What level should I be before the Searing?

What level should I be before crossing over with Sir Tydus?

(I'm in pre-searing Ascalon right now, of course.)

About 6-8 is fine.

If it's your first character or you're a beginner just play normally and don't give it much thought. Focus on getting skills, the main benefit of doing quests is getting skills for free; other benefits include the occasional nice item and money.

You can manage in Post at very low levels but I don't see any reason to make things harder than they have to be. Even if you're in a hurry to get out of Pre, doing the bare minimum of skill quests only takes a couple of hours and will get you a confortable level 5-6.

I think I've done all the skill quests I can--Brothre Mhenlo, Garen the Protector, the lady in the Theater, and Vassar, all four simply point to each other as people who can teach me "more skills," which I take it means none of them have any more skills to teach. Are there other monk and mesmer skill givers in pre- before these?

And also, so it's okay not to wait until I'm high enough level to do Langmar's quests?

Yep, it seems you've done all the quests that give you skills. Langmar's quests are usually meant for those that want to level up to 20 in the pre-searing and thus obtain the title Legendary Defender of Ascalon. You don't need them to continue with the story. Of course you can try for the title if you want, but I wouldn't suggest it if this is your first character. So feel free to go on.

You may want to consider that there is a unique title only available to characters that get level 20 in Pre Searing. The Langmar quests now facilitate that. It does count for HOM,

Other considerations.. you can build a nice nest egg in Pre by farming and doing the daily Nick gifts. You don't have to spend much money at all in pre.. and can build up a nice amount of plat to outfit yourself when you do sear. If you just did Gifts for a week and sold them in pre, unopened, that would be easily over 10k plus whatever dyes and merch loot. 10k will buy a lot of runes, new armor, etc in post, and you will want them pretty fast.

Another consideration.. if you farm Charr at exp gain levels.. and do the level appropriate Langmar quests you will learn quite a bit about actually using your char. You are not going to slide in Pre with heros and overblown PvE skills. You can learn a ton about pulling, los, mob aggro and target priority there, and if you learn to effectively solo charr at even levels with the skillset you get in Pre, you will have learned a lot.

Even if you decide not to do Legendary Defender.. staying in pre for a while if just to get a few small stacks of consumables wont hurt.. and could pay for a lot of things you will find you need to buy almost immediately in Post. You can quest for a number of skills in Proph.. but ascalon quest payouts and loot drops are pretty meager.

At the very least.. stay long enough to kill the Northland Bosses.. as a pre-emptive payback for the utter desolation you are going to see when you hit post Searing Ascalon.

Heh.. when I seared my first little Ranger I hit Post Ascalon.. looked around.. cried.. deleted the Char and went back to the past and stayed there longer. Post was quite a shock.

This ^ When I started my first GW char, I stayed in pre until lvl 10. I wanted to kill Charr bosses before I leave.
Also don't forget to collect some nice thingies that can be obtained only in pre, like Charr Bags and -50HP Grim Cesta. Even if you are not going to make 55HP monk, you can sell it in post for a few platinums. Also if you get Tapestry Shred from Gwen in pre, you can do a cool quest in Eye of the North.

Better to leave at level 6-8. You can go earlier, but you may have to do it at the risk of getting overwhelmed by mobs in post because you will not be having heroes yet from there, not till LA. I did the same thing Lasai farther up did. I rowed a monk, took her out at level 5, cried when I saw post, deleted her, made my ele and stayed till level 8 before I left. She was surviving much better than my poor monk girl.

Have you visited the professor? Did the char over the walls?

Also, pre is still quite good for farming a couple of dyes.

In my opinion, you should stay in pre until level 6 at least. Just because it's much easier to continue then.

Btw, d fens, I'm pretty sure you'll get -50HP Grim Cesta in Post-Searing (Cities of Ascalon quest)...

I would continue to look for other quests and learn more of the game mechanics (there are NON skills quests as well--some give ok weapons too). Do some exploring, make it to all the outposts...and yes at least 6 is good (I usually do ALL of the quests which gets you to about 8).

No. If one of my first GW experiences was the grind that is LDoA, I would certainly quit the game.

-50 HP cesta is achieved in Post Searing.


Now to answer the OP, I would leave Pre-Searing has soon as I get bored with it and want to explore the rest of GW, don't worry, you won't regret leaving it.

@Speusippus: Go look at the skill trader in Ascalon, he's a NPC with [Skills] after his name (keep Alt pressed and do a 360 turn while in the city). If there's any skills that you can get from the trainer it means you missed the quest where you can get them for free. In which case see the wiki page for that skill to find out which quest gives it.

Langmar doesn't give you quests until you're level 10. Her quests are basically XP farms for characters who've decided to stay in Pre and/or get the Legendary Defender title, they're no big deal otherwise.

You don't need to make lots of money before you leave Pre. Sure, they're nice to have, but trust me, the game will provide you with the gold you need to get by, just by playing normally.

The only things really worth taking from Pre are a Small Equipment Pack (given by Yakkington for 50 Iris Flowers) and perhaps a couple of quest item rewards, such as the 4+5 armor shield with no attribute requirements. The Krytan armor pieces from collectors are not very valuable and they will be replaced rather soon in Post, but they're meant to teach you how to make use of collector NPC's. If you manage to get a Charr Bag or a rune to drop while in Northlands, they're also nice to have and will save you some money in Post, but they're not "must-have or the game can't be played" items. Not much in GW is, for that matter.

(And of course black or white dye, but that's valuable no matter where it drops.)

It all really depends on your play style and how much of a challenge you want the next few hours/days of the game to be.

If you don't wish it to be much of a challenge then you should stay till your lvl 12 and pick up runes/insignias for your characters by farming charr bosses or buy off of players. You can also make money very quickly and easily, to some extenct, in pre that will help with equiping better armor later on and buying better weapons off of players.

If you want a good challenge then lvl 6-8 is about the right point to make things possible but not so easy that you can just roll through things.

Level 5, with all of your primary and secondary skills, is the baseline for me. Stick around longer if you want to learn a little more about the story before experiencing the Searing; there are a few sidequests that really fill in some details in the lore, and give background to a lot of the characters you're going to meet in post-searing.

Lol that was really noobish of me I think I'll make second Prophecies character and do the quests again

Back on topic. It doesn't really matter if you leave presearing at lvl 6, 10 or 15. Just play the game and enjoy If this is your first character just don't make the mistake I did: don't buy the run to Droknar's Forge once you reach Beacon's Perch. Doing things "the right way" will add some flavor to the game

level 20. be a man and grab the LDoA title.

Level 6+ for a first character. After that, if you start a second character in Prophecies, you can leave Pre as soon as possible if you have materials, gold, weapons, etc., waiting in storage.

Pre is a nice area to be in, so I would suggest that first time through, you explore the whole place and do all the quests, for grins.

So do I understand you correctly to be saying that Xunlai storage accounts apply to all characters, not just the one that bought the account? (That's how I interpret you when you mention materials etc. "waiting in storage.")

Yes, anything you put into storage is accessible to your other characters on your account (except in Pre-Searing)

Yes, all characters on your account share the same Xunlai storage.