How are you people leveling so fast?!

This is how I recently did it on a new inq, never played a healer seriously before, 95 300 AA in 11 playing days, admittedly played more than I should have during that time. At the end of it she had 650p and I didn't seed her with any plat at the start purposely. Only things I bought were the last few maybe of some collections. Sell more shinies than you buy, don't bother brokering the loot at low levels, it's a waste of time unless you have something really good, just vendor it if you don't need to wear it. I did Have Krivix the Pally to duo with all the way. Pretty good merc tank IMO. I don't know if the devs have done anything with smart loot above 20 but I seemed to have a real lucky streak all the way to 90 with gear that I needed dropping all the time (not masters tho). Some parts I duo'd with a conj.

Don't buy anything except shinies that you really need.
Gear nowadays at less than 60 makes no real difference.
For each tier, use the contested areas/dungeons/special instances like the goblin island in Antonica near the Oracle Tower.
Do the following till your eyes bleed or you outlevel the place:

Stormhold
Ruins of Varsoon (Get the Manastone, it's the only thing really worth doing and that you will still use at 95)
Nek Castle (Do all the access quests)
Kaladim
Runnyeye
Sol in Lavastorm (Never touched Permafrost)
At 60 do the KoS Class armor questline (This will last you until 80)
All of the KoS instances contested and others (HoF, Den, PoA etc)
At 70 you can start all the RoK dungeons although you might want to leave Karnors and deep Seb/Chardok for later levels if you dont have a full group
At 80 (if you don't have any heirloom void shards) start grinding void shards for a new set of armor
Do the Fabled Epic for your class (Dont worry about the mythical)
At 90 do Epic Repercussions
Grind SS till 95 along with the various instances esp do the duo instances at least once for the exp/aa.
With EJ and OP and now CS you might want to just follow the questlines from 92 - 95 as they are important for gear and some access later on esp if you want to raid.

Shyshrine is not the best place. You need to be 90+ to even zone in there now. CS, on the other hand, has no level restriction, around 2000xp per kill (depends on bonuses), no AE's, and you can go in at about 75 if your tank is well geared and chrono'd to 90.

Below 75... go to the dungeon time line and pick one that you like. Not an open dungeon, but an instance. Go in and kill all the trash but no names, so you can zone out and back in to repopulate the zone.

Once every 20 levels or so when things are getting boring... blow through all the raid zones for that tier. Send all the loot to the leveling toon, and they get a new set of gear that is just enough to keep them alive

It's because I play the game to do things with my friends. I don't want to solo. There are basically NO groups below 90, and only a few below 95.

Or to follow your analogy...I've had lots of chocolate chip ice cream. I'm tired of it. I want a banana sunday.

oic
You mean like your position on contested content?

Leveling speed solo really depends on class. I leveled a BL to cap in 3 days played time with only 1 session in Sebilis with a group of friends that netted 5 levels in about an hour. Knowing where to go, and more importantly what YOU can kill quickly that will net you the largest amount of XP is something that us Vets have that no new player will be able to do.

I recently leveled a Brigand to cap in 3.5 days played time, but this class required a lot more support to do so. I had an extra 20% vet bonus, and burned potions every time I played. I also had a friendly mystic who helped me out along the way. No way I could have matched the BL's speed of leveling without all of that.

Healers/Support classes - Good luck LOL.. Even with mercs it gets painfully slow once you get over level 50-60. You just don't have the DPS to keep the XP train moving without some help.. You're better off questing your way through if you don't have assistance.

The only real painful part of leveling is 80-90. XP in the zones for this level range is very low. Your best option is to either chrono down and do ROK dungeons, or hit dungeon maker XP zones with your friends and LOTS of potions. This is by far the hardest grind. Once you hit 90, do Kael / Skyshrine. Once you hit 92, do ST Contested.

I think the first clue would be no one is on auto follow. Another indicator would have been the lack of a mentored character.

More than that with the new xp changes, I no longer mind adding people to xp groups. Sure, someone selling power leveling wouldn't give away the milk for free, but I've never seen a level appropriate character selling leveling to other level appropriate players.

I have seen alot of level appropriate toons selling Pl's for level appropriate toons. Last night a level 77 was selling pl's for people level 70-75 . Also often I see it to pl aa's.

Pl'rs are starting to be nothing more than scam artists. I have had tank classes offer to pl my aa on my inqy for a fee. Mind you we are both 95 and the tank cannot solo SS and is expecting me to pay for the privilege of tanking for me. Somehow they miss the fact they need the healer to even attempt to pl the zone. Best part was I pointed out they needed me as much as I needed them and the tanks were as dense as you expect a tank to be. Honestly they thought that was different and I should want to pay them. Funniest part was I am full 95/95 320 everything, the tanks were fishing for customers.

I am getting very tired of PL'rs and this new expectation that a person should pay to belong to a group that is level appropriate just because someone slaps a pl label on the group.

Pl'rs are doing more to destroy social grouping than any mistake SOE ever made!

You may be right. I've never sold PLing as no one has ever offered a price representative of what I can earn doing other things for the same amount of time. I've also never bought the service but I know I laugh at most of the tanks offering it as generally they're not very good players.

If I was PLing you as a healer I would ask you to maintain a heal on me, not cause I need a heal, but just to make sure you are on the hate list.

I wouldn't cry if mentoring was greatly nerfed, but I feel that cat is pretty hard to put back in the bag and would be as popular as the PR Nerf without the same perceivable benefit to the game.

I agree PLing is hurting social grouping some, but I think the bigger problem is population and the percievef notion that leveling without mentoring is too slow.

The comment was solely based around what Rotherian said. I very rarely see people trying to form groups for low level content. 1-9, 90-95, 80-89 chats are all people trying to form groups for HE, SG, Contested ST, or Skyshrine. And generally when I have leveled lower level toons, my experience is much as yours was, many of the dungeons are generally empty. Until the next double exp weekend anyways.

Being newish (so it takes longer to play through content as I figure out what to do and where to go) and having created a bunch of alts, I've been spending a lot of time in low-level content. I get invites to groups almost every day, but never through the chat channels. Don't bronze (and maybe silver) accounts have chat restrictions? (Sorry, the SOE site won't load for me right now, and I'm gold and can't remember the restrictions.) If so, then I don't think chat is necessarily a very good indication of how much grouping might be going on at lower levels when players who haven't decided whether or not to sub yet can't access it.

I tried EQ2 like 4/5 times now and really tried to get into it but i just cant get into it. It feels really "dead" to me at lower levels and that makes the leveling such a boring and pain thing to do. I always see people saying "find a guild" yeah thats easier said then done.. ive been in a couple of guilds already and most of em are either dead or people are just not very social at all. Also if you seem to mention PL ingame people seem to freak out for some reason..

But yeah i see how its more easier for vets who also have friends to PL them or group with leveling being less of a pain.

Ah well ill stop now just thought id share my experience with leveling in EQ2.

Did you phrase it as, "Hey, can someone PL me?", or something closer to, "Is there anyone on that would be willing to help out with these quests?"

The reason I ask is that, even in my guild, where we are pretty relaxed, the latter is more likely to get someone a positive response. The first just makes it look like the only reason that person joined was so that people would feel obligated to carry them all the way to lvl 90, then watch as they skip off to another guild.

I've PL'ed my own toons before, because I knew they were going to stick around after the fact. Powerleveling someone else, though, especially when they haven't been in the guild longer than a couple of days, is not high on my list of things to do. I am, however, more than willing to help them get through a quest - or even a questline.

I actualy never asked someone to PL me in those guilds or in any of the public channels directly as in "Hey can someone power level me?" I merely asked "Hey guys whats up with this PLing stuff that people talk about?" as i had no idea how it was done, now ofc i know how its done by doing some research. But the whole PLing stuff is not really the issue here for me its more about that until level 90 you are pretty much on your own which i find kinda sad for a MMORPG.

I am seeing guilds specifically stating "no PLing" on their advertisement now, so there must be a lot of people begging for a PL.

Well, sounds like either you had a bad run, or there is a side of the story we aren't hearing. If anyone in my guild asks for help with a quest, and I'm not already busy doing something else, I will help them*. About 95% in my guild are the same way. I have a hard time believing that we are an anomaly.

* This assumes, of course, that I actually see the request and haven't gone ninja-afk to keep my kids from destroying the house and/or each other**.
** It also assumes that I don't have a lockout for the zone in question - if the quest requires going into an instanced dungeon.

yep atleast 1/3 of new members are wanting powerlevels, a lot of them that are new are being advised by 1-9 to seek them.
The others are just alts of raiding guilds wanting a quick level up, these folks generally bail once they get desired level

I see there is AGAIN a lot of focus over the PLing stuff you guys totaly missed that i wrote.

"But the whole PLing stuff is not really the issue here for me its more about that until level 90 you are pretty much on your own which i find kinda sad for a MMORPG. "

It's an unfortunate situation that will exist in any level-based MMO if it last long enough.

roll on a populated server like freeport then when there's plenty other folks to compete for harvests shinies and quest update mobs

Seems like you missed my entire post, then, since that is the statement to which I was responding in this post.