I just can't understand what's the trouble with your leveling. BTW The starting post is... nothing. Having 14 alts (yes, i tried to play ALL classes possible - i do it in most MMO i play) i must say it ain't no guide. the game is pretty soloable up till lvl 80, MB 84. And the turning point is getting to Pandan Cove and maps with higher level requirements. Everything with level requirement under 78 is pretty easy for any class.
So. My own leveling suggestions (its not a guide - i'm too lazy to write anoher one). I beg your pardon for lots of typos in advance.
1.So, you start at the training grounds. Please complete all the local quests there. It won't give you much experience, but every drop of exp counts. In the later patches the exp you'll gain up till lvl 40 is reduced compared to what it was in the past, so now you better do every quest in every location you go to. Including dailies and wanted quests. I suggest you to star as an Elf sorcerer. I personally found them the easyest to play solo PvE. In my ranking of comfortability the second place is taken by the Sniper and he third one is - Assasin. Sure you may choose any other class - i played them all and found them pretty comfy. The hardest one for me was the prophet due to its low attack.
2. When you get up to lvl 10 it's time to choose your crafting profession. If you are a melee char your only choice is Alchemy. why? As a melee char you'll receive lots and lots of damage, so you'll need really much pots. As an alchemist you can make special pots with doubled effect, and also elixirs that can srengthen your char. Last but not least, you can make upgrde cards with special effects, like +magic/physical damage absorb, +stats, +crit/evasion/hit, + HP/MP, +attack/walking speed. also you can make special upgrades to your weapons. Beleive me, such upgrades will boost your effectivenes to the top. The only drawback of an alchemist is it needs Battlefield Points to get some crucial recepies and materials later on.
If you are a ranged char (phys or mage) - you can take Cooking. Cooking will give you temporary buffs and you an also make some basic materials used in Alchemy and Cardmsering. The drawback of cooking is that it needs tons of resources to get to the next level. Your inventory will always be full of junk used for cooking.
You won't need Cardmastering or Artisan up till lvl 40, where you an take one of them as a secondary crafting skill. It will cost you 3mil to buy the scroll. as a mater fact i suggest you to take all four crafting skills and have a least two alts for it. As at higher levels alchemists use materials made by artisans and the best cards made by cardmasters are untradeable.
3. Your first dungeon - Circus - is soloable at lvl 25. Well at least i completed it for the first time at that level with my first melee char. The general rule for soloing a Normal dungeon is Char lvl =Dungeon lvl +5 for being available to solo it and +10 lvl to do it easily. For Hard Dungeons it's Dungeon lvl +15. Well if you have unique gears of your level upgraded to +5 for nomal and epic+8 for hard. Note, that every dungeon has it's own trick to do it easily. You'll have to figure them out yourself. dungeons are a nice source of money, trophies and equipment sets. And the Wanted quess in dungeons give double medals/badges. Trophies from bosses/elites can be used to purchase equipment from special vendors found in every location from Hidden caver 2F and higher. this equipment is retty good at level range 50-80. From level 85 on you can get some better equipment from dungeons/bosses.
4.Upgrade all your equipment a least to +5. You can decompose junk in Terminus (NPC Barecalf) and get some stones to make "special" upgrade cards i mentioned earlyer as an alchemist. It will take you arounf 12-15 cards to upgrade a piece of equipment to +8, which will double its effectiveness. Getting it higher will either take you 20-30 normal cards or 3-8 Advanced cards. always upgrde your weapon as high as possible. At lvl 85 and higher you'll need special weapon upgrades that will give you +HP or additional attack percentage, as you'll simply lack damage even if you upgrade your weapon to +10. You can get the recepies for those from Tobias the Grand for Tarot Points. You can farm tarot Points by opening a Tarot stall. But i really sugges you to ask someone who can make them to you, since farming tarot points is REALLY hard due to low population on server.
5. Up till lvl 75 quests will be your main source of gold in the game. So i suggest you to complete every available quest (may be except'bad memories" quest in Nighfall shelter - farming the loot to exchange to Panacea gives me a headache). Even in PK locations. Don't worry, most people here are pretty friendly. Well, with some exceptions from a wellknown guild i won't name here. Second best source of gold is farming dungeons. There's also selling tears, which you can get from voting, but i personally don't sell them, as every char needs at least 6k of tears and i have too many alts
Selling resources/moolah is a REALLY good source of gold, but i personally don't do it, since i use them all up myself
6. I personally prefer to kill every elite (Veteran) monster i see. Except some monsters needed for chain quest 75. Elites are a nice source of trophies, upgrade cards, coins and DNA. I wish they were respawning quicker
Note that in general every veteran monster is 10 times stronger then a normal monster. You may also try to kill world bosses, but they respawn really slowly and are pretty hard to kill solo.
7. as Sedy said - offence is the best defence. BUT! Only in case you have high HP drain. Some classes, like Myrmidons or Assasins may have up to 10% HP drain, wich is REALLY good. But assasins dont have offensive AoE skills and myrmidons... well they are Sedy's favourites
Other classes have their own way of surviving, and packing defence cards in B slots ain't so bad for them. Anyway, having gears with HP and MP drain really helps you to survive.
8. Level 85 and Pandan Cove is a gamechanger. From lvl 85 on you won't be able to kill any monster of your level by simple autoattacks even if you have a +10 epic weapon of your level. Also lvl 85+ epic equipment is farmed in really hard dungeons you won't be able to solo for a really long time. Find yourself a guild. Or make your own
Since most players prefer playing a damage dealer class, i found the best to play a healer - there's always a place for a healer in any party
9. magic tower gives a ton of exp and tower tokens can be exchanged for nie things like All stats IV cards. BUT! o complet Normal agic Tower you'll need a least 18k HP for final boss, due to his DoT which takes 2k HP per tick. Hard and Insane Towers are even harder (my chars had 40-50k HP and barely made it). Note, that unlike Normal MT quests, Hard MT quest don't give gold. If yoou're not geared enough, just ignore Magic Tower - you'll get enough exp from dailies.
10, Try to complee every SP quest available. At lvl 100 you'll find out that 232 SP is not enough for everything so you'll want even more (go to battledield to gain more)
By lvl 84 you're able to complete all SP quests for medals/badges/loot and kill Gerry at least 10 times. By simpy doing the dailies in Wood garden hard and Circus hard you can get up to lvl 92 till you kill Thiassi 15 times and to lvl 100 as you kill Radon 20 times. Personally i prefer not to do so as maps from lvl 85 on are a nice place to levelup your guild and ge some recepies you'll need.