Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
I - Introduction
The Elite monster and Elite Boss system is introduced to provide a more dynamic game-play, adding much-desired variety, difficulty and rewards to the player in their otherwise monotonous grinding. It changes the old notion/trend that bosses are restricted to area bosses (e.g. Mano, Leviathan etc.), final bosses (e.g. Zakum, HT, Magnus etc.), or PQs and Monster Carnival. Notably (in the author's opinion), it provides an opportunity to slowly bridge the gap between unfunded players and funded players.
II - Elite Monsters
Elite monsters are boss-type monsters of the same level as the monster they evolved from. They, like all bosses, have enhanced stats, HP, and EXP pegged to their level. They drop a variety of valuable loot, including but not limited to: recovery potions, Rare to Epic potential equipment, Golden Hammer 50%, Cubic Chaos Blade etc. valuable scrolls and items. Loot is individualised but is (apparently?) affected by the drop rate of the killing person, and not spread thin by the number of players contributing to the kill i.e. it is a fair-kill system. Interestingly, killing e.g. an Elite Orange Mushroom will also count towards any quests that require you to kill orange mushrooms.
Summoning an Elite monster requires you to be within the level requirement to the monster (observed to be -20/+20). Summoning an Elite monster appears to be entirely probabilistic - you could summon one in under 50 kills, or you could take hundreds to kills just to summon one. An alternative method is to use a Rune of Darkness, which spawns three Elite monsters, and has no monster level restriction. Every monster killed has a chance to summon an Elite monster except for World Tour and Boss maps, and it will summon it around the location where it is killed. When an Elite monster is summoned, an in-game message will appear:
Quote:
Powerful monsters have appeared with the dark energy.
Elite monsters, when summoned, have a prefix to their name, which gives them special properties. The list is below. It is generally grouped into buff, skill, and debuff properties.
Elite Monster Prefix | Property | Description | Target |
---|
Powerful | Weapon Attack Up Buff | Attack stat of Elite monster and surrounding monsters is increased, dealing more touch and physical damage | AoE |
Beefy | Weapon Defence Up Buff | PDR stat of Elite monster and surrounding monsters is increased, receiving less physical damage | AoE |
Magic Resistant | Magic Defence Up Buff | MDR stat of Elite monster and surrounding monsters is increased, receiving less magic damage | AoE |
Invincible | Invulnerability Buff | Elite monster receives no damage while buff is active | Self |
Solid | Critical Guard Buff | Elite monster receives damage from critical hits only | Self |
Reflective | Damage Reflect Buff | Elite monster receives no damage, and player receives a small but significant amount of (HP-based?) damage per hit | Self |
Speedy | Movement Speed Up Buff | Elite monster and surrounding monsters move at a higher speed | AoE |
Commanding | Fixed Area Random Buff | An area of blue aura that grants a random (but consistent) buff to all monsters in the area (including DR but is limited to the Elite Monster) | AoE (fixed) |
Healing | HP Recovery | Heals Elite monster and surrounding monsters | AoE |
Magic Eater | Buff Dispel | Dispellable buffs are dispelled | Player |
Dark Chains | Ground-based Attack | Dark chains emerge from marked random areas on the ground that do multiple hits of HP-based damage (not reduced by Magic Guard) | AoE (fixed) |
Debilitating | Fixed Area Random Debuff | A darkened area appears that deals a random (but consistent) debuff if the player remains in the area. Dispel buffs if it is Magic Eater Debilitating | AoE (fixed) |
Poisonous | Poisoned Debuff | Player takes poison damage over a period of time | Player |
Overwhelming | Shadow of Darkness Debuff | Player receives damage if not moving | Player |
Shadowy | Vision Restriction Debuff | Blackens the screen and limits vision to a small circle around your character | Players |
Seductive | Seduced Debuff | Player is seduced, and in this case cannot do any action (but can use Hero's Will and related skills) | Player |
KO | Stun Debuff | Stuns players, preventing movement (but can drink potion) | Player |
Dry | Potion Lock Debuff | Player cannot drink potions | Player |
Evasive | Blindness Debuff | Player's attacks will miss most of the time | Player |
Accursed | Cursed Debuff | Player receives only half the intended EXP | Player |
Seal Master | Sealed Debuff | Player cannot cast any skills | Player |
Fragile | Weakness Debuff | Player cannot jump | Player |
Sticky | Slow Debuff | Player's movement speed is significantly slowed down | Player |
Befuddling | Direction-reversal ("Crazy-skull") Debuff | Player's movement directions are reversed - Left-Right and Up-Down are reversed, and jump moves the character downwards | Players |
Petrifying | Petrified Debuff | Player is restricted from moving, and must tap Left-Right rapidly to break free from the debuff. Once debuff bar reaches maximum, player is inflicted a large amount of damage and dies. Debuff bar fills quite rapidly | Player |
Transformative | Transformation Debuff | Player is transformed into a critter, preventing casting of skills and setting all movement back to 100% | Player |
Magnetic | Location-restriction Debuff | Player is pulled to a fixed location, and any attempts to move away will cause the player to be pulled back to the same location | Player |
Note that recently, the AoE prefixes have been amended slightly to include the monster buff or player debuff prefix. So for example, a "Speedy Commanding" prefix would mean that all monsters in the area will gain a speed buff while in the buff area, and a Fragile Debilitating prefix would mean that all players will be weakened while in the debuff area.
A summoned Elite monster will disappear after about 5 minutes if it is not killed by then.
Note: It is unclear if 2 Elite monsters can be spawned at the same map, but for now it appears not to be the case (with the exception of the Elite Boss co-spawn).
After an Elite monster is killed, an in-game message will appear. It is either:
Quote:
The dark energy is still here. It's making the place quite grim.
which is "Stage 1" or
Quote:
You feel something in the dark energy...
which is "Stage 2".
After killing an Elite monster, there is a chance to promote the map from the first to the second stage, which (most likely) stays in second stage. Stages are tied to the map, not to the character. A successful stage-promoting Elite monster kill in a map at Stage 2 will trigger Stage 3, which is the summoning of the Elite Boss.
Note: Because of the fluid nature of MMOs, it is difficult to verify if a fixed number of Elite monsters is required to summon an Elite Boss, but for now it appears to be probabilistic. (The author has experienced stepping into a map upon logging in, and the first monster kill summoned an Elite Boss.)
III - Elite Bosses
Elite Bosses are significantly more powerful than Elite Monsters. They have the same level as the Elite Monster summoned to it, have much more HP, (possibly WA/MA, PDR and MDR), and have unique attacks. Upon a successful Stage 3 trigger, the screen will flash a giant "WARNING!" in red background, which is followed by the screen turning black, and reappearing with a black-purple frame of "dark energy" to go with the theme. All monsters in the map are removed but the loot stays behind. An Elite Boss will spawn, along with 2 Elite Monsters. A timer of 30 minutes appears upon the re-screening, which in itself is a representation of the difficulty of the fight with an Elite Boss. In addition, all maps in the region (both town and monster maps) will periodically flash an in-game notice that informs what Elite Boss was summoned at which map, but this is restricted to that channel only. To assist players in finding the map, an icon will appear on the world map that clearly informs the player where the Elite Boss is.
(Note, however, that since a summoned Elite Boss is specific to that map in that channel, this would not be a very viable way for "farming" Elite Bosses, not counting the level requirement limits.)
There are 5 Elite Bosses, one for each type of Maplestory job. Each Elite Boss will be summoned with an Elite prefix detailed above. However, each Elite Boss also comes with multiple prefixes that are not shown. These prefixes are often more powerful than those found on Elite monsters e.g. the "Black Chains" attack by the Elite Boss will summon several times more dark chain attacks than an Elite monster. Elite bosses can also teleport, similar to how Von Leon teleports (which has led to some interesting results, such as teleporting to an awkward location and entirely not attacking the player due to its attacks' hitboxes; this can be a very useful tactic when dealing with Elite Bosses).
Elite Boss Job Type | General Name | Monster Name |
---|
Warrior | Black Knight | Black Knight Mokadin |
Archer | Vicious Hunter | Human Hunter July |
Magician | Crazy Mage | Crazy Mage Karianne |
Thief | Rampant Cyborg | Charge Type CQ57 |
Pirate | Bad Brawler | Fighter Plaid |
Elite Bosses are meant to provide an interesting an challenging experience to the player, and for that each Elite Boss has multiple and different attacks that are based on the job type, which then presents unique situations that require different strategies for each Elite Boss. All attacks (except touch damage) by Elite Bosses are HP-based, so it is equally dangerous to a low-levelled character as it is to a high-levelled one, regardless of the map level. The only difference is in the speed at which a high-levelled character is able to kill a low-levelled Elite Boss. Hidden Damage Reflect buffs can be deadly, but the visual indicator (swirling brown eye aura) now should more accurately tell if the Damage Reflect buff is on or off.
IV - Rewards and The Bonus Stage
Killing an Elite Boss provides similar EXP to the co-summoned Elite monsters (in the earlier versions they did not). It does not drop any conventional loot (the 2 co-summoned Elite Monsters do provide loot), but instead drops a bubble or two that, when looted, provides a Rare Treasure Chest. All players who successfully attack the Elite Monster at least once will be able to loot one bubble, and this has no level requirement on the player to loot the bubble. The player who does the most damage to the Elite Boss (exact damage calculation currently unclear) will be able to loot an additional bubble, but this additional bubble has a +20/-40 level limit for the player against the Elite Boss. The Rare Treasure Chest expires in 10 minutes, so do not delay opening it. You can only use 20 Rare Treasure Chests in a day, and this limit is account-wide per world. The Rare Treasure Chest provides rare items such as 10% Clean Slate Scrolls, 50% Innocence Scrolls, Chaos Scrolls etc. Notably, these scrolls are fully tradeable, which makes killing an Elite Boss very lucrative now, especially since now you are guaranteed at least one rare item.
On killing the Elite Boss, it triggers a Bonus Stage that everyone in the map will enter. Players can enter and join the map for the bonus stage, and if they leave they can enter the map again - the bonus stage is simply a time-limited map event with a different background skin. Unlike bonus stages from most events or PQs, there is no movement speed or jump or skill restriction (consequential to the nature of the bonus stage design, since it must be tied to the original map's nature). In some ways, this is an indirect fair-kill system meant to encourage partying, but at the same time it allows for free-riding, which can be viewed as a way to compensate players who join the map late.
Bonus stages reward the player when they pick up or touch the bubbles (depending on bonus stage). The icons on the bubble represent the type of rewards provided. EXP provides experience. Coin provides mesoes. Potion gives different restorative items. Shield provides armour equipment. Sword provides weapon equipment. The EXP and meso rewards are paltry, while the equipment are potentially significant because they are (usually) Epic and can even be Unique. You must be within +/- 20 levels of the Elite Boss to be able to loot anything from the bubbles from the bonus stage.
In the past, the yellow bubble with purple chest in the bonus stage used to provide rare items like in the Rare Treasure Chest, but have been replaced by the Rare Treasure Chest guaranteed drop when killing the Elite Boss. Compared to the past, the upside is that it limits botting and hacking, and also allows all contributing players to have at least one guaranteed rare item. The downside, however, is that it also limits the total number of rare items one can get in a day i.e. Elite Boss farming is effectively discouraged and limited.
There are 3 different Bonus Stages, listed below.
1) Mimics walk around, and attacking them with normal attack will kill them, releasing the bubbles. Time limit: 20 seconds.
2) Bubbles rain throughout the map evenly, its movement not unlike a feather floating down (but much faster, and each bubble moves differently). Time limit: 22 seconds.
3) Flying monsters will randomly drop a spread of bubbles, falling in the feather motion described above. Time limit: 22 seconds.
Unlooted bubbles will disappear once the time limit is reached. Note that different maps benefit differently from each type of bonus stage. For example, very high maps with low platforms (e.g. AMG map) will suffer the most from the second type of Bonus Stage because it takes very long for the bubbles to drop down to the platforms where the characters are. Conversely, smaller maps with many platforms (e.g. Copper Drakes) benefit very well from all 3 due to good maneuverability, and the mimics cannot run very far. Pets do not loot the bubbles (needs verification). It is unfortunate that bubble-looting from the falling-type bubbles suffer greatly from latency and ping rates.
Thank you for reading through this treatise. I value any constructive feedback, and if there are mistakes please kindly point them out and I will correct them. If there is anything that I should add, please do let me know too. For example, I am gathering information on the types of attacks that each Elite Boss does, and also the damage that they do.
Thanks PirateIzzy for the Solid prefix. Intro and Elite Boss notifications added; some formatting changes; amended level requirement. Added Sticky and Solid. Fixed Debilitating to not have DoT and noted it's consistent debuff. Added a long-needed note on Commanding providing DR buff. Amended Debilitating prefix slightly. Added a small part on Elite monster kill count. Updated the prefixes, and included Rare Treasure Chest as a reward for killing the Elite Boss, and amended the bonus stage section.
Hadriel
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
The critical guard buff monsters are called Solid.
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
Is it just me, or does the level restriction on spawning Elites apply to 150+? I was grinding at SDH on my 209 I/L for about an hour for the butterfly event and didn't see a single one.
And if that's the case, then anyone over 218? can't get their own Elite Mobs/Bosses.
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
Quote:
Originally Posted by
OrionTempest
Is it just me, or does the level restriction on spawning Elites apply to 150+? I was grinding at SDH on my 209 I/L for about an hour for the butterfly event and didn't see a single one.
And if that's the case, then anyone over 218? can't get their own Elite Mobs/Bosses.
Seeing all the people yelling at me for attacking at KSH while I was under level 190, I learned that once you get 20 levels or higher over the mobs, you can't spawn elites in that map. So yes, anyone over 218 probably can't spawn their own, even at WG.
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
Quote:
Originally Posted by
OrionTempest
Is it just me, or does the level restriction on spawning Elites apply to 150+? I was grinding at SDH on my 209 I/L for about an hour for the butterfly event and didn't see a single one.
And if that's the case, then anyone over 218? can't get their own Elite Mobs/Bosses.
I've been able to spawn elite mobs/bosses at HoH/WG on my 222 Marksman since the release of the patch.
The "Advanced Knight" mobs still count as normal mobs, I guess.
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
Quote:
Originally Posted by
FenixR
What are HoH/WG?
Hall of Honor/Warrior Grounds. Maps in the Future Stronghold.
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
Quote:
Originally Posted by
FenixR
What are HoH/WG?
Hall of Honor (Future Ereve) and Warrior Grounds (Future Perion)
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
Not sure about GMS, but the (recently released) Elite Mobs in MSEA have paltry drops (Honour medals, Rare-potted equipment, pots and mesos), as usual. Reaction here is more of a "not this pomegranate again" instead of an "oh wow cool, good exp and drops!".
Personally I've seen Elite bosses spawn after 4-5 batches of Elite mobs on average, but I don't know the actual probability of promoting a map from Stage 1 to Stage 2. Are there any released stats on this? Is the probability affected by the map level (mob and/or player wise)?
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
Unfortunately I don't have any statistics for your questions. They'd all be server-sided.
Our Epic-tier equipment drop rate is quite high when killing Elite Monsters. No cubic blades or related stuff for you? That's sad... I left MSEA a long time ago... didn't expect it to degenerate so badly.
I will not be able to do further testing on GMS... at least for the near/mid-near future. My apologies in advance if I cannot deliver any more statistics.
Hadriel
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
From my personal experience grinding on a map after a maintenance after GMS elite monster patch.
Stage 1 is 0-20th elite monster (The dark energy is still here. It's making the place quite grim.)
Stage 2 is 21st-24th elite monster (You feel something in the dark energy...)
The 25th will be the elite boss.
If the ch crashes, It will reset back to 0.
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
Quote:
Originally Posted by
hadriel
No cubic blades or related stuff for you? That's sad... I left MSEA a long time ago... didn't expect it to degenerate so badly.
We never got the ability to craft cubes or flames, so that's no surprise.
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
Like the Multi Kill and Combo Kill thread, I have updated the post to the recent patch, which will now include some minor changes to the prefixes, the DR improvements in general for Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses. I have also included the Rare Treasure Chest section, and amended the reward stage correspondingly. Hope this helps.
Hadriel
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
I would like to add if you log off before the elite boss summons, the elite boss will not even be there (unless someone is stalking me and has hyper teleport). I tried this 2x because I have only 1 computer. The "character" I used to summon with is too weak so I tried switching fast to my stronger one and it was gone.. I would like to mention I logged off immediately after I saw the "warning" message. I am thinking I logged off too quickly, but who knows.. You also need to make sure no one else in the same map as you if you would like to disprove me wrong on my theory.
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Metric
I would like to add if you log off before the elite boss summons, the elite boss will not even be there (unless someone is stalking me and has hyper teleport). I tried this 2x because I have only 1 computer. The "character" I used to summon with is too weak so I tried switching fast to my stronger one and it was gone.. I would like to mention I logged off immediately after I saw the "warning" message. I am thinking I logged off too quickly, but who knows.. You also need to make sure no one else in the same map as you if you would like to disprove me wrong on my theory.
The game mechanics require a player to remain or be present in a map before the monsters can be summoned. If you logged out before any summon animations then unfortunately the server will not have processed any character presence. All that would have been done is the map becomes wiped, and fhen the normal mobs summoned again i.e. you have reset the map. I believe this is the case because the server must process a map wipe, a local monster/boss resummon, then during the bonus stage a local map event (which is immediate on server packets but the timer initiation may or may not depend on player presence, likely no). Monster summons follow quite fixed rules in the servers, with predictable delays (either normal, or very fast spawn which everyone likes), based on my experience.
As an added note, this sort of rule applies for rune spawns and herb/vein spawns and the recent burning field map system. They spawn only when a player is in the map, but if the timers allow the rare herbs/veins will spawn successively. No players traversing a map even after a week since a recent server downtowns does NOT automatically make the map a 50% burning field, because the map monsters have not even been summoned or the map hasn't been "started".
tl;dr log out only after the monsters spawn.
Hadriel
Re: Elite Monsters and Elite Bosses
Thanks for the explanation. I did try one more time and stayed in the map until the elite monsters and elite boss spawned before logging off to another character. Worked like a charm. Just wish it didn't take so long to spawn it.
I have been trying to go to maps where people are less likely to pass by because it annoys me a lot when multiple people come in and ask "Is it dark?". I'm like no, go away. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)