Due to massive skill changes GTR is no longer staple to my build. Use GT Change.
I would also like to note, DO NOT GO FROM MONK TO SURA. This IS NOT RECOMMENDED. Don't be lazy, or give up go the full ride from Monk > Champion > Sura. If you don't you will be quite useless in almost all end game situations due to the lack of zen.
As far as equips go the 4 most important things you need are:
Hunterfly cards x2 in a Carga Mace
Rideword hat +4 or +9 if you can afford it.
Immune Nyd or anything of the like.
Phen Clip or orleans armors with elements (Elemental armors are kinda required at higher levels anyway I suggest aiming for even cheap things like glittering jackets early on).
As a champion, I suggest leveling at Annolians with a wind fist from 96-99 to find yourself a carga mace to save some zeny.
I also suggest investing in a double minorous carga to start mvping @ 13x. You will need every bit of zeny you can get, as the later 130s need a bit more zeny per hr to level in scaraba. When you hit 14x and have GTR it wont be so bad at all.
Here is a list of common abbreviations I will be using:
RD: Rising Dragon
EG: Gentle Touch Energy Gain
KA: Knuckle Arrow
PA: Power Absorb
LR: Lightning Ride
RB: Raging Blast
GTR: Gentle Touch Revitalize
SB: Sky Blow
RTB: Raging Trifecta Blow
RQ: Raging Quadruple Blow
RT: Raging Thrust
AS: Absorb Spirit Sphere
WM: Windmill
TC: Tiger Cannon
That is pretty much every sura skill you will use to level. Everything else is pretty much a waste of points. With the exception of some PvP skills like Cursed Circle.
Several updates and edits will happen here, I'll do my best to keep you all updated. I will do my best to impart any leveling knowledge I can. I will not reveal my zeny making methods etc. so please don't ask.
So lets begin. The most common way to level any monk now is combo. If you're thinking of going anything else, forget it now. Spirit monks got nerfed in renewal. Until you hit Sura you will be using RTB/RQ/RT only. Any other combo skills are not SP effiecent enough to keep up with xp/hr. With the right gear you won't need any Champion combo skills. Champion is basically just being a monk, but with a 1 key summon 5 spirit sphere button called zen.
Ok as far as level 1-86 is concerned Eden group HQ tells you every zone or hunt you should be doing. If a quest is too hard on the board try another one on the eden board.
Here is a link to how some stuff in renewal works:
http://forums.warppo...urning-players/
And here is a guide that covers most basic leveling in renewal includes videos etc:
dead link looking for new one.
Now for levels 86 and above the suggested leveling zones are as follows:
Roweens until 86-90 (One map east from Rachel?)
Dark Priests until 86-96 (Inside Glhast Heim Churchyard)
Stapos until 90-95 (South of Veins Town)
Magmarings 95-110 (The field outside of the area marked "Thors Dungeon" on the map button in the interface)
Volcano Dungeon 100-121 (aka Nogg, aka Magma Dun, marked ont he map button)
Juperous 121-134 (yuno_field07 aka El Mes Gorge aka Valley of Abyss on the map button)
Rachel Sanctuary 132-140 (skeptical about heading to 140 here I stayed until 138 just cause it cost about 0 zeny/hr to level here at 134)
Scaraba Dungeon 135-150 (Requires new world quest chain etc)
Abyss Lake 140-150 (Requires a set of easy to obtain quest items. Yet again marked on the map button if you hit tab)
Stat wise your stats should look something like this as a monk/champ:
STR 85~
AGI 80-85~ (Same as below you can do just fine with 70 STR until your agi and dex are high enough.)
Vit 20 (As a champ anyway)
Dex 70~ ( I suggest for dark priests this be close to 65~ before leveling there)
I've found that stats around these areas are typically best for soloing.
I have yet to level at Roweens, but it seems quite popularr, but for now I'll go through the basic equipment needed to level in the zones above. You can use eden HQ items all the way to 99, but it won't be as efficient.
When you ding around 86~ you have the option to grind dark priests, as they are now in range. The ideal equipment set up for this is Evil Armor (Bathory Card) and a Nemesis. Both of these items are rather cheap and are quite easy to obtain from vendors. For leveling in dark priests be sure to bring about 50~ white pots in case you run into to big a mob, with the suggested build above you should be able to RQ>RT>RQ and they are dead. If you need SP use AS (Hold Shift to target a mob with it or use /ns) to drain SP from monsters or zen/Summon Sphere/AS til sp is decent enough to continue. Never forget your Awakening and Concentration potions.
At around 90-95 you want to pick up a Ice Fist and Fire fist, or make a sage as an endow slave, then head out to Stapos. When you start leveling at Stapos, follow the same combo pattern as above. Use AS on the Droseras they seem to give the most SP back on that map, if the bots are to much for you use the in game map and hit tab to highlight the areas you can level at.
Magmarings is the exact same as leveling at Stapos. No changes here except use that Ice fist I told you to get.
Ok now that I've covered that onward to the real heart of this guide: SURA.
After obtaining 99 please be aware that up to I believe 30m EXP is stored at 99 Champion. Meaning when you job change to sura and kill 2-3 mobs you level instantly it helps alot, so be sure to grind a bit as a champ at 99/70.
Now onward, to the basic bread and butter of early leveling, without using up your skill reset is to go for Sky Blow as fast as you can. For a while you will be leveling like a normal combo champ on Magmarings until 105~ or Desert Wolves. Once you pick up Sky blow you can continue at either map or you can head on out to Kobolds (The level 107 Map I think if you see archers zone to the other map.) I leveled at Kobolds using LR. Like a fool snap zenning my way to 108~ish, Sky blow makes things alot faster I would imagine.
After obtaining SB level 5 start working to EG on the tree take EG to at least 3 as rising dragon will be the next skill you should aim for after getting Windmill.
Once you are around level 105-108~ its time to head to magma dungeon aka nogg aka volcano dungeon. You will be able to solo down here effectively with the right equipment and consumables.
Equipment I used:
+5 Double Hunterfly Carga Mace
+4 Nydhogger Immune (Ray or harpy mufflers etc will do just fine but this helps alot with SP)
+7 Pasana Glittering Jacket
+4 Rideword Hat
Phen Clip
Ring of Muscle
+7 Sky Petite Card Stone Buckler/Khalitzburg card Stone Buckler
Later on due to the recycle event and some other things my equips will change dramatically. You don't need full sets of everything to level anywhere, but a set of all racial Stone Bucklers and Rideword hat make the amount you will spend on consumables get cut in half or to none at all.
Volcano Dungeon 100-121
Now to cover Nogg leveling. Once you hit Sura, and have the base stats above for champ/monk start getting vit. You will need it to level until your 121~
Nogg leveling is simple. Windmill > spam SB in a large mob, then use Zen if you don't have EG. Be sure to have an endow for water it helps at early levels, but is not needed later on. As far as consumables go, until about 115~ I was burning close to 330k~ every 20 minutes to 1m/hour the amount is reduced later on due to your damage output providing more HP from the Hunterfly cards and Rideword hat. At 115 I went from using a mil an hour to about 200k~300k at best. I'd also like to add that bringing some ygg seeds and strawberries is highly suggested to reduce down time and chance of death. Once you have EG level 3 use SB Spam > Windmill if you feel your taking to much damage then spam SB with the spheres you got back from EG.
Juperous 121-134
Where do I begin? Here is where things change a bit. You will still be using SB at this point. If you wish try tiger cannon, I have yet to try it. If you have access later on Rampage blast is still viable for dragons I suggest using your guilds god items if you can to help you level. It is not required but it makes life easier.
Stats removed due to nerf to lightning ride (Why did this get nerfed? It's beyond me)
At higher levels the standard of 9x-100 in each stat applies. I suggest after STR is around 100 to get int up there for mvping later on.
This is probably the fastest leveling you will do as a 3rd class. Juperous is mobby, tons of fun and has the same problem as Nogg did at early levels in terms of zeny/hr which is actually fixed around 128~.
By this time you should no longer need to zen to gain spheres back, the trick to leveling here is to just snap around with EG on mobbing, SB > WM > SB > WM > SB etc. You should also have early levels of RD which you should use even if its only level 1-2. It's possibly the best sura skill in the tree. I suggest staying here until the exp gap hits hard at 134. The place has so many mobs it more then makes up for lack of the exp bonus for being in level range.
Rachel Sanctuary 132-140
Nothing changed here due to rampage blast being viable.
Ok here is where things change up a bit. By now you should have RD @ Level 10 and RB @ level 5. With around 125~ Str with buffs gear etc and a Double Archer Skeleton Carga +7 pref. You can one shot everything basiclly on Rachel Sanctuary Floor 1.
If not, you can use green pots and 9x vit to snap mob and LR, but this method consumes zeny, where the other option is 0z/hr.
The trick is to snap > heal > Snap > Zen > PA > Heal etc then use RB to one shot the vanberks you had trailing behind you. Its tedious at first, but when you get the hang of it you will end up saving yourself alot of zeny in pots. I suggest a full set of racial bucklers/guards etc. and an immune for this method or any of my above methods to leveling to succeed.
Now you don't need to stay here until 140, you can leave and take on scaraba level 2 at around 137~. Be warned if you do the cost to level in scaraba is dramatically higher then any of the previous zones until 14x when you have GTR.
Scaraba Dungeon 135-150
Advice for skill use removed, since build is now irrelevant.
Ok so you've made it this far, the last part of the hike to the top of the mountain that is 150.
Scaraba Dungeon is the best spot to level for 135-150. The only problem is the mobs have stoneskin. Its a pain in the butt. Now I'm going to list the equips I use to level down here:
+7 Double Kingbird Carga (Archer Skeleton)
+9 Rideword Hat
+8 Immune Nyd
+5 Bigfoot Card Stone Buckler
Clip under cast
If you intend to level at 14x I suggest you have the gear to do so or the buff slaves. Its a bit rough on the wallet that contains your magical zeny.
Skill builds:
In this section I will outline how some of the trees look at job 50. Please play with them to see where you will be at early on.
Leveling spec removed due to inaccuracies after nerf.
Basic WoE spec:
http://irowiki.org/~...QsNeAGAkdabfUcY
Edit: Some grammar edits, more to come on tiger cannon use and sura end game after I'm done testing in the next few weeks. Don't expect an update for at least another 3-4 weeks as I will be playing the classic server.
Edited by Alyst, 01 July 2012 - 04:45 AM.