Start to end Shadowlands Guide

A quick rundown on what to do in Shadowlands when you just got it.

Remember that this is just a guideline. This will help you level up in Shadowlands. A big thing to remember is that, the level ranges are just approximate. You can be lower or higher unless it is required to enter a certain area of Shadowlands like Sheol is level 90, Adonis is level 130, Penumbra and Inferno are both level 160.

Before we start on what to do, we should get what we need to make exploring easier. I like to use two maps for shadowlands. This is because, one map is good for quickly finding special locations. The other map zooms in to much to make for finding locations quick, but provides more information. I also listed the Rubi-ka map though. No need for CSPmap these days as AoRK is based of CSPmapV1.23, which is no longer updated. So just stick to AoRK ^^

I recommend checking out Installing new maps to get custom maps for AO, which contain a lot more detail then the maps Funcom gives you.

Note: these two sites also give some unofficial maps, I have only ever tried CSPmap, Spheremap, AoRK, AoSL, and AoLX (AoLX is included in AoSL now). This is pretty sufficient for me, but you can try out the other maps

http://de.anarchyonline.wikia.com/wiki/Maps (German, but i think these are still English maps)
http://wiki.aodevs.com/wiki/Maps (English, and English maps)

Now that you have your maps, lets continue. (If you need help installing refer to this guide...) didnt add yet will soon lmao

For more information on these maps, and how to install, refer to this guide... Installing New Maps

First, you get access to loads of new gameplay. A notable improvement is the ability to start two new Professions, Shade and Keeper. Both are Shadowland only professions. I'm not going to be talking a whole lot about the professions here, maybe some other post later on however.

You get a whole new world to enter. There is a Jobe Whompa just west of Old Athens Whompas. Inside this particular area, are three teleporters. The Harbor is to enter Nascense. The Market is to exit to Port 7 of Elysium. The Plaza is to exit to a northern part of Elysium.

Entering Nascense

When you enter The Harbor, you want to go to another Whompa like portal that says "Jobe Research". This will lead you straight into Nascense. Afterwards you want to head North to the big bridge and cross it.

From here, you probably want to travel fast. So fastest way is by the use of "Insignias". Once you cross the bridge, you come up to a bunch of mobs and a few NPCs. You want to focus on killing Barking Chimera. These have a good chance of dropping insignias. There are two types of insignias. You may only use the "Clan" version though. The omni version is not important. Neutrals can use ether, and are allowed to go in both Gardens.

The name's of the insignia you will want is "Insignia of Aban". Insignia of Thrak is omni. After a few kills you should eventually get the insignia you require. You will see a statue on the east side just after you crossed the bridge. There are actually two statues. One for each side. The only is on the west side though. An easy way to determine which statue you actually need is, Omni statues are black, Clan statues are white. It is always like this throughout Shadowlands. You want to click on the Insignia and use it on the statue. From here you will be teleported inside the statue. Running inside the tree to the Blue circle thing will "Save" your character to the garden as if you saved in Rubi-ka. But no fee is required.

Welcome to Nascense!

Where to Level up in Nascense?

There is mainly one spot you will do all your leveling in Nascense until you are ready for Elysium, Two Mountains. Inside the Garden if you look around, you will see a bunch of statues that look similar like the one you clicked to come in. They all have certain names. You want to look for "Passage to Two Mountains". This one spot has all the mobs you need to kill to get from level 20ish to level 80ish. Typically it is a good idea to have a team for these.

Level 20-40:

Croakers will be your first step to improvement. These mobs are about level 25-30. They are social so they will all attack if you attack one in a group of mobs. And they attack on site. You want to kill these until around lvl 40, or if you get a Nascense Hecklers team (Explained below).

Level 40-80:

Nascense Hecklers are your source of getting the hell out of here. And just happens to be some around this same area. These are not something you want to fight alone, they are usually level 80, pack a very hard hit, and plenty of HP. Hecklers are usually the answer to all leveling problems. But they also usually require a team to be very effective. Some can surely solo these but still, best to just stick to a team. You basically level on these until around level 70-80ish

Enter Elysium

There are two ways to enter Elysium from Jobe. Normally you will go to "The Market". You can also enter from "The Plaza". Both have a similiar way to exit to get to Elysium. You must pay the Portal Technician a few to use the portal that sends you to Elysium.

For The Market technician, he only requires you to pay 10k which will then give you a long duration buff that lets you use the portal at will. (You can go back through the portal without having this buff, but to come back to Elysium you would need to pay him again if the buff is not there). This particular area you come out of people call "Port 7".

The Plaza technician will require a fee of 100k. This will send you basically in the middle of no where on the north, eastern side of Elysium. This place is not of significance to really talk about it.

You will want to kill Coral Rafters, Kolaana, Hoathlan, or any of the unredeemed mobs (I'll explain on this later) to get your insignias. If you haven't noticed by now, all insignias do have a different look, but like the statues being "Light" and "Dark", so are the insignias. By this i mean, the Clan Insignia is white/silver while the Omni insignia is dark and black. Now head to the nearest statue (Go north a little bit, then west and keep going west pass the unredeemed mobs. Then head just pass the spiders and you should see it) Use the insignia on the statue and...

Do not forget to save in the Garden =)

Welcome to Elysium!

Where to level in Elysium?

Elysium has two main spots to level at. I will be explaining about Mortiigs (Or just Tiigs) and Elysium Hecklers (similar to Nascense hecklers, except... gulp... STRONGER)

Level 80-110:

Mortiigs are your best bet for now. The Statue to exit from can be a little bit hidden for this though. The statue is called "Passage to Barter". It is down below actually. Just go south of the big tree, go off the little cliff to go down it, then just make a circle around where all the statues are until you find it. Passage of The Scoop is right near it. Just go off that cliff and look to the west. Once you are through go South West of the statue. Follow the mountain until you come to a beach like area. Keep following this beach until you get to soem trees, and usually some people will be standing around this area waiting for teams. Careful of some of the mob aggro. Also recommend this be a team gig since the mortiigs can be very hard at times, and attack on site and are social so you attack one, and all could come running.

Level 110-150:

This is where we come back to Hecklers. Hecklers are our friends, well not really... but they tend to be the best way to level. Also they prepare you for Pandemonium which may seem far off, but when you get there you will be happy for one sole reason, which I will tell you about later So once again we are back to Hecklers. The Elysium Hecklers can be tough. They hit pretty hard, lots of HP as normal, and... sometimes they like to sit on top of each other to make things harder for you. To get here you will follow a similar method to Mortiigs. You will follow the beach until you come to a spot where usually a group of people will stand. It is right near a few spirits. Easy way to get to it is from The Market, you talk to the technician, pay the 10k fee, go down the ramp, keep going until you get the a big ditch. You go down it, follow it upwards. Once you start seeing the water you are at the spot. Just stay on the beach and away from the hecklers. Careful because sometimes these hecklers like to walk around and kill innocent bystanders.

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Now that you manage to get through the easy part, it's time for the more confusing Shadowland Areas. Now before I continue with this I really recommend having the shadowland maps. Links are posted at the top of this post. We will need to go to ergo. Now, at level 90, you are allowed to head to scheol. There isn't much about this place really. It's a place many people hate. You will use this place, basically just to go straight to Adonis so I recommend staying in Elysium until you are level 130 where you can pass the Adonis Ergo. Now you can pass these Ergos before these levels, but he will require you to complete a quest.

Entering Scheol

You want to exit through "Passage to The Divide". You will go Northwest/north and go through a little doorway in the wall. Ergo is always far north of every zone. Scheol itself is a very annoying place. You just want to get passed it soon as possible. So once you are level 140 you go to Ergo in Elysium, talk to him to get your ring (which can be a pretty nice ring too, specially the later ones you get from ergo) and use the ring on the little "Doorknob" looking thing on the portal farther north of Ergo. Once you are in Scheol jump down off the big cliff. You will want to look for Gluarash. The other ones with a similar name to these mobs DO NOT drop insignias, so don't waste your time ^^ Once you get the insignia look on your map for the nearest statue (Should be just south of your location) and use the insignia on it.

Do not forget to save in the Garden =)

Welcome to Scheol!

Where to level up in Scheol?

Scheol is a very bad place to level up. You will not find many teams around this area. I recommend just skipping it if you have followed this guide so far, you should be high enough level to just continue to Adonis and get some real levels. If you do decide to stay though I'd suggest just killing whatever mobs that look good to you.

Entering Adonis

To get to Adonis could be a little tricky from Scheol. First you will want to exit out from the statue "Passage to Halls of Scheol". From here you will want to go East, and stay on the path (do not fall down) until you come up to a bridge that is just before the huge beating heart (Or whatever the hell that thing is). Start to cross it, but before you do, jump down onto the ground below.

From here you want to head a bit more east until you see a ramp with a few Esoteric Hiathlin on it. Try to avoid all the mobs you can to make this quick. I'll warn you now though once you start running your not stopping until you reach ergo, and even after you reach ergo it is smart to keep going passed him for now and hide behind the portal until you lose all mobs. This way you can take them out 1 by 1 and have a better chance at success.

Same deal here, you talk to Ergo. You will get your standard ring (little better then the last one) along with Metawater Repellent Spiritech Suit. This suit is to survive in the Metawater in Adonis. If you do not wear this you will have a constant 500+ damage DoT.

Now you only need to wear this for two areas. The beginning (right after the temple you enter, if you keep going straight you will be put into a bowl of metawater), and the Adonis Abyss. Looking at your map you can see all the watery areas, that big lake you can actually go under from certain portals or from the statue "Passage to Lament Lagoon"

So for now, put that suit on because you will need it for the task of quickly getting an insignia. Unlike before, we won't be randomly killing mobs trying to grab insignias, we will do a quest for it, or at least start it (This is the start of the Adonis Brain quest, reward being a very nice Brain symbiant).

To start this quest, as soon as you go through the Scheol portal and enter Adonis, talk to the Yutto near you (The only NPC). Once you get your mission continue across the bridge to enter the temple. Soon as you enter it, talk to this Yutto standing there infront of you.

He will give you a mission to kill 3 fish. This is actually very simple, the fish are non aggroing (Even though it states they aggro) and aren't social, they do not attack unless you do. An important thing to watch out for are the Dust Parasites though. These are level 180 mobs and can hurt tremendously. Equivalent to soloing 2 hecklers or so.

So continue to kill three of these Stinger Fish. Once you have all three killed, you should get Fish Treats spawned in your inventory. Simply head back to the Yutto inside the temple, chat with him and hand him the treats. He will give you a quest update (Just leave it go for now) and a Clan and Omni insignia. Now you only need the Clan insignia for now, but maybe you will find use for the Omni Insignia, up to you if you want to keep it.

Now instead of going back through the Metawater, we will head the other way inside that temple. So instead of going straight, make a right and quickly continue through that path just skipping the spirits (But be careful, that can put a DoT on you that may kill you once you exit the building) until you reach the exit. From here, just go down the stairs and looking for the statue at the end of them.

Also be careful outside here, if you were hurt by the spirits make sure you heal up because there is a nasty dog around this area that kills very very hard. DO NOT attack him because if you kill him, he will spawn many many adds and surely punish you. So have the insignia ready to be clicked on the statue and run to it and enter the Garden.

Don't forget to save in the Garden =)

Welcome to Adonis!

Where to level up in Adonis?

Level 140-200:

We will, once again, be visiting our friends, the Hecklers! Adonis Hecklers have ALOT more HP then the average heckler, and they hit very very hard. They are level 210. You will most likely need a pretty good team to take these on, but don't let that stop you. There are usually quite a few teams running around Adonis hecklers, maybe you can get in one.

To get to these hecklers, you will exit the statue "Passage to The Outmost Yard" From here, you have 2 spots to go to (1 is just north of the other) People refer the three by names. T

hese names are, Main, NS (I like to think of it as North South), and NN (North North) I'm not 100% sure if they really stand for North south and North North but thats just what I came up with to remember the differences.

To get to Main you have to head directly south from the temple. Do not fall in the water. Stay near the temple and keep following the Temples' walls until you come to the end of the tree line. This is the waiting spot for teams. Sometimes you will see people sitting here waiting. I wouldn't recommend going down to the edge by yourself as these hecklers are really hard to solo pre 200.

To get to NS, instead of going south of the statue, go north, into the water. Don't worry you don't need your suit unless you are going under the water. If you look out before you jump down, you will see a sort of, peninsula looking area. You will swim towards that as you can't get onto land before that. Once you get there, attempt to get up on land. Once you do head southeast/east following the path.

When you get just before the edge of the area, do not go any farther, stay on top of the hill. For NS just follow the parth a little bit south until you get to a broken up tree. This is the chill spot for teams.

NN is exactly like NS, except instead of going south at the end of the path, just head north. It's hard to determine where the split is between NN and NS, but usually people determine that but the mountain lines (No not Lions). You just take a look at the mountain to the west, and sort of eye ball a line coming down to the hecklers.

Entering Penumbra

To get to Penumbra, you must first head through Adonis's Abitch (ehem, Abyss). You get a nice runspeed debuff while in the Abyss, as well as a 500ish point DoT if you don't wear your Metawater suit. You want to try and sneak your way to the cave at the end, which is filled with Blorgs. Once your at this area you should be safe.

It can be quite hard to get here without knowing the area though. I Suggest looking at the map, and following the path that leads towards Ergo. Once you are at Ergo, talk to him, get your ring, and you glasses. Remember to be careful of the mobs, reason I say this is because with a -800 RS debuff, your chances of running from a mob are hindered, and sometimes the mobs can overwhelm you.

You must wear the glasses at all times unlike Adonis. Unless you are inside somewhere you will always be affected by a 800ish point DoT without the glasses. But you don't need to worry about any runspeed debuffs.

When you get to Penumbra, and are wearing your glasses, head straight and go up the ramp. As I mentioned before, this place can be tricky. It's all bright which makes it very hard to see and hence, increasing you chance of going right over the edge without realizing it. So careful go up the ramp, and go to the right (East) side of the map.

Head towards the statue (Look on your map) that is at/near The Ravine. There are usually stray mobs around here which can be picked off without having all the mobs around them coming after you. Keep this up until you get an Insignia of Cama and enter the Garden.

Don't forget to save in the Garden =)

Welcome to Penumbra!

Where to level up in Penumbra?

Before I go into this, there is one thing that is actually very effective leveling in Penumbra. The only problem is, it usually lacks the amount of people willing to do what we call, Pen missions.

These are missions similar to Inferno. However it's in Penumbra. You talk to Essence Hunter which is just north of the statues inside the garden. He will give you missions based on your level, and which difficulty you pick.

Level 160-210

There are pretty much, only three places to level up at. Pen missions, regular mobs, or Penumbra Hecklers.

Penumbra missions you can start inside the Garden (Mentioned just above). They are usually made for teams however, and not many people come to Penumbra to do missions ether. These are similar to Inferno missions. One thing I didn't mention though was that these missions are based on your faction, so all your team members must be Clan or Neutral (Or Omni and Neutral if you are an Omlet).

You can find regular mobs all around Penumbra, They are usually around level 170-180. They give a decent amount of experience and usually soloable.

Hecklers are a beast. This is when Hecklers actually don't improve that much anymore though. Their HP bars still significantly raise though. But there damage is about at it's peek. They do still hit very hard however, and taking longer to kill, this probably isn't soloable.

NOTE: For the most part however you won't be leveling up around Penumbra. Once you are level to enter Penumbra (Level 160) you are already able to access Inferno, which is the optimal leveling area until level 220. You will most likely not get a team for inferno at 160-190, however if you do get a team, specially at level 160, you will sky rocket in levels. So Adonis is the usual area to level up until around 190-200, then you have a better chance of getting into Inferno missions.

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All the previous SL areas are just to prepare you for this final moment. Inferno is one of the most active places in terms of leveling up. This is where you will finish your leveling session until you are 220. Now you don't HAVE to level to 220 using Inferno missions, however it is surely the best way, no doubt about that.

Besides just inferno, I will talk about Pandemonium. Pande is a bit different then the others. I will explain these differences when I get there. But Pandemonium is not a leveling type area, it is for phatz, and loot that you will want/need in the end. A very tricky but impressive place to be. Flying rocks hitting you in the face, oh... what a site.

Entering Inferno

Entering Inferno is the same deal like all the others. You must be level 160 to avoid doing the quest to get here. It is the ultimate leveling area in the game. It is a great place to go site seeing as well however, if you can avoid the dangers of high level mobs that are extremely dangerous.

The first step to Entering inferno is getting a Molar from the Ice Golem, which is spawned using the Pocketboss theory. There are two Incarnators in Penumbra. One on the East side, one on the West side. Usually the Ice Golem is spawned on the east side but not always.

Usually people will spawn this PB, then just let the rest FFA and post a neutnet message stating they are free. But in some cases they will also sell them for 5-10m each (Considering they probably spent 30m on the pattern and stuff to make it, as well as kill it, this is a fair deal). Your best bet is to make sure you are signed up for Neutnet, more info on Neutnet here... Neutnet

One you have the Molar, you are ready to head to Inferno! But wait! before you go, and get yourself killed by the nasty 2k DoT, you must buy Inferno Boots first. Once again best bet on buying these boots is by using the Neutnet system, and posting that you want to buy these boots. Usually these cost about 25m. They are also unique so you can only have one pair per character.

So once you have the Molar, and the Inferno boots (Lava Protection Boots and Skin Galvanizer is the exact name), you can now head to Inferno. Fastest travel is ether using the Pen sanctuary key and going through the Passage to Path to Fire. If you don't have the Pen sanc key, then go through the Yuttos Wasteland statue.

Head north east from this statue, make sure you do not repeatedly fall into the big canyon where a Yutto resides at. If you do fall you have to head west, come out of the ditch, and head east again until you get to the sheet of ice. Ether jump down off to the east side (Beware there are some mobs around this area), or follow onto the sheet north/north east and stay on the east side of it and jump down. This will allow you to avoid all mobs in most cases, and will just miss the ditch again.

You will keep going north, but staying to the east side as much as possible so avoid missing the exit. You will eventually come across the zoning barrier. When you get to the other side of the zone, stay as north as possible until finally, you come to Ergos' cave. Talk to Ergo, give him the Molar, he will return to you your new ring. Use this ring on the portal and you are now in inferno (DO NOT FORGET TO WEAR THE BOOTS).

When you enter inferno, it is truly a beautiful but fiery place to be. It's got a nice glow to it though. It is very easy to get lost in inferno. And to get Insignias can be a whole other story. But it is usually quite soloable since the mobs we will kill for insignia are soloable, but usually have lots of other mobs around them so be very cautious.

Now to get to this place, we have to head to the "Jump Off". This is sort of like when you first entered Scheol, and jumped off the clift. But a lot higher. So now that you are in inferno, lets begin.

head north go passed the Yuttos and try to stay on the ledge and as far left as possible near the rocks to avoid getting aggro. Keep following this path until you see a ramp. You want to keep staying as far left (West) as possible and go up this ramp. You should be free of any mobs now. Continue up this ramp.

You will come to a very narrow bridge like thing. Cross this, and be careful not to fall or you will probably die by the mobs. Continue straight until you see another ramp. You want to go up this ramp, being careful not to fall into the lava. Also watch the invisible wall just before getting on the ramp.

Once you are onto of this ramp continue until you are on the circular platform at the very top. By looking down, you can see how much this Jump Off really is. Do not just jump off however, or you will probably find yourself stuck, or on the ramp and having to head all the way back up. Jump as far as you can to avoid this little bug.

When you jump off, try to be careful where you land because there are Coal Lizards that don't drop anything useful, so you want to just avoid them. Continue north just a bit. until you are passed the lava, but stay before the mini volcano looking things. Pass this you will not get very few of the mobs you need.

Now looking at your map you should be just a little bit South East of the statue in Sorrow. You want to kill any of the "Somphos" mobs. They are the red/blackish mobs. These have a high drop rate of Insignias. Keep killing them until you have the right Insignia to continue.

Now look on your map, you should see a little canyon entrance to Sorrow. Just stay near the left (West) near the wall until you come to this opening. This canyon is filled with mobs, so you must run for your dear life.

The best strategy is to continue heading west once you are through the canyon, you can then jump over the white walls and will help mess up or lose aggro. Then you can head north and continue until you find the statue in this area. Use the Insignia on it and enter the garden

Don't for get to save in the Garden! =)

Welcome to Inferno!

Where to level in Inferno?

This is the last stop for you to level up. You generally will gain your last few levels here and be done with getting to 220. This is all done by Inferno missions. There are no mob hunting grounds here. However if you really want, you can do Inferno Hecklers, but it would not be worth it.

Level 190-220

Inferno missions. The very missions that gradually gets you to 220. You will have to do a lot of these missions to finally complete your goal of becoming 220, but it is surely worth it. It is best to equip all the Experience buffing equipment you have, but do not sacrifice your damage. The quicker you finish the more experience you gain.

Inferno missions are started just like they are in Penumbra. However there is usually a lot more activity. You talk to the Essence Hunter that is just north of the statues inside the garden. You can pick from easy to hard missions. Usually you will not roll unless you are level 220 though.

Why do level 220's roll Inferno missions? Research. You might think getting to level 220 is the hard part, but trust me, it is not. There are so many more things to do after getting to 220 that will occupy you for the next few months.

So in most cases, you will not be rolling missions. You will let the 220 do all the work. Once you are 220, I'm sure you are wondering what to do now. Well there is a lot more to do. I will explain the last zone in Shadowlands, Pandemonium.

Entering Pandemonium

To enter Pandemonium, you will need several things. You will need Faction of the Guardian to be at least 30k. This may be confusing. I'll explain in a bit. You will need the Pure Novictum Ring for the ___ Unit. and Hell Hold at Bay (HHAB) which is buyable like inferno boots. I'll explain how to acquire all this.

Faction of the Guardian - 30000

This is actually fairly simple. Once you are of level to get teams in Pandemonium, you can most likely do this by yourself. You will have to kill hecklers. Now hopefully you followed this guide with all the Hecklers. One thing people might say is "Heckler Noob" but they are just retarded because if you don't do hecklers, your going to have one hell of a time trying to get the 30k Faction needed to pass this portal.

You must kill hecklers near your level. This means no greys. You can start by killing Adonis hecklers, however you might've already worn them out. So you may or may not receive any or little Faction. If this is the case, next best option is Penumbra. Usually this will last until you get the 30k faction. If it does not... then sadly, you will have to continue to Inferno Hecklers.

If you do not finally get 30k faction from Inferno Hecklers, then you have done something terribly wrong and I have no clue what could help. I am sure there are more "Brink" mobs out there, but I do not know where or which mobs to kill to continue getting faction needed.

Getting the Pure Novictum Ring for the ___ Unit

This is fairly simple. However it will probably require some help depending on your profession and solo ability. Each "Cave" has a boss at the end. This boss in Inferno is called "Archanis". He will drop these rings which you can use for the portal.

One thing to note is, you DO NOT need the specific ring for your profession to use it on the portal. But, you cannot wear this ring unless it is, so you cannot get the awesome boosts it provides. Just remember you don't need that specific ring to enter Pandemonium though.

Getting Hell Hold at Bay (HHAB)

This shouldn't be to much of a biggy for most. It will cost you some credits but it is well worth it. HHABs cost about 40-55m. They are Unique so you can only have one on each character. They are needed to avoid the constant 3k DoT you get in Pandemonium.

Once you are inside Pandemonium, do not worry about getting insignias. the only thing you need to do is right click the statue and you are inside the garden! There is nothing special here except the ability to buy some very important but expensive nanos.

Welcome to Pandemonium!

What to do in Pandemonium?

Well, there is no use for leveling in Pandemonium. Everything you do is Raid related which you cannot gain any experience from doing. The only possible thing i can think of, which is certainly not worth the time and effort, is grabbing a Doja chip off the mobs corpses which will give you a good amount of Experience (Or SK). So what is the point then?

There are two instances inside Pandemonium. There is also the old fashion Pandemonium raids, but they hard run these days. It's also just about the same as the Ipande (Instanced version of Pandemonium) except you don't go through the portal.

Instead of going through the portal to enter the Old Pande, you go down the ramp, and kill the two Hisli's and the Zodiac. This will open a portal to the next area of Pandemonium.

The next two Instances are the prime use of Pandemonium. I will explain a little bit about each. I do not want to get to far into it however. They are great learning experiences.

Instance Pandemonium

This particular instance is just like the old Pandemonium, however instead of a wait time of about 9 hours, for the entire game. Only your raid gets a lockout time of 5 hours for the instance, and 9 hours for the beast lair. This way it does not effect everyone in the game.

Once you are ready to start the raid, and the team is ready, your raid leader will point you to the raidbot that will be used. He will tell you to type /tell !join in most cases. There will also be assist commands given out before you start. What these are used for is to make sure everyone is attacking the right mobs. There is a particular order to remember.

Pink > Blue > Red > Black (sometimes referred as spider)

There are only 4 mobs in Pandemonium. They are all color coded to make spotting them a lot easier. I want to point this out because sometimes the assisters are new and do not know the order. It is very important that YOU follow this order if he does not. If he attacks a Blue while a Pink is around, kill the Pink. Red and Black are the ones that don't matter quite as much, but I'll explain what these mobs do, then maybe you will understand why there is an importance in order.

Pinks have an incredible Complete heal. It's like a 1 million HP heal. Basically compeletly heals just about any mobs/bosses with one shot. They are important to kill first because they can just reheal what ever mobs you are attacking and make it as if your fighting a force twice as big.

Blues are very deadly because they hit just about as hard as Reds, but they also do an CH (Complete heal) block on the tank of the raid. This is EXTEREMLY dangerous because at times, the tank relies on the ability to get completely healed of all his damage. It is important because a tank has about 70k HP. The doctors normally use their 10k(ish) heals to heal the damage. But when the tank comes down to his last bubble an ICH can repair all the damage which can be a life saver.

Reds just hit hard as hell. They may hit hard but they don't do anything besides damage. But they also have an Enlarged HP bar compared to others.

Blacks (Or spiders) are really weak. Their only big attack is their AoE nukes which usually causes about 1-2k damage to the raid force, easily replenished by heal deltas so spiders are dead last on the list, because they are hardly a threat.

Now that you have the reasons why this order is important, you can continue onto the raid. Always follow the assister unless he isn't assisting right. If this is the case, let the raid force know that he is not assisting right, and they he ether needs to follow the order or change assisters. This can seriously mean the end of a raid force if they are not assisting right.

Once all that is setup, you will then enter the portal CLOSEST to the ramp. You must be in a raid before you can go through. The raidleader will set this up. Remember to join the raidbot as everything will be rolled there, and you don't want to lose out on some phatz.

When you enter, you will follow the path north/northeast until you come to your first Zodiac. Do not engage and stay on the walls until the raid force is ready and lets you know when to attack. You best bet of getting here is by running on the walls until you come to the group
You will stay north/northeast up to the next wall that is in your path. If you are confused on where to go, ask if someone can guide you through the area. It can be confusing the first time.

Now that you are with the raid force, Just listen to the raid leaders and have fun. GL on your phatz! =)

The Collector

You may be wonder what the other portal farthest from the ramp is for. This is the new instance The Collector. This requires a very well team, and cooperation. It is not a raid like ipande, so you do technically get experience from this, but it is not much. This also means that you are limited to 6 people in the team.

If you have no idea what you are doing, it is a good idea to listen to the members of the team. Usually this is done with experienced members, however people new to the instance still need to learn so there are exceptions if the team thinks they are good enough to risk it. Always ask questions if you are confused. This is one of the hardest team instanced in the game. But very fun and rewarding at times.