Maplestory – Familiar System Guide

Familiars in Maplestory can give you a hefty damage boost while accompanying you in battle.

The Familiar system is now quite different from what it used to be, so some players find it overwhelming, as it now comes with a lot more features.

Recommended Read: Maplestory – Legion System Guide

In this guide, we give you all the information you need to know about the Familiar system in Maplestory.

Table of contents

• What is the familiar system
• How to summon familiars
• How to unlock second and third familiar slots
• The Summon Gauge
• Familiar potentials
• How to unlock familiars’ potential
• Fusing and ranking up familiars
• How to get legendary familiars
• Familiar levels and rarities
• Badge effects
• How to unlock badges
• How to get familiars
• Best familiars to farm
• How to get familiar points
• Familiar shop

What is the familiar system

The familiar system is a system in Maplestory that allows you to collect cards from monsters, summon them, and obtain useful stat boosts.

Familiars are the monsters you can summon by collecting their cards dropped from the monsters themselves.

Familiars come in five ranks from Common to Legendary.

What rank a familiar is determines the lines of its potential.

When you’ve fully unlocked your familiar summon gauge, you can summon three familiars at a time.

Familiars have up to two potential lines, which means you can have up to six potential lines from your familiars.

These potential lines can give powerful and useful buffs, including Ignore Enemy Defense and Mesos Obtained.

Besides the boosts from the familiars themselves, you can also gain stat boosts from the familiar system by collecting badges.

Badges are collections of specific familiar cards that give you pre-determined boosts when equipped in your badge collection.

To obtain better boosts from your familiars, you need to collect a lot of familiar cards, extract cards, and fuse cards.

You can train your familiars to higher levels by using them while you fight monsters around the Maple World.

Given the boosts you can obtain from the familiar system, we recommend that you aim to build a strong set of familiars and badges.

How to summon familiars

Before you can summon familiars, you need to obtain familiar cards and use them in the ‘USE’ tab of your inventory.

Once you’ve used a familiar card, it will be added to your familiar collection, and you can now add it to your familiar setup.

To access your familiar setup and the rest of the familiar system, you can either click Roro the Familiar Manager in the bottom left corner of your equipment inventory or use the hotkey ‘N’, or what key it might be set to in your key binding options.

Now that you have opened the familiar system window go to the Setup tab.

On the right side, you will see all the familiar cards that you have activated.

To add a familiar card to your familiar setup, click it and drag it into one of the setup-slots or double click it, then click Save at the bottom.

With a familiar added to your familiar setup, you are now ready to summon it.

To summon familiars, open the Skill menu, go to the beginner skills tab, and use the skill Summon Familiars.

This skill will summon all the familiars in your current familiar setup.

If you haven’t added any familiars to your setup, then you will not have this skill in your beginner skills tab.

So, if you don’t see this skill, it means that you haven’t added any familiars to your setup or that you have forgotten to press Save after adding familiars to your setup.

How to unlock second and third familiar slots

In the beginning, you will only have one familiar slot unlocked, but you can unlock two more.

To unlock the second familiar slot, you have to collect one familiar badge.

Once you have collected a familiar badge, click the black square icon on the left side of the screen under the reward points icon.

You can talk to Roro, the familiar system manager, through this icon.

If you haven’t clicked this icon before, you have to go through some initial dialog.

After going through the dialog, you can see your familiar quests through the icon.

If you have one or more badges collected, you will see a quest called ‘Roro’s First Update’, which unlocks the second familiar slot upon completion.

All you have to do to complete the quest is go through some dialog.

When you have collected 10 or more badges, you can unlock the third familiar slot through the same icon.

You can learn how to unlock badges in the familiar system later in this guide.

The Summon Gauge

At the bottom of the Overview tab in the familiar window, you’ll find the Summon Gauge.

The Summon Gauge determines how long you can keep your familiars summoned.

When the Summon Gauge goes to zero, your familiars are de-summoned and cannot be summoned until you have energy in your Summon Gauge again.

The higher the total defenses of your familiars in your setup, the slower the Summon Gauge will deplete.

Therefore, having three familiars in your setup will make you deplete the energy in your Summon Gauge at a slower pace.

Your Summon Gauge is reset back to full energy every day at server-time reset.

You can also regain energy in the Summon Gauge by purchasing Familiar Essence from the familiar shop.

Familiar Essence costs 300 Familiar Points and recharges 50% of the Summon Gauge’s energy upon use.

Familiar potentials

The buffs that you get from your summoned familiars are determined by the potential lines of the individual familiars you’ve put in your setup.

You can roll many useful potential lines on your familiars, so it’s worth collecting a lot to get the best ones.

Here is a list of some of the best potential lines you can get on your familiars:

For bossing

• Ignore Enemy Defense
• ATT/MATT
• Boss Damage
• Critical Damage

For farming

• Item Drop Rate
• Mesos Obtained

The higher the rank of the familiar, the higher the tier of their potential, which results in greater potential values.

The higher the level of your familiar, the higher the stats of the familiar, which enables you to summon them for longer.

This means that if you get a familiar with a great potential, you should level it up to get the greatest possible boost from it.

How to unlock familiars’ potential

To get a potential on familiars, open the familiar system window, and go to the Collection tab.

On the right side, under the Info tab, you can choose any familiar that you have activated by using their card.

The selected familiar will appear on the left side, displaying its info.

Right under the animation of the familiar, you’ll see a question mark.

To unlock the potential of that familiar, press the question mark, and click OK.

Up to two lines of potential will then be rolled for that familiar.

Unlocking the potential of a familiar costs 35,000 mesos.

Fusing and ranking up familiars

To rank up familiars to their next tier in Maplestory, you need to fuse them with copies of the same monster.

Familiars also need to be at least level 5 before you can rank them up.

When you fuse familiars, you sacrifice copies of the same monster to give rank-up points to the selected familiar.

To give rank-up points to a familiar, go to the Collection tab in the familiar window, select the Fusion tab, and choose the familiar you wish to rank up.

The selected familiar will appear on the left side, where it will show you how many rank-up points it currently has as well as how many points it needs to be ranked up.

While a familiar is selected for fusion, only copies of that same monster will be visible on the right side.

You can choose the copies of the same monster you wish to sacrifice for fusing on the right side, or you can use the Select All button, which will automatically put all available copies into the fusion window until the rank-up points bar is full.

Click Fuse when you are happy with your selection of copies to fuse, and the selected familiar will be given the corresponding rank-up points.

The rank of the copies selected for fusion determines how many rank-up points the selected familiar gets.

Here is an overview of how many rank-up points each copy gives based on their rank:

• Common rank = 1 rank up point per copy
• Rare rank = 2 rank-up points per copy
• Epic rank = 3 rank-up points per copy
• Unique rank = 4 rank-up points per copy
• Legendary rank = 5 rank-up points per copy

When a familiar has reached the required number of rank-up points and is at least level 5, you can rank it up by clicking the Rank Up button when the familiar is selected in the Fusion window under the Collection Tab.

The chance of the familiar ranking up to the next rank is not guaranteed at each rank, and the number of rank-up points the familiar needs before you can try to rank it up increases the higher its rank.

Here is an overview of how many rank-up points you need to give a familiar at each rank before you can try to rank it up as well as the chance of it ranking up.

Ranking up a familiar resets both its ATT + DEF stats as well as its potential lines.

On Reboot it’s much more difficult to rank up familiars to Unique manually as you need to collect tons of copies yourself.

On the normal servers, you can purchase a bunch of copies of some monsters that are often farmed by players for cheap on the auction house.

How to get legendary familiars

You cannot fuse and rank up familiars to the Legendary rank in Maplestory.

Familiars can only be fused and ranked up to the Unique rank.

Furthermore, legendary familiars cannot be obtained on the Reboot server, only on normal servers, as the item required to get them is not available on Reboot.

The only way to get legendary rank familiars in the game is by using Red Familiar Cards.

Red Familiar Cards are sold in the Cash Shop for 1,200 NX each.

You can reset the potential of a familiar by using a Red Familiar Card.

When you reset the potential of a familiar with a Red Familiar Card, there is also a small chance that the potential of that familiar increases to Legendary rank.

Familiar levels and rarities

Familiars start at level 1 when you use their card.

You can level up a familiar by defeating monsters around your level while it is summoned.

When you defeat one monster around your level, the familiars that you have summoned earn 1 EXP.

Here you can see an overview of how much EXP a familiar needs at each level to level up to the next one.

*By default, familiars can only level up to level 5, but with the use of the Familiar Breakthrough Card, familiars can reach level 7.

The Familiar Breakthrough Card is only sold in the Cash Shop for 5,900 NX on normal servers.

This means that you cannot level up your familiars further than level 5 on the Reboot server.

The higher the level of your familiar, the higher its ATT/DEF stats are.

Therefore, leveling up a familiar that has great potential you wish to use is a great idea, as it will give it greater stats and can thereby be summoned for longer.

All familiars are one of five rarities, also known as ranks:

• Common
• Rare
• Epic
• Unique
• Legendary

The higher the rank of the familiar, the greater the values of their potential lines can be.

Therefore, getting a high-ranked familiar with a great potential line is, of course, the best.

However, as you most likely need to unveil many familiars’ potential before you get good lines, it’s unlikely that you’re going to end up using a familiar better than Epic rank.

Unless you are very lucky, it’s going to require too many copies of the same familiar to get enough unique copies to roll good potential lines, which is why many players use either common or rare familiars for a very long time.

It is much easier to get a high-rank familiar with great potential on normal servers, though, as you can both purchase copies from the auction house and buy Red Familiar Cards in the Cash Shop there.

Monsters can drop both common, rare, epic, and unique versions of their familiar cards directly.

Getting a unique familiar card directly from a drop is, however, very unlikely, while getting an epic familiar card directly from a drop is very plausible from some monsters.

This is because certain monsters have a higher chance than others to drop the epic version of their familiar card directly.

Familiars of higher rank also give more rank-up points per copy when used as a sacrifice for fusing and can have better ATT and DEF stats.

Badge effects

The second type of stat boost you can get from the familiar system is badge effects.

Badge effects are stat boosts you get from equipping badges in the familiar system.

You obtain badges by collecting all the familiars in a specific badge.

Even if you choose to sacrifice or extract a familiar card, it will still count in any badge it is included in.

This means that you do not have to have keep cards in your familiar card collection after you have used them.

Just using the card is enough when you are gathering and using cards to obtain badges.

You can choose up to 8 badges to equip at once in the familiar system.

To equip a badge, open the familiar window, go to Badges, and either drag a badge into a slot or double click a badge.

You will get the badge effects from every badge you have equipped, which means you’ll get some significant stat boosts by having 8 great badges equipped at once.

Here is a complete overview of all badges you can obtain as well as the effects each one gives.

You want to build towards the badges that give you ATT/MATT and Ignore Monster DEF, but those are often harder to obtain.

Therefore, we recommend starting out by collecting some of the easier to obtain badges, so you can unlock your three familiar slots.

How to unlock badges

You unlock badges in the familiar system of Maplestory by collecting all the familiar cards within a specific badge.

By opening the familiar window, going to Badges, and then selecting List, you can see all badges you can obtain.

To see what familiar cards you need to collect to unlock a specific badge, just click it and look at the cards at the bottom of the window.

You don’t have to keep the cards you need for badges in your collection. Just using the card will add it to the badge, and it will stay as collected even if you sacrifice the card or extract it.

How to get familiars

There are several ways to get familiar cards, which become familiars upon use, in Maplestory.

The main way to get familiar cards is by obtaining them from monster drops.

Using equipment and buffs that boost your item drop rate will help you significantly in farming for familiars.

Every day you can also purchase Roro’s Familiar Booster Pack Coupon in the Familiar shop for 2,000 familiar points, which gives you three random familiars.

You can purchase Roro’s Familiar Booster Pack Coupon on both Reboot and normal servers.

On the Reboot server, you will get the vast majority of your familiar cards from farming.

Copies of some monsters can also be purchased in abundance on the auction house on normal servers, so most players on normal servers obtain the majority of their familiar cards by purchasing them.

The last way to get familiars is by purchasing booster packs with NX in the Cash Shop, which can only be done on the normal servers.

Best familiars to farm

Right after the revamp of the familiar system, some monsters, including Jr. Boogies, had an abnormally high familiar drop chance of epic rarity.

Now, however, Nexon has balanced the drop rate of familiars, so many monsters have a similar drop chance of the different ranks of their familiar cards.

Furthermore, because the stat boosts you get from familiars in this revamped system depend on the potential of the familiar and not the monster, there is no specific monster you have to use as a familiar.

Instead, the best familiars to farm are the ones that you can farm a lot of quickly and that have a decent familiar drop chance.

In other words, you want to farm the monsters that give you the largest number of familiar cards per hour.

For most players, this will be in the Arcane River with their farming Kanna at level 205+.

You can, of course, farm familiars with any class at any level, but doing it at 205+ with a Kanna will, in most cases, yield the highest number of familiars per hour.

Therefore, we recommend you go around and check out maps around your level and test out how many familiars you can farm per hour.

The map that yields the highest number per hour for you will be the best map and thereby the best monsters to farm for familiars.

On the normal servers, you do not have this problem as mentioned, as you can simply buy a bunch of familiars on the auction house.

How to get familiar points

You need familiar points to purchase items in the familiar shop.

The only way to get familiar points in Maplestory is by extracting familiars in the familiar window.

You can extract a familiar by opening the familiar window, going to the Collection tab, selecting Extraction, and then choosing the familiars you wish to extract.

You can use the Select All button right below the Extraction tab to quickly select all familiars in your collection that you haven’t put into your setup.

Do be careful here that you don’t accidentally extract a familiar you want to use.

Once you’re happy with your selection, click Extract at the bottom, and you’ll get familiar points based on the number of familiars you’ve sacrificed and their ranks.

Here is an overview of how many familiar points you get per familiar based on their rank.

If you are on a regular server, we don’t recommend extracting familiars of unique or legendary rarity, as their potential can be reset using Red Familiar Cards.

Familiar shop

The familiar shop is where you can spend your familiar points on items related to the familiar system.

You can access the familiar shop by opening the familiar window and pressing Shop.

There are only five different things you can purchase in the Familiar Shop.

Familiar Essence can be a great use of familiar points if you need to have your familiars during farming or training.

That’s everything you need to know about the familiar system in Maplestory!

If you have any input for this guide, let us know in the comment section below.