Your Guide: Toni Dimayuga

Face it. You’ve contracted the dreaded MMORPG disease known as Altitis: The desire to try out as many combinations of classes and races as possible. Things started innocently enough when you took your sweet time leveling your first character. You read every quest description carefully and explored every nook and cranny of Middle-earth. After a spell, you decided to try out another character. Perhaps your first love was a Dwarf Guardian built for tanking, but now you want an Elf Loremaster, king of crowd control. Suddenly you realize you’ve got the fever. The expansion pack, The Mines of Moria, introduced two new classes, making the Altitis burn even hotter. Will you try the Warden or Rune-Keeper? Why not both?

As much as you’d love to have a kickass stable of high-end characters, you don’t want to spend several months leveling each one. This helpful guide is the key. However, keep in mind that it doesn’t guarantee level completion within a specific time period. The speed in which you level a new character to 60 is still dependent upon how much time you actually have to play.

This guide is broken up in three major parts. The first are tips on leveling rapidly. Note that some may not apply to you. The second is an area leveling guide for Eriador and levels 1-50. The final section specifically deals with levels 51-60, Moria, and its surrounding regions.

Tips to Leveling Quickly

Choose a DPS Class

Although you’re free to decide which class to play, the fact remains that the faster you kill mobs, the faster you’ll get to the end cap. Pick a DPS-heavy class such as a Hunter or Champion. Champions excel at area-of-effect (AoE) attacks, which come in very handy when grinding out hundreds of mobs to complete those pesky but important deeds. However, Hunters are an especially top choice because they can track certain mobs and port to many locations, two skills that significantly cut down on play time. Additionally, they can bind to a campsite for an extra home base if you’re questing at two locations simultaneously.

Form a Leveling Group

If you’re in a large and active kinship, you’re probably not the only one leveling an alt. Set up a time to meet regularly with some kinmates and level together. Not only is it more fun to level with a group of your wacky in-game friends, but you complete quests a lot faster. Furthermore, you can even do some of the quicker fellowship quests. While being in a group does decrease the amount of XP you earn when killing mobs, the advantages of being in a group outweigh this minor drawback. Furthermore, fellowship quests often reward more completion XP and better gear.

Avoid Low-Level Fellowship Instances

If you’re trying to get to 60 ASAP and have already done the low-level fellowship instances on a previous character, there’s little reason in repeating them. Not only is it tough to find a group to do the instance, but they often take several hours to finish. Furthermore, the quest rewards aren’t usually worth it since they’re quickly replaced in just a few levels. Therefore, steer clear of the Great Barrow, Garth Agarwen, Fornost, and Annuminas. Angmar instances such as Carn Dum and Urugarth are a different story since you’ll have to obtain your legendary quest items there (that is, if you can’t find them for sale on the Auction House or can’t afford them).

Keep Your Gear Updated

If you’re wondering why you’re suddenly not killing mobs as quickly as before, or why you seem to die more often, it’s time to replace your gear. Good gear is crucial to leveling quickly. Visit the AH and pick up the critted, crafted gear – better yet, make them yourself (with your high level toons) or ask some kinmates to make them for you. But don’t forget the quest rewards, especially at higher levels. Tal Bruinen and Aughaire give some very nice mini armor sets.

Avoid PuGs

Whenever possible steer clear of pick-up-groups (PuGs). While many PuGs are successful and are fun, often times they’re composed of people new to the game, have never done the quest you’re working on, or don’t know how to play their character well. This can lead to group wipes, errors, and a waste of time. If you need to do a fellowship quest (for a Book quest, for example), ask your kinmates to help you out.

Level Smartly

Keeping an eye on your quest levels is a key factor in rapid progression. While you’ll want to do as many same-level and above-level quests as possible and avoid low-level quests, there are caveats to this. Don’t out level an area or risk running out of available quests. You actually lose XP in completing quests four levels or more above you (reds and purples) due to the law of diminishing returns present in the game. If you find that you’re stuck in leveling limbo, grind a slayer deed (e.g. “kill 300 wargs in Angmar”), or move to a new region and quest there until you reach the appropriate level. In fact, grinding mobs one or two levels above you (yellow and orange) could advance you an entire level.