This is Falario Fa, my main character on Tera (Dragonfall server, PVE), an Elin Slayer who’s just reached sixty! I played most of the game solo and had a hard time leveling at certain points, as well as finding tips on how to do so. Here I will attempt to make the most in-depth guide to solo leveling in Tera available. I will tell you where I went, how I got stuck, how to get around dungeons, and at what points doing so will mean grinding.

Soloing all the way through Tera means maintaining a balance. If you skip a dungeon, there will be a lot of experience that you’ll need to fill in, not just from the dungeon itself, but from the story quests that you’ll miss out on by skipping them. Story quests provide by far the most experience out of any quests in Tera, but they also will send you to almost every dungeon. There are some story quests that activate once you reach a certain level, and others that only activate by doing the previous quest in the chain. So, for instance, if you skip a story quest at level 19 which sends you into a dungeon, you won’t be able to do the next quest in that chain; but upon reaching level 20, you may unlock a new chain.

Playing Falario, I was doing group quests up until the mid-30s, but for the rest of the game I only did a couple of dungeons and did no BAM quests whatsoever. However, I’ve also got a level 28 High-Elf Archer named Chris Chiaki with whom I’ve never even been in a party, so I still know what needs to be done to solo the early part of the game.

This guide will concern itself only with questing, and occasionally grinding. You can also gain experience through gathering, though this only helps a little in the lower levels, and I have no idea how much it helps later. I did no gathering nor crafting nor enchanting whatsoever while playing Falario. On my level 23 Sorc alt, I did lots of gathering and crafting, quickly became infuriated with the system, and ragequit. Throughout the game, there were about fifteen or so minor gathering quests which I opted to drop because my gathering level was too low to complete them, but I don’t think that these quests majorly factored into my level progression.

In addition to telling you how to level, I will be showing off a lot of the armor that I got and occasionally commenting on it.

Tera Leveling Guide

Levels 1–19

Areas: Island of Dawn, Fey Forest, Oblivion Woods, and Valley of Titans

Reaching level nineteen is as simple as playing the game. None of the quests are complicated or difficult, and all of them lead you exactly where you need to go. At this stage, you may become overleveled if you do every quest available.

My first time playing through these areas was during open beta, and I was teamed with my friend, who played a warrior. Throughout the entire game, if you team with one other person, it becomes laughably easy. You don’t have as many skills this early in the game, but later on, a Slayer and a Warrior team can kill almost any enemy up to two levels above them in three seconds. While the experience from enemies is cut in half between you, there is also a 20% experience boost, so leveling is still very quick.

If what excites you most about Tera is getting to fight BAMs and do dungeons with a party, then by all means, be in a team throughout the game. This will both get you to the BAMs and dungeons faster, as well as make short change of all the other quests. However, if you’re soloing, there’s no real point to rushing through the game, because you’ll be doing essentially the same shit through the entire game: killing enemies. Tera is a game about killing enemies, either alone or in a group, and it never changes a whole lot.

For me, the most fun to be had in Tera comes from challenging myself as a solo player. I got bored of my friend and I mowing down everything with ease, so I started playing solo with the hopes of making the game more challenging. I was also underleveled for a large portion of the game, which led both to larger challenge and more deaths. (I died 88 times on the way to level 60.) It is probably possible to solo the game without being underleveled and have an easy time of it, but I don’t see the point of playing that way.

So, getting back on-point, I played through the early areas solo on my alts, and had an easy time of it. I also did a handful of guild quests while I was playing through, which gave me enough experience that I was able to skip some of the annoying escort quests that I didn’t want to do.

Guild and repeatable quests

Guild quests are very highly recommended if you’re a member of a guild. Almost all of them coincide with the normal quests in each area, meaning that you can do a guild quest and a normal quest at the same time and get credit for both with each kill. If you aren’t in a guild, then you can do the repeatable quests, which are almost all the same as guild quests, but these ones you will have to have done the quest once already to unlock.

[For example: You have a quest to kill 10 Blood Fiends. If you pick up a guild quest to kill 15 Blood Fiends, then you can kill 15 Blood Fiends and complete both quests. Or, after killing the first ten, you can then pick up the repeatable version of the quest, kill ten more Blood Fiends, and turn in the quest again along with the guild quest.]

Repeatable and guild quests can be done something like five to ten times, as long as you don’t become too high of a level to be eligible for them. Moreover, if you keep killing enemies past the number that you need to turn the quest in, it will keep counting those kills. So, if you have a repeatable quest to kill five enemies, and you kill seven, then you can turn in the quest once and still have two kills towards turning it in again.

If you don’t mind killing the same enemies over and over again, or in fact prefer doing so over stuff like gathering quests, then you could probably use these quests either in place of other quests, or as a means of gathering experience if you run out of quests and haven’t leveled yet (which will most likely happen). While playing Falario, I did no repeatable or guild quests whatsoever, so these did not factor into my leveling.

Levels 19–21

Areas: Tuwangi Mire

For soloers, this is the first place where your course through the game will be different from that of other players. Tuwangi Mire is the first in a number of areas that exist as alternate questing zones for those who don’t want to play five-man quests. In fact, there are no five-man quests whatsoever in Tuwangi Mire.

This place is an alternative to going to Bestial Vale in Oblivion Woods at level 19, and the dungeon Bastion of Lok at level 20. There’s a quest giver in Crescentia who will send you to Tuwangi Mire, but there is no story quest to send you there. Playing Falario and my Sorc, I never had to go to Tuwangi Mire, because playing Bastion of Lok leveled me beyond all the quests there. On my archer Chris, however, I came there at level 19 and left at level 21, which meant I was a high enough level to move on to Celestial Hills.

Levels 21–28

Areas: Celestial Hills, Cliffs of Insanity, Vale of the Fang, and Paraanon Ravine

Leveling in Tuwangi Mire should unlock the next story questline after the one which would’ve led you into Bastion of Lok. Following it will take you to Celestial Hills. If you follow the story quests and take all of the available quests in each area, then things should be simple. Only at the end of Vale of the Fang will the soloist’s path again branch off from that of the group player.

At level 26 or so, the story questline will lead you into the dungeon Sinestral Manor. However, there is a quest in Popolion which will lead you into Paraanon Ravine—another area that the story will never take you to. Paraanon Ravine should fill in the amount of experience to level into the next story quest line, or at least enough that you’ll be able to do the quests in the next area regardless.

Levels 28–31

Areas: Basilisk Crag, Tenebrous Mines, and Freeholds

At level 27 or 28, the story questline will send you to Tenebrous Mines, which is the first of the “cave” areas (as I like to call them). These are areas with names that appear in red on your map, and aren’t considered a part of the overworld. Most of them are nearly as big and contain nearly as many quests as any of the major questing areas.

I enjoyed Tenebrous Mines, but it’s a bit of a pain in the ass to navigate. Most of it is solo-able, but the reason I’m bringing this up is that I think you may be able to skip over the mines entirely. I don’t recommend doing so, especially because I haven’t done so myself yet, and because I haven’t ever been to Freeholds.

Both Basilisk Crag and Freeholds are areas that you won’t play through on the story quest line. Playing Chris, I did Basilisk Crag after Paraanon Ravine to make up for skipping Sinestral Manor. However, that’s as far as I’ve gotten with Chris: I’ve neither been to Tenebrous Mines nor Freeholds.

By the time I played Tenebrous Mines as Falario, I was 28, and my friend and I had split up due to my inability to keep up with his blistering pace. (He’s a hardened old MMO vet. I’ve never played any MMO to nearly the extent that I’ve already played Tera.) I had no problem with the mines and leveled enough to move on to the next area without playing Basilisk Crag or Freeholds, so by all means, you may as well experiment here, figure out which areas you like the best, and play those.

Levels 31–34

Areas: Jagged Coast, Mistmoor Island, Ascension Valley, Azarel’s Labyrinth, and Pirate Grotto

The story quests will send you through Jagged Coast, Mistmoor Island, Ascension Valley, and the game’s second cave area, Azarel’s Labyrinth. My friend was able to play through all of these areas without doing Pirate Grotto and move on to the next place. I had skipped too many quests, and stopped doing five-man’s altogether, so I went there.

Pirate Grotto is another cave and also an optional area, and I enjoyed it a lot. If you play through there, you should definitely level enough to get into the next area.

Levels 34–39

Areas: Lake of Tears, Eldritch Academy Grounds, Colossal Ruins, and Aurum Road

I remember having some difficulty playing through Lake of Tears, but while doing the cave Eldritch Academy Grounds, I teamed up with my friend again, and we made a complete joke out of everything from there through level 38. We did all of the BAM quests in those areas and played through the dungeon at the end of Aurum Road (Cultist’s Refuge) twice, so this is the one area where I can’t speak as a soloist.

I do know that my younger brothers, who play a berserker and a lancer, soloed these areas, and both had a very difficult time with Colossal Ruins, only to turn around and have an easy time with Aurum Road. I don’t know what it is about Aurum Road, but it seems to be the easiest area in the game. It’s also extremely large, and though my friend and I made it a joke, we also spent a long time there, and I hate it. Playing through Aurum Road was what made me decide to solo the rest of the game.

With that said, I have no idea what kind of difficulty a soloist would face progressing to level 38/39, which they’ll need to be when they go to the next area. I haven’t spoken to anyone that skipped Cultist’s Refuge, and looking at the game map, I can’t find any optional areas meant to carry the player through this dungeon.

The fact that I’ve never seen anyone complaining about having difficulty around this level makes me think that it may not be a problem, but until I play through here as Chris, I will not know for sure.

Levels 39–42

Areas: Essenian Crest, Blightwood, Timeless Woods, and Blessing Basin

This is one of the most straightforward parts of the game. I remember playing through all of these areas very quickly and actually skipping a number of quests, especially in Blessing Basin, because I was already overleveling them. I don’t imagine that I could’ve done this had I not played all those BAM and dungeon quests in the last areas, nor do I think it was a good idea for me to skip so much in retrospect, since this is just before I started to face a lot of leveling problems.

Levels 42–48

Areas: Tempest Reach, Mount Tyrannas, Citadel of Torment, Frost Reach, Quarantine Zone, Arachnea, Feral Valley, and Temple of Dagon

Tempest Reach was the first point that the game became difficult for me, and I started having to put better thought into things like crystals and glyphs to make sure that my character was as prepared as she ought to be. Once I had all that figured out, though, the game went back to being somewhat easy, and more or less stayed that way.

However, it was in this part of the game where things started to get weird, and where I royally fucked myself over in terms of leveling. Most people who play solo will probably fuck themselves around here, but hopefully this guide can save you from doing so.

The reason I got so fucked is that at level 42, I skipped the story quest which would’ve taken me into the dungeon at the end of the cave Citadel of Torment (even though I ran it through dungeon finder before I ever got to the quest). I hadn’t leveled enough for the next story path to open, nor did I yet comprehend the fact that you could progress the story by leveling without having to do all of the quests. I ended up skipping Frost Reach, which was another optional zone, and went straight to Quarantine Zone.

DO NOT DO THAT! At this point in the game, I had not yet made my alt characters, and was not yet aware of the pattern of optional areas that could be done as an alternative to dungeons. Frost Reach is to that dungeon what Tuwangi Mire or Paraanon Ravine was to the dungeons in their area. Had I played Frost Reach, I would’ve leveled enough to unlock the story quest leading into Quarantine Zone instead of going there on my own. (I can’t remember what quest even led me there, or if I just found out on my own that it was the next place to go.) I also probably wouldn’t have hit the huge wall later on that I’ll be talking about in the next section.

Quarantine Zone and Feral Valley contain the caves Arachnea and Temple of Dagon respectively, and they are straightforward once again. After playing through these areas, I leveled enough to unlock the story chain that would’ve sent me through them in the first place, so I ended up having to run through them again, completing the story quests.

Levels 48–50

Areas: Hungry Caverns, Frymount, and Serpentis Isle

Here my fucking over of myself comes full circle. If you play solo, there is a huge probability that you are going to hit a wall at level 49 which will only be overcome either by sucking it up and doing some dungeons, or by grinding. If you’ve been doing all of the quests throughout the game, as well as some repeatable or guild quests, the wall may not be as big as it was for me, but considering the amount of effort that I went through to climb this wall, I highly doubt that it’s possible not to hit it when playing solo.

The problem comes from the fact that after completing the story quests in Temple of Dagon, the next quest line doesn’t unlock until level 50. There are a great deal of story quests leading up to that level, but if you haven’t done the dungeon quest that I skipped at level 42, then you won’t be able to play them.

I knew where to go at level 48, so I went to Hungry Caverns, Frymount, and Serpentis Isle, and completed all of the quests in those places, only to find that I was still at level 49. I flew to the next area, Dragonfall, but none of the quests there would be available until level 50. Therefore, if I didn’t want to grind, my only choice was to go back to the dungeon I’d skipped at level 42, which I was now too high-leveled to queue for in dungeon finder. I didn’t want to try and put together a group, because with me in the party, I’d make it so no one got any experience.

Instead, I decided to wait for my brother (lancer) to get up to level 41 so that he could enter the dungeon with my friend and I; and in the meantime, I created my alts.

When my brother was finally leveled enough, we all went to the dungeon and completely destroyed it. However, I was still far from leveling, and when I followed the story quest line into Hungry Caverns, it led me to another dungeon. (This time, Golden Labyrinth.)

Had I done Golden Labyrinth normally, it would’ve been enough for me to level. However, in a shining example of exactly why I play solo, I had a tank who bailed the party immediately after a two-hour queue, and then we couldn’t get a new one and the rest of the party left. When I finally played through the dungeon, I joined a party through area chat, but our healer was level 60, so we got very little experience from most of the enemies. Nevertheless, I was happy to be able to continue the story quests.

Except of course that at the end of the quest chain, it sent me to another fucking dungeon, this time Akasha’s Hideout, and it was while playing that dungeon that I finally reached level fifty and was able to progress.

Levels 50–53

Areas: Darkquaver Woods, Susurrus Woods, and Amena Quatla

These areas are straightforward again, and I cut through them like butter. 50–52 was a breeze for me, but the problem lies in the fact that I was only fifty-two by the time I’d finished these areas (albeit 80% on my way to fifty-three). My friend played through these areas just after me, and was a good amount into fifty-three by the time he was done.

Of course, you need to be fifty-three to play any of the quests in the next area, so once again, I’d hit a wall. I’d considered grinding tigers, but it would’ve taken over a hundred tigers to level, so instead, I capitalized on a past mistake. I went to Frost Reach, the level 44 questing zone that I’d skipped before, and did most of the quests there.

If you play all of the quests on your journey, then you probably won’t have the same problem that I did; but at the same time, if you’ve been soloing until now, then I still don’t even know how you got past the wall at 49. Whatever you did then, you may need to do again here.

Levels 53–56

Areas: Doomcrypt, Wyrmgorge, Sienna Canyon, and Tor Exsul

Here is another straightforward part of the game, and interestingly, you could play these areas in pretty much whatever order you want with no problem, though the story quests will send you in a specific order. That is, if you follow the quest line and play through the dungeon Saleron’s Sky Garden, which I did. If you’re playing solo, and you skip this dungeon and all the five-man quests in this area, then I flat-out don’t think there’s any way you’ll avoid having to grind to reach level 56.

I say this because even though I did the dungeon and all the story quests in the area, I still hit a wall at 55, which was the stupidest and least-my-fault wall that I hit in the game. This is the one place where I can say straight-up that it was not designed to account for solo players, and not enough quests were provided to avoid grinding or grouping.

This wall particularly pissed me off because of the fact that you do quests which have you fighting level 57 and 58 monsters, yet the next area has quests that are only level 56, and you must be at level 56 to do them. Were it not for this limitation, it would have flowed perfectly. There are way more than enough quests throughout the rest of the game, that doing the level 56 quests at level 55 wouldn’t have impacted your progress whatsoever.

To reach level 56, I teamed up with my friend once again, and we went back to Susurrus Woods and Amena Quatla, where we two-manned BAM quests until I got enough experience to level. We killed something like nine BAMs in the process.

Levels 56–58

Areas: Plain of the Damned, Vale of Spires, and Seeliewood

The rest of the game will be smooth sailing for a solo player. I reached level 57 just playing through all of the quests in Plain of the Damned. The story quest required that I go to another dungeon; however, I declined, and went to Seeliewood instead, which was an optional area. After playing through Seeliewood, I went to another optional area, Vale of Spires, and only had to play through a handful of quests there before I reached 58 and the next line of story quests opened.

Levels 58–60

Areas: Tirkai Forest, Thrallhold, Three Towers, Balder’s Refuge, Khanover Front, Argonea, and Granarkus

58 to 60 was a fucking joke. For the previous eight levels, most of the questing zones had required that you kill twelve to fifteen monsters per quest, and the monsters were frequently well above your level. However, for the last areas, most quests only require that you kill six enemies, and you get a shitload of them. Moreover, since enemies don’t go above level sixty, none are capable of even being far above your level, and for some reason, all of them are weak as hell. I almost didn’t die once in the course of these two levels, and when I did, it was to a large quest boss, and while I was dicking around.

Tirkai Forest, Thrallhold, and the cave Three Towers, are all very straightforward. I didn’t do all of the quests in Three Towers because I reached level 59, unlocked the story quest to go to Balder’s Refuge, and went there immediately because it’s one of my favorite areas in the game. I had also received a quest to send me to Khanover Front, but I went there afterwords. The end of the Balder’s Refuge story line would have sent me to another dungeon, but I skipped it and went to Khanover Front.

Khanover Front was a lot of fun as well, and the story quest then sent me to Argonea. I didn’t like Argonea very much and found it a total breeze. The story quest line lead to something that was kind of like a dungeon, but not really? I haven’t finished it yet, because I skipped it, following another quest into Granarkus.

I’ve actually hardly even begun Granarkus. After about three quests there, I finally hit sixty, and that was that!

At sixty, there’s still plenty to do, between daily quests to build reputation (which leads to things like cool mounts and other nifty shit) and a huge number of dungeons. I may or may not post about some of that in the future.