User talk:Juff/Leveling Guide

Leveling guide

While leveling a bard you are faced with a unique conundrum. It's much faster to level your bard by itself. However, at 65 there are not many places to kite, so you really need to be able to melee with a healer at your back to duo for money or experience. So you have two options. You can kite most of the way with a bit of grouping and get a healer access from a friend or make your own later. Or you can box a healer the whole way and make your life easier. I will give information on both options.

While leveling make sure to do any and all quests available to you for gear. There is a great quest timeline that can help you find quests for gear appropriate for your level. Ideally if you were to put the work in you could have a full set of gear to level in at about level 40 that would last you till your early 60's. Always do your quests. Sure some of the quests may suck your will to live but the instruments, items, and money gained will make your life a lot easier.

Also remember, that if you want to level fast, a group is always your best bet. It's faster than kiting or duoing. Those are your fall back options, but do whatever suits you best.

Leveling With a Box

The first thing about leveling with a box is that, you must choose a box. As a bard, your best option is and always will be a healer. You have the three options of course, Cleric, Druid, and Shaman. Now there are two approaches to picking which of these three you should choose. One is picking what will make leveling the easiest. The other is picking what will be the best box at 65 with gear and AA's.

For leveling, Druid will make it the easiest, providing you with ports, additional damage shields as well as decently Large heals. While Shaman works (and this is what I did), Druid is just much better for leveling.

For end game farming/duoing, Cleric is far and away the best of the three healer classes to box. Their sheer throughput plus mana-less DPS from auto attacking with a summoned hammer on makes for an awesome box with a bard. While Slightly harder to level than with a druid, it's the best duo in the long run.

Through the lowest levels you will be meleeing with one weapon and one dot. Ideally your healer will help you DPS via melee. As you level it will go to two dots, and a bellow plus your healer's Small amount of DPS. Eventually dual wielding plus DPS from your cleric as well as two chants and a bellow. Ideally while leveling you should be skilling up all your weapon skills, and your instrument skills each level. Your instrument skills can only skill up if you are playing a song that is of that type while using an instrument of that type, except voice which skills up as long as you are singing a song that requires singing, which if you are playing haste you will be.

Locations

Now that you know how to level the question is where?

The beginning

From levels one till six or seven you should be leveling in the Newport Sewers. Your goal here is to collect Sewer Ratman Hoods and Sewer Rat Tails to hand in for experience to Guardsman Stanton. You can hand in 20 of each.

First you need to get in the Newport Sewers. The closest entrance is the Northern Newport entrance near the northern Newport gate. From the Newport gate head east. You will find a wall with vines on it that you can walk through! Swim down and you will land in the sewers. Knowing how to swim is very important, because when you zone into the Newport Sewers here, you will be underwater. At this point swim down, forward, and then up. You will be on land. Remain cautious as some of the patrolling mobs here will be Dark Blue or Yellow. Head south to the first intersection. Go west and take the southern branch of the two way split heading west. You should find a room with three skeletons. Follow the wall west and swim across the Small water path (you may have to kill the skeletons first, I am not sure of their aggro range). Follow the water south past the first two ways out of the water.

THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH THIS PART

You should find yourself at the approximate location (667, 202, -38.84). Here you will find a Large selection of rats. Kill them and collect their tails. There is one named here, a bloated rat. You probably will not be able to kill him with a duo unless you are really twinked until level 8 or so. If you go to the southern most part of the rat platform and hit the water swimming south east you will come to another platform. From here you can find the ratlings. Head south and west you will come to an intersection with two routes of travel. One to a bulbous room in the west. DO NOT ENTER THIS ROOM. Several level 8-13 rat men spawn here. They will kill you. Instead head south. Kill the ratling by the bulbous room The pather ratling and come to an intersection. To the south you will find two ratlings. To the east you will find two ratlings.

Make a circuit of the ratlings and rats till you have collected 20 of each the tails and hoods for your bard and your box. Collect everything else you can, and store it in your bags to vendor.Take note that the rats start to go light blue at 4 and the ratlings at 5 or 6. So ideally try to collect your rat tails first, but that is not always an option. Some of the rats go straight to green and even skip light blue. Once you have 20 of each go back to the Newport gate entrance and give your rat tails and ratmen hoods to Guardsman Stanton who will reward you with experience for your hard work!

You should find yourself at this point with two characters anywhere between levels 6 and 8. Vendor everything you found off the rats. This is where you should buy as many of your songs and spells for your box as you can. If you cannot afford them all, I recommend killing the a bloated rat in the sewers a few times to vendor his drops; they will net you nearly a plat each. They are lore so you will have to leave each time to sell, but 5 platinum will buy both your bard and box all their spells to level 16 or so, so definitely worth the time. Once you have in your possession Chant of Battle, Chords of Dissonance, Selo's Accelerando, Hymn of Restoration, and Jonthan's Whistling Warsong and all of your box's spells through level 8. Train all new skills especially percussion and stringed instruments and then it's off to elsewhere to earn more experience.

At this point you can make your way to Blackburrow by way of Centaur Hills. You can start clearing the top floor. This should last till level Eleven or Twelve. Take any Gnoll Ears you get and hand them into the guard at the guard tower located off the eastern most path in southern Centaur Hills. You can hand in 5 for 750 xp each (1042, -846). Supply Crates can be handed in to Trader Hagna outside Halas for 1000 xp each. When you finish here you should be level eleven or twelve. At this point purchase your new songs and spells. It is highly recommend at this point you start looking at quests to do for gear. You can start Mandy Wandersong's quests which will lead you to a set of mastercrafted instruments and you can do the Antique Plate quest line to get most of a set of gear that will aid you in leveling. At this point you can begin duoing on the next floor down of blackburrow, which should last you till level seventeen or so. At that point return to town, pick up songs and spells and train dual wield, and it's time to move away from Newport, and head to the Warrens.

Take the Mansion of Portals to Erudin. From Erudin head south through Mistwoods to Valley of Erimal. Head east, to the grassy gnoll, and find your way into the Warrens. From the entrance head north and west till you find the pool of water. Across the water you will find where the higher level mobs start. Most of these should be blue to you. Begin to pull them as singles, and kill, kill, kill. Most come as single (not all). You can clear your way back to the throne room. You can ride the throne room area out till 20 or 21. At that point return to town, purchase your songs and spells. Hit your trainer and train any new skills. Then head to Northern Badlands.

Head east from Centaur Hills, then all the way east through Western Badlands to reach Northern Badlands. Once in Northern Badlands head to the bandit camp in the most eastern part of the map near the middle. There are six bandits at this camp. You should be able to kill them all, with a short amount of time in between respawn if any. They drop Bandit Heads that can be used for Captain Arlin's Bandit Heads bounty quest, as well as quest items for the first of the Newport Ring quests. You can ride this area out until level 26 or so. At that point return to town and grab some more spells and songs! Then it's time to head to Warpstone Caverns.

To get to Warpstone Caverns take the Mansion of Portals to Sadri Malath, then head east. Head towards the back of the zone and start killing in the big room. Most of the mobs come in singles or doubles. I'd recommend grinding all the way to 30 here. At 30 return to Newport for more spells and songs. At level 30 head to Eastern Badlands.

To get to Eastern Badlands head east from Northern Badlands. In the south east corner of Eastern Badlands you will find a camped filled with plaguewind gnolls. They drop Plaguewind Gnoll Fur that can be turned in for Eastern Tasks - Plaguewind Gnoll Fur bounty quest at the Southern Newport guard tower for experience. You can hand in 20 of them in sets of two for 8500 experience per set. Grind out one stack for each character, then turn them in. The grinding and turn ins should carry you to level 33 or 34.

The middle

Once again return to town, collect some spells and songs. At this point you should probably start your main quest. You can easily do the first two parts plus the sidequest for the second part, netting you nearly 350,000 experience. This should take about 5 - 6 hours and net you 4 - 5 levels total. At that point you should be nearly 38, if not 39 or 40. You should proceed to do your Starfall quests for both your bard and box. With the two rewards in hand, you should be 39 or 40, have acquired some new gear. Pick up all your new spells, songs, and skills, and hunker down for some heavy experience grinding.

Your best bet at this point is a Robot group in Heartland Plateau. A group here can easily net you a level an hour, if not more. You can ride this XP gravy train all the way till 49 if you'd like. I'd recommend stopping at 45, grabbing new songs and spells then doing main part three plus its sidequest and part four. This should take you to about 48. Grab new spells and songs.

You now have several options. You can try to find a group in Tunnels of Lasanth or Sorcerer's Labyrinth. Or you can duo wraiths in any of the badlands. Or you can go duo wyverns in Wyvernfang Coast. Any of these is acceptable and will carry you to 53 - 54 relatively easily. If you want money go with wraiths, slower experience but much better money. If you want experience the groups are your best way to go, or if you just want to duo then wyverns would be my suggestion for you. Buy your spells and songs, and move on.

At this point you can do you Thurgadin quests which will net you even more shiny goodies. This is a great point to start looking at player vendors to buy gear from. If you spent time killing wraiths you probably have a few hundred plat. You are mostly looking for gear to help you take hits better, and gear to get your box more mana. While new weapons for extra DPS would be nice they are not your main concern being most of your damage will come from songs.

Acquire some gear and head to Great Divide. Find the harthuk cave to the west. Either get a group or duo here till fifty seven; they drop up to 9 plat each. The warriors are very simple but be wary of the mages - these casters do a decent amount of DPS. Make frequent trips to Thurgadin to vendor and you can ride this out till 58 or 59 and net several thousand platinum in the process. Buy all your spells and songs. At 57 you can stop and do the two level 57 Adepts. However, it is not the best and most efficient way to get gear or experience by locking at 57, so I would not recommend spending more then two or three of the adepts spawn cycles sitting there. Farm enough plat to get yourself some gear, and make your way to 60. You can ride sixty out on harthuks or Sorceror's Labyrinth. At this point finish buying all your spells and songs that are vendor buyable, and score whatever gear you can afford.

Who said there would be an end?

On your way from 60-65, I cannot stress how important it is to start Treasure Hunting for gear. The gear is very useful, and doing maps starting at very easy and doing them up through difficult will net you nearly a full set of equipment for both characters giving you a good start for building gear. You can also xp in places like Mielech's Lair, Eldenal's Mansion, Eastern Wastelandss' Orc Fort, or the Plaguelands. If you are going to duo i'd recommend the Plaguelands; you can huddle by the tunnel in Eastern Plaguelands and pull singles all day and this could easily carry you to 65. However, at this point grouping is so much better experience than not grouping. Try to find yourself a group heading for the orc fort; the experience there, for how easy it is, is very good. Maps themselves are also good experience so do as many as you can!

Kiting

Ah the magical land of bard kiting. Bard kiting is one of the best solo methods in the game! However, the main issue with bard kiting is the lack of good places to kite at higher levels. However, when it's good, It's great. Ideally for kiting, you will equip your best drum and at low levels you will aoe kite 6 mobs at a time. At level two you get your first PBAOE Dot, Chords of dissonance. At level five you will get Selo's Accelerando, and you're life as a bard kiter will begin. Granted however, until level 18 Kiting will be considerably slower then just meleeing, however, if you do not want to box you can still kite, it will just be slow going as far as killing goes. Also your target mobs will be considerably different. You will want to start off with Northern Newport yard trash. Loot and collect Beetle Pincers Which can be handed in for experience. You can hand in up to a stack of 20 in sets of two. You can do this until level 5 or so. At that point move into centaur hills and kite bats, beetles, wolves, whatever you can find. At level 6 or so you can start kiting the gnolls outside of the Blackburrow entrance. This will last until level 8 or so. The only real issue is the mob density is kind of slim. At this point there are not a lot of options as for mobs to kite. Your best bet would be to soak a few levels in a black burrow group until 12 or so. At that point make sure your songs and skills are up to date and head over to Western Badlands. Kite anything you can find that is blue con, lions, wolves etc. You can kite in Western Badlands until 20 or so(Remember to go and get your new songs at level 18; you get your second AOE dot) at that point you move into Northern Badlands. You can kite in Northern Badlands till about level 30 if you kite bandits from about 23 to 30. However, I'd recommend kiting there until 28, then going to the entrance of paw and kiting the Liodreth there; they drop Liodreth Paws that can be handed in for experience at the tower in Southern Badlands. These begin to go light blue at level 32. At this point head to the Eastern Badlands and kite trash there. Stay away from the gnolls; they are mostly casters and may ruin your day. But kite anything else; go nuts. This will last you until about 38.

This is when you will switch from AOE kiting to chant kiting. Rather then twisting two PBAOE's and killing 6 mobs at once, you will twist two chants on two different targets and kite them. When they die Loot them grab two more and do it again. This will be your primary method of kiting from here forward.

At point head to heartland and kite bears, panthers, snakes. If you can get a group I'd recommend killing robots, still far and away the best experience you will get at this level. You can kite in this zone till about 44. At that point your best bet would be to start kiting Wraiths in the Badlands. This will last you until nearly 50 perhaps longer if you really want. But at that point I would switch to kiting wyverns in Wyvernfang Coast. You can easily do this until 55 or so. At that point head to plaguelands and begin kiting. You can kite in plaguelands all the way to 65!