Seeking Hardcore Fastest Leveling Advice starting at 65.

tl;dr -- At 65 now, would like to get to 120 (or at least where population starts picking up for normal grouping). Not a stranger around forum or in game, but haven't played past 92 and House of Thule exp (aside from sight seeing).

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Sorta tl:dr, but not short enough!

Have a 3 box/3 merc group going, I am level 65, and want the fastest exp route I can find. Like the perfect harmony of most exp per kill and speed of kill. I've got plenty of leveling paths bookmarked already, and I know there is a ton of options. Just seeing if anybody else has some favorite hot tips or zones to spots to put along here.

I even considered doing the adventurer stones for my 3 boxes, and doing LDoN as far as I can go. (I think they've been updated to go to level 120? Haven't confirmed that, read it somewhere). But while I do love LDoN's and travel and learning curve as i get higher would be much less, I think I saw some people say the exp was "ok" and it may be too slow for me.

Thanks for any help. The longer, wordy version, includes my life story, and other ramble is below.


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Long wordy version

Hey guys. Vanished from game and forum this last time during the first week of June this year (other than a post nearly 2 weeks ago that was off topic). I was excited about the new servers, but then at the same time they released, real life got pretty busy. I did manage to make some toons on the servers, and was still hoping to find enough time to get to level 40/Vaniki or 50/Yelinak but it just didn't happen. Then on June 2nd, Diablo Immortal released, which I play on my pc not phone, and a huge group of about 80 people that I mobile game/guild with all went there, and well that ended my "This year I'm doing the TLPs!" dreams and desires.

So! Now months later, after doing that, playing and finishing about 6 1 player games, I then decided to install EQ2. I had so much fun the first 50 levels that I even re-subbed All-Access AND bought their latest expansion. Money isn't tight or anything, and often I re-sub EQ1 for a month or 2, or sometimes 3-6 accounts at a time, but I can't recall the last time it made sense to buy an expansion since I'm never caught up. Even joined a guild. Met a few people in the game and it was a happily ever after, until like 5 days and 10 or so levels later, I got so incredibly bored. -- Man I really wanted to like EQ2 this time, but it just didn't happen.

Teasing, but not satisfying the nostalgia, plus having membership going, I came and messed around with EQ1 for a little bit. While I (recently counted) have 18 characters spread across 14 accounts over level 80, I always fade out after 1-3 months, my 2 highest are both Level 92.

So I didn't expect EQ1 to grab me, but it has for now. I took a Ranger with a tank merc up to 63 before it slowed down and I was getting a little bored, and was getting closer to the point where I was going to have to start considering tanking myself, and getting a cleric merc, with slower kills. Tried a mage for the first time (man they are just as boring as I have thought them to be since 1999), and it was painful and boring all the way to level 54. They are strong, but man I don't see how you Mages do it.

But then! Then I made a 3 box, 3 Merc full group. Final go at it before I chill on EQ1 until next TLPs in 2023....

..and I'm having a lot of fun with this group! I want to see how far I can go.

My group is Druid (main and played) with Tank Merc, Bard Melody bot with Rogue Merc, and Enc Haste/Clarity other buffs bot. Will interrupt a CH or tash and slow if really needed, but no desire to do CC or anything. He also brings a rogue merc. So Dru/Brd/Enc with Tank/Rog/Rog mercs. I like to heal, but had already done Clr and Sham multiple times, so having fun with the druid.

Now my old habits were to always look at expansions, go through them in order, even killing many raid targets, or at least exploring every zone of an expansion, but as expected, it's a slow process, and explains why I haven't gotten past around 80 since 2014 when I was playing with a friend and we got pretty far in Thule expansion and I got to 92.

This time however, I really just want to level up fast. So I got 60 pretty quick, just did Paw for 61-65, and about to go google where I want to do 65-70. There is of course a ton of options. I'm hoping to avoid Torden, because even though it's a hotzone, I've spent countless hours in there. So, I'm trying to decide where to go next. I'm thinking 70-75 or 75-80 should be back to Dragonscale Hills farm. But will happily go somewhere better.

The last couple of times I boxed a group and got pretty far by my standards, I got to SoD expansion zones, and I think it became too much work, or went too slow. Last time I did this, I was running War/Enc/Sha with Rog/Rog/Rog or Rog/Rog/Cleric. Got to 80 and was doing pretty good, but ya stopped.

Hoping to get as far as I can this time, maybe catch up to people so I can find normal groups and if/when serious commit to a guild. But that's much later.

Anybody who finds time, please just post leveling path or link you recommend. My google-fu is great, and I've read plenty daybreak forum posts, reddit posts, and am familiar with Almar's guides. Just looking for any other replies, maybe something great will click for me. There is so many options.

If you read all this, thank you!

At 65 the LDON's are good but not as good as you want - but it takes 5 min to get your adventure stone if you wanted to go that route and it does come in handy when you need to use the Magus's to get somewhere. Once you have the stone, the magus in the lobby will offer you all the LDON zones instead of just 2.

A good option right now and always is do the the Teek "kill 5" daily hot zone. Get 3 levels near your characters and do all 3 each day. They have bonus exp and are very easy. The hard part is getting to some of them. These are not the HA from the other Teek. You have to get 2 or 3 at one time or it will lock you out from getting more than 1 until the next day

DSH _ Dragnoscale Hills. Might be a little low but Do the "Farm" super good exp but make sure you get all the collect quests, rinse repeat till your sick of it. Used to be so populated you could not get a spot - but for the last 3 or 4 years it has been open every time I take my alts there

Others will say PoFire C1 are level 65 and the ones in C2 are level 68 and are really good with gem drops also. I personally do not like that expansion so I go with the newer stuff

At 85 start doing the Overseer and collecting the exp. It will be very low like .065% until you get up into the higher levels. But its free exp while your doing other things.

Also around 90 or a little higher, I will concentrate on doing collection ach. You really don't get that much exp at lower levels so the higher you do those the better the exp is.

I know there are many players who swear they can get to 120 in a week so now is the time for them to speak up............................

Thanks. I'll see if it's not too early for me to go to DSH at 65.

Familiar with PoF but I never fell in love with it, perhaps I should take another look since it's an "older exp" with lower mob hit points.

I have done a few Teek's, I did Riwii for 55-60, that was good and fast. Trying to avoid Torden, afraid it will lull me to sleep/boredom.

I may also go try an LDoN just to see if the fun makes up for not being "fast enough". I don't know, I have these great memories of doing LDoN's and perhaps I just need to do 1 or 2 and get it out of my system.

Thanks Catspaws, and noted on the Overseer and Achievements. On Overseer, I watched as it was first announced here, but never got high enough for it. -- Over on EQ2 though, you have it right away, like level 1, or maybe like level 20 or something. So if it's like that, then too easy.

Something change or break on Velocity number? Selos or no Selos, or any speed buff, my Velocity is frozen at 45. In PoK when i first decided to check it, I could feel the speed difference happening in game, but still the number never changed. I thought maybe it was some weird PoK thing, but now I'm in DSH. What's up there?

Are you saying the velocity is always 45 on the stats page of your inventory window even when you switch between walking and running? The only reason I can think for that happening is if you're using a custom UI.

Yes, my velocity number hasn't changed in 24 hours regardless of which box, which zone, and which spell. But i see the speed difference, and the song/spell is working just fine.

Edit: Even when standing still. -- If nobody posts an answer, I'll take a phone pic tomorrow when I get up. --- and no, no custom UI, i just reinstalled EQ a couple weeks ago.

Edit2: Oh, and ya, tried toggling walk/run.

I only got to play 30 minutes today, wasted all my time updating spell bars, spell sets, and reading up on buffs, and bard songs.


But! I wasn't planning to go to DSH until 70, but it is absolutely perfect at 65.

Perfect as in:

1) Tank merc handled 4 bugs (all red to 65) and health only went down to 85%.
2) Pulled Bloodbeak and Strawshanks that luckily popped thanks to the rare monster bonus, they took him down to about 65%. (Separate single pulls)
3) and right when i was camping, Dungore poppped up on my druids track. So Dungore and 3 regular bugs took Merc tank down to about 60% before I started cashing Druid CH, the lowest they ever got him to was 50%.
4) Even with 6 bard songs going, and not stopping melody between pulls, the bard didn't catch agro. The only time my druid/main (and puller so no bot/window switching) got hit was if i pulled 3 bugs. The 3rd would hit me once before the merc got agro off me.
5) Also, they were killing so fast, that the mobs were dying before a second tick of a druid dot. That's fast! Even if i pulled with the dot, only 2 ticks would get off before it was dead.


Amazing Stuff. Super Fun, Super happy. I will see how far I can get this tank merc to go.... when he falls off is when things are going to get dicey. I'll either have to add a Cleric merc and drop a rogue merc (so slower pulls) or I'll have to consider rolling a tank or something.

I hope DSH can take me to 75 quickly, but I may leave at 70 if it's slow. Will be back (to this post) soon.

Just a quick note: If using collections for AA, this is correct, but I'd wait until 110, when auto-grant AAs are no longer available.

If using collections for regular (leveling) XP, this rule still holds true, except for RoF, CotF and TBM collections. All other collections give 2% to the next level, so better to use them when getting to the next level really takes a lot (111+). However, RoF, CotF, and TBM collection sets give a fixed numerical amount of leveling XP, so those should be done sooner, not later. For characters below level ~85, they give more than 2% to the next level. For very high level chars, the XP gain is miniscule (0.03% at level 120. Note, that's NOT 3%, it's 3 hundredths of 1%!)

Noted.

DSH or whatever you prefer

If I was you, I would do DSH or whatever to 75, then rinse and repeat the three Gribbles in Dead Hills and Marlas in ETWK until 105. Skip every other gear set with the currency. For flavor, at around 80 go to Zeka and do that until 92 or 93. At 105, do TBM for remnants to buy type 5s (or buy them from a nice person), then head to FM and stay there until 112 with Gnome Memorial Mountain for flavor and non-vis slots. At that point, do progression in ToV which will get you past 115, then CoV, and ToL should see you to 120.

For gear, you should come out of the Gribbles / Marlas madness with T2 CoTF which is good enough for TBM. You need about 25k remnants per character to get a full set of vendor gear in TBM. In FM, you be able to get a full set of Cohort if the range is good to you. No matter though, because at 106 you should try to get someone to make you a full set of conflagrant gear. Go to GMM for nonvis slots. At 110 you have Snowbound and then it is pretty much off to the races then.

You asked about getting to 120 ASAP to join the masses. Nothing else you posted matters really.

You don't need to get to 120. You need to get to 115. That will be sufficient until the next expansion launches.

Upgrade to a L100 heroic.

There is 150% XP in about 2 weeks, so I have been told.

Do overseer, save the highest % ones in the quest reward window to claim once the bonus XP starts. These are usually research or colored ones.

Start but do not complete ToV progression. Get all of the zones partisans almost done. Leave 1 partisan from each zone incomplete where you only need to do a turn in or a hail. Once bonus XP starts, finish these.

Collect collections, but do not claim the 8th item. Claim only 7, leave the 8th in your bag. These give a flat 2% XP reward so DO NOT claim the last one when bonus XP starts. Claim it when bonus XP is about to end and you are at your highest level.

Get TA to ToV missions. CoV missions do not give XP. You can probably pre-arrange these. Same with ToL missions after the ToV missions.

Once the above is done, less collections complete, get as far into ToL partisan as you can, then before bonus ends, claim collections.

If there is no bonus, do the above, but you don't have to wait, except for collections, which should wait even longer.

If not getting a 100 heroic (or even if you do), DS PL until 85/90, Headshot group to 105-110. Then the above.

If none of the above works for you, use the ACH window to work through partisan, merc and champion while you grind.

First I heard of most of this. Thank you. I'll be referring back to it.

For sure. I was just all EQ pumped up when i wrote that. I really try to avoid making threads since I'm too out of touch to post something relevant, but finally I was like "Ok, lets not get stuck at 70-80 this time by going slow and losing momentum, lets ask the pros what I should be doing." I'm anti-social in game for now so not guild-searching, until I get to a point where I'm not a burden on a high level or asking mega noob questions.

115 you say? Ok. Is there much for groups (whether needing to join a guild to find them, or if PUGs still exist?) before level 115? I really don't know if everybody is 115-120 these days that are playing on any kind of consistent basis, or if there are still many 100-110. Of course, to state the obvious, right after I write that, we both know there is about to be an influx of 100's, or perhaps there already is now I suppose.

As for the heroic thing, while the heroics are cool, and thanks to the free ones when 85 came out, I have like 8 85's that are buff bot/port bot/rez bot/coth bot etc.

But I really do enjoy the game for 1, and for 2, although we're not in 2000 anymore, to me, a heroic is like how we use to view the "omg this player must have ebay'ed their account, they don't know crap about their class". I'm not sure the community would view 100 Heroics the same, but well, I figure there is so much to learn along the way.

You're the second person to place emphasis on Overseer and Ach, so I get it, that's definitely the way to go. I'll get smart on that along the way.

And nice post. You pretty much said "do this, but if you are hard to please, then do this, if still don't like that, then consider this, or at least do this" I appreciate that! If only my wife and I always had such perfect expectations of each other. Haha.

Thanks for your time spent, and the post!

Overseer is a process that takes several months to really grow into. It's more of a marathon that keeps on giving than anything else.

Until you have every Elite, Rare, and Uncommon agent.. be sure to always complete the recruitment task when it is available. Everything else comes with time, don't worry about the rarities involved with them until you hit rank/level 5.

ALWAYS pick Merc XP for Military, Plunder, and Stealth missions, until post 100. (I think it's around lvl 110 that the shift happens) then ALWAYS take normal XP. I'm level 100 and a comon Military task rewards 25.5% Merc AA while Char experience option only rewards 5.47% Merc AA.

Maxing out your merc AA will net you more normal/AA XP. Stored Merc AA is 50% of your current level (So I can store 50, being level 100).

Now.. Merc AA.. that doesn't mean you have to buy all merc AA's. Buy the ones ONLY for the specific merc you use on that character. Once you have those, let the banked AA's cap out and you'll get those XP gains for leveling and AA.

I'll quibble with this one a bit, based on my 6 accounts. Once you have most (not every) common, uncommon, and rare, and at least 40-50% of the elites, then stop doing recruit missions. Otherwise, close enough, and for the occasional mission you can't do, it'll be more than made up for by all the missions you have done for a reward you need, instead of all those additional recruit missions.

You will get plenty of extra agents from critical success missions, and that will help round out your roster. Also, as you keep getting dupes from conversions, I'd recommend using dupe elites as echos (by retiring them) for quest level XP, to get them all to level 5), instead of for backfilling missing rares, once you've got about 10 elites.

I still have one account missing an uncommon, and an elite. After a ton of conversions that just never gave me what I needed, I just gave up and used the elite echos for mission XP. Very happy with that decision.

Usually my wife is mad at me for the way I explain things, lol.

115 will be sufficient for ToL because you can get ToV and CoV T2-3 armor and ToL T1 armor. You need to be 110 to join ToL missions and 115 to do some of the ToL partisan / merc quests. You will still struggle due to a lack of AA, augs, armor, etc, but unless you are a tank, you will be okay. Getting the TBL, ToV and CoV T3 crafted augs is a very quick way to get type 5 augs since the ores usually rot.

I haven't bought a heroic and I don't want to, but when I came back during RoS (110 cap) and I was 75 from HoT, I tagged along with people doing hunter. I don't see the difference between a heroic and a PL. If you want fast, it's the fastest, but I get it if you don't want to.

I also 3-box. Make sure you can use campfires. The game is FTP through ToV so you can add a FTP DRU/WIZ and port yourself around. It is really nice when you are jumping all over looking for pickup groups, and if it doesn't work out, you can just campfire back.

So I did an LDoN yesterday.

The quest didn't even take 15 mins, my main being a druid, it was one port to Blightfire Moors, quick jog to Crescent Reach, and then a port to SRO. I was really excited, did Deepest Guk. Unfortunately, as I knew going in, the mobs were all dark blue, and even light blue. I was only getting .1 to .3% a kill. So, i ran ahead loading up the tank with 4-8 at a time, but it's purposely spaced out, so that still wasn't too terribly fast.

But I had a thought. Since I'm using 3 70's, and 3 mercs. Can I just invite 1-3 85's to raise the task level, and enter without the higher levels, and then unsuspend my mercs? for mobs that will be yellow and red? If that's the case, that could be great exp for a little bit.

Further, if that idea would work, do I only need them in the group back at PoK, they don't even need to be in the same zone or at the camp?

Let me know, that might be my next plan. I want to get some levels done before I go spending time testing it though, so heading off to The Buried Sea (hotzone) and if that isn't any good, either head back to DSH and fight something other than farm. (Farm getting slow, and I was having no trouble with clockworks, to include level 78 Fiddle D named).

By the way, I googled Adventurer's Stone guide, and it took me to a DayBreak Forum post, where you wrote a concise guide. I would have said thank you in there, but didn't want to necro a 2020 post.

Lol your welcome

While the LDON do allow high levels like 85 or even 120's to go in and do them, they are capped at "hard 65" - in other words when they were made that was the highest level. Due to the issue with updating or recreating LDON files they could not raise the level of the difficulty. So it would not make any difference .

I would knock out the hot zones each day as mentioned before. The kill 5 from Franklin Teek. Nice bonus exp. Not sure but you might want to check Oceangreen Hills, its pretty challenging but has some nice quests and rewards and 2 types of armor to get.

Once you get to 85 then much more opens up to help you level faster.

Bummer. Nothing more to say about it I guess. Would be nice if they did a revamp of LDoN, as while it would take dev resources, it would seemingly but near as much work as some of their other projects. Maybe as much work as Hardcore Hertiage/Fabled stuff... just a little more to cover all missions.

That being said, with dev resources being at a premium, I would not be shocked if someone yelled at me for even suggesting they spend time on something like that.

I think the script and mechanics for LDON are not something they can directly adapt or change so that they came up with the HA's that start at level 75.

So LDON stop at 65, daily hot zones stop at 95 and HA start at 75 so there is an overlap and scaling there to keep players going.

(when I say stop I mean the exp - you can actually do any of those above those levels)