Global MapleStory Best in Slot/Progression Guide

GMS BiS + Progression Guide

Picture by Saught

Please note: Minimum Level before you should follow this is Level 140. It is implied UNLESS OTHERWISE SAID that you can purchase all of these from the Marketplace/Auction House (and by extension, trading where applicable). There is also a separate Demon Avenger progression due to how they work. Xenon's should prioritize All Stats over individual stats.

Italicized Items are not currently available. Bolded in a set of items is the most preferable in that set.
Tier's are descending order, meaning the higher the better. Rings do not have a table by default.
Primary Weapons

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Arcane Umbra (200)	Stats at the end of the day are unrivaled.
2	Fafnir (150)	Enables you to use 4 set Chaos Root Abyss (when paired with the 3 other CRA).
3	Utgard/Dragon Wing/"Japanese" (140/140/150)	Utgard is the last set from Mob drops with Dragon Wing and "Japanese" being similar in strength before you inevitably go to Tier 2.
4	Frozen (100)	Decent set effect.

Specifics where necessary:

Classes	What Exactly	Reasoning
Warriors	One-Hand+Shield	Only if you don't already have to use a Two-Handed Weapon like Aran or Dark Knight
Mages	Staff	Technically, this doesn't really matter but it gives slightly more stats compared to Wand.
Dawn Warrior	Two-Hand + Cygnus Secondary	This is because you can equip a Two-Hand with the Cygnus Secondary, which is better than One-Hand + Shield
Zero	Arcane Umbra Weapon and Set Effect

Secondaries

Secondaries vary by class.

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Look below.	Too many specifics to list in one table row.
2	Princess No. (140)	Best base stats of any secondary before specific secondaries.
3	Secondary Shop/Frozen Secondary/Evolution Lab (100)	Evolution Lab > Secondary Shop, but some classes only have a Frozen Accessory with stats.

Class	Item (Level)	Reasoning
Mages	Deimos Sage Shield (130)	Only mage secondary that has 16+ stars.
Kanna	Equivalent Primary Weapon	This should be equipped to Haku and should be prioritized to have Magic Attack.
Shadower	Deimos Thief Shield (130)	Only shadower secondary that has 16+ stars.
Dualblade	Transposed Sweetwater Katara from 16* Japanese Katara (150 and 160 respectively)	The changes to starforce affected Sweetwater Katara, allowing you to gain a free 16th star from the Japanese Katara.
Warriors	One-hand + Terminus Defender (160)	This only applies if you don't already use a specific Two-Handed Weapon.
Demon Avenger	Princess No. or Ruin Force Shield.	You should only use Ruin Force if you have some form of protections as it also increases your damage taken (e.g, Reaper Pendant, Breath of Divinity, Heaven's Door, etc.)

Emblems


Level 100 Emblem, Honor Roll Emblem, or MapleStory Fest Emblem
Optionally, Tower of Oz emblem.


Hats

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Arcane Umbra (200)	Trumps Tier 2 due to it's Ignore Enemy Defense
2	Transposed Sweetwater Hat (160)	Loads of all stats. You need the Aquarius Crown for the Transposed Sweetwater Hat. Ironically isn't affected by the loss of 25 stars; can still star to 22.
3	Absolab Hat (160)	A good option if you don't have Transposed Sweetwater Hat, and are currently waiting for Arcane Umbra.
4	Royal (150)	Necessary for having 4 set Chaos Root Abyss.
5	Pensalir/Dragon Wing/"Japanese" (140/140/150)
6	Frozen (100)

Top/Bot or Outfit:

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Trickster + Eagle Eye (150)	Top+Bot > Outfit
2	Pensalir/Dragon Wing/"Japanese" (140/140/150)
3	Frozen (100)

Shoes:

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Arcane Umbra Shoes (200)	Can trump SW if you have 22 stars on all star-able items. Requires 5 other Arcane Items to do so.
2	Transposed Sweetwater Shoes (160)/Tyrant Boots (150)
3	Absolab (160)	Should be used as an alternative to Tier 2.
4	Pensalir/Dragon Wing/"Japanese" (140/140/150)

Gloves:

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Arcane Umbra Gloves (200)	Can trump SW if you have 22 stars on all star-able items. Requires 5 other Arcane Items to do so.
2	Transposed Sweetwater Gloves (160)/Tyrant Gloves (150)
3	Absolab Gloves (160)	Alternative to Transposed Sweetwater Gloves
4	High Quality Dimension/Dimension Gloves (140)
5	Pensalir/Dragon Wing/"Japanese" (140/140/150)

Cape:

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Arcane Umbra Cape (200)	Can trump SW if you have 22 stars on all star-able items. Requires 5 other Arcane Items to do so.
2	Transposed Sweetwater Cape (160)/Tyrant Cape (150)	Does not star up to 22.
3	Absolab Cape (160)	An alternative if you don't already have a Transposed Sweetwater Cape.
3	Nova/Enraged Zakum Cape (110/150)
4	Pensalir/Dragon Wing/"Japanese" (140/140/150)
5	Frozen (100)

Belt:

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Dreamy Belt (200)	Best all around.
2	Tyrant Belt (150)	Should be used while you wait 10k+ years for a Dreamy Belt to drop.
3	Superior Gollux Belt (150)/Enraged Zakum Belt (150)	Should be used if you don't have a 12 star+ Tyrant Belt.
4	Tinkerer's Black Belt (100)	This is assuming you have Tinkerer's Black Shoulder as well.
5	Any other Gollux Belt (120-140)	There's not really good Belt options in general.

Pendants:

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Superior Gollux (150)
2	Dominator Pendant (140)	I wouldn't go out of my way to get this.
3	Chaos Horntail Necklace (120)	Good before Gollux.
4	Horntail Necklace/Mechinator Pendant (120)	Both not necessarily worth getting, but if you do they're here on this list.

Earrings:

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Superior Gollux (150)
2	Any other Gollux (120-140)
3	Dea Sidus/Will-o-Wisps (130)	The latter isn't really worth the effort.

Rings:
This section is odd because nothing is absolute here besides at the end. Rings are listed in sets, however you can replace each individually in a set with one of a higher tier.

Highest Tier:
Superior Gollux (150)
Breath of Divinity (150) (Can be used at 17 stars as is; no better rings to replace it)
Meister Ring (140)
Reinforced Gollux (140)


Secondary Tier:
Solid Gollux (130)
Hilla's/Magnus' Rage (100)
Forest Guardian (100)
Lightning God (100)

Lesser Tier:
Blackgate (120)
Cracked Gollux (120)
Silver Blossom (110)


Shoulder:

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Arcane Umbra Shoulder (200)
2	Scarlet Shoulder (135)	The only shoulder that can (should be able to) be flamed.
3	Absolab (160)
4	Tinkerer's Black Shoulder (100)	Should be used with Tinkerer's Black Belt
5	Royal Metal Black Shoulder (120)

Face and Eye

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Berserked & Magic Eyepatch (160)	Both are Level 160 and have their own Set Effect.
2	Sweetwater Glasses and Sweetwater Tattoo (160)	You should transpose a 16 star Papulatus Mark onto Sweetwater Glasses.
3	Aquatic Letter Eye & Condensed Power Crystal (100)

Medal

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Anything more powerful than previous tiers. (Variable)	I put this here because there's a lot of medals that are already better than Tier 3 but are event tied.
2	Chaos Vellum or Chaos Von Bon Medals (0)	Both are hypothetically more powerful than Tier 3 under the right damage increasing circumstances.
3	Antellion Guardian (33)	Best obtainable medal at this time.

Badge

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Sengoku Hakase (160)	This has Tier 4 potential.
2	Ghost Ship Exorcist (150)	While no longer obtainable, this is here for posterity
3	Crystal Ventus (130)	This cannot be potentialed but it's apart of the boss set making it somewhat viable until you get Tier 2

Heart
Note: You need an Android to use a heart (unless you're Xenon)
All Hearts are considered Permanent to be on this list.

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Outlaw Heart (150)	Best Heart available.
2	Titanium/Fairy (100)
3	Some Level 30 Heart/Lidium/Event Heart (30/Variable)

Totems
With totems, there's way too many for there to be a list-able hierarchy. Why Rings got one is because there isn't 20+ significant rings, and most of these are Event based anyway.

Highest Tier of Totems:
Dark Lords of Darkness
Hunter Totem




Pocket

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Cursed Spell Book (160)	Specific variations of it drop from Hard Will.
2	Inverse Codex (150)	This is highly unrealistic and only viable with constantly up keeping it.
3	Holy Pink Cup (140)

Title

Tier	Item	Reasoning
1	Time-Limited Titles	Despite the stats being time-limited, they tend to be better than the ones before it.
2	Holy Pink Beanity	Available whenever the Pink Bean event comes out.
3	Chaos Root Abyss title	This is just slightly worse than HPB but is always available.
4	Superior Hunter	This title is always available from Silent Crusade, and is generally reliable.

Android
Technically, this section only has one notable item; Battleroid. The only reason why this is here is because Battleroid is basically an infinite Buff Freezer; the only Android that does this.

Demon Avenger

This part of the guide tells of how Demon Avenger differs. There isn't much changes here due to the nature of Demon Avenger.

Explanations:
Absolab is a good placeholder for DA until you get Arcane Umbra. Arcane Umbra breaks Transposed Sweetwater due to the prevalence of attack, Boss Damage, and IED in the set effects. Additionally, the set effect gives you 20% more HP over the combination of CRA+Tyrants, making it much more preferable.

Weapon:

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Arcane Umbra (200)	Best weapon for DA.
2	Absolab (160)	Necessary for 6 set Absolab.
3	Fafnir (150)	Placeholder before Absolab.

Hat:

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Arcane Umbra (200)	Hat is the best there is.
2	Absolab (160)	Necessary for 6 set Absolab.
3	Royal (150)	Placeholder before Absolab

Cape:

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Arcane Umbra (200)
2	Transposed Sweetwater (160)	ATT is all powerful.
3	Absolab (160)	Necessary for 6 set Absolab.

Boots:

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Arcane Umbra (200)	Please see above.
2	Transposed Sweetwater (160)	ATT is all powerful.
3	Absolab (160)	Necessary for 6 set Absolab.

Gloves:

Tier	Item (Level)	Reasoning
1	Arcane Umbra (200)	Please see above.
2	Transposed Sweetwater (160)	ATT is all powerful.
3	Absolab (160)	Necessary for 6 set Absolab.

Medal:
Use any medal that gives HP and/or Attack.



Where can I find these?

Utgard/Pensalir:

Can be obtained from level 140+ enemies.


Dragon Wing:

Obtain Emblems from Normal Cygnus to eventually trade Emblems for a weapon.

Note: These Emblems are "Use" tab emblems and cannot be equipped.


"Japanese":

Crafted via various materials.

Weapons/Recipes can be obtained from Mori Ranmaru Boss Fight.


Frozen: (Cannot be traded)

Obtained via events, most specifically, the Burning Event at Level 100 from the chest.


Fafnir/Trickster/Royal/Eagle Eye (Aka "Chaos Root Abyss"):

Obtain Emblems from Chaos Root Abyss Bosses to eventually (by using them in inventory) trade for the respective item.

Amount Needed:

Fafnir: 15 Chaos Vellum Emblems.

Trickster: 5 Chaos Pierre Emblems.

Royal: 5 Chaos Crimson Queen Emblems.

Eagle Eye: 5 Chaos Vonbon Emblems.

Tyrant:

Obtain Tyrant Coins from Hard Magnus.
Tyrant Capes may drop from Hard Magnus.

Amount Needed for Items:
Cape and Boots: 70
Belt: 100

A note about Tyrant Gloves. In normal server, it is not worth farming it from Kritias at all. You're better off either doing the following:
Roll it on Marvel Machine
Buy it off the Free Market/Auction House.
Definitely the second one if you don't want to spend 100$+.

Sweetwater:

Sweetwater can be obtained from the Commerci Party Quest at random (yet very low) rates.

In Normal Server, you're better off buying it from the Free Market or Auction House.

Sweetwater Glasses and Tattoo can be obtained via trading in 250 Denaros.

Sweetwater Gloves, Cape, Belt, and Shoes are limited to 15 stars maximum.

Transposing:
Transposing is taking the Blue (or Bonus) stats of a Level 140-150 item, and applying it to a Sweetwater Item.

Notes:

• This completely overwrites the stats and slots on the Sweetwater item, while resetting the potential of the item to the rank of the item transposed.
• This also carries all of the stars over, minus 1.
• If the item transposed had less slots than the Sweetwater Item, you may scroll it for more stats. You may only hammer the Sweetwater item if the total number of scrolls used on the transposed item isn't greater than the total possible slots on the Sweetwater item.
• The Sweetwater Cape, Gloves, Boots, and Belt cannot be starred beyond 15 stars.

Example:

Transposing a Unique Tyrant Cape with 5 stars and 4 slots (Really 2+2 via Hammers) will give the Sweetwater Cape 3 slots, 4 stars, 2 more slots via hammers, and reset the potential to Unique.

Absolab:

Obtain Faint Stigma Spirit Stones & Twisted Stigma Spirit Stones from Dark World Tree and Damien (Normal/Hard difficulties) or Diffusion-Line Energy Cores (A Rank) and Extraordinary Energy Cores (S Rank) from Lotus (Normal/Hard difficulties) to trade in for Stigma coins and Absolab coins respectively.

Amount Needed for Coins:
Absolab Coins:
1 Extraordinary Energy Core (S Rank)
20 Diffusion-Line Energy Cores (A Rank)

Stigma Coins:
1 Twisted Stigma Spirit Stone
20 Faint Stigma Spirit Stones

Amount needed for items:
5 of either for Weapon
2 for respective Armor

Absolab Coins Unlock:
Gloves, Boots, and Cape

Stigma Coins Unlock:
Outfit, Gloves, and Shoulder

BOTH HAVE WEAPON

Arcane Umbra:

Obtain Lucid Droplets from Hard or Normal Lucid, and Arcane River Droplets from random enemies in Arcane River, to trade into coins.

Amount Needed for Coins:

1 Lucid Droplets & 10 Arcane River Droplets

Amount needed for items:
24 for weapons
20 for Zero weapon
4 for Arcane Umbra set effect on said Zero weapon
16 for respective Armor

Lucid Coins Unlock:
Gloves, Boots, and Cape

Hard Will Drops:
Shoulder, Outfit, Hat.
Gollux:

Amount Needed for Items:
Rings:
Cracked: 15
Solid: 50
Reinforced: 110
Superior: 160

Earrings:
Cracked: 10
Solid: 40
Reinforced: 90
Superior: 150

Belt and Pendants:
These drop depending on what difficult of Gollux. These aren't bound to always drop.
Cracked: All Difficulties
Solid: Normalux or Higher
Reinforced: Hardlux or Higher
Superior: Hellux only.

Difficulties of Gollux:
Easy, Normal, Hard, and Hell.

Other Items

Boss Items:

Item	Who to get it from
Dea Sidus	Any Horntail Difficulty
Horntail Necklace	Normal Horntail
Aquatic Letter Eye & Condensed Power Crystal	Normal Zakum
Chaos Horntail Necklace	Chaos Horntail
Will-o-wisps	Hard Hilla
Dominator Pendant	Normal Arkarium
Mechinator Pendant	Easy Arkarium
Nova, Crystal Ventus, and Royal Metal Black Shoulder	Any Magnus Difficulty
Princess No. Secondary	From the Princess No. Boss Fight.
Holy Pink Cup	Any Pink Bean difficulty.
Berserked	Hard Lotus
Magic Eyepatch	Hard Damien
Dreamy Belt	Hard Lucid
Cursed Spellbook (Red, Yellow, Blue, Green)	Hard Will

Non-Boss Items:

Item	Where to get it from
Dimension/High Quality Dimension Gloves	DIPQ; pieces of each randomly from boxes dropped by the final phase boss or mob swarm.
Tinkerer's Belt and Shoulder	Via Tinkerer's "Kill X Mobs" quest when Marvel Machine is around. Need boxes from Marvel Machine.
Breath of Divinity	Must be obtained via trading.
Forest Guardian	Obtained via Gachapon
Hilla's/Magnus' Rage	Obtained via Gachapon or Marvel Machine
Blackgate Ring	Dropped randomly from Blackgate's pseudo-bosses.
Lightning God Ring	Obtained via Marvel Machine
Antellion Guardian	Complete Masteria through Time.
Ghost Ship Exorcist	Complete the "The Secret of the Ghost Ship" questline.
Sengoku Hakase	Trade in for ?? during the Sengoku High event.
Any Permanent Heart	Obtained via Marvel Machine or Gachapon.
Dark Lords of Darkness	Obtained via the (Halloween) Event by the same name, or Marvel Machine.
Hunter Totem	Obtained via Marvel Machine. Was obtainable via the Hunter event.
Rifle Bullet	Obtained via Marvel Machine. Was obtainable via the Hunter event.
Inverse Codex	Obtained via Kritias.
Holy Pink Beanity	Obtained via the Pink Bean event.
Chaos Root Abyss title	Defeat all CRA 10 times each.
Superior Hunter	Complete the Silent Crusade questline. (Except Arkarium)
Battleroid	Obtained via Marvel Machine.
Aquarius Crown	Randomly drops from Tower of Oz's high floor boxes.