Archers, you're up. At Job Lv 40 you can take the exam at the Hunter Guild and become the server's first second job. Hunters get all 19 skills right away: traps, the falcon and Blitz Beat. This update also brings the Mr. Smile mask to five towns and a batch of fixes from your bug reports.

How to become a Hunter

The Hunter Guild is in Payon Forest 10. The exam works the same way as in RO:

  1. Interview. Hunter Sherin asks you ten questions.
  2. Arrow materials. Demon Hunter asks for one of seven item sets, picked at random.
  3. Trial. The guild master sits in Payon palace or in the Archer Guild. He sends you into a forest full of traps: in three minutes, kill four "Job Change Monsters" without touching the ones that only share their name, press the switch in the middle and leave to the north. The traps are invisible, and stepping on one means starting over. Only one player at a time goes in; everyone else waits in the waiting room.

The reward is a Necklace of Wisdom and a crossbow, or a Hunter Bow if you are Job Lv 50. The quest log walks you through each step and lists the materials you need.

Your archer skills stay when you change jobs, and unspent skill points carry over. If you change at Job Lv 40 instead of 50, the leftover points go to archer skills first, just like in RO. The Skills window now has two tabs, "First" and "Second".

Hunters with falcons in the guild, Falcon Breeder on the right

Falcon

Learn Falconry Mastery and visit the Falcon Breeder in the guild. A falcon costs 2500 zeny and rides on your shoulder from then on.

  • Blitz Beat hits the target and everyone next to it. With a bow, the falcon sometimes joins in on its own during normal shots. The more LUK, the more often.
  • Steel Crow makes its hits stronger.
  • Detecting reveals hidden enemies around the chosen cell.

Tired of the bird? The same NPC will take it back.

Traps

You place a trap on the ground up to three cells away, and it uses one Trap item (Claymore and Shockwave take two). It goes off when a monster steps next to it.

Hunter traps

  • Ankle Snare holds a monster in place for up to 20 seconds. Agile monsters get out sooner, bosses almost at once.
  • Skid Trap throws a monster 6–10 cells back, and it forgets who it was chasing.
  • Land Mine, Blast Mine and Claymore Trap explode with earth, wind and fire. Claymore covers 5 × 5 cells.
  • Sandman puts everything around to sleep, Flasher blinds, Freezing Trap freezes.
  • Talkie Box is a note on the ground. When another player walks by, your text pops up above it.

A trap that never goes off turns back into a plain Trap on the ground when its time runs out (except Blast Mine): pick it up and set it again. Remove Trap takes back your own trap, and with Spring Trap the falcon disarms any trap from a distance, even someone else's.

A wolf caught in Ankle Snare, a Land Mine going off and the falcon hitting a third wolf

The models, explosions, sounds and the falcon come from the RO client.

Phantasmic Arrow and Beast Strafing

As in RO, you can't learn these two with skill points. Phantasmic Arrow is a shot without an arrow that knocks the target back. Arpesto teaches it in the archer village north of Payon. Come to him at Job Lv 40 and bring 5 Cursed Ruby, 5 Harpy Feather and 30 Pet Food. Harpies on the Comodo field drop the feathers, Zombies and Doppelgangers drop the rubies, and Pet Food is sold in shops. Beast Strafing will come with Soul Link.

Mr. Smile mask

The Smile Assistant now stands in Prontera, Alberta, Geffen, Payon and by the pyramids. She trades 10 Jellopy, 10 Fluff and 10 Clover for a Mr. Smile mask and tells you about King Tristram III's Smile festival.

Fixes from your bug reports

  • Dying while several monsters hit you at once could take away experience several times. Now it happens only once.
  • Wolves no longer build a "train". Only the wolf that is hitting you calls for help, and only to pack members it can see nearby.
  • Flu Mask and other gear and cards with status resistance finally work: they lower the chance to get the status.
  • If your target walks away while you are casting, the buff still lands: range is checked when the cast starts.
  • The buff bar near the right edge of the screen no longer slides off-screen after you relog. You can also turn it vertical: right-click its "⋮⋮" handle.
  • A stat bonus ("62 +10") no longer spills out of the stats window.
  • Characters are easier to click, which helps when buffing a party member.
  • The tooltip on the INT button now says what it does (MATK, SP and MDEF) instead of "no effect yet".

Monsters hanging in mid-air at the edge of a ledge are still there for now. We'll get to them.

The client will offer the update when it starts; the patch is about 3 MB. Thanks to everyone who uses "Report a bug": you found almost everything on this list.

Discuss on the forum