If you kill the two golems heading south, you can double invis the rest of the way there. As a mage, you can then CotH everyone else.
Double invis can work... if you kill the golems (or get lucky and run past them). But there are still a few see invis in the big room you need to run through.
Getting there as a Mage even with double is reliant on spawn luck (if devourers or oozes end up spawning at a choke point) and how good you are a ninja’ing past the see invis. If you bypass the first two golems, quite often you can make it quite a way there without aggro anyways. Or...I went and farmed my sheetmage a DA clicky from bloodmoon, so can just click that and make the run before da fades. Once the train dissipates on the other side you can zone back out to coth everyone else.
On occasion, there will be a devourer mob that will see invis. It is quite rare before the ST entrance though. However, if you have a bard or cleric in group, you can just get a selo's and divine barrier and book it to the zoneline, zone, back out and coth! It also helps build your reputation if any groups are slaying in your path and you train them.
I have one of those DA clickies somewhere, I will use it next time. Awesome suggestion! It's these sorts of little things that one forgets after years away, and I appreciate the reminder. I'll take all I can get right now. I also noticed that several of my old hotkeys no longer work, and now I'm going to go absolutely mad trying to figure out what they were. One I know was my mount--I can click it from the keyring, but I'm certain I had a hotkey for it before but it's definitely "red" now. And Perfected Lev wouldn't work. And the UI on my chanter is fubared. Oh the joys of EQ!
Bards can double invis their group. Which is super awesome to travel through HS once you get past those first two golems...
So, I am going to assume since your not 'lazy' you merely do not use invis or IVU at all and kill every mob in every zone otw to your destination? Ideally, you would be better off killing mobs in the better exp zone. So, if you can bypass the killing part, you can get there faster and get better exp killing in Tomb. Maximizing your efficiency is key tbh.
I kill things. Not the most efficient way, but I trade time getting to zone for time (maybe) spent recovering.
What I don't think anyone appreciates is that I'm level 105 with gear. I died several times last night in Lceanium, so. Killing everything in my way isn't ideal at this point because I'm just not strong enough. Trust me, I'm not lazy or stupid, I'm just way behind where I need to be. And sure, there are probably incredible players who could run circles around me in the same gear. Maybe one day I can reach that status, but as a noob returning player, I'm not even remotely close. I think leveling up and improving my gear whilst remembering how to play is my best bet at this point... not worrying about killing mobs in my way to where I'm trying to be.
Don't play a mage so can't detail all the changes that were made but can tell you this ... several AA's were consolidated and as a result some no longer exist. -Potion belt was eliminated and another hot bar added. -Use item command is now the name of the item OR it's location in inventory. Probably a dozen other little things that have changed slightly that may affect you. It will take a little while to knock off the rust and "relearn" how to play, plus learn what is new. OH don't forget to check on your house, anchors, bind location(s). Sathir's may be a great xp spot to go to with friends but at this stage i think you want somewhere a little easier to access and less deadly if you make a mistake. Sarnak forts in Frontier Mountains if you have ability to split pull or CC. Or the perma camped Bi Faak ? camp by entrance to Droga might be more your speed. In both EoK and RoS the "entry level" zones (Lceanium, Overthere) actually had higher mob difficulty than some of the later zones (depending on mob type, location).
Thanks for the fabulous intel. I have a chanterbot so CC is easy (haha well, relatively speaking, if I can figure out which mez spells I should be using), and I'm even contemplating reupping my 105 druid account so I can have 3 mercs and increase my odds of not dying. I managed to mostly fix my chanter's UI last night, and I'm slowly relearning which clickies do which things, what AAs to use for a burn, etc. All of my mage's UI remained unaffected so I still have all of my hotkeys (that didn't change) and spell sets, which has made things a lot easier.
Kill in frontier mountains instead. FM is an easier starting point for getting back into the game in my opinion.
Thanks to the help of some incredibly helpful and kind former guildies from past days, I was able to grind up to 109 on both the mage and chanter this weekend. I was also given full sets of all of the newest gear, which is _beyond_ amazing and generous, and got two new augs as well. (The chanterbot got a ton of goodies as well--she is spoilt!) Just a public THANK YOU, you know who you are, I couldn't have done it without all of the help. Even made a few pick up groups that turned out to be great.
If you know the zone well, the SoS cloak might be able to get you the whole way if you have extended enhancement aa/gear. I can get from the beginning of VP to turn in npc, and that's arguably a longer run.
The SoS back works on See invis mobs, not see-IVU mobs. Which is why it bypasses the golems, but not the undead.