The Spirit Realm

Will be much better XP at 65, for sure. Sand giants (south) had the largest wing, and could support several static groups without running out of mobs back in the day. Tornado (north) were always the last ones camped. Also did some soloing and grouping in the courtyards (run across portals at the far end of any wing). I don't imagine any of those loots are worth anything as loot, but might be for tribute or tradeskillers.

http://www.eqatlas.com/planes/bastionofthundermap.html

I used to help PL friends up in Bees. Decent xp, safe pulls, quick kills and a decent chance of spell parchments (which might still be useful to your group if you stay sub-65.

Has anyone gone after parchments recently? Having a horrid time getting ethereals to drop in BoT (though it's a good place to find spectrals, still), but I can't for the life of me remember where we used to get ethereals to drop. I remember the drop rate being truly horrible in the lower-tier zones (PoN, PoD)...

I never had a problem getting them to drop when Pl'ing in zones like HoH, CoD, and PoD. They drop from BoT but most of the time it's from the named. It's all random though.

Don't even bother with the whole Ethereal/Spectral nonsense. Support your local researcher. Spells in the PoP range are pretty easy to bang out, and heck, odds are you've probably stumbled onto some of the 'stationary' for them already. (Parchment (61), Fine Parchment (62), Vellum Parchment (63), Fine Vellum Parchment (64), Runic Parchment(65).)

And you don't even have to deal with the infernal random number generator giving you the spell you already have four times.

No shortage of talented and time-generous researchers on Test.

I suppose that means they never threw in any ability to trade in duplicate spells so you can get the one you want? I thought I'd heard of such a thing going into the game, but the line between fantasy & reality gets fuzzier and fuzzier as the years go on.

Thanks for the tip!

I'm getting a sick giggle out of our results from last night's hunting, spell drop -wise.

3 ethereal parchments - much better than previously. 1 spec. And FOUR runic parchments. Gotta love it when it's easier to get your 65 spells than 61! (not that the researching skill we're relying on wasn't probably a massive hassle to get)

Cleric finally got Aego - I agree those stormriders are pretty much the best spot to grind around in circles. Gotta find a new spot though, before I go batty (battier).

Research parchment drops are wonky and result in some parchments being much easier to get than lower level parchments. Still, they're generally pretty obtainable and don't lock you into content from a given era.

Perhaps I'm just an idiot but I've never had any luck 'breaking' the camp of stormriders. Which are the first mobs you pull if you start with a full spawn?

Their aggro range is fairly small. Keep your group compact: make sure people don't back into aggro from the next bee over. The best way to do this is to jam yourselves into a corner; pull the nearest bee; and clear that section. Move to the next section, and repeat.