Bright Hub's Maplestory Evan Guide

Bright Hub's Maplestory Evan Guide
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Introduction to Evans

Welcome to Bright Hub’s Maplestory Evan Guide! This guide will tell you everything you need to know to make your time as an Evan the easiest it can be.

First off, what is an Evan? Released relatively recently, an Evan is one of a new class of characters called a Hero. A legendary hero reborn, Evan is a magician with a twist; rather than cast your own spells and

fight for yourself, you have a dragon to do it all for you! The dragon, Mir, follows you as you level up and grows from a tiny shell-covered egg to a full-grown dragon.

What makes an Evan unique? Aside from using a dragon to fight, Evans have more than the usual 4 Job advancements available to Adventurers. They have TEN! Not only that, but you have the SP to max every skill! Below I go into detail of each mastery skill set and the points it takes to max them.

Not to mention the dragon has equipment of his own. Four unique pieces of armor add to your stats and defenses!

There are down sides. Evans are partially a money-making method from Nexon. Like other classes, Evans require skillbooks to max certain skills. Unlike other classes, these skill books can not be found from monsters; they can only be bought in the Cash Shop for NX. Among these important skills is Magic Guard. Without Magic Guard you’ll be completely unable to survive most end-game bosses.

Evans are slow to attack but have very powerful attacks. Beyond that, they have access to every element in the game! Ice, Fire, Thunder, even Darkness is available at your command. The wide variety of skills gives you a large number of options for killing monsters and hitting weaknesses.

DO ALL QUESTS. This is not optional. For Adventurers, quests are just bonus EXP and items. For Evans, they are ESSENTIAL. Quests will give you levels, yes. They will also give you SP for maxing your skills. On top of that, they will give you your job advancements. You cannot max all of your skills without this SP, and you cannot skip quests and move on to the advancement quests without doing them.

Read on in this Maplestory Evan Guide to see all you need to know about AP builds, SP builds, every Mastery level, and even the upcoming changes to the class in the Maplestory Chaos Patch.

Evan AP Builds

Evans are Mages, and in Maplestory, that means you focus on INT for your damage and LUK for side benefits. LUK increases your damage slightly, decreases the EXP you lose when you die, and most importantly, many mage equips require a certain amount of LUK to equip. So you have three options, just like any mage.

  • Regular LUK: This build is for characters that have the least amoun

    Evan Poster

    t of money to invest in equipment. You make sure your LUK is your level + 3, allowing you to equip anything at your level.

  • Low LUK: Just like Regular LUK, you set your LUK to Level + 3, but in this instance you cap it. You could cap it at 40 or 60 or anywhere you feel comfortable with. The goal is to buy and scroll equipment for LUK to balance out what you didn’t add, allowing you to still equip higher level items but without the investment of SP.

  • LUKless: Never add any points into LUK. Add 5 to INT every level. If you ever want to equip items, you’ll need to have equipment scrolled for LUK.

Why go LUKless or Low LUK? Maple Warrior is basically the reason, that and Potential Equipment. Maple Warrior increases each of your stats by a percentage. Why does this matter? It only looks at your base stat, before equipment bonuses. If you have 500 INT and 100 LUK, a 10% bonus to INT will give you an additional 50 INT. On the other hand, if you have 600 INT and 4 LUK, you’ll get an extra 10 INT out of the deal. Because INT is the primary factor in your damage formula, more INT is better.

Is it worth it? That’s up to you.

First Mastery - Levels 10-19

Before you can do much of anything in the game, first you need to do the Evan quests to get your dragon. Once you have Mir, you should be at level 10 and will get your first Mastery. Each Mastery gives you new skills to play with, and you generally have the SP available to max them (if you do the quests), leaving your choice down to which skill to get first.

The First Mastery gives you access to two skills.

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  • Magic Missile: Use MP to attack an enemy in the distance twice. 20 SP to Max. Two hits of 130% damage at max.
  • Dragon Soul: The Soul of the Dragon is strengthened to improve Magic Attack. 20 SP to Max. Gives +20 Magic Attack at max.

Obviously, you’re free to put SP in whatever order you want. Magic Missile is your primary attack, so adding points into it to increase it’s damage is a good thing. On the other hand, Dragon Soul increases the damage of all your magic attacks passively, so it’s good to have as well. Either way, levels 10-19 should pass so quickly your build will have minimal impact.

Second Mastery - Levels 20-29

Your second Mastery comes at level 20, along with more quests. You gain two more skills here, both active this time. Again,

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you’ll have all the SP to max both of them. You also get your first elemental attack!

  • Fire Circle: Use MP to attack multiple enemies with a fire element. 20 SP to Max. Hits 3 enemies initially, 4 once it’s leveled up. Hits for 230% damage at max. Fire elemental.
  • Teleport: Use the arrow keys to teleport a fixed distance in a direction. 20 SP to Max. Each level increases the distance teleported and decreases the mana it costs.

Once again, you’ll be able to max both, but this time your build is more obvious. Put one point into Teleport to use it for utility, then max Fire Circle. After that, max Teleport to lower it’s MP cost, and you’re golden. You should hit level 20 in under an hour, so it’s not going to waste too much mana with a level 1 teleport.

Third Mastery - Levels 30-39

At level 30, when most classes are getting their second job advancement, you’re getting your third! Isn’t that exciting? You also get your second elemental skill and run headfirst into the first major wall to playing an Evan.

  • Lightning Bolt: Inflict strong damage to an enemy by generating lightning. 20 SP to max. Deals 380% damage to one enemy at max. Lightning elemental.

  • Magic Guard: Ta

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    ke damage out of MP instead of HP, unless MP is 0. 20 SP to max.

Magic Guard deserves it’s own expansion, so here you go. For Evans, you can only increase Magic Guard to level 5 unless you purchase from the Cash Shop the Magic Guard mastery book. With that book, you can increase the skill level to 20.

  • Level 1: 7 MP, 13% damage redirected to MP, lasts 110 seconds.
  • Level 5: 11 MP, 25% damage redirected to MP, lasts 150 seconds.
  • Level 20: 25 MP, 70% damage redirected to MP, lasts 300 seconds.

So you can see how essential Magic Guard is to playing an Evan. Considering later on, monsters will be able to hit you for up to 2x your HP in damage, it’s essential to surviving. Without max Magic Guard you will probably be completely unable to fight most end-game bosses, or even train on most end-game monsters. Level 5 will last for a few levels, while you try to find items to sell in the MTS or complete some surveys for NX, but the fastest route is just to pay for the skill.

You’ll want to put at least 1 point into Magic Guard immediately. If you bought the book, you might as well max it first. Lightning Bolt is strong single-target damage, but most of your best training spots at this level are mob training, making Fire Circle the better attack.

Fourth Mastery - Levels 40-49

At level 40 you get your fourth job, something other players dream of reaching level 120 to get to. Then again, you don’t get any endgame skills out of it. You DO, however, get three skills instead of two. One of them is new with the Big Bang patch, and was given to all mages. You also get your first Ice attack, and what a nice one it is.

  • Spell Mastery: Increases your mastery over magic a

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    nd gives you a Magic Attack boost. 10 SP to max. At Max, it gives you 50% mastery and +10 Magic Attack.

  • Ice Breath: For a duration of time, charge chill air to attack up to 6 enemies. Damage increases as the attack is charged longer. 20 SP to Max. Deals 325% damage at max with full charge, with a 90% chance of freezing the monster. Ice elemental.

  • Elemental Reset: For a duration of time, resets the element of spells to neutral. 10 SP to max. At max decreases 100% of the skill’s element and lasts for 300 seconds.

Mastery is a funny thing. It increases your minimum damage not your maximum. This doesn’t make your hits stronger individually, but it makes them stronger on average. Say if your damage range was 500-1000, 50% mastery would make it 750-1000. MUCH more stable damage, allowing you to kill mobs more often and leave fewer stragglers.

Ice Breath requires you to hold down the skill button to charge it before you let go to attack. You can spam uncharged versions of the attack, but it does far less damage and is only useful for freezing monsters. With a full charge, though, it’s your strongest mob attack yet. It even hits more monsters than Fire Circle.

Elemental Reset is your answer to monsters with elemental resistances. It essentially makes your attacks non-elemental, ignoring both elemental resistances and elemental weaknesses. Your Ice Breath will do less damage to ice-weak monsters, but more damage to ice-strong monsters.

Regardless of your build, max Magic Mastery immediately. You can put one point into Ice Breath for the utility, but at level 1 it only has a 33% freeze chance, so it’s not as useful as it could be. Max Ice Breath second, then elemental reset.

Fifth Mastery - Levels 50-59

Level 50 is the Fifth Mastery for you, and that means more skills!

  • Magic Flare: Light created from a magic square will surround the enemy and att

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    ack. 20 SP to Max. Non-elemental. Deals 480% damage at max level. At level 80 and level 120, the animation changes to be larger and more spectacular.

  • Magic Shield: Create a shield that absorbs a certain amount of damage for 20 seconds. Cooldown 40 seconds. Absorbs 30% damage at max level and takes 20 SP to max. Protects against both physical and magical attacks.

Your builds here are much like the earlier builds; max whichever one is more useful to you first. Magic Flare is a powerful single-target attack, so unless you’re training with Lightning Bolt on lightning-weak monsters, you’ll benefit from the powerful blast. On the other hand, if you train in parties more often than you train solo, maybe the magic shield would be useful. Most of the time you’ll max Flare first, however.

Sixth Mastery - Levels 60-79

Finally, a Mastery that lasts more than 10 levels and has more than two skills! The Sixth Mastery covers the level span that most other classes get their Third Job in. It has a variety of different abilities and marks the point where leveling begins to slow down enough that a specific build matters.

  • Critical Magic: At a certain probability, critical damage is added to an attack. 15 SP to max. At max, adds 30% critical hit chance to your magic attacks. This is on top of Big Bang’s passive crit chance all characters get, making it a self-target version of Sharp Eyes.
  • Dragon Thrust: Dragon attacks up to 6 enemies by pushing them forward. 20 SP to max. At max it hits for 400% damage and has a 95% knockback rate.
  • Magic Booster: Use MP to improve the speed of your magic attack. Increases Magic Attack speed by 3. Lasts 250 second at max. 15 SP to max.
  • Slow: For a certain duration, decrease the speed of monsters at a probability. 10 SP to max. At max, slows monsters by 40, for 8 seconds, at a 60% chance. Lasts for 150 seconds.

Critical Magic is the second essential skill to cut off at level 5 due to a cash shop book. Here’s the comparison:

  • Level 1: 2% crit chance

  • Level 5: 10% crit chance

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  • Level 15: 30% crit chance

So you can see how essential it is for your damage to max it, which means buying another book. That’s not all, though! Magic Booster is the same way! It’s less essential to buy the book for, however. No matter what your skill level, Magic Booster always increases your attack speed by 3. Increasing the skill level only increases the duration of the buff and decreases the MP cost of casting it.

Dragon Thrust is useful for bunching monsters together to kill them, but is less useful as a damage-dealing attack. 400% is still respectable, however, and you can easily use it for training if you desire.

Slow is an interesting buff. Unlike the other mage slow skill, the Evan Slow skill is a buff that makes your magic attacks have a chance to slow down the movement of the enemy. Increasing the skill level increases how much the monster is slowed, how often it is slowed, and how long the slow lasts, as well as how long the buff lasts.

No matter what, get one point in booster and one into critical magic immediately. Both of them have large effects for just one point. From there, you get to decide: Max Critical first for stronger attacks? Max Booster first for faster attacks? Or Max Thrust first for mobbing ability? The choice is yours in the order of those skills. Slow will be maxed last, because it’s nowhere near as useful as the other spells.

Seventh Mastery - Levels 80-99

Seventh Mastery is your next major boost in power, with some awesome new skills that replace the standard fare you’ve been using, and some good abilities that make your training that much faster.

  • Magic Amplification: Use MP to increase Magic Attack. 15 SP to max. At max, increases your MP consuption by 135% and increases your damage by 135%.

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  • Breath: By charging flames for a duration of time, you can attack up to 6 enemies. Stuns enemies. 20 SP to max. At max deals 540% damage and has a 30% chance to stun. Fire elemental.

  • Killing Wing: Attack an enemy in the distance and target them with all future attacks. At max deals 580% damage.

  • Magic Resistance: Casts a buff on all party members that increases magic resistance for a duration of time. 10 SP to max. At max, lasts 150 seconds and reduces magic damage by 20%

Breath is the fire elemental version of Ice Breath, hitting the same number of enemies for much more damage. It has the same sort of charge function, but you’ll never want to spam it because the low stun chance is not as useful as Ice Breath’s freeze chance.

Killing Wing is a strong single-target attack, and allows you to target a boss and ignore their summoned monsters as long as you use it.

Your build here has a little variation, but some things never change. First, put one point into Breath and one into Killing Wing immediately. Then max Magic Amplification. One point into Magic Amp has a larger damage increase than one point into whichever skill you would otherwise add it to, and it works on all of your skills.

Then choose to either max Breath or Killing Wing. Which one is up to your preference; do you train in mobs or against single targets? Only once both of those skills are maxed do you max Magic Resistance. As useful as the part buff is, it’s not helpful in daily training.

Eighth Mastery - Levels 100-119

Triple-digit levels aren’t as hard to come by as they used to be, with the lowered experience curve, but even so it’s not an accomplishment to scoff at. Now that you’re level 100 you hit your 8th Mastery, and with it come new skills!

  • Dragon Fury: When your MP is within a certain range you get a damage boost.10 SP to max. At max, when MP is above 40%, you deal 130% damage.

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  • Earthquake: Attack nearby enemies with a ground-shaking attack. Fire elemental. 20 SP to max. At max hits 8 monsters for 740% damage. Great vertical range, able to hit many platforms.

  • Ghost Lettering: Mark a monster with a curse to weaken them. 20 SP to max. At max, hits for 800% damage, lasts 8 seconds, and makes all attacks on the marked monster deal 5% more damage.

  • Recovery Aurora: Makes a cloud that recovers your MP over time while inside. 15 SP to max. At max, recovers 80% of your MP over 30 seconds.

Your build options are as varied as you want them to be, but really there’s no reason you shouldn’t max Earthquake immediately. Of course then you should max Dragon Fury; at low levels the range you have to maintain your MP in is low, 40%-73%, but once maxed you simply have to be above 40%. Then you get to choose; Ghost Lettering or Recovery Aurora? They’re both useful for bosses and single targets, and both useful in a party, so it’s really up to your preference.

Ninth Mastery - Levels 120-159

The ninth mastery is the Evan’s “4th job” level, but it’s still far from the end! Unlike other classes, you still have one more advancement to look forward to between 120 and 200. This alone should be one heck of a motivation to level. So what skills do you get at this ninth mastery?

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  • Maple Warrior: Increases party member stats. 30 SP to max. At max, lasts 900 seconds and increases stats by 15%.
  • Magic Mastery: Increases mastery, minimum crit damage, and magic attack passively. 30 SP to max. At max, increases mastery by 20%, Magic attack by 30, and minimum crit damage by 15%.
  • Illusion: Clones your dragon to hit an enemy 4 times. 30 SP to max. At max, hits 4 times for 370% damage each.
  • Flame Wheel: Casts a fiery wheel to hit six monsters. 30 SP to max. At max, hits 6 monsters for 740% damage. Fire elemental.
  • Hero’s Will: Cures abnormal statuses. 5 SP to max. 6 minute cooldown at max.

This second to last build decision depends on how you want to spend the next 40 levels training. Do you like killing one monster at a time? If so, go with Illusion first. Do you prefer mob attacks and want a new skill beyond Earthquake? Go with Flame Wheel first. Are you satisfied with Earthquake for training, and want better damage immediately? Go with Magic Mastery first.

Choose among those three skills and max them in the order you prefer. Only then should you bother getting Maple Warrior and Hero’s Will. Why? Every class gets those two skills. Hero’s Will has such a long cooldown it’s not worth using, and Maple Warrior’s skillbooks costs so much money that you’re unlikely to get above 10 unless you’re fantastically rich.

But wait, there’s more!

Tenth Mastery - Levels 160-200

Unlike every other class, you get yet more skills at level 160! This gives you something to work towards when other classes are hitting 120 and losing motivation. And what a doozy these skills are!

  • Blessing of Onyx: A buff that increases physical and magic defense, and attack. 30 SP to max. At max, increases physical and magical defenses by 250, and increases magic attack by 30, and lasts for 180 seconds.

  • Blaze: Chain Lightning, but fire elemental. Hits up to 6 Monsters. 30 SP to max. At m

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    ax, hits 6 monsters, deals 800% damage, and has a 90% chance of inflicting a 4-second stun. Fire elemental.

  • Dark Fog: Previously the only dark-elemental ultimate, it now shares that spot with Dark Genesis. Creates a dark storm that hits up to 15 enemies. 30 SP to max. At max, hits 15 monsters for 1800% damage, with an added 20% crit chance, with a mere 20 second cooldown.

  • Soul Stone: Casts a buff randomly on party members and resurrects them automatically if they die. 20 SP to max. At max, affects 3 party members, lasts for 300 seconds, and resurrects them with 80% HP. Cooldown of six minutes.

And now your final build choices. You’ll probably get 1 point into Dark Fog immediately, and I don’t blame you. It’s a pretty skill. You can max it first if you want, or max blaze first for a fast and powerful mob attack. Blessing of Onyx could be maxed whenever, as the boosts to attack are very nice. Max Soul Stone last, because while it’s quite useful, it’s not worth sacrificing your damage potential yet.

Once you have everything maxed, congratulations on level 200!

Additions in Maplestory Chaos Patch

A new patch that came to KMS recently added new skills for Evans and changed up some others. Here are the new skills that were added!

6th Mastery - Dragon Blink: Teleport, but moves you randomly around the map. 10 SP to max. Initially has a 27 second cooldown and costs 165 MP, but at max has no cooldown and costs only 30 MP.

7th Mastery - Dragon Sparking: Final attack, but for dragons. 10 SP to max. At max, all of your attacks have a 40% chance to inflict one extra hit of 150% damage, with no animation, cooldown, or interruption of your attacks. Pure DPS increase.

8th Mastery - Protection of Onyx: Party buff that grants a chance to dodge attacks. 20 SP to max. At max, buff lasts for 180 seconds and gives a 20% chance to dodge attacks.

10th Mastery - Will of Onyx: Sort of like Stance and Power Guard: When enemies hit you, you have a chance to not be knocked back, and a bit of damage dealt when you touch them. 20 SP to max. At max, 90% chance to not be knocked back, 150% touch damage, and the buff lasts for 240 seconds.

Other Changes

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  • Attack speed is increased. As one of the Evan’s primary drawbacks, this is a big deal.
  • Fire Circle dos 10% less damage
  • Lightning Bolt hits 3 monsters but does 100% less damage.
  • Magic Guard costs more MP
  • Ice Breath does 30% more damage
  • Magic Flare does 80% less damage but has a 90% chance for 4-second stun.
  • Magic Shield has a lower max level.
  • Thrust hits 3 times for 115% damage instead of once for 400%
  • Killing Wing hits for 160% less damage but has a 6-second damage over time of 90% damage.
  • Fire breath hits for 80% less damage.
  • Dragon’s Fury requires you to have between 70%-100% mana instead of 40%-100% for a 20% damage increase.
  • Ghost Lettering hits for 140% less damage but has damage over time, also max level reduced.
  • Recovery Aurora max level reduced, lasts 45 seconds and heals 100% mp over time.
  • Earthquake hits for 140% less damage.
  • Flame Wheel hits for 140% less damage.
  • Illusion hits for 180% damage each hit.
  • Blessing of Onyx increases defenses by 550 instead.
  • Blaze hits three times and deals 215% damage per hit.
  • Soul Stone affects up to 5 people.

Second Patch of the Chaos Updates:

  • Fire Breath increases 40% damage
  • Dragon Sparking max level decreased
  • Killer Wing max level decreased
  • Dragon Fury hits for 20% less
  • Earthquake hits for 60% less and has a smaller range.
  • Flame Wheel hits for 70% more
  • Illusion hits for 5% less
  • Blaze hits for more damage and has a larger range
  • Dark Fog hits for 150% more

Article Credits

Author’s Own Experience

Basil Market: https://www.basilmarket.com for skill information.

Southperry: https://www.southperry.net for patch information.

Spadow’s Blog: https://spadow.wordpress.com/ for translated patch information.

Images from Maple Story screenshots and data.