What I always like to do is getting my char's up to level 255 within a couple of hours..

"Whut was that ?!?..a couple of hours ??..UR NUTS !!!.."

Nope..really not..

Ever heard of cuisinarts ?
No ?..well then you haven't played the game very well..
Those give a whopping lot of exp..like XX million per char..it's millions..
But..they are really hard to defeat..

"So..what's the plan Stan ??"

Well..you gotta do everything in hyped form first..

Going through the arena's..

Always use strength pots, and Hp pots and stuff like that, then finish a battle you could NEVER have won otherwise..
In which case ur exp growth is tremendous..
Then when finishing each arena's exp grinding..which starts with a battle that'll take everything out of ur party, down to keeping the left key held down to get to the next battle quickly and CTRL+A-ing through it..
(yes..once you stock up on tickets first..)
then go through each Arena like that until you can do Black tickets at the black arena..
The speed with which you reach that level is kinda up to you..more risk, greater speed..

FYI: I use a custom party with all the same stats 255 in all, except for HP and SP..those start with 20 each..I love that first level upgrade..

Anyways..why ?..well it's how I first played MM2..
Although I didn't have all-stat-255 chars back then..
But getting to level 255 was kinda like "YOU HAVE BECOME ALMIGHTY !! NOTHING CAN STOP YOU NOW !!"

But since I have many other games to play as well, I prefer to keep the MM2 sessions to a single night..instead of weeks..

So..here's a simple map to where the cuisinarts are..but don't forget..the game is sensitive to directions..
(some stuff doesn't show when ur not facing in the correct direction..I'm unsure if that is true with those guys..)
Also..if you need an editor for the custom party..I can help you with that..
(It's in Qbasic..so..SIMPLE..)

My personal best is around 3 hours..

(Have fun..)

Here's a copy of my roster.dat..

If you wanna use it..MAKE ACOPY OF UR OWN ROSTER.DAT FIRST !!
Then AFTER you copied ur own ROSTER.DAT..put this one over the one that's already there..

Now you can play MM2 like a PRO..given you can do the level 255 in 3 hours..

TIPS: Use pots, brawl in the tavern for gold and gems, and spend on good equips..(rings mostly..)
(when you use a HP pot, you can heal with herbs and herbalpatches..)

Also..don't try going there unless you have Implosion (Spell Sorceror 9-1)..
You need to do at least that much damage..when two frenzy..ur toast..

Cuisinarts? You don't even need to attack them to win!

Get enough healing spells and healing items (like Herbal Patches, which are multi-use) and let the enemies kill themselves!

Isn't it easier to just hex edit your characters?

His way is a more legit way. :)

<spoilers follow>
If my memory serves me, I always did green tickets to get a few levels, do the first few dungeon quests, then hit up the dancing sword guy in those same mountains. I sneak my way to the 255 pool in the desert and then face him. So long as you can keep 1 guy alive to keep everyone else alive, you can make it.

Then I sneak my way to the 255 pool in the desert again and jump my way through the dragon cave and face the ancient dragon and then nab the free 1000 permanent HP.

After that, I go finish quests, have fun, screw around and finally finish my fairview quests, do a bit of time and plane traveling and voila! Outer space baby!

It only took me 15 years (started when I was 11, finished when I was 26). Heck of a game. ;)

It's not about being L255..
It's about getting there the fastest way possible..

And since I like a generic game, I mak ethe chars into all stat 255's..

(except for HP and SP)

The rest is up to playing..

And it''s fun that way..at least I think so..

Making that first black ticket work...And the first time powering up the HP and so on for the first cuisinart kill..

..funn..

Note:I added roster.jpg...that's not a picture..rename it into roster.dat and you can ur own set of superheros running around MM2,
in search of great exp..

nvm..

That doesn't work..

BTW..I didn't know there was a dragon that gave 1000HP..

I've been going after the Cuisinarts for 25 years, but not right away. I work my way up by pounding on the Jouster a few dozen times first. Then I'll go to the various fountains that temporarily boost your stats, and go visit the Cuisinarts. You lose a character or four the first few times, but the survivors soon become gods among men.

The bigger problem with leveling up that high comes from the game trying to balance random encounters to suit you. Once you reach a certain level, EVERY single non-fixed encounter is against 260 enemies, and you're stuck holding CTRL-A for hours just to get by. The final level, where there's an encounter at every step? You'll be there for days! Now when I do the occasional play-through, I rarely go past level 60, occasionally up to 80. It's just not worth it otherwise.

Yup, MM2 has an in-built anti-grind system.
I never could understand what is so fun about making overpowered characters. Defeating a group of Orc Gods with normal characters is a much bigger achievement than defeating those Cuisianarts anyway.

This is one of the reasons why I could never get into MM 2. But I am not a big fan of any level scaling methods in general. It is more about spoiling the best parts of MM games, which are about steady character progression. It is big part of the fun to get characters that much powerful by normal mans and not by cheats. By using these cheats people are robbing themselves of the full enjoyment of the game. Starting as nobodies who could die from Cripple (no pun, MM 2's weakest mob) and ending as gods, capable of doing Armageddon several times a day and one-hitting formerly endgame bosses en masse (pointing at Dungeon of Death in WoX) - fun is in getting there by yourself and not through cheats.

Also Cuisinarts are fine. There was that one well in Might and Magic VII, which is much more "game-breaking". When I discovered it, I wanted to use all its charges. To my amusement, it had infinite charges, and my jaws dropped when I saw what has become with my characters. Those who played MM 7, they know what well I am talking about.

Nu-uh...when you get tired of grinding those large groups, simply go inconspicuous again..
Besides...if ur having a fast computer (you don't need DOS-BOX to run mm2..or at least I don't..) holding down ctrl+A makes them
all go away in like 5 secs tops..if ur outside and you have a starbow..(copy it a couple times)..simply let the stars do the work..

If the starbow runs out of charges copy it back from the original again..

Yes...

and..

NO !....

Isn't it easier to not play games ?

Ofc you can hex edit ur character to level 255..
But then hwhat ?..Sayig !YAY! I won ?

Nah..255 to the stats only, would make you rise fast, but not without the risk of still dying trying to leapfrog over something you can't leapfrog..
Getting to L255 is the point....
I usually go through all the arena's, to get more and more exp the longer in....
But..you'll meet some stuff that you simply can't take yet..
And dying means you lose...
It's an alternate way to play the game...

- like the grumpy cat avi btw.. umm...you are using VM ware ? or something like that ?
You don't need VM ware to play mm2..try it...
I swat flies like 160+ groups in under 10 secs....
Not everything is written in non-compatible ways..