0-20 leveling: Darklight Woods, no question at all. Lots of quests in easy-to-access hubs, small zone that's easy to find stuff in. Both freeport and qeynos are terrible for starting toons, they do have lots of solo quests for beginning people but they all involve a lot of running, which is very difficult to do at a low level when you don't have the money to buy a mount or high-level runspeed buffs. Timourous Deep is a close runner up because it has a very similar quest design to Darklight Woods, but Tim Deep loses some points because its also a really big zone, and Gorowyn is a headache to navigate...but this is offset by the fact that Tim Deep has great quest rewards that are usable all the way to level 40. Gfay is a bit better than FP/Qeynos because all the quests are collected in one zone, but it involves a ton of running as well.
20-25 leveling: Nektulous Forest, because the questlines you get from nek docks are all really easy to complete, and you have very little competition. TS is pretty bad compared to Nek because the quests involve much more running.
25-30 leveling: Butcherblock Mountains, because it has the best questlines in this tier. The only bad thing is that you have to navigate the whole zone to get the griffin tower access to each quest hub. The froglok timeline is also worthwhile doing, but its pretty short so there's not a whole lot to it.
30-35 leveling: Zek. Large quantity of easy quests you can do from the docks, however the quests further out aren't really worth doing at all. Enchanted Lands is okay, but often those quests requiring killing mobs that are difficult to find and/or spawn in low quantities.
35-40 leveling: Feerot. Lots of good quests in the beginning camps, however once you start getting quests that send you to the other half of the map its a good idea to stop doing them, because they require too much time running. There are a couple quests that can be a hassle if there's anyone else in the zone, because much like EL there's quests that requires killing 15-20 mobs of a certain type, when only 3-4 of that type is up at any given time. So if you get competition, its usually better to just leave and do something else.
40-45 leveling: Steamfont. Loads and loads of quests from gnomeland hq, all of which give fantastic XP and AA. No one should miss steamfont; its possible to start here as early as 35 if you've got bad competition in Feerot.
45-50 leveling: More steamfont; unfortunately both Everfrost and Lavastorm are terrible for soloing. This is a rough area to solo in, so hopefully you can find a lot of groups in this band.
50-55 leveling: Sinking Sands, there's quite a few quests here and even though they don't give great xp and aa, there's really no other good options in this band. Don't bother with the Peacock timeline because its generally a waste of time unless you have crazy runspeed and know the Peacock questline exploit (I won't detail it here as I do regard it an exploit)
55-60 leveling: Lesser Faydark, there's a large quantity of quests here, but much like Butcherblock the mobs hit much harder than mobs from earlier expansions.
60-65 leveling: Mystic Lake, it gives fantastic xp from both easy quests and easy-to-kill mobs, and is a godsend in this 50-65 band that is difficult to level in. Tenebrous Tangle basket quests is a close runner up, by doing the basket quests over and over you can make a lot of money, but after they run out you'll get better XP in mystic lake.
65-70 leveling: Both barren sky and bonemire timelines, barren sky can be done a little earlier. Both zones are fantastic though, lots of disco, lots of easy-to-get-to quests. After you've spent up those two zones though head to loping plains because there's a lot of good quests there, even though the zone is more annoying than the KOS zones.
70-75 leveling: Loping plains is still good in this tier, and chances are you'll hit 70 before you finish barren sky/bonemire/loping. Otherwise RoK is very straight-forward; you have to do Kylong Plains first (docks to outpost to grasp to highton) and then fens (watch to span to outpost/omens to riliss to droga/bellywumper
75-80 leveling: Same RoK straightjacket format, Jungle first (Jinisk/Renegade to Villager to Dalnir/Reet/Outer Seb) and Wastes second (Del'nok to skorpion to danak/hunter)
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| Everquest 2 leveling |
2.Heroic
0-30 leveling: Pretty much all of them are pointless, you'll get much better xp soloing, and its hard to find people for groups at these levels. If you can find a fallen gate/crushbone group thats great, but in all honesty they're probably not worth your time.
30-35 leveling: Ruins of Varsoon, lots of nameds on fast repop.
35-40 leveling: Runneye, much like Ruins of Varsoon except more difficult and more AE encounters. Nek Castle is either a hit or a miss, you simply cannot do this with a pickup group because too many slow players will get behind on the questline in here; but if you can find a really good group the zone has amazing xp from doing the timeline alone.
40-45 leveling: Drafling Tower, its not very popular but should not be under-rated imho. The mobs here give fantastic xp and the heroic questline is very simple to do. Deathfist citadel is a runner up because it gives awesome loot for its level, but the xp isn't as great.
45-50 leveling: Obelisk of Lost Souls, there's a reason why plat farmers are in this place 24/7. You can haul a LOT of loot out of here with one group cycling the whole outside of the zone and then the inside of the zone. You can actually start doing this at level 40 but the mobs are pretty tough so you want to make sure to bring a good group. Much like Drafling, a zone that isn't very popular but is still very good. Other than OLS, Temple of Cazic Thule can be good, but the heroic quests are difficult to complete and the zone requires a lot of experience to pull it very well.
50-55 leveling: Solusek's Eye is actually the best XP for this band, but the problem is that its near impossible to get a group to do it since everyone needs the portal in lavastorm. So in reality the best thing is to chain Sanctorium/Cache runs because there's really no other option. You can throw in a Vaults, but its only worth it if you already have someone with Clefts key access. Stay away from Silent City/Living Tombs, as they are low-xp zones with nameds that have a convoluted spawning process.
55-60 leveling: Roost/Ancient's Table replaces the Sanct/Cache combo. Mines of Meldrath is good too. Klak is okay for AA the first time, but the mobs are too difficult to warrant grinding much there. Stay away from New Tunaria because the zone has very buggy pathing/aggro issues.
60-65 leveling : Poets Palace is great, if you have someone with access. But that's pretty rare, so the only real option is Sanctum of Scaleborn, which is probably one of the most annoying zones in the game, but everyone has to end up doing it anyway. Nest is also good for a quicky. If you have a really good group you can hit Vaults of El, but you want to make sure to have 2 healers for that.
65-70 leveling: There's a lot of really good dungeons in this band. Vaults of El, Den, HoF, Acadachism, OOB, CoV, Unrest, Kaladim, Mistmoore Catacombs. Actually the biggest problem you'll have is you're probably outlevel the band before you can visit all the great dungeons. Stay away from Forsaken City/Nek3 though, they've got almost as many problems as New Tunaria.
70-75 leveling: The more difficult T7 zones such as Unrest, Nizara, and Mistmoore Castle are better than running headlong into Karnor's, imho. I've seen waaay too many groups get chewed up in karnors because groups thought they could go in there at level 70 because the mobs conned 74. They really hit like they're 78, so I would stay out of KC until you're 75. But in all honesty you probably won't be grouping much in this band because there's so many good quests in RoK that all you'll want to do is solo quest.
75-80 leveling: Again, pretty much all the RoK dungeons hit really freaking hard so you don't have much business trying an ROK dungeon until you're at least 78 or so. (the only exception being healers, which can pretty much always get into a group 5 levels earlier than anyone else) Otherwise you're just going to be a xp leech. That being said, it is possible to do Chardork/KC as early as 75, but the xp is so terrible compared to solo quests I don't know why'd you want to do it. After those two zones, I think CoA is the next-easiest instance, followed by Vaults. After you hit 80 though and you're just looking for loot, CoA is going to be your best bet for M1 drops. Chelsith/Maidens has high quality loot, but you need a high quality group in order to make them worth your while.
