Using the slider at 100%, a guide to levellocking

This is a repost from the original guide made on the old forum. I still am playing chars this way so I thought there might be several other players who like to play this style (again).

Before we can begin the guide, some explanation on some key game features is needed

I use acronyms for zones in my guide; if you aren't sure what they mean you can look them up here.

L&L = Lore & Legend, quests you can start by examining an item certain mobs can drop. More info can be found here. Need some hotspots?

Tradeskill; the skill to make items out of harvests you can use for yourself or for others. Also on EQ2 Traderscorner you can find several guides on how to tradeskill

MC = mastercrafted; items made by players with the use of a rare item.

npc = non player character.

char = character.

nodes: this are the things you go harvest from. You use them to get the raw materials for tradeskilling.

transmute: an extra harvest skill that everyone gets; the skill to break treasured, legendary, fabled gear up in parts. These parts can then be used by adorners to make adornments which can be used to enhance gear or weapons.

adorning: A secondary Tradeskill that allows a player to create Adornments. Info about recipe books can be found here. If you already have an adorner on your account and server you play on, it isn't necessary to level one up. Cause it's expensive to do so but if you haven't it might be worthwhile.

tinkering: Tinkering is a secondary tradeskill which gives you tools or bonusses while crafting. Info about books and recipes.

slider: you can find this when you press L, a screen pops up where you can allocate the AA points. In the above left corner of the screen you see a slider, you can move this from left to right and back again. Totally left means slider at 0%; none of the xp you gain is converted in aa. Totally to the right means slider at 100%; all the xp you gain is converted into aa points. Slider in between this two means the percentage the slider is on this percentage of xp gained will convert in aa. So for example set the slider to 40%: means 40% of all adventure XP earned (mob kill, quest turn in) goes to AA; 60% goes toward adventure XP Addition; if you aren't a gold member you can't move the slider, it will be locked at 50%

Also on this Character Development and Achievements screen; every 9 levels you can choose a ability you want to enhance

racial traits: there are two categories; innate abilities and abilities you can choose yourself. The abilities you choose yourself can be done every 10 levels in what you reach it in first. So in either tradeskill or xp. On level 10; 20; 30 and so on you can choose a new ability. However for example if you reach level 10 tradeskill first you don't have a new choice when you reach level 10 in xp. So in the end you only have 9 choices, not 18! The innate abilities are set in stone, you can't change or adapt those. For some people this can be gamebreaking so if you want to make a new char for this style of playing it might be worth to check this out. For more info check here. You can set your racial traits in the first tab when you press "L"

grandmaster choice: Once every 10 levels, you are given an opportunity to choose mastery in a single spell. You're given a choice of four spells that you obtained in recent levels. The spell that you choose will be upgraded to Grandmaster tier, making it one of your most powerful spells. Because it becomes so powerful, you should choose mastery in a spell that you'll use frequently and that matches your playstyle. Grandmaster is a special rank, which is only granted to a few spells. The four choices presented to you are different each time you choose a mastery spell (once per 10 levels). Referring to our previous example, the Vital Intercession spell is offered as a mastery choice to Templars at level 14, so the Grandmaster tier of this spell is shown as being available in the spell's table.(source eq2 wiki). You can set your grandmaster choices in the first tab when you press "L"
Also I'll use terms as T1; T stands for tier as in series of levels and 1 defines the rank of this tier. So for example: T1 armour is armour you wear from level 1 tot 10. T2 armour means armour you wear from level 11 to 20, T3 armour you wear from level 21 to 30 and so on.

The Guide

Install Fluffy Quest UI-Mod
http://eq2.fluffy.dk/ui.php and follow instructions how to install it
Bookmark these sites

• http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Solo_Timelines
• http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:...eroic_Timelines
• http://eq2.zam.com/
• http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:AA_Quests

Follow these steps

1. Start up somewhere in the world; my personal favorite is Neriak, lots of harvesting nodes and shinies in the beginner area
2. Use /claim, the 1 day gift is a free bag with 12 slots. Bags are your friend, cause you will loot a lot.
3. Do the Harvest quest in the area you started, the reward is a box for one of your bank slots (to heavy to carry around) for your harvest stuff. Plus the quest is a good thing to level up your harvesting skills. This quest can be combined with the first step in "A Gathering Obsession". It can be started in the Isle of Mara. (prerequisite: you must be lvl 5 either tradeskill or adventurer) Each step can be done in each tier and it pays well 18 gold per step completed.
4. If you see shinies harvest them as well. When you have them in your bags, right click them and add them to your collections. If you already have collected them, keep it so you can sell it later on.
5. Do some questing until level 10 (when you reach it press L and set slider to 100) and then stay in the area you started in and harvest and max your skills out! Also don't forget to kill things cause each kill can give you a chest, and with smart loot, you are likely to at least adept all spells.. and if lucky get a few masters. Plus as an added bonus the things you don't need can be sold later through the broker (if not no-trade) or be transmuted (if treasured or higher)
6. All skills maxxed out? Perfect! Now we can go to the next step.

The Journey begins, but we have to do some certain things first to make life easier on the road.

1. Go to your starting city
2. Decide if you want to stay here or not (my chars always want to live in either Qeynos or Freeport (depending on allignment), but it's just personal choice. Every city has everthing you want. But an extra motivation for changing city to either Freeport or Qeynos is, that you then can do every quest in game cause as a Gorowyn citizen for example I couldn't do certain quests in the Freeport beginner area. If you do want to move go to the Ambassador (Typically this person is located near the guild registar) and ask for movement (not betrayal!). He will then point you in the right directions, the Ambassador will give you your citizenship papers and send you to the Ambassador in your destination city. Follow this ambassadors directions; you are now a proud citizen of the city of your choosing.
3. You are in the city you have choosen (either you moved or not) now the first thing we do is purchase a home. Go to the housing area and buy an inn room (this will also give extra broker slots)
4. Talking about the broker go to one... and use your bound spell there. You will have to visit him/her lots so if you use your call to... you better come up near a broker. Tip: If you are Freeport, choose the broker in SFP, everything near, banker, craft devices and bells.. (what more do you want?)
5. Use /claim again if you have the 3 year award. It contains a special broker chest you can use to sell loot on broker cheaper (lower broker fees) Also 40 slots so that's good as well. Also if you have the 9 year vet award use that one too; another special broker chest with 50 slots.
6. If you have items you can't use and aren't no-trade you can put them on the broker now, set the price and hopefully people will buy it from you. Also things you harvested can be sold but it might be wise to wait until you started your tradeskill career to put them on the broker. Cause you might need them for your combines.
7. It's time to visit the tradeskill tutor (they are in the tradeskill area) to start our tradeskill career. Follow his quests so you get a basic idea how to tradeskill. The tutor also has the Advanced T1 books for sale. These are needed to make your own MC armour. This books can be to expensive if you just started so either let another of your chars buy them and put them in the shared bank or if you are in a guild, ask a guildbuddy of yours to get them and put them in the guild bank for you. Go to the banker right click and choose guild bank. If you're just starting and aren't in a guild then look how much they cost all together and go out kill stuff so you can get some money and for things to sell (also check the broker maybe people have bought things from you) when you enough have money gathered go back and buy the books.
8. Craft a full set of MC armour. And while you are busy make some bags and boxes for yourself as well. (you can't have to many of them) You have a extra broker slots, you have bank slots and you have house vault slots you can put them in.
9. When you have reached lvl 9 in tradeskill, go back to the tutor, you can now choose a new path in tradeskilling. Make up your mind on what you want to do. Do you want to make your own armour or weapons, or do you want to make spells for you to use. Or is jewels more for you? Read into the guides and the wiki page I gave in the beginning to make a good choice.
10. Log off and visit ZAM; use browse, quests, Lore & Legend books. Make a lists of every book and where to find it. Comes in handy! Although you don't need the books anymore to start the quest it still gives you an idea where to find these monsters to get the updates. Do the same but now for heritage quests. (this will give you already a small guideline of the zones to visit and on what lvl). Tip: copy paste it to a writer program (Word, Writer) and print it out.

The necessary things are done, now what?

1. If it's your alt and you don't mind supporting it, have at least 3 gold on you
2. Go to TD; Remember the 3 gold? Well before going to the starter area, visit the language guy at the dock (buy all the language primers of him) Handy cause now you know you can start every quest you encounter in a long while.
3. Do quests there up to lvl 12 then return home and do all quests up to 12 in your city starters area, the opposing city starters area (watch out for guards), CL, DLW, Ant, GF, New Halas and the sewers.
4. When you finished those set slider to 0 and lvl to 12 (why 12?, cause you then can wear MC T2 armour) so harvest for rares so you can make it yourself or someone in your guild or to sell on broker so you can buy the necesarry armour. A bonus to start up in TD, quest loot is good and if you don't have your mc armour yet is very good to progress in. But MC armour is a musthave. you will wear it for a long time.
5. After you leveled to 12, set the slider to 100% again. You notice that when you gain aa you will have no problems to finish quests up to lvl 17. So go finish them as far as you can go (you'll notice for yourself how far you can reach). Do this in the zones you already leveled questing up to lvl 12. But don't forget to go to the dungeons (WC, BB)
6. Don't forget to visit the broker and banker!

For the following there is not a special order but you do them at the same time or will do until you can level. i'll try to put the most important things first.

• Try to get your mc armour and weapons as soon as possible. Don't forget rings, earrings, wrist items and so on. Guild trade skillers are your best friends. Just give them the rares (don't forget fuels and other resources!) and they will happily make you the items.
• If you have some money on the broker it's time to visit your local sage (bookseller) Bookquests are your friend for aa. What I mostly do is buy every book the sage has. It will cost and not every book is needed in the beginning but you can store them in your chests in the bank
• While in your home city. Visit every possible npc and look for quests (quests are your friend)
• On your encounters with the monsters in eq2 you sometimes loot a lore and legend item for that specific monster. Inspect it and you will get the L&L quest for it. Don't forget to inspect again to check it of the items list for that specific quest
• You also sometimes find a merchant in distress; save them and they sometimes sell you a special catalog book for that area; is extra quest for aa! You only have to do this once for every area.
• Do the quests until lvl 17 in the zones the two wiki's say you have to go. If you are good watch out for guards in CL, evil watch out in Ant! If you have a higher alt you can use him/her to kill some guards so traveling in the zone and to get quests can be simplier.. Or you have to wait until you are above lvl 25 so you can kill them yourself or run by them and have enough hitpoints to take a couple of hits while you get the quest updates.
• When you visit DLW, don't forget to go to the starter area. why? Well lots of collectables there! First find your own, but then collect to sell on broker! What you are looking for are cracked bones, scuffed shards and spotted butterflies. They sell for several gold some even for one plat. If you don't have a main to support you this is a must go. (thanks praor1 for the tip!) This is worthwhile everytime you visit DLW go here for collectables hunt.
• In the meanwhile don't forget to return home once and a while. Visit broker to see if you sell and to sell new stuff. Also look for big bags in guild or on broker. Big bags are your friend. If you are a cloth class, don't forget to get some equipment with STR cause you'll need it to carry the bags and it's fillings!
• Also get some chests for your bank slots! The bigger the better!
• You'll notice the books will also send you to the sewer sytems of both cities. don't forget to go there. lots of quests in there. Also drop items that start quests
• Some books are the history off the (fill in race) quests. This are quests where you have to visit places. some are easy, some are harder. Try to finish them when they are white. If not at least blue.
• You'll notice, books are bag fillers (so that's why you need big bags) why are they fillers? Well you need the book for every update to progress the quest. The history off books you will carry until you are lvl 30! And there are a lot..
• Empty your questjournal until you only have quests lvl 17 and higher including book quests!
• Set your slider to the left (0%) and grind up to lvl 17.
• Set slider to 100% again
• Finish all the quests in CL, Ant, GF, DLW, TD, New Halas, BB, WC, SH, FG and the sewers up to lvl 22 (You may even start some in BBM, Nek Forest and TS)
• Done then set slider to 0% and grind to lvl 22.

When you reach 22 (you'll finish TD, DLW, lower and second sewer systems, Greater Faydark, New Halas, Antonica and CL but also Wailing Caves and BB) get your next MC armour set. (T3). Don't forget to set slider to 100% again!
You may have noticed there is a system. First we leveled our char to level 12. Then we quested up to questlevel 17 before we leveled our char to 17 and quested up to questlevel 22. This system will repeat itself for the next tiers.
So if we look at this in a more abstract way. The system for every tier is this:
Level to [L]2 where [L] stands for the tens digit in the chars level. Then get your mc armour for that tier. Do quests up to [L]7 where [L] stands for the tens digit in the quest level. Then level our char to [L]7 and do quests up to [L+1]2. This repeats itself everytime.
So if your char is at level 22,32,42,52 and so on get your new armour for that tier. You will then do quest up to 27,37,47,57 and so on. Level your char up to 27,37,47,57 and so on and do quests up to 32,42,52,62 and so on then you loop to the beginning of this sentence. It sounds more complicated then it really is.
In addition to this system, there are people arguing it's better to level to [L]4 and then to [L]9 instead of the system I have laid out. This is due to to the fact you have a Grandmaster Choice on every 4th level in a new tier. I notice that I still have all the benefits when I level to [L]7 but I can understand their points. So it's personal choice and to be fair should also be mentioned here cause there isn't a set system in stone.

Most important guideline, have fun!

(please if you have suggestions pm me or post in the thread so I can add)

Last edit: found that as a citizen of Gorowyn I couldn't do certain quests in Freeport or Qeynos; as citzen of Freeport this wasn't a problem. So if you want to do all quests, change citizenship to either Qeynos or Freeport no matter where you start in game.
also thanks to Lasai, praor1, cloudrat, Kerberos, Stay, Beldrin, juwel, Alvane, Xaevyn and bluja000 for their tips, suggestions or advice.

levatino guide-brah

Hey Levatino!

Thanks for posting this comprehensive level-locking guide!

With the recent surge in progression guilds like the Research Society of Norrath, the Lore Seekers, Crazed Mercenaries, and Frenzy, players seem to be interested in visiting areas of the game they missed previously or returning for a nostalgic trip to the early content of EQ2. It is so easy to level past all this wonderful content and miss all these great adventures.

I appreciate all the work you put into this!

There are two small errors I found in your write-up--both have to do with the removal of weight limits in the game. Nothing weighs anything anymore.

That harvesting box is no longer heavy. I can be carried like any other box or bag.

STR no longer has any effect on non-fighter classes. And since weight is no longer a factor in the game, STR does not impact carrying limitations.

Warm regards,

Kaiv - Research Society of Norrath

Great writeup, don't see many current decent leveling guides(or any guides, for that matter) written by players here anymore-thanks for all the hard work!

About the Harvest Storage Bank Box, it is true that it is no longer heavy as weight has been removed from the game but it is still different from other containers as it cannot be used as an inventory container (though it can be carried in one) so there is little reason to have it anywhere except your bank.

As you progress you would likely replace it with a larger capacity regular container. It only holds harvest materials and you may not need it at all if you have alternative storage for those (guild or personal harvest depots for example)

Most of the info is still valid. However, there are no longer any weight considerations in the game so it doesn't matter if you are next to the bank when you examine the harvest box. This also applies to the admonition to cloth wearers to wear STR gear - it is no longer necessary.

thanks for the corrections, I will change it.

feel free to correct me or give additions when you think they're necessary

(hmm why can't I edit my posts made yesterday?)

hmm just found out that you can't edit posts made if the time you posted it was more then a couple minutes ago.

meaning if you make guides and the game changes due to GU or other circumstances the enitre guide with changes made should be posted in a new thread. hmm old forum was better for guides then.

Usually, the time limit now is like 30 minutes for a forum post, FIVE for a Conversation (don't ask me why; no clue). Just recently, though, I haven't been able to Edit at all, no matter how much time has passed. The Edit window comes up, I see my text, then poof! it goes completely blank except for the buttons, which are now useless and might "blank out" my original post if I did hit the Submit (or whatever it is) button. :-/

Back to the Support Forums to search if anyone else has been having this issue. ;->

Uwk

Are you using Mozilla Firefox? Mine started doing that at Version 23. It's been reported to Mozilla by a couple of people at least. 23.01 didn't fix the problem. If you need to edit a post try using Internet Explorer.

Yeah, you're the second person I've had say that it's probably all Firefox's fault; I just wonder if there's anything our Powers That Be can do to fix it on our end...the first person suggested right-clicking on the Edit link and opening it into a new tab. We don't trust IE much here, so we either use FF or Google Chrome, which also has issues, imho. But at least the new tab fix works, to an extent. ;->

Thanks!

Uwk

I know what you mean about IE, although I've come to trust Google about as much as I trust Microsoft.

Edit: Thanks for the new tab trick. It got me the edit window.