After some pondering and discussion elsewhere I'd like to revisit the Icedigger issue.
As things stand, mounds are worthless for bashing, as group or solo. You simply kill the Queen and leave, because of the 1/2 attack speed they're poor exp/offerings and drop zero gold. With Icewynd being changed to a group based area, I'd like to see Icediggers become part of the hunt, and not a stopgap during it.
Therefore I'd like to suggest the following changes, fully open to amendments where necessary for balance and vision.
Remove the attack speed penalty, Icediggers to hit at the normal speed, thus raising their XP/Offerings value. Reduce the number of Icediggers per mound so that the damage is not to dissimilar to where it is now. Increase the number of Icedigger mounds in the area to compensate for the mob number loss. Add a gold value to Icediggers, for all the people they've killed so far they must have hoarded some treasure. To discourage people solofarming them, add hindering afflictions in the same manner that have been added to the larva spawn mobs.
The rest of Icewynd currently works well to have one person tank on behalf of a group (usually a Standardbearer Knight) soaking up the damage/afflictions while everyone else kills, this would bring Icediggers into the same line and offer some value to bashing out the mounds, as opposed to queen killing and moving on, ignoring the rest of the mobs in the mound.
Mounds are currently on a faster respawn timer, but from someone who bashes them regularly, they're also insanely draining on WP because of clotspam, endless farming of mounds will not be viable without having multiple tanks available to a group.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
From what I've heard from people and seen personally in Icewynd, I agree that some changes were necessary, but that does kind of make me wonder where to bash between 80 and 100. Everyone basically said to go to Icewynd when you could, and now that Icewynd isn't doable for non-Demi's or solo bashers... what else is there? I mean, that someone can solo? Sometimes getting a group together (even if it's 2-3 people) can be really tedious. Also, it seems to be a kind of common confusion of where to bash between the 80-100 levels. As it stands, influencing is better than bashing if you have to do anything alone, but shouldn't there be an option to bash alone between that range of levels if you want to (without having to go to Astral since that's bashed out half the time anyway).
I have only hunted to get to demigod, solo, and I've always held the opinion that influencing was slower than hunting by yourself.
There are quite a few places in addition to the ones that @Lavinya mentioned: Catacombs of the Dead (there is a rift to get there from Spectre Island), the outskirts of the Iceburn Plains, the Waste Facility (you can go in from the front gate if you give the janitor some dark essence), Shallamurine (you can get in from doing the miniquest within the Presidio of the Damned). I also particularly liked the Astrosphere of Aries as well.
From what I've heard from people and seen personally in Icewynd, I agree that some changes were necessary, but that does kind of make me wonder where to bash between 80 and 100. Everyone basically said to go to Icewynd when you could, and now that Icewynd isn't doable for non-Demi's or solo bashers... what else is there? I mean, that someone can solo? Sometimes getting a group together (even if it's 2-3 people) can be really tedious. Also, it seems to be a kind of common confusion of where to bash between the 80-100 levels. As it stands, influencing is better than bashing if you have to do anything alone, but shouldn't there be an option to bash alone between that range of levels if you want to (without having to go to Astral since that's bashed out half the time anyway).
I have only hunted to get to demigod, solo, and I've always held the opinion that influencing was slower than hunting by yourself.
There are quite a few places in addition to the ones that @Lavinya mentioned: Catacombs of the Dead (there is a rift to get there from Spectre Island), the outskirts of the Iceburn Plains, the Waste Facility (you can go in from the front gate if you give the janitor some dark essence), Shallamurine (you can get in from doing the miniquest within the Presidio of the Damned). I also particularly liked the Astrosphere of Aries as well.
I'll see if I can find those places. I'm still largely unfamiliar with the vast majority of Lusternia though, so it might take a while to figure out where all that is.
Thanks to those who have offered advice on where to look. I'm not that tanky, as an Illuminati though. And, if I am, it doesn't feel like it! I'd still be interested in group bashing, it just seems hard to get people together.
And of course, you mentioned how easy Icewynd was after you got Demigod. Just saying. :P
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
From what I've heard from people and seen personally in Icewynd, I agree that some changes were necessary, but that does kind of make me wonder where to bash between 80 and 100. Everyone basically said to go to Icewynd when you could, and now that Icewynd isn't doable for non-Demi's or solo bashers... what else is there? I mean, that someone can solo? Sometimes getting a group together (even if it's 2-3 people) can be really tedious. Also, it seems to be a kind of common confusion of where to bash between the 80-100 levels. As it stands, influencing is better than bashing if you have to do anything alone, but shouldn't there be an option to bash alone between that range of levels if you want to (without having to go to Astral since that's bashed out half the time anyway).
Astral is rarely bashed out, namely because bashing out astral requires a monumental time investment, generally from communes with access to cone over several days of constant draining. That, and I check nodes all the time and there are plenty that aren't even close to drained.
There are a lot of places to solo hunt from 80-100, and solo hunting will outpace influencing somewhere vaguely around 90. I promise you, literally hundreds of demigods have made it without icewynd. Hives and prison are the good generic fall back. TBC, catacombs, astral nodes, etc etc etc. Go forth and bash.
The Catacombs are on the Ethereal Plane, but completely separate from the forests and Faethorn. Spectre Isle is in the middle of the Sea of Despair, the tainted sea neat to Mag. Not sure where the rift from Spectre to the Catacombs is though.
The catacombs rift is chilling with the emperor in the northern-ish part of the island. Do be careful though, the mobs there are all aggressive and can bunch up or wander into your location when you are fighting other things.
With an entrance to undervault in the SoD and the rift to the catacombs on spectre isle the area gets a lot more traffic than we would like. It is unlikely you will be harassed unless you cause a disturbance, go near a sea wolf or try for it at the height of a sea battle frenzy.
Celina, maybe I'm doing it wrong but illithoid/kephera take forever to kill and only give me .05%. Doesn't seem worth it
"He was well fed, and on his way to being slightly intoxicated--which contributed to his sense of wellbeing. And, most important, he was among friends. There can't be much more to life than this, he thought." -Pug's thoughts on his first Ale (via Raymond Feist)
I'm not 100% sure about the illithoid, since I've never hunted them myself, but the kephera have a decent but not very thick health pool. This allows crits to easily melt scores of them very quickly. Assuming the illithoid are in the same place in terms of health/mob level as kephera, you should find yourself plowing through them at a decent pace once you have a certain level of crit. Most people cite the early 90s as the sweet spot for crits while bashing.
Combine the above with the sheer amount of kephera/illithoid there are (you have to kill a single illithoid twice, because dead illithoids spawn inner worms) you will find the UV hives/prison a pretty much unending source of exp. Bashing areas in the game can "run out", think of the shallach orcs or the krokani/aslaran as such. It's simple to bash them out and then you're stuck doing nothing for the next half an hour while you wait for respawns. The UV hives/prisons have no such down time. Singularly they are worth a paltry amount, but you can stay there and keep bashing nearly nonstop, and pretty much never run out. This is one reason why (I suspect) these places are enemy-area for bashing. Even some demigods can't clear them faster than their respawn.
It's only a little slower than old Icewynd for experience. Old Icewynd used to give me a family honour line (The House's eyes are raised as its honour improves: Valen's ruthless hunting is well known throughout the lands.) every 25-35 minutes. Hunting catacombs of the dead gives me a line every 33 to 40 minutes.
The family honour tic is not really an accurate indicator of exp gain. It works as a rough gauge, but large errors can result over long-term calculations. The line is, if I remember correctly, given when you hit a certain number of mob levels killed. Mob levels do have a direct relation to exp the mob is worth, but not always in a linear relation. A mob that is of a higher mob level is not neccesarily exactly proportionately worth that much more exp.
Comments
As things stand, mounds are worthless for bashing, as group or solo. You simply kill the Queen and leave, because of the 1/2 attack speed they're poor exp/offerings and drop zero gold. With Icewynd being changed to a group based area, I'd like to see Icediggers become part of the hunt, and not a stopgap during it.
Therefore I'd like to suggest the following changes, fully open to amendments where necessary for balance and vision.
Remove the attack speed penalty, Icediggers to hit at the normal speed, thus raising their XP/Offerings value.
Reduce the number of Icediggers per mound so that the damage is not to dissimilar to where it is now.
Increase the number of Icedigger mounds in the area to compensate for the mob number loss.
Add a gold value to Icediggers, for all the people they've killed so far they must have hoarded some treasure.
To discourage people solofarming them, add hindering afflictions in the same manner that have been added to the larva spawn mobs.
The rest of Icewynd currently works well to have one person tank on behalf of a group (usually a Standardbearer Knight) soaking up the damage/afflictions while everyone else kills, this would bring Icediggers into the same line and offer some value to bashing out the mounds, as opposed to queen killing and moving on, ignoring the rest of the mobs in the mound.
Mounds are currently on a faster respawn timer, but from someone who bashes them regularly, they're also insanely draining on WP because of clotspam, endless farming of mounds will not be viable without having multiple tanks available to a group.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Astral is rarely bashed out, namely because bashing out astral requires a monumental time investment, generally from communes with access to cone over several days of constant draining. That, and I check nodes all the time and there are plenty that aren't even close to drained.
There are a lot of places to solo hunt from 80-100, and solo hunting will outpace influencing somewhere vaguely around 90. I promise you, literally hundreds of demigods have made it without icewynd. Hives and prison are the good generic fall back. TBC, catacombs, astral nodes, etc etc etc. Go forth and bash.
"He was well fed, and on his way to being slightly intoxicated--which contributed to his sense of wellbeing. And, most important, he was among friends. There can't be much more to life than this, he thought." -Pug's thoughts on his first Ale (via Raymond Feist)
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Combine the above with the sheer amount of kephera/illithoid there are (you have to kill a single illithoid twice, because dead illithoids spawn inner worms) you will find the UV hives/prison a pretty much unending source of exp. Bashing areas in the game can "run out", think of the shallach orcs or the krokani/aslaran as such. It's simple to bash them out and then you're stuck doing nothing for the next half an hour while you wait for respawns. The UV hives/prisons have no such down time. Singularly they are worth a paltry amount, but you can stay there and keep bashing nearly nonstop, and pretty much never run out. This is one reason why (I suspect) these places are enemy-area for bashing. Even some demigods can't clear them faster than their respawn.
It's only a little slower than old Icewynd for experience. Old Icewynd used to give me a family honour line (The House's eyes are raised as its honour improves: Valen's ruthless hunting is well known throughout the lands.) every 25-35 minutes. Hunting catacombs of the dead gives me a line every 33 to 40 minutes.