level 55+ mobs for small groups?

[truffle]

Can anyone suggest a good place to hunt level 55+ mobs in small (2-3 person) groups without an enchanter? I haven't been able to locate a suitable cluster of mobs.
Ideally we'd be talking about some static spawns with a reasonably fast respawn time single pullable by harmony. The most likely candidate seems to be guards, but I haven't found suitable ones anywhere. SSeru was promissing but respawn is too slow.

Some ideas:
- cazic thule: doable but risk versus reward too high given you have to hunt deep
- jugs in seb: RVR too high
- umbral plains: reasonable but too many lower than 55 mobs at the zone, too risky to fight away from zone

Anyone have any better suggestions?

Let me add a disclamer of, a well balanced 6 person group will obviously best be able to handle level 55+ mobs and this is really what the experience changes were designed to encourage. None the less, I'm interested in looking for opportunities for smaller groups.

[fryfrog]

what 3 chars? 3 rangers might have some issues anywhere, but say 1 ranger, 1 cleric and 1 rog or something might work...

i play a 4 person group in UP, exp used to be awful but now its actually bearable. mainly there for killing the nameds, but kill elysians for guildmates druids...

58clr, 57war, 54enc and 59dru. the problem with UP mobs is they have SOOOOO many hp. i've heard the sun revs in the gray are 55 and good spot... but i can't think of any other 55 ish mobs... arena?

[Qwerty Mob]

It was the smaller groups and multi-box players who were hit the hardest by this high-level nonsense; at least solo artists kept 100% of the experience for a given kill, while small groups had to share "Sum_Player_Lvls/Player_Lvl" type experience on each kill.

The only level 55+ mobs that could be Harmony pulled (meaning they are outdoors) that I can think of, off the top of my head, are those 'a black ravagers' in the Swamp of No Hope in the "Trak's Teeth tunnels"... and they are sufficiently 'badass' that even a small group would have to be comprised of a Defensive Tank (WAR), and a C-Healing Priest (CLR), and someone to regenerate mana, rune and haste the tank, and debuff/slow the ravagers (ENC)... i.e. the "Holy Trinity" which is the core of high level groups already!

*If* the ravagers are even still up on servers which have slain Ithiosar the Black/Fallen/Whatever... they are immune to stun and to changes in movement speed.

[Junu Peeth]

Originally posted by Qwerty Mob
It was the smaller groups and multi-box players who were hit the hardest by this high-level nonsense; at least solo artists kept 100% of the experience for a given kill, while small groups had to share "Sum_Player_Lvls/Player_Lvl" type experience on each kill.
I am not sure I understand or agree with this. I do not believe that this formula has changed pre and post patch. I could be wrong and have no testing of this data but I have also found no discussion anywhere that suggests that this formula has changed so I am going to assume it is still the same.

As for this being unfair, I don't see how it could be either. Take an example of 3 characters grouping together, levels 54, 57 and 60. Add these to get 171 (of which the average level is 171/3 = 57 btw). So if we look at each individual's cut of the XP:

Lvl 60 receives 60/171 = 0.3509
Lvl 57 receives 57/171 = 0.3333
Lvl 54 receives 54/171 = 0.3158

(As a side note, the level 60 only receives 11.1% more XP than the level 54 and 5.3% more XP than the level 57, the level 57 only receives 5.6% more than the level 54.)

If we invert these decimals/fraction we find that as long as the individual joining the group has increased the amount of mobs they kill (same mobs as they were killing solo) by a certain amount then they earn XP at the same rate as before.

Lvl 60 must kill 2.85 times faster
Lvl 57 must kill 3.00 times faster
Lvl 54 must kill 3.17 times faster

Now with a balanced group it does make sense that the 60 could be killing that much faster, the 57 could be killing that much faster and the 54 would be seeing the greatest increase in the kill speed becuase he just gained two high powered buddies.

So back to the original quote, I can not see how a small group would be penalised now compared to pre-patch.

I can however see that if this group got together with another 3 people to form a well balanced team then they could move from killing whatever lvl mobs they were on to killing level 55+ mobs and start to recieve the bonus that such mobs give to both individuals, small group and full groups.

So there is an advantage to forming a full group that can take down level 55+ mobs but there is NO penalty given to small groups nor to individuals who can not do level 55+ mobs.

[Pigeon]

You're basically asking for something that doesn't exist, unfortunetally. The point of the new XP changes is to kill the rewards for a person who's 2 or 3 boxing.

[Junu Peeth]

I wouldn't say that it doesn't exist either. There have been reports of some people finding lvl 60 mobs that are soloable that are giving very nice XP but there aren't roo many of them in one spot and the respawn is not high.

Also greatly would depend upon the small group that you have in mind. 3 lvl 60 epic druids for example can now stack all of their dots on a single mob and kite it until dead. As before it is a case of which classes and your use of tactics.

Also XP for soloing and small groups has not been killed. XP given to a level 60 player by mobs lvl 54 and under has been returned to its pre patch state now. See the thread in this forum started by Fee that has a title that states the opposite of this but has now been turned around to show a de-nerf.

[fryfrog]

i think he is more refering to the fact that a 3 person group has a lot harder time taking down a LOT of level 54+ mobs. i know this is true, i play a 4 person group in UP and as a 3 person group of the holey trinety (clr/war/enc) it took me 3 or 4 ch's with a slowed mob to actually kill it.

granted, i'm not uber witha 57war, 58clr and 54 chanter... but it isn't to shabby. add in 1 druid, and things go down a lot faster... toss in a rog (or two) and its even faster (and exp is better cause we kill 3 or 4 times faster).

but, now that lower mobs have had their experience returned to the old rate it should really be an issue. i spose it just makes it harder in the sense that the 6 person groups can goto the harder places and get exp faster. kind of a "harder" that is defined because the former "harder" just got easier? does that make sense? hehe.

[Pigeon]

A group of 2-3 level 60's can take down 58+ mobs quite easily, I'm not contesting that. Many of them can be solo'd. You'd be suprised what a level 60 shammy can do by himself. (well, if you're a shammy and have already done it, maybe you wouldn't be)

The trouble is, the ones that are fast spawning aren't going to be solo pulled easily, especially without a chanter. (Juggs, CT, the Deep, chardok, ssra) The ones that are easily solo pulled aren't going to spawn quickly. (WW dragons, mist panther dude in WL, forgot his name, Lodi...)

Basically, if you want the best XP in the game you need a full, well balanced group, doing stuff that's, you know, hard. Sorry. :D Just pick up a lfg chanter in Seb and go whack juggs.

[TuxedoTex]

Juggs in Seb are amazingly good XP, if your puller knows what they are doing and your enchanter is on the ball.

Last group I was in that did them was cleric, rogue, chanter, druid. Once the juggs are slowed, they're pansies.

[Morannon]

The Sun Revenant lake in the Grey has a set of 6 lvl 55 mobs on an 18 min spawn.

My 60 monk and a friends 60 cleric can kill all 6 just as the first to die respawns.

Its pretty decent XP.

[Pigeon]

UP is nice too. Not sure why ya think it's too dangerous... It really doesn't get much safer than that.

[Morannon]

I tried UP yesterday. And OMG.

Back before the XP changes, youd be hard pressed to find more than a single druid in the zone hunting Elysium armour, if you did, it was a tier 2 guild killing RC or the other nameds in the zone.

The zone was awash with roamers, and a pull would get several of them.

Yesterday, there were never fewer than 38 ppl in the zone for the 5 hours I was there, mobs were mostly being pulled as they spawned, and we spent a fair amount of time waiting.

The zone is nothing like what it was 3 weeks ago !

[fryfrog]

i agree. we used to hunt there for like 5 or 6 hours at a time, JUST for elysian armour. we would be LUCKY to get 1% exp that whole time. now, a 4-5 persong group killing for just 2 hours got 4-5% exp (at 57/58). the 54 chanter did even better, getting 6-8%. my druid solo'ing can get 1% / kill up there, not bad for being in 59 (post hell-removal).