MapleStory – Aran

At the end of last year, one more new class was released in MapleSEA. It was a called Aran the legendary hero. This class is very different from the previous categories such as Adventurers and Knights of Cygnus (KOC) in the way that both Adventurers and KOC each have five different classes while Aran is a standalone class on its own. Aran is also a class which kind of inherited the class type of a warrior. It also has a maximum capped level of 200 and has four job advancement stages, same as adventurers. One special feature of an Aran is the combo system that it has. When using normal attack on monsters, the combo counter will increase. When a certain number of combos have been made, some skills can be casted and the combo counter will restart again.

Aran has a complete set of new skills of its own rather than having few skills which are almost the same as adventurers or KOC. In the first job advancement from level 10, an Aran has a skill called combat step which can allow a character to move over a distance at a fast speed than usual. This even though can save a little bit of time when travelling across maps, however when a character is mobing over a platform which has the same gradient throughout, the moving speed when using combat step is actually of not much difference from normal walking. The only way to use the skill more effectively is when using the skill at a higher spot.

In the second job advancement, there is a skill called combo smash which deals damage on a number monsters in the direction the skill is being casted. This skill is very useful at the low levels as it helps to increase the training speed by a lot as monsters are cleared very quickly. In addition, the damage dealt by the skill is also reasonably high at low levels.

One of the skills which is quite powerful in the third job advancement of an Aran is called the fenrir phantom. This skill requires 100 combos to be made before it can be used. When casted, it damages monsters in its range widely, most of the times almost the whole platform in a map. In addition, the monsters are hit twice, and at a high percentage of damage. Mostly, the monsters will die just by damaged by one casting of fenrir phantom. This will replace the second job skill, combo smash, as one of the most frequently used attacking skill due to its increase in the experience gained when compared to using combo smash.

At the stage of fourth job advancement, there is the most powerful skill called combo tempest. Though this skill requires 200 combos to be accumulated before it can be casted, the damage dealt from the skill is ridiculously high and at a very wide range, most of the time it’s the whole map. In addition, when the monsters are hit by the skill, they will be freezed and in the freezing position, any skill being casted by the player will cause the monster to die instantly after one hit. Even though this skill seems to kill the monsters faster, however, when looking from another perspective, using fenrir phantom will increase the training speed instead because when the combo counter hits 100, fenrir phantom can be easiily casted and mostly the monsters will die. However, if the player is to wait for the combo counter to reach 200, sometimes when he or she is rebuffing some skills and not attacking monsters, the combo count may be lost and need to be restarted from 1. Moreoever, when combo tempest is casted, the player still needs to walk around the whole map to whack the monsters to make them die instantly. Time is a little wasted in this way.

References:
http://media.playpark.net/MapleStory/uploadimages/char_aran01.png
http://www.maplesimulator.com/bannedstory_beta