Tips & Tricks for making the most of your level(l)ing

In LOTS, the majority of the energy and stamina we use is that which we get from level-ups. If you find yourself with hundreds of xp left to go each time you have emptied all your bars, your progress will be very slow indeed. Hence this post will try to show some tricks to make level(l)ing up as fast and painless as possible.

Note that I won't go into the necessity of having LSI at 7 or using syringes. LSI 7 is simply a must-have that all players should attempt to get as soon as possible and syringes are a finite resource, best saved for special occasions in my opinion.

First of all some concepts:

Levelling gear: any gear that gives you a bonus to energy, stamina or honor. Examples of this are Fleet Commander armor, the armor you can build with the loot dropped from most of the alliance raids, Quiskerian Priest/Warrior/Invader Armor etc. 2 notable items are Bambleweeny and Squeedlyspooch, which have a chance to give you some extra energy or stamina when hitting raids.

Autolevel: the Holy Grail. Getting so much experience from your full bars that you level up again straight away.

TNL: literally "till next level". A term used when people have used all their energy, stamina and honor and still find themselves with an amount of xp to go before they level again. Often heard combined with cries of despair and announcements that one will be back in x amount of time.

Item profile: Under the "profile" section of the game where you equip your gear, you can create up to 3 saved sets of equipment. More on this later.

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Basically there are 2 tricks (that I know of) to make levelling as quick as possible.

1. Make sure your xp tnl is as low as possible before making a big hit (20 stamina, killing a mission boss, etc.) If you have enough energy, stamina and honor to spare(because you just woke up, got back from work, whatever), don't just hit things till you level. Get your xp tnl down to as low as possible by doing 1 or 5 hits on raids, and then put in a big blow to launch you as far into the next xp level as possible. Note that it's useful to have a Vince Vortex raid active, as it will allow you to put in small amounts of energy for xp.

2. Set up an alternate profile made completely out of your best levelling gear.

Warning: do not switch profiles or unequip levelling gear when your bars are full. Any extra stamina, energy or honor you may have will be lost, as your character strips down completely before putting the other stuff on

The first step is to create a profile with the best gear you have for raiding. To do so, go to your profile page and from the dropdown, select the profile you want to use(logically Item Set 1):



Equip the gear your normally use for your daily raiding and then save it using the (not so) big friendly green button.

The next step will be to create a second Item Set that has your best levelling gear. Note that "best" is of course relative, but as a rule of thumb whatever gives you the most extra stamina, energy and honor is good, where stamina is twice as doubleplusgood as energy or honor. Fortunately the bigger bonuses tend to be on more powerful items, so picking the "best" ones shouldn't be too difficult.



The above image shows my current levelling gear, a hodgepodge of Quiskerian Invader and Warrior gear with the offhand weapon from Santa, the Crusader Sword, a trinket from the Psi-Wolf and Bambleweeny.

Once you're done setting up this Item Set, once again make sure you save it.

Now for the meaty part. As you approach the next level, you will at some point have to change profiles. Using the tricks used in method 1 (small hits, getting xp as low as possible) will allow you to make sure you don't actually hit too much and pass the point where you level. Once you're ready to make your big hit you switch to the Item Set with all of your levelling gear.



These are my bars wearing my normal gear. With only 1 XP tnl, there's no better time to change into something a little more comfortable. So I switch to my Item Set with the levelling gear:



Note the lovely yellow color telling me I'm getting bonuses. Now, time to hit something. DING!



Obviously the first thing to do after levelling is to add our hard-earned statpoints.



Make sure you remember your base values for energy and stamina. You must keep wearing your levelling gear until you have used enough energy, stamina and honor to drop below your base levels!

So, time to burn some points!



As you can see I've used just about enough to drop below my base values(yes, yes, I'm 2 energy short), so I can safely slip back into my work outfit and go about my daily business.



And that's the whole cycle completed. It may look like a lot of extra effort at first, but it quickly becomes second nature, and if done right it can easily shave off an hour of waiting inbetween levels.