MapleStory Best Link Skills Guide - Reboot & Non-Reboot Priority List - Games Finder (2024)

Last Updated on December 16, 2023 by Samuel Franklin

This MapleStory guide explores the best Link Skills and helps players navigate the optimal order to acquire them given the overwhelming number (40+) that are available and the time required to unlock them all. If you’re wanting to start developing your Links Skills without delay I recommend that all players start with Mercedes, Aran and Evan in that order as they each boost experience gained and will make subsequent Links Skills easier to acquire.

As the Link Skills system provides benefits to both bossing and effective training in MapleStory unlocking a large pool of these skills is critical to your overall account progression and ensures you are equipped to face the mid to late game bosses or reach the highest character levels. By reading this best in slot Link Skills guide in full though you’ll gain confidence to maximise this mechanic with a priority order, the best options for each situation (bossing/training) or class and a full list including skill icons. These recommendations are based on my own experience levelling more than 30 classes for their powerful Link Skills across thousands of MapleStory gameplay hours.

Table of Contents:
– Link Skills Overview
– Link Skills Priority
– Best Links For Bossing
– Best Links For Training
– MapleStory All Link Skills List

MapleStory Link Skills Overview

The Link Skills system is designed to encourage and reward MapleStory players to try new classes by providing a number of strong passive boosts or active skills to your characters that help with the two core MapleStory activities of boss fighting and training. The key mechanics of this system are summarised below and I recommend players also refer to the official Nexon resource page.

• Players can select a maximum of 12 Link Skills at a time by activating the Link Manager skill and will always have the associated Link 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).
• Link Skills can be transferred twice per daily reset between characters and for this reason it is recommended to keep them linked to your current character of focus.
• The majority of Link Skills (excluding Zero) 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. Not all classes have a level 3 version of their Link Skill and there is no level 3 available in MapleSEA and KMS.
• Link Skills are not available to be linked across game servers (e.g. between Scania and Reboot).
• There is no difference between the link skills that are available between Reboot and Non-Reboot servers. However, as Reboot players are given an inherent final damage buff the effectiveness of the damage focused Link Skills is reduced.

MapleStory Best Link Skills Priority

This Link Skills priority list is my recommended order for all players as they provide a solid foundation for acquiring additional Link Skills and are equally applicable to both bossing and training. It’s also an order that is influenced by the ease of acquiring them given some classes are simply harder to level until you have sufficient Link Skills and Legion power available. Given the significant effort to reach level 210 characters I will generally recommend players target level 120 first as this provides the bulk of the benefit and then players can push for further levels as they see necessary.

My recommended order for initial Link Skills is: Mercedes > Aran > Evan > Kanna > Beast Tamer > Demon Avenger > Phantom

• Mercedes: The first of three key Link Skills that improves 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 saves time on future character training and remains relevant on your high level characters due the % based nature of this Link Skill.
• Aran: A strong character that is easy to train without gear or Link Skills, the Aran is another priority option as he dramatically boosts the amount of experience gained from combo orbs. Unlike Mercedes this has a diminished benefit as you advance beyond level 100 and is primarily about early level gains for your other Link Skills classes.
• Evan: Evan boosts rune duration by up to 70% giving you additional time to be overpowered and benefit from the experience gain that the rune system provides. Similar to the Mercedes this is always relevant to character training speed regardless of your character level.

After the trinity of experience boosting characters above are in place players should then look to obtain the core damage options. This has the effect of being useful across both bossing and training for your main while making future Link Skill characters even easier to level.

• Kanna: The Kanna is easy to level and a popular class in general which makes it a clear choice when combined with the 10% damage boost the Link Skill provides. Note that this Link Skill only goes up to level 2 (level 120 required).
• 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 create 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 with a percentage boost to damage between 5% and 15% which is equally effective for training and bossing.
• 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 both mules and your main character. This also assists in reaching the important 100% critical rate chance that may allow you to save some investment in Hyper Stat points or other sources of critical while developing your gear progression but can generally be removed as your gear advances to the end game.

MapleStory Best Link Skills For Bossing

The best bossing setup for Link Skills will use a mixture of the Link Skill tier list of stats noted below in approximate order:

• Critical Rate (up to 100%)
• Critical Damage
• Ignore Enemy Defence (IED)
• Boss Damage
• Damage

These stats can then be supplemented with additional utility or class specific Link Skill needs and results in my recommended specific best boss Link Skills for the majority of classes in approximate order:

• Beast Tamer (Focus Spirit – Critical Rate, Boss Damage & HP/MP)
• Phantom (Phantom Instinct – Critical Rate)
• Explorer Bowman (Adventurer’s Curiosity – Critical Rate)
• Kinesis (Judgment – Critical Damage)
• Luminous (Light Wash – IED)
• Hoyoung (Bravado – IED)
• Explorer Magician (Empirical Knowledge – IED & Damage)
• Zero (Rhinne’s Blessing – IED)
• Demon Slayer (Fury Unleashed – Boss Damage)
• Adele (Noble Fire – Boss Damage)
• Kanna (Elementalism – Damage)
• Demon Avenger (Wild Rage – Damage)
• Explorer Thief (Thief’s Cunning – Damage)
• Ark (Solus – Damage)
• Cadena (Unfair Advantage – Damage)
• Khali (Innate Gift – Damage)
• Illium (Tide of Battle – Damage)
• Lara (Nature’s Friend – Damage)
• Angelic Buster (Terms and Conditions – Utility: Burst)
• Mihile (Knight’s Watch – Utility: Knockback Immunity)
• Resistance (Spirit of Freedom – Utility: Immunity After Revive)

Players should also consider the following:

• Explorer Thief & Cadena: This damage boost relies on the ability to debuff your enemies (such as Hermit Venom). For classes that do not have an easy to activate debuff in their own skills you should first obtain the Explorer Magician Link Skill as this acts as a debuff.
• Illium: This Link Skill is based on movement so will not be ideal for all classes or boss situations and is generally a lower priority from the damage pool 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 the other boss damage option of Demon Slayer.
• 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 apply their character buffs and avoid any map environmental elements such as the falling rocks in the Vellum boss room. It’s value is definitely heightened on classes with many buffs to cast after death (assuming no buff freezers) or players that experience game lag and need the extra few seconds.

MapleStory Best Link Skills For Training

The best training Link Skills setup has similarities to the bossing setup and may need tweaks throughout the levelling process to maintain the ability to 1 hit kill monsters that results in the most effective training speed. In general while training your characters you will want to maximise the following stats in approximate order:

• EXP Boosting
• Critical Rate (depends on your class up to 100%)
• Critical Damage (for critical based classes)
• Damage
• Weapon/Magic Attack
• Main Stat

The best Link Skills for training in class specific approximate order:

• Mercedes (Elven Blessing – Experience Gain %)
• Aran (Combo Kill Blessing – Combo Orbs EXP)
• Evan (Rune Persistence – Rune Duration)
• Beast Tamer (Focus Spirit – Critical Rate, Boss Damage & HP/MP)
• Phantom (Phantom Instinct – Critical Rate)
• Explorer Bowman (Adventurer’s Curiosity – Critical Rate)
• Kinesis (Judgment – Critical Damage)
• Kanna (Elementalism – Damage)
• Demon Avenger (Wild Rage – Damage)
• Hoyoung (Bravado – Damage)
• Explorer Thief (Thief’s Cunning – Damage)
• Ark (Solus – Damage)
• Cadena (Unfair Advantage – Damage)
• Khali (Innate Gift – Damage)
• Lara (Nature’s Friend – Damage)
• Illium (Tide of Battle – Damage)
• Kain (Time to Prepare – Damage)
• Hayato (Keen Edge – Attack & All Stat)

With the above training Link Skill list players should also consider the following:

• Aran: At higher levels (100+) the effectiveness of this experience source is diminished as it does not scale well compared to the increasing experience requirements and accordingly should be exchanged for another damage focused Link Skill that may allow players to into a higher experience map sooner.
• Hoyoung: The power of this Link Skill is based on the added damage when enemies have 100% HP and intended to help you 1 hit kill the particular monster. If your MapleStory class choice relies on damage over time or summons for damage that takes monsters below 100% HP prior to your main attacking skill this will have limited effectiveness.
• Cadena: The usefulness of this Link Skill is highly class and monster dependent as it has two conditional elements. Players should consider if they are fighting a lower level monster and if a monster is debuffed when attacking them as most classes will be 1 hitting monsters without a debuff applied first.

MapleStory All Link Skills List

The MapleStory Link Skills list below details all of the currently available Link Skills:

Icon	Name	Class	Effect	Notes
	Bravado	Hoyoung	Ignore Enemy Defence (IED): +5%/10% Damage +9%/14% against enemies with 100% HP
	Nature’s Friend	Lara	Damage: +3%/5% Activate Nature’s Help upon defeating 20 normal monsters which increases damage against normal monsters by 7%/11% for 30 seconds
	Focus Spirit	Beast Tamer	Boss Damage: +4%/7%/10% Critical Rate: +4%/7%/10% Max HP: +3%/4%/5% Max MP: +3%/4%/5%
	Cygnus Blessing	Cygnus Knights	Attack/Magic Attack: +7/9/11/15/17/19/21/23/25 Status Resistance: +1/3/4/6/7/9/10/12/13/15 Elemental Resistance: +1%/3%/4%/6%/7%/9%/10%/12%/13%/15%	Each Cygnus Knight levelled to 120 provides 2 ranks
	Wild Rage	Demon Avenger	Damage +5%/10%/15%
	Fury Unleashed	Demon Slayer	Boss Damage +10%/15%/20%
	Adventurer’s Curiosity	Explorer – Bowman	Chance to add monsters to Monster Collection: +10%/15%/20%/25%/30%/35% Critical Rate: +3%/4%/6%/7%/9%/10%	Each Explorer Bowman levelled to 120 provides 2 ranks
	Empirical Knowledge	Explorer – Magician	Attacks have a 15% chance to grant the following bonuses against an enemy for 10 seconds, stacks up to 3 times. Damage per stack: +1%/1%/2%/2%/3%/3% Ignore Enemy Defence (IED) per stack: +1%/1%/2%/2%/3%/3%	Each Explorer Magician levelled to 120 provides 2 ranks
	Pirate Blessing	Explorer – Pirate	STR: +20/30/40/50/60/70 DEX: +20/30/40/50/60/70 INT: +20/30/40/50/60/70 LUK: +20/30/40/50/60/70 Max HP: +350/525/700/875/1050/1225 Max MP: +350/525/700/875/1050/1225 Damage Taken: -5%/7%/9%/11%/13%/15%	Each Explorer Pirate levelled to 120 provides 2 ranks
	Thief’s Cunning	Explorer – Thief	After debuffing an enemy the following applies for 10 seconds (20 second cooldown) Damage: +3%/6%/9%/12%/15%/18%	Each Explorer Thief levelled to 120 provides 2 ranks The Explorer – Magician Link Skill is considered a debuff and accordingly these are often combined.
	Invincible Belief	Explorer – Warrior	When your HP falls to 15%of your Max HP restores 20%/23%/26%/29%/32%/35% of Max HP every 1 second for 3 seconds with a 410/370/330/290/250/210 second cooldown	Each Explorer Warrior levelled to 120 provides 2 ranks
	Noble Fire	Adele	For each party member on the same map (including yourself) increase damage by 1%/2% up to 4%/8% and increase boss damage by 2%/4%
	Solus	Ark	When in combat for 5 seconds damage is increased by 1% and an additional 1%/2%/3% per stack Lasts for 5 seconds and stacks up to 5 times
	Tide of Battle	Illium	After moving a certain distance increase damage by 1%/2% Lasts for 5 seconds and stakes up to 6 times
	Innate Gift	Khali	Damage: +3%/5% After attacking recover 1%/2% of Max HP and MP per second over 5 seconds (30 second cooldown)
	Keen Edge	Hayato	All Stats: +15/25 Attack: +10/15 Magic Attack: +10/15
	Combo Kill Blessing	Aran	Increases combo kill orb experience gained by +400%/650%/900%
	Rune Persistence	Evan	Increases rune duration +30%/50%/70%
	Light Wash	Luminous	Ignore Enemy Defence (IED): +10%/15%/20%
	Elven Blessing	Mercedes	Increases experience (EXP) by 10%/15%/20% Active skill returns players to Elluel (10 minute cooldown)
	Phantom Instinct	Phantom	Critical Rate: +10%/15%/20%
	Shade	Close Call	Chance to survive fatal attack: 5%/10%
	Kanna	Elementalism	Damage: +5%/10%
	Kinesis	Judgment	Critical damage: +2%/4%
	Mihile	Knight’s Watch	Increase knockback resistance rate to 100% for 140/180/220 seconds with a 180 second cooldown
	Angelic Buster	Terms and Conditions	+60%/90%120% skill damage for 10 seconds and any applicable skill effects are reduced by half (90 second cooldown)
	Cadena	Unfair Advantage	Attacks against lower level monsters deal +3%/6% damage Attacks against debuffed monsters deal +3%/6% damage
	Kain	Time to Prepare	After defeating 8 monsters or attacking a boss 5 times increase damage by +9%/17% for every 5 times you’ve stacked Time to Prepare (40 second cooldown)
	Kaiser	Iron Will	Max HP: +10%/15%/20%
	Resistance	Spirit of Freedom	Invincible for 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8 seconds after being revived	Each Resistance class levelled to 120 provides 2 ranks
	Xenon	Hybrid Logic	All Stats: +5%/10%
	Zero	Rhinne’s Blessing	Reduces your damage received by 3%/6%/9%/12%/15% Ignore Enemy Defence (IED): +2%/4%/6%/8%/10%	Gain one Link Skill rank by completing Act 2, 3 and 4 as a Zero character. Players must complete Act 8 for the final Link Skill rank of 5.