71 vs 76 air pet, Katta, and Mech Guardian

[Merlaina]

Ok, so I just dinged 76 last night and immediately scribed my spells (sooo nice to not have to quest, grind missions, etc to get them all). I fired up a new fluffy and OMG. The difference between 71 fluffy and 76 fluffy are night and day. I took him for a spin against a few snakes in DSH and he was able to beat them down without even needing a nuke or heal to help. They're light blue, so not an incredible achievement, but still nice. Then I see a named clockwork. Now before I had pulled two clockworks here before and struggled. This pull brings 4, and while it was also a struggle I was able to take them all down with the help of my cleric merc. So I went from struggling with 2 to struggling with 3 regular and 1 named. Quite an improvement. I was even joking with my wife this morning that I felt the dynamic had gone from fluffy holding things back so I could nuke them to fluffy killing things while I just helped him a little. I, for one, welcome my new elemental overlord.

I also wanted to report on my experiences in Katta and the Mechamechanical Guardian. At 75 I was killing the weak elementals in Katta with my wife just to grind out the last bit of xp I needed to ding (and did the kill elementals task as I did it), and I have to say the xp was pretty disappointing. I thought that the lack of xp I'd get for them being weak would be balanced out by being able to kill them faster, but this was most definitely not the case. I had killed some of the golems (not weak, just regular mobs) and these seemed to be a bit better. Easy to pull, low assist range (if they assist at all, I don't think I ever got two at once despite them pathing pretty close to each other) and pretty easy to kill. Many are casters too so if you're looking for binding powder and research scrolls these guys do drop them.

Back to my post-76 experience: after my clockwork killing I thought I'd take a stab at the mech guardian, since I'm a whore for anything I can use AtA/ToE on. I hadn't been able to get this task before at 75 since you need 3 with an average level of 75, and apparently 2 75s and a 74 don't cut it. I was only in there with my merc (camped the chanter after getting the task) and was able to do the first two floors pretty well with the new and improved fluffy. Took about 50% of my mana bar per kill (I have ~11K mana), so killing was slow as I'd kill 2 and then need to med, but they were mostly white/yellow cons and netted about 16% AA per kill. Had some issues with the second floor since one pull got an add, and I'd have to have RS offtank that one, but overall was pretty doable (note: I don't have my 75 RS yet, just the 70 one, so offtanking usually involved the RS getting whacked quickly down and enraging, but sometimes it would skip enrage and go directly to death). Eventually had to gate when I accidentally range aggrod the two pull and then merc bit it after healing me before fluffy could pull them off. Still, managed to get 5 AAs in a relatively short time and will be coming back here soon with the chanter.

[Zacatac]

Katta elementals are indeed slow xp, but as you get higher and more AAs on your pet done, it goes increasingly faster.
At my level, there is a spot I do with 15 spawns and 6 minute respawn timer. I clear the whole thing in about 5 minutes, solo with no merc.
Killing 15 mobs every 6 minutes, even light blues, nets you some decent lesson burn xp with nearly zero chance of dying.
It's also a great spot to work on your dodge/defense and melee skill ups if you are not max. Use a steadfast servant and tank them yourself for awhile.

[Merlaina]

Would you be referring to the "mini-temple" right next to a teleporter and a shissar camp? I just discovered this spot while doing the quest to unlock the teleporters and I must say the XP there is better, just because there's pretty much a constant supply of mobs so you can pull and kill nonstop. I still use the cleric merc for now, though she's probably not really needed. Using the 76 air pet I was able to tank around 5 of these at once no problem. Just watch out for the water elementals, as they have some kind of spin stun that will cause your pet to lose aggro, and having 5 blue (even weak) elementals suddenly running at you is no fun. The fact that they heal adds to the annoyance, so these I always target first and just overnuke them into a fine pink mist.

Funnily enough fighting these was the first time I'd ever had my merc lose confidence (Level 5 apprentice merc). I guess they don't take the weakness of mobs into account when calculating confidence level. Still didn't have an issue with the fight even with the merc out of the picture.

[Merlaina]

So did the Katta elementals again last night. Using 10 minutes left from the previous nights lesson, a new full lesson, and about an hour and a half with no xp bonus I pulled in around 25 AA. Did have one death though due to the water elementals having a lucky streak of spinstuns, but still very much worth it. Also raked in 6K worth of loot and quite a few 70-75 research scrolls.

[thed]

I have been tearing up Katta with 76 air pet, I got a few hundred aa's in about a week and just now started to level up. I am 79 about to hit 80.At what level would you suggest leaving katta and heading to somewhere else that has a lot of elementals? I think I read beza has some good ones to use AtA on, can anyone suggest where at is a good camp in beza to solo with the AtA?


P.S.
Can someone help me fix my sig? heh

[EQ Mage Tower]

A lot of suggestions will be dependant on your AA's and gear. My recommendation would be to spend day in Katta, then the next day in Beza. Just compare how much XP you get between the two. Beza mobs are a LOT harder at that level than the Katta elementals. They are affected by AtA because they are constructs. As far as where to solo, literally just zone in and walk forward a little bit. Almost everything in the courtyard area can be pulled single if you are patient.

Replace your current sig with the below.

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[thed]

right on I appreciate the advice, and thanks for squaring me away with my sig.

[Merlaina]

Also if you're going to 80, just go ahead and go to 81. The increase in pet power far outweighs the negatives of being one level higher. Depending on how fast you can kill that spot in Katta might not cut it after 81 since you'll be killing faster than the spawn rate. I think that's the main indicator of when it's time to move on to greener pastures. There is another area in Katta with considerably more of the same elementals, but they are spread out much more and I don't care for it due to all of the running around involved.

If you want to try beza might I suggest grabbing the instance (you'll need a friend to do this since it requires 3 people to request it, mercs counting as a person). There are several pretty nice augs that can drop (both 80 HP/Mana, and one of them has spell damage) not to mention root and snare clicky items (which are super-rare and have long reuse timers). Just clean out the courtyard, which will be all clockworks, and the drop the task and request it again. If you like that and can handle it ok, it might be time to move to the roof by getting a gyrospire relocation device, but that is a fairly involved quest and can be a PITA. However I've found it to be immensely handy since it ports you straight to the camp spot. Handy if you forgot to use LoD. Just pop it in the guild lobby, camp, and the next day click your relocation device and presto! No lesson time wasted traveling to camp.

You can get several clockworks solo on the roof, and you can get a nice collection of hats (named up there drops the SoF group progression hats for all 4 archetypes) plus another 80/80 aug. Try it with a merc first, and once you get to know the pulls you can try dropping the merc and going solo again. Just be aware that pulling 3 at once solo is usually tough, and I wouldn't suggest trying it until 85 so RS can offtank one. What you might try is pulling all the ones you can solo, and then pop a merc to help out with the rest.

[Claustaler]

Hi all,

nice Thread some info helped me from 75-77 (although this thread is a bit old).

@Merlaina where is the elemental spot you talking about you doesnt mean the easy elementals at north from the central pyr. or? Do you have a log for me would like to keep Katta as campzone for the next levels.

[Belthil]

On the subject of Katta elementals (weak) vs golems, I parsed a few lesson burns at level 76 and can say that over time the golems are better xp if you have a few AAs under your belt and can kill the golems at a decent clip.

It takes me just under 30 seconds on average to kill an elemental and nearly 1 minute to kill a golem, but the golems give more than twice the xp per kill and the 'downtime' of pulling etc. is constant between the two. Over a 30 minute lesson burn I could kill ~36 elementals or ~24 golems. I was buffed with voice of forethought for both lessons, though I doubt my kill rate would drop much on the elementals without it. At most I could get off a few Annihilate the unnaturals before the mob dropped. The golems on the other hand did require serious nuking and would slow down substantially without the mana regen buff.