Ok, I'm seeing people all over complaining that their Overlord is totally horrible to level and blah blah blah.
Firstly if you get a clan group it's ok, they'll help you and you can melee/sleep (root and silence maybe but often lands you with unwanted treasure chests or so on attacking you). Simply get robes and either an Sword Of Miracles (more crit than a blunt and better dmg output, PvE only though) or Flaming Dragon Skull (miles Better for PvP as you can stun, lacks damage output for groups as less crits though, unless hunting in evasion area.)
Now for solo, this is where alot of people struggle.
Firstly for the OL with access to buffers.
Get yourself an SE and possibly Bladedancer... They're the two most helpful classes you can pve with. Warcryer is a possibility but they cannot recharge you.
Use a focus dagger (whichever one is good for your level) and either robes or light armor, they both give MP regen boost and generally you won't be taking as much damage as you are planning to output. I discourage heavy armor use as this doesn't give any MP regeneration boost which is quite important for the setup I use.
Have the SE buff you and use greater haste potions unless you have a prophet too. Selfbuff zerk/magic barrier/blessed shield if needed.
Make a macro to /use soulry, /attack and use this to toggle soulcry on when you are attacking a mob and off when you are not attacking. Have macroes ready for the SE to recharge you also.
Hunt green or low evasion mobs, preferably ones that drop mana herbs, but not essentially. Also try to make sure you need as few heals as possible so that you have more spare mana on the SE for recharges. With a BD in group you have dance of fire from level 40, then inspiration to cover for low accuracy and fury for more atk speed... this is a great boost as the levelling setup is all about critical damage.
For example, with an equal level SE and BD (out of pty prophet too, but can cover with haste potions), An OL and BD duo can easily clear a big cata room with soulcry... have the SE recharge your mana unitll she is low MP then use invocation. Remember to keep toggling soulcry on and off so as not to waste MP when you are not attacking a mob.
For the OL without buffers on CH buffs
Basically do the same as above but hunt solely mobs that drop mana herbs. for example he 1/2 HP mobs outside of godddard are awesome to solo an OL with soulcry as they take helf the time to kill meaning more chance of mana herbs... you never run out of MP.
For the OL without a clan or buffers
Get a clan or get buffers... simple. :)
The theory
Soulcry is an extremely useful levelling tool and is often forgotten or put aside as it takes mana and WC/OL are often pushed to the side of a buffer. With the addition of mana pots and invocation for an SE soulcry can almost be constantly used to give decent damage output for XP.
Since Soulcry is a fixed p.atk boost the best possible damage boost is gained by using the lowest p.atk weapon, a dagger. With Deathwhisper/focus from a shillen elder, swift attack potions and possibly a bladedancer for dance of fire/fury/inspiration or warrior you have high crit rate, high p.atk, high atk speed and give strong critical hits whilst only having one or two buffers.
With vampiric rage you should not need heals even whilst wearing robes or light armor and if you make a bad pull you can simply use soulguard, aoe root and sleep adds to make sure you survive, HP can be regained by using steal essence whilst doing damage also.
As you can see, with soulcry and a focus dagger your stats are higher than most dagger classes apart from accuracy.. which doesn't matter as long as you pick the right hunting spot.
Dye Setup
Firstly for all occasions (pve and pvp)..
+4 wit -4 men... ALWAYS.
Cast speed boost greatly outweighs the slight loss from -4 men.
PvE
either +4 str -4 con, or don't touch those stats. it's nice for a small p.atk boost, but also limits your carrying capacity and CP/HP.
PvP
+4 con -4 str, means you have more survivability, pot carrying capacity, stun resist and so on. STR doesn't matter much for the typcial OL pvp style as you will mostly be CP healing, Crowd control with stun/sleep, debuffing and so on.
Some people go +4 dex -4 str or +4 dex -4 con also for runspeed/shield block/accuracy in olympiad or PvE and so on, but I don't think the benefits of this outweigh gimping your strength or Con so much.
The third dye I currently have is an extra +1 wit -1men, although I have yet to try it out as I only put it on yesterday.
+6 DC robe set. LOL just how many of those do you think there are in game. Someone was selling one of these sets last night on Bartz for an AQ right and a raid ear ring.
And this is where we differ. I have found your way works, but way too time intensive for exp per hour. My best work comes with a pp, me in Talium Heavy and a pole w/ wide blow. Go to one of the first rooms in DO or Mart and you can do awsome leveling. You need to use GHPs sometimes, but it works.
I really don't like poles... for a start theres a harsh nerf on your accuracy due to you being a mage.
Another thing, Soulcry is probably the most powerful, mp effifient levelling tool an orc mystic has. If you can tap into that and use it to the upmost of it's efficiency then you will level fast. Even if you simply keep it on for half of the time and off for the other half whilst meleeing.
lol, OL's can't look any worse, I'm merely proving the point that they CAN XP, you just need the right support.
Right now I'm clanless 79 dominator and making 530k SP/hr.. which is about 5mil XP per hour soloing mobs with a couple of buffers that I made because I knew I'd need them.
I think that translates to 0.3% per hour at 79, 0.9% per/hr at 78 1.5% pe hr at 77?
Right now I'm clanless 79 dominator and making 530k SP/hr.. which is about 5mil XP per hour soloing mobs with a couple of buffers that I made because I knew I'd need them.
You forgot to mention you got to 79 by having the chaotic swords most of the time. By the time you get CoV maybe dagger + soul cry can work well because of the added CoV stats, but before then I dunno, I always found that I was running out of mp even with the mp herbs dropping.
The only spot I could find where an OL stands a chance of not going broke from GSAP + SS was at the orcs in blazing swamp. The Moonstone Shards you get from the Regent Pouches are worth enough that you can make over 50m per level by selling those, which covers at least half your expenses.
I got from 76.8 to 78.1 with the chaotic swords......
Rest I've done myself. 78.1 to 79.7 is all without swords... and trust me it's one hell of a grind.
With an equal level SE with invocation I can use soulcry 90% of the time where mana herbs don't drop... 2x HP mobs where herbs drop and I have a BD I do without using invocation, 1x hp mobs can just use SE and not run out of MP as long as you kill at a decent speed... I.E know your weakness and hunt low evasion mobs like at the shrine rather than Blazing swamp. 1/2 HP mobs like the ones outside goddard are a breeze.
1/2 hp mobs usually have very annoying moves and are spread all around, which as a orc mage really sux.
you "can" make OL work in just about any group, the problem is they dont excel at anything PvE compared to other classes which because of the greed on L2 means OL's typically solo more than just about every other class (cept maybe WS).
Soulcry is great, but for the amount of OOP support u need to make it efficient its just not a great option. I recommend going robes/shield/1 hand mage blunt and Dot-->melee-->lifetap-->overhit mobs. Sure there is downtime, but all the drops are yours and you can solo just about any mob. Some spots are definatly better, like herb mobs and low mdef mobs.
Your plan is to kill 3 mobs then sit? And do so slowly with a low crit weapon on the lowest dex class? Or are you talking about the 1/2 mobs too? Using soul cry drains mp fast, but nowhere near as fast as using skills.
1/2 hp mobs usually have very annoying moves and are spread all around, which as a orc mage really sux.
you "can" make OL work in just about any group, the problem is they dont excel at anything PvE compared to other classes which because of the greed on L2 means OL's typically solo more than just about every other class (cept maybe WS).
Soulcry is great, but for the amount of OOP support u need to make it efficient its just not a great option. I recommend going robes/shield/1 hand mage blunt and Dot-->melee-->lifetap-->overhit mobs. Sure there is downtime, but all the drops are yours and you can solo just about any mob. Some spots are definatly better, like herb mobs and low mdef mobs.
ok... which class are you talking about?
by Dot do you mean Seal of poison/flame which cost a ton of MP and low landrate.... then melee with a blunt.... lowest dps weapon..... life tap? you mean steal essence which has been nerfed to set it to an emergency type skill costing a ton of MP?
And by overhit I assume you mean hammercrush since it's the only overhit skill OL has.
or use a dagger and soulcry and even go on herbs for buffs instead of your own buffs using steal essence if low HP and meleeing low evasion herb dropping mobs... if low MP simply turn soulcry off and carry on melee till a mana herb drops or you regen. Light armor should be good for this since MP regen boost and p.def boost.
At level 70, if I have to solo right now, it is Blazing Swamps and just stay away from the bat groupings.
I will have to see about any higher.
I can tell because of the alts I have run up and the players in my clan I have the chance to party with, the OL is one of the bottom 3 for sure in leveling. It was suppose to be by NcSoft's design.
If you can twink out any toon, of course you can level faster, but to twink them out, you have to spend a good deal of time in the market itself and any time you are there, you are not leveling.
Even w/ two accounts, one running dwarf sellers, etc. I still spend a few hours a week working the market to make money to hunt with since hunting, esp. solo, is a money negative proposition if you are leveling anywhere near fast.
This is all ******ed. OL should NEVER have to solo! Game design is very poor as ncsoft gives more xp to solo classes like nukers or archers. We should get much more xp as a full group than a nuker and his 300 buffpets.
Buffpets are what killed certain classes like prophets, SE etc. Encouraging the need of buffpets means you should probably play a solo game and not a mmo. Again, i dont blame you, L2 simply has a poor game design.
Buffs simply take too much importance in L2. A nuker/archer should LOSE his buffs/dances/songs when he ungroups a buffpet, that's just common sense! I've seen people soloing with a sws, bd, prophets in a train. That's just simply disgusting. Again, seems like ncsoft is not playing its own game, thinking that buffpets and bots are not a problem.
first, I am a full, clan leader. If I want party, I just need to shout out and say hello. My clan knows I suck and just take exp, but they feel we all need parties. I will not make someone take me in a party if I only have 20 minutes or so to play a bit. If this never happens to you, well you are lucky, but with family, work, a house, dogs, ..... at times, you only have 20 minutes to play before going on to something else.
Everyone solo's in this game. It is not about how NcSoft designed it, but how real life plays out. The herbs and pots that now drop are to help people who have to solo. To say otherwise is living in a dream world. You have a vast age group and that means that you have to do what you have to do sometimes just to level.
And, when you happen to log in during your clan's off time, what do you do? Your friends most likely play during your normal time too. So, how may pickup groups do you get with your OL???
Easier to just get buffs and do a quick 20 minutes somewhere close than waste time getting a party together.
Zhanig, we clearly dont play at the same level. I was leader of the invincible alliance on lionna, when you only have a 20 min window open to log in, you dont solo, you spend time dealing with pms and all.
You missed my point too Have you every duo with a nuker? I have... they can 2-3 shots a mob and get 20k+ xp per mob at level 75+. All they need is to log in and go solo. WE, as GROUP class, we need groups to level. I also believe this is why you choosed that class and that game, because you want to play with people.
The game system is completly ******ed, it favours people soloing versus making a group. XP is better when you're alone, some areas drop buff pots and have you tried wild beast paturage with a pet? OF COURSE people will start to make buffpets because it's EASIER to solo.
L2 is clearly a time consuming game, if you play bits of 20 min, you are probably missing the real high end content.
I put in over 5 hours of game play last night. All of that time was party and alliance stuff.
I will not allow my 20 minutes in the morning before work to be bogged down with clan stuff. I log in after work and dedicate my first hour to dealing with that every night.
My point was that solo is a part of the game and no all schedules allow for full party play. Looking at it another way, my 20 minutes int he morning is another 1% for me in BS. Over a week, that is 5% for doing nothing, but it adds up to me getting above 70. I learned a long time ago you can screw around all of your play time waiting for a party, or you can just go get some exp while others put one together. Once it is porting into the grind spot, I can come then, but to count the shere time wasted waiting on rift groups to start or going up TOI is something sad and makes one cry.
I doubt I will be missing much, when in full clan/ alliance mode, we do everything, but I am not one to beg for help in leveling. I will do what ever I need to to level this puppy up, including solo play.
Zhanig, you're talking about something else. I'm talking about how bad the game system is where ncsoft favours solo rather than groups. OF COURSE overlords can solo but is that the point? Soloing rewards much more xp than grouping -> ******ed and thus, people tempted to get buffpets and not group anymore.
All i'm talking about is how bad the game design is, i didnt say overlords cannot solo.
LOL are you sure your hitting anything with a pole as an OL i tried with a bec de corbin when i was arround 45 or so on mine and couldn't hit anything with a pole i'm 49 now and still bouncing with weapon choices to find what works for me and so far it's either dagger/with focus or fists that i prefer.
Ok like i said when i had a pole and tried it i couldn't hit anything and unfortunately i can't afford heavy armor so i use theca set and my dark screamer with focus from my AW.
I'm 50 now on mine and have been using the dagger or fists to lvl and i tried the bow which just needs more accuracy to be effective.
I might retry the pole idea again and see when i party with our clan destro and prophet. But the accuracy buff we get didn't help last time for me .
Is there a mage dagger that you can put focus on in Bgrade? Cuz i'm wondering if i get a mage weapon if that will help me land our Dots and Seals and what non BW set is good for OL's i'm planning on heavy Zubie for pdef and hp.
Thanks all for the help Lvling this unloved class ,i say unloved cuz i've tried getting rift partys and no takers.
It seems we only good for clan/ally partys to alot of people so i stopped trying to get partys if not with friends or clan.
I don't think there is such a thing as a mage dagger. Will a mage weapon help the land rate with your DoTs and Seals? Possibly, but will it help enough to matter? I hope some OLs read this and answer that question for you.
I went with a guidence pole, tallum heavy, oop and I am doing ok on green / light blue mops when I solo. I pull only single rooms or do 1/2 doubles at a time so I don't have to worry about dying.
Yes, you miss, but when you git soul cry and start doing massive smacks at 600 apiece in groups of 4, you really start to exp.
This setup also is grand in a pole party, I can go up to greens and some whites and actually be a benefit to the party.
Theres a few mage daggers. Bgrd is the Hell Knife.
I wouldn't really reccommend it though because focus is your friend, not the rubbish SA's on the Hell Knife.
I'm really against poleing on an OL for a few reasons. For a start the Accuracy decrease due to being a mage is brutal. If using soulcry with heavy in a cata your mana is gonna take a beating so you're gonna be resting alot.
I did level 15-40+ with a pole but that was C3 before the accuracy nerf and nerf to amount of mobs you can hit.
I've tried duals (SLS*SLS, Tsu*Sls), 2h sword (+4 GS/focus), 1h sword (+4 dama/focus), blunt(+10 AOBA/HP), dagger(+3 BO Focus), bow (+4 Soulbow/QR), pole (tallum glaive) for solo with OOP proph and SE.
2h acumen blunt(BOMT), 1h HP blunt (+10 AOBA), 1h Acumen sword (SOM/ +10 Homunk), 1h acumen blunt (arc mace/+12 Club of nature) for groups and PvP.
I've tried Avadon robes, Maj robes, DC robes, Arcana robes, Tallum hvy, Maj hvy, BW hvy, Doom hvy, Fullplate, Brigadine, DC Light, Majestic Light and Theca for both PvE and PvP in different situations.
In my experience the best weapon for XP was the Dagger as you can go none-stop with soulcry providing you find the right mobs that have low evasion, low HP and drop herbs. The best party weapon is either an acumen sword for decent crit and M.atk for sleep/seals as needed, unless you're in a small grp then dagger. The best PvP setup is Acumen 1h blunt for fast cast stun and magic.
Armor-wise I've found Heavy restricts your MP regen/cast speed/weight limit too much thus meaning breaks for MP and getting more SS too often thus slowing XP unnesissarily. Light is a decent inbetween also having nice set bonuses to boost dmg output. Robes are best for PvP/Raids/Groups where you need to buff or debuff.
solo wise I see light armor the better option than heavy because even if you do take more damage you gain alot more MP from regen so you can drain the extra damage taken back whilst damaging the mob at the same time, thus more damage output and increased killspeed.
Focus dagger is the bomb in solo open fields. Tis true that. single handed blunt works well as the "other" weapon and then you still get your shield on full time for those pesky archers.
Now if i could just keep my OL as is with AW skills added he'd really rock since i have been using Theca set and a DS/Focus +3 for a few lvls and Knuckle Dusters as well.
Soul Cry is a good skill to use with low Patk weapons since i've used my chrono's with it for lvling pets i was hitting for 100 or so on the blunt and 30 roughly with the dual chrono and they are 1 patk weapons.
Play towards the strengths of the OL, they have alot of HP, good mdef can stun and selfbuff. They make great party classes if they are getting the first hit on mobs (they can take a few hits first) before more DPS orient classes pull the aggro back off them. In a party that has VR and ad BD OL can tank pretty well and do some crowd controlling if it gets ugly.
If you must solo, bring a robe set for buffing, after u buff toss on some heavy and 1hblunt/shield em down on herb mobs (avoid high hp/high evasion mobs). You can gauge your own downtime by carefully spreading your buffs out over the course of 20 mins so if you do pluck a MP herb u can toss out extra DPS with soulcry. Soloing is ironically the worst option for this class, which obviously is designed to be a clan's special arsenal class.
In pole parties, OL dont bring poles. They aoe root, chaos, winter and sometimes flame. I +1 tha_don, light is a very good compromise for pve. OL really need to have tunic for pvp though so i always have two sets of armor with me.
Dagger is great for pve too and yes, acumen blunt is the way to go especially during pvp.