General

holy carp these HUGE blocks of texts

https://ashleyattacks.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/my-maplestory-guide-to-gearing-from-noob-to-pro-and-then-some/

Written by a fellow basiler

@muffinsinc: ill start the Grind to 150 with my greed pendant and begin collecting armors and stuff then, and then once i hit 150 ill start the starforcing/scrolling.

thank u for all the help!

@telvanni: No problem at all~ This games nuts now so a little bit of explaining can go a lot way.

Anyway~

Starforce isnt nx based at all actually, it's just a very handy system. When an item is fully scrolled (which I'd recommend using spell traces for that ordeal) that same bit of UI allows you to start delving into putting stars on your gear. It's basically like the enhancement system but you use mesos instead of scrolls and stuff doesn't start esploding until around 12 stars (which you shouldnt go for yet anyway).
In your inventory window there's a red hammer in the bottom right, click that and throw an equip into the new window that shows up and it's pretty straightforward from there. Try it out with some really low-level gear to get the hang of it, it shouldn't take long at all to figure out.

For gollux I think you can start the prequests for him at 150, at which point you'll be able to equip your RA gear so taking on easy gollux shouldnt be too difficult. I'd read some guides on how he works though because he's weird.

Easy magnus/normal ranmaru might take a really long time with your range, but they SHOULD be doable. I'd probably do those with a friend at your range, but you can just test them out by trying it solo and seeing how much damage you do. It can't hurt, and if it turns out you can solo them at your range then perfect! And soloing them shouldnt take long at all when you get your ra gear and link skills up and going. EDIT: Completely missed that part of your post. If you're server changing then don't worry about it yet. Or if you really want you can start working on them in the server you're moving too, but I don't know if I'd worry about it especially if you haven't picked a server for sure yet.

Getting to 150 should definitely be your priority for now. I wouldnt recommend spelltracing/starforcing your 140 gear and save up for your ra gear (it's going to take a lot of spell traces, but you can just buy those for cheap). Actually, what you can do if you want some good boots and cape you can start fusing the 140 ones you find together and hope for a good potential (keep in mind though that revealing 140 pot is like 400k each)... or you can extract them to make money. Your call. If thats not what you want to do then, just pick up some empress stuff for those slots. For gloves, during DIPQ you're eventually going to get a pair of dimension gloves, spell trace those and shoot for above 20att if you can (not a huge deal if you're a bit short of that). Alternatively you can go for empress gloves if you opt to use the 3 set effect for that instead of pensalir. Pensalir has the advantage for easy fusing for decent potential whereas empress is just better in terms of raw stats and set effect. I would probably go for fusing pensalir gear myself, but that's up to you. You can't really go wrong with either.

150 is when things get a bit more fun, so try and shoot for that right now. That's when things will start to really come together.

@muffinsinc: thank you for all the help man! holy crap :S

to be honest, the only part i dont understand about that is the starforcing. i have no idea how the starforce system works or how to begin delving into that. isnt it one of those nx things?

ill begin the alchemy stuff right away, and i have a ton of unspent reward points from leveling a ton of characters recently! the bossing part seems not too difficult, i can solo zakum and easy HT as of now, and although i havent tried hilla / gollux ill go ahead and begin trying those. are easy magnus/ranmaru good options too?

for link skills, all i have currently is a phantom, but i dont wanna work on those right now since im moving my xenon to either broni or windia once the server changes are available lol

As someone whos always had the main-changing syndrome I totally understand your struggle so let me offer what little advice I can.

Starforce all of you gear that you can (well, at least your ra). Even if the gear you end up with is mediocre its not going to be your endgame stuff anyway, and even if all of your gear is like 6 stars or so you will see a dramatic increase in damage just from that especially since xenons use most of the stats that enhancement/starforce gives.

The next step for you should be professions, mostly alchemy in particular for fusing and extracting. Level up alchemy by fusing the lowest level equipment you can find (henesys is typically where I get the stuff to level mine early on) and it get it to the level where you can fuse stuff at around the level of boss accessories that drop. The boss accessories (unless its like a badge or shoulder) don't sell for too much clean, but with 3% stat start to sell for around 10mill a pop (in khroa) or you can use them yourself. Whenever you get crappy-potential or no-potential fuse them together until you get something you can use or sell. This will increase your range by a decent amount. Zakum and Easy Horntail (and potentially normal HT when you get faf gear) will get you what you need to start fusing and getting yourself a decent set effect, some charm, and %stat.

Next up is instead of dropping or NPC'ing gear you find off the ground, start extracting that higher leveled gear to get superior item crystals. Selling them doesn't yield an incredible amount of money (about 200-300k each in khroa) but its a decent way to make even basic training a profitable venture and that money will add up into gear you can buy to increase your range.

But all this stuff to sell requires a store, which from daily bossing you should be able to eventually save up for a rewards store, shove all your stuff into that when you can to start making some money (you can also extend its duration to 2 days if you reopen it before it expires (this only really works well if it's near expiring)). Or you can get a permit for 1.8k nx normally but its not necessary. For reward point farming I typically use a party of people for easily teleportation but for soloing here's a rundown of bosses you should fight or should eventually fight daily.
Right now: Normal zakum > Normal Hilla > Easy/Normal Ht > Easy Gollux > Root Abyss (obviously not a solo but its great for reward points)
Later on: Chaos Zakum > Normal Hilla > Ranmaru > Normal HT > RA > Gollux > Easy Mag (with eventually throwing chaos or madman bosses into the mix).
If you can find a guild willing to do that 2nd rotation every day with you in like a half hour you should be getting like 400+ reward points a day, and even more if you start doing stuff like PB, gollux and madman). With a party it doesn't even take that long because of boss teleport and if you have people who aren't scumbags in the party splitting up loot isnt difficult.

Next up is getting a decent set for your codex which is very easy. Just complete the monster card set for zakum and you get yourself an easy 2% attack (and there are other good ones like Leafre, silent crusade and a few others that are worth looking into as well). Getting that done will take like maybe 10 minutes and will be an okay increase.

Link skills link skills link skills link skills
You don't necessarily need to start working on them now but you definitely will benefit a great amount by doing so. These improve your mains damage and overall utility by a great deal and while they're tedious to get they're definitely not something you want to pass on when wanting to get a higher range and get further into the game.

As for leveling (which will get you to 150 for faf gear) dipq is your best bet for a long time. Not only is it pretty great exp for how short it is, it's also a great place to get tons of 140 gear to extract for superiors and other event items. I would say MP3 is be a decent option for you at your level as well. The spawn is great and it should take you to 150 especially if you mix in daily bossing + dipq. Starforce leafre like skeles and wyverns is another great option, but it requires some serious damage output. Also doing all of those bosses listed earlier every day will yield an absurd amount of exp even while in a party, so it's a good way to keep motivation up. (also for soloing, HT gives a butt-tonne of exp (at least normal does, easy should give a decent chunk though)).

At this point the %equips set effects and link skills you get will really start to show an increase in your range money shouldnt be too much of an issue either (especially if you keep grinding normally for elite monsters).

TL;DR: Daily bossing, starforce and alchemy are your friends and you should embrace them and love them.