My wife took my 105 mage, decided it was a perfect match to play with her cleric (and if she is excited, I fully support her). This leaves me short a mage, so I minted a heroic mage to replace the lost character. I am trying to level up the mage as quickly as possible to get it caught up with my other 105 characters. What used to be simple in the past has turned into more of a challenge now. HAs in CotF give considerably less experience than the used to since lesson of devoted and potions are worthless. Powering through pre CotF zones again give less experience than pre TDS. Figured I'd try some HAs in TDS, "doesn't meet the requirements" issue. I'll get the mage leveled up, but now its a game of gimmicking the player out of group or waiting on daily lockouts. In efforts to slow down the end game, the 85-100 players have gotten hammered as well, especially when there are significant penalties with interactions of sub 100 and 105 player grouping. Again, I'll get my new mage up, but I'm a crazy player that has multiple accounts of players that can assist and tons of in game friends. Players that don't have those resources are going to really struggle. Ruven
The fastest route, though probably not as exciting, is simply to do to the Ethermere 'daily' quests from Guard harmarn or whatever his name is. They give a ton of xp.
Find a SK and have him/her/it swarm you up to ~ 95-100 in VOA zones then proceed to run HA's though the daily's as silku said. Additionally since you have access to so many char's i would recommend mole swarming as above in the HA "working overtime" though this is really only better exp if you have ~6 others requesting and checking for the proper step and even then could be slower due to RNG.
Wait 22 days and do last years anniversary content. A few of the 15th anniversary missions were good exp.
With the exp nerf's track record so far, I'm going with the option that breaks as many things as possible.
The reduced XP only applies to level 101+. As long as your mage still hasn't dinged 101, you have nothing to worry about.
Which WOULD be the case if you didnt need to group to gain exp. If you group with a 101 plus, an 85 can do nothing in TDS, there is very little to do in cotf, and anything pre cotf the level 85 gets no exp in a group with a 101+. Point being if you dont have a handfull of 100 and under players you are going to have a very very hard time leveling.
That was the case when TDS first launched, but it was identified as a bug and fixed a couple weeks later. A level 85 grouped with a 101+ now receives normal XP in pre-CotF zones.
This was posted this saturday on the "exp nerf" topic here in the veterans forums.-------- Barton said: ↑ “Shadva Del`Shai said: ↑ “5. Please undo the xp nerfs for RoF and below because it's messed up xp not only for the folks 101+, but the people they group with that are 100 and below.”Jchan: "We're heavily considering easing back on these or removing them for 101+ people. For the people 100 and below that group with the 101+ people their experience gain is not different than if they grouped with a 100 (except for the con color of the NPC). Originally there was a bug that caused the whole group to get reduced, but we fixed that last year after we found the issue. An official decision hasn't been made as to what's happening, but I expect that'll happen and be posted soon." from this thread https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/quick-update-for-eq.217752/page-27 so may want to give it a little more time” "Jchan is wrong on the 'we fixed that' part of the pre-100 grouping with the post 100. I just spent 10 hours in east sepulcher killing with a level 89 in the group. She was at 90% when we started. at 1% into level when we finished. 10 hours of constant killing reds to her yielded 10% of a level... I think the problem might be that the devs are testing with full bars of vitality instead of empty ones, maybe?" I have also experienced this same issue just this week with my level 100s. I invited a 105 into group to who needed hunter updates while i was doing back tasks from a 1 year lay off. I was getting 1 aa per 7 or 8 kills before with 5 level 100s in group so around 13-14% per kill. When the level 105 joined in it took over 90 kills to get an AA point killing the exact same mobs. So clearly there was 0 incentive to group the level 105 player other than being nice. Besides the nice conversation it was a complete waste of my play period. If this was a fixed bug, this shouldnt have happend. The quote from the other player above is one of dozens on this same topic in recent days, not weeks. Its still quite alive and a serious problem. I guarantee ya I would have bought TDS on my accounts so I could level to 101 and get new pets. I only need 1 kill on my toons to get newer stronger pets. That is a lot of incentive for me to buy the expansion and I would love to do it. However, the FACT that I wont be able to group with my other non 101 characters means my new pets arent worth losing the ability to exp with my lower toons or other.
You do realize that AA is based off of the /con of the mob vs. the highest level character in the group don't you? If they completely reversed all the XP changes you'd still get really really bad AA XP when grouped with someone 5 levels higher than you are.
NOT TO THIS EXTENT and let me give a great example-------------------My level 100 bard in RoF eastern waste zone with level 92 monk. That is 8 levels different. Mobs are dark blue to my bard and red to my monk. Every 3 kills my monk gets 1% normal exp and occasionally gets 2% per 3 kills so im guessing its like .38% per kill or so. My bard gets 13-15% aa per kill. Add a level 105 to the group. Only 5 levels higher than my bard. It literally takes 50 to 70 mobs to get 1aa on the bard and moving the monks experience bar at all is basically impossible. If I remove the monk, my bards aa xp % stays the exact same. What this means to me is the 101+ xp penalty applies to everyone in group. Its not just the con of mobs and the higher levels in group. Its xp nerf. If a toon 8 LEVELS lower than my 100 toon is getting awesome xp, then a toon 5 levels lower shouldnt get completely waxed. Will my level 100 get better xp grouped with a 105 if the mobs are red? Yep, but only because you have to go to tds to find them where the nerf doesnt exist.
Meant to add to this. If all the mobs are dark blue to my highest character in group then i dont expect any more than dark blue exp for my level 92 character. Should I expect the same exp for my level 100 if the mobs are dark blue to a 105? My point is this isnt happening outside of cotf and tds. So there is a massive issue with level 99 and lower players grouping with 101 and over. A level 99 and under cant use gear from cotf or tds as its all 100 required. This means they are so undergeared for these expansions that they offer almost no help and most likely are major liabilities in a group with higher levels. If they go back to rof or earlier, the 99 and under gets no exp for having a higher in the group. Its a very sharp edge that completely splits players into groups. You are either 101+ in tds and cotf, or you are 99 and under having a hard time getting there with the majority of the player base on the other side of that sharp edge.
I can't speak to the experience penalty since I haven't bought TDS. But you could possibly use RoF progression (partisan and mercenary rewards) to level your 85 mage, unless level 90 is required to request the tasks, of course. If you can drag the mage through progression quickly, maybe it would take a couple of weeks to level him/her? P.S. I got a chuckle out of your wife stealing your character.
I have tested the changes and if you have a char <101 with 100% set to regular xp, grouped with a 105 you gain regularly now. If you put any to AA it messes it up. I did this test in RoF zones and CoTF static zones. You can very easily find a place to head shot with the ranger and if the mage is 100% regular xp will fly up. I feel ya on the mage too, I have leveled a bard, cleric and now wizard for my wife as she has grown old of her paladin, so i have had to make that journey a couple times now.
Do Franklin Teek dailies - slow down after ~95. Heroic adventure dailies - really good as long as you don't get terrible instances. Heroic adventures - start to slow down by 95. RoF progression/partisan - huge regular experience rewards that become worthless at 101. I'd wait till heroic adventures slow down and start mixing these around 95-100. Being grouped with someone killing brother's island was also pretty good exp in the 90s.
