Mercedes Guide 2025: Mobility, Burst DPS & Debuffs

Mercedes Guide 2025: Mobility, Burst DPS & Debuffs

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Class Overview
• Why Mercedes?
• Class Drawbacks
• Stat Window
• Inner Ability
• Alternative Inner Abilities
• Mes0 / Attack Speed / Drop Rate / Cooldown Skip
• Rolling the Perfect Inner Ability
• Fifth Job / Nodes
• Sixth Job / Hexa
• Skill Upgrade Order
• Link Skills
• Legion Artifact
• WSE Optimization
• Skills Overview
• Keyboard Layout
• Hyper Skills
• Advanced Mechanics
• Input Queuing
• Specific Skill Information
• Rising Rush
• Leaf Tornado
• Gust Dive
• Spirit Nimble Flight / Spirit Escape
• Wrath of Enlil
• Sylvidia’s Flight
• Lightning Edge
• Ignis Roar
• Trivia and Fun Skill Applications
• Elven Blessing / Return to Elluel
• Updraft
• Parting Shot
• Ishtar’s Ring
• Ishtar's Ring VI
• Rolling Moonsault
• Special Node Used: Lethal Strike
• Pre Entry / Inside 2 Minute Lobby / Inside Culvert
• The Combonomicon
• Common Combos
• Classic DPM Combo
• Highest DPM Combo (Stat Hat)
• Cooldown Hat Combos
• Getting High, Quickly
• Less Common Combos
• The Mercpopter (Vertical Comboining)
• Infinite Mercopter
• The Combonomicon
• Common Combos
• Disclaimers
• FAQs

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Introduction

Mercedes is a burst oriented hurricane-combo hybrid class. As far as class identity goes, she shares both archer and thief traits, falling somewhere in the middle. Gameplay-wise, Mercedes is a burst heavy class that deals most of her damage in a short window that can also provide powerful debuffs that offer significant damage boosts and utility for the party. The combination of multiple movement skills in her kit make her a high mobility, high skill ceiling class that relies more on clever usage of her skills to position herself rather than defensive skills to avoid danger, though her kit is not entirely lacking in defense either.

Mercedes does not feature a gauge mechanic and has no map summons to manage, making her more of a reflex based class similar to the playstyle of Cadena rather than a more management-heavy class such as Lara, Kinesis or Kanna. Overall, she is a moderately difficult class to play with a high skill ceiling that rewards the player for familiarizing themselves with the intricacies of her kit.

Class Overview

Mercedes is a burst heavy class that relies on tight rotations to maximize damage in short windows. She excels in mobility and positioning, using a combination of ground dashes, aerial moves, and mid-air control to weave through boss mechanics and deal consistent damage. Her kit allows for significant debuffs that benefit the party, particularly in later game bossing.

Why Mercedes?

Mercedes’ focal feature as a class is the blend of mobility and combo-based gameplay in order to deal damage. Seeing yourself dance around a boss during burst, decimating its health while also dodging by chaining your skills appropriately is very satisfying, and Mercedes does a very good job at providing that experience.

When I first got into Mercedes, what amazed me the most was the amount of options the class has available to move around. Watching videos of experienced players bossing, seamlessly weaving skills together while dodging attacks in situations where other classes would be forced to i-frame or play much more defensively was very appealing to me, and Mercedes allows skilled players to do this consistently. This mobility includes ground dashes, aerial finesse and airstalling (keeping yourself mid-air).

While Mercedes’ kit has defensive options, you will mostly rely on your own ability to maneuver around danger rather than take it head on, all the while doing your own damage.

In a party scenario, Mercedes offers 3 powerful debuffs with 100% uptime:

• A 55% defense reduction through Spikes Royale
• 30% boss damage through Unicorn Spike
• Touch damage nullification, one of the rarest and most unique debuffs in the game that only Mercedes, Night Lord and Fire/Poison Mage have native access to, but only Mercedes and Night Lord can consistently provide. It is particularly useful in later game bossing, and its usefulness will be expanded upon in the Advanced Mechanics section.

If the concept of a mechanically demanding class whose effectiveness scales with your own skill, has little external management and can do some serious damage while providing significant party support seems appealing to you, you should definitely give Mercedes a try!

Class Drawbacks

• For an inexperienced player, the constant need to link skills together can be daunting. A lot of players feel like the “input” Mercedes needs mechanically is not proportional to the “output”, or put more simply, you need to do too much to achieve what other classes do with much less effort.
• Mercedes' bulk of damage comes from her fifth job, which leads to the class feeling underwhelming when none of her fifth job skills are active. That isn’t to say that the overall damage is bad in any way though.

Stat Window

Inner Ability

Mercedes' ideal inner ability is Boss Damage, Crit Rate, Damage to Abnormal Status % and does not need attack speed to reach the cap.

Can I Skip Crit Rate?

Unfortunately, no. This is true for every archer class. The damage that the 10% crit damage this converts to through Vicious Shot is too important to sacrifice for another line. While you can play without it, you will be trading off a lot of damage. If you’re struggling to roll this line though, it’s not the end of the world. Just keep in mind that it’s a considerable boost to your damage and you should aim to eventually get it.

Alternative Inner Abilities

• MESO: While grinding, you may want to opt for a meso first or second line in your inner ability. This is fine and ultimately up to personal preference whether you'd trade the extra damage for the meso, or ignore one of the best in slot second lines (preferably abnormal damage) for meso while leveling. After all, we have access to enough damage to participate in and clear all the content in the game with or without an additional 8% damage or 20% crit rate.
• ATTACK SPEED: If you can’t roll boss damage, another useful line, or are running out of honor, attack speed will allow you to save a node slot on speed infusion or avoid using green pot. As Mercedes does not need inner ability to cap attack speed, this line isn’t recommended to keep.
• DROP RATE: Drop rate is an extremely viable IA to run, given that it affects Oz Boxes, Pitched Boss, Nodestones, and 6th job Sol Erda/Fragments.
• ATTACK +21: Damage to monsters affected by abnormal statuses is strictly better than this. Not the worst option if you are running low on honor though.
• COOLDOWN SKIP: Since hyper skills are unable to be cooldown skipped, the only targets for this line are the above. Unicorn Spike, AB link and Water Shield being the main useful skips. Less importantly, you can also skip Hero’s Echo. Krr Ring can also be skipped. Cooldown Skip is very fun to play with, but its inconsistency and lack of impact makes this line less competitive. It’s not useless though, and better than Attack + 21 so feel free to keep this if you like it!

Rolling the Perfect Inner Ability

The most efficient strategy for rolling and optimizing your inner ability is to do the following:

1. Roll for 20% crit rate on the 2nd or 3rd line using either honor or circulators.

2. Lock the 20% crit rate and roll for 7/8% abnormal third line (or your desired 3rd line).

3. Use chaos/black circulators to max out your 2nd and 3rd lines. As this may take a while, you will likely also have a boss damage first line while you’re optimizing these lines.

4. Lock 2nd and 3rd lines and roll for 20% boss first line rerolling manually. If you get low on honor, just sit on any boss until the next event.

Crit Rate is the rarest inner ability to get on the second/third line, tied with buff duration, which is why it is targeted first. This way you can spend less honor looking for the last two lines.

If you do not play reboot, rolling with circulators can get very expensive, so you might want to roll exclusively with honor, outside event-given circulators.

ATTACK SPEED

Mercedes no longer needs Attack Speed inner to reach 10 attack speed:

Base (4), Elven Grace (5), Booster (7), Ignis (8), DSI and Green Pot (10).

You still want to invest in Attack Speed until the cap, even though both Ishtar’s Ring and Irkalla’s Wrath, your main burst skill, are hurricane skills that are not affected by this. This means that you will need decent speed infusion and green potion, but not inner ability. Other than being a damage increase while comboing, the smoothness that the reduced animations have on 10 attack speed allows you to react faster to danger and therefore be safer while bossing. Besides this, it can create comfortable grinding rotations that cover the map with less pressure to have no delays in your rotation to not miss waves.

COOLDOWN HATS

The point of using a cooldown reduction hat is to drop less impactful skills from our combos to allow more frequent use of:

The general rule is: The higher cooldown reduction you have, the more damage combo-ing will do over Ishtar’s Ring and the more you’ll have to combo to make up for the damage loss a CD hat will inflict on your non-combo skills.

Our breakpoints are -2 seconds and -5 seconds. Any other amount of cooldown reduction is useless.

While not necessarily not viable, a stat hat has become somewhat obsolete over the sixth job patches and we recommend a -2 second hat, both for mains and bossing mules.

Read the CD hat part of the combo section below for a full analysis.

With a -2 hat, you gain access to a comfortable and significantly safer stationary combo. You will need to actively combo for your best damage, but doing so is much easier than with a stat hat.

A stat hat results in slightly more damage for the lazier player. If you’re someone that doesn’t want to combo much or end up rolling a good 3 line stat hat, you will not be missing a lot by keeping it, but it is ultimately suboptimal.

At -5 seconds, which is unrealistic for Reboot/Heroic, you can drop two skills before cycling Wrath and Unicorn, and all such combos will result in massive damage. These combos are discussed in the combo section of the guide.

Additional CD hat benefits: More flexible AB link timing, lower water shield cooldown, slightly lower spirit nimble flight cooldown, more generous Freud’s Wisdom stacking windows, lower cooldown on the Spirit Enhance versions of our sixth job skills, lower Erda Fountain/Sol Janus cooldowns.

FIFTH JOB

NODES

Mercedes uses three sets of boost nodes, boosting every skill you would use while bossing and grinding:

EXAMPLES OF IDEAL NODE SETUPS

MOST RECOMMENDED

Well rounded setup focused on smoothing out early game):

BOSSING MOBBING SUPPLEMENTARY

________________________________________________________________________________

Another setup that maximizes bossing damage with only two trios equipped. This is not recommended as it cripples your main mobbing skill until all nodes are equipped.

BOSSING MOBBING REPLACE TRIO 1 WHEN MOBBING/OMIT

________________________________________________________________________________

As a new player lacking nodestones, you can’t afford to be too picky with what combinations you’ll end up with. A final reminder that the above are not the only valid combinations, and your nodes will work out as long as all 9 skills are eventually maxed.

NODE LEVELING PRIORITY

UNTIL TRAINING IS COMFORTABLE, THEN

THEN

THEN

THEN EVERYTHING ELSE

If you can get Guided Arrow to oneshot by leveling it, it’s worth prioritizing as it’ll give you a nice boost to your rates while you’re still in the Arcane River. Ideally, you should only be crafting skill nodes as they’re harder to level but if you’re struggling for damage against normal monsters you should be prioritizing that.

SIXTH JOB/HEXA

DPM-ING POST SIXTH JOB

While the exact ratios will vary a bit depending on your skill levels, generally, you still want to combo for the duration of Spirit of Elluel. Outside spirits, while comboing is technically better, the difference over min comboing with unicorn and wrath is a lot smaller.

SKILL UPGRADE ORDER

You can find the latest upgrade order on maplescouter’s website, under “Analysis/Optimization” -> “Hexa Core”, after making a preset for your character: https://maplescouter.com/hexa

The hexa stat priority is attack > main stat > boss.

Here’s an indicative upgrade order that includes all 4 mastery cores.

LINK SKILLS

For more information on specific link skills and their effects, see Nexon’s official site.

While bossing, the links you should always carry with you are:

For the remaining 4 slots, you can choose between the defensive/utility links or the 12% damage equivalent link options. A few notes:

Cygnus Blessing (Cygnus Knights) helps you reach status resistance thresholds for fights with a lot of status effects (ex. Lotus, Gloom, Darknell, Verus Hilla) and gives a small damage boost on top, making it a great option for such fights.

Light Wash (Luminous) might stop being best in slot for you at excessively high IED values (usually only reachable with familiars, in a party with lots of debuffs and/or really unfinished WSE)

Qi Cultivation (Mo Xuan) is best in slot in bosses you’re able to keep it stacked.

Judgment (Kinesis) will be significantly less impactful on vicious shot. If you don’t do a lot of damage outside of burst, other links will easily outperform it. This link skill has much higher value in the early game, where you have fewer sources of crit rate and crit damage.

MSEA players might also want to slot out Wild Rage (Demon Avenger) as its value drops at level 2 and is more in line with the other options.

Unfair Advantage (Cadena), Tide of Battle (Illium), Noble Fire (Adele), Thief’s Cunning (Explorer Thieves), Elementalism (Kanna) are good damage options. Hybrid Logic (Xenon) is situationally better than the aforementioned for some endgame characters for whom % stat may be valued higher than % damage. A lot of players dislike Thief’s Cunning as it’s near impossible to time it during Irkalla’s Wrath in realistic scenarios, where most of your damage is being dealt.

A lot of these link skills’ values may differ for your character, so if you want to optimize your link setup as much as possible, make sure to use a calculator.

LEGION ARTIFACT

Our 6 most important Legion Artifact stats are as follows:

• Critical Rate 20%
• Boss Damage 15%
• Damage 15%
• All Stats 150
• Critical Damage 4%
• Ignore Enemy Defense 20%

WSE OPTIMIZATION

Currently, the ideal WSE (weapon, secondary, emblem) potential setup is most likely going to be either 8/1/0 (8 lines of attack, 1 line of boss damage, 0 lines of IED) with the boss damage line preferably on the secondary, or 7/2/0. The line on the secondary is because the weapon gets 1% more attack per line compared to the secondary due to its level, while the boss damage lines are the same between the two equips. It is advised to use a calculator to optimize this for your character, as it will differ from setup to setup. In regular servers, you have access to bonus potential which is usually ideally att%. Because of this, the difference between 8/1/0 and 7/2/0 is more substantial in normal servers than in reboot, as attack loses some value.

Our best secondary is the Princess No secondary.

Because of Spikes Royale, Mercedes does not struggle with IED and therefore needs no lines on their WSE. Visual IED as low as 93% is perfectly acceptable because of this in the mid game, and you can be fine with even less before that.

If you happen to have any IED lines, you can omit IED from legion in favor of boss damage, and if that fills up, dex or crit rate until you can perfect your WSE.

SKILLS OVERVIEW

This section will cover the basic knowledge that every Mercedes player should have about her skills. For those already familiar, the Advanced Mechanics section will include details on the more technical aspects of Mercedes' skills. Some familiarity with what the skills do and how they link together is assumed, and it is recommended to take the time to read through the class’s skills on your own once before reading through this.

KEYBOARD LAYOUT

KEYBINDING FLASH JUMP

A lot of people are unaware that you can bind flash jump to a button on your keyboard. This allows you to jump + flash jump with two different inputs instead of one. You might find this pointless but it’s highly recommended to use, especially if you don’t have a layout that you’re already used to. This allows your flash jump to be more precise (more accurate when you need to use it on specific heights of your jump), come out quicker (faster to press two buttons than the same one twice) and alleviates some fatigue from keyboard mashing.

Comparison of keybound flash jump (above) versus mashing jump (below), we see that the keybound flash jump is noticeably faster - this is particularly important in bosses like Seren where you need to react and move quickly to hazards.

COMBOING: 1H VS 2H

So when you’re setting up your key bindings, do you put all of the combo skills on one side, or split them between the left and right sides? The Mercedes community could not be more divided when it comes to this. A lot of people, myself included, prefer using both hands to combo. It requires less intense activity on one hand and feels more accurate. I in particular have Unicorn Spike, Lightning Edge and Wrath of Enlil on the right side of my keyboard and Stunning Strikes, which is often linked with them, on the left side. Other people swear by single side comboing and find two hands to be more of a hassle than it is helpful. As there is no clear answer to this, you’ll have to experiment with your keyboard layout until you’re satisfied. Don’t be afraid to keep changing things up, a comfortable layout is the backbone of fluid and consistent comboing!

HYPER SKILLS

TYPICAL HYPER SETUP

Spikes Royale - Armorbreak boosts

Spikes’ debuff from 35% defense reduction to 55%. It’s a no brainer, and should always be chosen. Ishtar’s Ring hypers apply to Ishtar’s Brand and thus bring great value as well. Water Shield - True Immunity 1 is a good option for bosses where you can frequently be affected by a lot of statuses, like Lotus, Gloom or Verus Hilla. With enough sources of status resistance (high level legion artifact, cygnus link etc), it can be omitted.

For training, Spikes Royale - Temper Link could be the difference between one shotting and being unable to properly grind.

Under level 200, if you feel like you’re too squishy, put a point in Water Shield - Reinforce. Note that this does not cause bosses to do less damage to you and should be reattributed later.

Ishtar’s Ring - Reinforce AND Ishtar’s Ring - Guardbreak AND Ishtar’s Ring - Boss Rush AND Spikes Royale - Armorbreak AND CHOOSE BETWEEN: Spikes Royale - Temper Link (Recommended) OR Water Shield - True Immunity 1

LINKING SKILLS AND COOLDOWN REDUCTION

Linking skills together is the core of Mercedes gameplay. In the middle of a skill’s animation or shortly after, pressing a skill that it links with will chain the next skill when the first skill’s animation is over. In certain combos this will result in the second skill animation canceling the first one, letting you use two skills together in a shorter time than it would take for you to use them by themselves. If you press two skills that can be linked to the first skill, only the first one will be registered and executed. While comboing, during the animation of a skill, you can only buffer one skill to be executed, as you can only link a skill to a skill whose animation you’re currently performing. That is to say, if you wanted to link Wrath of Enlil into Stunning Strikes into Unicorn Spike you’d have to wait until Stunning Strikes’ animation starts to then buffer unicorn into the chain. Some players find that mashing the next skill during the first one lets them link skills more accurately. Familiarizing yourself with the skills and figuring out which skills can link together is important for beginner players and you should play around with it until you are comfortable.

In addition to this, some Mercedes skills have their cooldown reduced by 1 second each time you link skills together, namely Unicorn Spike, Wrath of Enlil, Spikes Royale and the tree part of Spirit of Elluel. A lot of Mercedes combos revolve around resetting these skills’ cooldowns to rotate maps, airstall, or increase your DPM in a boss fight.

One technicality of this is that when you link two skills, the cooldown reduction will apply after both skills are cast. This means that using:

will reduce Unicorn Spike’s cooldown by 1 second. This fact is important for some of the combos that will be detailed later.

While this guide will include the essential combos that you should know, watching other Mercedes players can be very helpful in seeing what the class is capable of, as there aren’t set-in-stone combos for everything.

SPECIFIC SKILL INFORMATION

SWIFT DUALSHOT, PIERCING STORM, PARTING SHOT

These are three skills that you will not be using after their respective job advancements. There is no reason to boost them, and you can mostly forget they exist.

RISING RUSH

This move can be used with the down arrow key to only perform the second part of the skill which allows you to start chaining into Aerial Barrage to combo upwards without moving horizontally.

LEAF TORNADO

This is Mercedes’ main grinding skill, which has a surprisingly large hitbox that can reach lower than you’d think and get platforms slightly above you. Experiment with this skill to familiarize yourself with its hitbox.

GUST DIVE

On its own, Gust Dive has frustratingly long endlag that makes playing Mercedes clunky and annoying. Linking this skill with another skill, however, completely eliminates this endlag. The most common endlag cancel method is using Leap Tornado during Gust Dive’s animation, which completely eliminates the endlag without having to link with another skill. This happens because the game tries to link the two skills, but as you are not high enough to use leap tornado nothing happens. Canceling the skill like this will not stack Ignis Roar. Getting used to using this animation cancel is very important for all aspects of Mercedes gameplay.

UNICORN SPIKE

This is Mercedes' second highest damage dealing skill after Wrath of Enlil. It applies a debuff that increases damage dealt by 30% for the entire party, which is equivalent to an extra guild skill. Make sure to always have this skill applied.

ELEMENTAL KNIGHTS

This is extra damage. Press it when you log in, forget about it.

STUNNING STRIKES

Stunning Strikes is one of Mercedes' “filler” skills while comboing. You will use this in-between other skills for additional cooldown reduction and extra damage while animation canceling.

ISHTAR’S RING

Hitting a target with this skill significantly slows down the rate at which Ignis Roar stacks go down.

SPIKES ROYALE

Spikes Royale is Mercedes' second debuff. 55% IED is huge, so make sure to have this always applied as well. Using this skill on the ground lifts you up (and you can then chain into Leaf Tornado or Gust Dive), while using it midair will briefly suspend you in place. Good way to stop your momentum midair.

ROLLING MOONSAULT

Using this skill resets your flash jump, which is very useful both while bossing and grinding. Like Spikes Royale, this skill also makes you briefly float in the air, and is another way to stop your momentum mid-air or airstall. Note that flash jumping upward will prevent this skill from resetting any further flash jumps until you land.

SPIRIT NIMBLE FLIGHT / SPIRIT ESCAPE

As long as you’re off the ground and in the middle of an animation, this skill allows you to teleport in any direction by using it in conjunction with the arrow keys. This skill will reduce the cast animation of the skill you act out of. However, it also retains the full length of any hover effects the skill you used it with normally provides. This means that if you use Rolling Moonsault into Spirit Nimble Flight, for example, you can choose to either act out of Moonsault immediately or hover in the air for as long as Moonsault normally lets you. You can’t use this skill while holding Ishtar’s Ring, though. Learning to use this skill efficiently will take time, but it is an amazing tool in Mercedes' kit that will increase in value the more acquainted you become with it.

WRATH OF ENLIL

The final debuff Mercedes has and Mercedes' strongest combo skill. It applies the rare “ignore touch damage” debuff. The complete effects of this debuff are detailed in the Advanced Mechanics section.

The Wrath has a very large hitbox that reaches high up above and far in front of you, making it central for both mobbing and bossing. Using this skill as much as possible is a central part of bossing as Mercedes.

SYLVIDIA’S FLIGHT

• While riding Sylvidia, skill animations will be shorter, which allows you to buff up quicker.
• You can hold down while dashing to duck as you move!
• If Sylvida’s Flight’s duration were to end while you were using Irkalla’s Wrath, Sylvidia’s Flight’s duration would be extended until Irkalla’s Wrath is over.
• Don’t forget that the damage reduction Sylvidia provides works on attacks that deal a percentage of your health as damage. Proper understanding of what you can tank on Sylvidia can help you survive difficult situations.
• While on Sylvida, certain non-KMS skills such as frenzy totem or lucid earring bind cannot be cast.

LIGHTNING EDGE

Lightning Edge also lifts your character off the ground during its animation (technically, every dash in the game does), which allows you to use Spirit Nimble Flight in conjunction with it to cover long distances in an instant.

IGNIS ROAR

As long as you have at least one stack, Ignis Roar will give you +1 attack speed, which also breaks the soft cap. Always keep this fully stacked! This skill is a massive final damage boost, and should never be dropped. A few easy ways to keep your stacks up when you’re playing safe or not attacking are:

• while holding down on the Rising Rush
• especially on 10 attack speed
• this can be done in the air, allowing for more movement options with Spirit Nimble Flight

TRIVIA AND FUN SKILL APPLICATIONS

ELVEN BLESSING / RETURN TO ELLUEL

Our link skill can be used as an active skill to teleport back to Elluel. Useful if you don’t have a teleport rock and the maple guide isn’t helpful. If your character ever gets soft-locked in an area because of a bug, this skill might be able to help you get out.

UPDRAFT

This skill has a maximum dash distance and will sometimes not get you to the top of particularly tall ladders (the one in Ludibrium: Path of Time, for example). You can also jump out of it at any point during the dash.

PARTING SHOT

You can use the normal attack key instead of this skill after Rising Rush, and Parting Shot will be used.

ISHTAR’S RING

Using this skill and holding “up” or “down” to climb on a ladder at the same time will cause you to climb while the skill animation plays. After you get off the ladder, you can change directions and the skill animation will be a bit buggy. It doesn’t actually do damage while you’re hanging (though clones summoned by Spirits of Elluel will), it’s just a fun trick to make your friends think you’re hacking.

ISHTAR'S RING VI

Depending on how far you are from a monster you are hitting, the hit effect sound of this skill will increase or decrease.

ROLLING MOONSAULT

Linking into this skill directly from Aerial Barrage will give you extra height, which can be helpful for reaching high platforms.

The afterimage activations of this skill from Spirit of Elluel also reset your flash jump, which can lead to multiple resets in a row.

SPIRIT NIMBLE FLIGHT / SPIRIT ESCAPE

You can use this skill with pretty much any skill or action that puts you in some sort of stance, including buffs like Freud’s Wisdom, Vicious Shot and Guided Arrow, provided you’re mid-air. You can even use this skill while using “Alicia’s Roar”, the knockback skill you are given in stages 20 and 40 of Tower of Oz/The Seed.

ROYAL KNIGHTS

Even in situations where you can’t reactivate this skill to end it early, such as while stunned, you can right click the buff in your buff bar and the skill will end and you will get the iframe. This isn’t very practical however as moving from the keyboard to the mouse is very inconvenient and is just as likely to kill you.

ADVANCED MECHANICS

SUPER KNOCKBACK RESISTANCE

Many of Mercedes' skills have super knockback resistance during their animation, which means that you will not be knocked back by bosses pushing you during these animations. Learning to use (but not rely on) this will drastically improve survivability in bosses. Skills with super knockback resistance:

• Rising Rush during the first part only
• Not during the windup before the dash

All 6 of the skills listed above act as “forced movement”, which functions a little differently than super knockback resistance. Forced movement skills lock you into performing a specific movement, during which you cannot be displaced by boss attacks (but are affected from hit-stuns).

Super knockback resistance, provided by the four skills above, additionally allows you to ignore hit-stuns from super knockbacks such as Darknell and Lotus pushes. Verus Hilla’s push (blue attack) and Lotus’ lifts ignore super knockback resistance and would normally displace you. However, since all of Mercedes’ super KB resistance skills also force her to move, they also uniquely deal with these exceptions as well.

INPUT QUEUING

If two skills can link into each other, you can press the second skill during the first skill’s animation and the second skill will be executed as soon as possible. More importantly, even if you get hit by a hit-stun attack during the first skill’s animation, before the second skill has even started, the queued skill will be executed regardless. This queue system can be exploited (along with the fact that most of our combo skills are forced movement skills) to continuously combo through hit-stuns. Additionally, while reversed, you are able to queue skills with regular movement inputs (rather than reversed ones).

SPECIFIC SKILL INFORMATION

RISING RUSH

Situationally preferred as a quick dash in cases you wouldn’t want to use lightning edge. Note that this skill needs a target or else you will perform both parts of it in place, so using it at the wrong time can be dangerous.

AERIAL BARRAGE

This skill is a teleport, which can situationally be useful, particularly in lotus where you can use it to go through lasers in phase 1, or if you’re precise enough, through falling objects in phases 2 and 3.

GUST DIVE

This skill will “lock on” and target platforms, which sometimes results in you latching onto a platform on your level or slightly above you.

Generally, you will not dash off the edge of a platform Gust Dive has latched onto. Note that if you gust dive onto a platform that is angled downwards in the direction you are diving, you may slide off and not lock on! Most notably, if you try gust diving onto Lotus platforms in the left direction, you will slide off.

You can cancel Gust Dive with Lightning Edge midair to use Gust Dive back to back with next to no delay. This can be extremely valuable in bosses like Darknell, Black Mage and Kalos where you’ll often find yourself upjumping or naturally getting very high and needing to move quickly.

SPIRIT NIMBLE FLIGHT / SPIRIT ESCAPE

You cannot use this skill twice without having touched the ground in between uses.

WRATH OF ENLIL

In addition to eliminating touch damage, Wrath of Enlil also negates damage and effects from some bosses’ dashes, effectively ignoring some mechanics entirely. More specifically, this debuff allows you to ignore:

• Magnus’ dash
• Damien’s dash in phase 2
• Will’s dash in phase 2
• Touch damage with corpses on the ground in Verus Hilla (you will have to apply this debuff every time they fall on the ground)
• The knights’ dashes (and curses!) in Black Mage phase 1
• Seren’s dash in every phase, and the first two slashes of her three-part slash during phase 2 sunset
• Taowu’s (Summer) dash in phase 1 Kaling

Ignoring Damien’s P2 Dash

The only other class able to consistently provide this debuff is Night Lord, making Mercedes an attractive option for parties in boss fights that benefit from this. While Fire/Poison Mage can also apply this debuff, the duration is only 10 seconds which makes upkeep difficult.

HOW TO BURST

OZ RING

If you’re using a single ring, the order tends to be: WJ4 < ROR3 < CONT4 ~= ROR4. In solo settings, cont4 will surpass ror4 in effectiveness if you’re dpm-ing constantly, but ror4 is generally the safer choice, and unquestionably the best in a party setting. A cont3 is also usable and performs similar to a ror3. Note that, if you’re using cont, you need to time Irkalla during the ring’s uptime, or the ring loses significant value.

WHEN TO RING SWAP

If you have a ror and a risk taker (both level 3 or higher), there is a better way to burst. Since channeling Irkalla doesn’t refresh the “in combat” status, you are free to ring swap as it ends (unless Spirit of Elluel procs which restarts the out of combat timer). Seeing as Freud’s will always align with our origin burst, swapping to risk taker every origin burst turns into a huge damage gain which outperforms a continuous ring (assuming same level rings). You can do the swap either via inventory or via the equipment presets. Always wait until spirits of elluel is over to swap your rings.

BURST ROTATION

Bursting on Mercedes is simpler than DPMing. Ideally, you’d want to hop on Sylvidia (and maybe use some of its duration to attack) before bursting. Make sure you have Spikes Royale and Unicorn Spike debuffs applied before bursting, as well as Ishtar Brand post sixth job. After that, you can just pop your buffs from lowest to highest impact and use Irkalla’s Wrath, followed by Unfading Glory after sixth job:

Mount Sylvidia

Royal Knights

Skill Sequence

(Optional: Dash cancel and apply debuffs)

Unfading Glory

(Optional: Dash cancel and apply debuffs)

Irkalla’s Wrath

[6]

Only every origin burst:

Swap to Risk Taker

Dismount and combo!

Dash cancelling and using Unicorn Spike, Wrath of Enlil and Spikes Royale right before Irkalla and Unfading Glory means you’ll do an additional burst of damage before them, ensure the boss is debuffed and have them up immediately after them as well. If your oz ring is not level 4, omit our debuffs in favor of fitting in both Irkalla and Unfading Glory in its duration for maximum damage amplification.

Dismount right after and start comboing to do your best damage! Some people find that dismounting by pressing down+attack to be inconsistent. If this is the case for you, you can also right click Sylvidia in the buff bar to manually dismount.

TIMING FREUD’S WISDOM

Since you’re bursting every 3 minutes, you can start charging 50-60 seconds after you Irkalla to have the sixth stack up for the next burst. Offset by adding your cooldown reduction times 4 to keep it accurate with a cooldown hat (8-10 seconds for -2 and 20-25 for -5).

Freud’s should always be used alongside Unfading Glory.

CULVERT / PUNCH KING

Your culvert rotation will depend on whether you can channel Unfading Glory and Irkalla’s Wrath without triggering a phase change by around the 70s mark. For most, this means getting to the final stage before that point. The ideal rotation should result in 5-10% higher culvert score over the alternative provided below, assuming you meet the requirements. Because of how early Irkalla/Origin happens, swapping out of continuous is a damage loss, just mainslot RoR.

*Note that you do not need to enter the culvert at the exact times listed, as long as you enter 45s after first using Heroic Memories).

**For punch king events with only one dummy to hit, start to activate lethal strike at approximately -50s instead of -35s.

IDEAL CULVERT ROTATION

Special Node used: Lethal Strike

Example video: 메르세데스 수로 설명서 (45377점, 헥사73588)

PRE ENTRY

• Purchase consumables (Legion Might, Ursus, Cider, etc)
• Set up Legion, Links, Hypers, V-Matrix, Familiars, Damage gear
• Ensure Decent skills are off cooldown. Time leap echo if needed.

INSIDE 2 MINUTE LOBBY

For maximum optimization, have your Decents and Elvish Blessing on autobuff while leaving one slot open to later add Heroic Memories.

• Toggle , hit a dummy once to summon one and immediately jump away.
• DO NOT USE YET.
• Manually (re)cast Ancient Warding and Maple Warrior (so that Combat Orders applies), use Hero’s Echo.
• Apply your consumables, Use your familiars .
• To have 2 , proceed after 1:15 minutes are left in the lobby.
• -65s from entry: Activate Kain Link if you’re using it and jump away.
• -45s* Add to autobuff
• -37s Start and use every time it comes off cd.
• -35s Hold on dummies until lethal strike procs - make sure to be hitting both dummies.
• -15s (Approx) [2] while continuing to hold Ishtar. Lethal Strike procs. Stop holding Ishtar and walk away. Toggle , upkeep Ignis stacks making sure to avoid hitting the dummies.
• 0:00 Enter the culvert room.

INSIDE CULVERT

• -03s and [3]
• 120s
• Stage 5: Apply
• 101s [4]
• 94s
• Stage 6: Re-apply debuffs
• 75s [5]
• 70s ( )
• 46s [6] delay this as much as possible for maximum buff uptime.
• Depending on when you phase to stage 6, if you’re not using a combo with spikes it will expire near the end.
• 16s

If you can’t use the above rotation, culvert becomes more straightforward: chip away at the first few phases, pop Spirits at 90s, and pop burst buffs + Irkalla sometime before or at 30s.

Below is a general optimized rotation, for reference. It is important not to phase the boss with Irkalla or Origin, as you lose a second of damage each time the boss phases, and Spikes, Unicorn and Ishtar debuffs fall off, resulting in significant damage loss. If you have a continuous 4 ring, you can use it and swap out of it before bursting.

ALTERNATIVE CULVERT ROTATION

Special Node used: Fatal Strike

Example video: https://youtube.com/tdPkYARcco0

PRE ENTRY

• Purchase consumables (Legion Might, Ursus, Cider, etc)
• Set up Legion, Links, Hypers, V-Matrix, Familiars, Damage gear

INSIDE 2 MINUTE LOBBY

• Take out pets & familiars, pop consumable & external buffs, recast Ancient Warding and Maple Warrior (so that Combat Orders applies), Echo
• -35s and every time it comes off cd
• -0s Enter the culvert room.

INSIDE CULVERT

• 120s Attack boss immediately to line up Fatal Strike
• Keep using off cd
• Start comboing once Sylvidia ends
• 91s
• 69s
• 62s
• 52s
• 35s ( )
• After Irkalla, immediately dismount Sylvidia and combo

THE COMBONOMICON

This section will describe and analyze Mercedes's well known combos, their applications, as well as their advantages and disadvantages over one another. This list is not exhaustive but includes many of the most frequently used combos and their common variations. There are lots of different ways to enter and exit out of these combos, and it’s up to the player to decide how they respond to the situation they are in. Note that even if the difference between some combos is small, each combo can proc a different number of trees during Spirits of Elluel. This can result in a slightly bigger difference in damage during burst than off-burst.

DISCLAIMER

Comboing is one of the core components of Mercedes's gameplay. However, unlike true combo classes like Cadena who strive to combo at all times, Mercedes' combos are more situational in their uses. A lot of the time you will be swapping between combos, half comboing, or even defaulting to Ishtar. This is fine! Most of Mercedes’ damage is dealt in the duration of Vicious Shot, and the combos described ahead are ways to improve your DPM over the minimum DPM combo, not the standard for it. While learning, do not get frustrated if you can’t combo continuously and instead focus on learning when and where you have openings to combo. While you should always be aiming to do more damage, learning not to overcommit combos can be harder than learning the combos themselves, and is a mistake many more advanced Mercedes players make all the time.

WHAT IF I JUST USE ISHTAR’S RING?

Don’t do this. This is the least possible damage you can do, outside of straight up not attacking. As an absolute minimum, you want to use this off cooldown:

COMMON COMBOS

MINIMUM DPM COMBO

Currently, with only the first two mastery cores available, testing has shown that unicorn spike ends up being a damage loss in this short combo chain, and the best thing to do is actually stunning strikes - wrath - stunning strikes - ishtar until your cooldowns are back up. This is being left here however as whenever unicorn does get boosted, our minimum dpm combo will most likely return to this.

In situations without the freedom to move as you please, the best thing to do is:

[ ] until the cooldown of Unicorn Spike is back up, and then repeat. This ensures you get your highest damage dealing skills off while remaining safe until they’re up again. Remember to reapply Spikes Royale every 60 seconds. The use of Stunning Strikes at the beginning serves to take off an extra second out of Unicorn (see: Linking Skills and Cooldown Reduction) and when using short combos like this, the additional second improves the frequency of the skill chain.

Additionally, you can start every combo that starts with a skill that can have its cooldown reduced with a Stunning Strikes. It’s not necessary, as the combos listed below cycle, but if you’re forced to cancel out of the combo early for whatever reason, that extra second of cooldown reduction will allow you to restart faster.

Additionally, you can start every combo that starts with a skill that can have its cooldown reduced with a Stunning Strikes. It’s not necessary, as the combos listed below cycle, but if you’re forced to cancel out of the combo early for whatever reason, that extra second of cooldown reduction will allow you to restart faster.

CLASSIC DPM COMBO

The most commonly used stat hat combos are variations of a “parent” combo that aims to reset and use Unicorn Spike and Wrath of Enlil, Mercedes' highest damage skills, as much as possible and get a lot of Spirit tree procs. While not always the most optimal, this combo should be mastered first to properly use its derivatives. The parent combo is as follows:

while turning around after each Gust Dive.

You can switch the position of Unicorn Spike and Wrath of Enlil if you want. Since the animation of Wrath is shorter and it does more damage, it is first in case you have to end the combo early and it’s the only skill you can get off.

It is important not to cancel Gust Dive with Leaf Tornado here as Stunning Strikes links to it. If you cancel Gust Dive and don’t link to Stunning Strikes, you will lose out on the cooldown reduction.

This combo actually has one skill too many. You can afford to take out one of the skills and still fully cycle this combo, which results in slightly higher damage. This leads to the two derivative combos, one omitting Leap Tornado, and one omitting the last Stunning Strikes before restarting the combo:

Classic Combo without Leap Tornado

Classic Combo without Stunning Strikes

The full version of the combo, and these two derivatives all deal similar damage, which gives you a lot of flexibility while attacking. You can choose to omit leap tornado if you need to reposition quicker, for example, or keep it in if maintaining your position is better. For people not used to these combos, it’s recommended to master and use the original first before experimenting with the variations.

HIGHEST DPM COMBO (STAT HAT)

This combo is the highest DPM combo currently known (without a CD hat), and has the added advantage of only moving you vertically:

Against medium sized bosses, or in maps without a low ceiling, you will be too high to hit the boss with Wrath using this combo. In situations where you can use this however, it is a great way to improve your combo DPM, and a comfortable combo option while inside RoR. This combo is great to use in culvert as well.

COOLDOWN HAT COMBOS

We will list the different combos we can perform with different amounts of cooldown reduction. Mercedes can and is played with all sorts of hats, and while some cooldown reduction is preferred by most players, you can function perfectly fine without any.

-2 SECONDS

This is your one size fits all new favorite damage option.This combo is comfortable, doesn’t move you horizontally and you can use spirit nimble flight to exit at almost every point, while outdamaging every non cd combo. While it may not hit particularly small bosses, it’s useful almost everywhere. Additionally, the combo constantly applies all 3 of our debuffs. The safety, strength and ease of use makes this line (and hat) the recommended go-to. You can substitute gust dive in place of leap tornado which would work in all bosses, but this way you’re moving and losing some damage (still a great option for repositioning).

The aerial barrage version, which might be useful in certain situations.

As a bonus, this Lightning Edge combo can be useful for repositioning while maintaining damage.

-5 SECONDS

This combo cuts out the weaker skills we’d otherwise have to use to reset Wrath and Unicorn’s cooldowns and has exceptionally high performance. For this reason, a -5 second hat is technically BiS for Mercedes.

GETTING HIGH, QUICKLY

There are situations where you want to get up quickly and stay midair, and in those cases, Nimble is your best friend. The most natural way of quickly going up is Spikes Royale into Nimble, since the skill suspends you in the air for a bit after teleporting and allows you to chain into other skills or follow up with a flash jump. Rolling Moonsault is another good option, but you forfeit the option of resetting your flash jump for some time and its cooldown is longer and cannot be reset by linking skills.

Overall though, any skill works. From the Destiny patch onwards, Mercedes also has access to upjump and you have to choose if you’d rather upjump or use Nimble.

Being a teleport, Nimble has the advantage of going through debris and being instantaneous movement, but as it has a cooldown you shouldn’t be using it in situations where you might need it for other instant repositioning.

LESS COMMON COMBOS

AERIAL BARRAGE COMBO

There are a number of issues with this combo:

• This combo does less damage than the standard combo.
• The timing of rising rush/aerial barrage can be hard to get used to.
• The hitboxes of rising rush and aerial barrage are quite narrow, so the combo becomes inconsistent against smaller enemies.
• The reason you might want to use this combo is the timing differences between this and the classic combo, as well as the height you gain from aerial barrage (In Seren for example, Aerial Barrage can dodge her stabs while you continue to combo). As a new player, you don’t have to worry about this one.

THE MERCCOPTER (VERTICAL COMBOING)

This combo is quite well known even outside the Mercedes community. It’s like our signature move. Rather than doing damage, this combo is used to slowly gain height and remain midair, though for most practical situations a variation of it will be used to either get higher quicker or adjust the flight trajectory. Practicing it and its variations will help familiarize you with Mercedes’ linking system, cooldown reduction mechanics and the general displacement you get from your skills. Here’s the textbook version of it:

while holding the down arrow on Rising Rush.

BREAKING DOWN THE STANDARD MERCCOPTER

is the “base” of the combo, followed by a progression of

while using

between each skill to gain height and reduce cooldown, similar to Stunning Strikes for a grounded combo

In a lot of situations, you might want to skip starting off with

as it can be slow. Simply start with a jump and continue with

A more freestyle version of this combo can have you flash jumping to change your position in the middle of it. Remember that Rolling Moonsault resets your flash jump, so you can flash jump twice during this combo. You don’t always have to use this full combo.

For maximum height, you can finish off with an upward

INFINITE MERCCOPTER

A highly impractical variation of this combo you can perform only on 2 and 1 attack speed that can allow you to indefinitely remain midair and even gain height if executed perfectly.

Here is a video showcasing this: [Maplestory] Mercedes - Infinite Mercopter

The main usage of this is impressing your friends.

EDIT: no longer doable (:c). However, there’s another version that involves using blink:

Maplestory - Mercedes POST DESTINY Infinite Mercopter Loop

Update: It’s doable again after Ignition!

[Maplestory] Mercedes - Combo Updates (Post-Ignition)

Update: Apparently, using tornado on a macro key after gust dive allows you to gain height despite the downward momentum

THE COMBONOMICON

This section will describe and analyze Mercedes's well known combos, their applications, as well as their advantages and disadvantages over one another. This list is not exhaustive but includes many of the most frequently used combos and their common variations. There are lots of different ways to enter and exit out of these combos, and it’s up to the player to decide how they respond to the situation they are in. Note that even if the difference between some combos is small, each combo can proc a different number of trees during Spirits of Elluel. This can result in a slightly bigger difference in damage during burst than off-burst.

COMMON COMBOS

MINIMUM DPM COMBO

Currently, with only the first two mastery cores available, testing has shown that unicorn spike ends up being a damage loss in this short combo chain, and the best thing to do is actually stunning strikes - wrath - stunning strikes - ishtar until your cooldowns are back up. This is being left here however as whenever unicorn does get boosted, our minimum dpm combo will most likely return to this.

In situations without the freedom to move as you please, the best thing to do is:

[ ] until the cooldown of Unicorn Spike is back up, and then repeat. This ensures you get your highest damage dealing skills off while remaining safe until they’re up again. Remember to reapply Spikes Royale every 60 seconds. The use of Stunning Strikes at the beginning serves to take off an extra second out of Unicorn (see: Linking Skills and Cooldown Reduction) and when using short combos like this, the additional second improves the frequency of the skill chain.

Additionally, you can start every combo that starts with a skill that can have its cooldown reduced with a Stunning Strikes. It’s not necessary, as the combos listed below cycle, but if you’re forced to cancel out of the combo early for whatever reason, that extra second of cooldown reduction will allow you to restart faster.

THE HIGHEST DPM COMBO (STAT HAT)

This combo is the highest DPM combo currently known (without a CD hat), and has the added advantage of only moving you vertically:

Against medium sized bosses, or in maps without a low ceiling, you will be too high to hit the boss with Wrath using this combo. In situations where you can use this however, it is a great way to improve your combo DPM, and a comfortable combo option while inside RoR. This combo is great to use in culvert as well.

COOLDOWN HAT COMBOS

We will list the different combos we can perform with different amounts of cooldown reduction. Mercedes can and is played with all sorts of hats, and while some cooldown reduction is preferred by most players, you can function perfectly fine without any.

-2 SECONDS

This is your one size fits all new favorite damage option.This combo is comfortable, doesn’t move you horizontally and you can use spirit nimble flight to exit at almost every point, while outdamaging every non cd combo. While it may not hit particularly small bosses, it’s useful almost everywhere. Additionally, the combo constantly applies all 3 of our debuffs. The safety, strength and ease of use makes this line (and hat) the recommended go-to. You can substitute gust dive in place of leap tornado which would work in all bosses, but this way you’re moving and losing some damage (still a great option for repositioning).

The aerial barrage version, which might be useful in certain situations.

As a bonus, this Lightning Edge combo can be useful for repositioning while maintaining damage.

-5 SECONDS

This combo cuts out the weaker skills we’d otherwise have to use to reset Wrath and Unicorn’s cooldowns and has exceptionally high performance. For this reason, a -5 second hat is technically BiS for Mercedes.

GETTING HIGH, QUICKLY

There are situations where you want to get up quickly and stay midair, and in those cases, Nimble is your best friend. The most natural way of quickly going up is Spikes Royale into Nimble, since the skill suspends you in the air for a bit after teleporting and allows you to chain into other skills or follow up with a flash jump. Rolling Moonsault is another good option, but you forfeit the option of resetting your flash jump for some time and its cooldown is longer and cannot be reset by linking skills.

Overall though, any skill works. From the Destiny patch onwards, Mercedes also has access to upjump and you have to choose if you’d rather upjump or use Nimble.

Being a teleport, Nimble has the advantage of going through debris and being instantaneous movement, but as it has a cooldown you shouldn’t be using it in situations where you might need it for other instant repositioning.

LESS COMMON COMBOS (CONT.)

• AERIAL BARRAGE COMBO
• THE MERCCOPTER (VERTICAL COMBOING)
• INFINITE MERCCOPTER

THE COMON COMBOS SUMMARY

• Classic DPM Combo (base)
• Highest DPM Combo (Stat Hat)
• CD Hat variations
• Getting High, Quickly

PRE ENTRY / INSIDE 2 MINUTE LOBBY / INSIDE CULVERT

Details about preparations, buffs, and precise timings for entering culvert and executing the burst.

THE COMBONOMICON (CONT.)

More details on individual skills, their interactions, and how to chain them for maximum uptime and DPS.

COMMON COMBOS (RECAP)

• MINIMUM DPM COMBO
• CLASSIC DPM COMBO
• HIGH DPS VARIANTS

DISCLAIMER (REVISITED)

A reminder that Mercedes’ combos are situational and heavily rely on skill timing and map state. Practice and experimentation are required to optimize.

WHAT IF I JUST USE ISHTAR’S RING? (REMINDER)

Do not rely solely on Ishtar’s Ring for DPS; aim to incorporate Spikes Royale, Unicorn Spike, and Wrath into bursts.

TRAINING & MACRO NOTES

• Training maps and rotations
• 10 attack speed caveats
• Training with a macro setup for Leap Tornado or Gust Dive (optional)

TRAINING PATH & MAP ROTATIONS

Details on pre-200 and 200+ training paths, training maps, and rotation videos with various maps.

SPECIAL BOSS INFORMATION

Magnus, Von Bon, Pierre, Crimson Queen, Vellum, Gollux, Lotus, Damien, Lucid, Will, Gloom, Darknell, Black Mage, Seren, Watcher Kalos, Kalos, Kaling, Taowu. Strategies and tips for Mercedes in each boss fight, including bursts, dodges, and positioning.

MAGNUS

Aerial Barrage can pass through green and blue meteors. Wrath of Enlil’s untouchable debuff makes Magnus’ dash harmless. The fixed movement speed from holding ishtar will bypass Magnus’ slow effect.

VON BON

The fixed movement speed from holding Ishtar will bypass Von Bon’s slow effect. Lightning edge and Sylvidia’s dash will lift you up slightly off the ground, and let you avoid the Stomp attack. Sylvidia allows you to survive all attacks (except the screen crack from failing to kill Von Bon in the other dimension).

PIERRE

You can Aerial Barrage through hat drops (anything else that brings you as high will also work). Aerial Barrage also avoids all of Pierre’s attacks, except Blue Pierre’s spin attack (again, anything else that brings you as high will work). Wrath of Enlil’s untouchable debuff makes Blue Pierre’s spin attack harmless. If you become reversed, you can change directions normally in between attacks while comboing.

CRIMSON QUEEN

You can avoid her swipe attacks and clear her hearts with aerial barrage (or anything else that brings you high enough). During her suck attack, you can just hold jump and ishtar to hop in place while continuing to attack (this is also true for Lotus’ pull and all similar attacks).

Moving around while comboing (for example, using Aerial Barrage and Gust Dive repeated) prevents you from taking burn damage. This can be useful for stalling out zombification while you’re burned.

VELLUM

You can Aerial Barrage over falling rocks and the poison attack (anything else that brings you as high will also work). You can jump over the fireball attacks with Aerial Barrage + Leap Tornado (or anything else that brings you as high). Sylvidia allows you to survive all attacks (except the Beam attack).

GOLLUX

Rising Rush is a great way to dash behind the breath attack. Aerial Barrage allows you to go over the hand hitbox, so you don’t have to move excessively. When in doubt, just Ishtar. This boss is mostly a waiting game. Try to clear the mobs right after his reverse bomb attack. True Arachnid Reflection also helps clear the mobs.

LOTUS

Decent Holy Fountain is a big help here when it comes to avoiding chip damage. Make sure to put it down when you’re safe enough to! Holding Ishtar and moving is a great way to keep up DPM while avoiding the mechanical arms. Rising Rush is a great option to quickly move away (or towards) patterns, and given how you want to be playing on top of Lotus most of the fight it’ll always be accessible as it’ll have an easy target. It is particularly helpful in dodging falling debris in P2, where lightning edge’s start lag and speed make it a bit difficult to avoid getting hit by any debris. Aerial Barrage is a great option for going over the pinpoint lasers in every phase while continuing to combo, though Spikes will usually be the better option.

DAMIEN

Hitting him with Erda Nova while he’s doing the fireball attack in the air will immediately cancel that attack and bind him on the ground normally. This is a pretty easy boss to combo in, you can get a lot of good practice in! Using Hero’s Will to tank an attack that gives brands will protect against being branded. You still take the damage from the attack and this doesn’t work against the timed brands every 20 seconds.

LU CID

Mercedes has multiple ways of dealing with dragon. While outdated (since the release of blink), it’s good to know how you can combo above it. Removing touch damage from golems can be helpful in phase 1 if you aren’t able to clear them quickly (note that standing under them or trying to pass through/over them will still result in you taking massive damage). In phase 2, Lightning Edge comboing is a great option to avoid dealing with all the different platforms you’d be displaced to if comboing differently. During phase 2’s bullet hell, you can aerial barrage through the roof briefly to avoid bullets.

WILL

Aerial Barrage will lift your character to higher heights compared to Will’s attacks. Phase 3 Will can use poison once every approx 30 seconds. You can use the time after a poison to prep your burst.

GLOOM

After the laser sequence, there are approximately 23 seconds left before the next opening (unless a double opening happens because you reached a health threshold). Save True Arachnid Reflection/Solar Crest for darkness.

DARKNELL

Elite mobs are only summoned when Darknell attacks, so move strategically. Sylvidia is important for survivability. If you phase to the final stage early you lose some debuffs but can maintain RoR.

BLACK MAGE

Phase 1 untouchable debuff prevents statue dashes from hitting you. Phase 2 untouchable debuff disables touch damage. Phase 3 combos across FMA timers with iframe bursts. Phase 4 deals with shield refresh and survival.

CHOSEN SEREN

Untouchable debuff disables Seren’s dash attacks and the first two parts of her triple slash. In phase 2, debuffs removed on form switch; reapply quickly. Use Sylvidia and heals as needed.

WATCHER KALOS

Kaloss fights require survival more than damage; use all three survival links. In min-clear, Kalos is a threshold fight; you can use high-damage aerial barrage in this fight.

KALOS (FOLLOW-UPS)

Kalos fight requires precise mobility; use Sylvidia and upjump to avoid lasers, keep above ground, and maximize burst windows.

KALING

Dodge Hundun’s frenzy with spike movements and Ishtar; Nimble Flight offers upjumping options, etc.

KNOWN BUGS

• Gust Dive through middle platforms
• Elemental Knights Ice Elemental’s boost bug
• Other minor issues with Spirit Nimble Flight toggles and Elluel clones

CREDITS

Akki, Jason, Bread, Ian and others for compiling and contributing to this guide.

---

STAT WINDOW (continued)

This section contains a lot of content about inner ability optimization, node optimization, WSE, and boss tactics. The exact text has been preserved in the original guide and is referenced here for completeness.

KNOWN ISSUES & FIXES

• Fixed issues in 2023/4/10 Double Trouble Recharge
• Plan changes for 2022 patches

CREDITS [extended]

Extended credits to all contributors and players who helped compile this guide.

IMAGES & VISUALS

• Mercedes cover art and various screenshots accompany the guide to illustrate key mechanics and node layouts.
• The images provide visual references for inner ability selections, node setups, and burst rotations.

IMAGE DESCRIPTIONS

• Image: Mercedes cover with two Mercedes characters in action (alt: The Comprehensive Mercedes Guide cover).
• Image: Stat Window screenshots showing inner ability lines (alt: Stat Window inner abilities).
• Image: Node setup diagrams (alt: Example node setups).

---

Appendix: Map and Node References

• Node leveling priority diagrams and references to maplestory hexacore optimizations.
• Link skills and synergy references for ongoing DPM improvements.

Quick Reference: Common Terms

• Spikes Royale
• Unicorn Spike
• Wrath of Enlil
• Sylvidia’s Flight
• Irkalla’s Wrath
• Spirit of Elluel
• Hexa Core
• WSE (Weapon, Secondary, Emblem) optimization

Closing Notes

This document is intended as a comprehensive, detailed, and highly technical guide to Mercedes in MapleStory. It captures a wide range of strategies, techniques, and data points from player experiences and community resources. It serves as a reference for high-skill players seeking to maximize DPM and mobility, while also outlining practical considerations for training, bossing, and team play.

END OF DOCUMENT