Last Updated on by Samuel Franklin
MapleStory Best Link Skills Guide (Reboot & Non-Reboot)
Learn the best Link Skills in MapleStory with this guide to the important system for Reboot and Non-Reboot player account progression. With Link Skills you can access a range of benefits from increased boss damage, boosted experience gain, stats, critical damage and more. It often goes hand in hand with the equally strong Legion system as both of these rely on additional characters to obtain powerful account bonuses.
With a number of these Link Skill benefits being vital to both bossing and training effectively developing a large pool of Link Skill options is key to tackling some of the mid game bosses of MapleStory such as Chaos Root Abyss (CRA) and often a hotly discussed topic on reddit and other MapleStory communities. In this best in slot Link Skills guide you’ll learn the basics of the system, a Link Skills priority order, best Link Skills for each class and a full Link Skills list. This article is intended for both Reboot and Non-Reboot (normal) players with differences noted where relevant.
MapleStory Link Skills Overview
In order to encourage and reward MapleStory players to try new classes the Link Skill system provides passive benefits to your characters including a small number of active skills. The key mechanics of this system are:
- Players can select a maximum of 12 Link Skills to have active at a time for their character and will always have the skill of their current character active.
- Link Skills will only work on two characters at the same time (the one it is linked to and the originating character).
- They can be transferred twice a day between characters, for this reason it is recommended to keep them tied to your bossing and/or current character you are training for levels.
- The majority of Link Skills are available from level 70 and gain additional power at level 120 and level 210. These are referred to as level 1, 2 and 3 respectively.
- MapleSEA and KMS do not currently have level 3, they are exclusive to GMS.
- Link Skills do not work across game servers.
- Nexon has it’s own micro site that has a full Link Skill list, how to obtain each of them and the effects that should be referenced alongside this best Link Skills guide page.
MapleStory Best Link Skills Priority
The following Link Skills priority list are the Link Skills to get as soon as possible as part of building their MapleStory account as these have broad application for training other characters or used across both bossing and training. Given the effort required to reach level 210 I generally recommend players target level 120 Link Skills first to obtain the bulk of the benefit and only push for level 3 for the late game bossing challenges.
- Mercedes: The first of three key Link Skills that impacts on your experience gained with a percentage boost between 10 to 20% depending on the level you obtain. Reaching at least level 120 on a Mercedes early on in your account progression can save some significant time training other characters. Mercedes also remains relevant even on your high level characters due the % based nature of this Link Skill.
- Aran: A strong character that isn’t too difficult to train without gear or Link Skills the Aran is another good priority option as he dramatically boosts the amount of experience gained from combo orbs. At the highest levels (900%) you can easily gain half a level from a long combo streak and it does encourage players to stay for long periods of time on a single map to maximise the advantage. Unlike Mercedes this has a diminished benefit as you advance beyond level 100 and is primarily about early level gains.
- Evan: The final character in the experience gained trinity the Evan boosts rune duration by up to 70% giving you more time to be overpowered and benefit from the experience gain boost that runes provide. Like the Mercedes this is one that is always relevant to character training speed. I would generally do an Aran first though as Evan can be a difficult MapleStory class to level.
With your trinity of experience boosting characters players should then look to build in some core damage stats to their Link Skill options. This has the effect of being useful on both bossing and training for your main while making future Link Skill characters easier to level.
- Phantom: With critical rate playing a key role in your damage output the ability to gain a free 10% to 20% can boost your damage on levelling up mules and on your main account. This also assists in reaching the all important 100% critical rate chance on most characters to save some investment in Hyper Stat points or other sources of critical while building out your gear progression but can generally be removed as your gear advances.
- Beast Tamer: Offering one of the most powerful Link Skills with its combination of critical rate, boss damage, HP and MP the Beast Tamer is a must addition to your line up. Given this character is not always available for creation players should always jump at the opportunity to make one (even if it sits idle for some time).
- Demon Avenger: An easy class to play given that HP is actually their main stat the Demon Avenger is a good early Link Skill option to obtain. The Demon Avenger offers a percentage boost to damage between 5% and 15% which is good for training and bossing.
- Kanna: Similar to the Demon Avenger the Kanna brings up to 10% damage boost although only goes up to level 2 (level 120 required). Given the Kanna has often been a meta favourite of Reboot players for her ability to farm Mesos with high effectiveness it is likely that you’ll be wanting a strong Kanna in your account regardless.
MapleStory Best Link Skills For Bossing
The best bossing setup for Link Skills will use a mixture of the Link Skill tier list noted below with slight differences depending on your class and other equipment. In general when bossing you want to maximise the following stats:
- Critical Rate
- Critical Damage
- Damage
- Boss Damage
- Ignore Enemy Defence (IED)
This can then be supplemented with additional utility or class specific Link Skill needs and results in the following boss focused options for the majority of classes.
- Phantom (Critical Rate)
- Beast Tamer (Critical Rate, Boss Damage & HP/MP)
- Explorer Bowman (Critical Rate)
- Kinesis (Critical Damage)
- Explorer Thief (Damage)
- Ark (Damage)
- Cadena (Damage)
- Kanna (Damage)
- Demon Avenger (Damage)
- Illium (Damage)
- Lara (Damage)
- Adele (Boss Damage)
- Demon Slayer (Boss Damage)
- Zero (IED)
- Hoyoung (IED)
- Explorer Mage (IED)
- Luminous (IED)
- Angelic Buster (Utility – Burst)
- Mihile (Utility – Knockback Immunity)
- Resistance (Utility – Immunity After Revive)
There are some important things to keep in mind when selecting your ideal bossing setup as follows:
- Explorer Thief & Cadena: This damage boost relies on the ability to debuff your enemies (such as Venom). For classes that do not have an easy to activate debuff in their own skills you should first obtain the Explorer Mage Link Skill as this acts as a debuff.
- Illium: This Link Skill applies with movement so will not be ideal for all classes or boss situations and is generally a lower priority because of this.
- Ark: Similar to above this is a battle focused option that relies on staying in combat for extended lengths of time. The strength of this is highly dependent on the boss fight and your class so is not suitable in all situations.
- Adele: Adele’s Noble Fire Link Skill is based on the number of party members on a map so is stronger for mid to late game party boss runs and offers only a slight boost when solo. Similar to Illium I would consider this a low priority compared to other options.
- Hoyoung: The damage portion of this Link Skill only triggers on enemies with full health so you are choosing this in a bossing setup for IED only (it can be great for training though)
- Resistance: Having some brief seconds of immunity after reviving can help players rebuff their character and avoid any map environmental elements (e.g. Vellum falling rocks). It’s value is definitely heightened on classes with lots of buffs to cast after death (assuming no buff freezers) or players that suffer from game lag and need the extra few seconds.
MapleStory Best Link Skills For Training
The best training setup for Link Skills has some similarities to the bossing one and is likely to change throughout your levelling process and one you should test as necessary using the battle analysis system to see what gives the best and most consistent results.
In general while training your characters you will want to look to maximise the following stats:
- EXP Boosting
- Critical Rate (depends on your class)
- Critical Damage (for critical based classes)
- Damage
- Weapon/Magic Attack
- Main Stat
With this in mind the best Link Skills for training in MapleStory include the following:
- Mercedes (Experience Gain %)
- Aran (Combo Orbs EXP)
- Evan (Rune Duration)
- Phantom (Critical Rate)
- Beast Tamer (Critical Rate & HP/MP)
- Explorer Bowman (Critical Rate)
- Kinesis (Critical Damage)
- Kanna (Damage)
- Demon Avenger (Damage)
- Illium (Damage)
- Ark (Damage)
- Hoyoung (Damage)
- Kain (Damage)
- Lara (Damage)
- Hayato (Attack & All Stat)
There are some important things to keep in mind when selecting your ideal training setup as follows:
- Aran: At higher levels the effectiveness of this is diminished so you can consider swapping it out, especially if it allows you to use another damage based Link Skill that lets you one hit the monsters you are training against. Players should also consider their ability to maintain combos when choosing this, for example if you constantly stop to chat to your guild and break a combo in the process (also applies to Illium and Ark).
