Sorcerer — Solo Guide

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_{Original work taken from http://www.graffe.com/forums and may be slightly out of date}

Disclaimer: While the nature of this post is as a solo leveling guide there have been occasions where some of my xp has come from grouping (especially for specific quests such as the CiS Cloak quest). I will note those instances to draw attention to the areas where a player might need some filler xp by some other fashion, such as going to a different area or perhaps finding a group for a while. This guide is also written from the perspective of a Qaliathari Human.

By my nature I like to group more than solo. However on my Sorcerer I have found the need, for whatever reason, to have to go the opposite route – solo more than group. If anyone finds themselves in the same type of situation, or maybe just needs some ‘alone time’, then I hope that this guide will be of some use. I will continue to update this guide as I continue my journey throughout Telon.

As a soloing sorcerer I would highly recommend that you gear yourself in such a manner as to maximize Spell Damage Focus. The extra 20% damage from keeping SDF maxed will help a great deal with taking down the tougher critters that you will run across. Also, each level, I put 5 attribute points each into intelligence and wisdom and two points each into vitality and constitution. There have been, and will be, continuing arguments and discussion about what is the best way to distribute attribute points each level but I find that having the extra hit points and such from con and the extra regeneration from vitality help me a good bit. I also find that having Fire Barrier, instead of Force Barrier, up while soloing also helps a good bit. The spell haste and possible chance of gaining mana back on a cast just can't be beat. I initially thought that Force Barrier would be the way to go for solo, with the extra ac and such, but then I realized that, as a light armor wearing caster, if a mob got to me I was going to take insane damage anyway so why not use my Fire Barrier and just do everything I could to make sure I never get touched by the mobs. Your mileage may vary.

Level 1 – 10:

These are the formative levels for characters where the player first starts to get used to the skills and abilities that their new sorcerer has. I started off as a Qaliathari Human in the Cliffs of Ghelgad. For your first levels you want to do every quest in the little starting town. There are quite a few and getting to level 6 shouldn’t really be an issue and should only take an hour or two at most I suspect. One of the quests will lead you down the road to the Bayside Outpost and, eventually, to the city of Khal.

Once you get to the outpost down the road you will want to do every quest there and in the little nearby outpost of Raia. These quests will take you all over the area around the eastern side of Khal but you won’t ever really be very far from the city. You will very quickly realize that, as a sorcerer, you are more than capable of completing most, if not all, small group quests solo. You are even capable of doing some full group quests solo depending on the specific mob type you need to fight and how much space you have to kite, possible adds, etc. I’ll leave you to find out which group quests you might be comfortable trying alone and which ones you might need to have help with.

Recently they’ve also added some more quests to the Bayside Outpost area, though these have been added long since I’ve been to this area, so I really don’t have any input on the new quests. The more the better though because I like to have a purpose to soloing rather than just grinding on mobs. In some cases grinding is necessary but if there are quests to do I highly recommend that as the way to go.

Once you hit level 8 you will get your invisibility spell. Get used to this spell because, as a soloing sorcerer, you will almost always want to move invis. There is hardly a time when I travel that I am not invisible.

Level 10 – 14:

Once you hit level 10 you can travel just a bit to the Southeast of Khal to a little outpost called Neamsong Bunkers. As always, I’d recommend doing all the quests here. There is also a missives board here and you will want to take full advantage of it. Grab all the missives you can and travel around killing the mobs needed. Not only do you get xp and coin for completing a missive but you also get a small scroll looking item in your inventory. Hold onto these and turn them in to the appropriate NPC after you collect 10 scrolls for a chance at a rare item. The item you get won’t always be for your class, and will be a blue item most of the time, but even so you can plop the items up on the broker to make a few extra coins. As soon as you’ve collected 15 silver or so I’d head over to Khal and buy your first mount and pick up some horsehoes, tack, and a saddle bag.

Level 14 – 17:

At level 14 I took the teleporter to New Targonoor and headed up to the Three Rivers & Renton Keep area. As always, do all the quests that you can in an area. There are a good number of quests in this area and should keep you busy for a while. There is also a missives board in Three Rivers that you should take advantage of. While in this area you can also pick up the first few United Races of Thestra quests from the NPCs standing across the bridge on the road from Three Rivers to Renton Keep. I highly recommend doing this quest line as you will be rewarded with some really nice yellow armor pieces that you will likely use right up until your mid twenties or so.

Level 17 – 21:

Once you ding 17 head back to Qalia and take the road west of Khal that leads towards Hathor Zi. You don’t actually want to go to Hathor Zi, or anywhere that there are hostile dark elf guards yet. The place you want to go to is called Evendusk, which is a fortress at the end of the road that leads south out of Hathor Zi. You can get there if you travel South of the mountains that surround the dark elf city. The fortress itself is a circular stone building with large ballista outside. The guards and NPCs here are dark elves, but they are neutral. There is no trainer here, or mailbox or broker, but there is a general goods vendor and, the main purpose of your trip, quests. A lot of quests. Do every quests from every NPC here. Some of the them are quest lines with 3 steps or so that get progressively higher in level. I’d personally shy away from the quest that requires you to kill Tiberian Firebirds – at least until you ding 18. The firebirds are nasty 3 dot mobs that have few hit points, but they’ve got a hellacious fire nuke. I’d personally wait until the birds are dark blue before trying to kill them but, hey, that’s just me.

If you want to grind on some mobs, and make a bit of coin, you can also kill the fire elementals around the pools near Evendusk Fortress. These guys don’t have a lot of hit points, are super easy to kill, and almost always drop some kind of sellable item when you kill them. You can burn through them quick and rake in the xp.

Around level 20 the mobs in the area will start to turn light blue, some green. Some of the quests you did would have taken you to the area where there are wolves and trolls that you killed. These mobs are still good around level 20 and I personally stayed in the area and grinded on mobs until I hit 21. About that time I started getting too used to the scenery and decided it was time to move on. At 20 you would have also gotten Chaos Volley 1. Learn to love this spell as it is, at this time, your primary damage spell. Also, by this time, you should be well over the faction requirement to make friends with the dark elves. Almost, and perhaps every, mob that you killed for the quests here gave Hathor Zi faction. Woot – you can now waltz into Hathor Zi like you are the king of the world. Well, maybe not, but you do get to enter the city without getting ganked by the guards - so now you have new access to a mailbox, broker, trainer, etc.

Around these levels I also spent a little time in the Misthaven Area doing the URT robe quest and also down in Arlinora's Retreat doing the URT shoulders and legs quests. Both of these areas are on Thestra.

Level 21 – 24:

At level 21 I headed down to Donovan’s Roost and the Infineum Plateaus area. These areas are south of Evendusk, not too far at all, and the dot for Donovan’s Roost is on your map. Once again, grab every quest that you can. One of the quests that you can get is from an NPC named Scholar Donovan. This will be the start of the infineum immunity line of quests. The first part rewards you with a pretty decent cloak. You’ll want a group to complete it, however, but it’s well worth the effort. There are also a few repeatable quests that you can get from one of the NPCs at the tents. I stayed in this area until I was level 24. The last level, from 23 to 24, I spent slaughtering the villagers in the little aggro town that is down the road from Donovan’s Roost (you will get a quest that takes you there – something about having to hang a hand on a gate or something). Anyway, several runs up and down the town AoEing everything and you should get your level.

Level 24 – 27:

When I dinged 24 I headed over to the Upside Defense Garrison (you can teleport to upside from one of the NPCs on the Khal docks. The NPC across from the one that can send you to Kojan, New Targonoor, etc). There are a few quests you can do from the gnomes at the outpost (don’t forget to look inside the bunkers!). But, in this case, quests aren’t the main reason you came here. Mind you, doing the quests is great xp but the main reason for your trip is turtles. Yes, turtles. If you travel around the coast to the NE of the garrison you will eventually chunk into an area called Strand of the Ancients. This place is a fantastic. The turtles can be found on the beach in the SoTA chunk. They are the only mobs on the beach, are non aggro, and range in level from 25 to 26. Nuke and blast them to your hearts content, they are great xp. You will easily ding 27 off of these turtles.

if you get sick of turtles (I did, real fast), a good alternative are the trolls of the road from NT to Three Rivers. There are a bunch under and on top of the rock along the dirt path that leads to the gate to the shore area. They are 3-dot level 24; they are social, but the big thing here is that they have a very short leash if you haven't damaged them. I've found if I hit one with Flame Spear, and immediately start backing up, then snare it with Frostbite, the adds will generally turn back before actually catching up to me. The one I damaged will keep coming. At level 25, these mobs are worth over 2k XP each, where 2-dots that are much higher level (like 28-29) are only 1500 or so.

Level 27 – 28:

At 27 I headed up to Trengal keep on Thestra. This area is primarily a group area and I didn’t do a whole lot of soloing here. There are some solo quests, yes, but Trengal is also a grouping hub, at least on my server, so I spent most of this level grouped and doing the first few steps of the Legends of Trengal Keep quest. At times I grinded on the 3 dot mobs in the area but, by and large, most of my xp here came from groups.

Level 28 – 36:

At 28 you can start doing the quests and such in the Southwatch area of Thestra, which is west of New Targonoor. I’d highly recommend doing all the quests from the Heartsworn Keep area and, once done with those, start on the missives from Southwatch outpost. The missives here will take you to level 36 no problem. I personally avoided the two missives that require you to kill ghosts and rats. I just didn’t find a large enough supply of them to warrant travelling all the way up the mountain to where the mobs are. There is also a quest that starts from Old Lady Sparrowsong that, in the end, will net you a sweet focus item and necklace. This is actually a series of quests that is, for the most part, soloable. The last few parts you will need a group for or a high level partner to help you kill mobs in a cave that is in the area as well as the final boss(es). I won't spoil the surprise of how this quest line ends :-)

You could, conceivably, do missives until level 38 but at 36 I decided I wanted to go someplace else for a while. At about level 29 I also made a run through Pantheon of the Ancients with a guild group and dinged 30 while there that night. In this level range I also did the faction grind and quest for the Catlike Visage mask. This is the item that, when activated, morphs you into an illusiory panther and grants an extra 20% run speed. A godsend for a sorcerer, especially in the levels before you get your Quicksilver ring.

Level 36 – 37:

At level 36 I headed down to Cragwind Ridge, which is the chunk to the slight South/Southwest of Infineum Mines on the continent of Qalia. By the time I got here the mobs were already blue to light blue but there are so many quests here that I got to level 37 no problem by doing them. There were even quests still left to do when I decided I needed a change of scenery. This place is probably good to start at about level 33 or 34 but, as I said, I didn’t make it here until 36.

Level 37 – 38:

For this level I went back to Southwatch and did more missives there. Once I hit level 38 I took a break from xp-ing and did the Unicorn Mount quest. At level 38 everything you need to kill for the quest is grey (very, very grey in the beginning) so the whole quest is soloable. There was one part (kill ashendreg bugbears at some ruins in the Shrine of the Flame chunk) that I asked someone to come and help me with. I could have soloed this part, because everything was grey, but the mobs you need to kill for the quest are nestled in amongst some 4 dot mobs (sometimes linked together) so, all in all, it was just a PITA to do and I would have had to pick off straggler mobs. Having a partner helped things go smoother and to ease the pain of having to kill 47 mobs at this location. You will also get about 10% xp or so from all the various quest turn-ins so even though the quest is all grey it’s not a total write-off. The quest took about 3 nights to complete. I mainly waited until 38 to start the quest because I knew there would be a lot of travelling and, at 38, you get your Quicksilver Ring which will add to your movement speed and give you spell refresh haste. It will be invaluable when you realize the number of mobs that you will have to grind to complete the mount quest and how much travelling you have to do. I liken this quest to having bamboo inserted under my fingernails. But, the reward - even at a 10 gold cost, is well worth it.

Level 38 – 39:

For this level I headed back to Qalia to the Strandon / River Palace chunks and did all the quests I could find in these areas. I highly recommend doing the bounty hunter quests from Strandon port as these will net you some really nice yellow / orange items.

Level 39 – 40:

Just up the coast from Strandon are the Islands of Madness and Dragon’s Backbone chunks. At the quest hub in Dragon’s Backbone, in the gnome camp visible from the beach, there are numerous quests that can all be completed solo. There is also a quest line here that starts from one of the gnomes in the tent that is surrounded by J2E Enforcers that, in the end, will reward you with a really nice heroic shoulder slot item and the key to the Xennumet dungeon. I highly recommend doing this quest because, with invis, you can complete it with a minimum of fuss and the reward is well worth it.

Level 40 – 41:

When I decided I needed a change of scenery from Dragon’s Backbone I went down to Tar Janishir on the continent of Qalia. There are quite a few quests in this area and I figured that it was about time that I checked them out. When I got there I found that there were, indeed, a large number of quests, most in the level 34 – 36 range. However, I was still able to get more than half a level off these quests. If you are going to solo in this area be very careful because even though, for the most part, the mobs are blue to light blue there are some mobs that can silence and root you! I found this out the hard way. Most notable of these are the bandits that you will be asked to kill for several of the quests. These mobs range from level 34 – 36 and are a mix of 2 and 3 dot mobs. This is also the area where you can do the Starspark line of quests. I have yet to complete the line but, at one point, I was required to kill mobs that spawn in amongst come pretty nasty looking 5 dot cyclopses - so you will need to be careful. Also note that all the named mobs that I found in the bandit camps seem to be partially immune to Freeze and totally immune to Frostbite. You’ll need to be pretty careful if you take on the named. I was noticing, though, that Freeze was acting like a slow on them – not totally immobilizing them but slowing them instead. Frostbite didn’t seem to have any affect on them.

Level 41 - 44:

For these 3 levels I moved around a bit, but by and large grinded on the xenn mobs in stranglewater shore. Long boring grind on them, but finally dinged 44 after several days.

Level 44 - 50:

Hardly soloed at all these levels as I was now in range to get xp when I grouped with level 50s. I mostly did Rhaz inkur and Temple of Tehatamani quests.

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