After reading this you will be able to open any scroll tooltip in MapleStory Classic World, name its tier, check whether your equipment has a slot to spare, and decide whether the scroll is worth using. Assumptions: a solo character in the early levels (NiaMeowDB uses level 25 as its example), a small meso budget, and gear you expect to replace rather than keep for good. Success rates and grants below come from mapleclassic.wiki; meso prices and strategy notes are labeled as NiaMeowDB figures.
Per mapleclassic.wiki, the game ships 208 scrolls. You do not need to learn 208 items. There are 52 families, each covering one equipment type and one stat, and every family comes in the same four tiers: Lesser, Intermediate, Greater and Chaos. Learn the ladder once and it applies everywhere.
One trap in the interface: all 52 families share one sprite per tier. The icon tells you the tier and nothing else, so read the tooltip for the equipment type and stat before you click.
The four tiers in one table
| Tier | Success rate | Grants | Destroys equipment on failure |
|---|
| Lesser | 100% | the base step | No |
| Intermediate | 60% | double the base | No |
| Greater | 10% | triple the base | No |
| Chaos | 10% | quadruple the base | Yes, on half of all failures |
Each step up the ladder grants more and succeeds less often. Only the top tier, Chaos, can destroy what you are scrolling. The other three can fail without taking the item with them.
The base step depends on the stat. Most families run +1, +2, +3, +4. The magic attack and magic defence families run +2, +4, +6, +8. The six HP and MP families run +10, +15, +20, +25. That last ladder matters, as the next section shows.
| Ladder | Example families | Lesser | Intermediate | Greater | Chaos |
|---|
| Standard | Dagger Attack, Cape STR, Shoes Jump | +1 | +2 | +3 | +4 |
| Magic | Wand Magic Attack, Cape Magic Def. | +2 | +4 | +6 | +8 |
| HP and MP | Hat HP, Topwear MP | +10 | +15 | +20 | +25 |
The wiki's equipment table lists 52 families on these three ladders. Accuracy, avoidability, critical rate, critical damage, DEX, INT, LUK, STR, jump, speed and weapon attack all sit on the standard ladder. Magic attack (gloves, staff, wand) and cape magic defence sit on the magic ladder. Hat, topwear and bottomwear HP and MP make up the six families on the HP and MP ladder.
A bigger number on the tooltip is not a bigger result. Multiply the grant by the success rate and you get the expected gain per scroll, which is the figure to compare. Here it is for the standard ladder and the HP and MP ladder, per mapleclassic.wiki.
| Tier | Success | Standard grant | Expected gain per scroll | HP/MP grant | Expected gain per scroll |
|---|
| Lesser | 100% | +1 | +1.00 | +10 | +10.00 |
| Intermediate | 60% | +2 | +1.20 | +15 | +9.00 |
| Greater | 10% | +3 | +0.30 | +20 | +2.00 |
| Chaos | 10% | +4 | +0.40 | +25 | +2.50 |
Read the standard column first. Intermediate returns +1.20 per scroll against +1.00 for a guaranteed Lesser, a fifth more, and it is the only tier that beats Lesser. Per mapleclassic.wiki, that makes Intermediate the most efficient scroll for 46 of the 52 families, measured per scroll used.
Greater is the trap. At 10% success and +3 on a standard family, it returns +0.30 per scroll, less than a third of a Lesser's +1.00. The larger number on the tooltip does not come close to paying for a 10% success rate. Chaos at +0.40 per scroll is only slightly better, and it adds destruction risk.
Now the HP and MP column. The six HP and MP families (hat, topwear and bottomwear, for both HP and MP) invert the answer. Lesser gives +10.00 per scroll and Intermediate gives +9.00, because 15 is not double 10. At level 25 on a hat HP scroll, the guaranteed scroll wins on expected gain. Those six families are exactly the gap between 46 and 52.
Slots are the scarce resource
Every piece of equipment carries a limited number of upgrade slots. Per NiaMeowDB, a listing such as Upgrades Available: 7 means seven scroll attempts remain before the item is full. The wiki data groups equipment by slot count as follows.
| Upgrade slots | Equipment with that many |
|---|
| 5 | 310 |
| 7 | 798 |
| 10 | 95 |
Seven slots is the most common case in this table, with 798 pieces. Ten slots is rare, with 95 pieces, so a ten-slot item is worth more care than a seven-slot one. The wiki data we have does not state what happens to a slot after a failed Lesser, Intermediate or Greater scroll. NiaMeowDB treats slots as a count of attempts, and we follow that reading here. Check on one cheap item before you scroll anything you care about.
That reading is why the tier choice is really a choice about slots. A slot filled with a +1 Lesser is a slot you cannot use for a +2 Intermediate later. Per NiaMeowDB, a seven-slot item scrolled with Intermediate expects 7 × 60% = 4.2 successes, which at +2 each is 4.2 × 2 = +8.4 on a standard family. That is an average across many identical items. Any single item can land well below or above it.
NiaMeowDB also gives the chance of a perfect run. Seven of seven Intermediate successes is 0.60 to the seventh power, 2.799%, or about 1 in 36 attempts. Five of five is 7.776%. Compare seven Greater scrolls at 10%: 7 × 0.10 = 0.7 expected successes, so the most likely result is none at all, and seven of seven is 0.00001%, 1 in 10,000,000. A perfect Greater item is a different kind of object from a well-scrolled ordinary one.
What a failure costs, and why Chaos compounds
On Lesser, Intermediate and Greater, a failure costs the scroll and, on NiaMeowDB's reading, the slot. The item itself survives with the stats it already had. On Chaos, a failure can cost the whole item.
Per mapleclassic.wiki, a Chaos scroll succeeds one time in ten, and half of the nine failures destroy the equipment. That is a 45% chance of losing the item on every attempt. It compounds across slots, as this survival table shows.
| Chaos scrolls used | Chance the equipment survives |
|---|
| 1 | 55.0% |
| 3 | 16.6% |
| 5 | 5.0% |
| 7 | 1.5% |
| 9 | 0.5% |
Fill a seven-slot item with Chaos scrolls and it survives at 1.5%. That is close to certain loss before the last slot is used. Even three attempts leave you at 16.6%.
One caveat on the data. The destroy figure is stored as a plain 50 against the Chaos scrolls. We read it the usual way, as the chance of destruction given a failure, and the 45% comes from that. If it were instead a flat 50% on every use, the survival figures above would be worse, not better. The files do not settle which reading is right.
The wiki also grades scrolled items on a common scale, which shows why Chaos on different stats is not comparable by raw numbers. A Chaos scroll grants +4 weapon attack but +25 MP. Five successful Chaos attack scrolls give +20 weapon attack, the most that slot can hold. Five successful Chaos MP scrolls on a five-slot hat give +125 MP and land in the same top band. The wiki divides by the grant for that reason.
Cost per expected stat
Expected gain per scroll is not the same as expected gain per meso. Per NiaMeowDB, a Lesser costs 10,000 mesos and an Intermediate costs 50,000 mesos, for a normal +1/+2 family. Those prices are NiaMeowDB's, not the wiki's, and they will move with the Free Market.
| Tier | Price (per NiaMeowDB) | Expected gain per scroll | Mesos per expected stat |
|---|
| Lesser | 10,000 mesos | 1.00 | 10,000 |
| Intermediate | 50,000 mesos | 1.20 | 41,667 |
On those prices, Lesser is far cheaper per stat point. Intermediate is efficient per slot, not per meso. If mesos are tight, as they usually are in the early levels, Lesser is the budget choice. If you are filling a slot on gear you will keep, Intermediate squeezes more from the same slot. Our scroll crafting guide covers making scrolls yourself, if buying them costs more than you want to pay.
Use this sequence at level 25 on a solo, low-budget character. It is a starting framework, not a rule for every item.
- Check the slot count. Look at the upgrades available on the item. A five-slot item gives you the fewest attempts, and a ten-slot item is the one to protect.
- Read the tooltip, not the icon. The sprite shows only the tier. Confirm the equipment type and stat match your class.
- Pick the stat that helps your build. Weapon attack on a weapon or on gloves is the obvious damage choice. NiaMeowDB puts swords, axes, blunt weapons, spears, polearms, bows, crossbows, daggers and claws in its high-priority damage group.
- Choose the tier by the table above. On a standard family, use Lesser if mesos are the limit and Intermediate if slots are. On the six HP and MP families, use Lesser.
- Skip Greater. At +0.30 expected per scroll on a standard family, it is the weakest return in the list.
- Keep Chaos off anything you cannot replace. A 45% chance of destruction per attempt is acceptable only on an item you are willing to lose.
- Scroll gear you will keep. NiaMeowDB advises against pouring slots into disposable armor you will outgrow soon.
Per NiaMeowDB, you can also pick up Intermediate earring scrolls from the Citizenship quest reward chain in Henesys, where the grade-4 quests list a random stat scroll as a reward. That is a source to watch, but the reward rates are not listed in our data.
What the data does not tell us
- Drop rates. We have no recorded drop rates for scrolls from monsters, so we cannot give an expected scroll supply per hour of grinding.
- Market prices. The 10,000 and 50,000 meso figures come from NiaMeowDB and may differ from what the Free Market charges. The wiki data here lists no scroll prices.
- Failure and slots. The wiki figures do not state whether a failed non-Chaos scroll uses a slot. We rely on NiaMeowDB's reading.
- The Chaos destroy rule. The stored value of 50 can be read two ways, and only one gives the 45% figure.
When scroll data is published with drop rates, we will revisit the per hour comparison of buying, crafting and farming scrolls.
Last verified 2026-10-19 against mapleclassic.wiki data synced 2026-10-19 and Nexon's Classic World FAQ.
Frequently asked
- What are the scroll success rates in MapleStory Classic World?
- Per mapleclassic.wiki, Lesser scrolls succeed 100% of the time, Intermediate 60%, Greater 10% and Chaos 10%. Each step up grants more of the stat and succeeds less often.
- Which scroll tier is most efficient?
- Intermediate is the most efficient scroll for 46 of the 52 families, returning +1.20 per scroll against +1.00 for a Lesser on a standard family. The six HP and MP families are the exception, where Lesser returns +10.00 and Intermediate +9.00.
- Can a scroll destroy my equipment?
- Only Chaos scrolls can. A Chaos scroll succeeds one time in ten and half of the failures destroy the item, which is a 45% chance of losing it on each attempt.
- How many scrolls are there and do I need to learn them all?
- The game ships 208 scrolls, but they are 52 families (one equipment type and one stat each) in the same four tiers. Learn the tier ladder once and it applies to every family.
- How many upgrade slots does equipment have?
- The wiki data lists equipment with 5, 7 or 10 slots. Seven slots is the most common, with 798 pieces, against 310 with five slots and 95 with ten.
- Should I use Greater scrolls?
- At level 25 on a solo, low-budget character, probably not. Greater returns +0.30 per scroll on a standard family, less than a third of the +1.00 from a guaranteed Lesser.
