Leveling Guide

[Layanor]

This was posted by a fan on LOTRO Reporter Episode 180. Enjoy!
I just finished taking my 9th character to 85 -- one of each class -- and I think the thing making it both fun (to me) and possible was the development of an efficient leveling path. Here was the route I developed and followed again and again...

All levels are pretty fuzzy unless where noted

1-6: Intro

6-15: home zone. Do all the quests in the lines starting in your hometown and definitely the Epic prologue quests. You should end up with the prologue plus 2ish quests all sending you to Bree. When that's all you've got left, go turn those in.

15-20 Bree-land and I.1 -- do your level 15 class quest and whatever strikes your fancy in northern Breeland (the part West of town) and Epic volume 1 up until Tom Bombadil sends you into the Barrows. When you get to right around 20, do that. Skip the Old Forest unless you're a glutton for punishment.

20-29 Skirmish skirmish skirmish. At the start, the bonuses for the kill 5 lieutenant skirmish deeds are plentiful, and skilling up your soldier is cheap. Use the rest of the marks on fresh armor sets and weapons at whatever levels those are (20, 23, 27? something like that). At the end of this range, Do Volume I, Book 2 in the Lone-Lands.

29-40: Evendim! Start in Oatbarton and just follow the quests north. At 30, excuse yourself momentarily to do your level 30 class quest, then go back to it. You should easily become kin with the Wardens of Annuminas, and at 40, you can get some nice teal items from the vendor.

40-45 a busy period. Start by catching up on your Epic. I.3 in the North Downs, I.4 in the Trollshaws, I.5 in Misty Mountains, and I.6 in Angmar. Open up your deeds for the pages so you can collect them in Misty while doing I.5, and when you finish the book, stay there grinding goblins or evil dwarves until you're done, then move to Angmar and repeat there. All you need to do of the epic is to finish I.6.6 to open Eastern Angmar. Go ahead and grab the horse point up at Gath Forthnir if you feel like it, and do some quests out of Aughaire after I.6.7 to get to 45, but you don't need to stay any longer, even if you haven't finished pages.

45-48: Head to Eregion. I usually start in Gwathnir and just do all the quests I can (level 48 quests, but they're all fairly easy except the SF quest in the wood troll cave), down to Echad Eregion and then it sends you to Echad Dunann. Don't bother there... just talk to the Dwarf at the wall to start volume II. If you like, you can do the volume II prologue in Rivendell first (or even after). I like to do all the side quests in the Walls of Moria zone.

48-52: That will give you your first LI. Now, go back to the Volume I epic in Angmar. When your LI gets to level 10, sidetrack to finish II.1 which gives your second initial LI. Anyway, do Volume I now. All of it. All totally soloable, and it's more or less on-level, which makes the rewards really nice.

52-59: Moria. Your chief purpose here is to work through volume II and work up your two Moria factions. Go ahead and do quests that make themselves obvious and/or seem fun, but what they are is pretty open. At 58, do your class quest, but the key thing is, finish that damned Epic volume through 2.8.

59-64: Out of Moria. This is actually pretty much just II.9 -- a very, very long book. I do recommend getting your faction up to Friend with Lorien before moving on -- not a hard task, as there are plenty of quests easily reachable.

64-66 Volume III, just follow it into and then back out of Enedwaith Can really start that as soon as like 62 if you finish Volume II earlier.

66-74 Dunland, aka III.4, the longest book ever. Do all the quests until you get to about 74 or you're just ready to blow town, then just follow the epic down into the Gap zone and Great River. Complete III.6 in GR, then...

75-85 Rohan! As usual. You can skip East Wall and Eaves, but they (especially Eaves) are worth doing at least once for fun.

Hope it's helpful!

Rogg

[Rorgg]

And here I am, following my own advice... my Cap here on Brandywine is up to 61 now.  Tonight, I finished 2.8, springing me from Moria and got my Lorien faction to friend.  Tomorrow, I can start on 2.9.

 

About the only change I've made (and would make) is that I didn't consciously farm the warm (Angmar/Eregion) pages... was leveling so fast, I just kept going on the epic bits full speed, and just doing the epic in those places (mostly Angmar) got me the pages eventually.  Also, for the cold (MM/Forochel) pages, I underestimated the men outside Helegorod.  They give Shire AND Rivendell faction, AND they count as Hillmen for the Man racial deed.  Plus, a MM deed just for them.  Good stuff.

I'd underestimated how odd it is that you spend pretty much 25 levels just doing the epic.  40-45 or so doing 1.3 to 1.6, 45-46 the volume II intro, 46-52ish, 1.6 to the end of volume I, 52-60ish 2.1-2.8, then 61-63 or 64 2.8, then a level or two on 3.1 until you get into Dunland (3.4? I forget).  It's definitely the slowest part of the leveling process, but it's still plenty fast.  As it is, I didn't even have a chance to get sick of Moria.

Oh yeah, if you're zipping through Moria -- IG GUARDS is the faction you need.  Miners is fine if you have some extra time in there, but don't worry about it.

Feeling only a couple lacks: (1) Virtues are crap.  I'll have to go back and work those up at cap, and (2) I made this guy a metalsmith, and damn, T5 Ancient Iron ore is frickin' expensive and as I didn't spend much time landscaping though Eregion, Angmar, or Forochel, I ended up short.