Power Leveling is achieved when you reach a near maximum possible experience per hour given the current era of expansion, available gear, and level caps. It is most commonly achieved through the use of a stun rotation by 3-5 enchanters and a puller that is either really fast or is a paladin or cleric with some type of invulnerability spell.
The puller will gather up a very large quantity of mobs, usually 1/3rd to the entire zone in a single pull, drag them into the stun radius, and the mobs will become permanently stunned.
All that’s left is for a bard or an aoe class inside of the exp group to do damage to these permanently stunned enemies, then when they all die off, the group or character receiving the exp will generally gain a massive quantity of experience, sometimes more than a level for each pull.
Once the entire zone or large area is down, it is done again once mobs respawn. This is the most common form of power leveling done especially when you buy into power leveling services on the TLP servers.
There is another form of power leveling setup that can also be done to achieve very near the leveling speed to the above option.
The second option is done in a similar way however it features a near full group of high level characters that will use aoe threat and damage shields in combination with heals to keep the aggro away from the characters/group that is receiving the experience.
The characters getting the exp in this setup must be outside of the group and must do at least 1 point of damage to all of the enemies to get credit / exp for each kill. It is wise to use very low level AoEs that will not do a lot of damage and possibly cause aggro.
It is possible to do the second option with fewer characters in a group in the beginning levels but as you go up in higher levels it is recommended to have the near full group.
This power level group consists of these characters in order of most important to least important.
- Druid – For this to work you will need your group damage shields to be as high as possible, using a mage for this is not really acceptable because a druid also has regen buffs and can heal.
- Paladin – It is possible to do power leveling with just a druid and paladin at the beginning levels somewhat efficiently, the paladin has group and single heals and is also able to taunt / take a lot of damage being a tank. You will pull large quantities of enemies with the paladin and then self-heal / heal with the druid to bounce the aggro back and forth between the two while the enemies take damage from the damage shield. The heals should keep enough aggro to allow enough low level AoE damage to be used from the characters/group receiving the exp. The biggest benefit however, is the Paladin is able to resurrect. From time to time the characters you are power leveling will die from something stupid and nothing kills power leveling like having to run a low level character back to the leveling spot.
- Bard – Bard can use AoE slow/snare to help maintain aggro and crowd control over a large group of enemies. It can also be used to increase the group damage shield and armor so the group can pull more enemies. It also is beneficial to have AoE Health/Mana regen going to limit downtime.
- Enchanter/Cleric/Shaman – these next 3 classes aren’t really necessary until you’re training all of the zone on yourself and are actually taking some damage but they do help. I prefer the Enchanter as my fourth because it not only has mana buffs but it can use Wind of Tashania to AoE Debuff and aggro the enemies. This is extremely helpful if the character casting AoE damage outside of the power leveling group is significantly lower in level than the mobs you’re pulling and using magic based aoe damage spells (wizard,bard,cleric, etc).
- Cleric is also very helpful because of the massive hp buffs, group heals, and resurrections.
- Shamans are very useful because you could use AoE Slow, but just having the backup heals and extra buffs and Torpor line of spells will help a lot.
Depending on what expansion the TLP is in, there will come a point where the out of group characters can level with a max level character and that’s normally where the power leveling stops in the second option, although you could continue in that fashion it won’t really be true “power” leveling but instead something called “assisted” leveling.
Assisted leveling is what most people end up confusing power leveling with.
Assisted level is leveling with a slight to moderate advantage. This could be in the form of catching high end buffs, out of group players doing dps or healing, potions, and/or damage shields.
Even twinking your character’s gear beyond what the average player would have at that level can be a form of assisted leveling.
Assisted leveling is often called “power leveling” in game, especially by solo druids offering to buff, damage shield, and heal you out of group, but it is far from power leveling.
Note: It is possible to meet the criteria of power leveling in the very beginning levels 1-30 with a single druid if that druid is able to pull a large portion of a zone and uses its damage shields and self heals to stay alive while an outside group or character lays any type of damage to it. But it will be noticeably slower than any of the actual power leveling methods discussed above.
There are very few zones or areas that can support true power leveling that’s why if anyone starts recommending zones different from the common paths in the video below, they are basically saying they’ve never actually power leveled.
Zones that can support power leveling require a high density of mobs (50 or more) in a very close proximity and a setup that can handle a pull that large with ease.