f13.net

I hate making new threads, and many of you might think this is useless anyway.  However I figured it might help out a few folks.  This is a small leveling guide that's not very detailed or complete, but it'll give you a quick run down and solve the "where should I goes".  Anyway add or critique away.

--

A few folks have been asking about a leveling guide, and I've given the same speech a few times, so I'm gonna write something down.  Anyone else that wants to add something or improve it, post your thoughts and I'll edit them. 

Principle Strategies
[list=1]

• Gather up every available quest in the zone you're working in at the time.  There will be some management of this in the 20-40 range as you are working from three different areas in the Valley, the Province and the Wildlands.
• When all quests are gathered, plot out the most time economic route to hit every quest point on your map.
• Kill every mob on your way.  Leveling is most effective (solo) by grinding and questing.
• Do not go out of your way to do grey quests.  You may think that they are easy and you can do them quickly but this is not true.  Grey quests are giving you grey mobs to kill.  In the 20-40 range 10-20 even con mobs are the equivalent to one quest turnin.  Only do grey quests when they are in conjuction with your normal quest circuit.
• Stock up on potions and foodstuffs.  Don't worry about selling drops.  They're all cheap.  Loot the coin and move on.

Pro-tip!
When you leave Tortage, you will find a lot of quests in your home city.  Many of these are gopher quests that lead you to the first experience area.

Stygian: Khemi -> Khopesh Province
Aquilonian: Old Tarantia -> Wild Lands
Cimmerian: Conarch's Village -> Conall's Valley

All these quests in each starting city will guide you to other cities just to "show you around".  Here's the reward other than a few easy to turn in quests; You will recieve quests to lead you to the three different resource gathering maps where you pick up trade skills, gathering skills, and buy plots for guild cities.  (ProTip#2:  Each NPC that offers you to go to each of these zones will offer you an option for your guild city.  You can access your guild city from any of these NPCs so it acts as shortcut in some cases.)  These three different zones have three quests each associated with them, and they will always be grey.  However in your 20's or early 30's they will give you around 10,000 experience points just for visiting each place.  This is a pretty good chunk of experience at that level for doing almost nothing.

These three zones are:
Purple Lotus Swamp
Laceish Plains
Poiltain

Leveling Areas

Levels: 20-40
You have the most freedom in this level range.  You have three zones to work from.  Conall's Valley, Khopshef's Province and Wildlands.  What I did was work my way through the Province, then the Valley then back to the Province (finish zone) then finish the Valley then clean up the Wildlands.  I would like to add that I finished a few quests in Zelata to finish making level 40 (Thanks to Schild for pointing this out).  You can alternate this anyway you want to as long as you follow the principles.  These three zones have an abundant of quests to get you to 40 as fast as possible. 

Level 40 Dungeon:  Sanctum of the Burning Souls. 
Some good gear, I out leveled it pretty quickly.  Suggested level, 38-40

Levels: 40-50
You have two choices here.  The Nobles District off of Old Tarantia and the Fields of the Dead at the end of Conall's Valley.  Follow the guiding principles and you should be ok.

Levels: 50-60
This is where things get tough and grinding comes into play.  There are plans on introducing more quests to this range (hopefully soon) to help people out and turn off the grinding.  From levels 50-54 you can get by with some quests from Eiglophian Mountains then grinding on the bandits east of the southern town.  Then you can pick up some more quests and get to 56 or so without grinding.  From 56-58 you can grind endlessly in the Cannibal Caves without fear of being pked or compete with others since it's a personal instance.

From 58-60 you should move up to Thunder River where, upon entering the, go west and run the circuit killing boars.  Go around and around and around etc killing them endlessly.  This is where the level 60 Destiny quest is.  Depending on kill speed you should really wait too long for respawns.

Levels: 60-70
Thunder River
Atzel's Approach


This range was a bitch. You're going to end up going back and forth doing quests in each area. I think it's a waste of time. If I had to do it again here's what I would do. Grind out 60-64 on the Crawling lizard guys up at the top of the cliffs in Atzel's Approach. Then go back and do all the quests you can in both areas. Then from 65-67ish, try to find a "wagon grind group" and kill Atzel guys. The wagon grind group is basically this. There is a camp site at the base of one of the encampments with a fire and a wagon. The wagon is destroyable. If you destroy the wagon all the mobs from the top and bottom camps come swarming for you. This is a great grind spot if you can maintain it on a PVP server and you have a TOS or Demo. I did all of 66-67 this way.

Upon reach 67 you can start grinding Mammoths. The Mammoths range from 69-72 so make sure you're ok with killing level 72 mobs. Stay here for as long as possible. I grinding 68, 69 and 70 here.

Then once you level go back a bit north and turn east past that quest NPC to kill apes (the NPC will give you a quest for that) then on the other side of the apes you can see some undead to kill once you level off of the apes.

Apparently there is a ress point up there but it's hidden at 925, 141.

Addendum: If you're Cimmeran take the first train to Old Tarantia or Khemi. Do those starter quests. They're faster, better written, and Connell's Valley is a design nightmare.

I should probably note that I played as a stygian and I did Province -> Valley -> Province -> Valley -> Wildlands

Leveled 3 characters to 40 and 2 more to 30. Khopesh to Wildlands back to Khopesh and then the Zelata/Sanctum stuff is quite honestly not only the most efficient, but the most entertaining as well.

You know, I totally forgot Zelata.  I only did Zelata for 3-4 quests from the Wildlands I got.  So if you read Wildlands read that as Wildland -> Zelata (real quick like).

They did a great job with 1-40.  Tortage is good.  20-40 has an abundance of quests.  You really hit a quest brick wall though as soon as you hit 55 and you don't have as many to keep you happily plugging along.  Hopefully they fix this.  I might make an alt if they do.

Isn't wildlands = zelata?  Wildlands of Zelata, right?  I are confused.

Zelata is an NPC with one of the most kickass set of quests and reward denominations in the 1-40 game.

She's just west of the center all the way in the south of Wildlands (yes, of Zelata, as in it's named after her).

Playing a Tempest of Set and wanting to grind some money to build guild structures, as 55 I went to the Purple Lotus Swamp.  The Boars and Sabertooth Tigers are not Prey.  The Boars drop coin as well.  I essentially ground out a level every 3 hours there, and went off to complete quests for a level or so before returning.  I've never been much of a fan of grinding, but I'm 71 now and already managed to sink 17 gold to build all the initial buildings in the city (last 4 built Thursday after the patch.)

No one should listen to a TOS on how to level.

Cannibal cave I think.

I was pretty surprised how little there is in Thundering river, the zone really only has a mercenary side and a pict side to it.  Most of the quests are just kill quests.

What I would like to know from anybody in their seventies is if we get another Cannibal cave at some point in which we can peacefully grind without other people tearing the place up from time to time.  I would also like to know if I should be doing something clever with the group quests off of lacheish/purple lotus/potain.  I know the side adventure instances scale to level but do you keep getting quests or should I just never complete the quests I have so that I can keep going back once it resets?

From 56-60 I did some of the Thunder River Quests, and did some grinding (all of 59) on the mercenaries. Good fights, and enough drops that I was decently geared when I hit 60.

Each Merc drops from 8-25c, and the 60+ items sell for 8-16c each. Add in fast respawns, and lots of single pullable mobs, and it makes it a nice place to go as soon as you can kill a 60.

That's it.  Thanks, fixed above.

I'm grinding 51-55 in the Cannibal Cave. After that it's too inefficient.

Im 60 and i havent had to grind anywhere yet.  I have a few quests for thunder river now, i assume ill need to grind eventually since i skipped all of the public noble district quests and toirbarachs tomb.

Probably right, we are horribly overpowered.  That being said, a lot of people seem to miss that some mobs in the resource zones stop being prey, and they respawn very fast.  Good to know if you want some mindless grind, and you can do it relatively free off asshats in your guild instance.

Toirdealbach's Tomb is somewhat broken. Level 50 quests in a levle 58-60 instance. Less broken after Jun12 patch, but still broken.
The Noble district was quite fun.

Also, 3 of us went to Thunder River for the mercs, with a 60 and 2 app'd chars everyone got decent xp.

I never did the tomb.  But I have 9 quests right now, and more to come I believe for the Prision Camp in Thunder River at level 66.

Awesome grinding spot for 67-70 are the Mammoths in Atzel's Approach.  Mobs are all non-aggressive (minus a few cats running around) ranging from levels 69-72.  These mammoths have no armor so you hit pretty hard.  I got two levels in this spot in the time I watched two movies.

I'll be grinding here until 72 most likely.

Yes the mammoths are good, then once you level go back a bit north and turn east past that quest NPC to kill apes (the NPC will give you a quest for that) then on the other side of the apes you can see some undead to kill once you level off of the apes.  I ground out seven or eight levels over the weekend to try and beat a PoM nerf I was worried might hit today.

Just be careful with the mobs that are five levels above you because their damage goes way up.  Great xp if you can kill them though.

I didn't find a rezz pad there but apparently there is one hidden at 925, 141.

Nice.  Updated original post with this info.

Just a note if you go to Thunder River pre level 60.  Pack your own food and drink, the lowest level food on the vendor (and so far from drops) is level 60.

There is a new change with the Noble District VIlla quests.  Great spot to do each day for levels.  They didn't do this when I played through those levels, but people in my guild are telling me they're awesome.  They scale with level.

About half a level at 67 for them, and they reset every six hours, AND the mobs seem to have a higher chance of dropping level appropiate blues.

I got about half a level per 2 villas last night at level 47, and a blue I sold on the auction house (shhh, don't tell anyone it works) for 10s.  Seems like every night I've done the Villas I've gotten a blue, now that you mention it.

Which villa in particular, because that first one with the demons only seem to drop demon 'part'. I got one chest off one mini boss. Also, those villas suck for rangers. Too close quarters :)

Well actually the demon one is the "last" one in my book, since it was just recently activated.

I didn't get any blues last night, but the night before I got a blue in Villa Verde and the night before that I got a blue in the Villa for Gurges the Nimble (you need 350 climbing to finish that Villa, but you can still use it to grind every night if you want a private instance with a bunch of equal level mobs in it).  So basically in the humanoid Villas.

I don't know where you get the first Villa Verde quest, but after you get it you get the repeat quests from the bodyguard just outside.  The Gurges the Nimble quest comes from inside the Tavern.

And for the record, I make a lot more money doing the humanoid Villas than I do on the demon Villa.

Ohh and one last thing, last night the demon Villa, at level 48, rewarded me with 7000 xp.  The other two Villas were worth 14000 xp each.  So it looks like the demon villa didn't get the xp bump that the other villas got.  But it only became active in the last patch, which is the same patch that the other Villas got their xp bump, so I'm guessing it slipped through the cracks. :)

you only need climbing for the original quest, after that you just run around collecting chests.

I haven't seen any blues but I have gotten some cheese which is almost as good.