NOTE: I threw this together in the span of 5 minutes. It is not written well, but does give a general idea to what would go down if I wrote an actual thought-out intro story to this patch.

To fight the black mage, old legends have returned, new inter-dimensional allies join the maple alliance and Empress Cygnus herself and her knights lead the charge in assaulting the Black Mage. Everyone across Maple World is banding together and working hard in preparation for the final battle. For the last assault, everyone must be at top form to fight, or else the Black Mage will decimate us all, and end Maple World.

Empress Cygnus empowering her legion of knights has not gone un-noticed by the adventurer job instructors. Athena Pierce has called a summit of the instructors to discuss current state of the Maple Alliance offensive and what can be done to improve.

At the summit:

Athena says that the current adventurer instructing methods are not working, and that we wont be able to pull our own weight should we form an army. Night Lord says that adventuring and travels throughout maple world alone make strong fighters, and the current system will work fine. Athena Pierce does not agree, and says the hands-off approach is archaic and outdated and the adventurers will continue to fall behind. The instructors must become more involved and decide whether or not the Maple Adventurers will put forth an army to stand shoulder to shoulder with Empress Cygnus and the Resistance. Because currently, hoping a small group of good people will represent the adventurers is silly.

Night Lord says that the Maple Alliance is made up of 4 old, weak heroes of ages gone by, a mere boy with a fetish for dragons, a rebel alliance on the verge of being wiped out, and a band of Knights loyal to an empress that has no idea what she is doing. Why do the adventurers need to put up an army for this foolish effort? Why should the adventurers band together anyway? The adventurers have always been wandering travelers of good, and this maple alliance offers nothing. Athena Pierce says the Maple World in which we travel will be destroyed if we do not offer help and troops.

Kyrin askes why Athena has wasted her time with calling her. Kyrin and her crew have never tightly associated themselves with the rest of these landlubbers. "I do not care if maple world burns, for the ocean does not. My crew and I will be fine." Athena asks Kyrin how she could be so selfish and careless. Night Lord tells Athena that she is not an empress, and certainly not the leader of the other classes. A squabbling argument between Kyrin, Night Lord and Athena.

Grendel slams his staff and demands silence and order. Grendel tells Kyrin that burning or not, the Black Mage will find Kyrin and her ilk after tearing the rest of us down. The 5 legends, the strongest beings to have existed in maple world, together were not able to defeat and slay the Black Mage. The maple alliance is strong, but without us adventurers they have lost. Grendel says the adventurers are the very people of maple world, the lifeblood that runs it. For the adventurers to stay back and deny troops for the alliance is to be conquered by death itself. Something must be done.

The room goes quiet, as the instructors' eyes shift. Dances with Balrog speaks up, and says "The time of idle instructors is over: we must guide new adventurers with stronger techniques and teach old travelers new methods. We must improve and rally our students as Empress has empowered her knights. Perion's lands are vast and flat, with much room for establishing an academy. I will see to it that the warriors learn much and lead the charge for the adventurers against the black mage."

Grendel says that their ties to the Maple Alliance will grant us access to the experience and intelligence of the Legends, Cygnus Knights, and our new ally, the Kaiser. Grendel says that an academy will be constructed in Ellina for the mages as well. Athena is pleased and says she will personally see to it an Archer academy is established, and that she teaches each student personally.

Night Lord says that he does not wish to see the adventurers wiped away, and is unsure of this idea. He leaves the summit through a shadow technique. Kyrin says the pirates never received help from the other classes, and that the pirates dont need the other adventurers either. She uses a return scroll to return to the Nautilus. Grendel, Dances with Balrog and Athena begin to discuss what to do for constructing and running the new academies.

Yay new content! Just quick notes:

-each class's hometown is completely revamped to fit the academies. the academy will take you from 5 to 30, with mush right after. you get a batch of about 10 quests back at the academy every 5 levels after 40. you even see cool lectures from the legends, the nova classes, and cygnus instructors.
-whenever you hit lvl 5, you are asked via quest what class you aspire for. you choose, and are put out in the front of your respective academy.
-a cool, brief-lore recap via new cut scenes and stuff serve as a sort of "history class" and other stuff get you to 10.
-Kaiser, Aran, Mihile, Demon Slayer, are guest speakers that you see sometimes throughout the academy quests. they're guest speakers that tell you about themselves, how to become a stronger warrior, and give you quests. also will develop their personalities more.
-each class's respective instructor is a major teacher that gives you quests and helps you out. you will see them alot, they're very involved.
-after 40, the academy acts sort of how Eskalade's quests go for AB or how Nova HQ works for Kaiser. you will get a quest line or 2 every so often that tells more story about the academy and stuff
-At 60 and 100 you get more quest lines to go back to the academy and talk to warrior Lore figures about your job and stuff. the last of the quests ends at 110, where you "graduate" and witness a return summit cutscene that discusses the next step in fighting the black mage.

Patch Notes for Warrior Academy! Revamp and reorganization!

1st Job

2nd Jobs:

3rd Jobs:

4th jobs:

the numbers, removals, etc for skills

1st Job:

2nd Jobs:

3rd Jobs:

4th Jobs:

The easiest way to begin this would be to make the goals of my revamp clear:

1. Bring the adventurers up to snuff with Kaiser/DS/Mihile. Sorry aran, you're in a weird spot.
-This is just general number stuff, mostly.

2. Take the flavor and style that made them cool and fun, build upon it and add some zest to it.
-Take the cool stuff people like, such as Combo Attack, Charges, or the various dark knight things, and add some spice to them. Shake up the old system as well as making sure to stay true to what made it fun.

3. Get some quality of life changes that make the character feel better to play.
-Movement speed, jump, crit, attack speed, resistances, etc. Things that we take for granted that make the new warriors more sleek and fun to play. However, don't make them overpowered.

4. Try and tie the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th job together to feel like a cool kit.
-For example, there is a huge loss of communication when going from Dragon Knight to Dark Knight. What happened to the flippin' dragons? What happened to the big cool dragon stuff I was doing?

WHY ARE THE DRAGONS GONE?!!?!?

All of a sudden you now have an evil, one-eyed tennis ball floating with you and have no idea why. I wanted to bring 2 opposed ideas together and make them work.

Those are the big things I wanted to address, and overall I'm very satisfied with it.

Page/White Knight/Paladin:

There were a few main points I wanted to hit with paladin:

1. Build upon and emphasize the playstyle and themeatic aspect of the class.

Im really proud of Nexon for taking Paladins in the current direction they have. A very tanky, almost unkillable knight fits the class well and is a very unique niche in the game. So to that end, I didn't really want to mess with that aspect, but instead drive that concept home and really enforce it. So this meant really delivering the Holy Knight concept in 4th job, which has you frequently interacting with God for Buffs, damage, or to help your party out with your new utility defense skill.

2. I wanted to revamp the whole "Elements" concept for White Knights and make them more cool. They should be more involved and really make the player feel that he is controlling these elements.

Currently, the only elemental things you have to work with are just some bland weapon imbues. The sad part about this is they're just boring +damage modifers that add nothing else. The elemental charge system is old and archaic, and the elemental weakness or resistant mechanic has had to cater directly to paladins over the years due to constant issues with it.

3. Try and bring the concepts of Elemental Master and Holy Knight together and make it work.

I believe that the concept of an Elemental Wielding Master and a Holy Knight of the Light are two diametrically opposed archetypes. The former is a primal, nature-intuned being that sheds the shell of society in favor of the wild and unpredictable elements. The latter is a Holy Knight of the Lord that favors discipline, order, and justice that upholds the idea of the good society. They're completely opposite, and I don't think you can completely 100% marry the two concepts. However, I really dislike that you just suddenly find jesus and forget you ever wielded primal elements of nature. In that regard, I really want to at least reach a good middle ground that can be sold as a sort of combining different single aspects of the other into something new and cool.


Spearman/Dragon Knight/Dark Knight:

1. Make the Dark Knight playstyle interesting

In my opinion, the biggest problem(aside from numbers) was that its just really bland and boring. The 4th job is a bunch of passives, and you honestly have no idea why you went from a dragon-blooded bad ass to a dark-power infused guy with an evil floating softball. Oh ya, for some reason you're also really angry all the time. So for the 4th job I wanted to get the Beholden more active and involved with your stuff, not just passively sitting, buffing/healing and waiting for you to get hit so he can counter attack.

Now, he is in the mix of things. Right off the bat, the Beholden skill has been buffed alot to have him attack with you when you attack monsters. This gives DrKs more lines of hit, which they need(like all adventurer warriors), and more damage. Second, I combined the beholden passive skills because it just makes sense, and the 600 free HP heal was really, really, insanely boring for 20 points and a waste of space on its own, in my opinion. My favorite change is Beholden Infusion. It is is a really big damage increase, and weaving your big, massive nuke (Black Dragon's Judgment) and new Dragon Roar make the rotation less dull and boring as well as giving cool interactivity by increasing the duration of your buff as well. Black Dragon's Judgment is my second favorite change. I always really liked the concept of Sacrifice, a really over the top kind of ability that took HP and did massive damage. However it just sucks for damage, period, but I liked the concept. I took it and ran with it for BDJ, which you will obviously want to cast on cooldown. Just randomly, the reason I changed Dragon Roar was because it was boring and nobody used it for anything. At any sort of boss, its just more damage to just use dark impale. I think by making it alot stronger it will be more useful.

2. but why are the dragons gone?

Ya this has always been one of my biggest pet peeves in the game, lore wise. The concept I had in my head to marry these two things is this: have beholden, a now-malevolent and dark being taking over and corrupting your dragon powers to make them stronger. We see this in Black Dragon's Judgment and Black Dragon Blood. I wanted blood to be a sort of mirror of Dragon Wisdom, except you can see what Beholden has done, which is corrupt your dragon powers. Black Dragon's Judgment is what happens when Beholden gets ahold of Sacrifice, he didnt like how it worked, so he made some changes. Big changes, and it hits really, really hard now. I go into greater detail of the Beholden/Dragon Knight relationship in the lore I wrote up for him.

Fighter/Crusader/Hero:

1. Don't mess too much with a good thing, but give the loyal fans cool new toys to spice things up.

My biggest worry with tweaking Hero was that it already has a really big fan base. People like the Hero, as shown by a recent southperry class popularity poll. So in that regard, I really didn't want to mess with the big things that people liked about the hero. Instead, I just wanted to address giving him more damage(without just giving more +damage), more hits and making his bossing more interesting than just "enrage...rb rb rb rb rb rb rb rb...its dead." So in that department, I really wanted to adjust the boss damage rotation. I think the concept of panic and coma are really cool, but you never use them except for panic when you need to apply Darkness to a boss. So for Panic I made the darkness 100% because 90 is just retarded. I upped the damage and number of hits by a butt ton and gave it interactivity with a new buff, Hero's Conscript. Panic now does alot more damage than raging blow, and is the most consistent way to summon spectral soldiers, so you have good reasons to use it now.

Let me explain Hero's Conscript a little bit, because it goes with my next point. I went through with it because: the scene where aragorn charging in with a ghost army was bad ass, you get something really cool for damage while fighting, and it helps carve out a sort of archetype lore-wise. The other two warriors are fairly easy to flesh out in your head: DrK is an evil knight, with dark powers supplementing his abilities. Paladin is a holy knight of good, who protects others and himself through the power of God. Hero is a bit more difficult to convey because a hero saves people, kills the big bad and saves the princess. But that is kind of what everyone is trying to do.

2. Expand on what a Hero means fantasy wise, and reflect it in the skills
So, to carve out his fantasy theme I just looked at the class. He is a fighter, and a hero. Hero's save and protect people, sometimes leads a party(hello dragon quest). If he is a good leader for a party, why can't he lead an army or a platoon? Can he fit a sort of General or Commander type of thing, in addition to being a hero? I think both work well together, so thats where I took it. I wanted the 4th job to be where his role as a commander and general comes out. One of the reasons I put in Attack Orders was to help drive this point home, as well as giving a party buff to a Hero fantasy archetype character that really needs to interact with his party more.

Swordsman:
-Reduced the hits of Power Strike to 1, damage to 350%
-Reduced the hits of Slash Blast to 1, damage down to 300%

Page:
-Damage of Intrepid Slash reduced to 200% from 250%.
-Physical Training, 10% max HP removed.
-Rush now damages 12 enemies 1 time for 300%

Fighter:
-Damage of Intrepid Slash reduced to 200% from 250%.
-Physical Training, 10% max HP removed.
-Rush now damages 12 enemies 1 time for 300%

Spearman:
-Damage of Spear Buster reduced to 200% from 250%.
-Physical Training, 10% max HP removed.
-Rush now damages 12 enemies 1 time for 300%

White Knight:
-Elemental Enhancement: Lightning, bonus attack speed up to 2 from 1, damage up to 65% from 60%.
-Elemental Assault: Blizzard, removed the slow on bosses, new effect given. Damage reduced to 215% from 225%
-Elemental Strike: Fire, attacks reduced to 4 from 5, damage upped to 275% from 250%
-Removed Elemental Intercept: Gale
-Max level of Blizzard and Fire raised to 20, from 15.
-HP Recovery, amount healed buffed to 50% from 40%.

Crusader:
-Panic damage lowered by 50%
-Coma Damage increased by 100%
-Chance Attack, removed the extra crit rating
-Increased crit rating on Blade Master from 20% to 25%
-Advanced Intrepid Slash, number of attacks down to 3 from 4, max enemies hit down to 4 from 5

Dragon Knight:
-Dragon Roar, number of attacks reduced to 2 from 3.
-Dragon Wisdom, min and max crit damage reduced to 15% from 25%

Paladin:
-Sanctified Elements, removed bonus damage and crit to burning/etc enemies.
-Holy Shield Bash, damage buff up to 15% from 10%

Hero:
-Extra effect added to Battle Tactics
-General's Command, removed the 1 enemy only restriction.
-Buffed the damage of Spectral Soldiers by 50%

Dark Knight:
-Beholden Buff, Removed the 20% abnormal resist, buffed the wep/magic defense to 50% from 25%.
-Revenge of the Beholden, lowered the damage to 850% from 900%
-Corrupted Dragon Blood, removed the crit rate, added min and max crit damage
-Beholden Infusion, lowered the max HP from 30% to 25%