MapleStory Progression Guide - Reboot and Regular Servers

This MapleStory Progression Guide is for all players of MapleStory on both Reboot (Heroic) and Regular (Interactive) Servers. We will show you the best-in-slot equipment to get, when to level your Legion and the best paths for progression through the game.

• Early-Game MapleStory Progression Guide
• Mid-Game MapleStory Progression Guide
• End-Game MapleStory Progression Guide
• Potential Aims
• Flaming Gear
• Spell Tracing
• Star Forcing
• Which world is best for progression?
• MapleStory Legacy Items

Both Reboot and Regular Servers follow the same end-game progression, but the two servers will vary in terms of what gear you can get early on.

We've split this guide up into Early Game, Mid-Game and End-Game, with notes for both server worlds on how best to progress.

Early-Game MapleStory Progression Guide

We define Early-Game MapleStory as the following:

• Main character: Level 235
• Legion Level: 2000
• Link Skills: 12

When starting out in MapleStory, the goals above should be your main priority in terms of account progression.

A MapleStory Legion level of 2,000 will allow you to start gaining a decent amount of Legion Coins and hopefully coincide with unlocking the most important Link Skills for your class.

Having trouble leveling up? Check out our MapleStory Training Guide for the best maps to train on.

2000 Legion Levels is around fifteen Level 140 characters.

MapleStory is making it infinitely more easier to gain levels these days with events like Tera Burning, handing out Level Up Points for free and plenty of events that let you skip hundreds of levels.

At Level 235, you unlock all of your Arcane Symbols, earning a huge boost in free stat and damage. It also allows you to earn daily EXP by completing your Arcane River Dailies, which will slowly allow you to progress towards Level 260 6th Job Advancement.

You'll need to defeat around 1,800 monsters to complete all the Arcane River Dailies, but the damage boost will be worth it. Enjoy the start of Daily Story!

We recommend getting characters to Level 140 because this allows them to have a decent-sized Legion Block on the grid. The next Legion Block upgrade is at Level 200.

You can check out our Link Skill Guide to see which skills are the most important to level early. Link Skills become available at Level 70, 120 and sometimes 210. Starting out you should just aim for the Level 120 Link skills unless you have abundance of Level Up Potions.

Early Game Equipment

Here are all the equipment items you'll want to aim for in Early Game. Reboot Players cannot buy or trade items, so they are forced to progress slightly slower during the early game.

If you join a guild, you can get carried into stronger bosses earlier and loot the better equipment, taking you into mid-game earlier.

Pensalir Equipment

You should have no trouble getting hold of Pensalir Equipment as it drops from all mobs Level 130+. In Reboot World, equipment also drops based on your job, so it should be easy to get this 6 piece set.

The 6-piece set will give you a Set Bonus that will increase your damage.

Regular Server players can easily skip the Pensalir gear and buy the CRA gear (in mid-game tier below) from the Auction House for just a few million mesos.

Secondary

You can buy the Level 100 Secondary from the Secondary Weapon Vendor in Leafre. It'll cost only 500k mesos.

Emblem

The Gold Knight Emblem is best-in-slot and is given to your via a quest. You can cube this to perfect stats if you have the mesos.

Badge

The Crystal Venus Badge drops from Easy/Normal Magnus. If you can get carries, this badge is easier to pick up. It cannot be cubed or Star Force'd, so you're not missing out too much.

Face and Eye Accessory

You can get the Condensed Power Crystal and the Aquatic Letter Eye Accessory as drops from Normal Zakum. They can be quite rare sometimes, so feel free to do Zakum on your mules and transfer the equips over via Storage.

Shoulder

The Royal Black Metal Shoulder comes from Easy/Normal Magnus. If you're struggling to solo Normal Magnus at this early point, you can find Oyamatsumi's Epaulet from Ranmaru Boss.

Belt

There are not many good belts during early-game, but if you can pick up a Cracked Gollux Belt by doing Easy Gollux or if you can get carried, pick up the Superior Gollux Belt.

Earrings

Dea Sidus Earring drop from Horntail and you have a better chance of getting them by defeating Chaos Horntail.

Pendant Slot

You have two Pendant Slots in MapleStory now. The first should be filled by getting a Chaos Horntail Pendant, which is relatively common drop from Chaos Horntail.

You then should aim to get a Mechanator Pendant or Dominator Pendant from Arkarium Boss. The Mechanator Pendant is a common drop, but the Dominator Pendant is very rare (some players don't get one for months!).

Alternatively, you can also use the Cracked/Solid Gollux Pendant.

Pocket Slot

To unlock the Pocket Slot equipment slot, you need to get your Charm Level to Level 30. To do this, you need to equip items that give charm (Zakum Helmets and Cash Shop Equipment). Alternatively, you can also use a Trait Boost Potion from events to unlock it.

Stone of Eternal Life comes from Hilla but the you should be aiming to get the Pink Holy Cup which comes from Pink Bean. Pink Bean might be too difficult to solo at this stage, so use the Stone of Eternal Life for now.

The Pocket Slot item cannot have Star Force or Potential.

Rings

You have four Ring Slots in MapleStory but many of the decent rings come from harder bosses or events, so early-game you might only have one Ring to get.

The Silver Blossom Ring drops from Normal Horntail/Chaos Horntail. You can get this Potential to Legendary if you wish, as Accessory Equipment can be turned into Drop Gear or Mesos Gear later on.

Event Rings come from Event Shops. Unfortunately, depending on when you're playing, they may not be available to get.

The alternatives are the Gollux Rings, which are more mid-game anyways.

Android Heart

This is another equipment slot which may only be available during an Event. The Lidium Heart is usually available during events, but you can craft a temporary one (it will expire though) from Ardentmill.

Medal

One of the easier Medals to get is to complete the Root Abyss Questline and defeat all the normal RA bosses. You'll obtain the World Tree Guardian as a result.

Familiar

Whilst Familiar's aren't required for early game, if you do pick some up, you should aim to reveal the 15% Ignore Defense Line.

Reboot World doesn't have access to Familiar Cards, so you're going to have grind the cards from monsters over and over again.

Totems

The only Totems available in MapleStory that are permanent are the ones that come from the Afterlands Theme Dungeon.

You can equip up to 3 Totems, and this Theme Dungeon will reward you four of them.

In Regular Servers, you can buy permanent Totems on the Auction House.

There are some temporary totems available that last up to a month by completing the Yu-Garden Quests.

Title

The best title that is always availabe is the Root Abyss Master Title. It gives the following stats:

All Stats: +8, Attack Power/Magic Attack power: +3, Boss Damage: +5%, Ignore Defense: +5%, MaxHP: +300, MaxMP: +300

To get this title, you need to defeat CRA 20 times for a specific quest in Root Abyss.

There are also event titles like Holy Pink Beanity that is also permanent but this is only available during the Pink Bean class event (which happens every other year).

Mid-Game MapleStory Progression Guide

Mid-game in MapleStory aims to allow you to start soloing Weekly bosses up to Normal Lomien/Damien/Easy Lucid.

Your aims should be:

• Main character: Level 260
• Legion Level: 4000
• Link Skills: All (Level 2/3)

Getting your main character to Level 260 will unlock the MapleStory 6th Job, where you can a huge damage boost.

You should also try to progress your Legion to Level 4000, unlocking the Boss Damage and Critical Damage Legion Grids.

Any Link Skills not at Level 2 should be upgraded and if you can, push for Level 3 on important damage boosting ones.

Mid Game Equipment

Mid-Game is where you will want to get all your equips to Legendary and start Star Forcing them above 15 Star. This equipment is likely to last you a while, as you make your way towards End-Game where the real grind begins.

Bold = Best In Slot

CRA Equipment

It's time to start getting Chaos Root Abyss gear (CRA). This gear used to be Best-In-Slot for the longest time, but now it's replaced with End-Game gear called Eternal (but that's VERY end-game).

You should now be aiming to cube for 2/3 line main stat on this gear and start getting gear to 17 Stars.

Secondary

You can get a better secondary weapon from Princess No boss. She takes around 3-4 kills to get enough pieces to trade in for a Secondary.

This secondary is only slightly better than the Level 100 one, so you can just stick with your current one for a while.

Some classes don't need a secondary, and instead use a Shield.

Face and Eye Accessory

For Face you start to use the Twilight Mark, which drops from Normal Lucid / Normal Will. You might not have enough damage to solo these bosses, so you'll have to join a party in order to try and get this drop.

The alternative is to use the Sweetwater Tattoo from Commerci. This is another daily grind, but more accessible to those who don't get into Lucid/Will parties.

The Eye Accessory can use a Sweetwater Monocle; but if you're not doing the Commerci Dailies, you can also use the Black Bean Mark which drops from Pink Bean.

You can also transpose the rare Papulatus Mark to the Sweetwater Monocle for extra stats and higher-tier potential. But the Papulatus Mark is a super rare drop that not many people get (drops from Chaos Papulatus).

Absolab Gear

Your Shoes, Gloves, Cape, Weapon all get replaced with Absolab Gear.

In Reboot World, you need to do the painstaking Absolab Dailies to get enough coins to buy Absolab Gear. You also need to defeat Lotus and Damien for the materials in order to exchange the coins.

It's not too difficult, because many guilds in Reboot world offer carries, allowing players to get the coins easier.

Even so, it will still take you several weeks to get all your Absolab Gear.

In Regular Servers, you can buy Absolab Gear for cheap on the Auction House, or save up a bit and buy Arcane Gear.

Superior Gollux Gear

Your Pendant, Belt, Earrings and a Ring all should be upgraded to Superior Gollux Equipment.

Unfortunately, this is also another daily grind that will take a couple of months of collecting coins (unless you get really lucky from Gollux Drops).

You'll be keeping this gear for a long time though, so it's definitely worth the grind!

Second Pendant

For your second pendant slot, you can either use a Dominator Pendant that is a rare drop from Arkarium or use a Transposed Sweetwater Pendant instead (more dailies).

Equipping two Superior Gollux Pendants no longer contributes to the set effect, so you're better off with Dominator for the boss flames.

In Regular Servers, you can buy a Daybreak Pendant for the two-set Dawn Boss Set effect.

Pocket Slot

You should now be replacing your Pocket Slot with the Pink Holy Cup that drops from Pink Bean.

Rings

You have a few options for Rings at mid-game.

You can get the Kanna Treasure Ring as a rare drop from Princess No, Dawn Guardian Angel Ring from Guardian Angel Slime and also use the Reinforced/Superior Gollux Rings.

The Guardian Angel Ring and the Twilight Mark will apply the 2-set Dawn Boss Set effect.

Accessories can also double up as Item Drop Gear and Mesos Gear, so it's never a waste to rank them up to Legendary.

Some alternatives: Solid Gollux Ring, Meister Ring.

Android Heart

Fairy Heart is an event only Android Heart that comes around every other event. This item has the level 120+ Potential, which is much better than the Level 30 Lidium heart.

There is also the Wonderoid Heart, but that event hasn't been seen for several years now.

Medal

The best medal to get at this stage is either the Antellion Guardian Medal or the Seven-Day Monster Parker Medal.

The Antellion Guardian Medal requires you to do a lengthy quest line Masteria Though Time, whereas the Seven-Day Monster Parker Medal requires you to do Monster Park 77 times every day of the week.

End-Game MapleStory Progression Guide

End-Game is where you start taking down Black Mage every Month and the other end-game bosses like Seren, Kalos and more.

Many of the end-game equips have super low drop rates, so even if you have all the mesos in the world, you can get stuck looking for these items for months if not years if you're on Reboot Servers.

Your aims should be:

• Main character: Level 280
• Legion Level: 7000
• Link Skills: All (Level 3)

At Level 280, you have all the level requirements to start taking on the end-game bosses. Hopefully, you've also started grinding out your 6th Job Hexa Stats and skills, as well as leveling your Symbols to max level.

Legion level should be at least around 7000, if not higher. At this stage of the game, you'll be min-maxing your characters stats in order to squeeze out all the damage juice possible.

End-Game Equipment

The Pitch-Boss Set replaces many items in mid-game tier list. But, as mentioned, their drop rate is super low, so you may find starring your current equipment to 22 stars will give you more damage whilst you wait for the item to drop.

Eternal Equipment

Eternal Equipment come from defeating Kalos The Guardian boss. Defeating this boss will require an end-game party and you should already be pretty much maxed out.

In the mean time, keep your CRA gear and max it to 22 stars.

Pitched-Boss Set Equipment

The Pitched-Boss Set replaces many equipment pieces, but the drop-rate is terrible. Some players have gone several months without a single item drop.

You'll likely be using your mid-game equipment and getting that to 22 star before you get to complete the Pitched Boss Set.

Arcane Gear

It's time to replace all your Absolab Gear with Arcane Gear, which comes from defeating Lucid. This gear is quite easy to get, so getting it to 22 Star should be the priority as soon as possible.

You can use the Arcane Weapon also whilst you progress through the Genesis Weapon Liberation by defeating Black Mage over 8 months :(

Pendant

Hard Versus Hilla also drops the Source Of Suffering Pendant, which is best-in-slot.

Replace your second pendant with the Daybreak Pendant, which drops from either Versus Hilla and Chosen Seren bosses.

Pocket Slot

Keep the Pink Holy Cup until you find a Cursed Spellbook from Will.

Android Heart

You can get the Black Heart from trading in materials in the Haven area that drop from Lotus and Damien. However, the heart only lasts for 20 days, so keeping it up can be a pain. You'll likely want to keep your Fairy Heart as your main item.

Potential Aims

When cubing your gear, you'll want to be aiming for the Main Stat of your character. For example, playing a Hero, you'll be wanting to hit STR % Lines.

Each equipment slot can have different lines available for it, so we've made a quick table below to show you what lines you'll want to aim for.

In Regular Servers, cubing is much more limited unless you spend real money. You'll want to start out getting Epic Potential with 9% Main Stat, then moving onto Unique for 15% Main Stat. You can get a decent amount of cubes from daily bossing on multiple characters, but it takes a lot of effort.

Flaming Gear

Another way of upgrading your gear is to use Flames on your items. Flames give bonus stats to a piece of equipment, that can be rerolled as often as you like with the use of items called Flames.

Normal Equipment (dropped from regular mobs) can gain 1-4 random lines of stats, whereas Bossing Equipment (dropped from Bosses) is guaranteed 4 lines of random stats.

For each random stat assigned by a Flame, it can come in up to 7 different Tiers. I.e. Tier 2 of additional STR would be +10-20 STR, whereas Tier 7 would be +100 STR.

You can view the bonus stats given by Flames on your Equipment; they show up as Green additional stats.

As you can see, Eternal Rebirth Flames give the best possible stats when flaming your gear (able to reach Tier 7 on Bossing Equipment).

Rebirth Flames are dropped from Bosses and given out during Events.

Black Eternal Rebirth Flames allow you to reroll the bonus stats, with the option to keep the previous bonus stats.

Some item slots cannot gain bonus stats: Emblem, Badge, Medal, Secondary, Shoulder, Rings.

Spell Tracing

Spell Tracing was introduced to replace the Scroll system of MapleStory.

Instead of using individual Scroll items to upgrade your gear, you instead use Spell Traces (a common ETC drop) that comes from every monster and boss in the game.

From Equipment Enchant window, you can now scroll your equipment with Spell Traces. Each piece of equipment has a limited number of slots to upgrade and each Spell Trace Scroll you use has a specific chance to work.

When using Spell Traces, the best type of Spell Trace Scroll to use for progression is:

• 70% if you have very little funding
• 30% on Armor
• 15% on Weapons

You can use Clean Slate Scrolls to reset the upgrade slots of the item if you fail too many. Also, keep an eye out for Spell Trace Fever Time Events, which increase the chances of upgrades working successfully.

Star Forcing

Star Forcing allows you to upgrade your gear by adding "stars" to your equipment; for each star you add, that piece of equipment gains a predefined amount of stats.

Each time you successfully Star Force an item, the cost increases and the chance of success decreases.

When you get to 12 Stars, there is a chance that you can "boom" the item, which destroys it. The destroyed item turns into a "trace of time" version, which can be restored by using the Equipment Transfer feature.

The Equipment Transfer will transfer the trace item to a new clean version of the same item, starting it at 12 Star Force and with the potential of the trace item (max Unique).

Below you can see the chance of upgrading an item:

 

Most pieces of your equipment can be upgraded using Star Force, but the following cannot:

• Emblem
• Badge
• Medal
• Secondary
• Pocket Item

Which world is best for progression?

Generally, most people would agree that it is far easier to progress in Reboot. However, experienced MapleStory players will find they can progress quickly in Regular Servers too (without spending too much money or any at all) by buying/selling items in the Auction House.

Reboot is more of a grind, with many more dailies locking you out of equipment. In Regular Servers, you can skip these by just buying equipment from the Auction House. However, Reboot Players can cube and star-force their gear relatively quickly due to the abundance of Mesos.

Check out our Reboot Server Guide for more information.

MapleStory Legacy Items

MapleStory is a game that has been around for over 20 years and in that time many items have either been removed from the game or the ability to obtain those items has been removed.

As such, there are several Legacy Items that are actually quite powerful but unfortunately are no longer available.