EQDiva

i read the old power leveling guide on the alpha eqdiva site and it missed alot of things so i thought id post an alternative. ive been playing a bard for two years now and decided i needed a change. i started a dark elf cleric on a seperate account from susperia and i play them at the same time on seperate computers. my strategy is nothing new and has been exploited by bards for some time, just havnt seen it formaly posted on the site. this is how it goes. i first of all hit a mob with anti-magic aura, my usual pulling song and then bring it to the safe spot where my cleric is patiently waiting. i then hit it with largos melodic binding to slow and debuff it as well as generate aggro so my cleric doesnt get wasted. then i go for flat out damage until it hits about ten percent health, healing with cleric depending on how tough the mob is. at that point i shoot it with the level 27 charm song of sirens, if its too high level then i apply the level 39 charm bewitching bravaura. the second my charm hits i begin casting level 19 sonorous clouding which renders me invisible and breaks my charm spell. the hide ability will also break the charm but not with absolute certainty so i choose to use the inv song. anyway, by charming the mob you reset the damage counter on it and when its killed by another player they will recieve full experience from it. at this point i have my cleric stand up and nuke it once, then sit down and repeat the process all over again. since i use a cleric i have chosen places full of undead because of the cleric undead direct damage spell line. i started off in befallen, then i moved to the estate of unrest courtyard, then i moved into the unrest basement. at around level 35 i moved to the city of mist and thats where im presently working toward level 42. my next move will be to the basement of karnors castle, after that im not yet sure. i have experimented alot and in my opinion these are the best places to level especially as a cleric because of mob type, hp and ac on the mobs being fairly low, and zones being generaly empty. this aspect of leveling can be debated till the end of time, youll just have to make your own decision. theres palces like paludal caverns that have insane exp bonuses but the lack of mobs and abundance of trains due ot heavy camping make then pretty lame in my opinion. i got my cleric to level 41 in around 75 playing hours so i cant complain. trying to beat a guildmate who got her cleric to 60 in i think 15 playing days, very nice.

i also keeps denons bereavment memed in case of adds, it generates enough aggro to keep them from attacking the cleric.

thanx for that Susperia - i also want to start PLing a cleric on another account with my bard and your suggestions are fantastic...

Thanks so much Susperia! I have tried this out since I got my second account and don't have a cleric yet. So far so good, took my 54 druid and PL'd the dorf to 9, mostly so I could port around and grab him spells and gear, also to see how a druid would PL (yuck). At 9 I took my bard to Unrest like you suggest (after spending an hour with manasong going so he could max out spell skills). In 5 hours, mostly getting the hang of it, I took him from 9 to 14, including one death. I quickly found yard trash wasn't the way to go, went blue to easy. I did much better single pulling level 20-24 mobs from the house and using those. Found sometimes I'd get too many resists and even once go oom trying to ward undead them to death at 10%. But, getting exactly half a yelllow exp per mob made it all worth it. Next up for my little cleric is to get to 15, train dodge and have my bard play heal song while my cleric tanks a few blues. Figure defense, 1hb, offense and dodge should all go up nicely in a 10 min. fight, hehe. Between buffs and 24pt health regen, he should be ok I think. Now for a question. I plan on taking him to Paudal Caverns and have my 23 monk PL him to 20 there. I PL'd a 16 ranger to 20 in 2 hours there on those plarg fiend things (dino like). Sure, could stay in Unrest during that time but the abundance of those things and spawn-rates there make it possibly faster. Then, at say 20, should I come back to Unrest and camp the basement or move to CoM? He seemed to do well against mobs 10-15 levels above him. Not sure. Susperia, if you could give a bit more detail on where you went at about what levels it would be helpful. As my bard is only 52, not sure how well he can solo KC basement, but it's worth a try when my cleric is ready. Lastly this is fun, will do this when I can't find a group or get bored of kiting. Thanks for the posts! Sinfonian

One thing to add is that at 24 I noticed that one skill hadn't been worked on at all... defense. So I took him to the cleric guild and found low and behold that defense isn't trainable. After playing shield of songs and heal for a while I found evens or yellows were taking him down to fast to really make the PAINFUL process work. I was getting about one defense tick for every ten minutes of beating (starting at 7). I soon switched to my druid to help since he could buff him nicely and all important superior heal. So I watched a few movies setting up a hotkey to stand, heal, sit. That worked well with regrowth of the grove and protection of nature. Now, after I'd say 5 plus hours of letting my poor little cleric get used as a pin-cushion (took about 4 min. per heal to drain his nearly 900hps buffed), his defense is 85 (it started picking up frequency of skill-ups after about 40). I also took the time to raise his 1hb skill to about 55, not that he'll need it much but might as well. Coinsidently, I found that druids can PL ok, especially if I pulled a train of 4 or so and let them beat on him with 24pt DS on him. Just make sure that he hits them once with his club to do some damage so he got exp. Got him to 25 that way. Bards still rock for PLing though with charm. Hope this helps anyone that wants to do what Superia did and I'm doing. Always good to be able to pull a cleric out when there's nobody around to rez you. I've already got a 5pp donation to 20% rez someone in Unrest, hehe. Sinfonian

The charm techique is one i have also used to PL my shaman in oasis. The mem-blur type effect from our charm was implemented so once charm broke they would come hit the bard instead of group members or the mob you had your pet attacking. Of course as stated this resets the damage counter and anyone can come kill for the exp. I have also found that any damage i do afterward will give the kill to me instead of anyone else even if they outdamage. Either a fluke on my damage calculation or a broken damage counter reset. My tactic was 3 rounds of 4 chant twist, 1 done on the island, 2 done on mainland where my shaman sat happily waiting. Largo's then charm, break charm with hide or invis and i just let my shaman nuke. I did this at level 54 before i had my selo's drum so the number of chants will probably be different. Walrus skin, 12 chants total left the spectres at 3-4% health, within a single nuke kill of my 30 shaman.

I never though of it that way... I can go to oasis, and PL my monk there at specs. Havnt ever really thought about it like that though. I could get him Massive Exp like that though :D Your smart :p

i still do this but i use almost completly different songs now that my cleric is level 55. the absolute best place to power level is in plane of justice at the mobs before mauvin. first a use silent song of the quelious to pacify the mobs around my target, then i pull the mob with occlusion to the back right corner of the large hall. i twist melody of mischief for slow and extra damage, then warsong of zek, rizznas call of flame, and chorus of mar while i fight the mob down to around 5 percent. then i charm it with the song of the sirens, play selos song of travel to break the charm, then i hit it with occlusion and nuke with my cleric to finish it off....giving the cleric all the experience. you can use requim of time for the slow but i choose mischief for the little extra damage. i was surprised these mobs could be charmed by the low level charm but the exp you get on them is crazy. ive tried powerleveling with call of the bansheee but it doesnt appear to have the same mme blur effect that song of the siren has making it an even lamer upgrade than it already is. if you get an add doing this dont try to be a hero and do some fancy charm work gettign your alt exp for both, kill the first one yourself then use the second one for powerleveling. 9 out of 10 times youll screw up and kill your alt and youll say "i should have listened to susperia". well, good luck.

the occlusion before your alt nukes is really important since these mobs will resist most lower level nukes without it.

Thanks, I'm now focused on Sinfonian to get him more songs, as my guild REALLY benefited by the AoE resist song when we were on our ToV raid this weekend. Fun place, I spent my time jumping back and forth between the melee and casters as appropriate because I couldn't protect them both with such a limited range. Hehe a few people were asking when I could get the AoE manasong. Unfortunately that's 3 full levels away, so I think I'll be busy for a while, flies are slowing down. Anyway, my cleric is still stuck at 32 as Unrest is really slow exp now, though just sitting him around PoK casting has most of his spell skills maxed, including specializations. And he's well liked at our drunken festivals for the free beer he makes in droves with his brell's disciple amulet thing. I have also found that when you get an add, it's far safer and easier just to finish off the first then PL with the second, the only time I didn't do that was when I was takeing blues with my druid, just buffing and DSing my cleric and letting the mobs beat themselves to death. In Unrest I was taking 3 or so at a time, but even then the exp sucked. I just got Occlusion and will use it far more often now that I know it stacks with chanter tash and malo. Good idea for PLing, I get really annoyed when I drain mana on resists of the killshot. Finally, I tried CoM as the next spot to take my cleric (can't figure out why nobody wants a 35% rez, hehe), but not only were the mobs a bit tough for me at 52 (now 55 so may be easier), but he couldn't land a spell to save his soul. I'm certain occlusion will help but is that where I should be taking him? Thought possibly the plaguebone thieves in DL near the spires would be easy as they are not much higher level than my cleric (35), but I'm looking for fast exp as I don't want to spend too much time at this. He's only a rezer and buffer and certainly not a playing toon for me. I'm sure it's been a while but if you can recall where you went at about what level that would help tremendously. Thanks, you have been more than helpful already, Sinfonian

just an update...got my cleric through the PoJ trials at level 55. ive found that the secret to doing this for alts and anyone who might be low level or poorly equiped is... enchanter stunning wizard ae'ing cleric healing tank starts meleeling whatever someone who has banish to kill the rock bishes (i use druid to back up heal for my gimp cleric alt) and to assist the tank whoever, also to assist the tank ive gotten the most pathetic people through the trials using this including my aformentioned gimp cleric, hope this helps. when i did this with my main there was no strategies yet, it was just mayhem...maybe this is common knowledge now. /shrug

Wow, thanks, definitely not common knowledge to me. I passed your info on to my guild to help them too, thanks! As for PLing, my cleric is 36 now and CoM is starting to kick Sinfonian's tail meleeing. He's only 56. Any suggestions on zones, strategies for PLing him higher, I really want Cheal at 39 and then eventually 46 for planes duty. Doubt I'll focus on too too much higher as we have a few epic clerics now and I just need him for buffing and emergency rez. Any thoughts appreciated. THought about Swarm kiting and letting him nuke the former pet rather than chant kite it, though I'm guessing he'd get adds if he nuked. Kinda at a loss now. Thanks, Sinfonian

I have taken to PLing the wife's chanter a bit, and here's what works well..... Find a nice open area, pick a single mob, chant it to 30%, drop all chants except 1, chant it till it turns to run, snare, melee down to 1% (use bare-fists if needed to lessen damage).... Charm.... Click invis.... Mezz!! (this is important, check your spell data, mezz lowers MR like tash, so the PLee can land a nuke on a red) At 34 I would say to pull a lower drolvarg or cocatrice(sp?) to the north wall, and chant up and down it, as there are no adds there, and lower stuff would be yellow to red