SilverStreak's Guide to leveling at Turtle Island Level 2 as a monk

SilverStreak's Guide to leveling at Turtle Island Level 2 as a monk
Otherwise known as, Get my *** to 99 ASAP!
By SilverStreak

Introduction
I'm sitting here writing this guide for a few reasons... Lately there have been a lot of people in Roempire forums asking what to do or what weapons to use... And frankly I'm sick of new topics popping up every two days. Another reason is the amount of monks wasting perfectly good leveling time by sitting! A monk never needs to sit while leveling at Turtle island. Technique is key. Its quite noticiable when everyone else I've talked to gets a good 300-400k exp less than me soloing which can translate to 600-800k more exp an hour for me with a slave! I owe it to my technique, which I'll attempt to impart on anyone who wants to know.


How Stats effect the way you level

Strength (Str)
This is the corner stone of any monk build, but that doesn't mean its the most important. A pure str monk is utter ****! Multiples of 10's! For every 10 str you get an exponential bonus of whatever the str is divided by 10 squared. For example with 100 str you have 100 base attack + the bonus (100/10)^2. Giving you an attack of 200. 110 str would be 110 + 121, 120 is 120 + 144. In order to use this guide effectively, you need at least 100 str.

Agility (Agi)
For the purposes of this guide agi is the 2nd least important stat for TI leveling. It raises your aspd and your flee. Aspd is great, but the only problem is , your primary method of killing, Occult Impaction, is entirely based on dex. Flee helps a little, but it is in no means neccesary. For a monk you can't really get decent str, high dex and high flee. In order to properly flee turtles you need approximately 210-220 flee. This means you'd need 90 or more total agi in order to flee a turtle. Not worth it in my oppinion... and in my experience, high agi monks level the slowest at TI.

Vitality (Vit)
Vit has three purposes, only one being important. The single most important reason to get vit is it raises your max hp. Vit also raises vit defense and increases your immunity to status effects such as stun and poison. Vit defence doesn't really help too much considering most of the monsters in TI will hit you for at least 200 even with the best of gears, so status effects are more important. While leveling at turtle island you'll encounter 3 types of status effects, Stun, poison, and blind. Without some vit, stun and poison can spell certain death to someone. I'd say that 30 vit is the bare minimum for decent TI leveling provided you dont have high flee (200+)

Intelligence (Int)
Int has 2 purposes for a monk. Maximum sp and your sp regen. This does not mean, however, you need loads of int in order to make yourself an effective leveler at TI. Sp regen bonuses come in multiples of 6. So your goal should be to get your int to something like 30+12 or 18+12.. something along those lines. Sp gears such as sohee shoes, roda frog armor, wise sunglasses, and a mistress crown can boost your sp pool tremendously, thus eliminating the need for very high int.

Dexterity (Dex)
This is the key stat in terms of leveling speed for leveling at TI. The higher your dex is, the higher your exp per is going to be, provided you dont sacrifice things like int or str. Dex raises you hit rate, decreases your cast time, and increases your attack, although much slower than str. The reason dex is so important is cast time. With high cast time, you will level slowly, with a low one, you'll level more quickly. The reason is this. The skills you are going to be casting most often are summon spirit sphere, a 1.5 second base cast time, and Occult Impaction, a 1 second cast time. So what about dex, you might say. Well 2.5 seconds is a long time! Thats wasted time right there! Time you could be killing more turtles and getting more exp. The trick to this guide however, doesn't lie in those two skills, it lies in the skill you'll use a lot. Spirit Sphere absorbtion. With this, you never have to rest. Ever. This has a 2 second cast time, so without decent dex, you wont be getting this off. 90 or more dex is reccomended for best results.

Gears
These are important. As its fairly hard to flee turtles with a non high agi monk, overupgraded gears are fairly important.
Armor: +4 or higher Saints Robe of Champion... +4 is bare minimum and as for the card... Roda is the best due to the extra sp.
Headgears
Upper:Mistress Crown +4 or higher. Sp and int... enough said.
Middle: Wise Sunnies are preferable but if you dont have them and hit a str bonus with evil ears, wear those. If not put on some def headgear like Opera Mask.
Lower: Whatever or Opera
Garment:+7 immune muffler or higher. If you have enough flee to dodge turtles with a mocking, wear one. But this is only useful if you have close to 220 flee with mocking.
Shield:+7 Brutal Buckler... everything is brute...
Shoes:+7 sohee or eggrya shoes... Its all preference here. I prefer sohee since I have high dex and can absorb very quickly... With low dex eggrya may be better.
Weapon: This is preference. +6 or higher triple clamerous chain (3 goblin cards) will kill a turtle in 2 hits at maximum. Mix and match. I prefer +8 tri clamerous since I can use it on mvps like eddga and phreeoni. For the maximum damage, use a +10 double clamerous double element mace. This costs about 3x as much since you need 3 different maces, so you decide.
Accesories: Whatever you need for 100 str or more or dex gears. Remember more dex = more exp.
With decently overupped gears you will get hit for 200-350 damage, which is healable.

How to get the exp
If you haven't figured it out by now, the way this guide is designed is to make your occult impaction leveling more effective. You will be leveling on Turtle island level 2 which only has 4 different monsters, all being brute.

Soloing: This takes practice like everything else. Occult Impaction is a very expensive skill sp wise, 28 sp per occult counting th sphere, so you will find that SP is going to be one of you biggest problems. The key to this is spirit sphere absorbtion... It just sickens me on how many monks I see sitting, wasting valuable time. Spirit sphere absorbtion will garner you 126-144 sp on a successful attempt. Now thats a lot of SP. With this in mind, you should always absorb a turtle at least once before occulting it. This will keep your sp up. If you run out of sp (very possible), you can, at minimum, run and absorb. With decent dex, you can spam this and make your leveling have no downtime. HP is a significantly less important factor since you can just heal it off. Dont let your hp get below 1500 though... Turtles all have elemental attacks that will hit you for about 1300-1400 damage. Death is not a fun thing, especially when you're 95 or higher. Last but not least is your kill priority. Soliders give the most exp, by a good 700 or higher, but this does not mean they are your first priority when soloing. Freezers are your first priority since they're aggressive. Next is Peremeters, since they heal. Both of these turtles will die in 2 occult regardless of peremeters healing. Soliders will not die in 2 hit if hey get healed. Finally, there are pests. Like the name suggests, they are pests. When you kill them is really dependent on the situation. For example, if there is 2 freezers and a pest, obviously kill the freezers first. However in a situation where there is a peremeter and a pest, the pest would be the first one to go. If you have decent aspd, use melee to kill pests, if you have decent dex and low agi, tss to kill pests. BE WARNED! A PEST MOB CAN BE AS DANGEROUS AS A MOB OF TURTLES! They both stun and poison, so watch out. All and all, you need to know your monk and what situations you can handle. A mob of 7 peremeters is enough to drain anyone of their sp, since they'll heal whatever you're killing multiple times.

With Priest: The difference between soloing and partying is minimal. You're going to do basically the same thing, except you're going to have magnificant and heals, and of course 1 hit turtles. The same rules still apply except now you are responisble for your priests well being. Generally your priest won't run out of sp, but if you do something stupid, like run into a mob of freezers or let them tank 10+ pests and freezers, they will run out of sp. If your priest isn't well equipped, then its more imperative that you watch what your priest has on them. With out proper gears, 2 freezers can be too much. Just because you have lex and mag doesn't mean you should stop absorbing. Absorb not only keeps your sp full, but it mobs. If there are other parties, THIS IS KEY!. Genereally absorb 2 or 3 turtles then kill, absorbing new turtles. This will keep the mob the same size and allow you to monopolize an area of the map. Believe me it makes a difference. This should yeild about the same exp as solo when you reach your higher 90's but its the added safety that makes the difference. I get 1.4m solo and 1.4m with a priest. Slaved, is a different story. With this in mind, with proper technique you can get upwards of 3m exp an hour slaved.

New Occult "Dancing" New
Just thought I'd add a little section on occult dancing. What is it you ask? To understand this you must examine occult as a skill. It is a cast based skill with no after cast delay, but a significant animation delay... This can get fairly annoying at times... So what do you do about it? Well, you can get rid of the animation delay by Occult Dancing. Basically what this means is you move right as OI finishes casting, thus removing the animation delay... If you do it right, you'll notice a jump as you move to wherever you click. It takes a bit of practice, but when you have full sp due to a spouse and a whole row of lexed turtles, you want to kill them ASAP. If you're low on sp, do not do this... You need the absorb.

New Sample Build New
This is the build I've given my boyfriend to expidite his leveling process. Its great for leveling and very good for WoE provided you can spam pots. In pvp its decent, but low vit makes it a bit weaker than a more pvp oriented build.
79+21 str (1x mantis clip)
65+15 agi (agi 6)
14+6 vit (ouch... but the extra flee makes up for it somewhat)
30+14 int (bless and mistress crown)
80+18 dex (1x nimble glove)
2+3 luk (extra point whee)

Skills:
Demons Bane 10
Divine Pro 10
Blessing 10
Heal 7
Agi 6 (2 from monk skills)
Pnuema 8

Iron Fists 5
Summon Spirit Sphere 5
Spiritual sphere absorbtion 1
Fury 3
Asura 5
Occult Impaction 5
TSS 5
Flee 5
Raging Trifecta Blow 5
Raging quad 5
Raging Thrust 3 (you hardly ever use it... but its good if you are really in a pickle and need to combo into Asura)

Now What Happens if I get my hands on a God Item like Mjingaird?
This doesn't matter as much as you think. With 160 str you wont 1 hit kill turtles 100% of the time. Soliders have a lot of hp (about 12k) and need a special mace, A double clamerous double underneath mace, to gaurantee a 1 hit kill without lex. Yes it will help, but you are still run out of sp without a proper technique. If you can get one, all the power to ya. Good job and it will help you later on.



I feel that if you use this technique, you might find you're leveling less tedious and quicker in the long run. This does not change the fact that it takes time. If you aren't going to put the time into your character, no amount of skill will help you. Currently my monk is level 98 and believe me, it takes a long time to 99 a character. However, I hope with this technique helps you level up even just a little bit.

If you would like to contact me, please Pm me on the roempire forums. I live there. Any comments, criticism, or advice would be appreciated.