How to Make Mesos as a Thief in MapleStory Classic World

A Thief makes mesos the same way everyone does at first: kill dense maps, keep the etc drops that players need for crafting and quests, vendor the rest, and take the citizenship daily the game offers you. Assassin-track Thieves then lose a chunk of that to throwing stars; Bandits pay in HP and MP instead, but get Steal, which Nexon's own patch notes confirm triggers meso and item drops. The second half of this page is about keeping what you earn: recharging stars, Kerning City citizenship, and when crafting a claw actually saves anything.

Quick answer: Farm dense maps whose drops players want (Stirge Wings, Horny Mushroom Caps, Jr. Necki Skins, Evil Eye Tails) and sell those to players rather than to NPCs. Take the Kerning City Community Board daily: the game offers one per day from a pool of 18, usually worth 286 mesos (716 if it rolls one of the two that need Citizenship Grade 5+). Assassins: recharge Subis (about 150 for a full stack) instead of rebuying them (500). Crafting a claw saves about 1,000 mesos on Steel Titans and, best case, about 3,900 on Steel Igor, once you count ingot, leather and screw costs. Never buy mesos.

This is the Thief-specific angle. The general route is how to make mesos; class basics are on the Thief class page.

Assumptions: solo play, Lv. 10 to 30. Prices are NPC prices from the game data; player prices vary.

What to farm and sell

Etc drops are your steady income. Drop rates and meso drops aren't in the game data and haven't been measured on live servers, so this table can't promise mesos per hour; it shows what each map's main drop vendors for (game data) and who else needs it. The drop is matched to the monster by the item's name and description.

Map (your level)	Main mob	Etc drop	NPC sell price	Who buys it from players
L Forest I (10–15)	Ribbon Pig (21 spawns)	Pig's Ribbon	10	Tailors: 10 make one Processed Cloth. Mixed level: one Iron Hog (Lv. 28) spawns here, 18 levels above the Ribbon Pigs
Line 1 <Area 1> (15–20)	Bubbling (64)	Bubbling's Huge Bubble	15	Smiths: 30 per Metal Ceiling or Wall Light
Transfer Area (16–30)	Stirge (38)	Stirge Wing	20	Smiths: 25 per pair of Dark War Boots
Ant Tunnel IV or Ant Tunnel III (22–27)	Horny Mushroom (41 and 38)	Horny Mushroom Cap	22	Players doing Jane and the Mushroom (15 caps)
Dangerous Croko I (21–26)	Jr. Necki (27)	Jr. Necki Skin	21	Leatherworkers (10 per Processed Leather at Lv. 4) and JM From tha Streetz's weekly helper quest when the game rotates it in (10). Mixed level: 14 Ligators (Lv. 31) and 6 Crocos (Lv. 52) share the map with the Lv. 21 Jr. Neckis
The Cave of Evil Eye III or Ant Tunnel Park (25–30)	Evil Eye (38 and 31)	Evil Eye Tail	27	Players doing Cutthroat Manny's Request (30 tails)

Rule of thumb: an etc item worth 10 to 30 mesos to an NPC is pocket change one at a time, but a full stack of a crafting input often sells to players for far more. List stacks in the Free Market before you vendor them. Equipment drops usually vendor for much more than etc items, so pick those up too.

Throwing stars: the Assassin tax

Community Assassin guides list stars as the class's variable cost: they cost mesos, take several inventory stacks and must be recharged. Lucky Seven throws two stars per cast, and your damage is claw attack plus star attack, so a better star is a straight damage upgrade.

Star	Buy	Recharge per star	Full stack	Refill a full stack
Subi Throwing Stars	500 at any town grocer	0.3	500	150
Wolbi Throwing Stars	1,000 at Max, Kerning City	0.4	500	200

The rule that saves the most mesos: recharge, don't rebuy. A depleted stack is topped up at the NPC that sells it, priced per star, so refilling Subis costs about 150 against 500 for a new set. Carry several stacks so a refill trip doesn't cut your session short.

A community Thief guide adds that Tobis and Steelys aren't a realistic early purchase, and that a current claw and enough MP food should come before rare stars.

Kerning City citizenship pays Assassins back

Sign up with Roxy in Kerning City Civic Center from Lv. 12. Max sells Wolbis (+17 weapon attack) once you reach Helpful Stranger; community sources put that grade at character Lv. 22 (the grade thresholds aren't in the game data), and disagree on the contribution it takes: one says 3,500, another 2,000. Do the daily Community Board quest either way, but know what it is: the game offers one daily per day, picked from a pool of 18, and you don't choose which. The pool holds a one-time "First Greeting" and a repeatable "Asking After" quest for each of nine townsfolk. Most "Asking After" rolls pay 286 mesos and 8 Lemons from Citizenship Grade 1; the two for Chun Ji and the Dark Lord pay 716 mesos and 8 Blue Potions but need Kerning City Citizenship Grade 5+. Each First Greeting pays once (409 mesos, or 1,023 for Chun Ji and the Dark Lord). So budget about 286 mesos a day from the board, not a stack of dailies.

Bandits: Steal and the HP bill

Bandits don't buy stars, but a community Bandit guide warns they spend heavily on HP from face-tanking and on MP once Savage Blow costs 28 MP. Steal is your edge: Nexon's October 15 maintenance notes fixed Steal triggering meso and item drops even on a missed attack, which confirms that a landed Steal does trigger them. How many mesos it adds hasn't been measured, so we won't put a number on it.

Should you craft your claw?

Cutthroat Manny in Kerning City sells the claws. The crafting fee looks like half price, but the recipe also eats ingots, a lot of Processed Leather and Screws, and each of those has its own fee on top of the raw drops. Counting everything at full cost (Iron or Bronze Ingot 200 each = 5 ore at 20 + 100 fee; Processed Leather 150 = 5 Leather at 10 + 100 fee; Screw 40 each = 1 Bronze + 1 Iron Ingot per 10):

Claw	Manny's price	Recipe	Full cost to craft	Saving
Steel Titans	7,000	3 Iron Ingot, 10 Processed Leather, 9 Screw + 3,500 fee (Weaponcrafting 3)	5,960	about 1,040
Steel Igor	14,100	Bronze Igor (2 Bronze + 2 Iron Ingot, 20 Processed Leather, 12 Screw + 4,500 fee), then 2 Iron Ingot + 1,000 fee (Weaponcrafting 4)	10,180	about 3,900
Meba	16,500	1 Garnier, 3 Iron Ingot, 30 Processed Leather, 2 Processed Wood, 15 Screw + 5,500 fee (Weaponcrafting 5)	16,500 if you buy the Garnier from Manny (5,000); 14,000 if you reuse your own	none, or 2,500 if you'd otherwise vendor your Garnier

What you need first: Smithing (Silas Irons, Perion) for the ingots; Weaponcrafting (Mr. Thunder, Perion), whose starter only opens after Silas Irons' starter, for the Screws and the claw itself; Leatherworking (JM From tha Streetz, Kerning City) for the Processed Leather; and for Meba, Woodcrafting (Vicious, Henesys) for the Processed Wood. Crafting level is capped at a fifth of your character level, so Weaponcrafting Lv. 3 needs character Lv. 15 and Lv. 5 needs 25, and you have to level the profession from 1 to get there, which costs mesos of its own.

So for a single Steel Titans, crafting saves about 1,000 mesos and takes three professions (Smithing, Weaponcrafting and Leatherworking); Steel Igor is the best case at about 3,900. It's worth it if you were leveling those professions anyway. When you move on, a Garnier sells to NPCs for 2,500 and Steel Titans for 3,500. Full lists: Weaponcrafting guide, and for Thief gloves and boots the Leatherworking guide.

Quests worth routing

Quest	Lv	Mesos	Thief bonus
Jane and the Mushroom	20	658	Random Intermediate weapon attack scroll
Cutthroat Manny's Request	22	716	From Nella in Kerning City after Chris's Request; 50 Evil Eye kills + 30 Evil Eye Tails. Thieves get Blue Lappy Boots, which need Lv. 25 to wear
Arwen and the Glass Shoe	29	921	Repeatable; Fire Boars drop the shoe

What not to do

Don't vendor throwing stars, scrolls or crafting materials before checking what players pay; it's often far above NPC prices.
Don't trust "best meso map" claims. Meso drops haven't been measured on live servers.
Don't buy mesos. Trading opens 24 hours after a character on your account reaches Lv. 15.

Frequently asked questions

How much do throwing stars cost in MapleStory Classic?

Subis are 500 mesos at every town grocer. Wolbis are 1,000 at Max in Kerning City once your citizenship reaches Helpful Stranger (character Lv. 22 by community accounts).

Is it cheaper to recharge stars or buy new ones?

Recharge. A full stack of Subis costs about 150 mesos to refill at 0.3 per star, against 500 for a new set.

Do Bandits make more mesos than Assassins?

Nobody has measured it. Bandits skip star costs and Steal triggers meso drops, but they spend more on HP.

Should I craft my claw?

Only if you're leveling Smithing, Weaponcrafting and Leatherworking anyway. Counting ingots, leather and screws at what they cost to make, Steel Titans costs about 5,960 to craft against 7,000 from Cutthroat Manny, a saving of about 1,000. The best case is Steel Igor: about 10,180 to craft against 14,100, a saving of about 3,900.

What should a Thief farm for mesos?

Dense maps whose etc drops players need: Stirge Wings at Transfer Area, Horny Mushroom Caps in Ant Tunnel IV or III, Jr. Necki Skins at Dangerous Croko I, Evil Eye Tails in The Cave of Evil Eye III. Sell stacks to players before vendoring.

Which citizenship should a Thief pick?

Kerning City, for Max's Wolbi Throwing Stars at Helpful Stranger.

Sources: Nexon [1] [2] · Game data v1.0.0 · NiaMeowDB [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] · MapleClassic Wiki [1] [2] · MetaRoad [1]. Names and game content © Nexon, used for informational purposes. The explanations on this page are our own.