General

I would say, grab yourself a new Sweet Water Axe[should be dirt cheap] and spell trace it with 70%. Spell Trace is a new system that replaces old scrolling methods. With this, you are able to get +5 att at a 70% rate. If you were aiming at perfecting that, the easy route would be slating and 30% but if you have the money, I would do 15%[though probably not as worth your money as you can get other gear with a 30% or 70% weapon for the mean time] Once an item has been completely scrolled, the new starforce system outdates the enhance system which you can get an item to 12 stars without chances of booming your weapon. If you're starting fresh or have some crap gear lying around, I would just 70-100% trace them and just enhance them to 10 stars so you would at least have something to work with while you plan better gear.

Key items to look for purchasing:
-cRA set: Hat, Top, Bottom, Weapon(?) [you would want to do a 3-4 piece set as the 3 piece adds 50att and the 4 piece adds 30% boss]
-Sweet Water/Terminus Weapon(?) [if you chose to go this route, I personally did but everyone else goes with cRA set usually]
-The new boss drops [Aquatic Letter Eye, Condensed Power Crystal, Black Bean Mark, Will o' the Wips, Dea Sidus Earring, Silver Blossom Ring, HT/CHTP, Mechantor Pendant, Dominator Pendant, Golden Clover Belt, Royal Black Metal Shoulder, Pink Holy Cup, Stone of Eternal Life, Crystal Ventus Badge] has a pretty good starter bonus set effect [if you buy an owl from pot shop, you can search -fm for one of these and see the bonuses] They are also very cheap.
-Tyrants [Belt,Glove,Cape,Boots] Pretty much end game items, are generally on the more expensive list usually costing a fortune.
-Gollux set [Earring, Pendant, Ring, Belt] These items can easily be perfected with gollux scrolls which take a fair amount of time but sell for a pretty good amount.

With that, you can pretty much put 2 and 2 together with what I said with what works for your budget.

Depends how well your funded. That belt will probably be better than a clean tyrant belt, but as the tyrant belt gets more stars on it, it will get much stronger. Tyrants are expensive though (the capes, not as much).

If you don't have that much funding, I would recommend getting a Reinforced Gollux Belt, and scrolling and cubing that, or buy a pre-made one.

For now though, hold on to that 20% belt until you upgrade to something better.

@Masinko

Are the Tyrant equips worth getting if I have %str on my equips?

Like I have a 20% str belt, but I'm not sure if Tyrant is better than that.

If you decide to restart come to Khaini and I'll hook you up with equips

They also have a Spell Trace Event where 15% go to 25%, 30%-->45% and 70%'s to 95%. So if you're looking to save money, wait for that.

Don't transpose it. Start fresh. Spell traces replaced scrolls essentially. Get CRA gear.

I wrote up a long response but then deleted it. Tbh, if u were you I wouldnt even bother. Why a free man longs for his ex lifestyle living in chains is beyond me. Perhaps im not meant to understand.

Okay... I'll answer SOME of these questions, because you can quite literally find out the rest through Tot... and if you're returning to the game after a long time, you really ought to look through his tutorials anyways.

First off, the axe and the overall. The overall's stats are pretty nice. If you haven't equipped it, you might be able to make some mesos off it. How much? I dunno. The axe... really couldn't tell you. As for "transferring scrolls over from one item to another", you need to go to Commerci to do that (an area for 15x characters), complete a quest line and unlock the ability to do Commerci trade quests. These will earn you trade coins which you need to do what's called "transposition". In order to transpose your 140 axe, you need a 160 Sweetvvater axe as well (and 50 trade coins). An NPC in Commerci will do the transposition service, but the odds of it working are not good at all. If it does succeed, the 140 axe's scrolling, potential/bonus potential slots (but not the potentials themselves) and most of the star upgrades will have transferred to the 160 axe. You will not be able to trade the 160 axe and the 140 axe will disappear. The 160 Sweetvvater axe is pretty much the single most powerful weapon in the game (as there is no higher level equip set in the game), but to get the entire 160 Sweetvvater set is extremely difficult and time/meso consuming (trust me). It's mainly because the SW set only drops from special bosses in the Commerci trade voyages... which are hard to kill in the time limit... and even if you do, the drop rate for them is rare as heck.

To be brutally honest, your better bet right now is to buy the 150 Root Abyss set as others have said before. Nowadays, the equips are DIRT CHEAP since everyone has and is selling them. Also, unlike the SW set, which requires almost 8 pieces, the RA set is only 4 (weapon, top, bottom and hat)... and it's combined effect is pretty powerful on it's own. It is FAR more cost-efficient to buy this set... so most people recommend it. Shouldn't cost more than 200m to get a clean set.

As for "crafting scrolls", the scroll system is entirely different. I think Tot covers it... or one of the Maple Admin's basic quests. Look for "spell traces". Basically, collect a bunch of these from training against normal monsters and use them in place of a scroll. You choose the scroll's type, % and effect. Very easy system, really.

Finally, for crafting cubes, that requires you to look into crafting itself. Go to Ardentmill and speak with Grant. You can get to Ardentmill from any town. The portal is yellow. I believe making cubes requires blacksmithing or jewel crafting... but you need to level up that ability to it's highest (or next to highest) in order to make those.

Would not recommend transposing. It turns level 140 and level 150 weapons and armor into the SweetH2O set. The SweetH2O set is pretty strong, but it has no resale value and is pretty expensive to get. CRA + Tyrants would be better.

I would recommend getting CRA gear first, the full set gives +50 weapon attack and +30% boss. The weapon already comes with +30% boss.
In Broa, 2H axes are like 25m~40m. The Top / Hat / Bottom are like 25m / 75m / 150m each. Use spell traces on them (I recommend 70% on the weapon, if you're unfunded and your choice of 100% or 70% for the armor pieces).

As for cubes, you can craft them, but bosses also drop them on occasion. Drop rate for those seem to be much higher from some bosses.

[quote=yoyoyo25971]@xXjarakudaXx:

Are there new scrolls these days?

My axe is a +5 from 10% scrolls, if I use the transpose system the new axe stays at +5 right?[/quote]

I believe so, the spell trace 70% is 5att, 30%is7att, and 15% is 9att

@xXjarakudaXx:

Are there new scrolls these days?

My axe is a +5 from 10% scrolls, if I use the transpose system the new axe stays at +5 right?

@yoyoyo25971: You can with transposing (don't know much about it), but your axe isn't that great anyways.

@xXjarakudaXx

I read online that you can "transfer" item stats. Is it possible to transfer the stats on my Empress to say a Sweet H20 axe (and as a side question, which on is better? Sweet H2O, Fafnir, or Amateratsu)

your axe is not nice, empress stuff are worthless, except the shoulders

Your current equips you mentioned aren't going to be worth much

Ra set is pretty cheap now, so its worth it to upgrade. RA set +Gollux set + Tyrant boots/cape is probably the best set up anyone could have.

You can now scroll your items with "Spell Traces". They are an Etc item that can be picked up from mobs/bosses and some special shops. There is 100% 70% 30% scrolls and depending on the level of the item, determines the number of spell traces needed. They are pretty good scrolls too

You can also use Star force enhancement after your slots are used up. It adds the same bonus as regular EE scrolls, but without the super big boom chance. You can get up to 12 stars without any chance of destroying your item, besides for Superior Items (tyrants etc). If you fail a starforce enhancement, it only has a chance to drop down a star.

You can craft cubes if you reach smithing level 11 and 12, they aren't as great as the Cash shop cubes.

There is a new "Maple Rewards" system. Basically you can get points from killing bosses, playing mini games, and other means that can be used in special section of the CashShop. You can buy 2 Red cubes and 2 Black cubes each month, including other items with these points. You can also apply these points to regular NX purchases to apply a 30% discount.