Any efficient grouping in Velious? (30-40)

[zaneosak]

I am mid 30s. I solo Unrest hags (36 cleric) which is super good XP, assuming this will green out soon. I do mistmoore when I am bored of soloing, XP is not as good as unrest but sometimes comparable in a good group.

I really remember loving Velious back in the day -- but all my memory remembers is Velks Lab, Kael and Western Wastes.... is there anywhere that people would actually want to group for decent XP in Velious? Even if I had to create the group from scratch?

I was researching a bit and noticed ToFS seems 30-40 range, is the ZEM worth it or would people just rather stay in old world until the 50s?

Just looking for something different for a change .... Seems like Oasis -- Unrest/MM - Lguk - Seb would be great for the XP but kind of boring.

Any advice would be cool!

[Sorn]

Bring a DPS/melee buddy to Iceclad and duo snow cougars/dire wolves/giants all day.

TOFS is also bring your own group, good for anyone with undead nukes/charms. (Necro cleric pally sk enc bard would probably be death on wheels in here.) Catch is the whole bring your own group thing. Pick-up groups happen far less in these underpopulated areas.

[Danth]

There's absolutely no reliable, daily pick-up grouping anywhere in Velious at any level range. Velketor's probably comes closest and even that zone stays empty except for a few solo or duo camps probably half the time.


Danth

[Shodo]

ToFS is great for your level range if you either don't mind soloing or want to bring your own group/trio/whatever. Plenty of undead action in ToFS for a cleric to solo on. Gets risky starting on 2nd floor though and corpse runs are a pain due to keys.

Crystal Caverns would also be in that level range and is a pretty fun dungeon. Just bring along a duo partner with invis so that you guys can make it down to dwarf town to bind near bank/vendors/guards.

As for ZEM, I didn't try to parse xp gains or anything but it definitely felt slower for both velious dungeons than for unrest or mistmoore. Biggest advantage in ToFS/CC is the lack of competition, even during peak hours.

[Dreenk317]

The main reason that velious is a "bring your own party" place, is because of the ZEM's (rather low) combined with the mobs HP (rather high) when compared to old world or kunark zones. Kunark and old world dungeons tend to have higher ZEM's, resulting in more exp per kill for mobs of equal level. And the mobs have less hp, resulting in more kills per minute. These two factors combined result in far better exp in old world/kunark zones compared to velious (for the most part.). Just my two cents.

[Dronuspk]

Yeah it has a few great places for that level range, unfortunately people stick with what they know (which is why Crushbone/Upper Guk/SolA&B/Mistmoore/Unrest/City of Mist are all extremely congested). Crystal Caverns and TOFS are great XP, but gotta have a group with ya' most of the time.

[Swish]

Trio'd in TOFS... we were killing at a fairly average pace but the XP was slow compared to MM and other places of the same level. If you go, go for an adventure, not to get fast levels.

[GraveD]

CC is great in the 30s.

[Doctor Jeff]

Unless you are specifically going there for fun, leveling in Velious is a terrible decision. The mobs all have more HP/AC than Kunark/Classic mobs and the zones all have a lower ZEM.

[Tuurin]

It also helps (?) that many of the popular grind zones (CB, unrest, mistmore, COM, KC, etc.) are flagged as outdoor zones so harmony/sow etc. all work there. Makes pulling much easier and if you have to you can haul-ass to zoneline if things go bad.

[Mistle]

People overestimate how important ZEM is. It helps but it is just one factor, and not the biggest. Mob density, pull distances, how strong mobs are for their level, how much downtime will you have, do you have to deal with healers, etc etc. If all that mattered was exp per mob then highkeep would be the only place anyone ever goes.

Some of the fastest exp I ever see is in two miserable ZEM zones, LoIO and OT. The mobs are all warriors, have pukeass stats, die easily, and there's so many of them you'll never have to move far to get one. It's dull, mindcrushingly dull, but it is *fast*. Compare to competing for mobs in Unrest MR, dealing with chain healing spiders in Kaesora, wizard nukes and shaman slows in Sol A... if what you're after is just pure exp per hour, sometimes the ZEM isn't as important as you think.

[fastboy21]

People overestimate how important ZEM is. It helps but it is just one factor, and not the biggest. Mob density, pull distances, how strong mobs are for their level, how much downtime will you have, do you have to deal with healers, etc etc. If all that mattered was exp per mob then highkeep would be the only place anyone ever goes.

Some of the fastest exp I ever see is in two miserable ZEM zones, LoIO and OT. The mobs are all warriors, have pukeass stats, die easily, and there's so many of them you'll never have to move far to get one. It's dull, mindcrushingly dull, but it is *fast*. Compare to competing for mobs in Unrest MR, dealing with chain healing spiders in Kaesora, wizard nukes and shaman slows in Sol A... if what you're after is just pure exp per hour, sometimes the ZEM isn't as important as you think.

if your options are between crappy exp and crappier exp then, yeah...

old world = zem, plenty of mobs, mobs with low hp.

its true that if you can't get a good camp due to overcrowding or you don't know the zones then you are better going elsewhere. all things being equal, however, it is hard to beat the exp in zones like unrest, mistmoore, solb, lguk **IF** you know how to play there.

the outdoor zones in kunark (dl, loio, ot, etc.) are virtually inexhaustible quantities of mobs, so if you are taking advantage of that (why these are awesome AE zones) or if your only option is to fight for a couple of mobs in unrest every cycle then you're better off in places like this.

velious tends towards relatively slower exp. there are some exceptions if you know the nooks and crannies really well that can get you off the beaten path, but overall velious is substantially slower.