A party is a group of characters playing together. Parties matter in MapleStory Classic World for two concrete reasons: five second-job skills buff the whole party rather than the caster, and party quests cannot be entered without one.
Every party buff in the game shares one wording: it affects "all party members around the area". Membership alone is not enough. A character standing on the far side of the map, or on a different map, gets nothing. This is what makes a party a formation rather than a list of names, and it is why a Cleric follows the group instead of parking somewhere safe.
Contents
The party buffs
Five skills reach the whole party at launch. All five are second job, so a party of first-job characters has none of them.
| Skill | Cast by | What it gives the party |
|---|---|---|
| Rage | Fighter | Attack power, at the cost of weapon defense |
| Bless | Cleric | Accuracy, avoidability, and stronger HP recovery from items and skills |
| Heal | Cleric | Restores HP, and damages nearby undead monsters |
| Meditation | Wizard (Fire/Poison), Wizard (Ice/Lightning) | Magic attack |
| Haste | Assassin, Bandit | Speed and jump |
Heal is the one with a party rule of its own: the amount healed depends on how many people are being healed. A Cleric healing alone and a Cleric healing five people are not doing the same thing, which is the clearest mechanical statement in the game that the design expects groups.
Rage is the only party buff that costs something. It raises attack and lowers weapon defense, so it suits a party that kills faster than it takes hits, and it suits a Cleric-backed party more than an unhealed one.
Who brings what
Each branch contributes a different thing, and none of the four is redundant:
- Warrior, through Fighter, brings Rage. The only party attack buff at launch.
- Magician, through Cleric, brings Heal and Bless. The only sustain, and the only accuracy buff.
- Magician, through either Wizard path, brings Meditation, which does for magic damage what Rage does for physical.
- Thief, through Assassin or Bandit, brings Haste. Movement rather than combat, which matters most on the maps a party has to cross together.
- Bowman has no party skill at launch. A bowman joins a party for the party's buffs rather than to supply one.
Party quests
A party quest is an instanced objective a party enters together and completes in stages. They are the one piece of content that cannot be soloed at all.
At launch there is one, First Time Together, hosted in Kerning City for characters between levels 21 and 30. It runs on a 30 minute limit and ends with the party fighting King Slime.
What the client does not settle
The game files describe what each skill does to a party, but not the rules of the party system itself:
- How many characters a party holds. No client file states the limit.
- How experience is divided. The split between party members, and whether level difference or distance changes it, is handled by the server.
- What the buff radius actually is. Every description says "around the area" without giving a number.
Those are worth measuring in game rather than assuming, and this page should be updated once they are.
See also
- Party quests: the instanced content parties exist for.
- Skills: every skill, including the ones listed here.
- Experience: how EXP is earned.
- Guild: the larger, persistent grouping.
- Training guide: where a party is worth forming.