Leveling progression from 13-17

[Renvar]

I'm looking for some advice on what people are seeing as a good path to level from 13 to 17. Used to be I would go to Gianthold around 10 and that would get me to 13, with some Restless Isles, Desert, and Orchard quests thrown in for fun. At 13, I would run Tor, Reaver's Fate, Hound, Vale Quests, Shroud, Ascension quests, VoD, SoS flagging, SoS to cap.

Since the cap raise, it seems that (With the exception of Tor and Reaver's Fate) the LFM's for those quests are all running with level ranges 15-20. I'm not even seeing Shroud flagging quests start below 14 most of the time. Forget about a Hound, Shroud, VoD, Ascenion flagging or Reaver's Refuge quest below 15. Most run with a range of 16-20.

So, it appears to me that there is a content hole right now in the 13-16 area. In leveling my FvS I hit everything as I normally did, but ran out of Gianthold content at level 13 (Besides tor and the raid). I got over 20 of each relic and had hit all quests N,H,E (some 5 times) and was tired of it. I then found it really hard to find groups. Everyone was running VON, DQ flag quests, Titan flag quests, and Necro quests at 10-13. Even Titan raids and DQ2 raids are running at 16-20 regularly. But there seems to be very little in the 13-16 range.

As I have capped my FvS I was looking to start a new toon, but wanted to get some advice on level progressions. Is what I am seeing just a temporary thing as many players take formerly capped toons to the new cap? Or is this a more permanent trend because the cap was raised by 4 levels but they did not add 4 levels of new content at the top?

Right now I am thinking about holding off on Gianthold until level 12-13 and using that to get through the dead spot. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Impaqt]

THere no good reason to do Gianthold beow level anymore. You killed tens of thousands of XP by Skipping past stuff and Doing Gianthold Early. Now, You've got XP Penalties on all the stuff you should of been doing at levels 10-13... VOns, Dessert, Co6,Invaders, BAM, Therenal, etc etc....

I followed the At level quest path on my latest FvS and never slowed down leveling wise... at l18 now, Almos t19, Flagged for Shroud and have a couple items donw and stil have Reavers Refuge and most of the Orchard stuff to do. Not to mention Amrath.....

[Renvar]

Yep. It took me twice as long to get from 13-16 as it did to get from 9-13 or from 16-20. With many nights filled with running explorer areas for hours waiting for my LFM (the only one in the 14-17 range) to fill.

I still see a bunch of LFM's for Gianthold from 10-13, though. I'm just wondering what happens to all those toons when they get to 14. They must have the same problem I did.

[Mangloid]

Um, they could throw up their own LFM for 11-14 or 12-15 and still farm GH elite. That or they could jump over to do vale quests. Get shroud ready and enough stones to make several GS blanks.

[Arctigis]

I think you need to do things at level now. If you do, there is a lot of XP in the game (even given the poor XP of
the Amrath quests). 10 - 13 now should be Threnal, Desert, Restless Isles, Ataraxia. Good XP from optionals in
a lot of these quests.

[Angelus_dead]

With many nights filled with running explorer areas for hours waiting for my LFM (the only one in the 14-17 range) to fill.

Why would you wait for an LFM to fill?

Seriously, why?

[FluffyCalico]

If you did GH ealry you pretty much are boned. You will need to do vale, reavers, slayer and raids for 5-6 of your last 7 levels now.

[sirgog]

I recommend the following. Throw in any raids you are flagged for and don't get 0XP for (example: start Hound at 16):

10-12 or 13: Tempest's Spine, Ataraxia's Haven and Desert
12 or 13 - 15: Gianthold normal to elite and Necro 4 normal
15-17: Shroud flagging and Necro 4 to elite; make sure to farm Litany of the Dead a bunch once flagged
18+: Reaver's Refuge normal, Amrath normal, then the same on Hard/Elite

[Renvar]

Why would you wait for an LFM to fill?

Seriously, why?

It usually didn't fill. After about 20-30 minutes I would either:

A) Give up and just run explorers and rares with whomever had joined. It can actually be quite fun. Got a bloodstone, greaves and a tome (vale) out of it. Never pulled a bloodstone before myself.
B) Decide to short man the quest or some other quest.
C) See an LFM open up where someone had a player bail mid-quest (maybe due to a wipe) and was looking for 1. I'd stop advertising and join that. As an FvS, I was a welcome addition to any party that was struggling to get through a quest.

I guess I just got surprised by how few LFM's there are in that level range and how little activity there seems to be. This toon shot from 1-13 faster than ever with all the activity from the new mod. There were always groups most nights and I was running with the same toons regularly.

The thing I noticed was that a lot of the quests I was looking to run had LFM's up, but always for 15-18 or 16-20 and the like. I used to see Vale flagging quests with 12-15. Now, you it's rare to see a vale flagging quest lower than 15. I know they are level 16 quests and there's no benefit to running them early anymore, I guess I just didn't think about the impact that would have on the leveling curve. I was in a rut.

Just wanted to see what everyone else was doing. I love Threnal, Desert, Restless, etc. (not the necro so much), and have no problem holding off on Gianthold. I actually like the idea of those other quests getting some more attention. I was just curious if others thought this was short term thing while players were focusing on moving capped toons to the new cap or if was a more permanent change.

Typical week night (EST) on Khyber seems to be 10-15 LFM's in the 1-5 range. 5-6 in the 6-10 range and then maybe 1 or 2 from 10-13 and then 4-5 from 16-20. That 13-16 gap was brutal for a guy who PUG's regularly. Maybe the real answer is to get into a bigger guild that does more guild runs. Right now I'm just in a small guild of 6-10 guys and I'm the most active player of the group by far. Leaves me PUGing most of the time.

Thanks for all the responses. Especially yours, sirgog. I appreciate it. Think I know what I'm gonna do with my next toon.