Chewbacca and Gremlin take me to over 80% experience

Big thanks to Gremlin and Chewbacca who took Tarq from 62% to over 80% experience in the graveyard this evening.

I posted earlier that I thought leveling is slow but better outside the graveyard than in other spots, but it's a lot quicker with a couple of others. At level 81 going up a level is slow progress, but with Gremlin and Chewbacca I was getting about 13k experience/minute (compared to between 3.3k - 4.6k outside the graveyard).

The Wilderness around the graveyard

In large groups the graveyard is one of the best areas to rapidly gain experience. Quite a bit of Tarq's leveling in the 75+ range was done in the graveyard.  But as much as I enjoy knocking around zombies with a gang of other goons, I prefer doing things on my own.

Some characters in their 90's might solo areas of the graveyard, but even they run the risk of getting swarmed by too many zombies, skeletons, and lady skeletons. A few are easily manageable, but 8 or 9 end up being dangerous even for powerful characters.

Outside the graveyard there's lots of opportunity to fight skeletons and lady skeletons. Zombies don't wander outside the graveyard, which is probably a good thing since they tend to hit quite a bit harder. Perhaps one of the best creatures to fight outside the graveyard are Poltergeists, blue/cyan balls of energy in TMW. Poltergeists don't do the damage skeletons do (skeletons still hit me the odd time for 10-20 damage, Poltergeists), but they can be deadly in groups. At 81 I can manage 3 Poltergeists without suffering too much damage, but any more and I know I need to start running.

It's almost the same for skeletons, though today when I thought I was fighting 2 skeletons and suffering too much damage I learned there were 4 stacked together - I might as well have been in the graveyard.

Helping snowman

 This evening a spent a bit of time helping snowman collect 10 mushrooms for the Bone Knife quest (you also need 10 black scorpion tails and a beer -- who doesn't need a beer sometimes). What I appreciated as a higher level player is the fact that snowman kept attacking the Evil Mushrooms. Occasionally snowman would die, but then come right back and attack the Evil Mushrooms again. A few times I've started helping someone only to find they sit back and let me do all the work. In those cases I've usually stopped helping - if someone doesn't even want to try why would I do all the work for them?
Snowman seems like a cool player. Good luck with the Bone Knife quest snowman.

Congratulations Prsm and thank you readers!

Prsm in his GM digs

A big congratulations to Prsm on becoming a GM on The Mana World main server. Also a big thank you to all the readers who read this blog and who voted for Prsm.

Today Prsm got to stretch his GM legs with a few events with the other GMs.

I think Prsm will be a good GM. Time will tell and there's lots to learn. For now, congrats again Prsm.

Nice spider cave

Lately it seems like a lot of the usual haunts are crowded with more and more people on the main server. I've come to realize that Tarq's a bit of a tank. There are a lot of faster players doing more damage, but they're like chickens who hit and run, a few chops of a truly powerful monster and they're squawking home to Hades. That said, even at a higher level its easy to miss drops when you're not stated to do heavy damage.

I still don't understand how archers do a lot more damage than a warrior swinging a heavy sword, but it's how the game is currently set up so no point whining about it. Because more and more areas are getting crowded I've been looking for spots that are a little more quiet. The spot pictured above does from time to time have players in it, but it's nowhere near as popular as the spider corridor in the cave north of Hurnscald. And this spot is only a cave away - just bypass all the spiders and scorpions and take the north cave. This cave is strictly scorpions, no spiders, it's a nice spot to collect black scorpion tails if you don't mind waiting a bit.

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.

Tica the alternate, leveling between 20 and 40

Tica the alternate pounding on some cave snakes

Tica is an alternate player I started on the main server about 2 weeks ago. I've played Tica for a few hours here and there. Playing Tica instead of Tarq lead me to a few observations, some I've noted before, some new.

Cave snakes are good for leveling between levels 20 and 40. Find them by going north in Arkim's "Bat cave." Why are cave snakes so good? You only need 20 cave lamps to do the Doug quest which adds 5k experience and 5k gold. Cave snakes also occasionally drop jean shorts. Jean shorts are one of the components needed for jean chaps. And here's the kicker, you don't need to fight mountain snakes to get skins for jean chaps - just be sure to visit Aidan and Ishi when you start your character to collect monster points. Trade in monster points and sometimes you get snake skins (and other goodies like Iron Ore).

As long as you don't create a new login your stash is shared between characters. This means your level 1 character can have decent armour, helmet and perhaps weapon if you've not traded everything away with your main character. I equipped Tica with chain armor and a crusade helmet.

When you reach level 40 make sure you do the Bone Knife quest, even if you already have one from another character. The bone knife quest is worth 50,000 experience. At level 40 this is almost half a level for you. Probably your other character already has the components (black scorpion tails and mushrooms), Tarq did (actually he needed a couple of scorpion tails).

I also noted that at level 40 there are significantly more points available to be put into stats. I think I had something like 60. Be sure to use them wisely.