I mentioned in my post about starting a new character that a new character should have a supply of two sets of clothes. First of all your new character is going to need a set of high Hit Point clothes. As RedCross pointed out in the comments section, you can use these to grind away against orange mobs up to the OC levels. No one wants to spend more time than necessary on these levels with a new character, so get the good stuff in storage ahead of time.

There is another side to your attack and defense skills, and both Meditation and Steps play a part in this. Both skills greatly improve your attack/defence stats and you can develop them very quickly if you have the VE Recovery clothes, or maybe just a couple of the pocket stuffers that also provide VE Recovery.

These items work when you are in Peace mode just like you regain Hit Points while in Peace mode. If you have VE Recovery items? You will recover VE too just by staying in Peace mode.

So why is that important? Because you can only open a stand "in Peace mode", and you can keep the meditation and steps buff on while you have a stand open. Normally the medi and steps buffs would consume your VE until you have none left, and then skill no longer increases. The VE recovery stuff can feed your VE faster than these two buffs can consume it.

Try it for youself.

- put on a set of VE recovery clothes
- go to peace mode
- turn medi and steps on
- setup a stand
- check your VE level every few minutes

I know for a fact that VE will actually increase over time, rather than decrease.

You can reach C10 of both Clan Meditation and Steps in a very short time just by wearing the right clothes. Practically speaking, overnight while you're selling stuff anyway. The best part is, this works for Advanced Medi and Steps too, but those two take slightly longer. Two nights of selling, instead one night.

Ok, you'll have to grind with your main for a couple of days and I know you would love to be working with the new one. I really suggest you take the time for this. Develop your meditation and steps skills in advance. This is why I suggested that you have the Advanced Tomes in storage for your new character.

If you develop these skills at a low level, your new character will really rock the casbah when you put those HP clothes back on, and you go grinding.

- SpearDriver