Final Journal Entry

Well jeez, took me long enough! With school and other real life obligations my leveling rate took a dive after EA weekend (plus I had to keep the site supplied with lots of info :)). But now I'm 80 and a whole new world is open to me, I'll be testing specs, strats etc for you guys in the weeks to come, but for now I'll give you my last few leveling experiences.

OVERVIEW

Levels covered: 76-80
Feat Build Used: You'll find that HERE
Groupings: Full group or solo.

After hitting 75 I continued to grind the Cohort camps in east Kheshatta, you just can't beat this place if no one is there to disturb you (with the exception of the deathmaster camps. I stayed here until literally one pull before 76 where I was rolled by a group of 2 80's with their app'ed up PLing group. I ran out of the city, where I rezzed, and killed two mobs in the east slums before leveling.


At 76 I actually headed back to Atzel's to finish up a few quests with nice item or xp rewards, particularly the one from King Conan. I got a little over half a level off of grinding various mobs and completing y quests before heading back to Khesh. I was found myself in a DM camps group after a few minutes of searching in OOC, deathmaster camps are the highly contested camps of mobs southeast of Kheshatta city. As anyone who's seen this before knows, the respawns, xp and sheer numbers are to die for! I rolled with this group all of the way to 77 and half way to 78 before they broke up.
Since we had fought off opposing groups, and my group was leaving, I decided to stick around at the camps in 'hide' mode and wait. It was amazing, a good minute went by without anyone passing, all of the mobs respawned around me. I solo'ed this place (and the animals around it when too much resistance showed up) and got my last half of a level in about one hour... which was INSANE.


At 78 my guildies were getting together their OWN death master group, so of course I jumped in! Luckily we had a PoM and so I just stood in the middle storm fielding/healing while the mobs dropped. With relative quickness, I was 79... ready to make the final push.

The Final Push

The final push for xp from 79-80 was almost exactly divided into two even sections. One, of course, was DM camp grind groups, the other however, took some planning ahead. One thing you'll notice when leveling in Kheshatta is the multitude of quests, save as many as you can. It's tempting to run out and do them for quick levels in your mid 70's (as I did for a few quests :P) but you SHOULd hang on to them. I had saved up lots of quests; Quests to kill Hyenas, quests to kill sentries, quests for gathering quests for freeing captives, quests for freeing horses, I had plenty :). For my last couple bars I, when I was out of quests, I headed down to the south west where some secluded tents of 4-6 mobs are (Not recommended unless no other spots are available as respawns are slow and camps involve a lot of running), until I had just one bar left. At this point I hopped back into a group for the exhausting final 5 minutes of my ToS leveling career. And that was that.

1) I've begun work with many new spec ideas and will share my findings.
2) I'll begin work on a short AoE video tomorrow, my last video of pre-80 footage.
3) I just did my level 80 destiny quest (for an epic ring!), look for a complete guide for this soon.
4) If you have any new ideas for the site, please e-mail me at settar3@live.com

Settar

Journal Entry #5

Hey all time for the next leveling journal!

OVERVIEW

Levels Covered This Session: 70-75
Feat Build: Click HERE
Groupings: Both Large Group and Solo

At 70 I noticed some of my quests were getting more into the orange/yellow range and decided to head off to see what I could get done. At the south end of the Atzel complex I found a quest-giver and a large amount of mammoths. I couldn't get any of his quests yet but had one to get ivory tusks and set out down the ravine blasting my way through. One thing to take note of is that your quest items only drop off of adult and Aged mammoths, anything but the "Young" ones. Since the mobs are non-aggressive you have to hit them to initiate combat, unfortunately their hitboxes are right in the middle of their rather large bodies, so AoE'ing these guys isn't really a good option. I just nuked them down with lightning strike, moving from mob to mob as quick as possible. I was already farily close to 71 from a previous AoE groups (movie coming out next week) and I hit 71 killing my last few mammoths. Since I leveled I was ready to go see what quests the guy I had passed had to offer, but not before grabbing the rez point down here (you'll find it at the bottom of some stone stairs in the ravine with troggs spawned near it). He handed me a request to kill apes and get their heads. I headed past the guy and up the hill to my right, where at the top I was greeted by two paths, I took the right (the left is some undead spawns) and found myself in MINEFIELD of apes. There are tons of them, both around and on the stone ruins in the middle, I spent the entirety of 71-72 grinding these guys, returning to the quest giver when I had completed another part of the ape chain (there are three I believe). If it's clear I strongly suggest grinding at least a level here, and if not try switching instances to find a less contested-for "Ape Field." At 72 I got into a group with three others leveling it Atzels and hit up the fortress again. Pulls are huge, respawn rates are insane, you can loop through this place without ever needing to stop (I was getting just under 1 million xp per hour). After an hour and a half or so, I had hit 73 and decided to move over to Kheshatta in Stygia...

While some may consider this too low to make the change, I was in need of some different scenery and i DO plan on going back to the zone (tomorrow in fact) to finish up some quests. One thing that may surprise you, as it sharply contrasts the zones you've recently leveled in, quests are EVERWHERE! It's like Tortage all over again, the only deterring factor of this zone is the enormous gank fest (at least on a pvp server). If you can, get a group to help you AoE the battlemaster camps in the south or try soloing some quests. I did a little of both to get me to 74. At 74 I wanted to save my quests for the rough levels ahead so I spent a good few hours grinding out 75. It was kind of boring but there are some good camps of "Set" humanoid mobs, as well as abundant hyena camps on the east border. After my boring (yet fruitful) few hours of grinding these guys, I hit 75 and prepared to head back to Atzel's (lots of new ranks of your abilities at 75 by the way).

Thanks a lot for reading guys, I planned on having videos up for you tonight but they aren't done being approved on aocmovies.com so I thought I'd better put out some reading material. Hopefully the movies will be ready and linked here by tomorrow!

Settar

Journal Entry #4

OVERVIEW

Levels Covered: 62-70
Feat Build Click HERE
Played Solo (For the most part)

As I left off heading to Atzel's approach in my last entry, that's where I'll pick up! To get to Atzel's you'll need to run through Lachiesch Plains, I got here by teleporting to my guild city. After you arrive in Lachiesch you'll run west and then north, exiting into the zone of Atzel's Approach. Once I zoned in I noticed a few exclamation points on my mini map, as well as some Wanted Posters, I went through and grabbed any quest I could. First I was off to kill Atzel Conscripts, I found a couple good AoE camps here and no one else was around (surprisingly enough), so I AoE'ed a few bars on the mobs before heading west to kill Troggs for another quest; for this quest you should note that there are VERY few troggs down below where you first see them, you'll want to run along the ridge/ramp above them and into the mountains, where you'll find plenty. Here you can also a VERY decent AoE spot for the 60-62 ish range, the weird naga-snake things :) They come in large packs and some of them, the ones called "Matrons", hit quite hard, so don't be afraid to stun one or root the group and back up to buy your HoTs some time to tick. I stayed here until I levels to 62 and then went south along the ridge until I reached the Troggs. I killed enough for my quest and returned to the quest giver. I went back the same route I had come through, killing snakes along the way, and then returning to the trogg village. Here I torched their settlements for my quest (Thanks to the group that let me complete my quest before setting up their AoE!), and then returned to the quest giver a second time. I soon realized that Atzels might better suit me in a few levels, as all of my quests were red. So just before I hit 63, I headed back through Poitain to Thunder River...

Once I entered Thunder River I gathered the new quests that had become available and was happy to see a quest log mostly consisting of orange quests. One thing to note about high levels though, is that grinding on efficient pulls of mobs makes up much more of your xp gain than quests. So while in Thunder River I focussed on finding good grind spots, and doing quests only if they weren't too far out of the way. Here in TR I went from 62-65, before heading to Atzel's again. Since TR was almost entirely grind for me, I'll focus on some particularly good grind spots for getting tou through your early/mid 60's. If you head south from the first settlement in TR, you'll go across a series of bridges, once you exit the last bridge you'll have a path leading up to a settlement, and one leading down towards the water. As I was 62 almost 53 when entering, I took the low road and headed down towards the boars. Here there are 3 main spawn points that you can circuit between for VERY efficient xp. I stayed to grind boards until hitting 64, at which point I headed back to the intersection and took the high road. Above you can find a large complex of spawn points for humanoid mobs, as a 64 I went up into the rock/mountain structure where the camps are higher level. They are really good xp with one small problem: casters. Two types of mobs up here are ranged casting mobs which do a good amount of damage. to avoid some frustrating deaths use line of site as your friend, then drag the rest of your pull to where ever the casting mob is at. I ground this out for a couple of hours, got a few bars past 65, then headed back to Atzel's. Note: If this doesn't get you enough xp or you want a change of pace, there are some good camps of slightly higher level mobs (picts) in the eastern region of TR.

New quests and newly available wanted posters everywhere! As a 65 you are in a prime spot to grind this zone right up to 70+ (I'll be staying here until 72 most likely), grab any quests you can and get ready to head to the very northwest of the zone, where EXCELLENT camps of mobs lie waiting for you :) The camp can be difficult to find but to get to it you need to go up to where the snakes were. You'll want to go all the way to the north of the snake camps to the side of a fairly steep hill. they'll be a path-ish place you can run down press up against the mountain face, run down it to get into the Atzel camps. As a bonus you'll notice several quest indicators in the area, can't argue with some bonus xp! At this point I ran around the far northwestern camp (the one you visit for the quest that asks you to "destroy palasides"), the pulls are large so be ready with pots/vitalizing jolt, and don't forget to use Vital Shock if you're specced for it, it can save you! The quests all around this first Atzel's area are great xp and even with a short attention span you can pump out a level or two here without much trouble. After hitting 66 I expanded out to more Atzel mobs, heading towards Atzel's Fortress across the wooden bridge. I ran around in here grinding my way to 67 on various camps (each kill gives A TON of xp). Here you need to be careful of the sentries as they stun you which can be devastating if you wait to long to heal or get something up. Some of these Atzel pulls can be found in my latest video.

After I hit 67 I grouped up for the first time in quite a while, we had a group of 2 ToS's, a PoM and various others that switched in and out. I was at the low end of the food chain for mobs here, and was therefore apprenticed until I'd made a level or two here. The xp and respawn rate here in a group is ridiculous, we were pulling 20-30 mobs per pull and killing them all in just several seconds, the TLoS feat puts out amazing damage when it's coming from 5 other group members that you heal (expect new videos with footage of this to some out sometime this weekend). I AoE'd with the group up to 70 and then logged off, if you need a spot to grind yourself and do not have a group, a hill leading up the mountains from the place where you grind the "sentry" mobs yields a HUGE amount of lynx and bear mobs with good xp and respawn rates.

Coming Soon:
1) FotD 5 Write Up
2) Two new videos to be finished and released this weekend in high quality for download, marking the beginning of my involvement with the folks at www.aocmovies.com

Thanks for your time!

Settar

Journal Entry #3

Hey everyone welcome to my third leveling journal!

Levels gained this session: 43-61 (I've got a lot of ground to cover).
Feat Spec Used: Click HERE for feat build.
Groupings: Solo


At level 43 I was off to Fields of the Dead, on our server it's also known as "Fields of the Disconnect" due to performance issues in the zone, but I was one of the lucky few to avoid them and enjoy the zone to its fullest. Upon entering I found a couple camps of NPCs near the beginning with some fairly basic quests, "kill 20 of these", "destroy 3 of these" etc... As I moved through the zone I began to mark on my map potentially good grind spots. Questing here is great and the best part of the zone is the amount of mobs on the road. As you run through just grab the wolves, humanoids or whatever you can then stop to put up storm field, and idol and HoT up and watch the XP flow! In the eastern region of the zone, designed for mid to high 40's, you'll find the lookout camp, a settlement with it's own rez point and quests. If you reach the area in the mid 40's as I did, all of the quests may not be open to you, but fear not, you are already nearby a lucrative grinding spot! Head off the back hill of the settlement (carefully) and drop down. You'll find a bunch of 47-49ish mobs named "Atzel Ranger" and "Atzel Thug". These mobs can be a little bit rough at 45-46 so you want to only grab 2-3 at a time. Make sure your heals are all applied before running in then set up quick because you can't outlast the damage forever. Although it can be rough to get the hang of, the re-spawns are quick and each mob can net you nearly or just over 1,000 xp. Tip: If the area is crowded switch instances and go back again for better xp. After I was in my higher 40's I gathered the quests I could from the lookout camp and headed south to complete them, which is where I stayed for quite a while. Here you'll find TONS of werewovles and undead mobs your level. The xp is simply great, between the quests you get here and the grind xp, you'll have no problem raising yourself up to 50 or 51, at which point you'll be ready for...

Eglophian Mountains (or something of similar spelling :))... You'll get to them by leaving via the east side of the FotD map. Once you enter, grab the quest or two at the first camp, do them, then head down the road to the main town. I'll warn you now some of this zone is simply mind numbing, you will grind, and grind a lot, but you're a ToS so who cares?! One thing to note about this zone is that while there ARE some decent quests, many of them are not standard in that they are repeatable, but only give 5,000 xp per turn in as opposed to the 15,000-30,000 one time turn in of other quests. At first I tried to repeat these but I soon realized travel time (or dying and rebuffing time) simply made it not worth the effort. The main rule of this zone: Grind as much as possible and just do quests if they're on your way. The only place I really WENT specifically for quests was the cannibal caves, which turned out to be awsome xp for the low 50's. Here you can complete a couple quests and kill AoE packs of mobs each dropping for 750-850 xp per kill (not including chain kills). For me this zone was a grindfest and as such I'm not going to document every kill but I'll outline many of the major grind spots for my for levels 50-58.

--> Cannibal Caves: mobs of level 54'ish
--> White hand camp just east of cannibal caves, mobs 53-55
--> Apes and random cannibals, mobs of anywhere from 54-59 in a ravine that runs north-south just west of cannibal caves.
--> HUGE Vanir Camp west and southwest of the "Mountain Hunting Lodge" rez point, mobs level 58-60.

These were the main spots I used to get myself up to 58, even though some parts were boring, XP is good and you can blast through this zone in 1 day or less of solid playing.

At 58 it was suggested I head to "Thunder River," and so I did :) To get to Thunder River you must first enter Poitain (I entered this via a teleporter at the outcast camp in the northwest corner of Wild Lands). After entering Poitain follow the main road all the way to the edge of the map to enter Thunder River. Once inside I found myself with only a couple red quests, but fear not, some of the best grinding I've encountered so far is coming up! You can complete these quests solo just by AoEing the mobs needed. After that you are going to want to grind the humanoid mobs near your quests all the way until 60, it may take you a couple of hours but it's worth it and at 60 you get an amazing spell which I'll outline in the highlights section at the end of this. After you are 60 you have 2 choices for this zone, either continue to grind the humanoid mobs, or kill boars. I opted for the boars since the human area was getting cluttered with other players and there was only one instance of the zone. The boars are found down the road from the humans and are level 63-64. They are tough so you'll only want to have a flow of 2-3 at once, any more than that will probably overwhelm you. These boars are excellent because there are several fields of them, the respawn time is fairly quick and they give you a whopping 1600-1700 xp per kill! After hitting 61 I logged off to write this journal, but I now plan to head to Atzel's approach to level up a bit there until more quests open up for me in TR.

HIGHLIGHTS: My spec obviously changed a lot as this journal covers close to 20 levels. My main spell rotation used is still to HoT up, run in before applying storm field, storm crown and dropping an idol. The strategy seems affective and with well placed heals you can manage a good sized pull of mobs above your level. I also received "Vital Shock" from my feats. This spell is a quick cast (1.5 seconds) and not only shocks your target for about 300-400 damage, heals you for a few hundred hp, restores your mana AND restores you stam. It has a 1 min or so cooldown so you can't use it a lot but it's awesome for a close save or finishing a mob off quick.

CALL LIGHTNING: At 60 you gain the spell "Call Lightning," this spell helps a ton and is great for getting chain kills (and thus increased XP). Call lightning takes a couple seconds to cast and is on a cooldown of about 40 seconds. The spell has a chance, (in my experience about 75% for each mob or higher) to hit anyone near you for 600-1500 damage. Wow! The spell is great because now you can take even larger AoE pulls, I use the spell both as a finisher and as a way toget big pulls down quick, making it much easier to keep my HP up above theirs'.

Hope this helped some of you ToS's out there and thanks for reading!

Settar