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MapleStory Professions guide

(This is still a work in progress)

Ok, so far, all guides/topics about this have been very confusing. Since I like things simple and to the point, and I'm sure you all do too, I'm doing this guide (plus otto asked me to).

Right, lets get to it. When Chaos part two arrives, it brings maker's replacement, the Professions. You find the portal to Ardentmill in each town (its like the fm you see in all towns). Simply enter there like you would to go to the fm.
Arriving typically brings you here;

Talk to the npc who has a book above his head, do his quests for a quick explanation. As we know, all he typically says is you can learn two professions, and to talk to the ones in charge. Next to him is the npc that sells the items you'll need to make stuff.

These are the other npcs at the top of Ardentmill, in order, Storage, equip/accessory recipe seller and alchemy/potion recipe seller.
The main npcs you'll want are down below.

In order; Jewel Crafting (aka accessory maker), Mining and Herbalism npcs. You MUST talk to the mining/herbalism npcs FIRST. You can't learn the other professions without talking to them.

Mining profession
So for the dual blade, I chose mining. The npc gives you quests to help understand how to mine stuff. You get two free trips to a non timed map, and the task is first to mine a faded silver ore, then to refine it to a faded silver plate. You can only make these during the mining tutorial, and are only found in the map seen below.


Now when the tutorial is done, you can finally refine your ores again! (NPC refiners only repair durability equips from Chaos part one). And with one profession, you can choose another.

Herbalism
Herbalism is identical to mining, except the fact you shovel the herbs up.



Herbalism, unlike mining, only allows you to be an alchemist. Herbalists/Alchemists also go through fatigue faster than the other professions, which makes the alchemists extractors be in high demand (but strangely, people wont be willing to pay if it costs too much to use their extractor, more below in alchemy)

Accessory maker
Now, I learnt accessory maker first (but I shall cover the rest as I find time with the chaos event). Simply put, just get your ores, and refine them. What you need is given in recipes, though some are given free.

Ok, so now you can make accessories, now what?
Well, mining helps. Grant gives you a ticket to a once a day, ten minute map, where your free to mine as much as you wish (future trips here can be bought through the npc found nearest Grant). Simply take a look at the tabs for your professions, and find what you need to mine.
For example, first thing I tried was a new ring named Defence Ring 1. For this, I need 1 silver plate and 1 abrasive. The abrasive is bought in a store npc, but you must mine a silver ore first. So, off I went to the ten minute map, and mined as much as I could (I actually levelled my mining to level 2). Returning to town, I bought the material needed to turn a single ore into a plate.
Now, with both items, its simple enough. To make accessories, you MUST stand near the big floating jewel. If you arent near it, you cant make things (so you can't make things outside Ardentmill).

And there you have it. The ring was made. There are LOTS of things I can make, such as lv40 shoulder pads, but an item to make some things only come from trading in battle points from the new PvP, which is open later this month.

Blacksmithing

This is blacksmithing, or as its called in game, Smithing. its pretty simular to accessory maker, you mine for items, and make them.



Alchemy
Most of this will be coming soon, when I go in depth. But for the moment, I should show this;

Its not a high level disassembler, since obviously, professions just came out. But blacksmiths are going to rely on alchemists A LOT. Without alchemists, blacksmiths will be unable to make equips, as monster crystals are useless. Instead you need item crystals. Which is what that is for. The higher the alchemy, the higher the equips that can be broken up for a fee (this guy was charging 200 mesos per item).
Update;
So, just tried alchemy myself.
Alchemists need to make a lot of oils to make their various things (1000 hp potions, buff potions, etc). While I've not tried these yet, I have tried the one thing in high demand, an extractor.
Now, to make one, you need various oils, along with item crystals. This means alchemists need a lot of these if they wish to set up items each day. They could also just buy stuff from npc stores (lv 30 equips for the basic extractor). With the right ammount of oils and ten basic item crystals, you can make a basic extractor.

alchemists, without the extractor, are the only ones able to disassemble equips. Which is why the extractor is so useful (provided the DC hackers arent utter pillocks and decide to DC alchemists to stop people disassembling stuff to get item crystals)


Fatigue
So yes, during the screenshots, you may have noticed the red bar. This is fatigue. Every action costs between 1 and 5 fatigue. Once its at 100, you can do nothing else (no mining/herbalism or any second profession). This resets every day (to what ammount I do not yet know), or just doing nothing reduces it in small ammounts. So it pays to keep note of this bar. The blue bar is exp, just think of it as any other exp bar.

Ore Fragments and herb remains
Whenever you mine or use herbalism, regardless of success or failure, you can find various things besides the ore and herb that drops. Sometimes, it can be an imp (which I wont cover, these seem like an utter waste of time and equips). But more commonly, it can be a fragment or remain of the vein/flower you just mined/dug up.
(I appologise right here for how different Bladotan looks between the two, thank the no-life map crashers for this)

Once you have gathered 100 of either, talk to either the mining npc or herbalist npc and choose the trade in option.

The bag you get can contain literally anything. Each time I've obtained one, it always had up to 7 of the random item you recieve. So remember, it is always helpful to gather these things.

Magic Powders
As I've mentioned elsewhere before, in Chaos, Magic Powders stopped dropping from all monsters. They are now rarely obtained from using mining and herbalism tools in Ardentmill. Basically, from level 4 and up, and with the correct ores/herbs, you have a chance, while making a plate, to obtain magic powders. The ore/herb usually has which powder can be obtained from it in the description. I used 20 bronze ores and 40 adminium ores earlier to make plates, and obtained, from doing them all in one run, two brown magic powders. So its quite low to obtain them, but you can still get them.

How to level your professions efficently
This final section covers how to level your profession skills as efficently as possible. Since there's different profession combinations, this section is split into parts.
Mining and Blacksmithing; When you first get this pair as your professions, it will seem rather annoying. Anything above a set level is greyed out in Blacksmithing, and most of the higher level equips have a low successful making rate. But dont panic. Now, if you are sensible enough to have kept your ores before the arrival of chaos, select a character to be a plate mule, and spend your first day doing nothing but refining the ores (obviously, do the mining tutorial quests for the four ore slot bag).
First day done, on your second day, you should now have enough plates to make level 40 equipments under the level 1 blacksmithing recommended section. But there seems to be a problem, Monster Crystals no longer work and you dont have any Basic Item Crystals. Just get an alchemist to extract some for you from any level 30 equipment. Now spend your time to make equipments and have the alchemist break them down again for you. You should quickly get to level 2 blacksmithing. Repeat the same again, this time with level 50 equipments until you've filled the fatigue bar for day 2.
From now on, rinse and repeat the cycle, doing mining and refining as needed on different days to when you work on making equipments and having an alchemist break them down to return the item crystals.
If you happen to not keep ore before Chaos, the cycle immediately starts on the mining day. Spend the whole first day mining from viens, second day to refine them, then third to make equipments. Everyone will eventually reach this cycle, but doing this means you'll be levelling the mining and blacksmithing on different days.

Mining and Accessory making; Same as above really, it depends on if you have kept your pre-chaos ores or not. Only difference is, you'll spend most of your first day making accessories by making defence ring 1s and running to an npc shop for level 30 equips for the alchemist to break down for you, as annoyingly, accessories tend to always come out of an extraction as Intermediate Item Crystals rather than the basic you put in.

Herbalism and Alchemy; There's two distinct routes to levelling these, and both share just one thing. You cannot go into Chaos with herbs, as they only appear from Chaos.
First route is the socially kind way. You very quickly break down equipments (which uses no fatigue and gives no mastery). Then go off and use herbalism to dig up herbs for the first day, all the way to 100 fatigue.
Day two, now you turn the herbs into oil. Best thing to make is Majoram seed oil and Majoram flower oil. You'll be needing a lot for day three, so just make them until you max fatigue again.
Day three, with the oils you made the day before and lots of empty bottles, spend day three making Health potion (1000) and Mana potion (1000). The rest of the stuff you can make at level 1 isn't worth it. Since your going social, this is where the fun begins. Use some of your own Item Crystals (you can only get Basic with level 1 alchemy) and make a Basic Extractor. It costs a lot of fatigue, but once you've maxed out doing your potions, find a spot somewhere with high traffic, and set up the extractor. If your lucky, a few people starting out with the other professions will pay the fee to extract item crystals from their equipment. Downside is, you need to reset it if you DC for ANY reason, but people will be happy for your help.
Path two; anti social. Again, this is the same as above, except you dont waste time on day three to make an extractor. Just tell people you'll take the equips from them and break them up as asked.

With all the ways I've said above, you do eventually get into a three day cycle; mine/herbalise from the viens/plants > refine ores/plants in Ardentmill > use refined items to make items in your second profession. Generally, this SHOULD net you a level per profession on two of the three days.
Just be ready for your jaw to hit the floor at the prices charged to level up your profession.

As a final side note, there is a cash item which completely restores fatigue, which means you can do the next days work on the same day. In GMS, this costs 2500nx, which is $2.50. So, knowing Nexon Europe, if they ever bring Chaos here, expect this same item to be 5 euros. Its a good item as unlike the energy drinks, there is no limit to how many times a day you can buy this cash item and empty your fatigue to 0 again.

I think I've now utterly covered every little detail of professions and kept it as simple as possible. Hopefully this will help when we ever get professions here in eMS.

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