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Darkfall Leveling Guide

I made my first "How to get PvP ready in 1-2months" on 12-16-2009. A lot has changed since then, such as what being effective means, what things level what, etc. I'm redoing this because of all the changes and all the bull shit on the forums.

Now, unlike the first time I did the guide, I'm going to go more in depth. The reason I didn't go in depth the first time is because I felt that people should discover the game for themselves. Now, I think most people can't be bothered doing it. I'm also not going to tell you a time frame, because its to dependent on your in game activity, luck, and skill level. So here it goes.

The guide is split into three parts.
Part one is done in steps and takes you though an easy way on how to get gold for your newbie character and getting the basics needed for the rest of the guide along with some tips.

Part two (the first reply) section gives a list of mobs to use to level various magic spells while attempting to break even, how to power level magic on certain mobs, what mobs are killable with melee, etc. Also included in this section are a few dungeons can be soloed once your character reaches a certain level, but all the dungeons listed in this section will have a daily quest and can be done in a group easily.

And the final (the 2nd reply) goes over leveling things like ignore pain, rigor, stat training, etc.

The basics

Before getting into the guide, its important that I list some basics that will help make the guide a little shorter.
All magic school has four sub skills that can be purchased every 25 level in the magic school. The order is Durable Spells (25), Manna Efficiency (50), Quicken (75), and Intensify (100). As soon as you hit these "milestones" go to a mage and buy those skills.

All melee weapons, like spells, unlock skills in 25 level intervals. The important ones are Power attack (25),Whirlwind (50), and melee mastery (75).

Nothing levels unless you are using a ranked weapon. The weapons you start with do not raise any skills. Vets are usually willing to give newbies a starting package. Damage spells and debuffs do not level unless you do damage or the spell has an affect on the target respectively.

When doing any combat ensure you have a food buff on you at all times.

2h melee weapons are key, 1h weapon and board isn't very useful. The best 2h weapon for farming mobs is daggers; however, the best weapon for PvP tends to be 2h swords (some will say differently).

When first starting out, the best armor to wear is the armor goblins drop. Everything else will make you more of a target for newbie gankers

BANK OFTEN. If you ever get to the point of saying, I can do one more BANK YOUR LOOT. This will save you a lot of rage from dying with too much stuff on you

Never leave with more than you are willing to lose. This tip goes with 4 and 5.

When leveling melee, the highest rank of weapon to use early on is r20. Once you are able to solo medium-hard mobs r40s/r50s are the highest you should use. The reason for this is that leveling is based on number of hits, not difficulty of mob. However, leveling on harder mobs tends to be more profitable and faster in the long run, but that doesn't mean you should be trying to kill the mobs in 3hits.

The first thing you should focus on is leveling your lesser magic in order to get the transfer spells: manna to stamina (50), health to manna (25), and stamina to health (60). All player use these basic healing spells in addition to witches brew and heal self. The fastest and cheapest way to level lesser magic is using manna missile while doing your t1 title quests.

The fastest way to level every magic school, except spell chanting, is by using damage spells. Even if you never plan on using the damage spells, its still cheaper and quicker to use them to get to the skills you will use

There are several specialization and spell extensions that can be bought that will be helpful for different things. For magic, bolts and debuffs you want speed bonus and nukes you want the damage bonus, but this is largely to taste as some people like being able to jump cast different spells for kiting. For melee and archery, the most useful specialization you can buy are unfazed, double jump, aqua shot, and Mana Shield. For a newbie, unfazed is probably the only one you want to pick up until you have more manna you can afford forgoing.

And finally, always bring a skinning knife with you when you farm mobs to skin the mobs for enchanting matts. The reason is that enchanting matts are always being bought by other players in bulk which means easy money, and you will use a lot of the enchanting mats you do get on various things later in the game

I'll add more once I double check the requirements on some skills.


Step 1:
The fist thing you should do after you create your character is talk to every NPC in the town to get started on the basic quest. Unlike other games, Darkfall does not have quest indicators on which NPCs give quest and which ones don't. Instead, NPCs have a quest tab when you talk to them. After you get all the quest you then should try to track down a couple r0 weapons. As stated above, the weapon you start the game with does not allow you to level anything. Therefore, you'll need to either kill a few goblins to get a 1h sword, mine some ore to get some money to buy a few r0 weapons, or ask in race alliance chat for someone to help you get started with some newbie weapons.

Once you have a r0 weapon, you should complete all the quest you have and continue on the quest chain until you cannot continue anymore due to mob difficulty. Remember, bank often.

Step 2

If you cannot stand harvesting, skip this step

Depends on your tolerance of harvesting. If you can stand harvesting at all then I suggest harvest timber (500) and iron ore (500), to make 200 wood and 200 iron bars. Then, buy bowyer and convert those bars and wood into arrows. The reason for turning all that wood and iron into arrows is that early on in the game archery is the best, cheapest, fastest, and easiest tool for farming mobs. Having a large stock of arrows on hand makes the process much easier. Furthermore, making the arrows gives you wisdom, vitality, and bowyer gains.

Step 3
After you do step one, skip step 2, or want to take a break from step w the next thing you want to do is work on your character by doing the tier one title quest. The exact order you level your skills and do the title quest is up to you. You get the tier 1 title quest from the following NPCs in your race's capital.
Wisdom = Blacksmith
Fighter Guild NPC = Strength
Mage Guild NPC = Intelligence
Quickness = Merchant
Vitality = Arcanist
Dexterity = Councillor

Once you are done with your tier one title quests you should have lesser magic to 75, melee to 50, bought greater magic (requires 50 lesser magic) and archery 50-60. If you do not meet these once getting your tier one title quest completed keep farming those same mobs until you have those. Once you meet those requirements, you can easily move on tier 2 title quest and therefore stronger mobs. You do not have to do the tier 2 title quests, it just helps you learn the game more assuming you haven't joined a guild by this point.

Step 4
Now the fun begins. At this point, you should have your basics, have a good feeling for the game, and have a decent amount of stuff in the bank to where dying shouldn't be that big of a deal anymore. Before continuing on with the actual guide you may want to consider


Spoiler
Now that you have greater magic, you should level Greater Magic to 25 in order to buy Spell Chanting and Witchcraft, and then level greater magic to 50 in order to buy any elemental magic school. The best method for leveling greater magic is using Rend and Manna Missile to kill mobs at a distance.

As soon as Greater Magic reaches 25 go to a mage trainer and buy both Spell Chanting, Witchcraft, and buy needles in witchcraft magic school. If you do not have the money to buy all 3, be sure to buy Witchcraft and needles. Then, start leveling Witchcraft with needles to until you hit 75. At 75 Witchcraft you can buy Witch's Brew which is arguably the best self-heal in the game.

You may ask why am I leveling magic if I don't plan on using it much. The answer is that AV did not design the game with dedicated healers in mind and everyone has to use some magic for basic utility skills and for healing. Once you get GM to 50 you can start branching out to any elemental magic school in the game. While doing all of this, I recommend picking up the tier 2 title quest (follow the chains). The reason being is that it gives you a secondary/primary gold while leveling, rewards you with more gold and items while leveling, and introduces you to mobs that you should be able to kill at your skill level, although some may be harder than others.

If you find yourself getting bored with magic, nothing is stopping you from leveling melee, archery, or crafting at any point. I simply pointed out the above as a priority because you need those skills no matter what your preferred play style is. In fact, I encourage you to mix up your leveling with other things to prevent burnout and develop a well rounded character. After following the 3 steps above, you will be in a better position to follow the remaining efficiency guide below (next post).
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Section 2: Mobs used for leveling.

After you have a feel for the game and have the basics listed above, you can start moving on to harder mobs to level various skills. The most efficient, but not necessarily the quickest way, to level skills is to find mobs that drop what you are using to kill them. This way, you will hopefully make a profit, and if not that, at least break even until you can kill them quicker. The quickest way to level skills is to grind and is comprised of finding mobs that are easy to hit, have a high amount of health, and/or a way to heal themselves quickly.

If you are having a hard time locating the mobs listed in this guide, simply use the search box on yourmom:darkfall map (click). It should bring up all known locations for the mob you are searching for.

The Efficient Method
Depending on how far along you character is in development, these mobs may or may not be hard for you. If the mobs are hard, then they will be a less efficient method of leveling your character. This is why I'll break down the mobs into their assumed difficulty. I say assumed difficulty because these mobs have been ranked easy-very hard by the community. All the mobs listed here can be soloed.

Note: This list is most likely not complete, these are mobs I have found to level on. There are likely more.

Easy
Easy mobs will not remain efficient for leveling and farming for very long, but can be used to level spells below level 25 without killing the mob too quickly.
Trolls: These mobs can drop a decent amount of sulfur and bone making them perfect for leveling necromancy (cursed bolt) and fire magic (fire bolt) and decent for leveling

Akathars: These mobs can drop a decent amount of sulfur, bone, resin, and mandrake which makes them perfect for leveling air magic, decent for leveling necromancy, earth, and witchcraft(needles) because you get back what you use in gold instead of regs).

Kobalds: These mobs drop both r0 pole arms and r0 Greatswords. They also drop arrows. If you plan on leveling Great swords or pole arms, these mobs are perfect.

Goblins Fighters and Scouts: These mobs drop a decent amount of arrows and r0 bows making them good for leveling archery early on and tend to be in the same spawn.
Medium
Most medium level mobs are soloable when fighting one mob at a time and can typically be farmed in bone armor.
Earth Elementals: These mobs can drop a decent amount of all regs except mandrake and are weak to fire magic, making them great to level all fire spells against. Furthermore, once you attain melee mastery, these mobs are easily soloable using melee. In fact, I still kill this mob whenever I want to raise melee and make good bank while doing it.

Orge Bosses: These mobs are great to level melee on, drop a decent amount of gold, have a chance to drop a runestone, and have a chance of dropping up to 3 steed grass.

Revenants (all types): Spawns of revenants are typically mixed. Each type drops a good amount of various regs. Edit supposedly some are immune to earth magic. The your mom map lied to me. THey are still good for leveling magic in general. Thank you Douglas Greenway for catching this.

Bonecrew (all types): Bonecrew spawns are also typically mixed and all but the Bonecrew Captain drop arrows while being weak to arrows. These mobs are perfect for leveling archery.

Hobgoblins (all types): Hobgoblins spawns are also typically mixed, and all types drop arrows and are resistant to arrows, but still easily killable with archery. Since the spawns are mixed, they also collectively drop a decent amount of gold allowing you to use these mobs to level all magic, but less efficiently and you may not break even while farming them.
Hard
Hard mobs typically aren't very efficient for leveling; however, they do drop or skin for great loot making them worth using for leveling. However, if you are able to solo the mobs listed here, it may better to simply kill these mobs for the loot, rather than the levels, and then using the loot to fuel grinding if you can tolerate grinding.
Deathless Mages: Deathless mages are soloable using melee and plate+ armor. They drop good gold, a verity of q3/q4 enchanting matts, can skin for fiend claw (rarely), and drop a good amount of all regs except resin allowing you to farm them without having to worry about restocking for regs. However, they do have down time
If you have more mobs to add (especially to the hard list) please give them to me.

The Grind Method
The grind method is probably the most boring and riskiest method for leveling skills, but it is the quickest. Bascially, you will use the two mobs (there are probably others) to spam spells (the only skills worth using this method on) on and heal the mob when it gets low on health to remove down time.
Crog: The Crog is a giant lizard that is slow moving and weak to all magic, making it an ideal candidate for grinding. Simply strafe its range attack and hit it with spells until its at about 1/4 hp, then use sacrifice and heal other to bring it back up to full health and repeat

Basalt and Granite Golems: These mobs are also large moving targets that are weak to magic; however, unlike the crog, you do not need to heal it yourself. The Basalt and Granite Golems both have a special ability healing ability that it actives where it covers itself up in rocks. When it is in this state, it heals up and cannot be damaged.
The Buddy Method
The buddy method is pretty self explanatory, you farm mobs with at least one other person to level up . Typically speaking, for efficiency you only use this method for leveling melee or when fighting mobs that are beyond your solo ability. If you and your buddy both have access to Haste (increased melee speed magic spell in Fire), its the fastest way to level melee. While it may not be as efficent as soloing, it may be more fun and more rewarding for you to use this method. Below are some mobs and dungeons that I recommend using the buddy method to level.
Aer Tithil Dungeon: This dungeon is located around 13'20" W 22'21" S. The dungeon is worth doing because it has a daily quest (quest that can only be done once every 24hrs) whose reward is 3.5k + bonus (typically 30 q3 enchanting mats of a single type). The mobs it has you kill are Cave Hags which are weak to lightning magic. Since the reward is pretty high, the mobs it has you kill hit like a truck, and its pretty easy to be PKed down there its best to do this daily with 4 other people. This dungeon was a PvP hot as of 11/1/10

Ahu Ishtra: This dungeon is located around 1'28" W 25'34" S. The dungeon is worth doing because it has a daily quest whose reward 4k + bonus (typically 50 q3 enchanting mats of a single type). The mobs it has you kill are Tomb Iklits. The best method I found for kill these mobs is to have 4 people using melee. This dungeon was a PvP hot as of 11/7/10

Any rare ore Golem: All but the Leenspar Golem are duo-able with either fire maigc and lightning magic, the leen spar golem is duo-able with lightning.
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Section 3: Stats, Defense Skills, Crafting, Sub skills, AND YOU!.

In this section I go over the how to raise stats, defense skills, and crafting. I'll start with stats since that seems to be the main area of concern for people and its linked to crafting. I'll then do crafting followed by the most tedious part of darkfall which are the armor/defense skills for your character.

Meditation
AV just added the meditation system, and this system is perfect for players who's magic schools are under 50. While the current gold cost to level a school to 100 can be 150k+, the cost to level a school to 50 is substanially less. JCanto, who is actively testing the gains for water magic (go to link for data), has gotten 11 levels in water magic for roughly 2.5k. 2.5k profit a day is easy for anyone to attain, farming any mob in the game, using any farming method. Here are some tips for using the meditation system efficiently.
Read Frosth's Post
Only use meditation on the school you aren't actively using. For most beginners this will be spell chanting, water magic, witchcraft, and maybe earth magic.
After farming, replace all regs/arrows (You shouldn't have to replace gear every day) then spend half of your profit on meditation points, save half of the remainder, and use the other half on buying any skills you need/want/can. If you don't need/want/can't buy any skills, use the remainder on meditation points
As soon as you unlock a skill for a magic school you plan on actively using, do not spend more points in said school unless you have all other skills you need/want from the remaining schools. Why? It will be cheaper and faster to just use the unlocked skill.
Since this is the case, only level schools to 25 at first execpt spell chanting. Spell chanting can be taken all the way to 100 using this method.
To get r50 nukes for air and fire as quickly as possible (the two most used schools in the game), Actively use AIR Magic and then convert the profit from leveling air magic to Off-line train Fire Magic. Note: Only use this method if you don't plan on using fire bolt as your main bolt spell.

This is the basics of using the mediation system as efficiently as possible. It is likely that AV will reduce the cost at some point and add more skills; however, these basics will hold true unless AV removes the system entirely.

Stats

There will come a time in your leveling that you may notice that your stats aren't going up as quickly as you'd like. It happens to all of us and it is one of the grind complaints of many. But just because something goes up slow doesn't mean that the gap created by that slow growth is huge.

For instance, HP, where 450 is max HP, is increased with the more vit and str you have. However, the majority of you HP gains happen before you 60 in str/vit, making the last 55points only add very slightly to you HP poll. Furthermore, you can increase you HP with other skills that add directly to the poll as well, using blood crated items, and HP buff reducing the gap and approxing cap even faster than you other wise could. This is evident through the simple fact that more and more people are now using Shade craft armor despite not having max stats.

People also say that every 10 point in str, dex, and int directly Adds 1 point of damage to melee, archer, and magic respectively, but this is only partially true. The order of importance for damage is skill level, gear, and stats and like HP, damage has a maximum value. The higher your skill level and gear is, the less important stats become for damage.

Despite this though, stats are still important to people and can contribute to the slight edges you'll accumulate over time against other players. So knowing the best way to level stats, espeically to get certain skills, is very important.

In general the best and fastest way to level stats is in the following order:
Damage dealing skills, Crafting <----> Harvesting, Non-damage dealing skills. However, there are some crafting and harvesting skills which have great pay off and allow to raise stats in an inactive way, resulting in over all quicker gains. They are

Herbalism and Herbing - Minor Potions:
One of the easiest ways to raise both wisdom and intelligence. Appox 100 minor herbalism pots = .03 gains to Int. Harvesting your herbs adds to the over all gain/pot ratio, but I'm not entirely sure what the total gains are.

Construction- Repair Shards:
For the money and time you put in to getting the matts, which can be farmed entirely by meleeing certain mobs, making repair shards are the best bang for you buck when leveling str and vit. Quartz can be farmed from Earth Elementals and Stone can be farmed from Orge Bosses and both mobs drop other items that will be useful to you.

Wisdom = harvesting
When I needed to power level wisdom back in the day in order to buy Maintenance, I gathered herbs and made herbal pots. However, since then I've found that harvesting in general tends to be the fastest way to level wisdom.

Sadly though, there isn't a crafting or harvesting skill which can also raise dex Out of all the crating and harvesting skills in the game, those are the best for inactive stat gains in their respective fields. When you are being more active, damage skills seem to raise stats faster than non-damage skills. So when you are actually trying to level stats in an active way, instead of just ignoring them The best ways are

Str and Vit = Melee
Meleeing mobs with the weakest weapon in the game would result in the most gains per mob; however, it would also result in  from not killing things at a reasonable pace and not getting other things you need. What I typically do is find a medium level mob that drops what I need and then use a r40 crafted weapon against it. This tends to give the best stat/skill/item gain to mob ratio in terms of over all time as well.

Note: Daggers may be the fastest gains and quickest way to kill mobs in the game. I cannot say this for sure since I do not use daggers at all; however, it is logical.

Intelligence = Manna Missle
Yes, I'm talking about actual grinding here and I actually do not recommend doing this. When you have all the spell leveled that you actually plan on using you may find that you aren't at 75 int yet. If you can tolerate it, find some easily killable mobs and go to town on them with manna missle while using a black bolt and hasten spells (if you have it).


Crafting

This section isn't very long because theres not much to quickly level crafting. Typically, the best way to level any crafting skill is to find the cheapest, highest rank think you can craft and make it. However, this general rule doesn't hold true for everything and something, because of circumstance, you may find it better to craft other things. This will mainly talk about other things

Weapon Smithing
Typically, leveling weapon smithing all the way to 25 mastery, the best way to do it is by making clubs because they are typically the cheapest weapon. However, they aren't the most useful weapon. IF! you are leveling weapon smithing while leveling your character, you should make r0 weapons that you'll actually use. Get a fairly large stash ... say about 50 and then move onto clubs. At every 25th level, make the next highest level club until you hit 1 mastery. Once you hit 1 master, make another round of r40s if you do not already have stash saved up in your bank. After you get your stash, then make Composite Clubs.. The reason for the emphasis on Composite Clubs, is because this will be the only Great Club you'll make. The reason? Its a weapon added in by the devs specifically for leveling Weapon Smithing Mastery. As of December 10, 2010 you can sell Composite Clubs to vendors.

Alchemy
Typically, the best way to level Alchemy is to make r0 staves until you can make black bolts and then just those. However, if you horded all your enchanting mats like suggested ealier in this guide you may find that making Alchemy Pots is better for you. In fact, I did this to get from 77 alchemy to 100 alchemy. Another intresting thing about alchemy pots, it levels true forage weapon smithing.

Enchanting
The most expensive, longest, and probably the most important craft in the game. I have been told by a person who is currently power leveling his enchantment that the gains from doing q1 enchanting is the same as doing q4 enchanting. Even if this is true, you should probably still use up all your q1 and q2 enchantment mats before returning to q1 enchants while leveling. Once you used up all your q1-q2 enchanting mats you should move back down to q1 enchanting, even if doing higher enchanting gives more gains, for the simple fact that anything higher than q1 is extremely expensive.

Tailoring
Make cloth pants all the way to 100.

Jewel Smithing
If you farm a lot, you should have a lot of gold and leather stored in your bank. Use all your leather followed by the most expensive gold only item.

Maintenance and True forage
If you must grind these, make the cheapest thing you can make, excluding arrows and simple shirts/pants. If you have the matts, you can make Alchemy Pots to raise true forage weapon smith slightly as well.

Secondary Skills and Defense skills
There are a few secondary skills that require a certain amount of HP, STAM, MP only as a prerequisite. These skills can be purchased before you actually have the required amount of HP, STAM, MP if you are Buffed with STR/Vit, Quickness, and Int/Wis respective.

The defense skills are the most grindy things in the game to raise. To make it go as quickly as possible you need to find a mob that hits often and uses a lot of dot attacks. For example: HiveKins, Brownies, Naladas, etc. When you are leveling these skills, the amount of damage you take does not influence the amount of gains you get so you should Block their attacks to reduce down time.


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