If you haven’t read PART 1 of my experience click here.
So what happened after levels 50-60? Well, as a healer, it became a bit more difficult for me to level up, especially because it was my first character and my first experience in this new l2 system. So I didn’t know exactly what to do. There were a lot of quests I missed, simply because I didn’t know they were there. The equipment that was available through the reward system was not bad, but it was not the strongest there is. Now players receive the Paulina’s sets, which are quite stronger than the previous sets!
One of the reasons I stopped writing at level 60, was because I became involved in the social life of the server. I met some other players, entered a clan and suddenly started spending a lot of time and energy on the server, that didn’t let me write about everything that was happening.
With my first char, I struggled a bit to level up and kept grinding in the Cursed Village and later in Wall of Argos, to the point that I had no more A grade shots left. This is something that is not supposed to happen, if you are doing all the quests correctly. This is something that has never happened to me ever again and I have leveled at least 10 more chars to 85! Some clan drama along with my inability to level up, made my experience a bit less enjoyable but I was determined to learn the game, so I persevered.
Everything happened very fast from level 83 and after. After leaving my previous academy, I joined, by miracle… a clan that was way above my skills and levels at that time. I got some powerleveling to 85 and in literally minutes after getting the 3rd occupation, I was thrown into the dungeon! I didn’t know anything about my new skills but the clan mates needed a healer and I wanted to learn everything as fast as possible. So, everyone was happy.
Nowadays, when I look back, I just feel that it is not worth it to rush an experience which you are enjoying a lot. Because things ARE going to go wrong and forcing a situation rarely lets you enjoy it. Up until level 60 I was reading the forums, googling for information and going slowly. I couldn’t do that now anymore because there was pressure to level up. The clan I joined was literally my “dream clan” but it had so many wars open which meant that as a low level healer, I could not go anywhere on the open fields to xp or do dailies, because I was a moving target. No dailies = no adena. No adena = can’t get better gear.
But let’s see what is available to the player after level 85 and what is going on with the xp and the adena after that point.
First of all, assuming that you have had a mentor, you can exchange your mentorship diplomas for R-Grade equipment.
The number one way to gain XP after lvl 85 is to do the instance Kartia or K85. The npc is in the middle of the town Aden! One of the great changes in the new Lineage 2, is that the center of activity is no longer Giran, but Aden! K85 means that the instance is in the mode that accepts players in a party that are from level 85 to level 89. You can find other players through the “Looking for” feature of the game at the lower left part of the screen, either join a party or start your own.
By doing K85 once a day you can level up quite fast. If you are lucky to do the instance with less than 7 people, the xp will be more, but the last boss (Zellaka) is not an easy fight and if the players are not well equipped you may wipe. So, always go in with a full party if you are not well equipped.
There are some daily quests available that are going to provide with some adena. The starting npcs are one in Schuttgart and one in Bloody Swampland. There may be more for your particular class, so you need to do a bit of exploring, talking to adventure npcs and checking the quest list from your map interface to find more daily quests.
It is really important to do Kartia and the daily quests everyday. Now the game is becoming harder and you need both XP and adena to advance. The truth is that the real game starts after level 85. Everything is much more complex but the purpose of this post is to just present the most important parts for total newbies and not create a comprehensive guide.
Each class now has totally different strategies to advance. They have different roles in instances, different equipment and totally different gameplay.
There are 2 instances that are very enjoyable and can get you some fair amount of loot if you do them regularly, these are Zaken and Freya. My absolute favorite instances for levels 85-89! In fact, I keep some characters at level 85, for those raids and for Lilith raids as well! Lilith is a raid you can make with a whole clan, because you need at least 49 people to enter! So, Zaken and Freya are instances that have longer cooldowns than Kartia. You can do them like twice a week only. To view your instances cooldown simply type /instancezone
After level 90, you now have access to K90, the Kartia 90 level mode (90-94). By this time you will also be working on your dual class, the subclass which you can level up to infinity, just like the main class. So you can also be doing Kartias with the dual class. For example, you can do K85 with the dual and K90 with the main class. But you can’t do K90 twice, once with each class. Unless of course you have a pass that resets your cooldown. But passes are expensive or you have to buy them with real cash. At least that was the situation in the US servers. There are also few other instances available, the most popular one: Fortuna.
Talking about cash, most serious players do buy boosts. It is very very hard to make serious progress in this game, without buying stuff. It is possible to play for free, but it will just keep you out of the competitive aspect of the game. You will not be able to compete with the people who use boosts. On the other hand, the European servers have much more affordable prices and almost no bots, which is a huge plus. I am not really a fan of free gaming. I would prefer to play Lineage 2 on a subscription basis, just like we used to play World of Warcraft. Subscriptions filter out most of the trolls and make the gaming experience much more pleasant. Subscriptions also keep the game balanced and give everyone equal chances at advancing. However, that’s clearly not how most people see it, that’s why everyone prefers free games, until they realize that the Pay-to-Win format in inevitable and creates serious imbalances. In the end, you will either end up paying to play, and sometimes much more that a normal subscription, or you will end being frustrated and giving up.
What you should be doing from level 85 if possible is the Ceremony of Chaos. It is a pvp event, where even when you lose you gain some tokens that you can use to buy things. Do compete at the Olympiad as well for the same reasons!
After reaching level 95, K95 is available. The XP now will be increasing in a slower rate. At level 99 you get access to K99, which is not a Kartia instance, but a Kamaloka instance. The npc however is still in Aden but its a different one than the Kartia one!
By this time you have to find a good clan that will have a fair loot system and will help you gear up. Please don’t raid with clans that don’t improve your gear. Most people will do that, because they just want to play the game, they want to see the higher raid bosses, but your love for raiding should reflect in the quality of your gear. If you are not progressing then there is something wrong. You can read my article on choosing a clan here.
What will help you more than a clan is getting into a CP, a Constant Party, a group of people with whom you can xp daily, make the daily quests and instances and help each other improve your gear!
Another important thing is not to listen to other players who are rude, flame and troll. Always use your ban option and mute the hero channel. In deteriorating servers, this will prevent you from losing respect for the game.
And that is where I stopped playing Lineage 2.
I reached level 100 but went through a lot of changes in CPs and clans. In these games, it is all about timing. You have to be in the right place at the right time, with the right people. My clan deteriorated early on and at the same time the server deteriorated at an incredible speed. None of us wanted to accept the fact that the server had died. When a server dies, bots and gold sellers take over, you cannot find people to play with, can’t even find people for a K99 instance. So this was the deciding moment where I a reached a pain threshold and stopped.
Zaken failed as a server but I did get to meet some interesting people, make friends and learn the game in detail there. After Zaken I moved to Core, the European server where I made a lvl 86 healer. I also have a char in the new server Ramona. My philosophy now is to simply level up a healer, without much stress and keep the char ready when the right timing occurs. When I am in the right place, with the right people, to create an epic clan and an epic CP for epic adventures!
Until then… well I guess I’ll be writing l2 guides!