Shattered Kingdoms

Is it better to hoard xp and then go train levels or is it better to go train levels regularly? Also is it better to train past the level required for a new skill and then go train the skill?

My char is running around a lot of the time ready to level and I was just wondering if I should go level more often than level 3 levels at a time.

Thanks

It depends on the situation. During lower levels, it is usually advisable to train levels regularly. As in, go level up as soon as you're able to. You get stat points every two levels and get the chance to increase them while you're trying to attain a higher status. For example, if you have a melee class, it makes sense to go train stats such as strength, so that you hit harder. The more damage you deal, the more xp you get. If you're a caster, it's always nice to get extra intelligence or wisdom points, since they help you improve in your skills and regain mana faster. If you up your charisma, you'll level up faster. Art increases your chances for your spells to land, etc.

The higher your level is, the less xp it costs for you to train your abilities. There are a few 'key' abilities that have higher priority than others. I usually only train those and wait until I hit a high enough level to be able to train everything at minimal xp cost. What's usually not worth it, unless you're quite experienced in the whole leveling business, is to train skills/spells before you hit the point when you're officially able to. Sometimes, it is done, but keep in mind that it'll drain you a lot more. If you cannot recover that xp fast enough, I wouldn't advise you to do it.

When you are in remote areas that have no trainers and you're expected to recall and have to put up with a long journey back, it is probably smart to stack levels and go train them when your familiarity starts getting into the yellow or red zone.

Hope that helped a bit.

It depends. Keep in mind that if you are a caster the damage output of your spells goes up with every level you gain. So it's worthy to go and train level regularly. For a warrior now, the difference in damage output is not that big, so you can stack a few levels of xp before training them. Always train them though when you are about to learn new important skills(like third attack or specialize for example).

As for when to learn your skills, I'd suggest you to learn only the important ones for levelling just in time and leave the unimportant ones for later levels. And I wouldn't suggest you to train a skill before you hit the proper level(like learning third attack at initiate for example), because you will spend too much xp and in the end you'll see that it won't speed up levelling much anyway.

While experience is gained by doing damage to the NPCs, there is an artificial 'cap' on experience as per determined by a comparison between the levels of the NPC and character. Generally, NPCs that consider as 'tough challenge' are the way to go. It is worth to note that when a character levels in an area that contains NPCs that consider as death thanks you, or much more powerful, it is helpful to advance in levels so that experience gain actually becomes better.

Gaining levels also give +1.5 pound per level as well as training sessions that can be spent on stats. If strength and charisma suit the builds it is very helpful to train those. Finally, training skills ahead of status burns experience and those skills/spells do not improve until character reaches the actual status of the skills/spells. It is probably better to train when it is appropriate. Individual tastes differ.

Doint forget you can only stack so much exp these days before it stops stacking.

That's not 100% accurate. From what I've gathered, the cost is the same, but your experience pool increases (i.e. You get more experience per kill so it seems like the cost is less)

Other than that, everything said here is spot on to my knowledge.

sleeper

Are you certain that there's a limit to stacking levels?

yeah, it was added several years ago if I remember right.

I don't believe that's true. Just remember you always earn experience as if you were the level that you could be with the experience that you have, not the level you actually are.

I could have sworn there was a cap you could stack put in some time back. I thought I remembered people complaining about having to leave ToM instead of just stacking a ton.