I'm rather new to muds in general. I've been playing this mud for about a year now, had a few rangers, and a few thieves. I have question about leveling. I see some people stay at the same level for a long long time, and these are classes that don't need empowerment. These characters tend to be extremely powerful when I contact them. I was wondering why people do this? Is it so they can get the skills they've learned to 100 percent. Some of them i noticed had armor and EQ they had to get from higher level characters. Basically i'm just posting this for some hints on the best way that several of you experienced players think to level. I'm playing a ranger/hunter, half-elf, good align, chaotic, so any tips or hints that you would offer I will listen too.

Firstly, a character can be well geared at any level above 10 without getting stuff from heroes. It may well be that they pk'd someone who looted stuff from heroes.

Generally though, people that sit at a level do so because their skillset or gear gives them an advantage at they level that will reduce if they continue to rank up.

If you are new, you shouldn't worry about tactics to become powerful. Rather, you should worry about learning to navigate areas in the mud because mobility and area knowledge are huge in pk. At the very least, they will keep you alive. If you don't die, you'll accumulate gear.

Once you get the hang of how not to die, you can start trying to take the offensive. Again, area knowledge is huge because you will be able to initiate combat with far less warning for your target (ideally none). You'll be able to run fast enough to cut them off if they try to escape on foot.

Also, keeping a clear head is pretty important in pk. If your typing becomes poor when pk'ing because of adrenaline, you are likely to die to the guy that is completely calm.

So to sum up:
- learn the areas, before trying to build a powerful character. Otherwise no matter how many 100%s you have, you'll die and lose whatever gear you have.

is to levelsit or rank slowly for your benefit of learning the class. It is good to understand your strengths and weaknesses and those of your opponent at all levels.

Say you're a storm shaman and you can hold your own pretty well against most enemies but you find yourself running low on mana. Then you roll a warrior as your next character and there's a giant shaman in your range. You should know, from experience, that he'll have a hard time having enough mana to kill you so you can string the fight out and eventually win.

If you race to hero without testing yourself thoroughly on the way up then you will find your strategies and experience limited.

i never liked hunters for pk but as a ranger in general you'd want to levelsit at 35 (where you get wildfam) and 40 (where you get snare and still not in range of hero chars).

At 35 and with the right combo (half-elf good hunter is not it) you should be a powerhouse and pretty much able to destroy everyone in your range. Almost the same for 40 with snare and change of tactics/more careful play albeit with less victims that you completely dominate.

Pretend you're a police officer trying to ticket people for speeding. Do you want to sit in a parking lot or alongside the highway?

That's a pretty good metaphor for why people level sit. You have people passing by (ranking) new characters as a continual stream of prey. They will have worse skills than you and worse gear than you because they're just trying to zip through to their destination (level 51).

As a result you can cherry pick off kills, improve your PK stats, improve your armor and skill %'s before entering into hero range where you tend to need to focus a lot more on PVP than you do in the midranks.

People tend to level sit at levels where they get a "big" skill because they consider it to provide a "special" advantage over other characters in their range at that level.

For instance an assassin at the level when he gets assassinate or a thief at the rank at which he finally gets all his thief points (42).

As for how you "should" rank, I don't think it matters so much. While you rank, though, make a point of doing everything you can to work on skills. For instance if you've mastered sword already then start using some other weapon you've yet to perfect, even if it means you're doing less damage. Maybe spam trip instead of a damage skill if you haven't mastered trip yet, even if it means you rank slower. Etc.

Bear in mind that much of what makes some characters "especially" powerful is gear and preps. (And by preps I'm not just talking about damage reduction, though that's often a part of it.) Even if you perfect all your skills, if you're wearing mediocre gear, don't use preps and don't make the optimal choices in combat...you probably won't be what most people would call a "really powerful character".

Then again that's perfectly okay. The people making "really powerful characters" are choosing from a somewhat narrow set of power combos, usually make heavy use of preps, and usually have lots of years under their belts. So don't sweat it.

One reason (or the main reason) to level sit in the low or mid levels is so you can find plenty of people to fight. This appeals to people who want lots of action, want to become famous, or want the opportunity to rack up edge points through pk they would have a tough time getting as a hero. It is easier to find assassination victims or potential charges for your unholy in the pk-rich middle range as well.

Importantly, the low and mid levels have fresh people coming through them regularly and low level characters have fewer hitpoints, so the advantage goes to whoever has a better set and surprise. At high levels, people are not as easy to catch off guard, there are usually fewer people in your range, people are less likely to go from 100% to 0% in the span of one lagging manuever, and after a few fights, people know what tactics the aggressor is likely to use and will counter accordingly.

Other reasons are to practice skills like assassin kicks, invoker spells, or find wands, but code changes have gone a great way in mitigating these as practical reasons.

Play to con death. Fight a lot. Die a lot. Study your logs and the logs of others. Learn a lot about fighting, fleeing, prepping, and gearing.

Rinse, wash, repeat. Then play the classes and builds that kick your butt and see what people do to stomp you into the ground.

More important than anything: learn how to have fun whether you are winning or losing, and bring that mindset into every interaction you have in game. Interaction is the important thing for having fun--characters that remain unseen can easily become boring over the long haul.