How to build pooled experience AND still raise skills?

I've been playing for about a month now, and I'm enjoying it. My problem is that I'm constantly running really low on pooled experience. I know I can just turn everything off, and it pools, but are there any other tricks for increasing it because I'm still new enough that I need to be gaining skilled experience (not just pool it)? I know missions help, but they're not always that easy for me to find. And a bunch of missions are still broken, which is really frustrating when you put in the work and then the last part of the exercise is just not working (like poisoning the bandits' food in Blood River Outskirts).

Are there higher level quests that I just haven't seen yet? I've been looking for them, but honestly don't remember seeing much more than just the beginning areas.

 

The only thing that works well is this: Turn off EVERYTHING. Go out, fill up your XP pool. Then, select ONE skill you want to level and turn it on. Bear in mind a few things:

• Low-level skills generally require 1.2 million XP to GM (level 100) (tier 1 skills)
• Mid-level skills require about 2.4 million XP (generally your tier 2 skills)
• Higher-level skills about 4.8 million XP (these are usually your tier 3/4 skills)

The innate skills that your "class" needs in the Focus, Tactics and Subtlety trees are a bit different:

• Skills that compliment INT, STR, DEX (Heightened Awareness, Healthy and Safe Fall) require a bit more than 6 million XP to GM
• INT, STR, DEX themselves require 12 million plus XP to GM
• All other skills in tiers within Focus, Tactics and Subtlety trees fall under the general low/mid/higher scheme above (1.2mm / 2.4mm / 4.8 mm XP, respectively)

Bear in mind that for innate skills you can go the traditional route of tank = strength, rogue = dexterity, mage = intelligence and just focus there. You will, however, come to realize that each innate skill tree is useful to level for ANY character.

Also, GM sounds hard, and it's meant to be. You are safe getting skills up to 20, then to 40, then to 60, then to 80. That doesn't require much XP for any skill. It's that last 20 levels, especially the last 10 levels to GM that the skill eats up a lot of XP.

So get things to 80 ultimately, and then pick and choose what you want to level past that.

 

There are some quests that give decent xp, but for the most part they are "collection" type. Like undelivered mail, or the various random drops in Outskirts that you can return to NPCs. The Outskirts quests are much faster to do, if you are just looking for quest xp, but by the time you can get them en masse, you can probably go kill mobs for more xp in the same amount of time.

As far as recommendations for skilling up, I'd suggest only advancing a certain number of skills at once. For example, here is how I started:

• At first, get all of the skills you want to use to 40. That way you have a baseline where everything works "ok". Once they get to 40, change them to maintain.
• Work on getting your main weapon proficiency up around 80, but leaving all other skills at Maintain (or Do Not Learn) until you have it where you want it. Then change it to maintain, and turn on a couple of your active skills and level those up to 80. Rinse, repeat.
• After that, be picky about what you want to skill up. Remember that in general, active skills are cheaper to raise than passives, but passives have more effect. Things like HP, Focus, Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence are the most expensive you can get (except Specialization), so work on those one at a time, and make sure you are at a point where you get about the same xp for kill that you "spend" on those skills.
• Don't worry about specialization until you are happy with where your skills are without it.

 

I think the problem I'm running into is that my skills aren't anywhere near 80, and I'm constantly running out of xp pooled.

 

It really depends on how many skills you are raising and how many are at say 80 vs 95.

I always have some skills being raised and my xp in my bar hovers at a level that I can sustain a death.

I've found you can have a decent number of skill raising from 80-95 but if you want a lvl 95 skill to move, you should focus on it and set it to raise only and hammer that skill either in the real world or a training dumby.

 

Turn some down, if you are headed to skill 80 then set goals for them. If you have 20 skills then set 5 to raise 5 skill points at a time and cycle them in.

 

quests are a good way to boost that xp pool - hint doing one of the 3 main quest lines results in a nice chunk of xp

 

Dear @sarbonn ! You experiencing same dilemma as I once had and still tortured by it.

You may want to find a suitable answer to your question;
"How can I level my favored skill without constantly emptying XP pool? I'm not even turning all on!"

I asked same question, and didn't find the exact answer I was hoping for.
Instead, I came to term with my situation;
'If I'm not strong enough to maintain my XP pool, let's be patient and find other way.'

Thus, my quest for finding suitable places to grind began.
I put 'maintain' to all my skills, and began questing.
I've finished all 3 main questlines, done several side quests while doing so and found some nice places to grind.
I'm not sure what adventure level you're in, but I recommend experiencing main quests first.

Like @liz_the_wiz said, it helps you a lot with your pool, and it's FUN.

If you hit lvl 60, I suggest Deep Ravenswood, Crag foothill for your grinding place.
I'm now lvl 68 and it's still fun to play when you know what to do.
Remember, leveling is now a race in this game. Take time, see the world and most importantly, ENJOY.

Welcome to Novia.

 

Part of the problem I've run into is that every quest line I try ends up having some complication where it won't move forward because one of the important quests doesn't move forward (i.e., "talk to this guy" and you talk to him, but he doesn't cause a further movement of the quest). I have about 16 opened quests right now, and I think about two of them might allow me to move forward (although one of them sets me up against extremely high powered npcs that clean my clock the second I even come close to where they're standing).

 

Get your passives to 40, and then turn most of them off while you are leveling your active skills. Turn them back on when your pool grows to a decent size, and play with it... Turn one on, and see what the exp drain is, etc. Passive skills are a BEAST drain on your exp pool.

 

Oddly the only one I’ve never completed is love. The other two I went through like a dream but cos they pretty much change each release it doesn’t help either.

Don’t give up. Release day today. Lots of fixes are in

 

It doesn't have to be a problem that the exp pool is low. It means that all the exp you earn just go directly to where it's needed - in your skills. However if you want to raise one particular skill and it's really slow, then turn off all the rest for a while. Especially if you want to train a skill in a concentrated way by casting it over and over, then you should also turn everything off for a while and build up a pool to save time and reagents.

 

There's a lot of good advice in this thread but you will always have an experience pool problem unless you invest in a good grinding build. I know not everyone cares about fast progress but if you do I would put most of your exp into fire. You can grind in Deep Ravenswood till you're Adventurer Level 80 and then move on to solo'ing the monkey room in K'rul.

That approach likely sounds boring to some people but personally I would go nuts spending months getting to Adventurer Level 80 when you can do it in 2 weeks or less but that's just me.

If you're interested I could set you up with a fire build and you'll be flying through the levels in comparison to what you're doing now.

 

Color me intrigued. I'd really like to see this fire build. I wanted to create a fire mage from the start, but ended up going ranger cause it was easier to kill things (as the newbie I was).

 

Please message Beli Jaal in game and we can talk about the build, gear etc.

 

Managing your pool is not just about managing the number of skills you are leveling, you need to manage the level of mobs as well. If the mobs are starting to turn green, itès probably time to move on as the xp you are getting isnèt enough to fill your pool and what you are spending. Of course what you are leveling and the corresponding xp needed to gain in the skill is important as well. When you arenèt gaining skill fast enough, it puts a soft cap on your ability to gain more and requires adjustments to what you are doing.

 

hi sarbonn

choise just a couple of skills to train the go to an area where the colour is yellow to you and check to see if the pool is rising if it is yes then stay in that skull rating if not go down a skull rating and try again. Also slow down the game is not a race to the top, xp pool managment is an art to master.

welcome to the world of Novia
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