Preamble

Hi guys, just got done with the beta. I got invited in the second wave of invites and this is how far I got:

I believe I did fairly well in spite of all the complaints I was hearing about the levelling difficulty. But when I saw a lot of people grinding I saw a lot of things that were extremely inefficient and would serious impact their ability to level. So I decided to write a little guide for the next time you’re playing. Remember these tips and you’ll zoom past your the levels.

You can see in that image that my exploring rank was fairly high as well. I did not just blindly grind the entire time. I was exploring, talking to all NPCs, 100%ing every map I was questing/grinding in. I even farmed loot at times to complete monster loot tables. I farmed the black hair title and I got the Hunter title as well. You could go even faster than I did if you completely ignore all aspects of the adventure achievements. I even took breaks and hung out with some friends on the weekend, and watched a movie. So I didn’t completely no-life it.

If I didn’t focus on getting lots of adventure achievement points and, knowing what I know about the game now, I think I could definitely get to Circle 3 of any class within 12-13 hours or so (so effectively one whole day of playing). I think this is a reasonable time investment to get a new class up to a high enough level to test how they play and whether you want to continue with them.

Intro

First I’ll tell you want I mean by the “Complete Guide”, I’m not going to be offering specs or items you should be using, or even specific levelling spots. But what I am going to address are all the things beyond that. Where you level and how you do it is going to change depending on spec, gear, level, and class. It’s up to you to decide which spot is best, and this guide will help you with that… but if you’re looking for something more specific I’m sure that a lot of other people will be offering up their guides in the future.

Grinding in Tree of Savior

Prepare - Pretend you’re batman. Always use the right tool for the right job.

- Pretend you’re batman. Always use the right tool for the right job. Location, location, location. Choosing the right spot for you!

Choosing the right spot for you! Know thyself

Know thine enemy

How to grind.

The Secret Process

Emergency Code: Distraction!

Prepare

The most important thing to do before you start grinding is to prepare. Prepare yourself, and prepare your character. To start grinding you need to be ready for it. Make sure you’ve done everything that you need to do first. Quests are the low hanging fruit of EXP so make sure you have not missed any. The only quests you have should be ones that are too hard for you to do. Talk to every NPC because there are a bunch of hidden quests. I saw many many people missing quests because they didn’t talk to the random NPCs.

After that you’ve also got to prepare your items. You should absolutely be using potions in this game. If you’re not using potions you’re doing one of three things wrong. Either you’re putting too many points into Spirit/Constitution which could be better spent in damage oriented stats, or you’re levelling in a spot that is way too low for you, or you have HUGE downtime. Only buy the lowest level potions, but buy a lot of them.

“But Adel,” I hear you asking “I’m rich and want to use awesome potions, doesn’t that mean I can grind better or at least be safer?” – NO, do not use anything other than the lowest level potions. I’ll tell you why later, for now, trust me.

Of course, you should also carry a ridiculous amount of firewood. There is essentially no reason to not have it since it is so cheap, even if you don’t end up using it that much. Ideally you won’t use it at all, but it’s better to be safe.

Once you’re done preparing, it is on to choosing your grind spot. I’ll mostly be focusing on solo levelling here since party levelling only really happens in those few spots with ridiculous spawn rates. Also if you can do it well, I recommend solo levelling.

Location, Location, Location

So now what you’re all stocked up and ready, where are you headed? Well there are a few things you MUST keep in mind if you want to level efficiently.

Know Thyself

First you have to know thyself. What that means is knowing what the capabilities and limits of your character is and setting your goals appropriately. I saw literally hundreds of people trying to grind high level mobs. Stop it already!

Knowing thyself also means knowing the game. It means knowing that the EXP you get from any mob higher than 5 levels above you is severely penalized! So stop it already! You’ve got to grind on mobs that are at MOST 5 levels above you. “So, my level+5 right? I’ll just grind on those. Most EXP per mob” right? Wrong. Except in very limited circumstances where your character is exceptionally powerful and you can insta kill things at +5 you should never grind in the highest EXP per mob zone.

It might sound weird but thinking about how big those exp numbers are when they pop up is the wrong way to do it! You need the most EXP per hour. I think you’ll find the EXP per hour on a +5 zone will be significantly less than the ideal location.

So how do you know what location is ideal? Or at least close to it? Well, you know because you followed my earlier instructions and only bought the cheapest, lowest level, and least healing potions!

The ideal, or close to it, grinding spot is a place where you use hardly any of your lowest level potions to keep your HP and SP up. If you’re using any kind of potion every time you pull some mobs. WAY too difficult for you, go to lower level mobs or mobs you can otherwise more easily kill. If you’re using a potion every time it’s off cooldown, again, way way too difficult for you. This is a big reason why you don’t use higher level pots, other than the fact that they’re expensive. Sure, better pots might help sustain you better but if you actually need that extra sustain to survive while grinding then you’re already grinding in the wrong spot and thus levelling slowing. Even if you can get those better pots you shouldn’t because they’re simply the wrong tool to use for the job of grinding and will mislead you.

Note that this is only true for levels 1 through 60 or so. I suspect it will be true upto level 100 or so, but I’m not 100% sure since I didn’t level that high. Once you get enough HP and SP and money you’ll eventually move onto the 2nd lowest pots as your “minimum potion” because the lowest will heal almost nothing for you.

Know thine enemy

The second thing you need before deciding the location is to know your enemy. This means knowing it’s attacks, knowing it’s weaknesses, and how much HP it has. Just because you know thyself and have chosen a spot that you can sustain nicely on low level pots doesn’t mean it is a good levelling spot. It just means it has the potential to be a good levelling spot.

It only becomes a good levelling spot when you know you have the right tools for the job. This feeds back into prepare, but you should always have the widest array of options for your grinding process. As an example, I’m a Hoplite so my main weapon is a 1h spear that I have upgraded to +5. But lots of mobs are tough against stabbing attacks. Lets say it’s an even spread of slash/stab/bash/magic weak mobs. Then by only using my spear; 2/4ths of my potential levelling spots aren’t weak against my main damage, and 1/4 of levelling spots will have mobs resistant to my main damage. That means 3/4 spots aren’t ideal!

But wait, it gets worse. Because mobs usually spawn in packs that often don’t have the same weakness. That means even at a levelling spot with mobs weak to my main damage I will encounter mobs that are more difficult to kill amongst my target. More difficult to kill means slower grinding, but even worse it means more chance for them to damage me and thus a higher chance of downtime. You must avoid downtime at all costs.

So, as a Hoplite, I have my main spear. But then I also have a two-handed sword (from when I was a Highlander) and I also have a mallet. I upgraded them both to 4. Why? Because more damage means quicker grinding. Always upgrade your equipment, it will allow you to grind in many locations you couldn’t before. Better armor means better survivability means more grinding locations are available with low level potions. Better weapons means faster killing - straight forward.

If you are rich and are worried about not using better potions then this is where you need to spend all your money. ■■■■ out your gear, because it genuinely lets you grind in better spots. Strong potions only trick you into thinking you can grind well in better spots; they steal your money and your time. Gear lasts ages in ToS and money isn’t difficult to come by so you should just do it! I cannot count how many players I inspected and saw with completely unupgraded equipment.

I also specifically chose my skills to synergize with my Hoplite skills. Hoplites focus on spears and thrusting attacks, so I knew I could get awesome thrusting type attacks from there. But what about slashing and blunt attacks? I took Bash from swordsman to 5/5 to give me an option for slash type damage and I took Cartar Stroke from Highlander for a blunt damage option. Now, your early class skills, if they’re not upgraded past 5 will end up pretty weak later on. The good news is the 1st circle attributes are very cheap. Don’t spent your money upgrading the attribute on your latest special attack. Upgrade the attacks from your earlier circles. I put 15 attribute levels into my Bash and it cost me hardly anything, but now I have a viable slash special attack, that also knocks down mobs to prevent me taking damage.

Now, non-swordsman classes might have a harder time getting different damage types. Clerics in particular may only have one or two different elements making their grind location selection extremely limited, especially if they can’t melee because they’re not going for monk. I’m sure you know these classes better than I do, since I’m a swordsman. So you’ll just have to find your own options, or just deal with it. It is unfortunate but some classess are going to be better at grinding than others.

Basically what I mean by all this is: You want to be able to kill the monsters quickly. All of them. If you only have 1 damage type but you’ve found the perfect spot and they’re all weak to that type of damage? No problem. But chances are that isn’t going to happen, so gear up and use the right tool for the right job.

The Perfect Match

So what is the ideal spot then? The ideal spot:

Has mobs that deal hardly any damage to you.

You should be able to survive on the lowest level pots for hours on end.

Has mobs that you can kill quickly.

You should be fighting stuff that is weak to the damages you have available to you. They should die quick (ie not have much HP compared to your damage). For me, if I had to hit a mob more than 5 times with a normal attack, that place was too strong for me to grind on. 3 normal attacks I find ideal.

Is unpopulated.

Whether you’re soloing or partying you want a levelling spot that doesn’t have many people. Or at least not many more than your party.

Has mobs you’ve seen spawn blue.

I don’t know this for sure, but there are certain mobs in grinding zones I’ve never seen spawn blue. I don’t know if that means only certain mobs spawn blue, but to be safe I only grinded in spots I knew had mobs that would spawn blue. I never saw the unmoving plants in Gardens spawn blue, but the birds spawned blue many times, so that spot is okay.

Has a Vakarine Statue on the map.

At some point you will have to repair and restock potions too. You need to minimize downtime so this is important.

Has mobs you can overkill.

This is a minor point. Maybe in the future I will say it is the be-all-end-all point, but currently it seems that overkilling is bugged. Sometimes I will overkill at full HP mob on a non-crit and sometimes I’ll whittle them down to 1hp and nuke them with a crit and it won’t be overkill. If you can reliably overkill then overkilling is the most important thing you can possibly do. The bonus you get from overkill is equal to your overkill %. So if you get a 200% overkill you get +200% (Ie. 300% total) of the mob’s EXP.

How to Grind

Now that you’ve found a spot to grind at, how do you actually do it?

The Secret Process

There are a few things that you should be doing while grinding, but they’re not going to be listed in steps. These are simple things you should be doing at times you think are appropriate.

Switching your weapon to a damage type your opponent is weak to.

You should pretty much do this every time, but there are sometimes, say, when you’re attacking 2 mobs and two of them are weak and one is neutral, that it is better to not swap. Generally though the two weak will die, then you can swap to finish off the last one. It takes essentially no time to swap weapons so you should do it. I suggest learning the weapon swap attribute. I had my Spear/Shield + Mallet/Shield on weapon swap and my 2h sword on my skill bar. You can always use the bar to change, but to change from 2h sword back to Weapon/Shield you would need to hit two buttons. With this setup I can weapon swap into weapon/sheild straight out of my 2h sword.

Killing blues (or whites or golds).

I think there may have been 3 or 4, maybe 5 blues I killed that I rightly shouldn’t have been able to. But the players nearby were not paying attention and I was able to run up and kill the mob right in front of their face. Make sure you’re paying attention to blues or you’ll miss out on a lot of EXP. Killing a blue should take precedence over doing anything else. If no one else is around, try to overkill it, but chances are you won’t be able to due to how buggy overkilling is. If there are people around just kill it ASAP don’t worry about trying to whittle it down or buff up for an overkill.

Moving areas

If lots of people show up and start killing all the mobs then it is useless to grind in that location. If there is another spot nearby (there usually is) then move there for a while. If all else fails, then…

Change Channel

I did this every now and then for a few reason. Sometimes too many people show up and every good spot is taken, time to change channel. You’ll be surprised how barren some channels can be when others are fully occupied. Don’t pay the pips too much mind, I think they’re server wide, not zone wide. I also changed channel on a whim, when I felt like I need to. Sometimes it was because the mob spawns seemed to slow down and other times just because I thought I might check for a blue on another channel. It can also be a handy way to ‘respawn’ all the enemies in the room… if you go to a channel where they’re all spawned.

Running past a whole bunch of mobs to check out the entire room

Sometimes you just need more information on what you’re walking into to decide how to approach clearing the room. Simply running past the mobs and checking out the back is the best way to do this. I tend to do this when the room is absolutely packed solely to check if there a blue hidden in the back. I have found a few blues this way. By the way, blues can enrage or whatever so some blues might be hidden by their red glow.

Resting up.

Of course, you should be slowly consuming your potions to minimize downtime while grinding but sometimes things won’t go as well as you’d hoped and you’ll be pretty low on HP and mana. You could use a pot, but in this case it might just be worth sitting down and lighting a fire. You shouldn’t aim to do this, of course, but it’s an option that’ll allow your supply of pots to last a bit longer. This one is up to you. If you want to find a good resting spot then look for an NPC. Mobs deaggro when they get near NPCs (or maybe only quest givers?) so they’re guaranteed safety… unless the mob has range attacks. Kill those guys first.

Restocking and selling loot

If you end up with full weight or run out of potions then this can be a good time to go back and restock and sell all the random weapons and armor you picked up while grinding. This is another litmus test for whether you’re grinding at a good location, by the way. If the money you get doesn’t cover your potions… think very long and hard about how often you’re using potions and ask yourself again: Is this place a good place for me to grind? Chances are you’re using potions way too fast and it is a bad grinding location if you can’t make more money than you’re losing on pots. Losing money by itself isn’t so much of a problem though, it’s that losing money is a warning sign for a bad grinding spot.

Distract yourself.

Depending on the distraction you should be doing this all the time, or whenever you feel time slow down to a crawl. What are distractions? Well…

Emergency Code: Distraction!

The biggest secret there is to grinding well is… that you need to distract yourself while doing it. Time flies when you’re having fun and while grinding can be fun, and usually is with a great game like ToS, it usually only stays fun for a while. The length of time for which you can efficiently grind is strongly dependent on how effectively you can distract yourself. Of course everyone is different so everyone will be distracted different and have different thresh holds for boredom. But if you want to grind efficiently and for long periods of time you will need some kind of distraction.

So what kind of distractions are there?

The grind itself.

ToS is fun. I mean it. It is REALLY fun. The gameplay is heaps fun. The artstyle is god-tier. The music is amazing. This is a distraction from the grind itself. At a basic level, grinding is just pressing the same buttons over and over. But for quite a long time you can be distracted from that by just how absolutely fun and awesome the game is.

Socialising.

Socialising while grinding can make the time really fly. Talking to fellow players in game, or ideally over VOIP (since you don’t have to stop to type) can personally sustain me grinding all day. I wasn’t talking to anyone this time around though, no other friends got in the beta :-(. But I still find it to be the most consistent distraction that lasts a long time. Also, if done over VOIP it doesn’t impact your grinding speed at all! Hell you could even just have a friend playing some other game next to you. Simply being in the presence of other people helps you keep at it!

Listening to music or listening to or watching TV shows.

Even if you love ToS music (I know I absolutely love it) it can get a bit repetitive if you’re grinding in the same spot for a long time. If you have some music that you really love or really gets you pumped then listening to it while grinding can really help the time fly. Other times I like to just have TV shows or podcasts playing in the background. I’m not even really listening to them but just having the talking in the background is like a lonely-man’s version of friends talking to you over VOIP.

The feeling of finally levelling up!

Significant process just feels good. If you stick with it till you level, I think you’ll find yourself liking grinding a bit more because of how good it feels to get that level. It’s Pavlovian but it works!

Do something else!

Sometimes you just gotta do something else for a while. Sure, you lose time grinding… but the loss of efficiency in grinding as you get bored and play slower and slower is much greater. Trust me, taking a break can often increase your levelling speed. What kind of things can you do to distract yourself for a while and reset your mind to prepare for more grinding? Well you can hunt rare materials or rare item drops. You can craft items! You can upgrade your gear, gems or cards. Hell you can play cards for a while!. You can hunt around for chests and other secrets. Or finish off the maps or two you don’t have 100% explored. Hell hunt that black hair title you’d been meaning to get. You can hang out in town and socialise. Or help run a newbie through the Crystal Mines, or teach them a neat tip. This is your second last resort though.

Just stop.

If you really want to level, then completely stopping is your last resort. It’s basically the same as the ‘Do Something Else!’ heading above, except the thing you do is… don’t play ToS. Just take a break. Go outside and smell the flowers. Once you’re feeling back up to it come back in. The reason why these two things should be your last resorts is because they stop you from grinding. Often these two things are the first things people do to distract themselves. They grind a bit, get a bit bored, and take a long break, dreading the return to grinding. Of course it’ll take ages to level that way! You should try other ways of distracting yourself so you can make significant progress before resorting to taking a break; that is, if you actually want to level up! Remember, that feeling of finally leveling up can help you keep going too!

Summary

To summarize, if you adhere to the following points while playing ToS I think you’ll find that grinding is not only quite easy, but also quite enjoyable. Everyone is different so there will be some people who absolutely cannot stand it. But most people should be able to get something out of this!

1 ) Stock up. Low Potions Only!

2 ) Gear Up. Upgrade your stuff!

3 ) Research the ideal grinding spot (See the ideal conditions listed above!)

4 ) Grind, but do it well!

5 ) Distract yourself, or time will stop for you!

That’s all! A lot of people might be reading this and thinking “no duh, thanks for the help /s” and you’re right. A lot of this will be obvious to a lot of people. But I cannot tell you how many people I saw doing all the worst things you could possibly do while grinding (and then subsequently complaining that the grind was too hard). I don’t personally think it was all that hard. Now ToS might decide to make it a bit easier, but whatever they decide to do people should learn how to grind. It isn’t just intuitive, there is a skill to grinding and there was quite the amount of players out there I saw grinding in ways that would make anyone miserable.

Any comments and criticism or extra advice that should be added to the guide are welcome and, in fact, encouraged!

Have at it!