Leveling help or AA versus Levels debate...

[Noxdowne Draggout]

I can do an AA in PoF (tables) every 25 mins with the right group or about every 35-40 mins tops in a good PoE shelf group.

I was banging off an aa an hour and a half in velks solo on the "top shelf" usually clearing the entire area before repops on both top levels.

Now I was above average geared from playing the bazaar and selling off a ton of gear given to me by retired players as well.

My point was is this:

You don't need to be 65 in order to accomplish something in EQ, so rushing to 65 was bad advice.

If I were non-EP flagged and was looking at easy experience for aa's I would do the level 60 and fill my boots on AA's in Velks until I decided that i wanted to venture into the idiot infested waters of BoT and such. ( playing with people that follow guides like the one that started this thread)

Too many people never learn the maximum capabilites of their char, they are NOT taking time to learn it the game inside and out before they risk the health of others in zones that can kill a toon in seconds like BoT and Ep areas.

I am shocked by the amount of people that are blown away by the fact that I can offtank by moving myself and my warder in and out of agro until the main mob dies. You don't learn that unless you solo and learn your char.

Most of those people have never had a three pull of dark blues solo to hone their skills and for that they will never be as good as the ones that have.

Nox

[ghostryder]

also, I know my average hunting time online- (3hrs) and I know how many AAs I have when I log (3-4) So say its not so all you want- but your full of BS- I know what I do in a night- have done it for years- and I also know what my level65 averages-- as well as everyone else around me and the 65 averages about 1/3 the AA of a level 60 - everywhere I look, everyone I observe and every roster I view-

AAs do not move while raiding- AAs are poor in most solo situations because the mobs that are blue to a 65 take forever to kill compared to blue conning mobs a 60 can kill- so the solo 60 will always outdo the level 65 in that situation- so it really doesn't matter where each farm plat solo- the 60 is doing better in AA-

The ONLY time my 65 logs with near the AA of an alt 60 toon of mine is under special group conditions in PoP, and only in certain zones- and I can count in a year on one hand how often that happens-

[Dummkopf]

The ONLY time my 65 logs with near the AA of an alt 60 toon of mine is under special group conditions in PoP, and only in certain zones- and I can count in a year on one hand how often that happens-

That is just your personal case then, farming plat/tradeskills/whatever gets me like one aa every 35-40 minutes easy in ele or god zones in groups or 45-50 minutes solo in lower tiers. If i wanna grind xp (wich also yields plat and ele like loot) i would xp in yxtta or kt, bot getting me an aa under 20 minutes in the right group (so your average 3 hour platime would yield around 9 aas). The fact that i dont grind xp just doesnt have anything to do with my level, it is purely based on the fact that there are not many usefull aas after you get the first 500.

[Noxdowne Draggout]

You make one aa per hour at level 60?

Three quick questions:

1) Your mana pool at 60 and flowing thought level?

2) Your hp's and ac?

3) Your weapons?

I had just over 1 million pp worth the gear back then and I took 50% longer per aa than you.

This with WLK and Rujarkian knuckles, 36% haste, SoV, C3,Pot9 and full raid buffs putting me at about 4k hp's with just a hair over 1k ac. Pet toys equipped and sometimes 2 boxing a cleric for low downtime.

To give you an idea of todays experience, I made 7 aa's on Saturday in 4 hours. This was in PoF at tables and included going to PoK to refresh c5 when it faded and running back.

I am really curious how you compare equipment wise to where I was and what zone you can pull off one aa an hour solo.

I said it is feasable to make good aa's at 60,but the claims of Ghostryder seem totally unrealistic and I would hate to see someone think that is normal.

Two aa's in a level 60 scenario every 3-4 hours makes sense.

3-4 in 4 hours sounds like a pipe induced dream.

Nox

[alky]

Mkay, my English is not very good but I've re-read this

6 - 8 kills is a blue, which is once around one room- do the hall and the other room and your halfway there- one repop the 2 rooms and hall will get the the half - concidering a 25 min repop if your keeping the room clears this should happen every 50 min- course there's rebuffs so the extra 10 min in the hour is a good blanket-
.

and it really seems to me that you're talking about 1 yellow AA / hour, not a full AA. Which is more like what i remember about AC.

[TerjynPovar]

I had a full scale post but this stupid board ate it somehow, so I'll sum up briefly.

At level 65, I never once "went to AA".  I did what I enjoyed, and AAs just came...and I got 46 of them, in less time then when I was level 60 and did the same thing, to only get 24.

The one thing I could *NEVER* stand in EQ was experience grinding.

So, my question...how do I fit into your narrow view of the world ghost?  Am I purely an aberration?

And, your XP rate is a myth.  You "Know" how many AAs you started and how many you quit with and how much XP you gained, the same way that Nunyabizz "Knew" that Agility affects AC tremendously and the same way that people "know" that Beastlords outtank monks.  Perception is flawed...if you have no hard numbers you have nothing.  It'd be easy to come into a night 95% of an AA in, and leave at 5% "three" AAs later in 4 hours and say "Hey!  I got 3 AA in 4 hours" when in reality you got 2.1 AAs in four hours, which is a much more believable number.

*EDIT* Actually, I have one more question.  You keep mentioning Acrylia Caverns.  What do you do when your place in AC is taken?

[ghostryder]

The one thing I could *NEVER* stand in EQ was experience grinding.

So, my question...how do I fit into your narrow view of the world ghost? Am I purely an aberration

My view is not a narrow one- if zooming to 65 is what you wanted to do, and it got you to the place you wanted to be, and you enjoyed yourself then I say good for you for playing how you want to play. There's no way my way is going to better than your way if your way is what you enjoy- but don't claim AA intake is greater at 65-

Think about it, a single blue kill in AC will grant a level 60 about 1%. How long do you think it takes a 60 to kill a mob? A minute? I'd say even the worse equiped beast in the game would take down 3 grimlings in a minute- so reaching an AA an hour is pretty easy-

Of course a lot depends how one feels that nigh- or as you've said, what camp is available- I may go afk to fix a drink or grab a snack, or if both front rooms aren't available I'll usually go in past the skellys and work the robe drop off the stairs or the 2 sword drops in the Alar room, or both if they are open.

I've never seen all camps taken but I suppose if I was restricted to just the grimlin room with the primalist- and the two small off rooms with the bugs I'd be restricted to the 8 spawn in the main room, the 4 bugs on the right with the 3 grimlings and the 4 bugs on the left, which would end up being 19 spawns which would put a major hamper on AA intake but that's never happened to me- the nice thing about AC and why I perfer it is its mostly an empty zone-

however, you could use velks or any simular zone- and at 60 its not going to take anyone a minute to kill a spider- it won't take half that- in fact 4 a minute would be about right- and at that rate even if it took 2 kills to equal 1% (which it doesnt) it wouldn't take longer than 50 minutes to reach an AA-

The problem with 65 and the blue cons one must solo is it's very likely a single fight will last much longer- they don't drop as fast- near as fast - in fact they drop rather slow hence the poorer AA intake-

Even in a quick LDON mission that takes 30 minutes you haven't really killed enough mobs to equal an AA (I average about 60% per mission at 65) and some of those missions take almost the full tme-

Now, I've, like many here, have enjoyed tremdous AAs in the PoP zones mentioned at 65, but I don't spent a lot of time in them nor does anyone else.

[neight]

Now, I've, like many here, have enjoyed tremdous AAs in the PoP zones mentioned at 65, but I don't spent a lot of time in them nor does anyone else.

Once again, I'd like to point out that Earth and Fire are never empty. Ditto for Bastion of KC.

Neight

[kegulik]

Think about it, a single blue kill in AC will grant a level 60 about 1%. How long do you think it takes a 60 to kill a mob? A minute? I'd say even the worse equiped beast in the game would take down 3 grimlings in a minute- so reaching an AA an hour is pretty easy-

You're saying I can take down a grimling in 20 seconds, and fight non-stop?  

Tell me the secret there.  Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but w/ c3, pot9, paragon and FT7, I'm averaging about 50 seconds/mob at 60 with WLK/Epic, using venom of the snake, and cycling the 450/300 nukes.

[TerjynPovar]

I couldn't kill those grimlings at 65 in 20 seconds.  Don't give me the "think about it" argument, post some LOGS.  Hell, go show me that you can mow them down at a rate of about 10 seconds per at level 65 and I might give you some credibility, because regardless of XP rate your 65 DPS is at least approaching double your 60 DPS.

Honestly, are you using Church minutes or something?  4 spiders per minute?  3 grimlings per minute?

And Velketors labyrinth isn't going to get you the money you claim.

Your entire argument is based around one zone where you can gain lots of money and "lots of XP".  You are cherry picking one instance and generalizing it to apply to everybody in all situations.  All other zones either aren't worth the money, or are still dark blue(or even partially light blue, like Nurga) at 65 and you WILL gain XP faster in those zones at 65 soloing than 60.

[Hrann]

I think you guys are missing the point.  Everyone knows that XP comes faster at 65 if you are grinding for XP.  The point is that people rarely grind for XP for days at a time when they are 65.

So, his argument is that running around and doing whatever it is that you normally do - if you did that stuff at 60 you would end up with more AAs than if you did it when you were 65 (assuming you were set at 100% AA xp).

It's mostly behavioral.  Saying you will get more AAs at 65 than at 60 is not necessarily true - what you mean to say is that you CAN get more AAs at 65.

Most of the people I've watched bear this out.  It's certainly not a hard and fast rule, but it does seem to be true most of the time.

Now I know there is a part of ghost's arguement that says there may be sweet spots where you can actually grind faster as well, but I'm not sure about that (just no experience doing much of that).

[TerjynPovar]

I know what his point is.  It is flawed.

Unless you raid heavily, XP will naturally come faster at level 65, no matter what you do.  Money hunting? XP comes faster (unless you insist that the only good money to be had anywhere is outside castle Acrylia Caverns, another of his apparent claims).  XP grinding?  Absolutely comes faster.  Greenie farming?  Neither gets XP at all...but the 65 does it faster.  Grouping?  No doubt, the 65 gains faster.  And even a 60 who raids will gain slower XP than a 65 who raids, if they do it the same amount.

Yes, 65's don't grind for XP for days.  Neither do 60s.  The difference is he somehow claims that a 65 doesn't get XP unless they are actively trying to grind XP, whereas at 60 XP just comes.  That is unadulterated BS, even ignoring his ludicrous "3 kills per minute".

if you did that stuff at 60 you would end up with more AAs than if you did it when you were 65

This is exactly the problem I have with what he says.  Unless you raid heavily, it is simply not true.  I never raided with Terjyn, thus I gained AA much faster at 65 not-raiding just doing my thing than I did at 60.  He tells me this isn't possible.  He's wrong.

[Hrann]

OK, but I don't raid much either, and I don't know what I was doing different, but I had about 40 AAs hanging around level 60 and 62 for about 2 months.  After I reached 65, I averaged maybe 1-3 AAs a week.

Virtually every other person I've watched has done the same thing (in terms of slowing down after 65).  Maybe it's the frenzy to xp before 65 and the calm down after it's reached, I don't know.  But from a higher perspective of just watching AA levels this seems to be true.

OK, too anecdotal to say anything concrete.  Maybe my sample is too small.  There are certainly cases where xp definitely comes faster at 60 (full group exploring Droga - I've done this at both levels and the xp is much faster when you are killing yellows with the group, as opposed to blues when you are 65), maybe my friends and I just happen to do the right activities.

[Rhaynne]

I averaged maybe 1-3 AAs a week

I average higher than that from just raiding.

At 65, even playing relatively casually, you can easily do 5-10 aa a week.

[TerjynPovar]

I think you summed it up actually Hrann.  People who are AAing at 60 are doing so with a semi-rush, knowing that they want to get to 65.  Those at 65 don't feel this pressure, so they slow down.

If you don't have this rush at 60, or continue to play at 65 the way you did at 60, you *WILL* gain XP faster, even if you don't grind.  This is all I've ever really tried to say, and yet Ghost keeps telling me that it's just not possible to play this way at 65.  You cannot classify anecdotal evidence, nor can you classify "desire" and "motivation".  I said this like 6 posts ago.

I'm not, and never have been, arguing based on "desire" and "motivation".  I'm arguing based on math, and the math is clear...the 65 "wins" at XP.

If ghost's argument is just "If you can't work up the desire to play at 65 the way you can at 60, then you won't gain AA as fast" then I cannot argue with that...as it's true but irrelevant to the greater issue, as you cannot peg people based on motivation.

I played exactly the same way at 65 as I did at 60.  I was 60 for about 4 months.  I was never much of a soloer, but I gained 24 AAs "doing my thing" in 4 months of real life time.  When I hit 65, I kept playing just as I had been, and I gained 46 AAs in 3 months of real life time, before I retired.  My play style didn't change, I didn't relax anymore, and thus my AA rate didn't suffer by hitting level 65...in fact it went way up...even when I was soloing.  I gained about 10 AAs solo at 60, mostly in Acrylia Caverns and Nurga.  I gained about 25 AAs solo at 65, mostly in Grieg's End, Droga, and Nurga.

Well, I know what Ghost is trying to say, and it's obvious he's not going to relent...so I think I give up.  I still think he's full of it on the 45-60 minutes per AA at level 60 though.  :P

PS - I've never stated in all of this that I absolutely believe in slowing down your leveling to "smell the roses"...I was 60 for 4 months, and saw a whole lot of zones.