Epic leveling - Looking for some pointers

[ThreeEyedBob]

Ok, so I have caved a bit and I'm looking for some advice as to how to get the 21-25 done.

I have played DDO for quite some time but I have always been the 1-20 kind of guy where I tend to make an alt or just TR right off the bat.

I would like to change that a bit though and I would like to "top out" a few characters at least to get a feeling for a complete character, if there is such a thing.

Currently my WF Favored Soul is lvl 22, with 15 DR/Adamantine and using a MinII Greatsword when melee is needed. Hp sits around 510 and Sp around 3100. Have Ancient Gemstone armor which I intend to use the War Wizards thingy on and grab the 2 War Wizards sp items to get the set bonus on top.

My question though, is rather general. I usually try to pug (Khyber resident) but often fall back on soloing. Usually I run a Casual and then try to farm a bit on Normal. Epic Hard only in pugs and never done an Epic Elite.

So far I have "bleed dry" the Lords of Dust quest, which I found very easy since all the bosses up until last boss could be instakilled. Besides that I've run The Snitch a few times, Bargain of Blood and Black Loch. Some quests I messed up like Partycrashers where I ended up in the bossfight with about 40 mobs and 10 red named on Epic Normal. Also did all the Elminster messages in King's Forest (MAN I got tired of the Astral Panthers...lol...it seemed to be all I ran into of the red named kind. And with no interesting drops at all).

Does anyone either have a nice little guide as to what quests are "doable" for an average Joe to farm in order to level? Or some good tips at least?

I got the tip to save VoN3 for lvl 25 destiny farming so I sort of blacklisted that one until I get to that point.

[Rawel_San]

The way I do lvl 20-25 on characters I know will stay at cap is every epic once normal, once hard and the explorers in KF,UD,Sschind and DW. That lets you hit 25 without getting repeat penalties on almost anything (actually possibly a couple on some of the von stuff since you maybe ran it at level.) and allows you the easiest and smoothest leveling of ED's. It pretty much means you just play a you would normally working on the gear you or
guildies need while gaining xp. Now if instead of taking it slow you want to hit full 50 ED levels in a week or two
run whatever you want to get to cap but leave out death undone and rusted blades. Then farm the heck out of
those two quests for insane xp.

[ThreeEyedBob]

Ok, so your advice is to grind the heck out of everything except those two quests and save them for EDs?

I find soloing Epic Hards a bit daunting as some of the bosses are huge sacks of hp, but I'll give it a shot I guess.

I dont have anyone in guild except me and I play EU time (live in Norway) so its mostly PUG and soloing.

[Rawel_San]

Ok, so your advice is to grind the heck out of everything except those two quests and save them for EDs?

I find soloing Epic Hards a bit daunting as some of the bosses are huge sacks of hp, but I'll give it a shot I guess.

I dont have anyone in guild except me and I play EU time (live in Norway) so its mostly PUG and soloing.

My advice is do each quest on en/eh that caps you pretty much then take it slow.

BUT if you want 50 epic destiny levels (roughly 14mill xp) fast and are a powergamer type that doesn't go insane
grinding one quest for 400+ times (not exaggerating) then just keeping house of death undone and running that
about 600 times I think will get you the 14mill needed. This is EHard and I think I was using a 30% pot most of
the time so you might be looking at more like 800+ times without a pot.

[sirgog]

Do anything you want as long as you do not do any of the 'big three' quests more than twice.

The 'big three' XP quests are House of Rusted Blades, Impossible Demands and House of Death Undone. You will farm those a lot when capped and so you do not want any repeat penalties at all.

Other than that, run whatever you find fun.

[Deathdefy]

I agree with Rawel that if you do everything once on EH, once on EN you'll make it just fine. I am even skipping WizKing/ADQ1/CoF, and it seems I'll hit 25 with no repeat penalties on literally anything including the VoNs which I just did once on EH due to running them once at level. I also ran the challenges once each for 5 stars on CR 25 which is another few hundred k xp.

Hot tip: get in 1 or 2 raids/pre-raids - Von 5 is crazy xp, and EH Lob/MA aren't bad either.

Re: difficulty, I hear you. I have an alt or two that can't handle EH solo (and one that can't even complete Lords of Dust on EN. He saddens me.).

That said, just put up an lfm. Every group I've put up for an EH has filled within the first 10 minutes, and almost invariably with good players; the Khyber 6-man EH epic pug scene is very solid right now. For best results I would say to step-in and use "IP" since non-IP groups fill some players (me) with trepidation that they'll be facing a 20 minute pre-quest wait.

[Kennyburns]

Hmm... i wonder where all the epic hard addicts came from on our server...
i usually run all of MotU except raid on EH then run epic elite all
then run EE von 5 EH Von6
then just run around doing other Epic Elites.....
As a melee not an over powered caster...
as a Fvs you should have no problems with grouping, specially on a sever that isn't as young as mine
also you get the power to be a caster when ya wanna [Blade Barrier Kiting while group pick off them 1 at a time]
and a ton of versatility
Try harder! play more harder difficulty's!
Get More Xp!
Have more Fun!
Yay

[blerkington]

Hi,

I think the advice people have given you here about spreading what you do out so you hit 25 without repeat penalties is good.

Apart from the ones mentioned above, the quests I liked to farm for extra ED xp were:

* Lords of Dust (easy, good xp, quick if you ignore the altars)
* Bargain of Blood (short and sweet)
* VON3 (Big xp, surprisingly quick to complete on normal with a good group, juicy optionals)
* VON5 and 6 (Nice to get so much xp while raiding)
* The Deal and the Demon (super fast, around 2-3 min with a good group)

I'd also suggest that you hold at 23 when you get there. It could make it easier to get groups who are trying to avoid over-level penalties, and it will improve the xp you can draw from the lower level quests.

Good luck with it.

[QuantumFX]

I’ve just been reworking my way back up the favor list and hitting all the epic quests on Epic Hard and then doing them again on Epic Normal. You’ll hit the 3 million cap pretty easily and be ready for Epic Destiny XP farming.

[Rawel_San]

Hmm... i wonder where all the epic hard addicts came from on our server...
i usually run all of MotU except raid on EH then run epic elite all
then run EE von 5 EH Von6
then just run around doing other Epic Elites.....
As a melee not an over powered caster...
as a Fvs you should have no problems with grouping, specially on a sever that isn't as young as mine
also you get the power to be a caster when ya wanna [Blade Barrier Kiting while group pick off them 1 at a time]
and a ton of versatility
Try harder! play more harder difficulty's!
Get More Xp!
Have more Fun!
Yay

EE for xp is just extremely bad xp/time, and most characters can not solo EE. These two together mean I run
Ehards for xp, EE's for challenge/items in the new pack. Both characters I've almost finished capping destinies on
did it almost exclusively short man/solo so doing ee's was just not worth the effort. Heck I doubt my monk
could solo more then a couple of the easy ee's even in his main destiny much less leveling one up.

[ThreeEyedBob]

Thank you for all the replies!

I was a bit worried it would be a struggle to get to 25 but from the sounds of it it should be possible for me to do :-)

I guess I will run Casual/Normal/Hard on most epics and just see how it goes.

Thanks again.