Yes I did consider Fire Wall, you know mages and wizards going there used Fire Wall and Fire Bolt on Clocks (who are Earth element)? Yet a Rideword comes from behind and smites you in two hits. A Rideword would also pierce a Fire Wall pretty fast since the speed it pierces one depends on their movement speed. Rideword is "Fast". Clock is "Slow" and could pierce your non-vertical Fire Wall in a matter of 3 seconds.
Assassins and Hunters probably also have some degree of trouble fleeing a 254 flee enemy (lv 99 + 99+10 agi + 40 flee increase dodge = 248 flee), Pantie + Undershirt make it 263 flee...if you invest 99 agi (which means low strength). Hunter probably can't reach 254 flee because they lack Increase Dodge and Improve Concentration grants nowhere near 40 flee. (They might be able to with Avian wings + Mocking garment, but if they can actually gather Avian wings items, it means Rideword's 254 flee required wouldn't be a problem...since you need Gonryun 3 items for Avian).
I went Gonryun 3. I had to use 200 Yellow Potions to gather Transparent Celestial Robes (yes, only 10 needed). Even with Discount 10, this is 76,000 to get a pretty minor item at 100% drop. If you can go to Gonryun without a loss, you can probably handle Rideword.
How are people supposed to get Clock Hands? Make parties of 2-3 for it?
The Dragon Tail map with Poison Spore is only good if you actually flee Dragon Tail also. Dragon Tail may be reasonable to flee, but it hits so fast (like Rideword) that even 95% flee will mean you'll overuse potions compared to your loot. I know this from experience as I leveled in Turtle Island before, and always had to pass TI 1 with Dragon Tails.
Rideword:
Needed for 95% flee: 254
Atk Speed?? 0.86s/hit??
Attack 584-804
Dragon Tail:
Needed for 95% flee: 203
Atk Speed?? 0.86s/hit??
Attack 520-715
ie Those maps are not profitable solo, because you'll overuse potions, to make it profitable and not a loss, you need a heal slave following you around.
If these maps are not profitable to level 99s solo, how good are they to level 70s solos?
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PS: I'm pretty sure Gravity did this as an anti-bot measure, the same reason they added Nine Tails to Payon 4. Not to make the map harder level-wise. (Payon 4 used to be okay at level 55 Assassin for Sohees, same for Payon 3 at 50 Thief).
Or Mi Gao/Soil map would not have Mantis, but Killer Mantis or something like that (Mi Gao is slightly lower level than Clock).
By the way, I'm not asking to change the Dragon Tail and Poison Spore map. If Geffen 1 has Hunter Fly removed, there will be a decent Poison Spore map for lower levels.
You know why Assassin Cross hunt Red Mushroom instead of Poison Spore for Karvodailnirol? No decent spawning map for Poison Spore without stuff like Dragon Tail or Hunter Fly in the way. The drop rate for Karvo is the same in both cases: 1.5%. Assassin Cross can handle either of those, but who wants to waste potions (spend more than income through etc loot) when gathering ingredients?
Killing Poison Spore would be less dull, even without mobbing them, than giving 15 bare-handed hits to a unmoving mushroom.
Quote:I trained here tons on my old midrate. I don't understand complaints on this one.
On midrates you make zeny like water, you never need to consider your potion to loot ratio because you'll get rare drops often. You can go to Juperos and get 2500z item drops at 100% rate on a midrate. On a lowrate, especially x3 (as opposed to say, x20), you need to consider that, because not everyone has millions of zeny to spare or spend into pots.
I made 9 million selling Zerom card, which is 1/3333 drop. I calculated I can kill ~75/30 minutes (timed with Awakening potion). Before you reach 3333 kills you'll have over 22 hours of hunting. That's roughly 500k/hour a ratio. This may not be the fastest way to make money, but that's a pretty high value for a card (many are 500k, 1m, 2m-3m). So you can't count on rare items for steady income, even if you hunt them all the time.
My point being, on a 3x rate, you are not rich (at least not for a long while), you can't spend 100k on white potions for Clock Tower 2-3 or Geffen 1 for 30 or 60 minutes.
PPS: Besides "there are other maps that work", is there a reason to keep those maps I request changed completely empty?