A guide to PvE Leveling in DAOC for New Players

This is a guide to how to get from level 1 to 50 doing PvE in modern Dark Age of Camelot.*  It covers new player basics, an easy solo route from 35 to 50, and some links to get you started as a fresh 50.

This guide assumes you'll start out by following the new player experience quest series. In my opinion this is the best progression route for players completely new to DAoC.  You will level fairly quickly and get solid gear as quest rewards along the way.  It's also a stress free way to gradually learn the basic game mechanics.  Unfortunately, those quests run out at around level 35, and the guidance you are given in game on where to go next is pretty useless.  This guide contains one possible leveling route through to 50. The leveling path I've laid out here is designed largely to be pain free for new players getting their feet wet.
*This guide covers where to go and what to do, not mechanics or character builds. To figure out what skills to pick as you level, using a character planner is nearly mandatory in DAoC.  Vanesyra's Online Charplaner is the best one I know of.  This guide also isn't really aimed at players completely new to MMOs.

Alternate Routes

For an overview of all of the activities available at every level Etaew's guide is still good, though the task dungeons have been disabled.  If you are on a regular server (Ywain) and want to level doing PvP, you can ignore this guide and head to the battlegrounds. As soon as you get out of the new player tutorial look for a Battleground Channeler standing next to the bind stone to send you to The Hills of Claret.  There are repeatable kill quests in the battlegrounds that will level you just as quickly (if not more so) than the new player quest series.  The official website covers battleground quests pretty well.  Just remember to buy gear as you go.  If you are a bored vet that just wants to level As Fast  Humanly Possible, this route that Ugo Phelix posted on Post Count is pretty damn fast.  Edit (update Jan 15):  Zume recently posted a guide similar to this one for Hibernian players, definitely worth a read for hibs!


Starting Out 
Your first minute (setting up your hotbars):

Unlike any other MMO I can think of, you will need to dig through up to five menus when you first start just to get your hotbars set up correctly.  This is a real kick in the 'nards for a really new player, and I hope Broadsword gets around to improving it at some point* In any case, after you have figured out how to get your empty hotbars where you want them on your screen (the default placement is pretty wonky), to fill them up with abilities:

1. Hit L to open your combat styles menu (or hit the button with  the red background from the menu bar in the upper right part of your screen) and drag the icon for the style that corresponds to your starting weapon to your hotbar.  If you aren't sure what type of weapon you have, hit C to open the character panel and mouse over your weapon to see what damage type it uses.**  If you are a pure spellcaster this menu will be empty, ignore it.

2. Hit K to open your spell menu and drag any spells that look useful to your hotbar.***  If you are a pure melee class, this menu will be empty.
3. Hit P to open up the specializations menu.  Look for icons for Sprint (any character), Quickcast (pure spellcasters) and / or Stealth.  Drag these to your hotbar.
4. In your inventory (hit I to open it) is an item called a Personal Bind Recall Stone.  Right click it and drag the "Gateway" icon to your hotbar.
5. Optional (setting up hotbars for more actions): You can also set up hotbar buttons for additional actions.  For example, by default pure casters don't have a button to start attacking with their staff.  To make an attack hotbar, hit C to open up the character menu.  At the bottom hit the "command" button. In the command sub-menu, Shift+left click the "attack" button to make an icon that you can drag to your hotbar.
*One very easy way to implement this would be for the icons from steps 1-3 above to be added to your hotbars by default when you first start (similarly to how it's handled in most MMOs). 
**When you are offered weapons as quest rewards in the next five minutes, make sure the damage type of the weapon you pick matches the style you have decided to train in.  For example if you are training up the "blunt" weapon skill, pick weapons that list crush damage.  It seems like common sense, but I've seen new players mess this up and have a horrible time in the tutorial because of it. 
***Whenever you learn a higher level version of a spell, check your spell list to see if there is a new spell icon you need to swap out for your old one.  The higher level version of the spell will replace the old one on your hotbar automatically as soon as you learn it on some classes, but not generally on pure casters.

These are the hotbars I set up on a new level one Ranger (a hibernian archer class).  The weapon I started with was a slashing weapon so I  chose the one "blades" attack style I had available to put on my hotbar.  Later I picked a weapon with thrust damage as a quest reward and starting training and equipping piercing styles instead. The weapon icons you see on the right side of the upper bar I created by equipping weapons and then dragging their icons to hotbar slots.  Those  buttons  allow  me to quickly switch between a bow and melee. Only  archers generally need to worry about switching weapons in the middle of a fight, so you won't need to set up these specialized buttons on most classes. 

The new player quest series:

For your first few hours of play all you really need to do is follow along with the new player quest series.  About every five levels you will get sent to a new quest hub.  Almost all of the quests in the new player series are pretty straight forward.  The new player quest series will take you quickly and easily at least to level 35. Even your first time through, there are only a few things I can think of that might be confusing:

Which quests are part of the new player series:  The quests indicated by a special icon with a knot surrounded by three diamond shapes are part of the new player series (in general).  Quest icons that lack those extra diamonds are usually side quests or legacy quests.*

Notice the three diamonds around the central symbol floating above this NPC's head.  This usually indicates it's part of the main new player quest series, or a primary PvP quest (for example a battleground repeatable kill quest).  Be sure to knock all or most of these quests out in one area before you move on to the next, or you will be leaving a lot of XP behind.

How to use an item:  Several quests will put an item in your inventory you need to use during the quest.  The most reliable way to do this is to open the item description (right click on the item in your inventory)  and drag the "use" icon to one of your hotbar slots.  The use icon will be a question mark or a picture of a hand.  Some of the equipment that you get as quest rewards will also have useful abilities, for example a health or power replenishment ability. Such abilities often have starburst icons. These can be added to your hotbar the same way.
 
How to quickly sell things:  left click any NPC merchant, then left click the item you want to sell in your inventory.  Hit Shift+S to sell your item, select the next item and repeat.

How to destroy an item: Occasionally you will have an item taking up space in your inventory you no longer want, and that you can neither sell to vendors nor drop (very often one of the starter weapons from the tutorial area has this bug). To get rid of one of these items, select it and hit shift+D.

How to pick up dropped loot:  To get loot bags off of the ground, select the bag or item you want to pick up and hit G (for grab).  DAoC is the only MMO I am aware of that won't let you do this just by mouse clicking on loot.

The only hard quests:  One quest in the Albion series and one in Hibernia will have a NPC quizzing you.  You can figure out most of the answers using the in game map. However, if you have any trouble the answers are:

Old man in Hibernia
- "Lough Derg"
- "Druim Ligen"
- "Cuuldurach"

Geographer in Albion:
- "Castle Sauvage"
- "Salisbury Plains"
- "Dartmoor"

Quests to ignore: Once every hub, you will get a quest to kill an Epic mob.  These absolutely can't be soloed on most classes (at least when you are the right level for the quest), and can safely be ignored.  Even if you get a party together and complete them the rewards are pretty mediocre.  You will also occasionally get a quest to go to a battleground.  If you are on Gaheris, these can't be completed. Ignore them if you are on the Gaheris rule set server.

What if I run out of quests (pre-level 35)?  With the launch of endless conquest the amount of XP that you get from quests and killing mobs has been tweaked, and it seems to be a bit off target.  Fairly often now you will find yourself needing to grind out a bub or two of XP killing random mobs to unlock all the quests in an area.  This is especially common on Gaheris. If you find yourself in a new area where you have only been offered one or two quests, find some random blue, yellow or orange con mobs to kill nearby.  Getting to the next level should unlock more quests. 


*By legacy quests I mean quests from the first few years of DAoC, before the new player quest lines were added.  These are especially common if you stray off the beaten path.  Very few of them are worth doing these days unless you just want to see the story lines.  They take a long time, are sometimes broken in the current game version, and yield really meager XP and item rewards.

Optional Low Level Side Activities

In addition to the new player main quest series, several side quests are available even at low levels.

Optional free low level gear:  When you get out of the tutorial area if you go and talk to a one of your class trainers in the nearby capital city (i.e., Camelot, Jordheim or Tir Na Nog), you will be granted a weapon and possibly also a chest piece designed specifically for your class.  Confusingly, some classes don't need to go to the capital for the chest piece (any class trainer will give it to them), but members of every class need to head into the capital for the free weapons. You can repeat this every five levels (10, 15, 20) for more free gear up until level 25 (the last set granted this way).

Epic Quests: The class trainer in your capital city will also direct you to start on your Epic Quests if you are at least level five when you talk to him or her. This is a series of quests that grant fairly nice low level gear and take you through a story that most classes won't get to see.  Every five levels a new step in this quest chain opens up.  You can find walkthroughs of all of them here at ZAM.  Most of these quests can be easily soloed, and will grant you an accessory (a belt, cloak, ring, jem or necklace) that is better for your class than the generic ones that the new player quest series yields.  However, epic quests involve a lot of travelling and most of the gear you get will be utterly useless by the time you get to level 50.* When I am leveling a new character I do these quests as I go to add some variety to leveling up on different classes, and I enjoy them quite a bit.  Even so, in the modern game these quests are pretty much strictly for flower sniffers. You won't miss the gear if you skip them.
*The cloak from step 7 and the belt from step 8 excepted, those are actually a step up from the free gear you get can from the king at level 50 on some classes.   

Your first artifact:  At level 30, a really useful artifact (Orion's Belt) becomes available.  Going through the process of getting it will also teach you several game systems you'll want to know about later and grant you 2-3 levels worth of XP for completing two short quests.  If you want to take a long side trip to get it, I posted a walkthrough written for new players.


Levels 35 to 45

When you finish out your last new player series quest hub, you will be given one final quest to go to a border keep.  For example, Midgard players will get a quest "Summons to Vindsual Faste" that directs you to use a channeler to go to the border keep and get more quests.  This is where the new player experience completely falls apart, especially now that Task Dungeons have been removed.  The next five levels are going to be a bit repetitive if you stick to PvE.  However, if you can weather through it, things will pick up considerably at level 40.

A brief detour to a border keep:

Go ahead and use the nearest channeler teleport to the border keep that your final quest suggests:

- Albion: Snowdonia Fortress
- Hibernia: Druim Cain
- Midgard: Vindsual Faste

When you get there, first talk to the keep commander and pick up all the quests he has for you.  Just talking to him nets you about a bub of XP.   After that,  look for a channeler nearby and head to Atlantis (i.e., Oceanus Haven) if you haven't already done the level 30 bounty quests there.  Etaew has a great walkthrough of them.

Notice a series of quartermasters standing against  one of the walls in your border keep (these are the ones in Vindsual Faste).  You will be visiting them for gear upgrades later.

Getting to 40: 

Your short term goal is now to get to level 40 as quickly as possible.  There are up to three fairly quick options for this, depending on your class and server.

(Option 1) Repeat the level 30 bounty quests (currently for Ywain only):  All of the level 30 bounty quests in Atlantis (Oceanus Haven) are repeatable for coin and XP, though they only grant bounty points the first time through.  You can grind through them three or four times and make it to 40 that way.  This seems to be what most players that don't level in the battlegrounds choose to do.

[NOTE:  the last patch broke this option on Gaheris.  There these quests can currently only be repeated once and then never again.  Until Broadsword gets around to fixing it, on many classes the only viable option solo once you've exhausted the options below is to grind out any levels you have left on random mobs]  

(Option 2) The battle for Molvik (Ywain only): One of the quests that the keep commander gave you was the Battle for Molvik.  If you head there, there are some kill quests that are good for easy XP.  There will be two spots with kill targets near your keep.  If you hug the shore of the lake between yourself and those spots it's not very likely you will see any enemy players (e.g, right before I wrote this I ground out two levels in Molvik and never saw a soul).

This option is probably a bit faster than heading back to Atlantis. The XP on quest turn in is almost identical between the two.  However, in Molvik you only need to kill 8 mobs per quest (vs. 15 in Atlantis) and you get a few bounty points every time you finish. Unfortunately, on Gaheris, this battleground is closed and you can't do these quests at all.

(Option 3) Dungeons: The keep commander will also suggest that you head to a random dungeon.  There you can take a quest to go into the dungeon and kill high level bosses.  If you want to try it, head in and look for red dots on the map.*  Trying to make your way to the bosses solo is nearly suicide on a lot of classes, but if you are playing a character that can kill mobs quickly in melee range it might be worth a try. If the mobs in the first dungeon you try are too are to high level, try the next lower level dungeon down on the list from a Dungeon Surveyor.  If you can find a Dungeon where most of the mobs con green and gray, hunting bosses is sometimes fairly easy.  Alternately, if you are just looking to grind out some levels, higher level trash mobs in dungeons are solid XP per unit time and will drop a lot of level appropriate loot for you to pic through.  Note that on Gaheris you can do the dungeon quests in all three realms.
*Unfortunately, these dots are missing in a few of quests.  In that case, look for dead end rooms far from the dungeon entrance. That is often where you will find a boss.  You can check the quest journal entry to see how many bosses you have left to kill.

The Hibernia dungeon Treibh Caillte, and presumably at least some other dungeons, have a pretty oddball teleporter system.  To use a teleporter like the one above,  first you kill the golem standing on it.  Then move to the middle of the teleporter and wait. When the mob respawns you will be moved to a new location.

(Option 4) Additional Quests Hubs (Gaheris Only):  On Gaheris you can run the new player quests of all three realms.  For example, a Hibernian character can run the Midgard and Albion new player quests if you know how to get to the areas that have them.  The quests in the final hub of each realm are worth a good bit of XP, at least one or two quick levels if you hit both of the ones outside of your native realm.  The final quest hubs of each realm are as follows:  [Albion -  Adribard's retreat]: to get there travel to Avalon Marsh using the nearest channeler.  [Hibernia - Connla] To get there travel to Shannon Estuary using the nearest channeler.  [Midgard - Fort Atla] to get there travel to Gotar using the nearest channeler.  When you arrive in Gotar, buy a ticket to Fort Atla from the nearby stablemaster.        

One way or another, when you hit level 40 stop what your are doing and head back to the border keep mentioned above.

 New gear and level 41:

Once you hit level 40, the commander of the border keep mentioned above may have a new quest for you, "The Lost Lands of Atlantis" if you are on Gaheris.  Go to the keep and grab this if it's available.  Your gear will also likely be getting a bit long in the tooth by now.  Whether the Lost Lands quest is available or not, this is a good time for an upgrade.There is a series of quartermasters in the keep along one of the walls.  Find the one that sells level 40 gear, and buy whatever you want.  Once you are geared up, use the channeler to go to Oceanus Haven.

When you arrive Realm Scholar Destin will be standing behind you.  Talking to him nets you half a level of XP for completing The Lost Lands of Atlantis if you were able to get the quest.

Realm Scholar Destin

Regardless, next you want to either find an NPC standing in front of a pillar near the entrance to the Hall of Heroes, or talk to Wicoessa (near you when you arrived, the NPC that grants Relics of the Deep).  One of these NPCs will grant the quest Feuding Tritons.  When you find the NPC that has it, accept the quest.

Riranwyn (Oceanus Heseperos loc 13597, 12012) , or a NPC with a different name  standing in the same spot, used to always grant you the Feuding Tritons  quest if you are level 40 or higher. However, very recently the quest was changed to be granted by Wicoessa  (near where you arrive in Oceanus Haven) rather than this NPC, at least on Gaheris.  

Feuding Tritons is the nosering quest that leads to the level 40 bounty point quests.  Despite the fact that the quests are listed as level 40, most classes can't easily solo them until at least level 41 (more below).  After you pick up Feuding Tritons, find the dock on the east side of the island.  Underwater near this dock is stable master Feurbe.  Swim over to him and buy a ticket to Mesothalassa.

Feurbe is underwater just north of the eastern dock.

When you buy the ticket, you will be sent on the back of a hammerhead shark to the area with the next set of bounty point quests.  When you arrive, first talk to Noula and grab her bounty quest.

Noula (Mesothalassa loc 36389, 36939)

Next, head northeast to Sirina (loc 38777, 34615) and talk to her.  Finally, head to the western part of the island and talk to Mylia (loc 30667, 31480) to complete Feuding Tritons. Don't try to run through the middle of the island to get to her.  There are aggressive red and purple mobs on the island that will butcher you if you get anywhere near them.  Instead, skirt the southern shore of the island, right along the waterline, until you get near Mylia.  Talking to her grants you between three and nine bubs of XP.*  Hopefully this will be enough to get you to level 41.  If not, you can head back to Oceanus Haven and run Relics of the Deep one or two more times to get to 41. On Ywain you can also run kill quests in Leirvik. The way it's laid out you can pick up one or two  levels very quickly with minimal risk, there are two sets of mobs to kill practically on the doorstep of your keep.
*With the launch of EC, this appears to be broken on Gaheris.  The quest currently only grants one bub of XP. With Relics of the Deep Currently broken and unrepeatable you will need to head back to wherever you ground out levels 36 to 40 and grind some more.  Come back when you hit 41.  

Level 41-45: The next set of bounty quests

The second set of bounty quests are listed as level 40, however the lowest level mobs you can kill for the quests are very tough opponents if you aren't at least level 41 (level 42 is even better).  Noula will give you your choice of two sets of tritons to kill for her bounty.  You want to go after the Skyros Order tritons, in the area marked "Skyros Territory" on your map (to the northwest of the island where you get the quest).  At least some of these tritons will be orange if you are level 41.  The other tritons that count for bounty quests will all be red or purple even at 41.

A good hunting spot for Skyros tritons (Mesothalassa loc 14721, 23804)

After you turn in Noula's quest, pick it up again and then talk to Mylia to get her bounty quest.  You can head out and kill Skyros tritons again, and this time each kill will count towards both quests.  Keep doing these two bounty quests until you hit level 43.  At level 43, you should be able to handle tritons in the other two locations as well.  Sirina will send you to kill tritons northeast or south of the island.  I generally double up her bounty quest with Noula's and kill the Melos tritons to the south because they are so close by.  Repeat these quests until you hit level 45. 

Level 45 to the Cap

By now you should be getting the hang of things.  Depending on what you decide to do next, you may only be an hour or so away from the level cap.  The moment you hit 45 there are a few things you'll want to do.

New level 45 gear

At level 45, new sets of gear become available.  If you head back to your border keep, you can buy a full set for a few hundred gold.  You can sell this gear back for almost half of what you pay for it when you are done with it, and lately this is the gear I've been using from 45-50.  In Cathal Valley there is also a vendor that sells gear for bounty points.  It's well worth at least picking up some weapons here if you are on Ywain (and haven't filled out those slots with artifacts), they are noticeably better than the ones you can get at the border keep.

Artifacts

All Artifacts become usable at level 45.  If you followed my guide on Orion's Belt, you should already know how to buy them with bounty points.  They are a lot of fun to play around with, and by now you should have enough bounty points to buy at least one more.  However, for serious end game character builds most of them have been superseded by other newer items, and they have terrible repair costs.  That said, there are a few I really like and always get if I can use them:

Snatcher: any class can use this bracer, it grants realm XP and bounty point bonuses once leveled, and it has decent stats.  On Gaheris even if it doesn't fit into your template* you will still probably want it available to put on when you turn in dreaded seals. Quest credit: Snatcher Credit.  Item turn in to activate: Snatcher.

Crocodile's Tears Ring:  mainly usable by pure casters.  The level 6 ability converts 5% of incoming damage into health and power, very handy.  Quest credit: Crocodile Tear Ring Credit.  Item turn in to activate: Tyrus' Epic Poem.  Classes that can use it listed here.

Magma Battler:  for solo PvE work, for example finishing out the glass quests, I really like this weapon . . .at least if I'm using large slashing weapons.  It has decent bonuses to melee damage and attack speed.  More importantly it will sometimes cast an accuracy buff on you, often enough that you will almost always have it up when you are fighting.  With a big slow weapon misses really hurt your DPS, so a proc that cuts down on them is nice.  Finally, the ability it gains at level 10 that you can activate manually is also quite useful. That said, it's not considered a good main hand weapon choice for either PvP or high end PvE by theorycrafters.  Quest credit: Bane of Battler Credit.  Item turn in to activate: Battler.  Classes that can use it listed here.

Unfortunately there is no in game guidance as to which classes can use particular artifacts, what abilities they gain as you level them, or even what items you need to buy from the bounty point vendors to unlock them.  If you google the name of any artifact you are considering (+ daoc) you can find this info on the web, as little of it has changed since DAoC had a much more active active community (at one time it was the second most popular MMO behind Everquest).  Templating* and what artifacts are useful for what classes in modern DAoC is way beyond the scope of this guide. This is the only comprehensive guide I've found to what artifacts are still considered useful for the endgame, and it's nine years old . . .so take it with a really big grain of salt. For the most part, it's probably better to save your glass for master levels or conversion to other currencies than to go crazy on artifacts.

*Templates (or Temps for short) are DAoC slang for final character builds including optimal gear for PvP or raiding. For any content I will discuss in guides on this website, the free epic gear you get from the King at level 50 will work just fine.

Getting from Level 45 to 50

One obvious route is to keep doing Atlantis bounty quests until you hit level 50.  Etaew's walkthrough of the final glass quests (these quests used to grant glass instead of bounty points) should be all the guidance you need for those.*  However, the glass quests are also worth a good bit of Champion Level XP, so I generally wait until level 50 to do them.

That leaves quests in the Cathal Valley battleground.  This is how I generally do my last five levels.  Assuming you don't get chain ganked, it's very fast.

*One minor thing that his guide doesn't mention is that sometime when you try to turn in a glass quest you will get the error message "You must have room in your inventory for your rewards."  This is a bug.  The message doesn't refer to the glass itself, but to all the non-existent items listed at the bottom of the quest dialogue box (the odd equipment icon and a bunch of question marks).   You have to have room in your inventory for all these random items the the quest doesn't actually give out (?!).  Generally dropping all the artifact scrolls you don't want will free up enough room to turn in the quest.  

Getting your last five levels in about an hour on Gaheris

On  Gaheris you can take the kill quests for all three factions in Cathal Valley.  If you take advantage of this, you can go from 45 to 50 very quickly.  After gearing up with level 45 equipment from a border keep, go to CV Albion, CV Midgard, and CV Hibernia and get all three of the bounty quests from the captains in each keep.  Then repeat one of the bounty quests (e.g., the Midgard quest "A Bone to Pick" is very quick) until you hit level 47.  At this point, you will get offered new higher level versions of all of the bounty quests again.  Get them from all three keeps one more time, and head out into CV proper to do all of them.  Every single kill will now count for either two quests or six quests (!).  Turn in all three sets of quests and you will either hit level 50 or be very close to it. 

What to do at level 50 (a very abbreviated guide)

The first thing you will want to do is head to the king's throne room of your realm's capital city and talk to your king to get a free set of level 50 epic gear.  The stats on it were boosted for the launch of Endless Conquest.  It's still not quite best in slot, but it is certainly solid starter gear.

From there a lot of options open up. This video posted by CDFTW at post count is a good starting point. It's also always worth checking the latest guides posted by players at the official forums. If you want to get serious about competitive RvR play, CDFTW suggests DJ Tiesto's video guide to optimizing your controls. My first post here was a guide to mounts that you may find helpful.  You may also want to read up on the Dragon's Curse Campaign and the Other Worlds Campaign (the Federation of Hibernia has a great guide to the Hibernian quests), though you won't be able to make much progress in either quest chain solo (you really need a raid group to run them).  The DAOC Utilities website* will help you start planning a template, and Worldlygamer recently posted a video on the new bounty point crafting system.

*You may get a pretty intrusive popup when you first visit this site. You don't have to donate or login, just wait for a timer to countdown if you get a popup you can't immediately close.


Further advancement:

In Dark Age of Camelot there are three primary advancement routes besides simply getting to level 50.

Master Levels:  Each class has two master level paths available, each of which opens up new sets abilities with each level (up to a max of level 10).  Etaew's guide to master levels is still up to date and really useful.  The system is primarily designed for PvP and realm vs realm battles.  In PvE encounters (and therefore on Gaheris in general), whether abilities are useful or even work at all  varies pretty wildly.*

Champion Levels:  Once you hit level 50, Champion levels open up after a conversation with your realm's King.  You can gain a maximum of 15 champion levels.  Each champion level grants a bonus to your hit points and power, along with an ability point that you can spend on a subclass tree (they work a lot like talent trees in many other MMOs).  Killing most things that used to give you regular XP grants champion experience (Cxp), there are many quests that grant Cxp, and there are scrolls you can buy with bounty points that grant Cxp in big hunks.  You can read more about Champion Levels in my guide to them.

Realm Ranks:  This is the primary means of advancement at the level cap.  The official website covers these pretty well.  You advance in this system by gaining realm points (also sometimes called realm experience points and referred to as "realm XP" in guides on this website).  Realm XP is gained mainly by killing enemy players, but can also be gained by healing allies.  The first few ranks are quite easy to get, the highest ranks are such an insane grind that only a few players per server have ever achieved them.  The main benefit that the system provides is that each level (ten levels per rank) provides one realm skill point to buy realm abilities with.  What abilities you should invest in and in what order is something you need to research for yourself, and subject to debate in any case.**

Realm Ranks on Gaheris: The way that you get realm XP is completely different on Gaheris.  Every level past 20 you get one free point to spend on realm abilities (that's essentially 3 free realm ranks by level 50).  At almost any level (though it's certainly much easier at level 50) you can also find Dreaded Seals, which drop off of certain mobs.  You give these to Dreaded Seal Collectors for realm XP.  Many mobs in the New Frontiers and most mobs in level 1 and deeper levels of the Labyrinth have a chance to drop Glowing Dreaded Seals.  This is a good succinct guide to get you started.

*I have tested most of the master level abilities on Gaheris.  That's the focus of a future guide, but the short short guide to Master Level on Gaheris is: For the love of god don't pick Battlemaster!

**That said, I personally consider one or two points into Mastery of Focus damn near essential  on a pure caster.  You need enough points in this ability that the level of the offensive spells that you usually cast plus the bonus levels of this ability add up to at least 50 (level totals past 50 don't have any additional effect).  This will significantly lower the chance that both mobs and enemy players will resist your spells.  You can also get this effect from certain magic items, but there is almost always something better available.  It's not usually worth blowing an equipment slot to save one or two realm skill points.

This guide is current as of December 2019.