The road to 94 - Part 1

Don't do glaphs.

Don't do glaphs.

DON'T DO GLAPHS.

I spent 7 hours of my life learning this lesson. It was painful.

Smalls spawn in the only one worth doing, and you have to unglitch them. Which is time consuming. The two spawns are far apart. The ceiling causes misclicks. The giant spawns on you. BJs ks you.

ARJGHGGHDAGJHDGJHGSHGGHGHGHGH.

Even with full int, you will only do 4.1ks max. Which is not enough.

--

Back to Kerns. Now. In comparison, these are so much faster now, cause you can kill faster.

Now my posts are up to speed. Currently grinding it out at normals, and with SF, GT, and link attack, I can reach 6.1k hits.

And me and my RM (me and otherwise) have our inventories filled up from sheer number of drops.

Dammit.

To Level 93

About 22% into 92, I quit. v9 came along, and meeeeeeh.

Just couldn't stand it. Ice missile nerf, blinkpool nerf, every friend quitting, etc.

v11 came a long, and I joined back again. Nerfs still there, but friends were back and a halfway decent pvp system.

I decided to ditch my 3/4 Myurian +5, and go with a full out Ellean set - gah, I love the gloves. The modifiers are sorta useless, but I wanted a little extra defense.

Why? Because I restatted at this point to full INT - hit and run. Time to stop being lazy, and start using earthquake!

So, all my ellean pieces are statted with int/sta, with the exception of my suit. They are various +'s, but the lowest was a +3 on my gaunts. I removed the 28% def and added 16% attack. Water remained on my suit.

At first, I died a lot, learning how to aoe again. I liked normal kerns now, cause my damage went from a shoddy 2.8k to 4.3k. Plus, you have more space to run, and you have this little spot where you can get rebuffed while waiting for a respawn. Plus, they drop a lot. :3

Here's what I learned about hitting and running at kerns:

1. Don't use ice missile to gather anymore. Use windfield. The more you use windfield, the higher the chance that it works - so you don't have to do it later.
2. Use the edge of the fire spot to buff up. Kerns don't spawn there (although giant may walk over it).
3. Start collecting from near the small side (at that rock on the cliff), and then collect from the sides of the hill. Then collect the kerns on the other side with big rib cage/bones. While passing there, collect kerns in middle of the valley.
4. Use the u-turn area near the big fire thing to hit and run.
5. Run around in a wide circle around kerns to maneuver them into a tight group.
6. Windfield the kerns that are running really fast after you collected. It's okay if you have one that is un-windfielded, cause you can tank one.
7. While using earthquake, target the group that is windfielded.
8. Run back to the fire after you finish aoe, so your RM doesn't get ganged by aggros during re-spawn.

Level 92

By this point, you may have realized that gongs are pretty crappy to aoe. Same as Luias. Yeah, so get the quests and leave. (Actually, I still haven't gotten my eronsimints =P)

I skipped Shuhammas. For some reason, I didn't like them. They aren't bad for 91 to 92 though.

I went straight to kerns. I couldn't tank normals, so I tanked smalls for a while. I mainly used the area bordering the normal kerns to aoe (that small little strip of land).

I dunno if that's a good idea now. Pretty decent exp - I was too lazy to target, so I used electric shock. I had on a 28% def 90 suit +5 elemented with water with 3/4 Myurian +6.

Level 88 - 91

I'm not going to go into too much detail of where I grinded and all that jazz. I was in the mines, and well, it's not really a good idea to go there now. So many aggros, so much money, etc etc.

Plus, you fight with people over mobs. I would redirect you here to tbuk's guide for suggestions on where to train. I would suggest shu's right around here.

These will be some of the 3 hardest levels of your ele's life. Especially 89 to 90.

I use blessings, so I don't lose exp/delevel.

While grinding from 89 to 90, I saw my blessing count go down by 44.

I'm not saying this to scare you. I went to the mines knowing that I was going to die. A lot. In that kind of place, it's not hard to die.

It is well worth it when you get 90+.

Does this mean that you are going to die a lot when you get to this point? Probably not.

It will be a slow grind though.

Just make it through.

Just keep at it.

Levels 75 - 88

Meh. Well.

Before de-elementing was possible, I didn't want to element my brand new 75 set/staff with earth.

I just got two suits, elemented one with wind, and the other with electric (same with staff).

So at 75, I moved onto Watangkas. I mainly sticked with small watangkas all the way to 80, taking about 7-8 at a time. The reason for this was that back then, when we had knockbacks, they really hurt. They also like to crit all at the same time too. >>;

Anyways, after this tedious part... I was 80.

Time to meet your best friends. Trees.

Trees will be your friend. You will love them. And you will kill them. Hundreds. Thousands. TENS OF THOUSANDS. D:<

At this point, I added even more defense by piercing 12% def with a wind suit. Along the way to 87-ish, my Myurian reached +6 for a HP bonus.

You can hit and run, you can tank, w/e. Your RMs will love you at this point (or at least, they did back then), because they can get 4-5% exp an AoE. You can kill them fast, because all you need is windfield. There is one particular spawn of normals that is thick, and is fought for by all elementors.

At first, you'll need food and pills to tank them. By 85-ish, if you're a heavy tanker like me, your RM's heal will pretty much suffice.

You have the choice of staying here till 87 to 90.

At 85/86ish, I started to go to green trillipies if I had a 70+ RM (of course, the level req has since changed) - but unless your RM can make it through all those aggros, I don't suggest it. :/

Although the EXP is better per aoe, I don't suggest green trills at all now. With the ice missile nerf, they would hit a lot more and crit a lot more. Plus, if you're hit and run, there's a good chance that you'll aggro the hazards and then have to run away, etc. I used to blink into the hallway, but now with blinkpool nerfed... well. Yeah.

You'll probably lose more exp there than you'll gain with all the trouble of going to mines.

Late 65s to Early 70s

Whoo - finally got those aoes!!

From here on, its pretty easy to grab a FS (usually the come around and ask if you need one), join a party, and switch to a fairly empty area of cranes.

Start out with smalls, and slowly make your way to the captains (I skipped normals, due to their element). I stayed until I was 69.

At 66-ish, I realized that my build was too unstructured. At that time of course, it was v7, so I felt the best possible course of action was to go with a STA build. I dunno what kind of build I had at that time - let's just say it wasn't pretty.

So I restatted. I eventually ended up later on with a 131 base STA build (mind you, I think I had 60 INT when I finished restatting, and everything else went into STA before I decided I needed to cap STA). Worked pretty nicely for me.

At 68, I started Sylicas - yay fishies! It's a huge wakeup from cranes, cause damn, they can hit hard. Again, I sticked with the smalls and the captains, just because the normals liked to jump around a lot and make an uneven aoe. >_>

EDIT: Whoops. Forgot about Boos. I got to 70 at fishes, and then moved on to Boos. Boos are GODLY! I pretty much took around 15-20 (now actually, you can take more before they run away), and windfield them like crazy. Stayed until like 73 ish.

I actually skipped carrierbombs and mongs. Yup. You heard me. For one, I just never really thought of mongs. In fact, I forgot about them! xD

I also knew about the option of carrierbombs, but back then, we couldn't remove elements from our suits or weapons. By this time, I was pretty attached to my G. stick (gosh, they're so expensive now) and I didn't want to get another one. So, I moved onto mushpoies.

I liked mushies a lot, although you sometimes have to fight for a decent spot. I usually prefer the spot to just before where the giant spawns. Same thing as with fishies - I just electric shock'd my way to 75.

The Early 60s

I learned that Green sets were the way to go early on - they were coveted, and really, really, REALLY expensive.

That's why I got the full Anoos set - hey, it was cheap for some reason, so yeah.

Big mistake.

I also had a full +3 NPC Elementor set. The difference was immediate in PvP. Dueling against the same person, I died with the Anoos on, and lived with the Elementor set on. So big tip - screw the other sets, get your NPC set; great defense right there.

Forget the smanshy, fancy 45 sets - Elementor set is all you need. Smack a wind +3 on it, and you're good to go.

Anyways, you're going to love playing around with your new skills. For now, you can max out Void and forget the rest. Head over to cranes, and start smashing them. It's slow, but every elementor goes through it. People will stare at your damage in awe, and you'll be proud of
your character.

On another note, Rudy left this comment (<3):

But about the 5x part, 60-65 isnt too good either. I got through that by spamming lv20 Wind Cutter on Cranes. Faster cast-time and 20-40 less damage than lv10 Void. Definitely a tip you should add for upcoming Eles =D

I'd have to agree. 60-65 isn't nearly as bad as 5x, but it's still pretty slow. I never knew about the wind cutter (mine was at a minimum level back then) idea, but that's definitely something you can take into account. :3