Xping

[fendaann]

if you trying to level two lower toons

85 sham

61 mag
60 sk


is it best to keep the two lower toons at the same level for AA farming.

I am think my SK is going to need more AA's then the mage when I run out of DPS AA's on the mage.

[Kakimor]

Generally it has been my experience that "required" or "must have" AA for tanking classes is slightly higher in the number of them needed than for silk classes before you can jump up in level and tiers. It begins to balance out when you start to fill out the "nice to have but not absolutely necessary" AAs.
Somewhere I seem to remember seeing a post that recommended 150 ? AA per 5 levels above lvl 55 with an end goal of @ 1000 AA at lvl 85 would pretty much take care of all of the "required or must haves" for almost any class. A reply in that same post said 200 per 5 lvls ending in 1200 to 1400 was a little more realistic.
At some point you will find that grinding those AAs and levels is harder or comes a bit easier at certain levels due to gear, zone difficulty, and any number of other factors. Personally I would just do the homework to know what the minimum AA you need or want to spend @ lvl 55, 60, 65, etc. on each character and grind the levels in between.
It very well may mean that your Mage hits level 85 first or has several hundred more AA at lvl 85 than the SK ... oh well. I'm really not too sure how much effect over the long run that having them different levels will have on XP earned. Its perhaps a unrelated observation but I know of 2 people that basically started alts at the same time. They group together almost 100% of the time and spend pretty much the same amount of time playing their alts. One rushed to get to 85 earning very little AA along the way the other stopped leveling periodically to earn AA on the way up. End result is the guy that rushed to 85 before working on AA has several hundred AA less than the guy that grinded them out while leveling up with almost exactly the same amount of time and effort invested. They spent almost all of that time in the "hot zones" for the highest level character as long as the lower could zone in.

[Kumudil]

For AAs as far as I know its best if the toons are same level. The AAs gained are based on the con of the mob to the highest level toon in group and than ontop shared unevenly (the higher toon gets more of it, not in % of aa but absolut aa-xp gained).

I presume you are 3-boxing. For AAs start right now and leave shaman out of group. Get 2 tankmercs and head to POI or COD.
Lvl 61 ist first level the toons can get the buffs upto 85. Get them Galla buffed from healermerc on shaman and the shamanbuffs and leave group than. Throwing panther and grouphots should be more than enought to keep all in good shape and plow away. At lvl 61 the tankmercs are still very solid and add more than averange dps to the group.

Get as much AAs as you can stand now. Soon it will get much harder to collect more of them; alot much harder.

[fendaann]

thanks for the info.

I may just solo the lower char AA's till I am ready to level it to the same lvl as the higher alt.

[Vermi]

[Garshok]

Fendaann - I'm actually trying to AA up an alt mage right now, so going through a lot of the same questions you are.

I'd recommend for the SK to make sure that you have CS, CA, TOTC, SA, ToL and SCF maxed for each level, or at least every five levels. Add in the various other basics (PE, ND, etc), and you will be about 1200-1400 at 85 for the SK just for the 'survival' AAs. If you want to start adding in offensive AAs as well at lower levels, you'll end up with a fair bit more. That's a lot more than you'll need for the mage to get basic functionality. So while you will probably want to keep the mage and SK the same level, you're probably going to want to split your time so that sometimes you are working on njust the SK and somethimes on both.

Slightly off-topic.... Not sure how you are PLing if you are. I tried the pincushion approach at various levels (SK ungrouped wearing mobs down with DS' while the mage kills mobs with spells/pets), and while that was great for leveling up, it seemed awfully slow for AAing at the various levels I tried it at (51, 62, 70, 75). I never did the merc trick at lower levels. What I finally did was simply start grouping with my main where Garshok did his usual LOTD burn.

I've seen on the boards - but haven't seen a dev post confirming it - that AA exp has been changed again so that as long as the highest level character gets exp, there is a level modifier applied for lower level characters. While that may or may not be the case, I have tried some runs with the 75 mage on LOTD with Garshok and netted 19 AAs and 15 AAs in 30 minutes (mage had about 130 and 150 AA at the time). AA did seem to go a lot faster. While I had managed to get about 26 AA in a single lesson using the pincussion technique earlier, that had taken almost two hours camping my mage out while waiting for mobs to get to 20%; I would have gotten almost twice that AA that just killing with Garshok for that same period with an LOTD burn in the middle.

So I'd say try soloing with the SK for AAs, try the mercs, and try it with your SK (and mage) grouped while your shammy kills, see which gives you better results. Or more fun results, at least.