Tried AOE farming todayFollow

I was questing in WPL at 56, going to that house in Dawson's Tears for a quest item and bla bla.

I see this 54 mage, execute the perfect textbook AOE pull, it was a sight to see. I just stopped and watched, it looked like he knew exactly what he was doing, and I wanted to see how he would pull it off without outside help. He cast ice barrier before mounting, gathered at least 12 mobs, wound them up in a nice tight pack, frost novaed, blinked, 2 blizzards, frost novad again, ran, 2 blizzards, arcane explosion, gg.

I had to say something, so I rode by and said 'very nice', because it really was. I thought there was more to it, but he made it look so clean. So I had to give it a shot, and he actually invited me to a group. I basically copied him, but it didn't come so natural for me, AND my mana was pretty low (about 4500 buffed at level 56). I ended up dying a few times, and running OOM more often then not, so I felt like I was holding up his grinding, so I thanked him and continued questing.

Later I was questing near Andor'hal, and I saw those slightly lower level mobs, with a better escape route into the river. I just worked on gathering, seeing what my ice barrier could withstand, trying to pack them up tight like he did, and I tried at least 10 pulls. A few problems I had -- mana -- this was big. I didn't have enough mana for 4 blizzards, 2 blinks, 2 frost novas (rank 1!) and an arcane explosion. That seems like the bare minimum to me, and having extra mana for more AE's and CoC's would help alot too.

I got the frost nova, turn, blink, target thing down pretty good, what I really need to work on is gathering them up into much tighter packs before I frost nova, and doing it fast enough so I don't lose my ice barrier. Anyway it was pretty fun. Just thought I'd share. I picked up some better +int gear today, but I always have the toughest time finding good gear (especially eagle gear). I got 3 pieces for 58 though, and they're outlands greens with massive amounts of intellect compared to the old world stuff I was wearing. So I still plan on questing, but I'll definately side track more often and try to AOE grind for a bit.

Also this mage went from 54-56 in about 5 hours tops lol. Not sure if he was on rested XP, or if he was near the end of 54 when I met him, but from what I saw he just stayed at Dawson's Tear all day. He was very good, almost robotic in his rhythm, so it wouldn't surprise me if 2 levels a day was just normal business for him.

It seems he was pulling 10 mobs at a time, the actual gathering/killing took about 40 seconds. Add another 40 seconds for water, and 40 seconds for looting, so 10 mobs every 2 minutes. So 300 mobs an hour, at 300 xp per kill, he's getting 90k xp/hour by my estimates. And thats off non-rested xp. That just blows away any type of questing I was doing.

Edited, Sep 20th 2007 2:52am by mikelolol

Edited, Sep 20th 2007 2:53am by mikelolol

I did AOE grinding there from 52 - 59 (I think... it was all a mindless blur). The thing about AOE grinding there is that there is an uppper limit on how fast the mobs respawn. I found that I actually got decent enough that I could do the whole farm in 3 pulls, but it is the odd resist that kicks your butt and makes you reset. You get a few of those and it really cuts into the exp. I found I was doing around 40-50K exp per hour there, no where near 90K.

Also, AOE grinding is an art and until you learn how, you will die a lot, but it is fun. ;-)

Your spell rotation differs a little from what I was doing as well, I always did a coc after the second blizz, and didn't bother blinking after that since I only needed enough space for a third blizzard and a coc. Might help if you tried it like that. I recall having around 5k mana then. I think anyway.

I personally loved AOE grinding in outland, it was my 2nd char to 70 and ive AOE grinded all the way, some good gear quests in between.
I thought it was better AOE griding in outland then in Azeroth.
The mobs are packed and there beasts are good for grinding, boars, basilisks, vultures or other poultry, undead, those rippers, many choices.

My tip is: dont use blink, you have to wait until the 8 seconds of youre FN are almost over before you throw out youre Blizzard anyway, just walk, saves mana.

I play on a PvP server and then you tend to save blink for when you get jumped by a rogue :P

Mostly my sequence was CoC > FN > walk max distance > Blizzard x2 > FN > then see how much hp they have or an extra blizzard then CoC or directly CoC and IAE to finish.

Edited, Sep 24th 2007 1:29pm by Sjans

How much gold did you make from pure AOE grinding to 67?

i gave it a go once or twice (definately more than 1 to 2 times cos I did try it) but gave up after a while. I continued on with my spec but proceeded to use my one on one tactics but every time I got an add(s) I fell back to my usual tactics.

By questing and killing stuff that got in the way of herb nodes and what nots, I got enough gold to buy an flying mount before I was even 69. I am sure the gear rewards that quests offered allowed for this since I saved a bundle on getting new gear.

Perphaps I just expected the same kind of deal with AoE grinding in Outland as compared to Azeroth.

The whole reason I quit aoe grinding when I could go outland was more the lack of humanoids to grind then the insane quest rewards though. No humanoids means no cloth, no cloth means no cash, or it cuts it down by a lot at least.

The ToT area in Hellfire Peninsula is IMO, the shizzle...if I can grind out 7 levels there no sweat, ANYONE (even a trained monkey with sleep deprivation from excessive WoW playing!) can.

I had roughly 1850g when I parked AoE - that's no record either, as I only had one gather prof, and was buying stuff for my alts on occasion as well. I suspect 2500g at lvl67 would be roughly what I'd have if I was more miserly, mikelolol.

Yeah, Go'Shek farm, 9 at once laid out in a neat semi-circle, it was great.
And then there was the courier and his four buddies every ten minutes or so.
Was a great intro to AOE

I am starting a mage tonight and I saw this post. Just how much faster can AOE levelling be if done right compared against questing?

ya AOE is fun cant do it over and over with out dieing yet got some good int+ like 3800to4000 mana but i think i need some frost dmg+ to pull it off

^
went frost at same lvl never knew how much fun it would be tell know

Edited, Sep 27th 2007 8:05pm by epicforsaken