Leveling - How much AA per kill should I be aiming for?

[Jax]

I'm working on my core-team after many years of hiatus. I have a level 102 SK, Bard, and Cleric with backup healer merc and two caster DPS mercs.

I'll probably work on some others characters after I get these guys about where I want them.

I'm currently kiss-afk for some grinding. My question to the pros's: How much AAXP without lessons etc. should I be aiming for per kill? I think I'm about 12% and change in my current spot, but definitely think I could do better.

I'd rather sacrifice some efficiency for low-key out of the way spots rather than in your face afk leveling, but I do want to do as well as possible.

Thanks!

 

[Inkie]

I'd churn and burn to 105 and then set the slider to mostly AA.

12% AA per kill without lesson / fellowship etc. I personally think is reasonable assuming you're never (or nearly never) without something to kill.

depending on the zone you're hunting in, switching to a dps merc instead of healer merc may make kills faster and therefore exp / hr faster.

when I get my bard caught up with my ench I'm planning to test Rogue Merc vs. Caster Merc with a bard. I *think* the bard procs might take the rogue merc ahead of the caster if there isn't an ench. But that's just my guess.

 

[Warl0ck45]

you want to look more along the lines of how many AA per hour/4 hour type of overall gain moreso then per kill. As in, in area A you may get 20% per kill, and in area B you get 10% per kill, but if you can kill area B fast enough to surpass the over AA gain over time of hunting in area A, then your best bet is going that route.

I would suggest doing some test runs in different areas you want to hunt in. Set up shop and record a stop and start time, so you can figure out your average AA gain over X amount of time. Then do a little comparison.

There are a few XP grind guides for some folks favorite spots on these forums. But frankly every group handles stuff differently, since every toon set up+PC set up+internet lag is different.

I have not specifically tested since they did the XP smoothing out thing a short time back, but it used to be once you pass 101+ you take an XP penalty playing in the RoF expansion or earlier. That being said, at level 102 you can probably level in CotF or TDS. Each server is different but mine for instance Neriak 4th gate is mostly dad except for the AFK farmers...TWK as well cept for the path to the dragon portals...DH always has folks hanging around Gribble.. though the Tower of Rot is mostly dead...--shrugs--

But like I said, I suggest checking out a few places to see what gives decent XP for you over time =)

 

[Jax]

Hehe ... great point ... per kill XP is pretty irrelevant without time associated with it.

I kill in around 24s on average where I am. I probably have on average a 10 second pull time between the far mob and the close ones as they respawn.

I think taking a couple reads in certain spots makes a ton of sense. Also, do most folks agree knock out 105 and then AA?

 

[Razkle]

FYI I never do a per hour kinda thing, I have a spreadsheet that has toons info in it, like level, spells, geared, and current AA count, 24 hour AA and that gives me AA per day.... for me an hour is nothing to a toon, a day now that gives me a baseline on what and where to AA....

 

[Warl0ck45]

Jax that kinda depends on your group make up. I personally do go that route (level to 105 and then AA) but I have enough toons to make up a few groups... so the newbie has plenty of support while he sits back and enjoys the ride.

If your group can handle mobs with 1-3 toons been undergeared and underAAed for the content, then yes.

If your group has issues with the content you are wanting to be able to farm, then you either move to easier content, or spend some time putting better gear and more AA on the toons.

Me personally, if I am working a fresh group (with no max level toon to PL em) I go 50% to AA, since they will need it. Else... 10% till 105 so they can at least keep up with basic defensive like combat agility/stability and armor of wisdom/shield block.

But that is just my opinion. Ran into to many named that ate the newbies strictly because of being too weak, even though they were sitting back hardly doing anything. But like I said, entirely depends on what you are doing with the toons =)

 

[Razkle]

Jax that kinda depends on your group make up. I personally do go that route (level to 105 and then AA) but I have enough toons to make up a few groups... so the newbie has plenty of support while he sits back and enjoys the ride.

If your group can handle mobs with 1-3 toons been undergeared and underAAed for the content, then yes.

If your group has issues with the content you are wanting to be able to farm, then you either move to easier content, or spend some time putting better gear and more AA on the toons.

Me personally, if I am working a fresh group (with no max level toon to PL em) I go 50% to AA, since they will need it. Else... 10% till 105 so they can at least keep up with basic defensive like combat agility/stability and armor of wisdom/shield block.

But that is just my opinion. Ran into to many named that ate the newbies strictly because of being too weak, even though they were sitting back hardly doing anything. But like I said, entirely depends on what you are doing with the toons =)

My newbies all joined a newbie union, in order to be in a high level group they are now required by union laws to be Invised, Invised from Undead, 100 paces away from the combat and keeping their hands in their pockets...... stupid union!

 

[Dretski]

My self-PL baseline is 750 AAs per day (without pots and Lesson - I always use the free pots when rolling a new toon, but that's all there is to it), which rounds up to about 100 AAs an hour playtime with all the tricks and spots I know.
If you can do one third of that (which is not hard per se, but takes some careful planning, INI creation/optimizing and good spots), I'd say you are very well on your way to becoming a great levelling force.

 

[hoosierbilly]

My newbies all joined a newbie union, in order to be in a high level group they are now required by union laws to be Invised, Invised from Undead, 100 paces away from the combat and keeping their hands in their pockets...... stupid union!

Interesting union. Knowing some of the dumb things my newbies try to do I might have to impose a similar union on them...

 

[Warl0ck45]

heh. I tend to do a very limited INI on them to make sure to practice skills as they are sitting there doing nothing anyways. Either through doing piddly spells at the mob, rotating weapons to train melee skills, or using a spell practice macro to work specific spell classifications. But many times I have done like Raz there, when I get fed up with soandso's 10k hp newb in cloth armor dieing every time a nasty sneezes.

I try not to bother gearing up until 100 (I have some toons with a ton of CotF merchant cash to buy latent) and try to run them through DH missions as they get to level 100, to buy the non armor gear from the merchants.

Last few I have been working up I have just leveled/heroic'ed to 80ish then stuck in a TBM group farming gear. The leveling is slower then chained DH missions, but that is cause I am only killing a small camp. Otherwise... the toon is collecting randoms + item drops + armor.

I like working up toon fresh as it lets me re-evaluate a class fresh and make sure my set up matches what I want it to do best. Like the folks that were asking about aggro, had me looking over how my toons did aggro holding and...do a little tweaking with a fresh set of eyes. Especially with all the changes the MQ Dev's have put into things that make new stuff possible!

 

[Zensai]

I'd churn and burn to 105 and then set the slider to mostly AA.

12% AA per kill without lesson / fellowship etc. I personally think is reasonable assuming you're never (or nearly never) without something to kill.

depending on the zone you're hunting in, switching to a dps merc instead of healer merc may make kills faster and therefore exp / hr faster.

when I get my bard caught up with my ench I'm planning to test Rogue Merc vs. Caster Merc with a bard. I *think* the bard procs might take the rogue merc ahead of the caster if there isn't an ench. But that's just my guess.

I run Rogue mercs with my Bard, they outperform wiz mercs.

 

[Dretski]

You should get the TBM gear for all the 100's, it's awesome!

 

[hellfyre]

Just remember the more mercs you have out the more xp they are sucking away from your actual toons.

 

[Jax]

Just remember the more mercs you have out the more xp they are sucking away from your actual toons.

I thought that a full group even with mercs got a bonus now making this less of a concern provided you can man a full group with mercs?

 

[Inkie]

the last post I saw on the forums about this seemed to indicate that a full group of players got a slight bonus
(the exp for the kill was divided by 5 for each player instead of 6) (not the exact math but the principle)

However I believe if there is a merc in the group the experience per kill is divided by 6 instead.

but I'm not finding the thread that explained it.

 

[Casca]

Another thing to consider is if you plan to max out "Very Small Stone Tear" as it gains more exp. for each kill dependent on how the mob cons to you. At 102, there are still many Alarans that will con dark blue. At 105, most of them are light blue (at those camps where they coulda been dark blue. Other camps, they're probably all light blue to green). I'm bringing up a new heroic account and leveling it up to 95 with autogrant on at an Alaran camp to work on the tear, then stopping there to max out every single AA I can at that level. At 95, all the Alarans con red and some are at the brink of conning yellow, so should help with catching the new account's tear up to all my other ones that are nearly done.

 

[hellfyre]

I'm not 100% on the math either but I know whenever I fill out a group with a merc the xp seems to go down the toilet

 

[Casca]

I'm not 100% on the math either but I know whenever I fill out a group with a merc the xp seems to go down the toilet

Really though, if you intend to use mercs or have many occasions that you use mercs (outside of a grind for exp camp), just use them. Getting AA's for mercs will require you have them out and although I am not sure they do any more DPS with Mystic Destruction maxed out or heal better with Healing Acumen maxed, the Silent Arcanum/ Subtle Magic really does help with agro. My tank is completely maxed out on merc AA's and yet it's a toss up if my tanks max AA caster merc beats my other accounts zero AA caster merc on parse, but regardless they are usually pretty close for DPS. But it's a pretty sure beat that my zero AA caster merc will be the one that pulls agro if I don't pay attention on my warrior. That's with mercs not being controlled by the mac/plugin and just on auto-burn.