The Magician's Tower

Hi all,

got a question for the more knowledgeable then I folks. I just dinged 71 and with new pet in hand, plan on grinding through a few hundred AAs to get myself up to speed. I am well behind the AA curve with around 120 AAs. I know which AAs I want to work on. The reason for the post is to get some suggestions on Zones and/or mobs to kill for the AAs.

What I do now, when I log on is the 2 non-combat tasks given by Fenden in Dragonscale. This takes about 20-25 mins with the running and gating back. Once done, before I complete the quests, I hit LotD then complete, and this nets me 2 AAs. I quickly gate to preserve the other 29 mins of Lotd until I can get buffed up and head out to exp.

I have found Plain of Earth pretty decent, in the remaining time of the LotD I usually end up with around 6 AAs. The mobs in PoE aren't too bad, I usually use a merc to help heal off the rampage damage, and the 71 pet can handle 2 mobs at a time np. Most are light blue with a few Dk blues mixed in. These mobs don't particularly resist too much, though it can be streaky. The loot so far has been atrocious, gems are rare and most is just TS stuff(so far, only done this 2 times so far).

I tried spiders in Icefall, but they hit like a truck, this seems more like a kiters spot. I would like to get back into Katta to do the spider quests, but when I tried in the past they made quick work of me. I do not know if the 71 pet would be better, but I think that this is still not a good idea. Again a kiters spot.

I grinded most of my AAs out in BoT, and just finished the tower key, should I try in there? The giants in BoT are a breeze but the exp has slowed so much that its not worth doing(but dont know if the tower would be better).

Any suggestions, would be great, I plan on staying at this level for a while. I do not have any of my 71 RkII spells, and am missing most of my 69 and 70. So I want to find a spot where i can get the AAs I need and accumulate some plat to buy what I can. I may try to get my research up to make the spells, I am at 200 from way back when that was the cap. I don't really have the plat for it, only have around 10K in total. But if I am going to spend 5k on a spell, I think it might make more sense to put the 5K into skill ups and eventually make them myself.(Think this might be a pipe dream).

Ok, thats my rambling, any help would be appreciated.

Qynin

Splitpaw. I did a LOT of killing there between 71 and 81. I used a merc there at first (since it was faster) until I built up some pet defensives and the Theft of Essence line. ToE is HUGE for solo killing vs summoned/construct mobs, for the combined heal/avoidance buff it procs. Elementals have 32k hps, so one 32k proc from your higher anti-summoned nukes will 1-shot them.

Check out http://www.mapfiend.net/map/paw. Look at the northern arm of water; go right a tad from the base of that arm. You'll see a little cubby there. One single elemental spawns there; after you kill it, you are pretty much safe in that cubby, and can pull mobs there to avoid adds. If you fight in the open area JUST north of that cubby, you will only ever get 1 or two adds max (one from the northern large room, possibly one from a static spawn at the entrance to the long hallway/bridge just east).

It can be dangerous there until you are used to it. A tip: never fight in the hallways unless you want adds.

I warn you, it may look like the hallways are clear, but roamers come out of the woodwork when you fight in that hallway, and jail area to the east. Seriously, you'll be fighting one, and within seconds of starting, see a mob start pathing towards you. Then another, and another, etc. Once you build up some levels and AA (or a group there), you can take advantage of this and often just have mobs pull themselves (up to maybe 10 at once).

With practice, and pushing myself harder and harder there, I peaked at about 6m per AA around lvl 76. This area still provided an AA every 8-9m at 81. I'd recommend a Kei/C3 instead of higher, just for the fact it lasts over four hours and I didn't wanna stop killing to get rebuffed and run back. Splitpaw was very dangerous with adds (until learning what not to do), but very rewarding in AAs and a feeling of accomplishment as I managed to up my kill rate/find new ways to kill the masses.



*Edit* One more thing, about Lesson. It will increase regular xp from tasks, but not AA. I'd recommend, once you are able to comfortably kill nymphs (with a merc), you do these tasks every other day. Grab the tasks one day, and start on them the next. That way you can kill 10 nymphs, go explore the mino fort (invis/safely), turn in the tasks, and then immediately request them again and repeat. Something like this: log in with tasks ready. Kill 10 nymphs (check bodies for quest necklace/free xp), explore mino fort, turn in tasks. Grab new tasks, go explore mino fort, start lesson, kill 10 nymphs, continue to kill nymphs until Lesson is over or almost over, and then turn in tasks again. Grab new tasks the next day, and then repeat the process another day later. This way you get extra xp from killing with lesson, and get a lot from turning in four tasks.

Once you can kill minos (probably 76+), just add the mino kill task to that. If you want to get Lesson xp increases for the tasks, use the kills for Lesson AA, and then go full regular xp when you turn in tasks. Remember, you don't have to take the task reward as soon as you get it. You can save up a few (5 or 6?), and then collect the rewards all at once when Lesson is almost up.

Hi Alanlya,

Thanks for the tip!! Splitpaw seems like the spot for me, for the near future. I only spent an hour or so there last night, but it seems real nice. The cubby was easy to get to, no see invis on the way. And setting up in the cubby only once grabbed aggro from a wanderer. The pet was able to tank them both(with merc up). Gems seem to drop, so I netted a little plat also, this is definately a plus.

How does ToE work? does it add a proc on our anti summon nukes? I don't have any of the ones near my lvl, I will have to try and see if I can find one for sale, so far havent had any luck.

Where is are the nymphs, and who gives the task?

Thanks again!
Qnyin

The nymphs are the combat task for Ladies of the Light faction given by the same guy that gives the two non-combat tasks in the tower. The nymphs you have to kill are the ones just outside the tower. They can be a little dangerous at 71 since many of them are grouped close enough that you can't pull them single (without CoN anyway) and you probably can't handle two at once easily. In fact I have died many times trying to take two at once, even with cleric merc. If you do get two, offtank one with RS and burn the other down as quick as you can. It's mana intensive, but better than death. Or just run like hell.

I did basically the same thing for a long time to get the Faycitum for the energized wire coil. Do the two acts, the brownie rebels errand, and the ladies of the light combat task. Will net you about 5 AA all said and done, plus 83 Faycitym. Do this 9 times and you can get an energized wire coil for your own use or to sell in the bazaar.

Another set of tasks you can do in DSH (not as good xp, but still decent and easy) are the cleaning up the farm tasks. They're given from that small camp of gnomes between the zone in from steamfont and the farm, and net about 60% AA each, plus xp from the kills.

ToE is one of my favorite AAs. If you don't already have it, buy destroy summoned and you'll have about a 25% chance per nuke to proc a 2K/2.5K/3K heal (at rank 1/2/3) and a very nice pet defensive buff. The only downside of this AA is the heals can be streaky sometimes, and it can get you into trouble if you're nuking instead of healing hoping it will proc. And yes, it adds this proc to any (I think) of our anti-summoned nukes. I haven't tried it with the lower level ones, but I know it works for destroy summoned onwards.

Also if anyone mentions killing constructs or clockworks, just remember they didn't retroactively add that to our older anti-summoned nukes. Once you get 73 you get the anti-summoned line with the chance at the 32K proc that works on golems, clockworks, gargoyles, etc.

Here is a much nicer map of Splitpaw (taken from eqatlas.com).

Everyone,

Thanks! I am really starting to like this spot. The zone is usually empty, and now with just the first rank of ToE and my lower lvl anti sum spell Iam killing much more efficiently. I plan to make this my home for the forseeable future. Gonna flesh out a bunch of AAs then work towards lvl 76.

Thanks again!
Qnyin

Good to hear it, that place is really a blast as a mage. Figuring out just much you can push your limits is a bit different there than most places. Once you start getting some AA clickies, be sure to use them as part of your rotation, don't save em up. You'll be able to use them once or twice per cycle, likely (Fortify Companion, Host of Elements, Companion's Blessing, Frenzied Burnout, etc.).