Looking for a guide for Villain leveling

[Eric the Grey]

 

<Moving this from the help forum, since apparently that is not the right place to ask> 

 

There are a few great guides here and elsewhere on Hero (blue side) leveling but I cannot find any for Villain's (red side?).   I'd really like to level a few toons on that side because sometimes, you need to be bad.

 

For example, I know that DfB can be accessed from that side, but I only ever see calls for "blue side".  Is there a convenient place to meet with forming groups like the sewer entrance of Paragon City?

 

Any pointers would be appreciated.

 

Eric the Grey

[Eva Destruction]

The best place to meet for a redside DFB would probably be Mercy Island.  People use the sewer entrance instead of AP blueside because AP is a high-population zone, but Mercy isn't so there's not reason not to meet there.

 

Villains don't really have a bunch of "must-do" contacts like heroes do.  The accolade requirements are kind of all over the place; there are a few badge missions you need for them but it's easiest to get those through Ouro.  You might want to do Ashley McKnight's arc when it becomes available, if you want to access the Midnight Club the old-fashioned way, run the first patron arc at level 35 to unlock patron power pools, and run the rest of your patron's arcs when they become available to unlock the RSF if you want to be able to lead it, but that's about it for the "needed" contacts, so the rest of your choices would largely depend on what enemy groups you want to fight or what flavor of bad you want to be.

[Seigmoraig]

Do yourself a favor and if only for DFB, go see Null in Pocket D and go blue. Once you are done, go back and be Red to your heart's desire. Unless you want to wait around for hours to find a group that is... I swear I see 25 blue groups for every red DFB

[Eric the Grey]

Thanks Eva Destruction.  That's a great starting point.

 

You mentioned Ouroboros.  I'm guessing then that it's possible to get there on the red side?

 

19 minutes ago, Seigmoraig said:

Do yourself a favor and if only for DFB, go see Null in Pocket D and go blue. Once you are done, go back and be Red to your heart's desire. Unless you want to wait around for hours to find a group that is... I swear I see 25 blue groups for every red DFB

 

For some reason, I had the impression that Null was one-way only.  That might be a good way to go.  My better half and I went to him with Aracnos characters because she didn't want to be a Villain.   I've brought her around with a new idea and my new family-based villain group. 🙂

 

Is there a level-limit for switching from one side to another? 

 

 

Eric the Grey

[justicebeliever]

18 minutes ago, Eric the Grey said:

For some reason, I had the impression that Null was one-way only.  That might be a good way to go.  My better half and I went to him with Aracnos characters because she didn't want to be a Villain.   I've brought her around with a new idea and my new family-based villain group. 🙂

 

Is there a level-limit for switching from one side to another? 

There is not.  You can switch like crazy with Mr. N Gull

Edited September 29, 2019 by justicebeliever

[Eva Destruction]

1 hour ago, Eric the Grey said:

Thanks Eva Destruction.  That's a great starting point.

 

You mentioned Ouroboros.  I'm guessing then that it's possible to get there on the red side?

It certainly is.  Ouroboros is a co-op zone, although you can only do the missions from your own side (so you can't do hero missions through Ouro if you're a villain.)

 

You can use Null the Gull to change your alignment to Rogue; that way you'll still be bad, you can still do all the villain content, but you can also hop on over to blueside and join hero teams.  That way you can watch them, learn their weaknesses, make them think you're maybe not all that bad after all, then when their guard is down....

[Twisted Toon]

1 hour ago, Eva Destruction said:

 That way you can watch them, learn their weaknesses, make them think you're maybe not all that bad after all, then when their guard is down....

Bake them a cake?

 

 

[Apparition]

Here's my villain leveling guide.  Note that I turn XP off at levels 9, 14, 19, 24, 29, 34, 39, and 44.

 

 

1. Levels 1 to 5: Kalinda and Operative Kuzmin
2. Levels 5 to 9: Mongoose, Fire Wire, Lt. Harris, and Dr. Graves
3. Levels 10 to 14: Dr. Graves, Death from Below, and Veluta Lunata
4. Levels 15 to 19: Dr. Graves, Ashley McKnight, and Seer Marino
5. Levels 20 to 24: Bane Spider Ruben, Brother Hammond, Lorenz Ansaldo, and Henri Dumont
6. Levels 25 to 29: Darrin Wade, Dean MacArthur, Vincent Ross, Bobby Curtin, Archmage Tarixus, Doc Buzzsaw, and Kristof Jaeger
7. Levels 30 to 34: Ashley McKnight, Mercedes Sheldon, Crimson Revenant, Slot Machine, Archmage Hellewise, Mistress Maria, Montague Castanella, Ward, Sir Bedwyr, and The Magician
8. Levels 35 to 39: Arbiter Leery, Johnny Sonata, and Sgt. Schorr
9. Levels 40 to 44: Arbiter Rein, Captain Mako, Ambassador Kuhr'Rekt, and Number 204
10. Levels 45 to 49: Honestly, I just powerlevel at this point because I don't see any reason not to and I've already probably spent a cumulative week with XP turned off between levels 20 and 35.

 

 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Apparition

[Sniktch]

4 hours ago, Eva Destruction said:

It certainly is.  Ouroboros is a co-op zone, although you can only do the missions from your own side (so you can't do hero missions through Ouro if you're a villain.)

 

You can use Null the Gull to change your alignment to Rogue; that way you'll still be bad, you can still do all the villain content, but you can also hop on over to blueside and join hero teams.  That way you can watch them, learn their weaknesses, make them think you're maybe not all that bad after all, then when their guard is down....

As a side note, in a mixed team you can effectively run all content via Ouro; the team lead's alignment is what sets what's available at the moment.  So a Rogue and a Vigilante can swap Ouro arcs back-and-forth quite easily.  There are some exceptions - Mender Silos' arc cannot be done by people with a different 'base' alignment than the team lead, because he actually has two arcs and 'base' alignment triggers which one you get, and the Rogue, Hero, Vigilante, and Villain-specific arcs obviously can't be run by any but those alignments.

[Eric the Grey]

Thanks for all the responses folks.  Since I'm somewhat stuck at 11th, with no contacts, I'll take the advice and hop over to blue and run some sewer trials for buffs, and grab the Ouro portal so I can do those.   I used Ouro for one of my heroes and found it interesting.  Might grab a DiB group tomorrow if I can find one during the day.  That should hold the boss lady for a few levels.  

 

 

Eric the Grey

[Securityuniform]

2 hours ago, Eric the Grey said:

Thanks for all the responses folks.  Since I'm somewhat stuck at 11th, with no contacts, I'll take the advice and hop over to blue and run some sewer trials for buffs, and grab the Ouro portal so I can do those.   I used Ouro for one of my heroes and found it interesting.  Might grab a DiB group tomorrow if I can find one during the day.  That should hold the boss lady for a few levels.  

 

 

Eric the Grey

If you are out of missions you can do newspaper ones. They are short and lead to bank robberies. Then you get contacts from that. To be honest level 11 is hardly the worst time to run out of contacts. It only takes a short time to ding up. You can also do architect entertainment missions. People are always banging on about the best fire farm to get to 50 asap and forget there is a wealth of player created content for all levels designed around plot and fun rather than power levelling.

[Apparition]

IMO, red side could use some more content between levels 10 to 20.  That's where it's lagging.  Then there's too much between levels 20 and 35.

[Eric the Grey]

Something I found interesting.  I didn't even think of it before switching alignments, but even afterwards, I was still Overlord of my SG. 😛 

 

Bank robberies and mayhem missions in general never go well for me, unless I"m with a group.  Mostly, I've been soloing.  

 

I'll have to check into AE missions as well.   I've only dabbled in them so far.  

 

 

Eric the Grey

[Twisted Toon]

Then levels 35 to 40 take about as long as it took you to get from level 1 to level 35. 😕

[Without_Pause]

44 minutes ago, Eric the Grey said:

Something I found interesting.  I didn't even think of it before switching alignments, but even afterwards, I was still Overlord of my SG. 😛 

 

Bank robberies and mayhem missions in general never go well for me, unless I"m with a group.  Mostly, I've been soloing.  

 

I'll have to check into AE missions as well.   I've only dabbled in them so far.  

 

 

Eric the Grey

Do a search for "Bad." There are a couple, but I prefer the space one. Mobs are a single +1 inept boss. Being level 11 would be an easy level per run with 2x XP. You are perma exempted at level 1, so no matter your leveling, you can't out level the content even doing 2x XP. It is my preferred why to kick start a new character outside of pure AE farming.