How many AA's do you get....

[Tweelis]

.....over a certain amount of time?

I'm wondering because right now there's a pretty long thread on the shadowknight boards between paladins and sk's. One paladin claims to be getting 12 aa's per lesson burn in MG and is saying his dps is low. So this got me to thinking I'm doing something very very wrong as I haven't gotten 12 aa's in a lesson burn since level 81 in Splitpaw. Just last night I pulled down 7 aa's in Thallassius.

I will admit my gear is just ok (EM2 pet, 25k mana) and I'm unable to really crank out the long term dps. So between my own experience in grinding aa's and what this paladin is claiming I'm wondering what the rest of you are pulling down either with just regular aaxp grinding or over a lesson burn situation or even with the station cash xp pots. If you're willing to post any specific details such as group/solo/molo/zone(s)/etc. so we can get something of a comparison that would be great. Guess I'll post first.

Beza/Thallassius: Average 7 aa's per 30 minute lesson burn solo. I use steadfast servant for self heals and potions when flappy can't keep my health up.
Zeka: Average 5 aa's per 30 minute lesson burn with a T5 healer merc on balanced for double pulls, reactive with 3 or more mobs.

[jack96jill]

8-10 aa's solo lesson in thal

[Niblix]

i seem to be in a similar boat. for some time i was able to get between 9 and 12 AAs per 30 minute lesson burn, depending on how lucky i got with my Gift of Mana and the 32k Nuke from the Annihilations, that was until i hit 77th. oh ALL of my xp has been in PAW and 90% AA 10% Reg mix. once i hit 77th and 78th i started dropping to 5 or 6 AAs per 30 minute lesson burn. now that i've pushed to 79th i find myself at a loss. yes, i've given in and moved to Katta ;-/ trust me when i tell you i've done several tests comparing PAW and Katta. PAW was easier and i could take down a single mob in about 18-22 seconds. it boiled down to simple numbers so PAW won, until now.

i'm not a raid level adventurer. i adventure for about an hour or so each night just to let off some stress hehe... my gear is ok-ish i think. i'm still 79th and want to make certain i don't sell myself short on AAs so i'm back to the 90/10 mix. see my sig for details, as soon as it updates lol...

so there's your numbers and some context to go along with them. anyone else? where else could someone, like myself, solo? i'm sure that, for those of us who don't get out as often as the average adventurer, we would greatly appreciate your input

[Niblix]

i seem to be in a similar boat. for some time i was able to get between 9 and 12 AAs per 30 minute lesson burn, depending on how lucky i got with my Gift of Mana and the 32k Nuke from the Annihilations, that was until i hit 77th. oh ALL of my xp has been in PAW and 90% AA 10% Reg mix. once i hit 77th and 78th i started dropping to 5 or 6 AAs per 30 minute lesson burn. now that i've pushed to 79th i find myself at a loss. yes, i've given in and moved to Katta ;-/ trust me when i tell you i've done several tests comparing PAW and Katta. PAW was easier and i could take down a single mob in about 18-22 seconds. it boiled down to simple numbers so PAW won, until now.

i'm not a raid level adventurer. i adventure for about an hour or so each night just to let off some stress hehe... my gear is ok-ish i think. i'm still 79th and want to make certain i don't sell myself short on AAs so i'm back to the 90/10 mix. see my sig for details, as soon as it updates lol...

so there's your numbers and some context to go along with them. anyone else? where else could someone, like myself, solo? i'm sure that, for those of us who don't get out as often as the average adventurer, we would greatly appreciate your input

[Enocha]

I 3 box Zeka instance. Kill every mob that is outside of the tower in 30 minutes, around 6 AAs per lesson (for cleric, mage, and bard). Could get a little more soling, but mage does not really need AAs and it sucks for a cleric or bard to get AAs without a fully balanced group, which I rarely have time to find.

Necroes soling zeka can easily get 12 AAs in Zeka instance.......

[nako]

8aa per solo beza lesson (10-11aa during current bonus), clear everything outside (except any LB mino's), then work on the first floor of tower. One power med halfway through (no kiss, save staunch for emergencies). Varies a bit depending on buffs and GoM's, but generally never less than 7 or more than 9. Could bump it up a little with a larger mana pool, 29k unbuffed, group geared except for some raid unlocked void stuff (EM6, rk3 AtA, etc).

More than a year of lesson burning almost exclusively in beza, and just this morning the root clicky finally dropped (after 3 snare clickies, lev clickie, and more augs than I can remember). Happy days!

Is there bonus xp until 1000aa's still, or has it changed?

-nako/saryrn

[edit] Lev clickies are zeka dhuurr.

[Dadani]

6-9 AA's. My best was 17 during a double exp weekend....could have squeezed out a couple more but used up staunch and all my tricks toward the end.

I found Thalassius and Zeka to be the best AA exp at 85 at least for my character.

[Sillaen]

I burn my lessons in Katta, just because it's easy and relaxing and I like seeing my pet fighting 15 mobs at once (maximizing his DS). The 6 min respawn ensures that I will always be fighting something. I let the pet do most of the work and don't med at all during those 30 mins. When my lesson goes under 2 mins, I pull as many mobs as I can and finish with a flurry of nukes. I usually end up with low single digit % of mana left at the end and usually pull in between 5 - 6 AAs every run.

A couple of notes:
I don't use RmS when doing this as the mobs don't last long enough, making it a waste of time/mana.
A few 32K hits can easily turn it into 7 or so AA's per run, but I tend to only get 1 or 2 per 30 mins of nuking.

[Redius]

Around 10, maybe a bit higher, with lesson in DSH doing brownies....they're surprisingly good exp.

[Voragath]

I can get about 10 aa's with one lesson in Thallassius. In zeka / beza, I get about 5-6. I've never seriously tried MG but I was able to get about 5-6 on brownies pre 1k aa's and pre-raid gear but that was also pre 85; the aaxp isn't great now because they are green. In Thal, I make sure to have pyroshroud* on pet, use the SoF and SoD AtA spells, use the SoD RS pet, clarity pot (or mind candy), mana regen clicky (Reyfin's atm), pet canni, and the new Thauma rank 2. I can go the whole 30 mins without medding if I'm lucky and on top my game (or a brief 1.5 to 3 min regen if not).

The thing to remember when reading those sites is they have a nasty habit of epeen contests and many are raid geared but don't say it. I've noticed a HUGE difference between the different communities versus the mage community: we SHARE our stuff and they try to undercut each other. They'll lie, make up strats, find secrets and withhold them, etc. Us mages, we find a super secret omfgwtfbbqpwnsoe strat and we come here and post the specifics. Take what you read on those other sites with a grain of salt. One other thing, I've noticed--especially with raid geared toons--that melee can have way more mobs beating on them than our pets. With that and some sweetly stacked DS's and some swift aa's, they can kill more faster just by having mobs they aren't attacking die from attacking the pc. Death by DS is a very wonderful thing when grinding. My guess is that pally also didn't mention he has less than 1000 aa's which is where the bonus lies; once you hit 1000 aa's, the bonus is gone.

P.S. There isn't an xp bonus atm unless it started with the new year. The xp bonus message was a mistake that was quickly yanked. The bonus was never active to begin with and wasn't even planned for this month. However, that's just to bring me to the real point: there's going to be one in January so keep an eye out.

*Edited portion: couldn't remember name before and have replaced it with correct spell.