I am looking for a bit of advice on leveling up a toon based on the new experience changes made as of late. Here are the conditions. 1) 105 Raid SK, 105 Group Bard, 105 Group Shaman 2) Lvl 92 Group Mage The objective is to get the Mage caught up for utilization in the expansion. Under the old system, Gribbles with Lesson or experience pots would have been the easy and ideal solution. The changes leave Gribble as still the best experience I have found but do not allow the process to be expedited with Lesson or Pots effectively. The mage being only lvl 92 eliminates the ability to use any of the new expansion content (Riou - just a note, while EQ Resource indicates lvl 90 is the minimum, it appears that 95 is required for the Quest - "A Rising Storm". I confirmed this and received a you are too low to request this. My intent had been to simply get the mage started on TDS progression and drag her along and let her level but she is unable to start progression. ROF is not viable content with toons over 105. COTF grinding in statics even with Pots and Lesson does not appear to yield the experience gains that Gribbles and Skulk missions (accepting the lockout and completion bonus) While the mage can solo, the rate does not compare to utilization of the higher toons in a group. So this post is asking for advice about thoughts on the best way to level not a jab at the current nerfs and changes. Is there a better way to level this toon than living in Dead Hills repeating Gribbles and Skulk Missions?
Can you do the daily HAs? Assuming your SK has progressed you should be able to request all of the HAs that could be dailies.I haven't checked to see if there is a level requirement for getting the daily HA tasks. One significant advantage of the Gribble missions is that they take a lot less time to complete than other HAs. You could finish your play session doing one of these.
I should have mentioned that option as well. It is viable but depending on the luck of the draw, the daily HA's can be very good or pretty terrible. On the first day they released, the draw for daily HA's was Descending Tower and Thundergun among a couple others. While these can be completed and the reward is decent, it didn't feel the time required for the difficult HA's was the optimal leveling. The thing to remember is this isn't a post looking for the easy way out. It's just looking for efficiency to move back to the new content. Obviously the toons (other than the mage) have completed all COTF progression so I'm not trying to avoid difficult content, I'm simply trying to fast forward the mage into current content.
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/update-bugs-11-19-14.215266/page-4#post-3148884 Ngreth Thergn: I got confirmation TDS Heroic Adventures ARE intended to be 95+ If leveling the Mage is "the" priority then RoF Partisans and killing could be the way to go to get 3 levels, if it's just "a" priority you're pretty much limited to CotF and un-instanced TDS content and give all the collectibles to the Mage to help it catch up.
I have been dragging my war around with my group in HA's and he has been leveling nicely. He just kicked 92 so I geared him in a ton of RoF stuff minus rings/ears/charm and then used marks to get all his augs. He has no augs under 30 ac and only 2 at 30. I got 3k marks on him going from 88 to 92. I also have about 8 pieces of gear from named for him too for when he hits 100. What I was doing with him was running gribble 1/2/3 then a cooper or 2 (cant remember the names atm) then I would go do a few bixie ones from the spy guy. His 3 are actually really fast as well. With your group you should be able to do these 7 around the 3 hr time limit. As suggested before you can supplement some of these with the daily HA tasks. Also dont forget to to the daily tasks from fraklin teek in pok, they still give good xp for the 92. You can use the marks on your other characters from doing this to buy the 100 gear, and then use the marks on the mage to get non visible. Starting at 95 you can start your TDS progression.
Maeryn - just a point of clarification - I saw that patch note as well HOWEVER, the quest I mentioned was not a heroic adventure. So it actually appears that ALL TDS quests not just the HA's require 95. The challenge with doing RoF partisans is that while the completion experience is nice, because the group has post 100 folks, the killing experience is nerfed dramatically which ultimately leads back to CoTF HA's being the best option. Sojero - Yep. Complete agreement and those are my findings as well (and most definitely best for currency to gear the mage). Just figured I'd throw this out and see if others had any ideas.
You take him to with you to Rain of Fear. They corrected the issue where those grouping with someone over 100 also get trivial to no experience. You seem to be unaware that this was patched. Yeah, that means your level 105 characters aren't getting anything, but it sounds like that isn't your focus anyways. If you want diversity, grind partisans for the substantial rewards at the end. If you simply want a great kill spot for 92-95 with near unlimited pulls, pick Shards (my favorite there being the Shards Alaran Arena, which is amazing), or my favorite grind zone being Plane of Shadow for 96+. Finally, if you *really* want at least some reward on the higher level characters, take him to Argin-Hiz. I am still under the impression you cannot find a better grind spot until 102. The mines are high con mobs with very low life, similar to DH and you'll never run out of rooms to clear. Bonus points to farming orbs and selling plate/robe ornaments while you're there. In any of these situations, the mage will level quickly. The question is, do you simply want him to progress in TDS right at 95 or optimize xp as you move forward? The original post makes it sound like there is a lack of options, when in reality, there are a huge number of wonderful spots to push a character quickly. I'd be more concerned that your group comprises of almost no dps. I hope you have a few people to help you speed that up.
Pwnz - this is perfect. I was unaware that the lower level character experience was fixed and I'm fine with the higher levels getting no experience to expedite the mages progression. I will have to experiment with grinding in AH too. This is pretty much exactly what I was looking for. I knew there were some choices but wanted to see what suggestions would be raised. Thanks again.
