Leveling your Character, Getting the most XP.
This guide should help you get XP and when to level your character.
If you do this, you should be able to get to at least to level 3.
If you have any equipment from your packmules I would gather all the first level items and equipment and put them on your character as soon as you can, getting an +1 to hit, +3 or more to your AC will
help and having some potions will make your survivability that much easier on you and your follow party members.
The best way to gain experience is when first create your character is to do the Korthos Island adventures first, do them as many times as you can, until it shows 0 xp points. (X) in a quest.
When you return back to Stormreach, you will be very close to 3rd level, and should be able to cakewalk most of the 2nd level quests on hard and then level up to 5th and do your 2nd level quests on elite.
Once you get your 5th level of experience, train for it, do any of you enhancements, however when get to sixth level, do not train for it,
In Update 19 you can run any quest any number of times within your range level, usually within 3 or 4 levels on Elite.
The very first time you do any quests for the first time per day, you will get a 20% bonus in XP, each time you raid the treasure boxes the value of the items will go down instead, untill there is nothing left in the box. You will have to wait a week for it to restock to it's level amount. Note though the XP Value will not go down at all.
Once you get to say ninth level or so, your items start to get expensive to repair, once you have achieved level 8 or higher, the items cost more to repair and spell componets. You should be able to do the 1-6th level quest multiple times, at 7th level quests, it's not worth doing them more then reqired to get elite rankings in favor, unless your farming for special loot items.
The first time is normal, then hard, elite, elite, elite elite , after the third elite the trasure will go down, but still worth doing, except for the beginning characters which is to get to fifth level and hold your xp till you have to train,
Holding back from training is very important. You can hold back from training up to 1 point shy of getting 10 ranks or 1 point from 2 levels trained . Once you train you will be able to gain enhancements just like in the DDO Character planner, you won't have to wait to gain them from this point forward, to 20th level if you follow this rule.
Once you gain enough points for 20th level train for it, especially if you are planning to do EPIC DESTINITIES.
Even if you are just planning to run the EPIC Quests to gain your Tokens of the Twelve so you can TR them for FREE. You'll want to train ASAP for 20th to make it a little bit easier to run the EPIC Quests.
The Character Planner for DDO will help your plan your character's stats, race, feats, Skills, and Enchancements at every level up to 25th level , A MUST Download.
This site is working on a new version because of the Echancements to DDO Update 19, so it may take a while for them to update it.
This is the DDO Epic Destinties Planner, you'll want this too for upper level planning above 20th.
http://ddodestiny.info/#d/fatesinger
This is an advantage to you, besides getting all of your enhancements at the same time, you can now start doing your quests up to 2 levels lower and when you play them on elite, you will not get penalized, and you will be able to adventure with lower level characters without incurring a XP hit, if your are a VIP member or on your 2nd or 3rd life, then you can open on elite and do the quests as Elite or what I like to say, is “One and Done” do the quest once for XP and favor, although 2nd life and beyond, favor is not important except for getting discounts and items in certain areas like in the harbor, Dennith for the arrows, and Hirelings in House K for the bank slots, very important ....
Do all of the 3rd level quests on elite, and most of not all of the 4th level quests on normal and hard., by
this point you should be close to 7th level. Go back and do any of the 3rd and 4th level quests on elite.
Make sure you do all of the wilderness areas and quests at this point up to your level,
Basically you will be doing all of the quest on elite once you have trained for fifth level , two levels lower then the trained level If you are very close to maximum then go ahead and train, you don't want to go over the 10 ranks over trained level, otherwise you will be one point shy of leveling and lose all xp over.
To know if you need to train for a level it is 5/Ranks +1
2nd level would be 5 per level +1 = 5/6 = 1 5th level = 5*5=25+1 = 26 Ranks 7 = 7*5 = 35 + 1 = 36
If you want to be safe without losing any XP, then you can train 1 rank before the cap, (9 Ranks ) and you'll still be able to get all your enhancements at the time of your leveling of your toon.
Start to hold your ranks at 5th level , which is rank 5*5 +1 = 26, and can hold ranks to one rank below 7 so 7 *5 = 35 +1 = 36, so we have to train before rank 36, anytime after 35 ranks, you will be holding a level and holding your enchancements to 4 ranks and so when you train for 6th level, you will be able to take your 4 Enchancements.
Do this every level, till you get to 20th level, if you hold your XP 9 ranks, you should be able to go from level 18 to 1 rank short of 20. Gaining full xp and when you do Eveningstar quests , you'll be able to use those items really soon. within a rank, after you train for 20th, ands can start on Epic Destinities, if you elect to.
Delera's Tomb Has a very nice end reward called Volume of the Master Anytime you gain experience points while wearing the trinket, it will reward you with a 5% boost which will not stack with any other buffs or potions, but does not go away, evn in death, or time restrictions, unlike the experience shrine, it is a 5th level item, so if you can either get a pass for Delera's tomb or get the pack, the item is bound to Character, and you'll want the boost of XP for all your toons, it might be a good pack to buy. The second and third life of a character's experience points increase at 5% more at second life and 10% more experience points needed per level to go up the next level. This is more of an equalizer to the experience point penalty for having a TR'ed toon.
Be safe in the Wilderness areas: most of the wilderness areas have breaking points of experience, you will gain xp at 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 400, 750, 1500, 3000, 5000, and completion of the remainder of slays in any given area, for the best results, make sure you buff your character at an experience shrine of your guild-ship
if you do not belong in a guild then I would join one.
When you are in a Wilderness area, you will notice 3 stats on the upper right side,showing you slayers # of ### click on the numbers and the stats will show up telling you what the next experience point reward is going to be, look at your experience rank down below and add that total to your current xp and if it is over 10 ranks of your trained level then release and train your character for the next level.
At 400 slays or more the experience can be very good, before getting the a milestone, release and comeback, there is no penalty for reentry like a quest in any of the wilderness areas. Go and buff your toon up to get the experience. In update 17 all VIP get an ongoing 10% xp boost, which stacks with all items, speaking of stacking XP, Delera's Tomb has a trinket which gives you an on going 5% XP boost which stacks with the VIP boost, it does not stack with any other potions or items, however it is still a good item to have, even if you die, you'll still get the boost.
It may be boring to do all of the slayings in every area, your best bet though is to get at least 1500 slayers in each of the areas above 6th level areas. Check to see what the cutoff levels are for full XP. Many of the wilderness areas have quests inside. I was able to get over 130K in 2 days by getting XP breaking points for Vale of Twilight and Gianthold by getting 1500 slays in each of the areas and 1500 in each of the two types in the Orchard. Not too shabby, and I didn't even have to do any quests to get that amount of XP. Now I'm not say don't complete the slayings, but if you want the most bang for the buck, 1500 or 3000 slays per wilderness area, isn't that bad. It may take you a bit, you will get more XP if you find all the areas and exterminate the rare encounters.
If you are above the level of the quests, you can still get XP, if you do the quests on elite, and if you are 3-4 levels above, the xp will be reduced, but it is still worth doing, 3 levels on elite is really only one level above the rated quest ratings, so it will only be a 10% hit, but not to fret , if you break most of the breakables, or slay most of the creatures, you will get that back. Even at 4 levels difference, you can still gain 75% of the XP, not to mention that when you complete a quest on elite level the first time, you'll likely be getting a bonus of 80% . if you add your 10% bonus for being VIP and another 5 for having the VOLUME OF THE MASTER, you'll still make good xp at six levels above the quest level.
Say a quest is 5000xp -50% = 2500 gain 35% for slaying most monsters and breakables = 3500 add another 80% for first time on elite = 6075 + add 10 % for VIP and 5 % more for Volume of the Master you get 7016 xp not to mention any bravery bonuses and any anything else I might have missed.
With the same quest at a 75% penalty you still get over 3500 XP.
Not bad for doing quests, getting favor, renown for your guild, and Loot !!!!
Although you should try to do the quests, especially the wilderness area quests and slays, within four levels of what you are, to gain the most XP, without having to repeat the quest over and over again. Remember the first 3 times you do a quest there is no XP reduction, after that the amount does go down.
Slayers areas though , you must pay attention and look at the maximum level in which you can recieve full XP , if you are one level over , the slayers XP will be cut to 1/2 or more :(.
I am not sure now about the XP loss since update 19, so take note of your XP going into a quest to see if you will get XP, if it shows 0 XP no matter what the muliplier is,it's still 0 XP:(
One and Done rule does not apply to farming for items, although they should done in the characters first life , and at least do the minimum 3 times , within 3 or 4 levels of the quests to get the Quadfecta ( The Most XP, Favor , Loot you can use now, and Renown ), because you will have most items for that toon as they level in the next lives.
Vale and Green Steel items .... More Heavy Farming
The Shroud is a heavy farmed quest, that you will do over and over again, a very good place to loot, when you get into the high level character levels.
There are 3 parts to the quests, and treasure received is as follows, part 1 small sized, part 2 medium sized items and the third, large, so if you need medium sized items then you only need to do ther first 2 parts of the quest.
DDO though makes it hard to farm, to get the items you need, so here is what to do. When you start an LFM of the quest put in the comments, Heavy Farming first 2 parts, so you can exit the quest, before the final battle..
For some reason they limit you from doing the quest more then once every 3 days of something. So take advantage of the rules, this is much like the Chronoscope Quest.
Here is a Link that a friend gave me..... Thanks Carl
http://www.perfectweb.org/ Shroud Green Steel Planner
