AA or level thats the question

[dduble07]

Currently I am a level 84 magician and have just a bit over 600 AA's should I try and get to 85 or AA till about 1,000. I always hear that AA slows down a lot once I get to level 85 which scares me because I dont want it to lol. Anyway I just wanna know if it will slow down and by how much. And what should I do about it? I am very close to being in void E and will have Korfax flag and won't be able to wear that armor which is why I want to be lvl 85

[Redius]

get the levels. The gear and better foci that accompany it will make up for any slowing of the aa exp.

[Dadani]

Get 85, you are too close not too. If your current aa spot is not as good, then you need to find a better spot. That is just part of gaining levels, spells, armor and aa's.
I had no problems getting 7 aa's on a lessons burn in valdeholm solo. Beza and Zeka are still also great locations to solo depending on your gear, aa's and spells. Summoned mobs and theft of essence is a nice combo.

[omne]

There are too many valuable lvl 85 spells to stop at 84. (Fickle Blaze, Rumbling servant, hulking bodyguard and twincast are all very nice)

[jalany]

AA doesn't really slow down at 85 it's just generally when you level you get AA's as well and the more AA you have the slower your AA xp is.

[EQ Mage Tower]

Yeah, I would say that if you're already lvl 84, you might as well get to 85 to take advantage of the spells at that level. If you were lower level, I'd recommend differently. I'm working on a Mage alt now. He's lvl 65 w/ about 250 AA's and getting about 14% AAxp per a kill duo'ing in the pit in Valdeholm. He also gets a little over 1 AA per a task in OGH.

[Sillaen]

Realistically, the only time a mage should ever stop leveling to do AA's is if you find a sweet AA spot at the pinnacle of mage power, which is front loaded with the air pet. So if you're like 71, 76 or 81 and you find a nice spot, then go for it. At lvl 84, it's more beneficial to go on to 85.

Edit: Well, I shouldn't say pinnacle. We do get more powerful as you lvl up, but a lot of our power is front loaded at the 1's and 6's when we get that new pet.

[Piemastaj]

The only time I stop to AA is when I reach max level. We gain so much power via getting our new Rampaging Servant line from reaching max lvl it makes no sense to me why mages would stop at like 82 and gain 500 AAs. Fickle is also not a bad spell either since it is used in our weaves, and not to mention we normally get some type of new spell at max lvl like hulking Bodyguard and such.

just my 2cp.

[EQ Mage Tower]

Pie,

It's really all about personal preference. The logic behind stopping to AA vs Level is that as you get higher in level mobs get relatively more difficult to kill.

An example is that I believe at level 76, RSS mobs still con DB however at level 80 they con LB. While you get more power/mana etc going from level 76 to level 80 that extra power doesn't allow you to kill mobs fast enough to make up for the loss of XP.


Hypothetical Example below - Please note, I'm using nice easy numbers for this since it's purely an example.
At level 76, you can kill 10 mobs in RSS solo in 15 minutes. It then takes you 3 minutes to regen your mana by which time mobs start respawning. Each mob is worth 7% AAxp a kill. This nets you a total of 70% AAxp a cycle.

At level 80, you can kill 12 mobs in RSS solo in 15 minutes. It then takes you 3 minutes to regen your mana by which time mobs start respawning. Each mob is worth 5% AAxp a kill. This nets you a total of 60% AAxp a cycle.

So, even though you are killing more mobs in the same amount of time, you're actually getting less AAxp than you would have if you had stayed at level 76 and grinded AA's.

This is further compounded by the fact that as you get more AA's at level 76 you become more powerful without taking a hit on the amount of XP you get per a mob. Eventually through gaining AA's you'd be able to kill another mob each cycle gaining you even more AAxp.

[dorfillya]

If you are that close to 85, I gotta think you might as well go ahead and level. I see all kinds of rot loots that you could wear at 85, but not at 84. Plus so many nice 85 spells.