LDoN ExperienceFollow

Am I the only player who hasn't been the least bit pleased with this expansion?

Everytime I see a newbie ask about the best experience at level 25, or 30, or anywhere up to 45 for that matter I see a barrage of OOC's saying "LDoN!" I have really tried with those adventures...particularly with a new monk I've been toying with on FV. It just seems so overrated.

At level 24 I took the monk on his first adventure, and came out after completing the dungeon with 50 plats and 1.5 yellow bubbles of experience. Am I missing something? Do you have to do the higher level adventures to get the good experience, because I've only ever done the normal ones. I wouldn't imagine the particular adventure would matter a whole lot, but please share your experiences with this expansion in the level 25-40 range. It just seems a lot more practical to fight for a group in HHK and level a few times in an evening that waste time with adventuring.

Im not sure about 25-40, i tried one at 44 and it wasnt bad, but my main is 57 and i do addys as often as i can great XP!!

Your'e right, overall LDoN sucks at lower levels, unless you are desperate for points, but even then ye'd be better lvling some first

I think you effectively summed up my thoughts with that.

It's not that other areas are lightning fast, or I expect a level an hour; I refuse to hunt in Paludal because it's so godawfully crowded and boring. It's just that many of those other areas are better than LDoN sub-35.

Actually I started doing LDON around level 39 and I flew up to level 49 pretty quickly just doing those adventures. After that the exp sucked so I switched to the planes until 65. It's okay for AA exp now and getting points.

To date, the best xp I've recieved from LDoN addys is roughly 70% xp. There someone is a trick to milking xp, though (to me) it is no secret.

Get a decent or "steamroller" group, get a collect addy, wait until literally the last minute to loot last item needed, then stay and kill until you get kicked out.

Another thing to consider is apparently some levels are quicker than others. From what I hear you fly through your 40's, but your 30's are a grind.

Also, the drops. My monk picked up Iced Hand Wraps as well as some really stat augs.

Then again, it's all personal preferance as well as experience. I've had my share of some real ******* groups, but the majority have been real laid-back and fun.

I think the big thing is, in most dungeons, your group gets an augment, one fairly decent drop (if you get the named), a little plat, experience, adventure points, and you are also raising the power of your farstone, the more adventures you do. Also, you do not have to sit and wait for the puller to "find" a mob, and return. Very fast paced, and safer than in places where you can get killed way too easily (some planes again).

If you fight somewhere else, you get only the experience and in the case of some of the planes zip for loot. I donate for virtue and kei, and I am losing money in lootless zones, and that really annoys me. There should be NO place you fight that you do not get loot, appropriate to the level you are.

It is also easier to find groups since LDON does not let you in to solo. People tend to stay with the group, for the adventure, instead of leaving 5 minutes after you get them buffed (REALLY annoying when some of them leave your ldon group anyway).

It's not a glitch, if you go LD, or get accidentally disbanded from the group, or die, right before the adventure is completed, it's not really fair to not get any points. So this policy is in place to help out those people. I think you just have to re-enter the dungeon zone after a win to get your points. So just come back from LD within 30 minutes, or zone back in after dying, to get your points. I think.



And getting kicked from a group for outdamaging a tank?!? That should be expected! However, you shouldn't be stealing aggro from the tank, I suppose that could be a kickable offense if you do it every single mob. If that was continuously the case, you should wait for the tank to get some good hate built up before you attack. Just like a wizard doesn't nuke right away, if you're gonna be stealing aggro wait to attack.

On the original topic, I agree with several of the posters that the experience you get from LDoNs will vary with how good the group is. Ihuffman mentioned that it's good experience in 75 minutes...I would disagree a bit, considering how long some people take to get that "perfect" group. And then there's running to the dungeon, waiting to get an adventure that the leader likes (i.e., collect or kill most often), buffing up outside, etc. It's when you go directly to a second (or even third) LDoN that the experience/time ratio really gets good, in my opinion.

At very high levels you can also get good normal experience if you are the lowest level in the group. For example, as a 58 Beastlord my dps was good enough to get my into a (probably desperate) level 65 LDoN, and I got about 30% normal experience in that pretty quick adventure. And when I was at 75% into 64 I did 3 LDoNs in a row which was enough for me to ding 65 +5%. I was happy with that experience, considering the augs and points I was getting.

I think the loot can be very good at low levels too, although not as good as it was before they fixed selling the Ornate Blood Axes from Mistmoore to the vendors for 14pp. Any level LDoN can drop the tradeskill items used in tempers, and of course foraging classes can forage them also. They usually go for 40-60 pp in the Bazaar on Kane Bayle, so at low levels that's pretty good money I think. At high levels it's all about the named, of course, and to a greater extent (to me at least) the points.

Game on,

The Oneiromancer

I'm not in a raiding guild, we're just a smaller, more socialization oriented guild. That, coupled with the fact that most of us have weird playing hours makes for little opportunity for regular grouping. I usually end up in pick up groups of morons, consisting of bards who seem to think they're tanks and druids that want to play wizard.

From the sounds of it I might enjoy it more at higher levels, because I hate doing an LDoN when I know for sure that I could get far better exp, and have more fun doing it elsewhere.

Actually I think they meant it should be expected to outdamage the tank, not get kicked out.

What to level faster? Hunt in places that give an EXP bonus.

Descarte Meditations Arch Lich - Povar

I think the LDoN experience can go a few different ways. And knowing what you want out of the adventure has a lot to do with it.

1)You can go in for XP
2)You can go in for PP and Loot (augs included)
3)You can go in to build up adventure points

Now, whatever your main goal of this adventure is, the others go along with it, just not to as great of an extent. And a lot of it depends on the makeup of the group. Like if you want to get in an adventure to gain more XP, then you should try to join one as one of the lower levels in the group. And you should probably stay in the dungeon as long as possible, to make sure to kill as many mobs as you can. More mobs killed = more XP gained

The same scenario can be true if you go in there to get as much loot as possible. Stay in as long as possible to get more loot and coin drops. Not to mention, every mob in a dungeon has a chance of dropping the Augs, and the named ones have a greater chance. I also average about 30-50pp per adventure, from levels 20-45. But that also depends on how long you stay. Sure you can get more money elsewhere, but it's still not bad for 45-90 mins.

To stay in the dungeon the longest amount of time possible, you need to select a Collect Adventure. This is the only type of adventure that lets you decide when you win it. Then like Psychojester said above, wait until the last possible minute to loot the last collect (don't worry about whether or not it will be on a corpse anywhere, if your group doesn't have at least 2 or 3 mob corpses lying around then you're probably not worried about "staying" in the dungeon for any length of time anyway). I usually wait until the timer says 5 mins, just to be safe. I've had experience where the adventure timer actually ran out when it still said 3 minutes. Then you keep killing and looting until either the last mob dies or you get kicked out from the 30 minute exit timer. And you don't necessarily need a "steamroller" group to clear or nearly-clear a dungeon, just a functional one.

Then again, if you are just going in to get your adventure points as quickly as possible, then you SHOULD try to get a "steamroller" group together. Then you should choose a hard adventure, because they yield more APs Awarded on the WIN. And you should choose a Slaughter. (Self-explanatory) Then when you win your adventure, exit as quickly as possible and get a new one.

Now like I said, it also depends on the group. You can't just expect to win every adventure, just because you have 6 people within the 7+/- level range. You need to basically know what each individual class brings to a group, as well as how YOU fit into that particular group dynamic.

When I was in my early 20s with my SK, I got stuck on XP. I didn't have Luclin or PoP. I then leveled my Shaman to early 20s, and got stuck again. Then I rolled up my Ranger, and got thru Crushbone with him to level 20. Luckily, that's when LDoN was released. Since I was already well accustomed to my Ranger (now my Main), I went into the dungeons with him first.

Yeah I had some bad nights of searching for a group for like 2 hours with nothing. Yeah I grouped with some people who ended up on my ignore list.

But..

I emerged from those dungeons at level 39, knowing a lot more about the pre-raid dynamics of as group. I learned where my place was in a group.(DON"T STEAL aggro from the TANK!!!) And I had an aug for just about every piece of armor I had. (Didn't Aug weapons). As far as my leveling and xp went, it was good some nights and sometimes bad. It depended on where my level fit into the group.

I think the LDoN dungeons can be a good learning experience for players who haven't really learned about group dynamics yet. Most players learn about those things after they've joined a guild and are going on raids with them, learning while they go. (This is what I've heard and read from other players, not having actually been on a raid myself yet). Maybe I've been lucky to group with some good people who had that raid xp, but I've chosen to learn from them rather than argue (like some on my ignore list).

Anyway, I think in whole the LDoN expansion did fill a much needed demand for me to learn about some of the deeper intricacies of this game, and from what I've seen, has for other players too.

And for these reasons, when someone shouts or OOCs "Where is the best place to level in your 20s?" I'll OOC back, "Do You have LDoN?"

Here are a couple reasons I do adventures:

There are items and spells I feel are pretty crucial to have that are only available via adventure points.

There are times it seems like all my friends online and I are being indecisive about how we're going to spend our game time. At least on an adventure, the group has a goal and a deadline.

Some of the mob drops in adventures are quite nice and don't require a raid force to obtain.

Hmm, that's about it. It's a short list, but for me, important.