Questions (aas, lvl 70 expans guide)

I m now level 61 and i get AAs really quickly in Plane of Fire (actual name of zone is somethign different but people call it PoF). I will keep AA 100% till i get Cannibalization (i just miss one more aa to get it).

• Since Aas are fast i was wondering if it was better to get at least some (extended buf, mana preservation now), they may come slower at 65. Also wondering what it the best to get first, i m planning to get buff duration extension and mana preservation, heal % may come after since usually i don t need to heal much since mob are slowed and when i do heal it is with Krag mending that is not affected by focus or with torpor which is a HoT.

• Also wondering at what level i can go to the new expansion, and also i i should go there -- may be i better stay in the planed till 65 -- It seems that, since EQ cannot do anything correctly, most zones are locked and you need trial to get there. My god Eq2 never had any lock (but VP for raid), but they made high end zone hard enough so that a crap group could simply not go there. Locking is so stupid.

• I m looking for a comprehensive list of commands, as example how do i cancel spell cast -- got a mount recently till then i always canceled spell jumping (space) ... Eq2 has a /cancel_spellcast command. Also discovered /assist main -- which is not really important for me since i usually target something different from the main mob (to slow adds etc ..) but still i usually send pet on main mob and melee it or dot it -- depends --
• Looking for a list of focus items, i have all the ones i need but extended range 4 (which is nice since i can malo earlier).

Levels > AA. Canni is good though, if you are one aa away then get it. Then go all in for leveling. Not a huge difference between where you are now and 65, and you will be much more effective with upgraded heals and quiescence.

To stop casting on a mount, ducking will stop it. Won't have to unduck either.

As far as xp, fire is still pretty much the best. Once you hit 65 you can do a Tipt trial and check out KT for spell runes. Technically you can go to GoD and xp in the 50s but I wouldn't recommend it. Maybe high 40s, not sure what levels the mobs are in Natimbi but they are grey/green at 65.

As far as commands, generally the only thing you will need to use are /target, /assist, /pet attack, and can make a command to use canni, then target yourself and cast quiescence if you want. And of course /cast and /pause.

Personally I went with buff duration aa first to make your buffing life easier.

Ok will keep 100% conversion till i get Canni (rank 1? not sure how much cost the next ranks, canni is 2+4+6 =FT3 + 5 =17). Then back to 20% or less.

Canni is obviously a very good start. Quick buff is very useful as it works on quiescence, as does buff extension. Then depending on what you will be doing look at healing aa for group healing. Crit dots if you solo/dps. Or mgb and heals if you are raiding.

Ca/cs should also figure relatively early. Most class stuff isn't great yet (canni aside)

You can only get 1 rank of canni at the mo

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret.

AA exp-rate is based on the highest level player in the group. It's coded differently than true exp is.

This means, that if you have a level 65 in your group, you are not earning AA faster at 61 than you will be at 65, because your AA rate is being throttled by the level 65 in the group (except in this case, I would imagine the 65 is carrying you, and in that case "throttled" is a misleading term).

Real exp, however, is determined by your level compared to the mob's level; which is why a level 43 getting carried by 65s gets an incredible exp rate, but a level 51 with a 65 PLing AA will not be getting the equivelent AA to Exp Ratio that he would see if he were to compare soloing a mob with real exp on, vs soloing a mob with aa xp on.

This reality is why you should be putting it on real exp till you catch up, because the level 65s that are carrying you are enabling you to get better exp than you would with a level 61 group by merit of the fact that they carry harder than a group of 61s moving your exp bar while you heal could.

That's simply not true. Go join a PL group & hit level 51. Turn on AA xp, get a few AA. Now level to 61 in that identical group. Turn AA xp back on at 61.

Compare the AA you get @ 61 to the AA you got @ 51 and you will find you got significantly more AA xp at level 51 then you did at 61...

you're wrong.

When the level spread increases you can see it at work later on when its possible for a high level to be grouped with a lower level that is green/light blue to him

With Real EXP on, If the high level kills a mob thats grey to him and blue to the PLee, it nets real exp to the PLee.

With AA EXP on, If the high level kills a mob that's grey to him and blue to the PLee, it does not net aa exp.

AA XP is coded to be determined by the highest level in the group. Now, with that said, the AA xp bar may be smaller (as in needs less EXP POINTS) at lower levels, but the # of exp points per kill is determined by highest level in the group, this is especially prevalent when the PLer is killing LB/Greens that are Blue/White to a Light Blue PLee, you'll get hardly any AA xp at all. Compare and contrast THAT exp with the exp earned by soloing the White/Blue with the PLee and youll notice you get far more than double the AA xp for the solo because the high level is nerfing the AAxp rate.

Likewise, real exp is not encumbered by players higher level than you. I've done far more PLing than you have, and this difference in how the exp rates are determined becomes readily apparent in later expansions when the groupable level spread increases to as many as 25/30 levels.

lol i'm not wrong I have powerleveled over 30 toons on phinny and was curious how to maximize their AA so I specifically tested it. The AA xp was far faster at 51 than it was at 60 or 65, so it was much more efficient for me to PL them to 51, Spend/Bank up to 102 AA then continue leveling them, capping/spending their AA as they leveled. You have probably PL'd more toons than me but you are still unfortunately dead wrong.

Honestly the rate of AA xp wasn't even close, it was much worse when everyone in the group was max level. That being said I never killed grey mobs, so maybe if you are in some PL group your theory holds some water who knows.

Compare a PL without your PLer in the group. You will get even more AA per kill. The reason why you're seeing a faster AA rate at lower levels is because the number of points per AA are lower at lower levels.

I found this out because I PL with AOE with an enchanter. Stunlock does not require the chanter to be in the group since it is not damage generating.

If you have a 65 enchanter stunlocking AOE PL and he is in the group with level 51 wizards, the AA per kill will be FAR less per kill than if he is out of group stunlocking for the 51s, because the highest level in the group determines the number of aa exp points per kill.

Your counterpoint is that the AA exp bar is smaller (as in requires less aa exp points to fill), and that is true too, but the RATE (# of aa EXP points per kill) is determined by the highest level in the group. The 51s get the same number of AA points as the high level gets but the % distribution is greater on the 51s because the AA xp bar is smaller, not because the AA formula is the same as the EXP formula.

The true EXP formula only compares each individual toon's level to the mob's level to determine the number of EXP points awarded.

The AA EXP formula compares highest level in group to the mob's level to determine the number of EXP points awarded to each toon. I discovered all this by down-shrouding to 55 to AOE PL wizards in Find Fibble 5 on fippy from DODH onward, where my enchanter would pull the entire zone and stunlock it with a 51 (till AA capped), 55 (till AA capped), 59 (till AA capped) being PLed.

Yes obviously the 65 in the group will reduce the xp. Herp derp. It doesn't change the fact that the aa xp is faster at 51 than 60/65 if everyone else in the group remains the same level.

It will not reduce the exp by the expected amount though. If you have 2 PLees for example, and you add the PLer to the group, the AAexp rate will drop by more 33% (let's not forget there's also supposed to be an exp bonus increase as you add players).

Look man, you're wrong. You PLed a couple toons and you think you know , but your betters who have been at it for over 8 years are telling you different. You think you have the most efficient method, but your betters are telling you different.

I PLed over 50 toons to max level with full AA on Fippy.

I PLed over 9 full groups of players on ragefire two summers back.

I PLed several toons on agnarr and phinny. You're wrong. Your basing your conclusion on perception. Remove the PLee from the group and PL without him in group if you want the best AAxp rate. At higher levels AOE PL is the only effective method of PLing. Damage Carry groups are "OK", but for AA you're never going to see PL open throttle until you develop a method that places the PLer out of group, and the PLee as the highest level in the group receiving the exp. This discussion is over.

I literally tested it bud I'm not wrong. Maybe their is some added mod for when the mobs are red con to you vs when they are light blue, perhaps there is another explanation. But it is a simple fact that the AA is better at 51 than it is at 60 or 65 per/kill, all other things being equal (group comp, mobs you are killing etc). You can go test it yourself, it just takes some time to do, and most people are too caught up trying to PL their toon to max asap.

I was not in a hurry to PL my toons so I had plenty of time to test what the best route was. Getting AA early was easily more efficient.

And that is not counter to what I've said. The AA bar is smaller at lower levels (requires less AAEXP points per fill).
That's a given.

Now, what I'm telling you is if you remove the high level from the group of the player getting PLed, you will get more than double the AAEXP points per kill.

The Test:
Case 1: Enchanter (PLer) + Wizard (PLee): group the chanter with the wizard, pull 50 mobs with AA on and stunlock them with the enchanter, AoE them down with the wizard. Check total AAExp earned (%).
Case 2: Enchanter (PLer) + Wizard (PLee): DO NOT group the chanter with the wizard, Pull 50 mobs with AA on, and stunlock them with the enchanter, AOE them down with the wizard. Check the total AAEXP earned (%).

Case 2 will net FAR more than double the AA that Case 1 does because the high level nerfs the AA exp rate.

Likewise, if you run this scenario with REGULAR EXP, dropping the chanter from group will not even double the regular EXP earned, because the formula for regular exp differs from the formula that AA Exp uses. That is to say, EXP earned is a function of relating the mob level to each individual player's level. AAxp is earned as a function of relating the mob level to the highest level player in the group, everyone below him gets the same number of AA Exp Points (albeit their AA exp bar itself requires less of those points to fill)

That's great and all but I'm not always leveling wizards lmao. I like how you completely backtracked though. Good talk, glad we were able to settle things mutually.

Should've been there for TSS launch on Fippy:

After the expansion launched, while everyone was grinding up, i bind death looped my wizard outside of find fibble 5 down to lvl 55 and recorded the time of first death. After de-leveling him to 55 (with a full set of BIS twink gear for a level 55 wizard), I downshrouded the enchanter to 55 and had a 2nd wizard alt lvl 55 sitting outside the instance.

Requested lvl 55 version of find fibble 5 with all 3 players being 55 (chanter shrouded), unshrouded the enchanter back to level 70.

All 3 toons entered the instance, where I proceeded to AOE PL the two wizards grouped together and enchanter out of group. Turned AA on, capped aa in one pull (30 aa at the time).

Proceeded to pull the entire instance in 1 pull every 7 minutes (rapid respawn in find fibble 5 is 7 minutes). Leveled my main up to level 69, popped Veteran Rez AA with 1 minute to spare before first corpse from the bind death loop poofed, was level 74 with 15% to level 75.

Dima and Machen still beat me to 75 because they Swarmed most of the ice zone in TSS in one pull using riposte shakerpaging PL, but I was third on the server to 75 by leveling backwards to level forwards, and I came out of it with 30aa banked from the first pull.

It doesn't have to be a wizard, its just that wizards are the best at AOE. Can do it with mages, clerics, necros, druids, wizards or a mix of all of them. They just need to have PBAOE. The downside is, most of the other classes have PBAOE early in the EQ timespan, but these spell lines get neglected further into expansion progression while Wizards continue to get new AOEs every expansion and the best AOEs from a DPS and DPM efficiency perspective.

On fippy I had an account with wizards of varying levels. To where any class that I wanted to PL just got passed off from one wizard to the next wizard as they leveled up.

Example:

Start an SK, create a new wizard on the Wizard acct, using lvl 1 PBAOE level the level 1 SK to 6. Camp the now-level 6 wizard, log on lvl 12 wizard that is camped in Kurns.
Run to kurns with chanter and SK, AOE PL to lvl 20, pass SK to level 30 wizard waiting in Lguk.
AOE PL sk to level 35. Pass SK to level 50 wizard in Acrylia Caverns.
AOE PL SK to 51. Pass SK to level 55 wizard camped outside of Find Fibble 5.
Max AA on SK, buy everything you can, level to 55, Max aa at 55 buy everything you can, Level to 59, max aa on SK at 59 buy everything you can, level to 61, 63, 65, etc.

Under the scenario above, passing the toon from one wizard to the next usually resulted in the wizard carrying with AOE dps and chanter out of group, leveled up to the wizard he was passing off to's level, so the result was the highest level wizard character was repeatedly passing his gear down to the wizard below him and being deleted to make room for a new level 1 wizard on the next PL session of whatever class i targetted for PL.

Not exactly. Ducking doesn't work on a mount. Probably you remapped duck to Stop Action and have forgotten you did it.

There is a "new" (several years old by now) command called Stop Action. That's the one you want to stop casting on a mount. It will even stop your canni macro. You have one of these, right?

I bound the Stop Action to my old duck key, FWIW.

You can duck on a mount now. Works great as you don't have to unduck, like the member you quoted said. And no, it's not a rebound "stop casting" or "stop action" key, it's the duck key and will duck me when I'm not mounted.