MapleStory: [Reboot] So You're Level 150

Steam Community guide by Goblins!.

Introduction

NOTE: With the announcement of 25 stars, a lot of the progression in this guide has been updated and a lot of it is now based on Code Nox's progression guide, give it a look!
This guide assumes that you've already at least a little bit familiar with the game and with what Reboot is, if you're not, here's a guide on the server and how to get started on it. Some of the things covered in that guide will be covered here too, but this guide is going to try and go more in depth and link to more resources that you'll be able to use now that you're more used to the game.
This is a guide meant for people who have been playing for a little while and who have managed to level their characters up to level 150: a notorious wall to progression for people who are just starting out. Whether you burned there or leveled through theme dungeons- you're starting to get your hyper skills and stats and really get into the game. But Maplestory can be sort of overwhelming and you may be wondering where to go next. Hopefully this guide will be helpful to you!

Before you Get Started

If you got here, you should probably have some stuff going for you already, so before you get into too deep, here's a list of things you may have already done and can go back and do if you haven't already.
If you don't have it already, you should have the one of three sets of armor and weapons. Frozen Set is considered the best of the three and looks like this:

It does not come with gloves or shoes, so you are free to use items from one of the other two sets, or just go straight for upgrades that are mentioned later in the guide. This set is only avalible for 'burning' a character during an event, so you may not have access to it.
You also use the 8th Set of weapon and armor for your class (Utguard weapon and Pensalir armor). These drop from monsters in the game, though it's not always consistent what level of monsters drops these- as some higher level monsters still drop 7th set/Muspell gear. My suggestion is to farm the Yellow King Goblins in the last map of Korean Folk Town. The set looks like this:

The best way to improve this gear immediately is to Starforce it: this is a system where you can pay mesos for a chance to upgrade your gear. If you're not sure what that means yet, here's a guide
At this stage you likley don't need to worry about going above 10 stars.
Gear aside, there are some quest-lines and theme dungeons that you need to have done as well:

** Magnus Simulator and Heliseum Quest Lines**- fairly easy, and allow you to fight Magnus later. Here's a guide to the quests you have to go through.[rebootms.wordpress.com] Tyrant gear (some of which is dropped by Hard Magnus) is no longer the best gear in the game, but you need to at least advance to the point where you can fight easy magnus, as that is necessary to do for your 5th job advancement.

** Root Abyss** - You need to kill each boss here 10 times before you can fight the Chaos versions of them, which drop very powerful equipment. Heres the Prequest Guide[rebootms.wordpress.com] and here's a video on boss mechanics. .

**Crimsonheart Castle **- Doing these prequests allows you to fight Gollux, which will eventually net you some of the best accessories in the game.Here's a guide on the quests you need to complete[strategywiki.org] and here's a guide on fighting Gollux himself.

Commerci - This face and eye accessories from this area are consider 'endgame' a,d the Sweetwater gear you can get as drops during voyages will be a powerful upgrade to your current gear. If you are a Dualblade, the Katara here is considered endgame as well.Here's a list of Commerci quests[strategywiki.org], the first of which can be accepted from the light bulb on the left side of the screen. Complete the quests up through "(Commerci) Ciao, Until Next Time", then accept a quest from Cassandra called "Commerci] Get Rich Quick". Talk to Maestra Fiametta to unlock solo voyages here is a guide for them[www.southperry.net]. When you reach Mu Lung in your solo voyages, you can then go to the Merchant Trade Union where you can participate in the Commerci Party quest with 2 other people 3 times per day. The monsters here are harder but have a higher chance of dropping equipment. Since there are 3 people, usually one person will call the voyage that they're planning to loot. Make sure you don't have your pet out when doing these! The denaro gained from this are used to transpose your gear into sweetwater gear (more on this later), and to buy the face/eye accessory and earring used in the late game.
** Silent Crusade ** - A fairly fast quest if you gave a hyper teleport rock, as it just involves going from map to map and killing bosses. This is required to fight Arkarium who you will need to kill to craft endgame gear later.

(Optional) The Afterlands - Gives permanent totems with decent stats. True 'endgame' totems are Yu Garden (time limited) or Dark Totems (from a returning event). Guide.

(Optional) Yu Garden - You can farm the best totems in the game without having to do any quests here, but you can also do dailies which give you coins that allow you to buy Epic Potential Scrolls (more on these later). The further you go in the questline here, the more dailies become available. Yu Garden Guide.
If you don’t have them already, there are also some equipment slots you can start to fill up with fairly low effort:

• A sub weapon can be bought from the the NPC Neville who appears in several towns (If you can't find him, look in Sleepywood).
  
• Every class has a quest at level 100 to receive their gold emblems (These two pieces of gear, along with your weapon, are very important as they can gain potentials that give you very large boosts to damage) (Note: apparently some classes don't get their emblem until level 180?). The 'true' best in slot emblem is from the Sengoku high event, which we are not sure will be returning at this time.
  
• The boss Zakum drops two items called the Condensed Power Crystal and the Aquatic Level Eye Accessory, both of which add to a boss set effect and will hold you over for a while until you can upgrade them from doing Commerci voyages.
• The final quest of Tot’s Know how gives a medal which will probably be better than most anything you got while leveling up normally.Simply complete all the quests in the Tot's Know how icon on the left of the screen.
  
  Also worth doing:
• The Verne Mines in Edelstine are home to a monster called the big spider. This monster drops a familliar card that, when out, gives makes your drop rate 1.6 times higher than normal, which is very useful in later parts of the game. Be warned that the drop rate for this item is very low, so try to do this during a 2x drop event or with a coupon if you can.
  

Doing Things Daily

There are some things you'll need to progress in but are limited by the number of times per day you can attempt them, so you should start doing these as soon as possible:

Root Abyss Bosses - until you’ve defeated each boss 10 times. This may be difficult to do at first so just check back when you feel you've made a large stride in damage. Even once you've fought them 10 times you can still fight them daily because they drop a crystal that you can sell for a mesos, as well as rewards points which can be traded in for cubes.

Gollux - The coins the various parts of his body (abdomen and shoulders) drop allow you to buy rings and earrings, and you can get these without actually having to be able kill the head portion of the boss (the difficulty of the head is determined by how many body parts you have killed. Easy is you have killed all 3 parts, normal if you have killed 2, hard if you have killed one, and hell if you go straight for his head). You can do two runs where you collect coins from his abdomen and shoulders and leave without killing the head, and then kill the strongest version of him that you can manage for a chance at a belt and/or pendant. Generally you should save for superior gear earrings and will want the superior and reinforced rings, but if you have them all and are still struggling it may be worth getting the earrings that match your belt and pendant for the set effect.

Dimension Invasion - The high quality dimension gloves you get from this are the best you're going to get for a long time. You get pieces of the high quality glove from the bonus where you have to fight the boss Blackheart. Guide[strategywiki.org]. Note: With the increase in drop-rate on Sweetwater Items I found it easier to farm those instead.

Commerci Voyages and PQ - The bosses here (Which start appearing from the Luna voyage and onward) have a small chance to drop the Sweetwater gear, so wear gear/use familiars which increase drop rate if you have them. Save up denaros from voyages to buy the monocle, scar, and earrings, but be careful not to overspend as you require denaros to start a voyage (make sure you always have around 60). This Sweetwater equipment can potentially be made into very powerful equipment thorough a system called transposing. Transposing functions like the transfer hammer, moving the starforce and potential from one piece of gear onto Sweetwater gear... INCLUDING superior stats and flames like from tyrant gear (gained from magnus and Kiritas invasions)- and allowing it to have the Sweetwater set effect, however this is no longer the best and it is generally cost prohibitive to do this optimally. Instead I suggest using sweetwater gear as a midgame upgrade, starforcing whatever tyrant gear you have to a comfortable level (this could be anywhere from 1-5* depending on your funding) and transposing it onto any sweetwaters you happen to get. If you are a dualblade the Sweetwater Katara is currently considered the best weapon you can get for the moment, so you need to continue voyages until you get a lucky drop. Once you get to Herb Town you unlock the PQ which has a slightly higher chance of dropping gear, and can be done 3 times a day

Monster Park - The EXP from this is great at first, but you’ll want to keep doing it after it falls off as the medal you get from completing it 77 times on each day is one of the best ones in the game for killing bosses. You can also get rewards boxes which give Honor EXP and EXP Coupons.
**Kiritas invasions and dailies ** - (Optional) More on Kiritas later. You are able to get reset tickets for weekly bosses from here, as well as tyrant gloves and inverse earrings.
** Scrapyard and Dark World Tree dailies ** - These only become available after level 200, and only when you start working towards Absolab gear, but due to the amount of core/stones you need it may be best to start working on these early.
** Arcane river Dailies ** - another thing that's only available post level 200, and only post 5th job advancement. These quest become available after beating the story quest in the related area and are practically necessary to continue advancing, as they give you arcane force. The more arcane force you have, the more damage you do to move in the arcane river zone, and if you're below a certain threshold you'll do less damage. As a bonus, arcane force also gives you more of whatever your characters main stat is.
Other bosses- As you find yourself able to easily solo more and more bosses, it's usually worth it to go back and kill them once a day for the rewards- these are boss crystals (sold for mesos with the Collector NPC in the free market. You can only sell 60 a week so when you become more powerful it may be worth it to only do bosses that give you the best crystals), reward points (which can be spent on cubes in the cash shop), and sometimes cubes and flames for enhancing your gear. You won't be able to do all the bosses on the list at first but as you grow stronger the list will grow longer:

• Zakum (For boss crystals and face/eye accessories. Chaos mode drops a belt/cape that is good for transfer hammering onto Absolab gear)
• Ursus (3x a day, during Golden time at 3-5pm CST for about 27 million mess per run)
• Magnus (Easy/Normal is daily, Hard mode is weekly )
• Hilla (Hard mode can drop a free pet)
• Root Abyss Bosses (Normal mode is daily, Chaos mode is weekly)
• Von Leon (At the highest difficulty you can manage)
• Horntail (At the highest difficulty you can manage)
• Gollux (2x for coins, 1x to clear)
• Ranmaru & Madman Ranmaru (for confusion fragments, and Japanese gear if you need it)
• Arkarium (For confusion fragments and primal essence. This boss spams a 1hko move so he may not make your list until you can burst him down before he kills you)
• Cygnus (Weekly at the highest difficulty you can manage. If your class uses a shield, Normal Cygnus drops the recipie for the Demios Shield, which currently is the best item for that slot)
  There are some other bosses that don't usually make it into the daily rotation for being to annoying (either to fight or simply to get to). These are:
• Balrog (Very easy to fight, but damage he takes is not shown for 5 minutes)
• Omni-Clean
• Papatulus (Chaos mode drops a face accessory that is needed to get the best in the game, but he is very difficult)
• Theme Dungeon Bosses (Only gives reward points)
• Pink Bean (You have to defeat this boss at least once for your 5th job advancement, and the cup he drops is the best item in its slot outside of events.)
• Princess No (Has a 10x a week rider, but drops coupons for the best secondary for many classes)
• Julietta (Requires Monad Blockbuster and is generally buggy. He crystal is worth a lot but is not generally worth it)
  If you're motivated, you can add all of these to your daily list, or simply do them when you feel like it.
  When you get to a higher level you will also want to start doing** Arcane River Daliy Quests** as well as **Scrapyard and Dark World Tree ** dailies (More on these later)

Getting Stronger without Grinding

Don't be fooled, grinding (both for mesos and experience) is still going to be the best way to get stronger at this point, but It can get boring, so heres some things you can look into in between your monster killing sessions.

CUBING AND POTENTIALS

You've almost certainly noticed by now that you've been getting gear that has some extra bonus stats at the very bottom. These are potentials, that every item has a chance to have when dropped and they come in 4 tiers, rare, epic, unique, and legendary with 1-3 lines. Making these lines better for you is going to be one of your fastest, and also most expensive paths to gaining more damage.
These lines can be changed by using a cube on the item, these can be Occult, Master Craftsmans, Meister, Red, or Black cubes, each with an increasing chance of tiering up equipment, and some with a limit to what level of potential they're allowed to enhance.

• Occult Cubes can be gained from elite and normal bosses, monster collection boxes, and events and have the lowest chance to tier up potential. They can only tier gear up to Epic Potential.
• Master Craftsmans cubes can be found from elite and normal bosses, Pollo and Fritto bags, found from Mysterious Ore Veins and bought in Henseys, Leafre, and Edelstine. They can tier gear up to Unique Potential.
• Meisters cubes can be found from some bosses and found form Mysterious Ore Veins. They can tier gear up to legendary potential.
• Red and Black cubes can be purchased from the cash shop, for both mesos and reward points. They can both tier gear up to legendary potential, but black cubes allow you to chose whether you want to keep the old potential or the new one.
  From this Guide: The most optimal path is to use black cubes to unique, red to legendary.
  It more worth it to get a decent legendary potential on as much of your gear as possible before trying to get the perfect potential on one thing, however if you're going to be replacing gear, don't worry about getting it above Epic Tier as Unique Tier and above downgrades when being transferred.
  If you have gear that has no potential, or rare potential it is often more worth it to simply use an Epic Potential scroll on it instead of trying to tier it up with cubes. You may also have gear with only one or two lines of potential- lines can be added with a successful application of a potential stamp. Both of these items can be gotten randomly from Pollo and Frito/Inferno Wolf reward pouches and from Elite Boss boxes, as well as from the legion coin store. Epic Potential scrolls can also be purchased from the Yu Garden black market with the Yu Garden Coins from doing dailies there. The black market npc appears in Yu Garden from 3-12pm CST and sells a different selection of items each day. If you do not see the scroll in his inventory, try changing channels and checking again.
  The priority for cubing usually looks like this:
  Secondary Weapon-> Emblem->Weapon
  for %Matt or %Att Potentials (depending on which your class uses), as well as Boss damage and Ignore enemy defense, if you need it.
  Badge (if you are able to get one that can gain potential)-> Pendant / Belt / Rings -> Armor
  for %Main Stat potentials.
  
  LINK SKILLS/LEGION BONUSES
  
  When you get create another character on the same server, all characters on that server get access to it's Link Skill. These can offer bonuses, from extra EXP to extra damage. These can be equipped in the Link Skill menu in the first tab of the skill menu. These have the potential to be quite powerful, so check out this guide[ayumilove.net] and see what might help you out.
  When your cumulative level for characters on a server exceeds 500, you will get a quest to start your legion. I