To ding, or not to ding...that is the question..

[Nelith]

To ding or not to ding– that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The isolation and solitude of staying level 80,
Or to take arms against regular exp mobs
And, by opposing, ding 81. To ding, to aaxp
No more – and by a ding to say we end
The easy aaxp camping and the thousand light blue mobs
That my aaxp comes from – ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To ding, to get my 81 pet spell
To get my 81 pet, perchance to lay waste to more current hotzones. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that level of 81 what mobs are good aaxp fodder,
When I have moved out of this sweet spot,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of level advancement.


I don't know why I chose to rape Shakespear like that, but in summation: Is there a nice, breezy level 81 solo spot that should convince me to ding now that I'm approaching 600ish aas?

I have maxed all pet offensive and defensive lines for level 80, I have maxed my mana-saving aa lines, I am working my way up the spell crit lines, and I have picked up most of the utility aa's that have been of value to me.

Should I focus on hardening my mage himself before moving on? The defensives and HP/Mana pool lines?

I've got EM4 focus, and working with about 18khp/21kmp at this point. I've heard the 81 air pet makes the 76 air pet look like a puppy dog. I have found a few super-sweet spots for soloing where I have been raking in the aaxp. Are there any similar sweet spots at 81?

[Zacatac]

I would imagine most of the spots at 80 are still viable to 81, and you'll have a much better pet. Better pet = faster kills = more xp.
Loping Plains right now is a very popular spot (currently a hotzone) for 81+.

And being higher level isn't the end of all AA spots. I currently get 6-7 AA in a 30 minute lesson burn.

[Zatpus]

Staying 80 or going 81, I think everyone will tell you to get the new pet.

Loiping planes is already mentioned. But if you don't have already done, start wih beza instances. In the Instance you can get a zonrerare aug with spelldamage, a zonerare snare-clicky (very long recast) and a zonerare rootclicky (decent recast). Alot of monsters are constructs.

Once you got your aug and clickies head over to Zeka instances or non-instanced. Zeka alomost all mobs are constructs. With EM4 and all AAs even a doublepull should not be a problem. You will have to check it out, Zeka mbos are higher in level but have also alot more HP. So as long as you don't run out of mobs in beza, it's maybe more efficient there.

Beza and Zeka tend to net decent pp as well, even with merc always up, but for the xp-rate best would be to not have the merc up. With EM4 and pet-aas you should be able to kill there without merc.

While collecting some pp on the way, find a nice tradeskiller and look for Stalwart gear+augs. Try to get some boomerang-missions done for the invisble slots. But if you do so, get first the augment for primary slot: Urgak's Soothing Stone, the manaproc from that is very nice.

Have a look at the bazaar as well for the Ebon Crook. It will give you another manaproc.

With Stalwart gear and some boomerang-items your manapool can grow upto 30k mana. If you than have been lucky as well to get the aug and the Crook for manaprocs, your killrate will have been raised by a nice chunk.


About AAs, I have Pet-AAs (all of them) at hight priority. Second personal dps, third Burst-dps. Personal defensive AAs like HP and other stuff I have on low priority, they will come later. As long as my pet is protecting me I don't have to wory about myself. If the stuff inc will overwhelm my pet, the chances that some AAs may save my live are very slim.

[Merlaina]

I agree very much with what Zatpus said. Get your new pet, bolt, and DS at 81. Beza is good xp, and I believe splitpaw is even still good AA xp at that level. I usually do my AA grinding in beza (non-instanced) and I usually pull in somewhere around 9 AA a lesson at 85. If you don't have theft of essence maxed yet I'd go ahead and do that, since then you can use ATA nukes in beza and paw and run without a merc (though you still may need to spot heal a little in beza).

And there are actually two pretty good augs from beza instance. Both are 80 HP/Mana, and one is more angled for casters (the spell damage one) and one is more for melee, but really 80 HP/Mana is still pretty good. Also if you can have someone help you get the instance you can do mechamatic guardian, though I'd use a merc there. You have a chance to score a 96/96 HP/Mana aug from there.

Also, while not great xp as far as AA grinding goes, you might want to hit up Oceangreen or Bloody Kith and start working on faction for those places. You'll want OGH faction for twincast Rk II (and jolt faycite shard if you raid) and kith faction doesn't have any spells for us, but we get both our bolt and fickle faycite shards from there, which you don't need to raid to want.