Well, I had a chance to start off my Cygnus last night, after I had finished up Magatia in GMS. I gotta say it's quite fascinating. Ereb doesn't even feel like MapleStory at all. So, here's a little bit I've learned in a few hours of playing Cygnus.
First things first: I logged in on my Brawler, which was to be the parent Character. I was surprised that, instead of landing somewhere (I logged off at the Mansion, I have no idea where I would have come out at), the video began to play. Everyone's seen the video, surely. But did you know: It actually implants YOUR character into the video?
Spoiler
That was pretty fascinating to me, you can see it's IsaacMS as a Windreaver, a Flame Mage, a Striker... It felt like the intro to a regular RPG. To further emphasize this feeling:
Spoiler 
I landed in a dark room, with an unseen character speaking to me. How many games start out like that? (The answer is a lot) I naturally agreed, as this person is Nineheart, the Tactician to the Empress. I was suddenly warped to Ereb, and found my character standing near all the Cygnus NPCs. I spoke to Nineheart, and was apparently asked to join the Knights, and so I did:
Spoiler
As you can see, it's the create a character menu for Cygnus.
Face
Hair style
Top
Bottom
Shoes
Weapon
It didn't let me change my skin tone or hair color, so I automatically started with Brown hair and pale skin. LAME. Note that the parent character had orange hair and regular skin tone.
So, after the character was created, I took a trip around Ereb on my pirate. Nothing to do or see; I was forbidden from entering Ereb's hunting grounds, so there wasn't much to do. I logged off and went to the newly born Noblesse.
I log in on the Cygnus, in Ereb, and get 3 quests, each of which leveled me once.
Spoiler 
It was quite nice. They also handed me some special Cygnus items, as you can see. A level 0 overall with no slots, a level 0 Medal which identifies you as Cygnus (this is pretty much the only way to pick out Cygnus characters off of Ereb.), and a hat. I hiked from the promotion area down to the hunting grounds, which I was now able to enter, and spoke to a training NPC. The quests were simple, much like maple Island. Every quest leveled me once, and I quickly ended up at level 10 on the dot.
Spoiler 
So, I went back, spoke to Nineheart, and then had a quest from each Cygnus instructor. I spoke to Irina, the archer, and promoted to Windreaver!
Spoiler 
Upon advancing, Nineheart gave me a new medal, this one with 50 HP and 50 MP on it. The Training NPC had even more training quests for me, and sent me back to the hunting grounds. I naturally put my first point into the summon. The wind sprite was EXTREMELY useful. It hits 3 monsters, giving me a first job mob attack. I headed off to a special training area; the monsters inside changed. First I was asked to kill 30 Mushrooms, and there were Mushrooms. Then 30 slimes, and there were slimes. 30 pigs, and there were pigs. This easily got me to 14. From here, I was sent to Henesys to meet with a Cygnus representative here (There are, apparently, Cygnus testers in all 4 base Victoria towns.) He wanted me to kill Cynical Orange Mushrooms:
Which were spawning in a new map near Henesys. As it turns out, there are several new maps added to Vic. Many of these quests are Cygnus exclusive; Thus far, I've been able to level to 21 without any training, purely off Cygnus quests from the Henesys, Kerning, and Ellinia trainers. The Ellinia trainers' tasks were definitely the most interesting. They added a peak to the Tree that Grew maps, and if you jump off, you'll land in Sleepywood. Then, I went to see Grendel... But instead, I clicked on a book, ran off a Puppet master, and the map was flooded with blue mushrooms!
Spoiler 
I couldn't leave until they all died... as an archer, needless to say, it was not easy. The wind sprite once again saved my butt.
So, Cygnus (so far) has been an interesting experience. The Sprite summons are extremely useful (at least for close range classes), though they have their range issues. The added AP makes you significantly stronger, so leveling is a breeze. There are also quite a few other neat things I found out:
1. Shared Buddy list - When I logged in on my Cygnus, I already had the same buddies!
2. No Chair - No relaxer quest in Ereb, so you're left without a chair. Not a big deal if you're funded, but it could be quite an issue if you're poor.
4. lots of quests - MANY, many Cygnus-exclusive quests so far. Almost everything in Ereb is Cygnus exclusive. This is why monsters in Ereb don't have monster book cards; regular characters could never get those cards, because they can't enter the Ereb hunting grounds.
5. Dragon Blessing - When I talked to Shin Su, the holy beast the Empress rests on, I gained a Dragon Blessing buff, which was 10 ATT 20 Magic ATT, 10 def and 20 magic def for one hour. It's a huge boost, especially in conjunction with the Blessing of Sprite skill. I found myself running off to Ereb every hour to get it back. (Might have mixed the magic attack and defense up, but it's definitely 10 ATT)
6. Boat rides - You can reach Ereb from both Vic and Orbis. The Ellinia-Ereb ride is 2 minutes long, and the Orbis-Ereb ride was 9 minutes. It takes off as soon as you board, so I can see it being used as an alternative to the Orbis-Ellinia direct route, especially if you just missed the boat.
7. Cygnus Character Slot - One Cygnus per server, and the Cygnus Character slot is easily identified:
Spoiler
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Second update
So, there was a bit of a gap between Cygnus quests from 21 to 25, which made it a bit less interesting. Still, the gap is rather small and in no time I was working for the final Victoria Cygnus trainer in Perion. She wanted me to kill Wooden and Stone masks... Not too exciting, but I did them at the same time as Winston's quests and killed 2 birds with one stone. It went on like this until I reached level 28, at which point the fun began again.
Ninehearts messages me again. The annoying thing is that he pretty much just says "Come see me", when he could have just as easily said what he wanted from a distance. At any rate, I hopped on the Ereb boat and spoke to him. He wanted me to defeat 1 monster... Clearly, it was a boss. I knew I had to head to the Ant Tunnel, thanks to Insoya, and so I went off down the tunnel. At Cave of Evil Eye 3, I found myself in front of a huge door which wasn't there before. (I wish I had thought to screenshot the door...) It asked me for a password, which according to insoya was "프란시스는 천재 인형사!" This means something like "Francis is a Genius!" I input the password and...
Spoiler
An NPC. And a timer... Well, it's just an NPC. No harm in talking to it right? Nope, you speak to him and he suddenly transforms from an NPC into a monster. (This was particularly fascinating, it's not something that's been done before to my knowledge.)
Spoiler 
http://strategywiki.org/wiki/MapleSt...he_Doll_Master
He had an HP bar, and apparently can cast Seduce (Though I only got sealed. Thank goodness for All Cures from the event.) You may notice, but I had chased this guy across the island (First in the fields outside Henesys, lurking in the shadows, and then again in Grendel's Library just before the blue mushrooms appeared.) so I'd be willing to be he's a subordinate of the Black Magician. Heck, his lab even looks very similar to the one in Magatia. Either way, I defeated him in a few seconds and took off back to Ereb again. The reward was a sizable amount of EXP. After this I took to Ariant to start the quests there and take me the rest of the way to second job.
Reaching second job rather quickly, I received another notice to head back to Ereb, and I spoke to Irina. The quest was given:
Spoiler 
Pretty much the same as all the other class's 2nd job advancements; you go into a special area and kill a variation on the local monsters until they drop items you need. So, I hiked back through the Noblesse area to the training rooms and stepped inside.
Spoiler 
Bonus Maplenerd points to anyone who can identify the row of bows.
So, I went on and killed the little birdies until they dropped me the crests; by the time I was done there were about 6 extra lying around. Unlike the black marbles for the normal 2nd job, these dropped at a really high rate.
Spoiler
The map was very tall.
The map was very tall.
Once I had them all, a quick return to town and a chat with Irina:
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As you can see the class name above my IGN didn't change; a Windreaver is a windreaver from 1st to 4th. I also got a new medal, of course:
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The title under my name changed colors to match. I put my first point into Storm Breath, which I gotta say is no substitute for Arrow Bomb. I miss bomb already lol. Still, it's a very fast attack, and any mob skill is better than no mob skill. Used in conjunction with the sprite you do moderate damage.
given that I've finished first job, I'd imagine people are interested in a skill build. Not much to say about it really; it's rather simple. The only valuable skills are Eye of the Amazon, Critical, Double Shot, and the sprite.
| Level # | SP Distribution |
|---|---|
| 10 | 1 Wind Sprite |
| 11 | 3 Eye |
| 12 | 3 Eye |
| 13 | 2 Eye (Max), 1 Critical |
| 14 | 3 Critical |
| 15 | 3 Critical |
| 16 | 3 Critical |
| 17 | 3 Critical |
| 18 | 3 Critical |
| 19 | 3 Critical |
| 20 | 1 Critical (Max), 2 Double Shot |
| 21 | 3 Double Shot |
| 22 | 3 Double Shot |
| 23 | 3 Double Shot |
| 24 | 3 Double Shot |
| 25 | 3 Double Shot |
| 26 | 3 Double Shot (Max) |
| 27 | 3 Wind Sprite |
| 28 | 3 Wind Sprite |
| 29 | 3 Wind Sprite |
| 30 | 3 Wind Sprite (total level is 13.) |
The reasons for this are pretty obvious. Increasing your range is most important, so max Eye ASAP. You don't need an attacking skill early on since you go through those levels so quickly due to Cygnus quests. By the time the quest well starts drying up, you'll be all set for KPQ (which, by the way, was made much easier since the maximum amount of passes needed now is 15 instead of 35.) Next is Double Shot, as it doesn't get replaced in second job and will serve as the main attacking skill to 70. Finally, we go with Wind sprite; this is a choice, really. You could just as easily go for Focus, and get only 3 Wind Sprite. However, as all archers know, Focus's added accuracy is unnecessary, and as a Cygnus you'll have even more Accuracy than a normal archer with your 6 dex per level instead of 5. So, the Wind Sprite is a much more useful skill to have.
This skill build's pretty close to the cookie cutter standard archer skill build, the only difference being removed prerequisite skills (No Blessing of the Amazon, no Arrow Blow, Focus is only 10 levels.)
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Update #3
At level 50, Cygnus classes can get a mount. So, that was my new goal. This also gave me quite a while to get a hang of training the windbreaker. I gotta say, it's not at all like a normal archer; I found myself missing Arrow Bomb from the start. For 4th job archers, imagine if Dragon Breath were your only mob skill. Well, that's what training a windbreaker is like. You get right up in the monster's face and push them into the corner. At level 20 Storm Breath has 100% knockback, however, so it becomes more manageable. Wind Walk's short duration is something of a nuisance, however I now believe that when used with Soul Arrow, *any* attack will have its damage boosted by using it from Wind Walk. This still needs more testing but there seems to be a noticeable increase in damage when using Double Shot from Wind Walk. If this is the case, it could be pretty potent with Strafe. Wouldn't work well with Hurricane, though, because only the first arrow would be boosted.
Which brings me to my next point: Cygnus classes have "Half-advancements" at level 50 and 100. At 50, you get the mount, which I'll describe in detail in a bit. At 100, you'll get 2 formerly unavailable 3rd job skills and a mount upgrade. These 2 skills are almost always the skills that were in 4th job for regular classes. For example, the Flame Wizard will get Ifrit and Meteo at 100, not 70. This might come as a relief to some people who were worried. On the other hand, this means that Windreavers don't get Bow Expert until 100... at which point it's a waste to put points into it because by the time it gets maxed you'll be 120. Rather disappointing to say the least. The other 100 skill for Windreavers would be Hurricane. Naturally you'd wanna get this pretty quickly which would mean Bow Expert comes last.
And, on top of this, there's a nasty revelation we've come across: Cygnus characters CAN NOT go to Pink Bean. Period. You see, to enter the maps in Time Temple, you must do a "defeat 999" quest. So, in the first map are eye of time, and you gotta defeat 999 of them to get to the next map, and then 999 of the monsters in that map... yeah. The problem arises in that, these are quests, and they have level requirements. And when you start getting to the "Oblivion" monsters (the fire area) the quests are level 121. Since Cygnus max level is 120, they can't get this quest, and thus can never defeat Raika, or the Oblivion monsters, or Pink Bean. This also means they can't finish their monster book, ever. Pretty lame. >_> Also, Elin Forest PQ is glitched for Cygnus characters; you get an error when you try to enter because the game doesn't know what to transform you into. So that's messed up too. They're losing their appeal by the minute huh?
Now, on to the main point of the thread: The Mount quest. Firstly, I leveled up to 50:
Spoiler 
and received a notice from Nineheart. It basically just says "come see me." So, had to go to Ereb.
Spoiler 
So, I received a letter of recommendation and he sent me off to find the person who raises eggs. Took a while, but I eventually found him deep in the hunting grounds of Ereb.
Spoiler 
With map included for any fellow Cygnus trying to find him later. He gave me an egg which, like many event items, could be opened in a little window where you can watch its progress. The window needs to be open for the item to grow. To my knowledge this is the only permanent quest where you grow something like this. At any rate, experience gained while the egg window is open goes towards hatching the egg. It took about 75-80% experience gain for the egg to fully hatch.
Spoiler
As you can see, quest experience helps the egg hatch too (if you're wondering that's a maker-related quest I'm doing in Nath). When the egg was fully hatched, I had to take it back to the bird raiser, who promptly took it away.
Spoiler 
Now, I had to go to the old con artist Kenta. Naturally, Kenta's about to rob my pockets. The Cygnus mount costs 10 million mesos, so it's a far sight cheaper than the regular mount. Still quite expensive, however. In exchange for my money, I received a bottle of yellow (probably warm) liquid. wonderful, right? >_>
Spoiler
Whatever, that's what the egg raiser wants so that's what he gets. I took it back to him and got my saddle, bird, and the Monster Rider skill.
Spoiler 
If you're wondering, it's 150% speed and 120% jump, just like the regular mount.
so, spent all my mesos on the mount but now I have it. xD Guess my next goal is 70.
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Update #4
Gonna go ahead and update this now because it'll likely take me quite a while to reach 100. Based on Insoya, here's the level 100 Mount quest.
When you reach 100, Nineheart once again messages you via a distance. You go to see the same person you see for the level 50 mount (His name appears to be "Persnickety") for the 100 mount. He ships you off to Leafre (big surprise) and you must talk to Pam.
Pam has special recipes for bird food. 3 different recipes, and you need 3 of each.
First is 30 Beetle Horns, 30 Dual Beetle Horns, 30 Haf tails, and 2 million mesos.
Second is 30 Blood Haf Crowns, 30 Birk's Chewed Grass, 30 Dual Birk Tails, and 3 million mesos.
Third is 30 Blue Dragon Turtle Shells, 30 Red Dragon Turtle Shells, 30 Brexton's strange eggs, and 4 million mesos.
As you can see, this appears to be quite convenient for poorer characters because it's allowing you to pay a little at a time as you get it. Total cost is 27 million, which is slightly more than half the cost of a Silver Mane. This is consistent with the level 50 mount being half-off the regular 70 mount. Again, it's the same speed as a Mane, with 170% speed and 120% jump. The only concern I have is that the previous mount might be taken away when you start the quest, which would suck really bad. If it isn't, though, then you can consider this "mount layaway". XD
By the way, the Level 50 Cygnus mount is called Titiana, and the level 100 is called Titio.
I've also learned a bit about the level 100 skill obtaining quests. One is always going to the room marked "4" at the top of the training area at Ereb's far end and defeating a nerfed version of a strong boss like Manon or Griffey, and the other seems to involve fighting lower level bosses, though I'm not certain how this happens. Unfortunately it looks like one of them is delayed until 110 also. >_> This is really inconvenient as you'd imagine.
The best thing is... the end quest for Cygnus at 120. It's pretty epic. Skip this if you wanna have some fun when you hit 120.
Spoiler
So, once you hit 120.... Nineheart calls you. It's the mission they've been training you for. Something's going down, and the first person Nineheart wants you to talk to is Jade in El Nath. Jade says you'll need to talk to Spiruna, but first you need to go hunt coolie Zombies for this item, Black Scales. Once you have it, head to Spiruna. Spiruna uses her crystal ball to see where the evil's coming from and where else but Leafre. You have to go speak to Tatamo there. Tatamo sends you off to find Nix, the Old Cornian-looking NPC. I'm not sure where he is... but you have to ask him about the Black Witch. He doesn't think you're strong enough, and so you have to go defeat Griffey and Manon to prove it. (I hate you, Nexon. Why can't you understand that archers and thieves just CAN'T survive there at 120?) After you... somehow... defeat them, he tells you the location of her hideout: Dead Dragon's Nest. You hike up there to find a black crystal ball, in a lab that looks very much like the one under Magatia (Magic Pentagram included). After examining it, it's time to head back to Nineheart. Nineheart says that someone was captured up there before, and you need to go find him to see if he learned anything before he got captured. So, climb up there again. You find this poor guy tied up in her lab, and he quickly reveals her plot. The Black Witch is out to take over Ereb and end the Cygnus's interference in the Black Magician's plans. You must hurry and stop her!
After rushing back to Ereb, you'll be horrified to learn that all 5 of the instructors, and Nineheart and even Cygnus herself have been turned to stone. The only one intact is Holy Beast Shin Su... but, when you ask him what happens, bam! It was the Black Witch in disguise. She reveals herself and begins a presumably typical villain dialog, and then the fight begins. Yep, you have to defeat her by yourself. Seduce, Zombify and darkness could make this quite the difficult fight. Once She's defeated, the real Shin Su comes back. He restores everyone, and you talk to lady Cygnus. She awards you the highest honor for a Knight (a level 120 medal, 200 HP/MP and +2 to all). Congratulations, I suppose, you've just saved Ereb and beaten the Cygnus sidequest.
So, once you hit 120.... Nineheart calls you. It's the mission they've been training you for. Something's going down, and the first person Nineheart wants you to talk to is Jade in El Nath. Jade says you'll need to talk to Spiruna, but first you need to go hunt coolie Zombies for this item, Black Scales. Once you have it, head to Spiruna. Spiruna uses her crystal ball to see where the evil's coming from and where else but Leafre. You have to go speak to Tatamo there. Tatamo sends you off to find Nix, the Old Cornian-looking NPC. I'm not sure where he is... but you have to ask him about the Black Witch. He doesn't think you're strong enough, and so you have to go defeat Griffey and Manon to prove it. (I hate you, Nexon. Why can't you understand that archers and thieves just CAN'T survive there at 120?) After you... somehow... defeat them, he tells you the location of her hideout: Dead Dragon's Nest. You hike up there to find a black crystal ball, in a lab that looks very much like the one under Magatia (Magic Pentagram included). After examining it, it's time to head back to Nineheart. Nineheart says that someone was captured up there before, and you need to go find him to see if he learned anything before he got captured. So, climb up there again. You find this poor guy tied up in her lab, and he quickly reveals her plot. The Black Witch is out to take over Ereb and end the Cygnus's interference in the Black Magician's plans. You must hurry and stop her!
After rushing back to Ereb, you'll be horrified to learn that all 5 of the instructors, and Nineheart and even Cygnus herself have been turned to stone. The only one intact is Holy Beast Shin Su... but, when you ask him what happens, bam! It was the Black Witch in disguise. She reveals herself and begins a presumably typical villain dialog, and then the fight begins. Yep, you have to defeat her by yourself. Seduce, Zombify and darkness could make this quite the difficult fight. Once She's defeated, the real Shin Su comes back. He restores everyone, and you talk to lady Cygnus. She awards you the highest honor for a Knight (a level 120 medal, 200 HP/MP and +2 to all). Congratulations, I suppose, you've just saved Ereb and beaten the Cygnus sidequest.
I'll ask that if you wish to discuss this you use Spoilers to keep from ruining it for others.
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Update #5
so as you may know, I am currently using a KMST account. The leveling NPC only took me to 51, so I had to level up to 70 on my own from there. It wasn't that hard so I got there in a few hours. Just keep in mind this isn't the regular Aeolius so don't be surprised if there are lower level Screenshots later on.
So, leveled up to 70, and got 6 AP. This is the last level of 6 AP boost. You need a Dark Crystal for this, so I had to pass through El Nath and refine one before heading off to Ereb.
Once there, I talked to Irinia:
Spoiler
I was momentarily confused, as it was no longer allowing me to enter Ereb's Hunting Grounds, but I headed over to Nineheart and saw that he had a quest. He took my Dark Crystal and in return, gave me this:
Spoiler
This item let me re-enter the hunting grounds. I walked around, and took one of the side portals.
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Hmm, the timer sure is suspicious. Not going to be fighting Irinia though!
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This was a hard fight. As you can tell my equipment's pretty bad, so it was an epic battle.
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You can see I had to change from White pots to the Melted Cheese because he was about to kill me. With zombify cast on me and his ground pound attack dealing 750-800 damage each, it wasn't easy to survive. The ground pounds were also dealing Super KBs, so I was flying up against the wall each time I was hit. On top of that, he would do fairly long duration Seals, and healing 800 damage every so often.
After I finally killed him, I left the room... I wandered the hunting grounds a bit more and discovered that the other instructors were also being impersonated out here:
Spoiler
Unfortunately, Hawkeye here wouldn't fight me. I left and went to the instructor map to finish the advancement!
Spoiler
Next, I'll be testing out the transformation skill and trying to figure out if the firing delay is really as slow as it seems.
Oh, I almost forgot: When I did advance to 3rd, I got 5 AP and 1 SP. For regular classes, advancing to 3rd is just 1 SP, yeah?
