Power Leveling in EverQuest?

How to Power Level in EverQuest
This topic has surely been covered many times over the years but it seems that I've run into people even in 2013 who are still unfamiliar with the process that I use. I'm not claiming this is the best or the fastest method but it works well for me and figured I would share! If you have a better way, I'd love to hear about it if you're willing to share.

Read below for a full breakdown of how I go about power leveling in EverQuest these days and hopefully you'll find some useful information!


What to Expect?

Using this method you should be able to go from levels 1-80 in about 10-20 hours of played time. There are several factors that will change this estimate, including access to Lesson of the Devoted/Experience Potions, current Hot Zones (if you find this after they change them from the time of this writing) or taking advantage of a double experience weekend to speed this process up. I would imagine this particular set of zones could get you to level 85 fairly quickly/easily, but I've not tried it past 80.


Before You Begin
You'll obviously need a high level character to make this work and in order to get through this full range of levels you will probably need a couple specific classes with appropriate levels/AA. This guide/how-to is targeted more at experienced players who for whatever reason may not have dabbled in power-leveling in the past but want to help some friends get started or maybe take advantage of the free-to-play model of EverQuest and try out some new classes they've never played before.

For levels 1-45:
I use my Level 80 Druid. During this level range, I am doing pure damage shield power leveling.


For levels 45-60:
I use my Level 80 Druid and an A5 Healer Mercenary. During this level range, I am doing pure damage shield power leveling but this particular character isn't geared up in modern gear so I have to have a little extra healing to make it work quickly.


For levels 60-70:
I use my Level 90 Beastlord in combination with my Level 89 Ranger (Headshot @ Rank 15) and a J5 Healer Mercenary. During this level range I am grouping with the high level characters and killing as quickly as possible.

For levels 70-80:
I use my Level 92 Magician with a J5 Healer Mercenary. Again, obviously, grouped and killing as quickly as possible.


An Important Stipulation
This will only work effectively with classes that have some kind of direct damage area effect spell. My recommendation for non-caster classes or casters without a DD AE would be to create a couple of new characters on two accounts and use one for the purpose of the AE until you hit level 60, at which point you can drop them to focus the experience on the melee class. A Wizard is the obvious choice for this situation since they get an AE at level 1.


Before Starting, To Be Sure
It should probably go without saying but to be complete I want to make sure and point this stuff out.

First, you'll want to make sure and start your new characters off in Crescent Reach and make sure the Tutorial button is turned off during your character creation.

Second, you'll need to grab only the AE spell for the character you're working with.

Third, if you are unfamiliar with how damage shield power leveling works, you only need to know that damage caused from any kind of damage shield is considered neutral damage and isn't associated with any character. Therefore, to get credit for the kill on the lower level characters you only need to inflict 1 point of damage with the low level character and none whatsoever with the higher level character.

Fourth, while it may seem tempting to use a higher level direct damage AE spell as you're moving up in levels, I'd highly recommend against this idea. You'll gain way more aggro this way and likely get yourself killed more than necessary. Remember, all you need is 1 point of damage -- lower level spells will hit the mobs just the same as higher level versions.

Fifth, I always do this with completely naked characters. There is no real need to gear them up to make this happen. You might have a death or three along the way, but you can make up the experience and lost time quickly and easily, especially if you're using a Druid to resurrect them right back in and keep on pulling.


The Process of Power Leveling
How you go about this process changes as you move through the levels, which I'll explain in each level range below.


A big key to the speed of this process is know where to go and when. In the past I always struggled with certain level ranges because I couldn't seem to find a good place to go that worked with this style. Finally, I've found a good group of locations and they are as follows:

Levels 1-25:
Zone: Crescent Reach

Levels 26-45:
Zone: Blightfire Moors

Levels 46-60:
Zone: Acrylia Caverns

Levels 61-70:
Zone: The Steppes

Levels 71-80:
Zone: Direwind Cliffs

As of this writing (3/19/2013), I believe all of these zones are currently Hot Zones. For all I know this is an intentional quick leveling path by the EverQuest developers, but I would probably recommend these same zones even when/if they change them again. The re-spawn rates in all these zones, with the exception of Acrylia Caverns, is very fast and is a huge reason why you can get through these early levels so quickly.

Finally, here we go...


Levels 1-14:
You're starting off in Crescent Reach. I use the standard old school way of getting through these levels; which is to buff the newbie character up and run them around attacking as quickly as possible. As I mentioned, I use a Druid and buff them with: Skin, Regen, Damage Shield, Spirit of the Wolf and Strength.

There is no way around some of the tedious running around and waiting on this part. You'll simply need to run around hitting everything you can in the newbie area in the South area of Crescent Reach (outside of the actual starting city area) where there are snakes, drakes and spiders. Make sure you do your point of damage via melee/spell and then let them beat themselves to death on your damage shield. The regen spell along with the Skin buff should keep you alive easily, so run around and get as many as you can.

If you are using a Wizard, you can use the low level single target direct damage spell, rather than running around hitting, but you'll have to stop and regain some mana. I've never actually timed which method is faster - to me they are both kind of slow starting off...but it gets much faster.

When you hit level 5 or so, move North a tad over the bridge where there are higher level drakes, bears and cats. Do the same thing here and keep doing so until you hit level 14. As you get up to level 8 or 9 some of these will start to grey out. Don't worry though, they re-spawn faster than you can gather them and you'll find plenty that work.

Note: This range of levels can be one of the slower parts of this process. Don't get discouraged if you literally spend an hour or more getting through this range of levels.

Levels 14-25:
Once you hit level 14, move yourself up North in the zone. There is a bit of water, that field and a building. Move past that up to the bridge that leads to the Skeletons in the cave. You'll want to park your newbie character(s) near the wall in front of this bridge.

The method changes a tad at this point as you'll be focusing on the AE part of this process and keeping the mobs on the high level character. With a Druid as the example, I'd keep a few key spells memmed: Your largest single target heal, a small heal, like Greater Healing, the largest single target damage shield you have and you'll also want to make sure you have "Fernspike" as well. This will speed this process up big time.

Get your big DS on yourself as well as the self-only DS and whatever normal buffs you want.

Run across the bridge with your high level character and gather up all of these skeletons. Go into the cave and into both sides, all around this area. There are a lot of them - I've never counted but I would guess a good 30 or so.

Once you've got them all rounded up, run them across the bridge and stop right on the other side of it. Let them get up to you and run them around so you get them gathered up in a nice bunch. Stand yourself as directly in the center of them as you can and then grab the Wizard/AE class and run up as close as you can to the Druid and AE them all. Back away quickly after you cast; even more quickly if you get aggro before casting. If you happen to get aggro before casting, back away and heal yourself before trying again. It's easy to die during this particular level range.

After you've hit them all with the AE, get back to the Druid and start casting the Fernspike spell as quickly as it refreshes. This will mow these mobs down and you'll fly through these levels. Rinse and repeat this until you hit level 25, then move to the next section.

Levels 26-45:
Now it's time to move over to Blightfire Moors. Using a druid, you can port directly there or you can run over there. From the Druid portal location, run North-East to the cave that has the mushroom guys. Park your newbies to the left a fair distance from the cave.

These little guys will aggro your Druid easily and they re-spawn very fast. Gather all the ones up in the field and inside the cave as well, and use the same process as before -- rounding them up as closely as possible, standing in the middle of them with the Druid and then creeping up to AE with the Wizard/AE class. Careful on these, as they will also turn on you easily for some reason, even before casting.

You'll want to use these to get yourself to about level 32-34, then, just around the corner from this spot (East) is a castle/tower with a ton of skeletons. These are your next target which you use the exact same process with. Gather them ALL up if possible. All the ones in the field and you can also climb up into the tower to get even more of them (which are slightly higher level).

These don't seem to turn on you as easily so long as you cast a heal or two on yourself when pulling with the Druid. You might get some resists on these though, so don't get greedy. These will kill you pretty fast if you're not careful but it can easily be done once you've mastered the process during the earlier steps/levels.

Once you hit level 42 these might start slowing down a bit - but I think it helps to go ahead and push to 45 here because you'll be able to land your spells on the next mobs much easier. The time you spend doing this will be time saved on wasted resists in the next section.

Levels 46-60:
Go ahead and move over to Acrylia Caverns. At this point for me, I found that I can speed this level range up dramatically by using my Mage to help with their Surge of Shadowflares spell. If you can do this yourself, I'd highly recommend it as using only the Fernspike will still take some time to finish all of these mobs off. Also, if you have such access, you can cast a better damage shield in general than what the Druid has available.

I do this level range in two locations. The first is from 46-51; the second is from 52-60.

Location #1: Right at the zone in. Move your Druid in to the first intersection (you might have to kill a mob right when you walk in to get setup) and then keep newbie character(s) moved in just a few steps forward from the zone in.

My Druid is not geared up with much of the newer stuff (only about 15k HP/MANA) so he's prone to dying in this area when pulling as much as you need to pull to make this effective. This is when I get the mercenary out to help make sure he doesn't go down.

If you need to use the same method as I do as far as a mercenary goes, make sure you put it on "Passive" when gathering mobs. Once you've got a huge train and you bring them back to the entrance to AE, put it back on "Efficient" or whatever. My Druid doesn't have access to a J5 mercenary, and it has died a few times when I get a heal and they pull aggro. I'm sure the J5 would be fine, but it might make the pull messy/split up and more difficult to AE.

When pulling for this area, you'll  want gather pretty much everything in the zone up to the point where you'd click the statue to go deeper in. Pull it to the entrance of the zone and you might want to park yourself in the corner to help with interruptions. You should cast a heal or two on yourself to get a bit of aggro and then come in with the newbie character to AE. Starting off you might see some resists but it will improve once you get a few levels here.

Rinse and repeat this until you hit level 51. Then, you'll want to move in to the next spot.

Location #2: You'll need to run deeper inside and click the statue to move in to the higher level mobs. Move all the characters to the spot right where you appear when you click the statue and setup here. Park your newbies in one corner and pull mobs to the opposite corner. Warning: There are at least 2 mobs that wander into this area. You'll want to kill them when you first click in to here and watch out for them when pulling.

In this area, I pull two sets of mobs. First, I pull all the stuff you can find in this new area. Search around and pull these and use the same methods as before. Once you've cleared this group of mobs, Egress if you're using a Druid or click one of the pictures that takes you out of the zone (Egress is faster/smoother if you can).

Then, grab all the mobs once again from the entrance area that you were grabbing before in location #1. Gather them all up and run back to the statue and click it. Wait a few seconds and all these mobs will warp themselves to this location and you can AE this as well.

At this point you might want to take an AA break. You can easily get Innate Run Speed and Metabolism or something maxed out real quick and then save up 30 AA. You'll fly through these, but there isn't much useful stuff to buy at 51 so it's nice to get them while they're quick and have them ready for 55.

You'll rinse and repeat this process all the way to level 60 here. Keep in mind that at level 55 you can spend your AA points on some useful items and you might want to hang at 55 for awhile getting all the good stuff and saving another 30 before moving to 59. Do the same thing here and get some new Class abilities and, again, save up 30 before moving on.

Personally, I haven't wanted to stop here and grab AA because I've been in a rush for one reason or another when doing this process. So I only spent enough time to gain about 67 AA here (the odd number due to buying a few things and banking 30) then moved on. The time played that I originally quoted above does include this much AA but you could spend some time here and easily knock out 300 or so AA to get some fundamental stuff finished.

You should be good to move on once you hit 60 here.

Levels 61-70:
Now you've going to change the process up. At this point, I switch away from my Druid and bring in my Ranger and Beastlord. Take them to The Steppes and run up to the path leading up to the Icefall Glacier zone line. There's a spot near the waterfall at the base of this path that seemed to work well for me to setup.

At this stage, as long as you're using characters that are level 90 or below to power level with, you should be okay grouping. The key here is to be using the Ranger to pull all the Gnolls in the area and having your Headshot AA high enough level to work on them.

I use the Beastlord with a J5 Warrior mercenary and the Ranger uses an A5 Healer mercenary. While the Ranger can quickly HS these, it does help to have the other two there to speed this along.

You're not doing anything fancy here. Just grouping and killing as quickly as possible. You don't need to bother with your newbie characters at all from here to level 80. They just need to be parked in a safe place while you obliterate all these mobs as quickly as they will spawn for you.

Once you hit 70, move to the final zone.

Levels 71-80:
The last stop is Direwind Cliffs. Once you get here, you'll want to travel up North a tad until you run into the formations of soldiers (Orcs/Humans/Drakkins). I can't recall the exact location -- I'll get that if anyone happens to come along and see this and request it specifically.

Here is where I might lose some people if you can't do this with the higher level character. If you've got any well equipped high level 90+ melee class and a J5 mercenary you should be fine. For me, I have a 92 Magician that I use during this level range. I can wipe these formations out faster than they spawn and keep a constant stream of experience flowing to the newbies.

You can park the newbie characters about halfway along this section up on the mountain where they will be nice a safe.

You'll just need to kill these off as quickly as they spawn and you should be good to go and you should push through these levels fairly quickly. Now is a good time to use Lesson of the Devoted, or experience potions. It'd also be worth using them in the 65-70 range, but depending on how to break apart your power leveling sessions or how many potions you have available you would want to use them at the higher levels, since they'll tend to be slower.

Levels 80+:
Using this spot to get to 85 is probably quite possible. You'd probably want to have a character with Lesson of the Devoted or some Experience Potions to make it fast, but it should be doable. However, you're likely to be able to go many other places that would be just as fast or faster, especially if you've got some higher level friends that will group you up in House of Thule or something similar.


A Few Tips During Levels 1-60 Using Damage Shields
First, one thing that you'll need to do during the early levels from 1-60 is make sure you're hitting all the mobs with your AE spell. An easy way I've found to do this is to create a new chat window and set the filters on this window to only show Spell Failures and Experience messages.

You'll want to stretch with window out pretty big -- I keep mine from top to bottom on my screen. Since you'll be getting experience messages on each round of mobs, you should have a clear point of reference for any spell failures when you AE the next group and can quickly realize how many you've failed to hit.

Second, if you are pulling 20+ mobs like you should be and you're getting only one or two resists, I would be content to lose a couple of experience hits rather than risk multiple casts of the area effect. This is especially true in the level range of 14-25. For some reason these skeletons seem to easily shift their focus pull aggro and die and end up losing the entire pull by being greedy. There is no way to tell which mobs resisted or not, so going back for a second or third round of AE's doesn't always guarantee you'll get each and every one anyway.

With that said, if you're getting more than 5 resists it might be worth the risk of going in for at least another shot. More than half and you're definitely going to want to hit them again; but you might want to limit this to about three rounds of AE before you back off and do something to gain some aggro back on the power leveler.


The End
Hope this helps someone out there! If you have any questions please leave a comment! I tried to be as thorough as I could but I'm sure there are some areas that might not be as clear as they could be. Also, I really wanted to include some screenshots but apparently my install of EverQuest isn't allowing my screenshots to be saved because of security settings and I don't want to re-install or troubleshoot this at the moment.

Good luck! You have gotten better at power leveling!! (1)