Shattered Kingdoms

Alright, am I the only one who thinks it is by far ridiculously easier to level any class with the sword skill than any class that doesn't have it? Note that sword or not is pretty much the defining factor in Caster Vs Melee, every class except Swashie that gets the sword skill gets Third attack or higher.

A melee character can run through and kill every NPC in an area, where a caster gets to kill 2 or 3 NPCs and then has to sleep for like 6 minutes.

I think it's easier to level a melee class, but I hate levelling anything. :/

QFT. =(

I always heard that magic missile is a sorc's best friend for leveling.

Probably because that is all a sorc CAN DO to level?

Personally I've always found it easier to level casters.

You usually always have open doors to you as a caster, while as a melee, if something goes wrong you mostly just die, and your leveling options are:

A) Grind NPCs
B) Grind NPCs
C) Party up and grind NPCs.

With PE drain for warriors now, I've noticed that they have to rest a lot every few fights to restore their PE even if their HP are not dropping, so its pretty much equivalent to resting for mana. Sure. You rest less for PE as a warrior than you rest for mana as a caster, but damage spells = double xp for casters so it evens out.

Yeah, but the thread isn't about the ways to level, it's about the speed of leveling.

I've leveled both a fighter class and a caster class to master recently, and I think that melee is probably faster in general, even with the PE changes. There's no doubt that melee fighters will kill more crap while leveling, but the thing that keeps caster classes at least partly on par with them is
A) Spell exp gives double xp (or something like that) and
B) Most casters have a good reason to have high base CHA, although most fighters do not. The only exceptions I can think to these is swashies and priests.

However, I don't think that the difference is noticeable enough to warrant any changes, especially considering that D -may- be lowering weapon damage across the board sometime soon. Casters can also do a lot of BS with ranged attacks in certain areas that keep them relatively safe while leveling. Also, casters don't have to do that much in the way of looking for EQ while leveling, considering their damage doesn't scale with gear.

Oh, and another thing to lower down-time while leveling (at least solo) is to try and time ticks. Kill a few NPCs, fall asleep until the tick, then get up and kill a few more. Saves loads of time, and works for any class.

QFMFT

Edoras, you can't shoot from safe locations anymore. If a NPC can't automatically attack you back and/or can't get to you, you get 0xp. Which really makes getting better at certain skills super sucky