New player looking for some advice/help with levelling

[Deathstroke2000]

Hey all. I just started playing this game a couple of days ago. It's good game, especially with the customisability and the D & D setting.

But I am really having a hard time with levelling up. It's excruciatingly slow lol.

Anyone have any advice or tricks on levelling up alot faster ? I'm playing a Barbarian, just in order to get the guy to lv 20 in a hurry so that I can get the Reincarnation as Barbarian feat. Then I will use that on a Purple Dragon Knight character, or another Human Barbarian.

Thanks.

[Alisonique]

Try grouping up with some other folk, especially a cleric,and think of each enhancement as alevel(as it would be in another mmo).
More importantly though, enjoy the game, look at the scenery before you trash it, and try to get te most out of each bit of it. End game is not necessarily the best bit and there is no rush to get there.In fact if you want the best kit for your barb, you'll find you are doing some quests over and over, .....and over again. What server are you on btw?

[Archangel_666]

Need some more information OP in order to give appropriate advice.

What level are you currently?

What Server are you playing on?

What content do you have access to? (Quest Packs)

What Classes do you have access to?

What Races do you have access to?

[gaffneyks]

Also on a fist life toon, you do not have to run everything on elite. Many who tr do as they have a mechanic called Bravery bonus. That being said I only run Hard bravery bonus streak on my 2nd life toons.

If you want to maximize your xp and level faster here are some thoughts.

1) Use a tome of greater learning which can be purchased from the ddo store. Grants a 20% bonus to the base xp of a quest
2) Take advantage of the bravery bonus which will stack up to 5 times and resets if you run a quest at a lower level. Basically pick a level of questing to do on that toon, Elite or Hard and make sure
that when you first run a quest you run at that difficulty level. Once you have run at that level you can run it again if you so chose at the lower level, but always run at the higher level first to keep you bonus streak as it will reset if you do not do this.
3) Take advantage of explorer areas in the wilderness zones. That is basically free xp just for running to a area in the wilderness.
4) Do not try to farm slayer xp in a wilderness zone for killing monsters(as it is too low xp in my opinion) just kill what you can looking for explorers and take that.
5) Group where possible as it speeds up the quest when you are new and is basically the point of an mmo
6) Use ddo wiki when you cannot find and answer from someone in game or on the forums about a quest or area. http://ddowiki.com/

Hope you enjoy DDO. I have found it a very fun game.

And yes, what server are you on? Many people on these forms are more than willing to help new players and show you the ropes

Hopefully someone else on this thread will better explain Bravery bonus for you. I always muck it up.

[glouky]

Hey all. I just started playing this game a couple of days ago. It's good game, especially with the customisability and the D & D setting.

But I am really having a hard time with levelling up. It's excruciatingly slow lol.

Anyone have any advice or tricks on levelling up alot faster ? I'm playing a Barbarian, just in order to get the guy to lv 20 in a hurry so that I can get the Reincarnation as Barbarian feat. Then I will use that on a Purple Dragon Knight character, or another Human Barbarian.

Thanks.

There is no point for fast leveling ATM:
*reincarnate to a PDK will not be possible before u20
*another Human Barbarian will be the same as now (prev life feats are not that strong compared to the rest of things you can work on)

My advices will be:
*enjoy playing
*don't waste time waiting for groups to fill (use hirelings if needed)
*don't focus on leveling : improve your knowledge of quests and rules and start finding good gears

TR is good because the low level content is interesting, not for the extra poser it gives to you.
One exception is for elitist players that needs prev life feats to reach crazy numbers for EE (mostly DC and saves)

A prev life feat is really not relevant for efficiency compared with gear, knowledge, skill, etc.

Enjoy playing !

[Lonnbeimnech]

you get a 25% bonus for completing the quest for the first time on normal
you get a 40% bonus for completing the same quest for the first time on hard
you get an 80% bonus for completing the same quest for the first time on elite, you get an additional 20% bonus if the first difficulty you picked was elite

separate to that you get bravery bonus which is a 10% bonus per quest that you enter on elite for the first time and stacks up to 50% but only if everyone in the party is no more than 2 levels over the level of the quest

you also get bonuses for killing monsters in quests, up to 25%

and for breaking boxes, up to 15%

10% bonus if no one in the party dies

10% bonus of no one re-enters the quest

there is also a bonus of up to 15% for disabling traps, but his wouldn't apply to a barbarian, usually.



now for the penalties, you get a penalty of 10% up to 100% for doing quests over level, or for having a high level person in your party do the quest for you, you also lose the 50% bravery bonus

there is a 20% penalty if someone re-enters the quest and an additional 20% penalty for the person that re entered, and you lose the 10% bonus for not re-entering


tldr version, do every quest once on elite, within the level range of the quest and don't die, and don't re-enter, if you still need more xp, go back and do some on hard and normal

[unbongwah]

Others are a lot better at speed-leveling than me; but essentially you want to max our your XP/min. Exploiting Bravery Bonus (http://ddowiki.com/page/Bravery_bonus) is one way, but (A) you need to be VIP to unlock Elite right off the bat (or group w/someone who can unlock it for you) and (B) an under-geared first-lifer isn't going to have what it takes to Elite-streak.

My advice: you gotta learn to crawl before you can sprint, grasshopper. Take your time to learn how the game mechanics work and what to expect from quests; plus if you're like most of us, you may need to try a few (or a lot) different builds before you find one you can settle on.

[EllisDee37]

Speed leveling on a first life seems odd to me. My first life I savored exploring new quests I hadn't seen before, as well as each new adventure pack I purchased. Exploring all the little nooks and crannies was a large part of the appeal of being a new player, at least for me.

Planning to TR your very first life is totally fine and normal as far as I'm concerned. I absolutely planned TRs as a way to get my first characters from 28pt builds to 34pt builds without having to buy anything from the store.

[Deathstroke2000]

Thanks for the info guys.

BTW I'm on Ghallanda. lv 6 Warforged Barbarian. I have got a build that manages to not be squishy. Right now I'm grinding the Depths missions. They're quite easy on Normal mode. Will have to do them on hard and Elite mode though.

I played a human warrior for a day and liked the game, so I subscribed and became VIP about 5 days ago. So I think I have access to all the non-expansion quest packs. I think I might buy the latest expansion soon.

[unbongwah]

Not that you need to worry about it yet, but I recommend buying MotU first; if nothing else, it unlocks Epic Destinies (http://ddowiki.com/page/Epic_Destinies) (not free to VIPs), which your inner power munchkin is really gonna want. ;)

[Deathstroke2000]

Not that you need to worry about it yet, but I recommend buying MotU first; if nothing else, it unlocks Epic Destinies (http://ddowiki.com/page/Epic_Destinies) (not free to VIPs), which your inner power munchkin is really gonna want. ;)

Oh ok, I will, thanks.

[Deathstroke2000]

Oh BTW, the server I play on seems quite dead lol. Maybe thats cuz most of the players are high level and running around somewhere else ? I dont know, but I do manage to solo quite a bit. Will try Hirelings for Elite difficulty.

Does using Hirelings reduce the exp given for completing Elite difficulty ?

[voodoogroves]

Oh BTW, the server I play on seems quite dead lol. Maybe thats cuz most of the players are high level and running around somewhere else ? I dont know, but I do manage to solo quite a bit. Will try Hirelings for Elite difficulty.

Dunno, I just TR'd a character who's about level 5 right now and there are at least a dozen other names I'm seeing circling the same quests - and there are plenty of groups open. At any point in time I'm seeing about 4-5 groups in my level range running quests for bravery streak.

What time(s) are you playing?


Does using Hirelings reduce the exp given for completing Elite difficulty ?
No more than any other character level will - generally you can only use a hireling of your level or lower so that shouldn't be an impact.

There are a few cases where the hireling you can summon would be higher level, but that's rare.

[EllisDee37]

Oh ok, I will, thanks.While it's true that MotU is WAY better than Shadowfell if you only get one expansion, Shadowfell is really nice in that if you buy it in the DDO Market, at checkout you can add MotU standard edition to your cart for half price.

As a VIP this may not save you much money if you plan on just getting the $20 MotU version. The standard MotU, which is the only version that Shadowfell gives half price for, is normally $35, $17.50 half off.

[Enguebert]

Hey all. I just started playing this game a couple of days ago. It's good game, especially with the customisability and the D & D setting.

But I am really having a hard time with levelling up. It's excruciatingly slow lol.

Anyone have any advice or tricks on levelling up alot faster ? I'm playing a Barbarian, just in order to get the guy to lv 20 in a hurry so that I can get the Reincarnation as Barbarian feat. Then I will use that on a Purple Dragon Knight character, or another Human Barbarian.

Thanks.

To get fast xp, you must choose your quests.
And a good quest is a quest that
- give good xp/min
- you can run easily for your class
- have fun
And of course, you must know the quest !. First life of first toon, you must learn the game ! That means learning quests, that also means learning your class and abilities, your strenght and your weakness

If you just start the game, you will not be able to quickly reach lvl 20. There is a learning curve in the game.
Level 1-3, you learn how to navigate in the game :-)
Level 4-8, you will learn about using your abilities
Around level 10, you will have to learn about monsters, their weakness and their strength. In low level quest, there are not a lot of difference between a shauagin , an orc and a kobold. Just swing your weapon and they die
But at mid level, there is a huge difference between fighting a specter, a mindflayer, a golem, a beholder. Just swinging the same weapon will not be enough. You will have to use different tactics (yes even for a barbarian who's main tactic
is to hit hard until things doesn't move).

[lyrecono]

Thanks for the info guys.

BTW I'm on Ghallanda. lv 6 Warforged Barbarian. I have got a build that manages to not be squishy. Right now I'm grinding the Depths missions. They're quite easy on Normal mode. Will have to do them on hard and Elite mode though.

I played a human warrior for a day and liked the game, so I subscribed and became VIP about 5 days ago. So I think I have access to all the non-expansion quest packs. I think I might buy the latest expansion soon.

A warforged is most likely the worst choice for a barbarian, the healing realy becommes an issue soon!
The warforged race has been heavely nerfed over time. you're better of with human or h-orc

Wait with buying more, U20 will rock the game and its playerbase, in any case you won't reach that level in a whille

group up with vet's elite BB runs, as a first lifer you'll go up in exp/lv in no time

[Deathstroke2000]

A warforged is most likely the worst choice for a barbarian, the healing realy becommes an issue soon!
The warforged race has been heavely nerfed over time. you're better of with human or h-orc

Wait with buying more, U20 will rock the game and its playerbase, in any case you won't reach that level in a whille

group up with vet's elite BB runs, as a first lifer you'll go up in exp/lv in no time

Ahh ok thanks. The wiki sems really outdated then. I followed it and created a barb due to what it told me haha. So will re-roll human then. But warforged really has great defensive abilities though.

Also 2 more questions :

Firstly, will it be possible to play the Bladeforged paladin Iconic hero in U20 ? Also, what would you recommend out of Fighter, Paladin and Barbarian for a good soloing melee class for new players ?

And someone asked earlier in this thread, I usually play morning US time or noon-ish in GMT in GMT time.

Thanks.

[Archangel_666]

Ahh ok thanks. The wiki sems really outdated then. I followed it and created a barb due to what it told me haha. So will re-roll human then. But warforged really has great defensive abilities though.

Also 2 more questions :

Firstly, will it be possible to play the Bladeforged paladin Iconic hero in U20 ? Also, what would you recommend out of Fighter, Paladin and Barbarian for a good soloing melee class for new players ?

And someone asked earlier in this thread, I usually play morning US time or noon-ish in GMT in GMT time.

Thanks.

I'm going to make a suggestion, that on the surface might sound completely bat-**** crazy, but there's a very good reason for it.

I would suggest that you take any items you can and place them into your shared bank or mail them to an alt, and then delete and re-roll your character.

This should not be mistaken as an insult, you're not dumb or anything.

We've all re-rolled characters that we thought might work, but as we played them we discovered otherwise.

I know it probably feels like it's taken forever to get to level five, but you would be amazed at how quickly you can get back to where you are now with a better build, better familiarity with the quests you've been running and the gear you already have collected.

If your main purpose is simply the Barbarian Past Life, then bear in mind that you don't have to stay pure.

You only need to have more Barb levels than you do in another class. (Purely for example purposes, you could go 11 Barb/9 Druid, or 8 Barb/ 6 Ranger/ 6 Rogue.) There are tons of ways you could get your Past Life, without the pain involved in playing the class Pure.

[Deathstroke2000]

Oh wow. That is a relief lol. I thought you had to go full 20 as Barbarian to get the reincarnation feat.

So, how would you recommend I start my character ? what class should I go for apart from Barbarian for soloing ? I was thinking Barbarian with a few levels of Fighter for the extra feats. Or Paladin/barbarian for the extra health and 10 % run speed. I don't really know alot about rangers/druids/rogues as I only play heavily armored melee-types in all the MMOs I play lol.

Also, if I made a Purple Dragon Knight, would it be a good idea to add in a few Paladin levels to it, as a Fighter that uses Charisma over strength can put paladin abilities to good use IMHO...

[Archangel_666]

Oh wow. That is a relief lol. I thought you had to go full 20 as Barbarian to get the reincarnation feat.

So, how would you recommend I start my character ? what class should I go for apart from Barbarian for soloing ? I was thinking Barbarian with a few levels of Fighter for the extra feats. Or Paladin/barbarian for the extra health and 10 % run speed. I don't really know alot about rangers/druids/rogues as I only play heavily armored melee-types in all the MMOs I play lol.

Also, if I made a Purple Dragon Knight, would it be a good idea to add in a few Paladin levels to it, as a Fighter that uses Charisma over strength can put paladin abilities to good use IMHO...

I'd strongly suggest looking around the builds section of the forum. I'm hesitant to make too many suggestions because we may not share the same play-style.

One thing I will strongly suggest though, is that you look at ways of getting self-healing. You will need it big style later on. (Hence the Druid example) I'm sure others can give you better advice that will fit with the way you play, but if you only take two things from me, I would hope it would be that you can Multi-Class and that you will need Self Healing.

Just as a side note, once you're back to level 5 ish start thinking about running Deleras (http://ddowiki.com/page/Delera's_Tomb) so that you can get yourself a Voice of the Master (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Voice_of_the_Master) You won't need it desperately on a First Life character, but you get 5% more XP while wearing it and it will help speed things up for you.

[Deathstroke2000]

I'd strongly suggest looking around the builds section of the forum. I'm hesitant to make too many suggestions because we may not share the same play-style.

One thing I will strongly suggest though, is that you look at ways of getting self-healing. You will need it big style later on. (Hence the Druid example) I'm sure others can give you better advice that will fit with the way you play, but if you only take two things from me, I would hope it would be that you can Multi-Class and that you will need Self Healing.

Just as a side note, once you're back to level 5 ish start thinking about running Deleras (http://ddowiki.com/page/Delera's_Tomb) so that you can get yourself a Voice of the Master (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Voice_of_the_Master) You won't need it desperately on a First Life character, but you get 5% more XP while wearing it and it will help speed things up for you.

Thanks alot for the advice. You're absolutely right. One issue I've been having with my Barbarian is a lack of healing and general squishyness. So I will either make a barbarian/Druid or Barbarian/Paladin for the self heals, or a barbarian/Druid/Fighter for the heals AND the ability to wear heavy armor.

[Archangel_666]

Thanks alot for the advice. You're absolutely right. One issue I've been having with my Barbarian is a lack of healing and general squishyness. So I will either make a barbarian/Druid or Barbarian/Paladin for the self heals, or a barbarian/Druid/Fighter for the heals AND the ability to wear heavy armor.

Exactly, think outside the box a little, but do check the builds section, some builds might sound great on paper, but there will be many players who have found out the hard way that "On paper" is not the same as "In practice".

Oh and you're quite welcome. :)

[lyrecono]

Ahh ok thanks. The wiki sems really outdated then. I followed it and created a barb due to what it told me haha. So will re-roll human then. But warforged really has great defensive abilities though.

Also 2 more questions :

Firstly, will it be possible to play the Bladeforged paladin Iconic hero in U20 ? Also, what would you recommend out of Fighter, Paladin and Barbarian for a good soloing melee class for new players ?

And someone asked earlier in this thread, I usually play morning US time or noon-ish in GMT in GMT time.

Thanks.

During the golden olden days warforged were in high demand to tank a boss that cursed your healing, though wf could circomvent this by being repaired. those raids died of....
Humans and half orcs can be healed for 100% (and much more with items), whille wf have to take enhancements to lower the penalty.
The wf defences can be easely replicated with magical items, though the strength of the barb is weel... strength...
A barb/rogue or fighter/monk/paly combo can brute force most rooms. A healing hire/pots keep you alive
Update 14 nerfed wf even further, stripped them from many of their base immunities

if you just want to get to 20 for the chance to tr, why not :

Human monk 2/paladin2/fighter12, fill the rest up with eiter 3 classes

lay on hands in early levels,
good saves,
good dps
Evasion!
lots of feats
dps

talking about feats:
not in any order, dodge, mobilety, power attack, cleave, great cleave, improved critical, 3X the 2handed fighting feats, the monk stance mastery feats.

a great axe/sword/ falchion combined with cleave/greatcleave will clear any room fast up to lv 8

[Coyopa]

Thanks alot for the advice. You're absolutely right. One issue I've been having with my Barbarian is a lack of healing and general squishyness. So I will either make a barbarian/Druid or Barbarian/Paladin for the self heals, or a barbarian/Druid/Fighter for the heals AND the ability to wear heavy armor.

barbarian/paladin will not work. paladin must be lawful good and barbarian cannot be lawful

[Darkrok]

Just one build suggestion for a Barbarian past life. This requires buying MotU as mentioned, in this case for access to Druid. I adapted this build from a builder who would probably help out if he wasn't on a break at the moment...took a few liberties with the level order as I think getting 1 barbarian for the run speed asap is worth putting all the druid stuff off for a bit, and because I question how valuable stunning blow would be for the build in heroic levels - with all the healing you have you're going to want big groups of enemies that you cleave to death. As for how this gets the past life, 9 Barbarian/9 Druid/2 Fighter gives the Barbarian Past Life. The way the past lives work is that the original classes are alphabetical (ie equal fighter and rogue levels would be a fighter past life) and then it's by the addition to the game. Druid's the last stand-alone class added so every other class takes precedence when breaking the tie.

I've played this build on a fighter, monk, and 3 ranger past lives and can vouch for its effectiveness. You actually DO take Stunning Fist on the monk/fighter past lives but I could definitely have run without it as well. You'll be in Wolf form from level 3 on (Winter Wolf upgrade when it becomes available) and as far as enhancements I'd just concentrate on things that increase your damage or run speed. Reaving Roar isn't what it was at one point but it's still very useful, especially when you're cleaving/great cleaving and seem to always be killing something.

Race: Human
Alignment: Anything with Neutral somewhere in it - I'd recommend True Neutral for access to Stability gear but that's up to you

Starting Stats:
Strength............17 + levels
Dexterity...........15 (requires a +2 dex tome by level 10 - if this is a problem then 16 str/16 dex/14 wis would allow for a +1 tome instead)
Constitution......14
Intelligence.........8
Wisdom.............13
Charisma.............8

Level 1 (Barbarian 1) Feat: (Human Bonus) Power Attack, Feat: (Selected) Cleave
Level 2 (Druid 1)
Level 3 (Druid 2) Feat: (Druid Bonus) Wolf Form, Feat: (Selected) Least Dragonmark of Passage
Level 4 (Druid 3) Ability Raise: Str
Level 5 (Druid 4)
Level 6 (Druid 5) Feat: (Selected) Great Cleave
Level 7 (Druid 6)
Level 8 (Druid 7) Ability Raise: Str
Level 9 (Druid 8) Feat: (Druid Bonus) Winter Wolf, Feat: (Selected) TWF
Level 10 (Fighter 1) Feat: (Fighter Bonus) iTWF
Level 11 (Druid 9)
Level 12 (Barbarian 2) Ability Raise: Str, Feat: (Selected) Improved Critical: Bludgeoning Weapons
Level 13 (Barbarian 3)
Level 14 (Fighter 2) Feat: (Fighter Bonus) gTWF
Level 15 (Barbarian 4) Feat: (Selected) Natural Fighting
Level 16 (Barbarian 5) Ability Raise: Str
Level 17 (Barbarian 6)
Level 18 (Barbarian 7) Feat: (Selected) Natural fighting
Level 19 (Barbarian 8)
Level 20 (Barbarian 9) Ability Raise: Str