The Spirit Realm

Normally I run close to 1.5 yellows, so I can lose some as required. But with the addition of mercs, and their wonderful, almost always available (sometimes you gotta wait five minutes!) 96% res, I have dropped that to about 4 - 4.5 blues. I turned AA xp on last night at 80%, as I am still feeling a bit uncomfortable with that low of a pad.

I recall a friend or two though in previous level ups, that would lose their level every time they died! They had just enough pad to ge their level back on res! hehe. That is way tighter than I am willing to go.

So, How about everyone else. What is your normal pad, and have you changed it any on this expac?

why?

Why does some asshole always win out on these things?

Things are working. Things are ok. Don't fix things that aren't broken. OH no. we must. It's what we do. Suck you in, then nerf it down. To what end? To piss people off? Why?

Edit: Want to add in a few comments regarding this, and really the direction that the people who make this game should consider every time they plan something stupid like this.
1: Will this change draw people to or back to (returning players) to the game?
2: Will this change encourage people to stay (PAYING FOR) the game?
3: Have I undertaken this change based on the a hard core minority that have once again yelled so loud that it was all I could hear, and I have once again been lured into a hijack that will drive away the paying customers that don't want this change?
4: Will that vocal minority be able to pay for enough accounts that I get to keep my job? All 20 of them. hmm.

well besides the changing to the rez percentage.. my biggest gripe is the retuning that is being done the mercs as far as their ability to tank at the lower levels. I have not done much in regards to progression and I have loved the Tier 5 Apprentice mercs. They are cheap enough that I am able to keep up with the cost without breaking the bank, and so far they have done all the content that I have wanted to do. Changing the mercs from how they stand right now is just bull...

I match my AA% to my exp%. Only go full AA when I'm also full exp. Since I raid, that's pretty much never.

I hate to admit it, after my rant, but that actually makes sense. Journeyman having 96, and apprentice having 90.

So how bad are the Journeyman starting rank of mercs? The confidence higher at the apprentice Tier 5 level, or so it seems and I can't afford for the Merc to take off running. I have really not wanted to progression in the new expansion thus far, and it feels like to have a merc worth anything I am going to have to do it.

J1 merc's much better than A5. Not much more mana, but much smarter (i.e. doesn't DA itself before it gets hit).

The confidence of A5 is higher, but the threshold for checking confidence is higher on Journeymen. While A5 is less likely to cut & run when it gets to the "freak out" number of adds, the journeymen have a higher "freak out" number. So if you're mobbed by 12 or whatever, A5 is more likely to stick around, but if you have 4 or 5 (making up numbers, but somewhere around here), the A5 has a chance of running where the journeyman just doesn't care.

At 3% XP in 85 I changed to 97% AA-XP. Will leave it like that probably til next expansion. I am at 10% XP in 85 now and feel comfortable with it. 97% has been ok in the past to cover my deads and should do also this time.

I'm one of those who ride the edge and stay at just enough to keep my level if I die. I see absolutely no reason in trying to max out level for the next expansion right away when there are new, more useful AAs to be had. If you are max AA, then I see the point but that's about it. Just my opinion though.

I generally follow this rule every expansion. Once I the level cap I go 50/50 until I reach 7-8% into the level. Enough so I won't unding on death. At that point, I swap to 90/10 until I am max xp in the level which is usually 6 months into the expansion.

My usual has 20%-ish in the past, and I'm doing the same this time. Stayed on max regular exp until 20%, then 99% AA. If I don't die very often, usually that 1% is enough to make up for rezzes.

Other than the 1% thing, I'm not a fan of doing anything besides full AA or full reg exp. The way I figure it, once you have a decent pad, why cripple your AA rate so bad just for exp you're not going to need for another year? Get the AAs now, and you'll be able to get regular exp that much easier when the next expansion gets close.

I'm at about 4 blue into 85. I run 100% AA exp until I start losing 85 when I die. Then I do a lesson burn on regular exp.

I build up to 50% then switch off regular until I drop to 10%. Repeat as necessary.

Once I have all the good AA's (healing, offensive, defensive) I stay in the 90%-99% range.

I need to get from 84 to 85 before i worry about buffer =D

Being retired from raiding means i'm just playing casually =P

I went crazy with this one. My previous level caps I usually run around 20%, giving me the ability to die twice without a rez (call) and not lose my level. However, over the course of time, this hasn't always been good for me, and while mainly raiding I would be running close after some time.

And I hate having to rebuild. So I went all out and buffered all the way to 86. I'm at 99% in and will stay that way. Once in a while if I lose a percent, I just do a quick task from any number of camps and get it right back. The XP grind on this one was nasty enough to make me not want to have to grind it hardcore again.

On the flip side, I got a majority of my xp in 85 from doing tasks for faction and the augs and progression. It went fast since I was not paying any attention to the actual XP gain, only to getting my tasks done as I could. So I'd walk away from a night of working on my aug in OGH with like 7-8pct gained. Not being in a "grind" really made it more acceptable.

I ran full xp until 10% in, then 80AA/20reg until 25ish. I switched to 90/10, but haven't gone up any more, so probably 80/20 until I'm max.