Anyone interested in a regular grinding group, or have tips on getting to 20?

[Tynien]

I'm leveling my first character (Initially cleric, rerolled Rogue 2 / Wiz 18 to try the arcane side), currently at level 6. Any advice on making that trip to 20? I plan to TR the first time around, then probably get into raiding a bit more on the second incarnation. Anyone out there interested in grouping, or have advice to share? I'd love to learn more about the game.

Qinril Vae, Trapzard

[Mythal]

I'd say, learn the quests first and make 1 or 2 level 20's before you TR.

I've done it quite a few times now and ive developed a static rush to 20 that generally takes me about 10 days if i play 5 hours each of those days. so 50 game hours, but that counts all 50 of those hours as questing and not doing anything else (so in reality it comes to a bit more ddo game time).

some tips are:
1) never level before you have to. cache up 2 levels all the time after about level 8.
2) never hit slayer zones until 1 level before they cap out. desert caps at 15 so you can START killing stuff at 14, GH caps at 18 so you can go at 17, vale at 21 (lol) so you can go at 18-19.....ive constantly seen newbies filling up GH at 10, vale at 14, orchard at 13....they are the ones struggling to get 20 now.
3) always run quest 1 level lower than you. when you have to level up, go back and run them on hard one time so they are still 1 level lower than you.
4) repeat the real good quests at least 4-5 times on normal before moving on - if a quest gives a solid 1k xp/min ratio or better, then its good to repeat until that ratio drops towards 500xp/min. this of course depends on you as a player, and your ability/knowledge to make good builds.
5) never do elite for xp. elite is for favor and loot. its not efficient to xp on for 95% of quests in the game. few exceptions here, and even the exceptions you can easily skip.
6) find yourself a partner that you can 2-man with to 20. 2-man or 3-man all the way and get to know a new friend or do it with a friend you already have. its alot of fun, and you either make (usually) a good new friend or you just have a lot of fun with an old one. i only level up 20's now when i have a friend to do it with. more fun, and 5x more efficient.
7) learn the quests. learn by the 1st or 2nd repeat what the conquest, ransack, disarm, optionals, etc bonuses come in at so you can gauge whether or not they are actually worth getting. every quest is different. if you are TRing though, you generally have to get all conquest/ransack/disarm/optionals you possibly (or reasonably) can, because you just need the xp......this of course includes getting flawless and persistent - dont die and dont re-enter quests! its a waste of xp and time!


now for some tips on quests and their levels (if i remember them correctly!)
level 1-3 = korthos/harbour...this should be really simple, haverdasher is best xp quest lol
lvl 3-4 = waterworks, few harbour stuff just 1 time normal for 25%, sharn syndicate.
lvl 5-7 = tangleroot, house D depths series, any other house/market quests, i also run deleras 1 time for trinket at 5.
lvl 8 = tear of dhakaan (house p), deleras chain - this is also when i start caching up my levels, so you actually get lvl 8, 9, and nearly 10 in xp but you stay at level 8 til you are halfway thru your last rank before level 10.
lvl 9-11 = run any lvl 7-10 house quests 1 time normal, come back for hard if you need to...there is plenty to do. necro2 tombs are huge xp, especially shadow knight with a trapper.
lvl 11 = ataraxia quests, a few house Q's, desert walk-ups
lvl 12 = necro3 tombs, desert walk-ups
lvl 13 = wiz king (desert), other desert quests...
lvl 14 = GH walk-ups, ataraxia slayers/rares
lvl 15 = desert slayers/rares, GH flag quests, desert flag quests hard
lvl 16 = max out GH quests norm/hard, necro4 quests
lvl 17+ = max out orchard quests, vale quests, GH slayers/rares, vale slayers/rares, orchard slayers/rares, reaver slayers/rares
now youre level 20......

you will go from lvl 18 straight to 20 by caching up your rank to 94 and then before you are done with it, level to 19, hit another slayer rank somewhere, and you'll finish your rank 95 (level 20)
i usually dont have to even go past 750 slayer in any of the zones to get 20 this way. in fact most times i dont even touch reaver at all, i get 20 quite easily with the zone xp just on GH/vale/orchard with slayers at 750 each.

if your goal is to make 20 quick, stick to this and it shouldnt take more than 100 grinding hours even for a first time player.
when they have a week long 20% xp bonus, i usually roll up another 20 in 5-6 days pretty much doing this exact same routine - it depends on the build tho as some do better than others in different areas (if i have firewall i love necro, if im a melee i hate it).

as an example, my current TR monk on orien which i TR'd on saturday, is now at 1.7mil xp (rank 73) and i played it for 5 days (skipped 1 day to do raids on tukw). also, being a TR means that i have to do alot of repeats that i wouldnt have had to do on a non-TR, so my xp progression is worse. however there is a 20% xp bonus this entire week, so it about evens out.
i also do not use xp potions, as they are simply unnecessary.

if you are on often enough you can always catch me and if i am leveling out an alt youre welcome to join, but i warn you ahead of time that i am not tolerant at all to people being noobs in my group and that means pay attention, pull your own weight, and do not die. some quests i zerg to completion asap, some i do all optionals, it depends on the most efficient xp. however, i will not group with ppl who havent already done at least 1 level 20 as it will just ruin the experience for them to do all these quests and leveling up for the first time with me, and i dont want to spoil the game for anybody.

if you want to get some xp grinded out though, feel free to look up any red alert members and ask them if any of the officers are online. all red alert officers are part of our hardcore raid team and we are building out every spec we need to do everything in the game with small compact 5-6 man groups. a few have just joined us from other servers and so they will be leveling out their required alts over the next month or so, as well as a handful of us who are TRing an alt or two. we are xp crazy over here right now! usually hitting about 400k xp per day.