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DodgeLevellingGuide

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Contrary to what some people might think getting dodge levels isn't rocket science, or all that hard - it just requires a little planning...

For starters I'll assume you've read the Player Fighting Guide, if you haven't you're going to find yourself getting confused really fast.

So what do you need to start?

An undusted tachi and a full set of good totems (Undeads are a good choice because you can buy them from players for 10k each) should have you in fine shape for some dodge training. If you're on a budget you can get away with just Quickness, Healing, Toughness (plus maybe Spirit Protection for later on).

If you can't afford an okay tachi or some totems then you'll probably want to put training dodge off for a while until you have collected some cash.

Lesson 1: Spiders

North West of Fingle, around 220N 140E there's a field full of two types of spiders and one "boss" spider. Make sure you have your defensive totems on, you might also want to take off Strength, Lifesteal and Accuracy. Finally remove your sword.

Why are we turning you into "Mr Tank"? Well dodge comes down to the fine art of getting beaten on but not actually dying, so the longer you can do without killing the monster that's giving you dodge the easier you'll find it to level.

Now you're ready walk up to one of the cream coloured spiders and try to attack it, once you get a hit in you'll find yourself being swarmed by a lot of cream colored spiders. Hopefully with your totems you should just be able to stand there and laugh at their attacks while you clock up lots of dodge XP.

Since you know the Monster Levels like you know the back of your hand, you'll know that hunting spiders are level 6, and so once you reach level 6 dodge they wont give you XP, no matter how many are trying to attack you.

Have a look around. See those green spiders, they're Venomous Spiders and are level 10 dodge, nearby you should also see a black and red spider - that's the Demon Spider.

If you walk over and attack the demon spider pretty much every spider around you will come after you, but now you've got some dodge levels and your totems that's not an issue... bring it on.

Because of the venomous spiders you're going to quickly rise to level 10 dodge, and then slowly towards 11 because of the demon spider... Once you get level 10 dodge you've out grown the power levelling offered by the spiders so head back to fingle and/or kill off the spiders for a quick loot boost.

Lesson 2: Bone Armies

Bone armies are the name given to the large clusters of Bone Warriors that guard the bosses in the Realm of the Dead.

Before you enter the Realm of the Dead equip all your totems and your tachi - there are more than enough Bone Warriors to kill off a few and still get good XP.

Once you're in the Realm of the Dead, repeat after me;

I won't kill anything that's not a Bone Warrior (red sword) or Theiving Spirit (zebra patterned ghost)

Congratulations - if you can stick to this you'll probably live long enough to get some dodge XP. There's monsters in the Realm of the Dead that can kill you with one or two shots so you need to watch where you walk.

There are four bone armies in the realm, the easiest one to reach is due south of the start point, around 10N 50E - if you want the others then check the realm map.

Once you arrive at the army, check there's no-one else nearby and then start attacking a Bone warrior (red sword), soon you'll be in the middle of a sea of red swords (and a whole heap of dodge xp).

Just keep swinging until you hit level 17 dodge, if you run out of bone warriors just wait around - they respawn fairly quickly and will be back to full strength in maybe 10 minutes.

Also you'll notice that as you're killing the bone armies they'll randomly drop dusts or undead totems... once you've hit 17 dodge you can come back here and "mine" the bone armies for undeads whenever you need them, good eh?

Lesson 3: Spirit Realm / Earthkeys

Okay here's where it gets less straight forward - there aren't any "natural" clusters of monsters immediately after the bone warriors, but there are monsters that you can group together yourself with a little effort - sure it wont be as fast as the XP from the earlier lessons, but if you do it right it can still be pretty quick.

I'm not going to tell you what eq you should be using as by now you should have gotten a feel for it without needing to be pointed in the right direction every time.

Okay, so you should now be level 17 dodge, that means that your perfect 10 xp a round monster will be level 27 dodge. You have two equally interesting choices;

Realm Hopping This is an older strategy but doesn't require anything extra to make it happen, however it is slower than the geomancy strategy.

Go to spirit realm and try to lure several spirit spiders (lvl 27) into one square, you should be able to get to dodge level 21 using spiders if your patient.

Once you hit level 21 you can either stick it out with the spirit spiders or move up to spirit dragons. Ideally you want to be level 24 coming out of this process because you can move up to using Dokk's Cents (and eventually Dokk once you reach level 29) immediately afterwards.

Alternately you can get yourself up to level 22 dodge, you might be able to use the Bone Sergeants (yellow swords) in the Realm of the Dead.

Once you're up to level 28 dodge then you might want to head over to the Dragon Realm and skill on the Orc Champions - there are only two of them per group, but they respawn fast...

Your goal here should be to get yourself up to level 36 dodge, towards the end it will seem slow but stick with it and you'll make it eventually.

Geomancy & EarthkeysThis is a newer strategy, it's faster and pays better than the realm hopping strategy, but it requires that you have access to someone who can make earthkeys (and preferably understands the basic ideas behind them).

The idea is that you use a monster and depth combination that gives you 10 xp monsters and then group them together to maximise your dodge XP gain. At lower levels you'll find that you get several dodge levels from a single earthkey with very little effort.

Also if you try to explore the earthkey full you'll get a reasonable amount of loot, the gem from the chest and possibly a drop from the vagabond (if there is one) - all in all a pretty good haul from something that's just there to give you dodge xp!

Here are some suggestions to start you off...

22m spirit werewolves are lvl 27 and on average rise one level per meter, although they will occasionally skip a level.

29m spirit tiger are lvl 27 and on average rise one level per meter, although they will occasionally remain the same level.

As with the first strategy your goal here should be to get yourself up to level 36 dodge, fortunately this version of the strategy doesn't tend to drag the nearer to get to level 36 dodge.

Lesson 4: Dragon Realm

Once you have level 36 dodge you can make good use of the power levelling offered in the Dragon Realm...

Once you start to fight level 35 - 40 monsters you'll start to notice that your tachi and totem combination hits a lot less than it did earlier on - this is because you're pretty much at the limit of what an undusted blade can do for you. This is when you start to need to start thinking about getting yourself a basic dusted blade.

The dragon chaplain is guarded by 8 prelates (level 46) - using these carefully you can quickly get to 46 dodge yourself. Once you can safely take hits from all the prelates, attack the dragon chaplain directly for an added dodge xp boost from dodge level 41 onwards.

The dragon archmage is guarded by 8 acolytes (level 56) - using the same care you did with the prelates you can hit dodge level 56 in a short space of time. Again once you can safely take the hits from the acolytes attack the archmage directly for a dodge xp boost once you reach level 51.

The dragon overlord is guarded by 8 knights (level 66), by now you should have the general strategy down - the only problem here is that you can't use the overlord for a dodge xp boost when the knights start to get slow!

If you're finding it hard to start off on a group of dragon guards try the "freeze" approach;

Run up to one guard, take two swings at him, run back out to safety. The majority of the guards should now be standing at the square you used to attack. Give it a moment for them to settle to the ground (ie not flapping around) and then run back in and hit one.

You should find that the only guards in that square which attack you from now on are the ones that you attack (although it's worth noting that if you didn't get all the guards in the square the left-over guards will attack as normal). This allows you to "activate" extra guards as and when you feel safe doing so which makes skilling them a lot easier.

Finishing up

Trying to get your dodge over level 66 only using natural monsters is quite frankly a pain since there aren't really enough monsters at those levels to skill quickly on. It's possible but they'll be the slowest dodge levels you have ever had to acquire.

Step in our old friend geomancy - if you want to get high dodge levels geomancy and earthkeys are the most effective way to do it.

If you take time to understand geomancy properly you'll quickly find that it's a very powerful skill in its own right, and probably one of the most effective tools for building yourself a powerful (and rich) fighter over the long term.