quadding nerfed?Follow

Many years ago I was one of the first druids to quad. Another druid taught me in the OT, and I found it to be tons of fun.

I was away for a long time. Back, I gravitated to a new druid character, and in the 30s I tried quadding as I'd done before. Buzz around in wolf form, use track to find four of the "same kind" of mob, tag them w/ a lvl one damage spell, lure them to a safe place, ensnare them one by one, circle them into a lump - and start AoEing them til all dead.

But it didn't work.

In the past, I quadded with few problems - well, it was hard, exhilerating. But I made it work most of the time. You pulled "same kind" cuz when they got low on health, if 2 or more of a same kind of mob were on you, they didn't give up and run away. They all kept chasing you.

But now, when one gets low on health, it peels away from the pack! And they don't all drop at the same rate (some resist, some don't). When they run at 20% health, this makes finishing them off much harder.

(edit, it's harder cuz when they scatter w/ so much health left, you need to finish em w/ dots, which aren't as mana-efficient as hitting all four at once w/ area-lightning. It becomes a mana issue and an efficiency issue - it slows down the kill rate a lot, esp if you go oom and have to sit and med med med just to toss on more dots to kill them off)

To quad, do I need to pull mobs that don't run when LoH?

Also, I was running out of mana much faster than I used to years ago (even if they'd stayed bunched, finishing em would have been a major problem due to me running low on mana). Now granted, on my first druid, by his 30s had some nice items - Test of Vaneer, Paw of Opalla, other good wis items. That char was soooo slow to level because of no OOC medding, no hotzones, lower exp in old world zones, etc. So that old druid's mana pool may have been bigger.

But my new druid has some good items my old druid didn't have. The new druid's mana pool isn't shabby. Did they up the mana cost of the spell?

Well, I'll hit 46 and get the new AE damage nuke in a few daze, er days. We'll see if it works better. If anyone has insight on this - or if quadding is still doable, pls let us know here!

(if quadding isn't doable, it's okay - I've been leveling like mad basically doing charm kiting (charming animals), root rotting, and even doing a little snare-nuking (you gotta take down Spectral Keepers fast - their nukes hit hard). So leveling is still very fast soloing for a druid - and I've been in some nice groups in MM and TT, too - and hope to get in some in Velk's. Still, quadding was fun and challenging. Will never forget the day a guildmate who was boxing his dwarf warrior and gnome cleric (which was very slow leveling) happened to see me quadding - he just stared in amazement at my halfling druid - then, when all four happened to drop on the same blast (which sometimes did happen), said: "You little punk!" HAH!)

Edited, Dec 28th 2007 5:51pm by IponemaGirl

No, just make sure they are "social assist" type mobs.

I was quadding recently in Trakanon's Teeth on my druid. The mobs I was pulling were of the same kind, and social, so they would all stick together chasing me as long as there was more than one. There are mobs that are not social though, and they will still run on low health even if their friends are around.

You can quad indoors too, using the AE rain spell. A good place to practice this is Dragon Necropolis near the entrance. There are a couple of areas where you can kite spiders with enough room to use that long casting spell.

Just hit 46 and quadded 4 wyvs in CS. Worked fine.

My only prob now is that I need to boost my mana pool. I barely had enough.

TY for the help!

You could get a ton of the needed spell focii Peerii mentioned from personal tribute if you arent using it already, if you need some tributable things to get you started send me a tell in-game, my favorite undead playground leaves me with plenty of tributable gear to spare.

In game, tribute is you gaining the favor of your God/Goddess. When you have enough "favor" with him/her they will grant you innate bonuses to your foci, hp, ac, resists, etc. There are lots of tribute effects you can have.

Now, how this actually works is this:

You go to the tribute master in your hometown and give them items that you no longer want/need. These need to be droppable items (they don't take NO DROP, NO RENT, or already ATTUNED gear). Depending on the item you give, the tribute master will give you an amount of points, called "favor". The amount of points given varies based on the quality of the item given, and can range anywhere from 1 point to 30k points (think some items trib for 50k).

Once you have, say, a thousand or so tribute points, you're ready to actually gain the benefits from it.

Now to use the tribute:

At the tribute master, a window pops up showing ALL of the available effects that you can choose from. Each effect has multiple levels of strength, and costs progressively more points to use that effect's higher levels. So get the level of focus/effect that is appropriate for your level, but keep your total number of tribute points in mind.

Once you have selected your preferred effect/focus, you can leave the tribute master. If you ever want to change the effects that you are using, you must go back to the tribute master and change the effects from his popup window.

Now that you have given up some of your useless gear, and chosen your effects, you can now start using the effects:

To do this, you open up your tribute window (either ctrl+U OR alt+U, having a brain fart atm, but I'm 100% positive it's 'U'), and then you click the 'activate' button. When you press this a 10-minute timer starts counting down, and you are now being affected by your tribute.

Remember the cost of each tribute that you saw in the tribute master's popup window? That is the cost that it will deduct from your total tribute points EVERY 10 minutes. If you deactivate the tribute before the 10-minute timer is up, you will have been charged the starting cost of activating it, but you will not be charged for another 10-minutes. This is true if you have 9:59 left on the timer or if you have :01. So as long as the timer is running, you are being affected by the tribute, and you will pay for it every 10 minutes.

Now that the basics have all been covered, I'd like to point out that you can have up to 5 tribute effects on you at one time. They count as "worn" effects, so be careful not to overlap some of your own foci. For example: if I was using the DoN Haste aug (36% haste +15atk), I would NOT want to pay for the haste thru tribute, and would get some other effect instead. The same rules for effect stacking apply to tribute effects, so only the highest form will take effect (in most cases...there are some tribute effects like added hp/mana and atk that will stack , of course).

Now you're ready to get some tribute items and start gaining the benefit for yourself. There are two places that I like to go for quick and easy tribute items. I believe Saeel's reference was to Veksar, where there are about 20 different nameds to camp, who drop gear that will tribute anywhere from 800 to 15k. And there is also Grieg's End. GE is great because ANY of the mobs in the zone have a chance to pop the zone's named (all trash mobs excluding the SoL, Grieg himself, his helpers, and the shades for the zerker 1.5). These guys also drop gear that tributes anywhere from 800 to 15k, 2k-3k, being the average.

What I like most about these 2 zones is that even at level 75, you can gain a decent amount of aaxp for basically gathering tribute. And as a ranger, it helps quite a bit to be able to track the whole zone, and go right to the nameds that are already up, then start cycling around to the other ph's.

On a night that I am gathering tribute, I will make a round or two in GE, and come out with like 15-20k in tribute, then head over to Veksar to clear any nameds I see there. In about 2-3 hours I can usually have 30k or more in tribute points depending on if I got the good drops.

One time, I got the Book of Impracticality from Khemot in GE (tributes for 15K), and then he popped again before I left GE. Killing him again, he had another Book of Impracticality. Being that they are LORE, I couldn't pick it up, but I didn't want to destroy the one I had OR leave the other to rot. I checked to make sure there was no one in zone with me (late nights in GE are empty), and hit my Origin key. This takes me 2 platforms away from the tribute master in Kelethin. I was able to turn in the book I had for the 15k, and then I high-tailed it back to GE to pick up the other one. Luckily I still had about 10 minutes left on the corpse, and was able to get my 2nd book. That night, between those 2 books, the rest of the gear from GE, and a run in Veksar, I gained somewhere around 75k tribute.

Now I realize that Iponema's 46 druid might not be able to do this yet in Veksar or GE, and I'm sorry I can't really point you in the direction of a better zone, more your level, to get tribute from. But what you can do is look up the drops that come out of GE and Veksar and maybe buy some in the bazaar. I used to keep a copy of all the items on my trader, but none of them ever sold, even though they were dirt cheap. So that might be a viable option for you.

Anyway, sorry this post kinda derailed the original discussion, and that it took so long. But I hope you now have a clear understanding of how tribute works.

A rough rule of thumb for tribute items is that the nicer of "older world" items will tribute better. But it truly is random and widely varying on what items will hold the major value.

Yes, Ldon is incredible as well, so long as you dont have bad luck and see way too many of the no trade drops. The worst piece of tribute from there in a couple months of ldoning at off hours is 22k tribute, the best was right near 29k. Of course these are all drops for ldons gotten in the level 70 range, though I'm sure even the mid level ldons have decent tribute on their drops.

If you can somehow get a group in there...

Edited, Jan 2nd 2008 2:07pm by Saeel

Burning Affliction adds damage to each tick of DoTs only. It will stack with Mana Preservation as they do different things. You only have to have the focus equipped when you cast the spell. You can unequip it after that and the focus will continue adding damage each tick until the spell wears off.

Affliction Efficiency lowers the mana cost of long term detrimental spells, which include most DoTs, Snares/Roots, Mez, Charm and debuffs. This effect is more potent than Mana Pres so it will take effect on these types of spells. They do not stack.

Burning Affliction - Book of the Lost City from NRo LDoN.

Affliction Efficiency - Falchion of Flowing Water from PoJ basement.

There are foci that will increase all damage (direct and over time) for magic based spells.

Muram's Anger - Glowing Stone of Expulsion from RCoD.

There's even one for fire based spells.

Pyrilen Anger - Thornbrush Shoulderpads

These last two foci are more potent than both Improved Damage and Burning Affliction so they don't stack with those foci, but do work with Mana Pres or Affliction Efficiency.

Edited, Jan 2nd 2008 3:15pm by mfbrownbear

The Improved Damage focus effects only apply to single target spells. Your roots with a damage component will do a bit more damage. Your single target nukes will do more damage. Your AE thunder and rain spell damage will NOT be increased. AE damage can crit but does not get boosts from Improved Damage type effects. The AE spells are still going to be more efficient against multiple mobs though.

I know you have probably gotten past the quading part of this thread, but I think I remember quading raptors or aviaks in the TD around that level, maybe? If not, then try quading the rockhoppers in Dawnshroud at that level. Its a hotzone, and they all pretty much have the same run speed.