Howdy! I'm trying to find a good spot to grind up AA's to get my characters up to what would be considered on-par for their level. I have the misfortune of having leveled my Shadowknight a bit too quickly to the point where it can't effectively tank for the box trio My Dru/Shd/Enc trio can kill in HoT but it's painfully slow and not really worth the time given how hard it currently is. I'd like to try and correct that, while gaining AA's for my others at the same time. I'd really like to be able to swarm with the SK and get xp on all 3 at the same time, to somewhat evenly grow their collective AA's Here is my current boxing setup: 87 Druid Main (1k ish AA, mostly spent on healing stats and things that benefit those), mix of HoT/VoA T1/T2 gear. Gold account, has the good mercs. 85 Shadowknight (about 820 ish AA, mixed between tanking and swarming oriented aa's), mostly abstruse or HoT T2 gear. Have epic 1.0, not yet on 1.5/2.0. 80 ENC (about 200 AA, spent on random stuff so far), HoT T1 gear / abstruse for the most part. I also created two more silver accounts (mentioned that in another thread) for a MAG and BRD addition to the 3 man team. They're out of the picture at the moment, only around 37 or so, but I plan on getting them up quickly, so they can group with my normal set as well. My SK is probably going to be the workhorse in this environment, while getting significant benefits from the druid (DS, Heals, move speed, Transportation) and possibly even the enchanter (haste and mana, not sure if haste helps much in swarming though). I do plan on getting the SK's 2.0 as well - just need to find the time and someone who can do Anguish for the orb... I haven't set foot in there in over 7 years o-O. Up until now I've been 3boxing in HoT Grounds on random trash mobs. The AAXP is very good but it is extremely slow, takes me about 4-5 minutes per kill plus mana regen afterwards for about 15-30% aaxp per kill (depending on the character because of the level spread). I'd like to find a solid place to settle in for a good long grind session to get these characters caught up in AA's, even considering grabbing 2hr XP potions for them to expedite the process if I can determine a great spot. ----------------------------- I've heard that RSS should be a pretty good place to grind in the early 80's. The SK should be able to chew through small packs and grind up aaxp for the group, but I'm wondering if I missed the opportunity of when this would have served me best in leveling to 85 on her. If it's still a great spot for the character spread, that would really rock, since I remember running this place when it was new content and still know my way around RSS and the maze outside. I've also heard to go to Thal or Valdeholm in the mid-80's, but to be honest I don't know/remember what/where that is or what to do there. Supposed to be great all the way up to about 90? But I have no idea what the requirements are to make it worthwhile. As mentioned above, my SK has decent gear for 85, but only 820ish AA.
I would think hitting some SoD zones should be good. Korascian warrens should be pretty good. Plus you can get the instanced missions if the zone is too busy. I like to get the murdunks last stand mission. Its pretty good for a lesson burn as it runs 30-40 mins and you get a steady stream of mobs one at a time. If your SHD is still having trouble tanking those, then the field of scale zones should be a good spot. Tons of decent missions there too.
With an 87+ tank merc, a cleric merc and druid healing and an enchanter to lock adds, definitely The Well. Get the 3 repeatable tasks from the halfling in the east room and go to town. This becomes a lot easier once the tank merc hits 91, but is doable with your situation.
If your merc can't handle that spot, try some SoD zones as jarsh said. I just noticed that your enchanter is probably a little low to mez in the Well. Or try an SoF zone. I really like Bloodmoon Keep. The mobs are level 80 and you get a dungeon xp bonus. Instanced Gyrospire Beza/Zeka are good grind spots too.
another good spot would be either SoD Library, or maybe kurns tower off field of scale you can get thos instanced as well if its to busy with people already but those zones tend to be empty most of the time
Thalsiuss ftw, at 85 your sk is a little bit behind on aa's but should be able to catch up quickly may just have to keep your mob groupings smaller, or make up for it a bit by getting VoA T1 group gear. You should be able to swarm this place up to lvl 87 or 88 then move onto either the gyrospires or mechmatic guardian, which either one of the zones would be good up to lvl 95. You really missed out on a prime swarm spot PoF at lvl 80 on your sk, but should be able to make up for it thal. Check out evilgamer.net if you need any help with how to swarm, just be aware not to actually post anything (or face the multiple unhelpful flames) but go through the old posts regarding swarming.
Yeah, I've been reading posts on Evilgamer for a while now, digging through the board history to learn the best methods for gearing up the SK for swarming and tanking. I still need to get back into RSS to collect the AC augs for the character. Got my Bard and Mage boxes up to 60 lastnight, so I'll probably get them up to 69 tonight or tomorrow then take the whole 5-man crew into RSS for a while. I figure that the Druid (87) and SK (85) probably won't get diddly for EXP in there because of their level, but the Enc (80), Brd, and Mag will be able to soak some experience while I'm farming for the SK's AC augs. One nice thing for the 3 characters 80-87 is the fact that some friends of mine run a shared task every 6 or so hours which nets 30(85sk) to 22(87dru) AA's when they turn it in. So while I'm farming for the augs in RSS even though the high levels won't get much XP out of it, they're not losing out completely. I'm guessing that it might take me a good long grind session or perhaps two sessions to get all the augs in RSS (4 of the 25ac's, 3 of the 20ac's if they aren't lore). The bard and mage should hit 75 or so while I'm grinding in there depending on how much XP they end up getting while grouped with the 80 spread. After that since I'll have 5 characters in party I'll try Warrens since I'm familiar with the zone from doing the daily tasks in PoK that send you there. I'll still have an open party slot for either a cleric friend or an 87 jt5 healer merc. I know I can handle Warrens tanking with my SK anyway (afraid to try swarming there though, don't think I have the AA's for it yet) - have done it with my friends before.... Though I'll admit he's an 89 cleric which may have made things easier for me If Warrens proves too difficult I will definitely try Thalsiuss instead and practice swarming with the SK. Heard so many mentions of it that I'm afraid I can't afford to pass up at least checking it out. Thanks for the feedback so far!
I never did like RSS much just because of the run to get there, and thal is a long run but from guild hall its really only one zone away. Theres also a few ac augs that drop in vald and that zone should be swarmable at your level, just not as good of xp as thal. Hit up kaesora too theres 2 decent ac augs in there as well.
Yeah, I remember the area though. My raiding hayday was in the same time period as Anguish, Vish, Mistmoore, etc... I remember running around MPG blitzing through trials with guildies on my Druid. So at least I know how to get around the area fairly fast Being able to port straight to WoS with the druid helps too. I heard about Vald while reading evilgamer as well, but I'm kind of afraid that I'll get wrecked because of the long range stuns since I don't have a lot of AA's on the SK yet. It's one of those scenarios where I'm not sure if I should swarm and let everybody soak xp, or have a coordinated party effort killing harder mobs one at a time for xp/loot chances (like in HoT or Warrens).
I'm a little biased, but you could start giving the enchanter a little more attention. The benefit is you can pull and charm dps with the enchanter. The chanter can also be used for stun lock in addition to slow/cripple making healing requirements considerably less. Your chanter level needs to be closer to the other two to make this work. Field of Scale would be a suitable level to get all group members xp while the enchanter gets the level differential bonus. At 85 you can charm some mobs in Feerrott and they nearly all become available at 87. Miz
I personally am a fan of the deeper areas of thallasisus (your druid will also have anti summoned nukes that will work on a lot of mobs there) SoD is prolly the best overall (kaesora and such for casual play) but thalassius can be a nice change of pace.
