Hot Zones

Current Hot Zones

This set were activated on June 19, 2013.

Hot zones are a series of zones chosen by SOE for a temporary small boost in experience. These zones typically have a minor revamp with an added quest of sorts, and some new drops - most often augments. The augments usually drop at random from any mob in the zone. For Free and Silver players, the augments are not supposed to be Prestige, so you can equip them.

The selected zones cover level 20 to 85 in 5 level increments, and you can always find the current hot zones by asking Franklin Teek in the Plane of Knowledge, just outside the Guild Lobby. He also gives out the current quests, which reward a choice of Defiant equivalent non-visible armor for killing five mobs in the zone: if you don’t like the mobs given, come back the next day for a different selection. These daily quests (every 17 hours) also give out some cash, and a relatively large amount of experience - 10 AAs or 10% of a level for appropriate level characters. You can take as many as you like at once, up to 5 levels over your current level.

See also Skal Nethus and Aiden Silverwing nearby for some quests connected to hot zone sets.

When a new set of hot zones is chosen, experience is dropped back to the old level, but the new drops remain, although they may be less common. The experience boost is (my estimate) around 10-20%, so an zone with bad experience will probably still be sub-standard, and a non-hot zone with good experience will still be better. Some zones have been hot zones several times, and all of the augments and other drops are still available.

An often asked question is about the experience: is it only for the recommended levels? The answer is that the experience boost applies to characters of any level; so very often the level 20 hot zone is good for level 1+.

Officially hot zones were supposed to change every three months, but only rarely have they been updated more often than every six months, and the recent sets have lasted for a year.

Quest Series

Aiden Silverwing: he offers just one quest series, “Lost Heirlooms”. The final reward is Luminescent Crest of the Silverwing or the Auroral Crest of the Silverwing.

Skal Nethus

Four quests:

Augments grouped by level

I have ignored armor drops and series quests from hot zones. See Allakhazam’s excellent hot zone list for more details.

My personal opinion on gathering these augments is that low level augments make very little difference to a Defiant geared character, and that AC and heroic stats are the most important. So I start making lists of augments with at least 15 AC on them: this is really independent of class. All of these augments are non-prestige, and so are usable by Free and Silver accounts, which makes them exceptionally interesting. The drop rate is reasonably common for current hot zone augs, but drops down to rare (possibly less than 1 in 100) for non-current hot zones.

AC 20+ augs

Sentinel’s Claw, Imbued Feather, Tablet of Forgotten Lore, Slice of Veeshan’s Scale, Dark Black Gem, Experimental Device, Gnoll’s Gnawbone, Scale of Vergalid’s Spawn, Portal Scrap, Elemental Core.

AC 15-20 augs

Petrified Bladefin Eye, Shard of Expanding Power, Energetic Barnacle.

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