MapleStory Arcane River

MapleStory Arcane River is the end-game content area of MapleStory where players level 200+ go on to fight the strongest bosses and mobs in the game. Arcane river consists of many different areas and is constantly being added to, to help players level towards the level cap of 275, fight end-game bosses such as Lucid, Will and Black Mage. This guide will show you all the different areas currently available and what content you can expect to get involved in once you reach Arcane River.

Arcane River 5th Job

Arcane River introduces 5th job to all MapleStory classes. It introduces new systems known as the V Matrix, which allows players to equip Nodes that give new skills and buff existing ones. These 5th Job Nodes are obtained by using items known as Nodestones.

Arcane River was released in patch V.179, with originally only 2 areas Vanishing Journey and Chu Chu Island.

Nodestones are items that drop from every single mob in Arcane River. Opening an nodestone will add a 5th job node to your V Matrix. Each skill in the V Matrix can be leveled up, and to do that you'll need multiple copies of the same skill and hence hundreds of Nodestones.

Every new character gets 3 new 5th job skills automatically once they reach Level 200 and complete the 5th job advancement quests. These come in the form of Nodes that can be equipped to your V Matrix. As MapleStory is updated, new 5th job skills are added over time.

Arcane River Areas

Arcane River is divided into different areas which are level-locked. The current areas in the game are:

• Vanishing Journey (Level 200-210)
• - Reverse City: (Level 205-210)
• Chu Chu Island (Level 210-220)
• - Yum Yum Island (Level 215-220)
• Lachelein (Level 220-225)
• Arcana (Level 225-230)
• Morass (Level 230-235)
• Esfera (Level 235-245)

At level 245, players get access to Tenebris, which contains content up to level 275, including the Black Mage boss.

Arcane Force and Symbols

Each major area of Arcane River introduces an Arcane Symbol that can be equipped. Arcane Symbols introduce a new power called Arcane Power. Arcane Power is required to defeat mobs in the Arcane River region. When you enter a map in Arcane River, you'll see the Arcane Power requirement needed. If you don't have this requirement, your damage is reduced dramatically.

If you have more Arcane Force than required, you can do up to a max of 1.5x damage to monsters in that area. You'll need to have 150% of the Arcane Force map requirement in order to hit the 1.5x damage. This makes Arcane Force really powerful and makes obtaining Arcane Force really important to be able to train effciently.

Arcane Symbols are given to players as they complete the pre-quests for each area. At level 1, the Arcane Symbols give +30 Arcane Force. You can then level each Arcane Symbol up to a max of Level 20 to obtain a max of +250 Arcane Force. In order to level up Arcane Symbols, you'll need to do Daily Quests for each region, which can involve doing a party quest, killing mobs and other different mini-games.

Arcane Force is also a requirement for bosses in Arcane River, so you'll need to be leveling up your Symbols in order to take on the end-game bosses.

Vanishing Journey - Arcane River

Vanishing Journey is the first area of Arcane River you unlock once you level to 200 and complete your preliminary 5th job quest. Vanishing Journey composes of three areas Lake Of Oblivion, Extinction Zone and Cave Of Repose.

You will obtain your first Arcane Symbol: Vanishing Journey before you complete the pre-quests, and that will give you +30 Arcane Force (only good enough for the first few maps). It might be worth while using Hyper Points and increase your Arcane Force via the Hyper Stats menu (you can always reset this later). Remember, that having 1.5x the amount of Arcane Force required will give you 1.5x damage.

The best map for training on in Vanishing Journey is a map called Cave Of Repose: Below The Cave. This map has some of the best spawn in VJ area and the mobs here are level 207 and 208, giving really good EXP. You'll need +60 Arcane Force to deal your full damage here, with +90 required for 1.5x damage.

Vanishing Journey Dailies: Research Quests

To unlock the Vanishing Journey Dailies, you must first complete the Vanishing Journey Prequests.

Once you obtain the fully unlocked Arcane Symbol, speak to Rona NPC in Vanishing Journey. She will give you 5 quests per day, which require either defeating X amount of VJ monsters, collecting items or delivering items. They are fairly straightforward, but like most dailies in Arcane River, become very repetitive.

Tips:

• When doing a Delivery quest, you will find the NPC in the same map depending on where the delivery quest requires you to collect. If the quest is in Lake Of Oblivion, the NPC will always be found in Weathered Land Of Rage and Sorrow. If the quest is in Extinction Zone, the NPC will always be in Fire Zone. If in Cave Of Repose, the NPC will always be in Below The Cave.
• When you unlock areas Chu Chu Island, Lachelein and Morass you will reduce the amount of daily quests required to obtain the daily symbols. That means you'll only need to complete 1 quest to get all 5 quest rewards.
• Each week there is a special quest, where if you complete all dailies for 2 days, you will get 3 Nodestones.
• You can use the Arcane River Pass and pay NX to complete dailies for you automatically. It costs 300 Maple Points per quest. (1000 Maple Points = $1).

Erda Spectrum

Erda Spectrum is a secondary daily you can do to get more Vanishing Journey symbols (it can be done 3 times per day and reduces when you unlock further areas). Erda Spectrum is a optional party quest (can be done solo) when requires you to do various tasks. You will gain 2 Vanishing Journey symbols each time you complete 1 run.

There are two different stages to Erda Spectrum which require you to defeat mobs and collect Erda power. Check out our Erda Spectrum Guide on how to complete it.

Reverse City

Reverse City is a sub-area of Vanishing Journey that has it's own prequests. It doesn't unlock a new Arcane River Symbol, rather it gives you 20 Arcane River Symbol Selector Coupons, which allow you to get 20 symbols for any of the Arcane Symbols you currently own. The Prequests take around 20-30 minutes.

Whilst Reverse City does offer some good maps for training in, because of it's low level, many people skip this area. If you're in a world with high population and struggle to get a map in Vanishing Journey to train on, Reverse City can be a great secondary source of EXP.

Chu Chu Island - Arcane River

Chu Chu Island is the second area in Arcane River that offers you a new Arcane Symbol. Chu Chu Island unlocks at level 210 and has it's own set of prequests that need to be completed in order to obtain the new symbol and unlock the new daily quests.

The best map for training in Chu Chu Island is Slurpy Forest: Slurpy Forest Depths, which requires a total of 100 Arcane Force. The mobs are leveled 213 and the map is quite small, making it perfect for classes with wide-area attacks. You'll stay at Chu Chu Island until 220, but you can also find some really good maps to train in at Yum Yum Island.

Chu Chu Island Daily Quests - Hungry Muto

Chu Chu Island offers a party quest for the Hungry Muto daily quest. It can be completed up to 3 times per day and has three different levels of difficulty. Hungry Muto requires players to find the right ingredients for the specific recipe that is presented to players. When all ingredients have been found, the meter at the top of the screen indicating Muto's battle with Gulla will fill up. Each recipe has it's own unique timer, including a bonus deadline, which will allow you to finish the Party Quest faster if completed before the timer reaches the Bonus deadline.

The recipes that Hungry Muto asks for are fixed (in terms that the ingredients needed never change). Some of the ingredients are hidden from view, and so you will have to use memory to figure out what is the missing ingredient (or use our Hungry Muto Guide).

The level of difficulty for Hungry Muto sets how strong the mobs are in the party quest. If you set it to high, you will need more Arcane Force (and damage) to complete the party quest than the low level. You will earn 5 Symbols per Hard Run completed.

Chu Chu's Finest Cuisine

Chu Chu's Finest Cuisine are additional dailies you can undertake. They are fairly straightforward; you can complete 3 per day and require you to kill or collect items from mobs in Chu Chu Island. You'll get 2 Chu Chu Island Symbols per completed quest.

Yum Yum Island

Yum Yum Island is a sub-area of Chu Chu Island that has it's own prequests. Much like Reverse City, it was made to give players alternative training areas, as in some of the more popular worlds it is hard to find a good training map. Yum Yum Prequests take around 30 minutes to complete, and at the end you will be given a 20 Arcane Symbol Selector Coupon.

Lachelein - Arcane River

Lachelein is the third major area of Arcane River that unlocks at level 220. This area also is home to the end-game boss Lucid, which gives end-game equipment called Arcane Umbra equipment.

Lachelein offers training up to Level 230, however if you have enough damage and Arcane Force, many people will move onto Arcana before then. Lachelein introduces a new kind of item to grind for: Arcane River Droplet Stones. These items are incredibly rare, dropping at rates of around 1 per hour of training. These items are used to craft the end-game Arcane Umbra Equipment, along with Butterfly Drop Stones from Lucid boss. Whilst MapleStory are slowly making these more obtainable, it still requires hundreds of hours of farming to obtain one piece of equipment.

If you're in regular servers, you can buy droplets from other players. In Reboot World, however, trading is disabled so in order to obtain Arcane Umbra equipment you're going to have be very dedicated. An Arcane Umbra weapon requires 216 Arcane River Droplets and 24 Butterfly Drop Stones.

The boss Lucid has three different modes for players to challenge. Easy mode does not drop Butterfly Droplet stones, so it is used more of a practice boss to get players ready for Normal Lucid. Normal Lucid has 2 different phases and defeating her will allow you to get the droplets required for crafting Arcane Umbra gear. Only Hard Lucid has a very rare chance of dropping Arcane Umbra equipment.

Lachelein Daily Quests - Dream Defender

The daily quests for Lachelein require you to play a solo game called Dream Defender. The player must complete various stages of defeating mobs and making sure the Music Boxes do not turn into Nightmare Music Boxes by attacking them. Each stage has a Dream Gauge that fills up the more Nightmare Music Boxes there are. Your job is to turn all the boxes to normal Music Boxes by constantly defeating mobs and the boxes. This will make the Dream Gauge deplete in your favor.

When the Dream Gauge is fully depleted, you will then proceed to the next stage. There are 999 stages you can attempt. The good news is that your progress is saved every 10 stages and allows you to start from that stage each round. Every 10 stages you'll gain 10 Dream Coins; for example, at stage 60 you'll get 60 Dream Coins each time you clear at least one floor between Stage 60-69.

You can trade 30 Dream Coins for 1 Lachelein Arcane Symbol.

Tips for Dream Defender:

• You only need to clear one floor to obtain rewards. For example, if you start at level 60, you just need to clear stage 60 to get the full 60 Dream Coins.
• Each stage will give more health to the mobs and music boxes, meaning it will require more damage for each stage.
• You can use some of the Dream Defender skills to help clear certain floors.
• If you have 5th job burst skills, you can burst your way through certain floors when you enter the game.
• Clearing Arcana and Morass will reduce the amount of clears you need to do to get max coins.

A Night's Peace In Lachelein - Daily Quests

Like Chu Chu Island, you can also complete 3 daily quests that require you to kill mobs and collect items from mobs in Lachelein. You can reduce the amount of quests by unlocking Arcana and Morass. Each completed quest gives you 2x Lachelein Arcane Symbols.

Arcana - Arcane River

Arcana is available to level 225+ and has some of the best maps in the game for farming EXP and mesos. Arcana mobs also drop Arcana River Droplet Stones, so it makes it a great place to train at when working towards your end-game gear and leveling to 250. Many players will stick around here until level 250, just because the maps are incredibly easy to train on.

You will get your fourth Arcana Symbol here too and have to play a mini-game in order to earn coins to level up the Symbol.

The best maps to train on in Arcana are located in the lower half of the map, mostly labeled Arcana Cavern. One of the most popular maps, often referred to as CLP, is Arcana: Cavern Lower Path. This map is very small and spawns lots of mobs, making it a great place to train and get EXP. For classes with big hit boxes, they can sometimes just stand in the middle of the map and clear it without having to move.

You can use our MapleStory Farmer Timer to setup alerts of when to loot mesos.

Arcana Daily Quests - Spirit Savior

Spirit Savior is the mini-game that players need to play up to 3 times a day to earn Spirit Coins that can be converted into Arcana Arcane Symbols. This mini-game can be very frustrating for some classes who have awkward mobility due to how the game works. You can earn up to 10 coins per game, with a max of 30 a day, where 3 coins = 1 symbol.

The good news is that this mini-game isn't based on your damage. That means Spirit Savior can be a great way to quickly boost your Arcane Force and Symbol levels when you get access to this area. You'll need to complete the Arcana prequests before you get access to this mini-game.

The aim of the game is rescue the spirits by freeing them from their "stuck" positions on the map. Each time you free a spirit, an Toxic Spirit will try to catch you. The Toxic Spirit gets faster and bigger the more spirits you free. The aim is to get 5 free spirits at a time and rescue them by jumping into the safe zone. The game takes a bit of practice to get used to, but it's worth doing for the extra Arcane Force you're going to need for the maps in Arcana.

Peace In Arcana - Daily Quests

You also can complete 3 daily quests to get 2x Arcana Arcane Symbols. Like previous zones, you will get 3 random quests that involve killing and collecting items from mobs in the Arcana Zone. The amount of Daily Quests reduce when you unlock Morass and Esfera regions (but still get the same amount of Symbols).

Morass - Arcane River

At level 230, you get access to Morass. Many players find this area of Arcane River to be quite useless and a bit of a filler zone. You do get another new Arcane Symbol, but there are very few good training zones and so most players will stick in Arcana until they get to the late 240 levels and head to Esfera.

Another pain point of this area is the prequests are a lot longer than other areas. They are split into two parts with the latter part unlocking the daily quests to obtain the Morass Arcane Symbols. Unfortunately, if you want to access Esfera, you're going to need to complete these at some stage, and the boost in Arcane Force is very much welcome to your damage.

Save The Morass - Daily Quests

The daily quests here are very much like Vanishing Journey. You get 3 daily quests to complete, which reduce when you unlock Esfera and Tenebris. The quests involve killing monsters and collecting items from mobs in Morass. For each quest you complete you get 2 Morass Arcane Symbols. If you complete all three quests, you also get a bonus 2 Morass Symbols. Leveling up this symbol is quite slow.

Esfera - Arcane River

Esfera area opens up to players at level 235. You get your final Arcane Symbol here and also access to the end-game boss Will, which drops items required for Arcane Umbra equipment. Esfera has some decent training maps for players who are into their late 240 levels, and they drop a new kind of item called Stone Origin Droplet, which is used to craft Arcane Umbra Equipment.

As mentioned, you can also get part of your Arcane Umbra Equipment set from this area. This area offers you the ability to get your Weapon, Shoulder and Hat equipment pieces. Like Lachelein, you'll need to hunt for Stone Origin Droplets and Stone Cobweb Droplet (which drops from the boss Will) to convert into coins to buy the equipment.

Will Boss

Like Lucid, Will is an end-game boss that drops items required to craft Arcane Umbra equipment. The boss has two modes: Normal and Hard. Whilst both modes drop the Stone Cobweb Droplets, Hard Mode also has a super rare chance of dropping a piece of Arcane Umbra equipment. This boss has quite a few different mechanics that players need to learn in order to take him down, which make him very difficult despite having similar HP to Lucid boss.

Players will need a minimum of 760 Arcane Force in order to deal 100% of their normal damage to Will.

Esfera Daily Quests - Esfera Research Orders

The daily quests in Esfera are again similar to Vanishing Journey. You get 3 daily quests that require you to kill mobs and collect items from mobs in the Esfera region. You get 2 Esfera Arcane Symbols per quest, and another 2 if you complete all 3 quests. Esfera daily quests can be reduced by getting to level 245 and heading towards Tenebris area.

End Of Arcane River

That concludes the Arcane River area. Whilst the area is full of end-game content, MapleStory keep updating it to include new areas to help players get towards the end-game bosses. They are making it easier to obtain symbols by giving them out in various events, such as the Celestrial Festival. They are also in the future going to make it much easier to acquire Arcane Umbra equipment, which is exciting if you are in a Reboot World.

What happens when you finish all the content in Arcane River? Next stop is Tenebris, the area that hosts the hardest boss in the game: The Black Mage. You'll need to be level 275 to take on the Black Mage and have maxed out most of your damage potential to even stand a chance. As the power creep increases in MapleStory, the boss will become more and more accessible to other players. Right now only a handful of players have defeated the Black Mage, and unlocked the Genesis Weapon.