My name is Trappist and I have a 60 monk on red and I'm currently leveling a new monk on green.
I will try to detail the strategies I use to level and gear a new character. My goal is to help other players with as much detail as possible, since I spend a lot of time trying to figure out the best strategies as I level my characters. I get a kind of research addiction as I level.
I started an Enchanter on Green and made it to level 20. I realized not having the pet window and target cycling was going to make the class not as enjoyable as I hoped, so I decided to reroll.
As mentioned above, I leveled an Iksar monk to 60 on red starting from nothing, and it is one of my favorite leveling experiences ever. I'm having a similar experience on green.
Monks are incredibly fun to play. They are a decent tank, incredible puller, good melee dps, decent farmer, good powerleveler, and all around fun class.
A twink monk is one of the fastest leveling toons in the game with a fungi, decent weapons, and haste.
A non-twink Iksar monk is still great for leveling and very enjoyable.
Quick Edit August 2023: I abandoned my green monk but leveled to 60 on blue, come say hey to me on Twas!
Updating a few items that have changed with patch notes.
When I made my new toon, I had nothing. I watched the great video series on YouTube by Flats [1] which gave me the itch to play monk again even if I had nothing.
Flatts does a great job laying out the quests available in Cabilis.
Sparring Armor is really good monk gear, but the quest for it is extremely tedious and I gave up after about an hour grind and one Pile of Granite Pebbles to my name.
Curscale Armor is much easier to attain and you get exp/gold as a reward. I did this quest probably 20 times. The downside is how heavy the bag and skins are.
Also, skeleton mobs in FoB do not carry cloth like the mainland ones do, so this is one of the only ways to obtain your most basic armor.
Getting a good weapon is tricky.
Monk's hand-to-hand chart shows hand to hand damage/delay and you can see that a splintered club or cracked staff are a better choice for leveling.
Keeping hand to hand leveled up isn't that tough, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. When you need to start using a fist with your epic, your dual wield rate will be 70%+ so it will level quickly.
You can get Survival Staff, Club, and Staff from merchants when you get enough plat to afford them.
From there, your next upgrades will be Fighting Baton or Master Wu's Trance Stick. These go between 100 and 350 plat so it will be a while before you can afford them and you also have to deal with the problem of getting to EC to get them.
If you aren't completely fresh, getting one of these weapons for your new monk makes a world of difference.
Also, there are occasionally people running through FoB, Kurns, or WW with these for cheap or as a gift. I snagged a Fighting Baton off a guy that was stripping his toon for a different character and it only cost me 100 plat.
For 2HB Wu's Quivering Staff is an incredible weapon. It usually sells for 200-400 plat and it is a legit DPS weapon when you are 20+. They get snatched up quickly in EC, though, so start looking early on another character if you can.
There are also other options that aren't the best, but they will help you keep the skill up: Ketchata Koro Mis & Bamboo Bo Stick
Everquest is a slow game. Any gamer in the modern age knows the actions per minute are pretty low.
One thing I love about leveling a monk is all the new skills you get that you are continuously trying to level. During the slower, lower levels, I'm constantly hitting sneak, FD, sense heading, intimidation, whatever. Seeing those skill up messages is a little drop of dopamine to break the monotony.
Disclaimer: You get a lot of skills that throwing 30+ points into initially will make a huge difference on. I recommend being conservative with your point specifically for Feign Death at 17. This skill needs a lot of tries to skill up and starting around 50 skill is a boon.
Sense Heading: You can level this skill to 200 at level 1. I usually dump 3-5 points into it at level 1. It can only level on a successful use, and it probably has a 5% or less success rate at level (1).
Most players place sense heading in one of their lower hotkey spots and then bind that spot to the same key as a movement key. I didn't do this on green because your bar only holds 6 hot keys. I created a macro for it to use 3 times per key press and pressed it whenever I thought about it. (Note: you won't be able to use another macro while this is running)
Make Sense Heading 1 on your ability bar
/doability 1 /pause 19 /doability 1 /pause 19 /doability 1
I think I capped Sense Heading around 9 or 10. (It still fails at 200, thanks Verant)
Mend: Mend heals 25% of your health on a 6 minute timer. When it is below a certain level it has a chance of doing around 25% damage to you instead of healing you. Be smart when you use it. I poured points into it and used it every time it popped until it started working most of the time. I mainly used it out of combat and I made sure I had enough health to survive if it crit failed.
Once you or Mend hit a certain level it becomes your greatest tool to speed up soloing.
Safe Fall This skill allows you to take less damage when you fall. Any fall that does any damage gives the skill a chance to level up. Anytime you have SoW and you are in a zone with hills, make sure to run down in a way that would give another character 1-5 damage. This will help level it quickly.
Sneak Sneak allows us to be invisible when you are behind a mob. This used to help with FD pulling, but it was a bug and no longer works on Project 1999. The most important use for it as an Iksar is selling to vendors that don't like you.
Practice it early and often. It caps at 113 and it took me until about level 28 to cap it.
Round Kick, Tiger Claw, Eagle Strike, Dragon Punch/Tail Rake These are your upgrades from kick. The max damage on them seems to scale with your skill level, so train them initially when available and then use them on cooldown until you get the next one.
I create a macro to start a fight and hit it repeatedly while I fight. The downside is the hotkey won't let you see if one of these skills is up, so I usually keep my ability menu open as well to monitor.
Set your skill to ability 2 in the ability bar
/autoattack on /doability 2
Flying Kick The best upgrade to kick. Max damage is 50 when you get it at 30 and then it goes up from there. Great damage skill.
Defense, Dodge, Block, Riposte - Defensive skills that you should train when available and let naturally level as you get exp.
Bind Wound - I didn't start carrying bandages until level 8. You can bandage until 50% health. Bandages heal you for Bind Wound Skill/4. It becomes a very powerful soloing tool. Pro tip: You can practice FD and Sneak while you are bandaging. Feign Death then stand to look around while bandaging.
I created a macro that binds wound 3 times in a row for when I get low on health.
Be sure to save your Mend for when you are above 50% health.
Intimidation - This skill works like a long cast fear spell. The duration is random and the mob will run amuck. Above skill 100ish it works about 40%-50% of the time.
Mobs above 50% health run at about 90% of full speed, so using it without SoW can be difficult. Use strafe run to catch them when they are out of range. Also, higher hp mobs are really hard to consistently hit because they will randomly turn and lining up your hits when you are in range can be tough.
Mobs below 50% health run around normal mob low hp fleeing speed, so it's much better to use then if you don't have SoW.
Giants are one of the best mobs to use for intimidation kiting because their hit box is so large. Trying to use it on normal size mobs can be a chore.
1. Intimidation will not work if your melee skill is on cool down. When I first got the skill it so rarely worked for me that I only used it to keep it leveled. I asked another monk that was using it very successfully and they told me this. The faster melee skills like tiger claw and eagle strike can be cast during the intimidation animation and as long as they are off cool down when it finishes, you are good.
2. If there is another mob that will socially aggro near, your feared mob will head in their direction eventually, so be prepared.
3. You can practice Intimidation on mobs that are out of range and the skill will level up.
4. You can start intimidation when you are far away from a mob and it seems it will still work. There is a long animation and the skills seems to attempt the "cast" when it finishes.
5. You can start intimidation and then FD and it can still work. If you are successful, it will break your FD but you will still need to hit stand like normally coming out of FD.
6. Intimidation can be cast on a mob that is already feared and it can land again.
7. Intimidation can fail and it can also be resisted. The resist mechanic seems to work like normal spells where the mob's level in relation to yours is the biggest factor. Using it on a white or yellow mob is very difficult and even blues that are a level or two below you will get a number of resists.
Dual wield & Double attack - These skills will naturally level as you fight with them. Double attack is a game changer when you get it at 15. Dual wield max level is (Level+1)* 7.
Disarm Level it by using it on a mob with a weapon.
Feign Death - The main monk skill for pulling. For mobs that are below 35, a successful FD will memory wipe the mob. This makes pulling very easy as long as you get some separation. Be sure to practice this skill often. I trained it a ton in combat by turning off auto attack, hitting FD, and immediately standing up to start fighting again.
Forage You can't level this on an Iksar and it works probably 1/5 times. I ignore it mainly.
1.Watch out for a scaled wolf cub and a militia skeleton. Both are higher level and look like level 1 mobs. They will destroy you.
2.Save and sell everything if this is your first character. I would even save your copper unless you are really overweight.
3.Forget the monk AC penalty. It doesn't matter on a first character, you need the money much more.
You made a new toon, congrats! I hope Lizard/Kicks/Azz/Scaly are in the name.
First turn in your newbie note and strap on your brand new non-shirt.
Go straight to the Haggle Baron and make a Macro
/say I will perform a small service
Use this on Klok Mugruk to get Empty Curskin Bag
Now head out to FoB and start fighting. Here is the priority of things to kill:
1. Decaying skeleton with a shield (go out of your way to get these guys while being careful, the shield sells for over 1 plat)
2. Decaying skeleton with a weapon
3. Scaled wolf pups
All of these mobs should be white to you.
Save all bone chips.
Once you get a shield or 4 weapons run to one of the merchants, sell the weapons and buy a bag. Repeat until you have 4 or more bags.
When you get 8 Scaled Curskins, combine the bag which will reduce a lot of your weight.
When you get 8 more skins, it's time to run into town.
Turn in the bag at Klok Mugruk for a piece of armor.
Use your macro to get another bag, combine the skins, turn it in again for another piece of armor.
Use the macro one last time to get another bag.
Run to Klok Stitch and buy a large or small sewing kit depending on your funds.
Optional Dump some points into tailoring at your trainer.
Head to the bank, convert all your money, put any plat in the bank and head out to level again.
For levels 2 and 3 you will get better exp off the scorpions (social) and some of the beetles wandering around.
Optional You can turn in your bone chips to Trooper Mozo at the entrance to Cabilis in FoB for an exp boost. If you're thinking of saving them and selling them in EC, do /who and know that every other player in this zone is thinking the same thing.
You can continue to do curscale armor and also add Scorpion Pincers into the rotation.
At level 4, head over to the bonebinder warrens (D on the map) and get ready to murder some spiders. For new to the server broke players, I would stay here until you no longer get exp and maybe longer.
Combine 2 spiderling silks in your sewing kit to make a stackable silk thread.
At the time of this writing, each of those sold for 2 plat in EC and they sold quickly.
You can easily leave here with 6+ stacks worth 40p each. Hello Wu's Quivering Staff!
These levels can be tricky and long.
A rule about the pit: NEVER KILL A BADGER
You don't want to ever get a faction hit on the badgers or you won't be able to easily level in Kurns because you become KOS. Avoid any hits or anything that gives you a faction hit.
I'd go so far as to say remake your character if you get the faction hit. (Controversial I know)
I ended up fighting any blues I could grab around the pit in FoB.
I focused the larger spiders and ended up making a lot of silk swatches which I used to level my tailoring. They can also be sold to other players.
At level 9 I entered Kurns, which isn't always possible. On Green this zone was usually packed and most groups that are 12+ avoid the lower level scalebones because they are green.
Be sure to train sneak at 8 and begin working on leveling it up. It levels slowly.
Be sure to train Tiger Claw at 10. It has a faster cool down than round kick and as your skill gets higher it will hit for more damage.
Train block at 12, it helps a surprising amount. I noticed because I forgot to train it.
Now is a great time to upgrade your bags. I recommend Medicine Bag from Smithy Ygen. I would buy 7 if you can afford it.
These bags should reduce your weight greatly and you can just resell them later if you really need the plat.
I would grab 8-10 stacks of bandages and 4 stacks of shurikens. Remember the shurikens can have 20 equipped in your range and ammo slot.
Bind would is your greatest soloing tool. The sweet spot for leveling is finding blues you can kill while you have 50% health. This allows you to solo with very little down time.
Kurns is your home
Kurns is one of the best dungeons in the game.
The ZEM bonus is gigantic and the enemies are very easy. The skeletons will not socially aggro making them ideal.
I saved every bone chip and left here with 37 stacks. You can turn these in for exp/faction, sell them, or level an alt with them if you like.
Number one rule for here and the pit: NEVER KILL A BADGER. See above for details on other Badger rule.
The badgers inside here are especially nasty. A lot of them are SK's and their HT is pretty rough.
At the lower levels you will want to focus the scalebones. They wiki says they are level 9 but I believe they are 8-10. They are still worth killing even when they are green and give exp because you will rip them apart and they have very little HP. They can also be PH's for the greater skeletons, so clearing them will give you higher level ones.
The greater skeletons are level 11-13. You can try to solo a white and see how it goes, you may get lucky.
Once you hit 13+ they will be your main exp mob but keep killing the scalebones as well.
I spent these levels running around the main floor and pulling them back to the safe room.
Getting to 15 can feel rough. Some of the greaters will mess you up.
Level 15 gets double attack, which greatly increases your dps once it levels up. You will survive a lot more while solo with it.
Level 17 gives you Feign Death. I recommend dumping a lot of points into it until the cost is physically hurting you because you are a broke noob.
I continue to level up FD while fighting. I simply hit FD then stand up immediatly and turn auto attack back on.
FD has a bug where it won't work if you are auto attacking. Here is an easy macro to avoid that.
/attack off /doability # (replace # with whichever number it is on your window)
A lot of people use a drop aggro macro as well for getting a mob off them and onto a tank.
/attack off /doability # /stand /attack on
I usually just do it manually.
At 18 you get intimidate. You can actually level this up pretty easily inside Kurns because the skeletons don't socially aggro. You can fear one and then bandage or wait for it to come back before continuing to fight.
Another way you can level up intimidate is to use it but make sure your strike or kick is down when it goes off, guaranteeing it doesn't work.
Continue fighting in Kurns. Greater scalebones should be easy for you to solo and you will begin to see lesser icebones that are in range.
Eagles Strike at 20 is a great skill that really starts to hit hard as you level it up. Same with Tail Rake at 25.
For leveling, I stay in Kurns all the way to 25 soloing.
You will get good experience off greater scalebones until 22ish.
You will get good experience off lesser icebones and charbones until 25.
There are 4 camps in Kurns I like to focus on for these levels.
1. Caverns below the basement - Jump down one of the fake floors to get into the basement. Ignore all the badgers (of course) and focus the skeletons. There are 7 spawns I believe and the respawn time usually had me camping out or waiting for respawn. Utilize the teleporter when you need to get out.
2. Jester camp - Kill the PH and then roam around looking for other skeletons to fight. The jester gives you a shot at an Iksar Berserker Club. Not a lot of mobs in the basement to kill especially when the greater scalebones green out. Beware the fingered skeleton, he will give you a faction hit with the badgers (bad) and they will assist him with harm touches. ( Killed fingered skeleton, checked log, no faction hit 8/15/2023 --Zifnag (talk) 01:02, 16 August 2023 (UTC) ) (Fingered skeleton may not cause faction hit, but the Thick Boned Skeleton that shares jester's spawn DOES cause a faction hit 10/28/2023 -- iksardon )
3. Third floor - This is the area right below the top floor. There are a number of pathers that can be higher level skellies as well as a room in the back with a three spawn of higher level skeletons. There is also a two spawn a room over that can have the higher level ones in the "Barracks". Shout out to the undead crusader that drops a super heavy fine steel morningstar every time.
4. Top floor - A number of high levels can spawn here. You will learn which spawns are worth killing and which aren't.
Overall, the best exp until 25 is staying in Kurns on the top floor, but it isn't always available.
A lot of monks want to branch out and travel the world. Here are some other recommended leveling places 20-30
1. Giant for in WW (we go there next) 2. South Karana - birds, centaurs, whatever 3. OT easy side 4. Unrest - tough to solo 5. Mistmoore - tough to solo
When I hit 21, I decided to hit up WW, Unrest, and MM. I spent a lot of time wandering and trying to find stuff to fight. I eventually found groups and noticed the exp was much slower than soloing. It brought me to a very important rule that helps with my OCD:
The best experience is always the experience right in front of you
As long as you have a mix of greens and blues that you can solo while you are at half health, you are in the best exp spot.
I will point out other times I "wandered" looking for exp that I knew would be better on the other side, but every single time, without fail, I came back to a tried and true spot.
You are probably thinking that Kurns until 25 is dumb. I thought that many times. I went to the Giant fort in WW at 21, 23, and 24.
Every time I came back to Kurns because the mobs hit softer, had less health, were closer (less running on pulls), and the exp bonus made up for a lack of blues.
When you are trying to level (if that's your goal), just stay at the good camp you have and level there until it makes you leave because the exp dries up.
Everquest is a game of exponential power growth for NPC's as their level increases. You will learn this when you aggro a newbie area guard and they quad you for 175.
Staying with the easiest blue you can find, greatly speeds up leveling. You won't listen and wander around like I did. But remember it and don't get discouraged and quit.
Tail Rake is your next upgrade for melee skill at 25.
At 27, you get disarm, use it how you wish.
For experience during these levels you have a lot of options for grouping.
Solo experience is still great in South Karana and the other places listed in the previous section.
At 25, I hit up the giant fort in Warslik's Woods solo.
Your main target are Forest Giant Greenwoods. Even with bad gear, these can be face tanked.
My favorite strategy for these was to pull them out the gap in the wall on the south side and intimidate kiting.
Intimidate kiting can be difficult because being in range of an NPC to hit consistently is tough without snare. Giants and brutes are the best mobs to use this on due to their larger hit boxes.
When your Intimidate skill is high enough, you can use it on the Evergreens as well, but be warned intimidate has a level difference factor in it and a blue Evergreen that is one level below you will be tough to keep feared.
Forest Giant Evergreens become possible as you level up, but they are much tougher.
My favorite part about the giant fort is the plat you can earn. It's a quick run to the merchants outside Cab and the weapons/tunics the giants drop pay out well.
At around 27-29, depending on gear you can move to the brutes outside the Dalnir entrance in Warslik's Woods.
Congratulations, you made it to 30! Flying kick is amazing and you'll see a big jump in your burst DPS with it.
At 30, you can leave Kunark, but I chose to grind out to 35 for Riposte. If you leave, you will need to return at 35 for your final ability, but it's not too big of a deal.
South Karana is still great. Upper Guk has some good exp spots with loot and a nice exp bonus. Frontier Mountain at the giant for is great grouped. The ledge or back door at the Sarnak Fort is a decent spot. I'd recommend a duo here because the shaman and necromancer Sarnaks suck. Kill the shaman mobs for a shot at a Sarnak Earring of Station and the Legionnaires have a chance to drop the Bracer of the Hidden.
I moved to the brutes in Warslik's Wood at 30, but they can be done before. They are at "A" on the map of the zone.
They are a very popular camp so be ready to head over to the giants if they aren't available.
Brutes are non-aggro and non-social, making them a perfect solo camp. There is a room with 3 spawns and a room with 2 spawns. At 31 I could hold down all 5 spawns and I would usually offer the two spawn room when another player arrived.
Technically this is an outdoor camp, so you can only claim a single spawn per camp rules. Enforce/ignore as you will.
The best thing about the brutes is their loot. They drop mid-tier gems, and they drop frequently. I would destroy all copper/silver and would only go to sell when I was overweight. I usually had around 1300 gold on me and about 700-900p worth of gems. If you are powering through, just destroy the gold as well.
You can also save the brute hides and HQ brute hides to try to sell for halfling cultural armor.
I ended up sticking it out here until 35 for riposte and made around 4k plat.
An alternative route for 30, and the place I went at 35 was HHK.
High Keep is an amazing zone for monks. There is a bank, bandage merchant, and guards, guards, guards!
You can also bind in the zone, I stayed bound at the zone line so I didn't have any surprises.
The guards are going to bottom out your Qeynos and East/West Freeport guard faction. For Iksar this isn't a big deal.
Also, at the time of this writing, guards are being assisted by merchants and it's a bug that should be fixed. This limits the guards you can kill and also makes the zone extra deadly. I probably died 10 times while leveling from 35-43 and it was always because a merchant aggroed and destroyed me.
Before starting here, I would recommend dipping into your funds and buying weight reduction bags. EE bag and Light Burlap sack are the cheapest and a Box of Abu-Kar or Bag of the Tinkerers are the best but pricier.
I also purchased JBoots with my brute funds. They aren't 100% necessary in this zone but they really help especially when running through the second floor.
HighKeep has a fantastic writeup on all the guards and is a good reference.
At 35, I killed any and all guards that were blue and light blue. I also targeted guards that were green.
Each guard is a warrior and carries 1-5p and a fine steel short sword guaranteed. They can also drop research materials.
I started with wandering guards on the first floor and worked my way to the second and third, killing whatever was available.
As your level increases, you will need to kill guards on the higher floors for exp.
I got into a rhythm of killing until my weight was fairly high then running to the bank area to vendor and sell. Each trip was about 200-250p into my account, making this an extremely lucrative camp for plat.
For this reason, I ended up sticking around until 43. Past 41 you will be limited to the top floor or the basement guards only.
I stayed in Highkeep until 43, but you are now entering a place where your leveling options really open up.
SolA was my number one choice for 38-44 on red. The main reason I stayed here was pvp purposes, but it is still a good spot when you don't have people hunting you. At 40, the best exp are the gnome clockworks. There is a really good old guide on soloing a monk in SolA [2]
You can sit in SolA getting great exp from the Gnomes and hit a number of item camp placeholders at the same time. This is a dangerous zone, though, and there are many, many ways to die. Corpse runs can be tough here as well. Most of the loot here is good for gearing a toon in classic, but with Kunark and Velious out it loses most of the value.
Edit August 2023: SolA is still a great money zone but the gnomes weren't my favorite exp. There is a high mixture of magicians and their DS will wreck you unless you dispell it. Much better to do a chill outdoor camp or guards.
You can vendor to the goblin merchant by the King with sneak and buy bandages and you can turn your plat into peridots in the Temple of Sol Ro.
I'd recommend getting bound in Neriak and learning to sneak behind the two newbie guards to escape. You can also bind in West Freeport.
City of Mist is also a good option but it's tough to solo until around 45.
Kaesora isn't bad around the church solo.
Overthere is surprisingly nice. Watch for the Dragoons at night.
Dreadlands near KC is nice, but you will be hunting for the right level enemies.
With good gear, Spectres and Hill Giants become tenable.
The entrance to Lower Guk dead side is decent but the mix of shamans and undead roots can be tough. I did a lot of Lower Guk on red, but the updated ZEM's make this zone and Sol B terrible exp spots since the bonus is the same as an outdoor zone. A bonus for Lower Guk is you might be able to form a group to camp the minotaurs on live side for your shot at Raster. I never saw another person in my level range in Lower Guk on Green sadly, so I gave up that dream.
Kobolds in SolB are decent even though they don't have the bonus they used to. I go in to Sol A and enter Sol B through "A" on the Sol A map. This puts you near the window camp and easy pulls on the Greater Kobolds.
Tundra Yeti cave in Dreadlands is an awesome spot, but I couldn't handle them in a timely manner until 43. This is also a popular spot. Note: The quickest route for corpse runs here is to stay bound in WFP and get a port to DL after you die. Beats the naked run from Cab.
For grouping on Green there is only one option: Cazic Thule. I did one group here at 44 and the exp was slow with half the mobs as light blue, quarter green, and quarter blue. You will probably need to wait on a list to get a group.
These are the levels when I really began to feel the end of my soloing career. My gear was still bad and enemies in this range hit for up to 96. When you have less than 1500hp, a few doubles of this will really make you feel it, especially when you are starting the fight at half health.
The above solo spots are still possible with OT really being greened out once you hit 46.
Guards in Oggok are a great option at these levels. The tower near the entrance has 3 in it, then two patrols, two at the entrance to the back area, and two patrolling ones there. Without merchant aggro there are a few more floating around I'm sure. Good loot and exp from the ogres, but the respawn is a bit slow. There is also a bank in the zone that I could flop in front of and access.
Like I said before, I started on the Tundra Yetis around 43 and ended up staying there to 47. 46 was very slow but I like easier camps.
I would go to #1 on the Dreadlands map and camp the north most cavern. There are three spawns and a single that roams only in the round room the three spawns are in. You can also grab the one in the cubby and the other roamer if you have time. A fungi monk can probably camp both rooms and the roamer + cubby. I usually "gave" the other room to a group and they would drop some buffs on me.
I like the North room the most because the tunnel is a safe spot from the roamer.
Save the Essence of Winter if you like, it is for Barbarian cultural armor. Gem drops are probably 1/8th what they are at the WW brutes.
At 47 I decided to grind out the whole level on Hill Giants in Rathe Mountains. This made me a 2-3k plat. A strategy for a twink monk is to level on hill giants as soon as you can solo them through 48 and make 20k+ plat in the process.
This is a plat camp, so you will be competing with high level players for the giants. Kill basilisks, lizard people, cyclops, and giant skeletons because they can be PH's for the HG's. The tainted and corrupted hill giants give non-hill giant levels of cash but they still gave exp.
This camp was only really possible with intimidate kiting. The giants hit especially hard for their level and a light blue can still hurt if they get some lucky hits in.
There is a merchant in the zone to turn your plat/gold into ruby's and you can buy bandages in the zone.
At 48 I moved to Bloodgills in Lake of Ill Omen. This camp is probably doable at 47.
You need an EB item to do this camp. Fishbone Earring is the easiest one to get but it runs 2500-3500p. I was saving my plat to prepare for raiding, so I tried the cheap method of buying a 10 charge EB pot for 250p. Each charge only last 27 minutes, so I wouldn't recommend this method.
If you can't get an EB item, check /who constantly for a 44+ necro and get a DMF from them. It lasts 72 minutes, which is fantastic.
If you don't have EB, you can kill the Bloodgills underwater before your breath runs out. I was able to do this once my swimming skill got above 150. It's annoying but doable.
You can also pull them to the platform on the North East corner of the ruins. You can stand there and fight them, which is much easier than trying to fight them at the surface of the lake.
I would pull the front four on the west side near the marauder spawn because they are the easy single pulls. I would then do the two that sit near the south west column on top of the building because they are also single pulls.
Splitting the other spawns can be tricky. The main issue is if your feign death fails, you are in trouble unless you can outswim them (I couldn't). Because of this, I stuck to the single pulls.
Bloodgills are good experience to 51.
At 51 your bind wound skill will increase allowing you to bind wound up to 70% hp, which is fantastic.
Your regen also greatly increases to 12hp/tick while sitting for an Iksar.
You are now in a place where your gear will determine your ability to level efficiently solo. Specifically you will need a fungi tunic or a Velious monk chest armor with invigorate.
For solo Exp, there are a few options:
Glacier Yetis in Dreadlands
Old world guards: Kelethin, Dwarves, Dark Elves,etc.
Lower Guk: multiple camps
SolB: Solusek Kobolds and Sonic Bats
High Keep: Nobles. This is probably the best option if you don't have a healing chest item because of exp bonus and easy access to bandages. Plus you can make killer plat from the guards in between respawns. (I will try this out once they remove the merchant assist bug).
City of Mist: Moat in the back or Goo House
Edit August 2023 I ended up getting a monk to 60 on blue solo but with much better gear.
Here was my path with some overlap because I jumped around between camps pretty frequently.
51-54 Nobles/Bards in High Keep: Great camp with super low HP on the nobles. It takes a bit to split them all, but once done the quick respawns make this a fantastic camp. Isabella will wander by and becomes annoying when she greens out. You can also throw in Captain Boshinko for more exp. Usually there was another player there so I just kind of made up my own rotation. Upstairs noble spawn + Boshinko and I murdered all the guards in between for plat. Biggest boon for this camp is you end up taking out a bunch of guards also so you make decent platinum. There is also Dyrna Nilith in the basement, who is a decent single spawn target, but I got bored.
Note: Bodyguards were added after I was done leveling here. Apparently they are great exp all the way to level 60.
50-55: Drolvargs in Dreadlands: The puppies are actually decent experience, I believe I dinged 55 fighting the two statics and the two pathers near the KC entrance.
50-55: Bats and Bugs in SolB: Bring some MR gear and you are ready to take on this camp. Old world mob HP, etc, etc, you know the drill.
57-60: Efreeti trash in SolB: I gave this a try but many of my sessions were 1-3 hours and this is more a camp for the 6+ hour session club. Breaking this camp is an absolute chore. Highly recommend a levi cloak because you need it very badly with all the running over lava you need to do. You also need a pumice or other item to easily dispell damage shields from the elementals. Big note, the imps will backstab you, so be very careful pulling and have levitate on. Once broken into single pulls and the elementals can be grabbed before they shield, I'm sure this is a great camp. It just didn't work for me.
55-60: Lava Duct Crawlers in SolB: I tried many camps for the 55-60 range but I always came back to LDCs. I was raiding with my monk at that point so I always had a bag of resist gear. The LDC poison is very very difficult to resist, but the gear is very helpful for the two named that spawn here. I believe the stone spider only landed a single stun on me the entire time I leveled here. They begin to go green at 58, but trust me: This is the best camp to hit 60 at unless it is absolutely overcamped.
I want to stress this: LDC's are the perfect solo mob for these last few levels on a melee character.
1. Low HP. Wiki says around 4900, but they are the mobs I killed the quickest by far. 2. Most importantly: Max hit. They DO NOT HIT for 120 like the wiki says. Max hit was in the 90s, which is incredible for a mob in this level range. 3. Access to merchants and bandages. Leveling 55-60 is a huge time commitment. Frankly, it's pretty ridiculous, but it is what we have. The ability to log in and start murdering mobs with short interruptions like selling and buying bandages is HUGE. I treated level 59 as 10-20 mini levels. Any time I logged in my only goal was 5% or 10% on longer sessions. I logged in, hit my goal, ran outside to sell and pick up bandages, and boom I jumped back in to camp for the next session.
55-60: Rats in PoM maze: Tried for a bit but they have too much hp and hit hard. More of a caster camp imo.
Other camps I could never get:
Two giants under the fort in Frontier Mountains
Grik in Swamp of No Hope