The level 65 hot zone is a raid zone? Why on earth would you make Plane of Air the level 65 hot zone?
most of the planes of power were also raid zones, should they never be hotzones either? raid birds in fire charming people for example. i think it's an awesome hotzone personally. tons and tons of mobs to kill, and if you want even more mobs, start a ring event for chainspawns.
Plane of Fire is only 30 seconds. But I'm curious about this as well, I've never bothered going into Plane of Air on its reputation of being more difficult.
No, they never should be hot zones Seriously though, I came back about two years ago and I did the Planes hot zones that were active before this recent bunch. I learned a couple of new zones and I had no major problems with them. But Plane of Air is a very difficult zone, at least for me. If you were on Cazic Thule I would ask you to show me how to go through this zone (I tried once with my level 68 Ranger about a year ago and had such a difficult time, I have not been back since). My biggest gripe is needing to clear a path at the entrance to get past the first group of monsters to move on to stuff you want to kill. All of those monsters are low level, so not good xp, and when you kill them they would spawn 3-5 lower level monsters and it's just a huge pita to clear all those monsters, especially when I only have an hour to play at a time.
Plane of Air is no more a raid zone than BoT, Sol Ro, or Tactics. PoE used to be a great place to hang out and XP back in the day. I'm just glad they didn't make PoW a hotzone, I hate that place.
It's not a zone meant to be traveled alone. Also, while I'm sorry that you personally only have an hour to play each time...these hot zones are meant to drive traffic there for everyone, not just you. To imply that basically any PoP zone should not be included in hotzones (almost every one of them serves a raid purpose) just says "I don't want to die there" The hard zones SHOULD be the hotzones...you should NOT be handed exp~
PoAir has a ton of mobs for high level players to swarm massacre while PL'ing twinks for plat. What else are hotzones for??
Not to mention there is nothing saying you have to go to the hotzones, there are plenty of other zones with better experience modifiers than even the hotzones if you aren't interested in going there.
I'm just saying that I think hot zones should be level appropriate and I don't think Plane of Air qualifies. I will say this: I'm glad I can go back to the Steppes and not have to deal with "high level players to swarm massacre while PL'ing twinks for plat." That is something that often ruins the hot zones for me.
I don't know about everyone else's servers, but Povar has few people swarming outside of instances. It is far more often people headshotting and decapitating than anything else. Besides, a high level wizard killing mobs to powerlevel someone is no different than someone swarming, headshotting, or decapping. Some people just like to whine about class envy is all.
My problem with swarming is that I would go somewhere and there would be nothing to kill. Some high level player would be rounding up half the zone at once to power-level some alts. Case in point: I was in Mesa the other day killing giants. I was pulling one at a time, killing it, then pulling another. These giants were blue-yellow to me and I was having fun. I was killing them slowly enough that people could have established 2-3 other camps in the same general area. Then some druid shows up, proceeds to pull ALL of them, despite the fact I had been there a while, and suddenly I'm killing snakes because this druid was taking all the giants. That's not class envy. I could do the same thing with my Ranger if I wanted to. I could have used him to power-level the character I was playing, but I think that's kind of weak. Swarming is just rude and that's why I don't like the swarming.
You don't kill mobs to PL a low level char (it would get no xp off your kills), you put on some DS and let the mobs kill themselves on you while the twink tags them for xp credit. Rangers are fantastic at this (and on higher levels they can headshot). But that's beside the point. The point is that making a zone a hot zone turns it into a cesspool of abuse and drama. Players leveling the normal way are often better off playing somewhere else. That's why PoAir is fine. It's a terrible zone for lv 65 chars to xp in. Send the PL'ers there and leave PoFire to lv 65 mains. I would prefer to hot zone PoWater but PoAir is a 'good' choice too.
Good post. I think you are right, I am better off playing somewhere else. On a related note, I was playing "somewhere else" with my Ranger, but as of today they turned that zone into a hot zone. I'm already dreading trying to deal with the power-levelers and swarmers that will certainly flock there.
OoC regen timer is based on the *mob* not the *zone*. So, assuming you avoid combat with mobs who "would take an army to defeat", you will not encounter the 5 minute timer. Furthermore; -This is not a "raid zone". -The levels listed next to the hotzone are irrelevant. -There is no obligation to go anywhere near this zone, unless you want to do the quest(s).
yes and no. instanced raidzones all give raidtimers on trash too, however the static ones like this dont
As I recall, the mobs in PoA are on long respawn timers ( or at least most of them ). A few roamers on the pathways and most of the mobs in the wings are the only things that respawn as I recall within what would be considered normal ( less than an hour ). Its been a long time, but pretty sure the rest is a long reset.
I generally stay in level-appropriate zones and thus don't use headshot much. I normally fight monsters con dark blue or even and generally one at a time. I find it more challenging and more enjoyable.
