Tica leveling after level 40

Tica kill stats after red slime bout

I've already mentioned killing cave snakes is a good idea between levels 20 to 40, but it also appears to be one of the best methods to level after level 40.

I've noticed a slow down in Tica's ability to level. More powerful monsters like Mogguns, that give more experience, are too difficult for Tica as he's currently stated for a warrior.

Monsters lesser than cave snakes don't tend to spawn fast enough to equal the experience per minute - with one exception - the red slimes in the caves north of Hurnscald.

I did some kill stat analysis concentrating mostly on cave snakes and noticed Tica gets between 600 to 1000 exp / minute killing cave snakes. Killing red slimes resulted in about 900 exp / minute. The down side to killing red slimes is that Tica seems to take more damage from the red slimes - 8 to 9 hp per hit. Cave snakes hit with 2 - 3 points of damage, but take a little longer to kill. The up side of killing red slimes is they drop a variety of items that can be sold for gold.

For the next few levels Tica will be concentrating on upping the vitality stat.

From 1 to 20 and beyond

Yesterday I realized that I unconsciously was taking my own advice about leveling up in the early stages. From 1 to 20 are a little difficult because you just have to start killing as many maggots as you can and closer to 20 start tackling scorpions.

I went from 1 to 20 without changing weapons, but buying a sharp knife or dagger might improve your capacity to kill monsters faster. One thing that did help was trading monster points for items (and it helps in further quests as well). A couple of characters in Tulimshar, Aidan and Ishi, are responsible for telling you how many points you have and awarding you items for those points. In my case rewards have included a snake skin (difficult to get even at level 50), some iron ore, and shorts (extra basic defense). I equipped the shorts right away giving me a bit more defense against lower level monsters.

At 20 I decided to take the ferry (North) over to Hurnscald. It turns out this is probably exactly what you want to do at this point. I left one of the quests in the mines below Tulmishar undone. In one of my past posts I mentioned one of the quick ways to gain experience was to go to Hurnscald and start killing pinkies for their Antennas. (Not all give up Antennas) Collect 10 and give them to Hinnak (in Hurnscald) for a powerful Scythe. The Scythe does massive damage compared to the Dagger (though it's a slower weapon, but does have better reach).

The next step which I didn't mention before is to do Dougie's Cave Snake lamp quest. I found it a bit difficult at first, I didn't have the vitality to kill a lot of cave snakes without resting. At this point it seemed better to level up, so I went back to the areas around Hurnscald and started killing off Pinkies and Fluffies. Why Fluffies? Both Pinkies and Fluffies are relatively easy to kill with the Scythe, they don't deal you a lot of damage, and they give around 100 experience each much of the time. It's a bit of a balancing act:

• How many slices does it take to kill the monster?
• How much damage does the monster deal back to you?
• What kind of experience reward do you get? (e.g. 154 exp)
• What kind of other reward do you get? (e.g. Cobalt leaves)

Ideally you want to tackle monsters that give you lots of experience but require fewer hits to kill. In my experience it's not the whole story. Killing Squirrels results in relatively low experience, but you often get a variety of coloured leaves which can later be used in dyes.

Back to Doug and the lamp quest. The cave is north of Diamond's cove on the second level of the "bat cave." As I mentioned killing the cave snakes was a bit of a struggle before level 31 (and after I still needed to rest a fair bit). I'm at 19 lamps (the quest calls for 20). At this point just killing cave snakes and spiky mushrooms has raised me up from level 31 to 36. The snakes dropped 13 tongues, 17 cave snake eggs, and 3 jean shorts (better than the shorts I described earlier, Def 4). It's been a long quest. I think this is one of the patience testing quests, especially if you're doing the quest solo. If you don't have patience have someone more powerful assist you on the quest. But realize that if you take a shortcut you may miss out on experience (in my case 5 levels). The quest does result in experience (5k), but compared to the amount I earned from leveling in the cave 5k is small.

Battling cave snakes

Dramatic improvement - steel shield and protection spell

I'm not sure what the protection spell does other than raise evade by a couple of points, but I had it cast on me and I seemed to be almost impervious to snake attacks (not mountain snakes, but regular snakes). I was taking on 3 or 4 at a time with barely a scratch. The steel shield has made it possible for me to reasonably attack regular snakes and suffer in the range of 5-10 hits. So hit and run is much easier. This plus a protection spell left me fighting snakes alone and doing well. I picked up about 8 snake eggs and 1 tongue completing the amount of tongues I need from regular snakes in the Auldsbel quest. I still need 2 mountain snake tongues and I'm not yet powerful enough to do snakes plus mountain snakes on my own without the protection spell. Funny enough the protection spell only seemed to raise my evade from 96 to 98... there must be something else at work. Does this mean if I put more in agility or luck that I'm going to dramatically improve my odds? I can't imagine so.

I still need about 11 ore for the best helmet I can get... the only thing left then would be the Setzer (in terms of things to acquire for power). Then it's all fun, buying dyes and changing clothes, completing other quests, and eventually going after the skulls again. I also noticed that the steel shield is good against black scorpions, they seem easier to battle even 2 at a time.

Level 57 - new stat strategy

After a romp in the 'bat cave' aka the 'cave snake cave,' I leveled up to level 57. It took some hard work to get that last 5%. At this point leveling is very difficult. My dexterity is now 51. According to the Mana World wiki the 50 to 60 range should be enough to hit even the highest level monsters. My problem now is that certain monsters, like the mountain snakes, take quite a bite out of me (20 points a shot). I noticed other characters only take 1 or 2, much like what happens with me and cave snakes. Not sure if this is a combination of their dexterity and luck or if they simply have a higher defense. The steel shield is a possibility now, but only likely if I either buy a snake skin for the strap or if I keep leveling up so I can kill the mountain snakes easier. I've developed a new attack strategy for certain scenarios. I don't want to say too much at this point, but I'll reveal it in the near future - it seems to help a great deal in certain scenarios, but it's not very helpful against the mountain snakes ... at this point.

My stat strategy will be to concentrate on Luck, Agility and Vitality. Vitality seems to be promoted pretty heavily on the wiki, but if monsters are doing large damage on you it seems more sensible to put stat points into something that will take critical hits away (luck).