Stormhalter Lands Progression/MA

Martial Artist Stormhalter Tourism Guide (heavy WIP, feel free to contribute)

This is a rough difficulty-sorted roadmap for gearing and leveling a Martial Artist with minimal outside help. Your experience will vary depending on assistance, gifted gear, and personal skill. This is a living document and will be updated over time.

NG PREP

This section will detail a light list of basic game (BG) items to look out for and a few that you should dedicate effort to acquiring before advancing into Stormhalter. If nothing else, do your Crystal Gauntlets quest.

Armor & Accessory

• Helm
  • Ideally a Dragon Skull from Mama, but a NV helm from Leng Trolls works too. You will not replace helmet for a very long time so it's highly recommended to put in the effort to get a Mama kill. A bit annoying for MA since it requires SGA so make a Knight or Wiz friend if you can.

• Necklace
  • You will likely start with a F/I neck (blue gem). Can get this from Daisy or really all over the place. As you advance into Stormhalter though, you will want to keep an eye our for a Lres necklace (lightning bolt on silver chain) and a Poison Protection necklace (green cross). You will be cycling these as you get gear upgrades with the goal of freeing up ring slots. You will not get other neck options until much later into the game, so keep a couple backups of these handy. A humming bird amulet makes for a decent death protection neck as well until you are strong enough to kill a Bloodlands Forest boss to snag a D/S bracer.

• Bracers
  • The ideal setup that you will use for a long time is a D/S bracer and a Blind/Fear bracer. Both of these are very easy to obtain in Stormhalter, but you will likely go into Stormhalter without either of these unless you are playing in a group doing harder content or got some handouts. Otherwise, good options are STR bracers, Shield bracers, Stun resist bracer, Death resist bracer. Bracers lists where to find all of these if you want to look around while you level.

• Armor
  • Nothing. You will not be able to wear armor until you are strong enough to acquire Scorpion Armor, unless someone gives you a hand-me-down MA item.

• Gauntlets
  • Kosh gloves are easily farmable solo around level 14-16 if you have good fire protection. These will hold you over until you are strong enough to do your Crystal Gauntlets quest, which you should do before moving on to Stormhalter as the MA Ring requires this to be complete and is a massive power and survivability item.

• Boots
  • Your only real option here is FF boots, which you will keep on your belt until you need them due to giving you hinderance. Once you have an MA ring, you will be able to keep them on full time due to a bug with Zhuna, kick.

• Robe
  • Go kill Big Bear on Kesmai surface around level 10 and skin the body to get a 0 hinderance 10 FR robe that will last you until you go Crystal Gauntlets. You should find a Kimono during that quest which you will wear until your Blood Gi.

Rings

Don't stress about your rings too much as Black Burrow drops the majority of rings you will want to start out with. The only notable exceptions are a Death Ring (you NEED death protection SOMEWHERE, trust me), Lres ring (you can ignore Lres until you are strong enough to take on Leng drake, sometimes the Leng drake trash will drop a Lres ring people farming DP's left behind, it's worth trying, easy way to get a B/F bracer too, just watch out for the 2 liches).

In general, prioritize Protections over Resists over Shields over Strength.

You will also want a Water Breathing ring handy as there is a ton of water in some of the places you will be hunting and drowning in Opal/Ruby happens incredibly fast.

ENTRY-LEVEL FARMS (18–23)

Overall, don't be too stressed about entering Bloodlands or Blackburrow. Both contain fantastic XP, Loot, and Money without too much risk. If you have Death Protection, I highly recommend starting with Blackburrow to round out your rings and get some quick wins while you level. Otherwise, do the Kobold Dungeon for some quick levels to help you tank those Death's until you are strong enough to take on a Bloodlands boss for a D/S bracer. Alternatively, you can ask in Discord if anyone has killed a Forest boss lately as they drop D/S bracers pretty often and people rarely loot them.

I highly recommend avoiding coming to NG until you have Crystal Gauntlets though as your defensive scale incredibly with your weapon skill, and leveling too quickly can cause you to get out of sync with power expectations. Once you get your CG's and MA Ring though, go nuts. You shouldn't need much gear to start tearing up some of the XP farming spots.

XP Farming

Kobold Dungeon

Difficulty @ level

Easy

Pros:

• Very safe: floor 1 has no casters, floor 2 only a few near the end (avoid the boss room at first).
• Excellent XP for how weak the mobs are.
• Money is mostly from gems, which commonly sell for 50–100k (coin can usually be ignored).

Cons:

• Gems are relatively rare.
• Aside from a few deep bosses (which you should avoid at first), there are no notable drops.
• Once you’ve “caught up” on XP, it becomes dull quickly.
• Pack density is only moderate.

How To Get There:

1. Travel to Bloodlands via the Hall of Legends south of Ydnac’s lair in Kesmai.
2. Go up the stairs into the portal vendor room.
3. Use the Red Circle Teleporter. (Add image)
4. After teleporting:
   1. Exit south.
   2. Hug the west wall going north.
   3. The 2nd wall tile above and the 2nd wall tile below the waterfalls are secret teleport doors to town.
   4. When ready, go southwest from the town’s west exit. (There are mobs and a mini boss in the water; the toothy octopi can poison but are manageable.)
   5. Continue southwest to a stairwell leading to the Kobold Dungeon. (See Bloodlands if you need a map.)

Recommended Route:

• Set recall in town → clear to Kobold → clear floor 1 → clear floor 2 up to the Lich/boss room → recall back to town to sell/balm → repeat.

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Blackburrow Mines -1

Difficulty @ level

Hard without Death Protection • Easy–Medium with DP

Pros:

• Two bosses worth 4m XP total (2.4m + 1.6m).
• Bosses drop many gems.
• Guard Captain can drop useful rings/bracers (Glowers, shielders, +2 dex ring very rarely which you will want for your MA ring upgrade, etc.).
• Much more coin than Kobold if you have a Banker’s Ring.
• Higher pack density than Kobold, so more killing in less space.

Cons:

• Gnoll Town can be dangerous if casters clump; expect a lot of Death spells.
• Individual mobs give less XP than Kobold Dungeon.
• Spiders (Widowmakers) are nasty if your AR is low.
• You need some combination of death, stun, and lightning protection.
• High pack density can be overwhelming if you’re not ready.

How to Get There:

1. Travel to the Hall of Legends south of Ydnac’s lair in Kesmai.
2. Go up the stairs into the portal vendor room.
3. Use the Blue Background Circle Teleporter. (Add image)
4. After teleporting:
   1. Hug the north wall to reach the town (balm/ring vendors).
   2. Head southeast to the Gnoll camp.
   3. Descend the stairs into the mines.
5. From the mine entrance:
   1. Going south leads to both bosses (one is in a tight spiral near the entrance), Widowmakers (spiders), and +100 (toward Frogs).
   2. Going north leads to Mines -2, which is generally safe – mostly melee mobs with the occasional caster/archer.

Recommended Route:

• If you can handle it, loop between Crazed Miner and Guard Captain, then TP back to town to sell/balm/facet and repeat.
• On the surface leading to the mines you’ll encounter two more minis. Fifer patrols outside Gnoll Town, and there is another mini in the north building that almost always drops a ~100k gem.

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Blackburrow Frogs

Difficulty @ level

Hard

Pros:

• Extremely strong XP and gold compared to everything earlier (millions of each).
  • Even if you can’t handle the lair mobs, patrolling mobs near the rope are still very rewarding.
• Weekly quest can be done here for an extra 50,000,000 XP.
• Frog Gauntlets drop here (and often end up carried by random mobs because players don’t loot them).
• You can reach Thussia for Frog Boots if you have enough DR to tank piranhas.

Cons:

• Recall rings don’t work anywhere in the zone.
• Easy to get lost; lots of teleporters and a messy layout.
• You need several important defenses:
  • Fire and ice resist are mandatory.
  • Lightning and poison resist are helpful but optional.
  • Insane Gnolls can cast Whirlwind (60–100 damage).
  • Water breathing is required.
• Constant pressure from patrolling mobs.
• Three dangerous lair mobs that you will encounter while hunting:
  • Froglock Knight – Very hard to hit (~1350 AR), self-heals, can double shield-bash for big burst.
    • Drops a gem worth 1.5m or 3m XP at Kyra.
  • Insane Froglock Wizard – Very strange mob, also ~1350 AR. Casts many spells and can shove you into weird map states.
    • Main threat is Ice Spear; it is telegraphed but hits hard.
    • Drops a gem worth 3m or 6m XP at Kyra.
  • Nothon – Drops Frog Gauntlets and can also cast Ice Spear.
• MEOW (cat sound is a good location cue).

How to Get There:

1. Enter Blackburrow Mines and progress toward the Guard Captain.
2. From the mine entrance, go south, then follow the path counterclockwise past the spiders.
3. Take the stairs up near the Guard Captain.
4. Cross the four bridges.
5. Look for a broken wall to the south leading into a grassy area.
6. In this area:
   1. A frog hops around to the northeast.
   2. A rope hangs from a sky tile.
   3. (If you hear a cat meowing, you’re in the right place.)
7. Climb down the rope to enter Frogs.

Recommended Route:

• Generally wander and kill – the zone is dense.
• Lair mobs seem to favor the northeast area near the rope (may be bias, but it feels that way).
• Hunt here as soon as you can consistently survive; the payoff is massive.

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Plane of Water (recommended only with Blood Gauntlets)

Difficulty @ level

Hard

Pros:

• Blood Vials – the main reason to come here.
• XP comparable to Frogs (roughly).
• Easy to reach once you know the route.

Cons:

• More of a targeted loot spot than a true XP farm.
• Very poor gold.
• Fights can get spiky if multiple Giants or Greater Fish aggro at once.
• Water Dragon has a long respawn (around 1–2 hours).
• Best done with at least Blood Ring + Blood Gauntlets.

How to Get There:

1. Go to Bloodlands Graveyard (southern part of Bloodlands Town).
2. Walk to the portal and say (not command) planum elementum.
3. Head east into the water portal.
4. Consult Plane of Water map.

Recommended Route:

• Treat this as a “run” rather than a grind spot: follow the Plane of Water map and beeline to Water Dragon, killing on the way.
• Avoid fighting groups that include both Giants and Greater Fish if possible.
  • Giants can daze you.
  • Daze into multiple poison procs from Greater Fish can go bad quickly.
• You will want roughly 1850+ DR and at least a White Sash.
• With decent ice protection and steady blocks, Water Dragon becomes manageable and Vial farming is straightforward.

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If you want other options, the table at the bottom of Stormhalter Lands Progression is an excellent reference.

Items to Target

MA Ring

Your first major upgrade.

• Get this as soon as possible.
• Set up ring commands – these significantly improve both damage and survivability.

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Banker’s Ring

As you enter NG, gold drops become heavy enough to:

• Reduce jumpkick success
• Drain stamina
• Make moving around more annoying

Your first 1,000,000 gold should go toward a Banker’s Ring from the Underkingdom Jewelry Store. Once you start farming Frogs, this ring is essential to keep up with training costs.

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Vanilla Endgame Rings

(Glowers, +6 shield rings, etc.)

The Blackburrow Guard Captain can drop:

• +6 STR rings
• +6 shield rings
• +6 shield bracers
• Rare dexterity rings (reported, but not yet confirmed by me after ~10 kills)

If you’re missing basic defensive accessories, kill him a few times.

You will want to end up with the following coming from either bracers, rings, or something else:

• Fire & Ice Protection
• Death & Stun Protection
• Blind & Fear Protection
• Water Breathing (until Frog Boots)
• Lightning Resist (mainly to bring the damage down so you don't get Dazed, low priority typically unless fighting a specific boss)
• Poison Protection (NG utilizes a ton of poison, though this will likely be one of the last things you can fit on yourself)
• Banker Ring
• +9 Shield
• MA Ring
• At least 1 recall ring typically
• Whatever strength you can fit, if any

And you will be wanting to be planning ahead on what rings you can swap out in the future as much more interesting accessories become available.

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Opal Ring

Needed to access Keshma @ 26, but also gives you a very convenient 2-way shortcut between the zone in Blackburrow Portal and Frogs. Once you get this, it can just live in your locker.

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Frog Gauntlets

These are usually your first realistic weapon upgrade without outside help.

• Bloodlands Gauntlets (which can hit silver) are gated behind a very difficult boss and group content.
• Frog Gauntlets aren’t much better than Crystal Gauntlets on paper, but:
  • They frequently apply poison, which shreds high-HP single targets (that aren’t immune to blueglow).
  • They gain AR as they level with your XP.
• With feather fall boots, a quick trip to Destiny to upgrade them is trivial if you can handle Frogs.

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Blood Gi

You will probably want a small group for this.

• Keep of Darkness itself isn’t terrible, but the Caves where the escort starts have a large pack of death-casting mobs outside.
• You’ll want ~400 HP or friends to help break the zoo.
• The escort is behind a secret wall, so poison cloud or whirlwind are good ways to pre-clear the area and weaken the zoo that spawns here.

This is a direct upgrade to the Kimono from the Crystal Gauntlets quest:

• More STR (about +3 or more based on rarity) plus solid resistances.
• Enables a strong combo with Bloodlands Gauntlets later, making that weapon shine for quite a while.
• Can drop with rarity, but it is far easier to just farm Morticia.

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Blood Ring

Eventually everyone wants this.

• Ends as a +18 HP fire/ice protection ring with stamina regen.
• Extremely useful for monks and casters alike.
• At rare+, adds +1 Atk/Def bonus (50 AR/DR) per rarity to your Blood Weapon
• While in Bloodlands, adds a damage proc that really helps killing in the Planes.

The main issue is the escort:

• Forest zone packs are very dense.
• It’s recommended to bring 1–2 friends to preserve your sanity.
• Doing it at night (-1 vision on the escort) makes control easier.
• Difficulty is more about escort AI than personal survivability.

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Frog Boots

Originally these were avoided due to jumpkick concerns, but:

• Current testing suggests wearing Boots causes Zhuna, jump to behave as if at pre-19 skill and does not weaken its performance despite 2 hinderance.
• AS LONG AS THIS REMAINS ACCURATE (see MA Ring), these are strongly recommended.

You can farm them where you hunt Frogs:

• With ~1800–1900 DR, you can kill the pond fish and trivialize the fight.
• Add the boss to your rotation:
  • At Rare+ they grant WB and FF, freeing a ring slot.
  • At Legendary and up they also grant Water Walking (This makes farming Water Dragon SO MUCH quicker).

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Bloodlands Gauntlets

This is one of the largest weapon power spikes available until much deeper content.

• Not realistically soloable at this tier unless you are very over-leveled and over-geared.
• Anubis is one of the hardest Bloodlands fights. Expect to need:
  • A group of 3–5 competent players, or
  • A strong carry.

Benefits:

• Lets you hit blueglow, silver, and Bloodlands bosses reliably.
• Allows you to gain benefit from the Blood Ring, and these gauntlets already provide a large amount of DR, making you way tankier.
• Combos extremely well with a decent-rarity Blood Gi.
• Once you have them, start farming Water Dragon for Blood Vials to push them further.

Farming Checklist

• DP's (Keep a stock of 5-10)
  • Underkingdom Drake (Quickest, Easiest)
  • Axe Drake (Easy, but a bit of a run)
  • Leng Drake (Don't attempt until 22-23, quick once farmable though. Don't forget to hit Kosh for a 50% chance at a bonus DP!)
  • Blackburrow Mummy (Drop down from the 2nd from top left most air hex, puts you right at the secret door. Takes 30 seconds to hit)
• Blood Vials from Plane of Water, if you trained SGA or a slashing weapon, check out Blood Vial for other bosses.
  • Even if you don't need these, you will want Blood Vials for Alts
  • Keep an eye out for Arti/Mythic bones for Alts!
• Daggers from Morticia (These combine up to Arti, which is enough for Deathblow!)
• Frog Boots
• Pearls can drop from the Froglok Wizard while grinding frogs. Keep these if you plan to make a caster

PRE-KESH/BG FARMS (23–26)

This level range is going to be a bit of a slog depending on whether you are able to group with people or not. A lot of Peaks is catered to groups rather than an individual (Though you will still have a few options here, but unlocking those options will take a group or a carry).

It's also worth noting there is a lot of interesting Peaks gear. For an MA though, the Blood Gauntlets are so good that for the effort it takes to acquire this gear (Aside from the WW Armor) it isn't really worth it unfortunately, so we will be skipping over a lot of it but I will mention it in the Labs section of XP farming for alts/friends.

XP Farming

Blackburrow Frogs

Difficulty @ level

Easy

Pros:

• Still competetive XP with other areas due to clear speed, especially with Water Walking.
• Heartgems give you the choice between a bit more XP or stocking up on money for training/alts.
• Easy access to Frog Boots boss for future characters/your own use if you haven't gotten Leg+ yet.

Cons:

• Recall rings don’t work anywhere in the zone.
• Easy to get lost; lots of teleporters and a messy layout.
• You need several important defenses:
  • Fire and ice resist are mandatory.
  • Lightning and poison resist are helpful but optional.
  • Insane Gnolls can cast Whirlwind (60–100 damage).
  • Water breathing is required.
• Constant pressure from patrolling mobs.
• Three dangerous lair mobs that you will encounter while hunting:
  • Froglock Knight – Very hard to hit (~1350 AR), self-heals, can double shield-bash for big burst.
    • Drops a gem worth 1.5m or 3m XP at Kyra.
  • Insane Froglock Wizard – Very strange mob, also ~1350 AR. Casts many spells and can shove you into weird map states.
    • Main threat is Ice Spear; it is telegraphed but hits hard.
    • Drops a gem worth 3m or 6m XP at Kyra.
  • Nothon – Drops Frog Gauntlets and can also cast Ice Spear.
• MEOW (cat sound is a good location cue).

How to Get There:

1. Enter Blackburrow Mines and progress toward the Guard Captain.
2. From the mine entrance, go south, then follow the path counterclockwise past the spiders.
3. Take the stairs up near the Guard Captain.
4. Cross the four bridges.
5. Look for a broken wall to the south leading into a grassy area.
6. In this area:
   1. A frog hops around to the northeast.
   2. A rope hangs from a sky tile.
   3. (If you hear a cat meowing, you’re in the right place.)
7. Climb down the rope to enter Frogs.

Recommended Route:

• You should be demolishing this zone at this point. Just run around and murder as quickly as you can. Facet every 10 minutes or so if you have the Opal Ring.

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Labs

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AG Wolves

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WW Town

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Battlegrounds

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If you want other options, the table at the bottom of Stormhalter Lands Progression is an excellent reference. Lapping around hitting your boss/farm targets is also a decent way to pass the XP if you can't stand mindless grinding.

Items to Target

Scorpion Armor

This is the armor version of Blood Gauntlets. This is going to be a massive boost to your DR, even just at common, though aim for Epic at least as you get another 150 DR without too much effort. 200 if you can get to Arti. You will also finally have some additional mitigation that helps a ton in swarms.

If you have been following this guide and gearing suggestions, you can likely solo the fights that drop this. (Though it is possible to die fighting Froggo/Toado during the enrage part of the fight as you can get feared into a very long daze, though this is rare).

• At this point in the guide, soloable with some risk (Scrops are easy, just bring a few sprigs incase, enraged frog has a small chance to chain stun you into death though). Hasn't happened to me yet but it's almost happened to me a few times.
• Requires a portal wand or convincing someone to blow a wall in Gemini Town.

Benefits:

• A ton of DR and mitigation at this point in the game, even at common. (Though epic is easily farmable for another 150 DR and 3-4 mit). This will make you far, far more tanky.
• Does not bind!

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Labs Portal Stone

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Rage Ring

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Hungry Yeti Cloak

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WW Armor

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Thisson Robes

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Greedy Goblin Ring

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Kesh, AG, and the MR Farm (26+, 0-70~ MR)

XP Farming

Don't worry about XP farming during this section. Kesh Gem farming will likely take you deep into the late 20's or even 30ish. You have a ton of items to target and farm.

Items to Target

Kesh Gear & Gems

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Elk Vest

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Panda Skull

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Lucy Ring

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Princess Escort Amulet

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Ryujin MR Gems

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