the problems with users disrupting others trying to train on these maps.) Though it is still possible to somewhat effectively train on these maps, (Z3 actually isn’t all too bad) the addition of the upper platform brings down experience efficiency by forcing players to climb up and down, thus a lot of time ends up being spent climbing to this upper platform instead of killing zombies below.

In addition, the DT/VK glitch that I pointed out earlier was fixed; Something that, one day, was going to happen so you can’t really complain that it’s gone. In a sense, though, this wasn’t just a pure strafe thing, but there really isn’t anything else to train on past level 80 for a pure strafer other than DTs, and they will burn up your HP pots really fast. (As they can 2-hit any level 80 ranger/sniper)

If you were mid-level 7x, it could be corrected. My friend Dez (SwtLyLAznGrl of Bera) did this herself at level 75 when these changes take place; she was going pure strafe, but with these map nerfings and the addition of FoG, she changed course and quickly put SP into Mortal Blow and Arrow Rain. However, me being level 81 when this happened, was already SOL, and I am not spending $30 in 3rd job SP resets to take points off of Stafe and putting them onto Mortal Blow so I can get rain. However, since I was already a low-8x pure strafer when this all happened, this completely changed how I am going about my skill build.

I still have about 1.35 levels before I can even acquire one point into Arrow Rain, meaning I have 1.35 levels of crappy, non-effective training before I can join the big boys, and even with that, I’m putting off Puppet (which is already level 3) just so I can get this out of the way; both skills are critical for an 8x ranger, but I can only do one once. That being said, I think it’ll be a while before I think about going into a DPT or whatever.

So yes, in case you haven’t figured it out: if you’ve 7x and were going pure-strafe, change course now and get rain. If you’re 8x like me and are pure strafe, you’re screwed.