MapleStory Classic World opens with five starting choices instead of a modern-sized roster: Beginner plus the four first-job paths — Warrior, Magician, Bowman and Thief. Founder's Access began on October 6, 2026 and Grand Launch arrives on October 21, 2026, and the build those players receive stops well short of the modern job tree. The choice you make at level 10 shapes the entire launch-era experience.
The five starting choices
Community-compiled launch data lists Beginner, Warrior, Magician, Bowman and Thief. Beginner is not a fifth combat class — it is the pre-advancement state every character begins in, with no job skills of its own. The other four are the first-job paths, and they are the only real decision at the start.
That is the complete roster: no hidden fifth job and no second starting island.
Comparing the four paths at a glance
| Path | Launch job | Community-compiled advancement options | Launch-era feel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner | Beginner (pre-advancement) | Any of the four first jobs at level 10 | No skills yet; keeps every path open |
| Warrior | Warrior → Fighter | Hero (Fighter at launch), Dark Knight (Spearman at launch), Paladin (Page at launch) | Front-line melee, high HP, slower heavy hits |
| Magician | Magician → Wizard | Bishop (Cleric), Arch Mage (Fire/Poison) (Wizard F/P), Arch Mage (Ice/Lightning) (Wizard I/L) | Ranged magic, mana-hungry, potion-dependent |
| Bowman | Bowman → Hunter or Crossbowman | Marksman (Crossbowman), Ranger (Hunter) | Ranged physical, thin HP pool, positioning matters |
| Thief | Thief → Assassin or Bandit | Night Lord (Assassin), Shadower (Bandit) | Fast small hits, low HP, hit-and-run rhythm |
The right-hand column describes how the community talks about these classes — a description, not a measurement, and nothing in the launch build carries an official ranking.
What each path plays like at launch
Warrior
The Warrior is the physical front line: a larger health pool, heavier single hits and a shorter reach than a magician or bowman. It is the most forgiving path for learning the launch build, because a positioning mistake costs health rather than the whole fight.
Magician
The Magician fights at range with spells that burn mana, so its binding constraint early on is potion sustain rather than attack speed. It also splits most visibly later, with Fire/Poison and Ice/Lightning branches under the same first job.
Bowman
The Bowman deals physical damage from a distance and has the least room for being surrounded, which rewards reading spawns ahead of time. Bow and crossbow families share one first job at launch; the split comes later.
Thief
The Thief is fast and fragile: a stream of smaller hits, a low health pool and a hit-and-run rhythm. Community-compiled notes call it the class that punishes careless positioning hardest.
First job advancement at level 10
Community-compiled data places the first job advancement at level 10 for every path. Before that point you are a Beginner: you gain levels and ability points, but you hold no job skills. The advancement commits the character to one path, and nothing in the launch build undoes that choice.
The first ten levels are consequential even though they are short: level 10 arrives on Maple Island, the shared starting area, so every character follows the same opening route. The Leveling Guide walks it in order.
The community-compiled advancement tree
Each first-job path is the trunk of a longer tree. Taking the community-compiled progression data at face value, the launch build reads like this:
- Warrior leads to Hero, Dark Knight and Paladin, with Fighter, Spearman and Page as the launch-era names.
- Magician leads to Bishop, Arch Mage (Fire/Poison) and Arch Mage (Ice/Lightning), with Cleric, Wizard (Fire/Poison) and Wizard (Ice/Lightning) at launch.
- Bowman splits into Marksman, reached through Crossbowman, and Ranger, reached through Hunter.
- Thief splits into Night Lord, reached through Assassin, and Shadower, reached through Bandit.
The level cap at launch is 100, and the design intent is early MapleStory pacing: slower leveling, manual AP allocation, scroll-based gear and the original maps and difficulty. Classic World runs alongside live MapleStory rather than replacing it — see Classic vs Modern.
No official tier list exists at launch
Search for a Classic World class ranking and you will find plenty, but none come from Nexon. No official tier list exists for the launch build: no published balance sheet, no developer ranking of the four paths, no confirmed damage comparison.
What exists instead is community opinion, some careful and some guesswork. Community DPS comparisons for Classic World are unverified: they come from testing in an early build under rarely documented conditions, and they usually compare characters at different gear levels. This site does not publish those numbers, and you should be skeptical of any site that does without showing its method.
The practical advice is short. Pick the path whose launch-era playstyle you actually enjoy, because the launch build gives you a long stretch inside that playstyle before any deeper branch exists.
What to read next
- Leveling Guide — the community-compiled route from Maple Island to the level cap.
- Getting Started — launch windows, installation and account linking.
- Classic vs Modern — how the launch build differs from live MapleStory.
- Updates — what is in the launch client and what is still missing.
Sources
- MapleStory Classic World FAQ (Nexon) — launch windows, install paths and account-linking details.
- Founder's Access pre-launch sales (Nexon) — the official page for package details; this guide does not publish prices.
Class names, path descriptions and the advancement tree here are community-compiled, not drawn from an official Nexon page.