Note: This post has been copied nearly word-for-word from the old forums and has been formatted to work with the new forums. The original poster is in no way affiliated with Funcom and their views and expressions contained in this guide do not necessarily match Funcom’s.
Updated Feb 2010 - Now covers levels 1 to 220
Part One (1 to 100)
Part Two (100 and Up)
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Part One (1 to 100)
I’m a curmudgeonly old sod who generally prefers to solo rather than put up with the company of the fools, arses and selfish barskrewts that seem to so liberally populate the game. I also often get like-minded players asking me where I level for the best xp and creds. So I thought I’d jot down my “method” for the benefit of those who are interested.
I play lots of different styles and set myself lots of different leveling goals. Sometimes I play Rubi-Ka only, sometimes from scratch with no outside help at all.
At other times though, I want to level quickly and this post describes the route I personally take to achieve that, at least as far as 100.
First of all it’s down to the ICC Shuttleport: Noob island. I mostly use dual improved starter smgs, regardless of my toon. IMO they do the most damage. Anyway, I kill stuff on the beech until level 5 then go through the far end of the harbour area and kill myself 35 zix to get the two alien levels. On my way back to the exit from Noob Island I kill enough mobs to get me to level 8.
I stay Neutral and head to Bor. Once there I sign up for whichever faction I want and grab a med suit and some healing.
From Bor I make my way via Jobe to the start of Nascene at Frontier Bridge and kill the chimeras there until they start getting greenish. Then I switch to the cripplers on the cliff tops in the same area and work my way around to kill either the white or orange flappy bird things to get to around lvl 12 and pick up the Mariners father book. Remember to pick up half a dozen of the appropriate insignia on the way.
I keep moving towards the big white wall and get a level or two killing the predators and spiders before nipping through the crack in the wall.
At this point I generally take a few minutes to get the Nascene garden key for my faction.
Once that is done its on to the Hiathlins on your left as you pass through the crack in the wall and once at level 15 or 16 on again to the next area of hiathlis up to level 20.
At 20 I jump off the cliff and head back to Bor to get some impants and better weaopns. Generally ql50 imps at this point. I also tend to put on my first set of armour at this stage.
Back up to Nascene and the Steppe of Dispair. I work my way down to Brawl killing cripplers and spiders and, if I’m clan, the unredeemed mobs. I stay here until level 30 and then jump off the cliff head back to Bor for more imps (ql75 this time) and a new weapon.
Now back to Nascene and Crippler cave. I usually go direct to the Crippler Cave dungeon. The shadows in there have low health and give excellent xp. Loot the pearls for some decent creds. After ten levels in there two bags of pearls is to be expected. At level 40 I exit this dungeon. I sometimes pop back to Bor for QL100 imps, new armour and weapon at this stage.
Off now to Nascene again and the dungeons in Core. I level from 40 to 60 in these dungeons, gathering pearls along the way for creds.
Now comes the obligatory trip down TOTW to get whatever I want from down there.
After the pain of TOTW I generally reward myself with a bit of alien action and do suffiecient alien Alien Mothership missions to get two or three attunement devices. This has the added bonus of bagging a two or three more alien levels.
Next up are Core hecks. It’s generally quiet there and they are relatively well behaved, for hecklers. This gets me to lvl 75/80.
At this point I usually have 100-125qk imps in. I upgrade weapon and armour and it’s time to head to Elysium.
I go to Elysium via Jobe Market. At the base of the ramp I kill rafters and other low mobs to get insignia and then head for Stormshelter and save at whatever garden.
There is a dungeon west of Stormshelter which I level in until I get level 100. The spiders on the hill near Stormshelter can provide some variation from the dungeons - they don’t drop pearls though 
So, there you go. How I solo my toons from 0-100 when I’m in a hurry. It is usually around 20 hours playing time.
What now. Well I usually get the Elysium garden key and then either get a few more levels at the other Elysium dungeons or go chew the fat with Ergo and get the ring that gives access to Scheol.
Part Two (100 and up)
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Two years on from the original part of this post I thought I’d add in the contents of my other post, which covers my more recent experiences on a solo toon in the levels after 100.
I’ve recently been solo leveling a clan soldier and here is what I’ve done between levels 100 and 205, which is where the toon is at the moment.
At level 100 I went to Scheol and made decent leveling on the mobs around the Highlands Ocra stone. Close to it are two groups of those strutting humanoid geezers with the thick legs. The group to the west are lower lvl and easier to start with. You have to be careful not to agro too many at once, but the stone is nearby if you need an evac.
There is also a great grouping of crusty eremites hidden underground around the land control beacon (tall pillar of light) north west of the Highland Ocra Stone and East of the Redeemed Temple. These are well spaced and relatively low health and don’t seem to move at all unless they agro you. They do hit hard and remember I was a soldier with a big hit and trusty TMS Anyway, I got ten quick levels here.
As an alternative at this level, there is also a good dungeon at the top of the hill just south west of the nearest incarnator to the portal (more or less due north of the portal).
At 110 I moved on to the Halls of Scheol. At the east end of the halls, staying up on the southern platfrom, are a group of four boss flappy things (Neferu, Tcheser, Shet and Penkha) and an extremely well placed static dungeon right where the eastmost boss hangs out. The static is good leveling, and you can pop out to kill the flappy things when you feel able. Being able to duck back into the static lobby makes dying a rarity. This was good for another ten levels.
At around this stage I found I could solo Ely Hecks and got very good xp from them. To start with there is a nicely spaced group of 5 hecks in a secluded cove two bays up from the Outer Isles Enel Stone.
At 120 I came down to RK to do the Marion Sweet cyborg token quest, having completely neglected my RK missioning. The board is very good and the xp not too bad either.
With the extra CL from the board I took the opportunity to upgrade my NCU. I also put on the top Perennium and upgraded my armour (Miy’s Tank and Khaeler Sleeves).
120 to 130 was spent mostly doing Ely hecks. The leveling was quick and for a break I did the Ashley Winstead cyborg quest, though I should add I dual logged my soldier and a fixer to finish off the boss on that quest.
At 130 I did the Scheol garden key, spoke with Ergo, got free passage to Adonis (aided up the hill by dual logging my fixer again), and immediately did the Adonis Garden quest.
I’ like to mention here that both Scheol and Adonis garden quests are pretty easy to solo, especially if you have the Insight into Shadowlands map nano cast on you. Remember that anyone with the (veteran) nano can cast it on you and it lasts a decent 90 minutes.
The early 130s were spent picking off southern Adonis mobs either in the area around the City South Gilthar Stone or in the desert area to the north east of there.
Across this desert at the 170 incarnator are a couple of excellent static dungeons. The southernmost one has mobs around 140-160 and the eastern one has mobs of 160-180. These two statics have seen me to level 150 and I suspect there is leveling potential yet in the latter.
However, at 150 I took a break to re-equip, get ql180-200 symbs in and get my 1000 token board.
I also took the opportunity to partake of a little BS action and get the attunement devices I was missing.
I did some LE missions too to boost my rather lowly AI levels, but to be honest there is ■■■■■■ all for the soldier to put AI perks into beyond Power in Numbers, so I didn’t spend too much time on that. I dualed LE missions teamed with a TL6 fixer.
S10 is an option now, but there is nothing much there I am interested in and I have another 150 toon for s10 anyway.
Killing the mobs in the solo instance of Dark ruins got my level 5 research completed.
Then I completed the various excellent Dark Ruins solo quests and went from level 150 to level 158.
From here on I did a DOJA quest (Dark Ruins team quest) every day (it has an 18 hour lock) for its 7mil XP reward.
Around this time I started the Adonis brain quests, as the soldier brain reward is such a good one. I managed about half of it solo, but needed the help of a couple of high level orgmates to complete the whole mission line.
A couple more levels in the Adonis statics mentioned above saw me to 160 at which point I went to see Ergo, taking the route eroz mentioned in the other post.
“Getting to Penumbra is relatively easy. Get to Ado underwater from the portal a bit northeast from the middle of the map, the one where one of the Ado quest NPCs is hanging out (unless you have the ado sanct key, then you can just use the statue there), beware of Lone Sharks and those gooey mobs the names of which I forgot, and try to make it north to Ergo who is in a cavern filled with Blorrgs.”
Very few mobs that agro you on that route, and most of them can easily be outrun if need be.
Onwards to Penumbra, remembering to swap aqualung out and Pen shades in.
I took a careful wander to the Ravine Cama stone killing the well spaced predators and rafters along the way. Lots of insignia dropped.
I started the Penumbra garden key quest straight away. It’s pretty easy except forthe killing of the prophet towards the end. For this you can either hang around and wait for someone to kill it (you dont need to do the killing yourself) or ask a friend to kill it, which is what I did.
Key in hand, I started the Yuttos quest. Not all of it can be solod at this level, but a lot of it can be and you get a lot of xp along the way, and its a great way to get to know Penumbra.
For the next ten levels, 160 to 170, killing wandering mobs and mobs in the statics around the western incarnator were the main source of xp (along with the daily DOJA quest). My favourite mobs are the groups of three frost demons you find along the road from the west end of the pipe up to the Redeemed village. These are fairly easily pulled one at a time, and easily outrun if you misspull. They gave me 1m xp per cluster of three.
Equipmentwise there was not much to upgrade as I was title level capped by 160 which lasts until 190. I have a mix of Miy’s Tank, Tier 1 and Tier 2 pieces. I imagine most classes can make do with similar Miy’s and Tier, with some Ofab and an alien piece or two if they have the VP/Creds.
I got lucky here and found a golem tooth on a rotting corpse. I always checked the incarnators when running past, and kept an eye on OOC, but on this occasion was given the heads up by a friend.
Out of curiosity I went to Inferno at 170, saved in the garden and had a wander around. Whilst there were some mobs I could manage I was generally too fragile and so exited for cooler climes in fairly short order.
From 170 to 180 I pretty much did nothing but killing mobs in the Adonis Dark Ruins team instances. I got a steady 10-12m xp an hour meaning a level every 2.5 to 3 hours playing time. It did get su****iously grind like after a while, and I did try to break it up with some Whirling Rock killing.
The Pen statics are not really much good at this level and the Adonis Garden Missions are complete pants. Going back to RK for missions to complete the 1000 token board would be an option here.
Upon reaching level 180 the Penumbra Garden mission guy is happy to talk to you and you can start pulling solo hard missions.
The mobs are yellow or less and not particularly hard, and initially I was getting a mission done in 20-30 minutes and getting 6-7m xp per mission, which equates to five or six missions per level.
There is also the added bonus of gaining that all important faction.
The daily Dark Ruins DOJA quest still brings in a similar amount of xp to a Pen mission and is a lot quicker to get.
At 185 there is the opportunity to upgrade the Arul Sabas for a much needed health or damage increase.
The garden missions level with you and the reward and overall xp gained gradually goes up, until by level 200 you are getting double what you were at level 180.
Remember to collect inf insigs, you’ll need them soon.
At Title Level 6 (level 190) I started venturing up to Inferno and took part in the occasional Inferno Easy Team mission with a friend. Whilst I know this goes against the Sol play ethic I include it here so you can see the difference in reward.
The mission reward alone is around 55m, though what you actually get will be capped, so remember to have your highest research training on at 100%, and the overall xp I was getting was around 65m. Which compares very favourably to the 8 or 9m I got from solo pen missions at that point.
Wandering Pen mobs, and some Inferno mobs are good for variety, and as the xp to sk switchover approaches the time is ripe for the last xp harvesting forays to Rubu-Ka. If there’s any Dynaboss or Mission loot you need now is the time to get it so you get the benefit of a little xp too.
Before you hit level 200 its also a good idea to do your sided PVP quest as the mobs you have to kill get a lot harder post level 200.
Now XP is left behind forever and all kill and mission rewards are given in SK. Basically all that means is that everything is divided by 1000.
Between 200 and 205 I mixed up Pen hard Solo with Inf team easy when my friend was available. You see a lot of folk sat in the Inferno gardes waiting for teams, but that seems a bit of a dull way to spend the time.
I also caught up a little with alien levels and when teamed with a lower level character (in my case a level 170) the grey LE mothership aliens are easy to kill and still give decent AXP.
At title level 7 (level 205) the Inferno Garden mission guy finally deigns to acknowledge you and you can start on Inferno Easy missions. These pretty much take up where the pen ones leave off and the overall reward in SK after a 40 minute mission is about 15k, or about a tenth of a level.
At 210 hard solo inferno missions become the norm and the rate steadies at around 15-20 missions per level right up to 220.
There is lots to break up the inf mission grind at this level with more and more bosses and encounters being soloable, and more options to join teams to do the likes of the Beast, APFs and Dust Brigade.
Have fun Soloers. Phyxr out.