Mage Project – update
by paul on Jul.28, 2008, under Mage Project
A quick review of (solo) lesson burn exp rates:
Dragonscale Hills animals: 1.8 AA
Ruins of Illsalin (hot zone) witherans: 2.2 (and that’s with Legacy event bonus)
Dragonscale Hills wind nymphs (duo with cleric): 2.2
With EM1 focus (Crystallos):
Redfeather Isle regrua: 2.4 (+ regrua shell quest hand in x 2, 0.2) This was pre ‘weak’ mob patch (July).
Post ‘weak’ con mob patch (9 July 2008) regrua are down to 1.8 AA/lesson. That’s with killing twice the number; general feel on the forums is that they now give roughly 50% of their original exp.
Katta, Brine of Prexus camp: 2.6 (could probably do better) – 3.0 next day, then 2.7, followed by 3.1; various 2.8/2.9 after that. Also managed 24% in 72 on a duo box. This is a very lazy camp; pet takes no damage except on named (Brine of Prexus, level 80, which is easier than, say, a Dragonscale Hills minotaur), and chain killing means that the tashes from the Fright Funnels can be ignored (or take a stack of level 1 Distillate of Antidote).
Finally got epic 2.0 (20th July). That was after a long wait for a guild raid – we did the Chaos mob (in Dreadlands); a week later I diverted two groups from a guild raid to Halls of Honor for the Order mob – which was considerably tougher. There’s no way that I could have killed Order alone, but I would have been prepared to try Chaos.
Suggestions from the mage channel for augments for primary: BiC (A Smokey Green Gemstone), Verdant Emerald of Wounding, Rune of Futile Resolutions, Tipt aug (Gem of Bolstered Power), VP key (Cipher of Veeshan), DoN resists (Warded Dragon Egg Fragment). Some of these require raid event which just aren’t going to happen; I’d guess that one of the DoN augs is the most likely choice, and I am using a Veintapper’s Stone (75 hp, might be a tap).
The Fenden Helter quests just added to Dragonscale Hills are a big success with me: in theory, you can do two “acts”, one “errand”, and all seven combat tasks – but in practice, only two of the combat tasks are soloable (Brownie Rebels and Ladies of Light). There are solo tasks that should be taken along with the combats; for LoL it would be the necklace drop for Qandien (key phrase: “issues”). Total reward would be 25 faction points for the errands and combats (so 50 for one faction, plus 25 for another, plus the 10 points per faction for the kills themselves), plus roughly 1 AA exp, and 83 or 86 faycitum (small bug: if you convert them into currency, which has no point as they are no trade, they are then called ‘faycetum’). That means 12 days to buy a pet focus, or 15 a nice shiny new shield. Getting from lowest glowers to start of ally requires 1,600 faction points; or only 1,000 if your target is kindly. That means roughly 16 days to kindly, 26 days to ally.
Current targets: maxing out relevant AAs – working on self defensives at the moment, moving on to utility AAs after that, followed by resists. Currently standing at 80 + 1,425 (28 July). Want to get Borek to 80; he’s 76 at the moment, just finished Gift of Mana line (GoERM), then will level to 80, and review AAs again at that point; 329 AAs at the moment. Modis (65 enchanter, 114 AAs) is still stuck in Time raids waiting for the slow stick to drop, and has been there since November last year. Also waiting for upgrades for face, hands, feet, legs, range and shoulders! I plan to take him to HoH for some charm practice at some point. Currently leveling Vanstart (59 rogue, 43 AAs), need more AAs, level to 65, and collect a few augs – he has a set of elaborate Defiant, missing one bracer, with Ragebringer (epic 1.0). Borel (65 beastlord, 130+ AAs) is waiting on Borek to hit 80; he’s about 1% from 66, and has a full set of runes for spells.
Armor: the Living Legacy promotion, which introduced Defiant global armor drops, has changed gearing plans. Previously, it was Blightfire quest, Goru’kar Mesa quest, level to 65, raid Time, then level to 80, hoping for Anguish on the way. Now, the TSS quests can mainly be skipped, filing in with the appropriate Defiant drops along the way, aiming for a full set of Elaborate Defiant at 59, then hold to 80. The Defiant weapons are frankly substandard, and much better is available elsewhere – but they will do in a pinch. The remaining slots needs to be filled with the standard JC complement (2 x wrist, 2 x ears, 2 x fingers, neck, face) with dwerium trio, appropriate cut taaffeite, plus 2 round cut out of peridot (ac), emerald (mana) or opal (hp). That leaves a few slots: primary/secondary, waist, back, shoulders, range and charm. Charm means Wanderlust/Slipgear in Serpent Seekers Charm of Lore; the rest best come from Time raids. The main focuses are well covered by the Defiant gear although bigger focuses from Time drops may have a short term benefit for casters.
