Powerleveling
Basics
Powereleveling refers to leveling up a low-level character quickly by defeating high-level enemies with the assistance of a high-level party. In this text, the term is applied liberally to refer to any kind of experience farming optimisation.
A nuke refers to an all-rows AoE spell. All mages gain some element nuke at Lv.40, and legendary Mages + Alice have additional "Secret of" versions. These are typically required for efficient farming.
When leveling up a character from Lv.1 onwards, it is imperative to keep the target character's level below the threshold for the area, where gained experience starts dropping. There are a few ways to achieve this:
- Remove the target character from party before Inn visit to avoid level up
- In case of MC, change class before Inn visit to avoid level up
- Use in-dungeon fountains for camping1 to replenish HP/MP/SP, but without gaining levels. Teleporting out of a dungeon and back in again allows re-using fountains.
Doing a grade up will slow down your leveling. Don't do it unless you really need to!
Farms
Undead March
After reaching B8F, a request "Undead March" becomes available, consisting of four waves of almost exclusively undead enemies. This request gives 13,058 EXP per completion. Once you're strong enough to dispatch the waves with Mage/Priest nukes, this farm is quite fast, doable in under four minutes. This results in roughly 200,000 EXP per hour.
If you have Alice, a single nuke is enough to clear a whole wave. Other characters untested, but should also be serviceable at least as a pair, casting two consecutive nukes per wave.
Experience gains per character level:
- Lv.20: Full
- Lv.30: 66%
- Lv.39: 33%
- Lv.40: 16%
This means, the farm is only really good for ungraded characters, capped at Lv.20.
Strategy
Place MC in front row, rest don't matter as long as you can cast nuke(s). Ensure your spellcaster(s) always go before MC, to deal with the rare occasion when a nuke misses an enemy. Also make sure your MC is sufficiently equipped to dispatch any still-standing enemy in a single strike.
Steps:
- Cursed Wheel to "Warped Scene". This lands you at the entrance of B8F.
- Leave the dungeon by taking stairs to B7F, teleport to the entrance and use Harken.
- Visit Guild to accept request "Undead March".
- Return to B7F to complete the request.
- Return to town, visit Inn before next round.
Turning the mission in after completion yields some gold, but also takes ~30s and is entirely optional.
Repel Enemy Forces
This request becomes available after reaching the Ship in Port Town, from 7th District. Benefits are higher threshold (Lv.30) for maximum gains, higher overall gains and involves much less traveling. Request is immediately repeatable; optimal farming strategy is bailing out after two waves.
For a party with two to three mages able to cast four nukes each, two waves can be defeated twice for a total maximum gain of 20,646 EXP.
Experience gains per character level:
- Lv.30: Full
- Lv.40: 66%
For a Lv.40 party, the gains are similar to Lv.20 doing Undead March, in the ballpark of 200,000 EXP per hour. The time is a rough estimate, and also depends on if you need a third mage nuke or not.
Strategy
Grab the request from Guild after visiting Ship 1. This only needs to be done once, and the request should not be turned in. If you're taking the Cursed Wheel, go to "All Aboard" (or later) for the request.
Main enemies in both waves are Plague Crewmen, with over 900 HP. They are vulnerable to earth element, so having an earth nuke will help. It is possible to dispatch both waves with only two Lv.40 mages (Yekaterina and Adam tested), but this requires stacking Magic Power up to around 200 for each.
NOTE
This farm can be dangerous, if not paying attention to which wave you're on. The third enemy wave contains an Ore Collector, which is difficult and time consuming to kill. If you accidentally challenge the third wave instead of bailing out, quickest way out is intentionally getting your MC killed and using a flame to revive the party. There is no way to tell at the dialog screen, which wave is next, and the fight cannot be flee'd from.
Tips
If you're planning on farming a lot of EXP, it is worthwhile to optimise your approach beforehand. Focus on consistency and efficiency, so you can do it paying as little attention as possible. Timing the process can also be helpful, for example if you need a second or third nuke for every wave, the time it takes to perform can add a lot to the grand total.
The Adventurer's Passport and Elite Passport from Jeweler contain EXP gain boosts. These are normally paid upgrades, but have been made available also for free a few times already. These can be very useful to shave off time from a longer haul.
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A good opportunity for also building trust with party members. ↩