What would be better?

[Brewtish]

I have been trying to level my 62 ranger 3 different ways.

The first method I tried was having my 80 shaman with a cleric merc sitting there while my ranger solos in BoT. I join the group with the 2 healers and get buffed/healed/whatever. Then I just slow mobs and panther the ranger.

My 2nd method was having my shaman get a warrior merc and then grouping the ranger with both of them and just killing stuff with the warrior and ranger trying to dps.

My 3rd method was getting a group full of DPS toons that were lfg and then just keeping mobs slowed and the group healed/buffed/panthered. The DPS was pretty nice with the panther procs going off.

My question was which of those methods would be best? And what zone would be the best to do it in? Or am I missing any really good methods at this point?

[Khauruk]

80 shaman tank solos trains in Nadox or somewhere w/ ranger grouped. Get mobs that are just grey to sham that he can kill in large numbers, and soak up xp on the ranger. Will work for a few more levels yet. Then have shaman tank-solo trivial for him mobs that can be killed in large numbers still...MPG or RSS maybe? (once ranger's high enough to zone in)

[Whitman]

My suggestion would be to group your shaman and ranger; go to Grieg's End where mobs are grey to you and have little HP, let them die on your DS. Make sure to loot the drops from the Nameds for easy tribute, and of course the Alchemy drops.

[fendaann]

well I been using

85 sham pulls single or mults- slows -criples, dps down to above 50% then stop DPS

lower toon picks a mob above 50% and kills it with sham heals to keep it alive.

Rince and re-peep

Also i have been using the Hot zones for this.
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Hotzones


my lower toons are in PoI 48mag group with a 51sk (85 sham heals) I cant group til they are 56 to due the group thing yet
I plan to stay in PoI for a long time really to work on AA's for the SK while the mag levels up.

I think that your 62 you can group with the 85 toon and try the Level 60: Crypt of Decay to and kill with the sham and see if you get the bonus or not.

Happy hunting

[Kumudil]

If I remeber right, 62 should be the rangers sweetspot for headshot for naddox.
Mem the malo-pole and languor to keep aggro on shaman. make some DS pots. Pull a crowd to a corner. Malo-pole and Slowproccs should be ok to gain some aggro.
When the mobs have build up enought aggro first a small ae-nuke to have dealt atleast some damage to every mob, than headshot them down while they kill themselfe on the ds. I think ranger have one lowlevel pbae also which will hit all. But don't remeber if this wasnt outdoor only.

[Mukshaak]

Just remember that grouping with a higher toon for xp is only worthwhile for normal xp. For AA xp, it's based on con to highest level in group, so it works completely differently.

From 61+ I wouldn't worry too much about keeping shammy outside group. He will suck xp, but the kill speed will be much greater. And if you killing greys even better. And if you don't mind spending a bit of cash swapping your mercs around, get two tank mercs, and have your shammy heal, which will be more than adequate for levelling content. The 2 tank set up should greatly increase kill speed too. A 62 J1 merc tank will out-dps the ranja. It's only around lvl 65 or so that pure melee with bazaar weapons will start catching up to their dps (tested with my rogue and zerker recently), they are that good. Not sure what dps an 80 tank merc is, but my lvl 71 one is around 250dps with shammy haste, and I think at 62, they were already close to 200dps mark. It's small dps by today's standard, but very nice for PoP levels!! And like that you should get around 650 dps before counting shammy dps and panther.

GL with the ranja.

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

Hey Muk. Any idea what 'rule' is followed when you split xp between AA and normal xp? (say 90/10 - either way). Is it following the AA xp rule due to AA xp being 'turned on'?

[Mukshaak]

Hmm, not sure Big. I normally go 100% of one or the other these days But I could check tomorrow when I get online. Simple test would be to set a lower alt xp to 50/50, and group with your main. Kill a grey, and see what happens. My own guess is that as the formulas are completely different now, the code would look at the split first, then each portion would go down its own mathematical rule.

So in the case above, with a 50/50 split, you would get (0.5 X mob xp) and (0.5 X AAxp). So if that grey mob your main killed, would give you 2% normal xp, with the 50/50 split, you should receive 1% xp, and 0% aa xp, as the mob is grey to main.

Like I said, I haven't tested it, but will let you know tomorrow.


Oh, and as you mentioned the 90/10 split, just thought I would add an aside. Some peeps hit 85 and turn their aa xp 90/10, so they get a bit of normal xp to counter raid and group deaths. Just remember that you can set the split to any percentage you like, and actually get a 99/01 split if you want. You just need to skip the UI buttons, and use the command "/alt on 99" (or whatever other percentage takes your fancy)...

[kuzko]

I tested this while PL'ing an alt for foraging purposes. It does work as Muk theorized, any split of xp on the lowbie while you kill a gray con mob to the lvl 85 (or w/e) gives level xp, but no aa xp.

[Mukshaak]

Yeap, as Kuzko said. Just tested it on a lvl 52 alt. It's how I predicted above.

What I wasn't sure is if you add a grey mob to the equation, which means 0%aa xp, would SOE overide the split, and give all the xp allocation towards normal xp regardless of split. They currently do that when you reach 30 banked aa's, and the game starts giving you normal xp again, instead of just 0% aa xp.

But doesn't seem to be the case:

POJ mobs, grey to lvl 70 warrior in group, light blue to lvl 52 SK.
Set to 0% aa xp, SK gains 0% aa xp and 1% normal xp.
Set to 50% aa xp, SK gains no aa xp, but still gains 1% normal xp. (difficult to call it as UI is not perfect)
Set to 99% aa xp, on a dark blue mob, neither bar moves. So aa xp is 0%, and the 0.01 times normal xp didn't make a dent on UI.