[WoW] AOE Paladin Boosting, when to move on to next instance?

[shaeman]

Well thanks to zubs description I got this working.

My paladin went in there at about 40 and 40% of the bar.

It took a little while to get in to the swing of things, but eventually I did.

As someone else suggested I buffed my shaman with blessing of sanctuary. This helped.

I've just dinged 42. There was a lot of wasted time. When I go in to zolo I stand on the left hand corner with my back hanging over the edge. When it's time to bail I drop down from there. I spent a lot of time wandering down tunnels to try and find my way back up.

For those that want to save a bit of time - look for the tunnel that has some gargoyles (or statues at the entrance to it).

I found that I could take about 10 minutes of zolo's skeletons beating on me. I would then drop down and run back up - and the respawns hadn't happened. (the respawns slow you down getting back up there).

I stopped using the magma totem - reducing the amount of times I dropped it. It doesn't tag the mobs and doesn't really make them die quicker.

I'm going to have to see what I can do to prolong the amount of time I can take a pasting.

So I'm going to look for anything that buffs intellect (the more mana I have the better). I'm going to look at putting the mana oil (alchemy) on my weapon, and to have a steady supply of mana pots to chug.

I am definitely going to bring two other lowbies in there for a bit of painless levelling up tomorrow.

Thanks to all that helped... the shield spikes were the missing ingredient.

[kega]

Doing the Zolo grind on my 3 warlocks alt's at the moment with my "just dinged 70" prot paladin. Have blue/green gear no figurine trinket. Just keep up seal of light and hit skeletons, when I'm low I hit BoP and heal then continue. When zolo gets low I bubble and jump down to reset him. Then I just summon myself back up there with my locks who is just outside Zolo's room and repeat. A it slower without figurine but still very nice, around 130-150k XP / hour. Lvl 45 at the moment.
I have 10 sporregar shields, since they broke pretty darn fast ;D

[Tdog]

I didn't have a shield spike.... Dont know if that makes a big difference, and every so often I would rank one magma totem to tag.

You need a shield spike its the only way to mitigate dmg back to the skeletons. Just like pets if a totem does all the dmg to an NPC mob you get no xp. You must do some dmg to it, ala shield spike.

Also have the pally put Blessing of Sanctuary on your booster.

NOOOOO!!!! Either or, do not do both. They both proc off of block and the idea is to do the least amount of damage while still tagging mobs. Totems do not tag mobs which is why it doesn't work. They are considered pets, and all pets, guardians, creations, minions, w/e do not tag mobs.

HOWEVER since you are boosting a paladin have the paladin lowbie cast BoSanct on your shaman rather than using a shield spike. The reason being is that shield spike only deals back damage, BoSanct deals back damage AND mitigates a HUGE amount of damage when we have tons of soft hitting mobs like we do in the Zolo method.

[Greythan]

I'm wracking my brain (theorycrafting) to see if there's any viable way for a Warlock to boost in this manner. (Looking forward to what else Heyaz might have learned.) Nothing's coming to mind as very viable considering the warlock's 'squishyness'. I simply can't imagine the micro necessary to spam Siphon Life on that many mobs. (Hrm, maybe the new targetenemy might help?)

A few questions for the experts:

1) How long does it take for the skeletons to despawn? (I'm presuming that even doing a single point of damage is okay as the objective is to have all the summoned skeletons "tagged" and they then somehow despawn but still generate experience?)

2) Are there any other "breaks" in the action other than bailing out by jumping out to reset?

3) How does aggro work? I'm wondering if a fully buffed VW with a druid damage shield would be a viable option?

Thanks.

[Zub]

I'm wracking my brain (theorycrafting) to see if there's any viable way for a Warlock to boost in this manner. (Looking forward to what else Heyaz might have learned.) Nothing's coming to mind as very viable considering the warlock's 'squishyness'. I simply can't imagine the micro necessary to spam Siphon Life on that many mobs. (Hrm, maybe the new targetenemy might help?)

A few questions for the experts:

1) How long does it take for the skeletons to despawn? (I'm presuming that even doing a single point of damage is okay as the objective is to have all the summoned skeletons "tagged" and they then somehow despawn but still generate experience?)

2) Are there any other "breaks" in the action other than bailing out by jumping out to reset?

3) How does aggro work? I'm wondering if a fully buffed VW with a druid damage shield would be a viable option?

Thanks.

Haven't done much of it, but here's my input:

1) the ability is this one: http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=12506
in short, totems have a 1min duration, and summon skeletons that last 30seconds.
i think this is the skeletons he summons: http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=8324 (2400hp at lvl 46-47, dont know if it changed now they are 49)

2)the whole fight is constant beatting by 30+mobs.
even after zolo dies the skellies will finish their 30second life still beating on you.
You wont be able to cast anything non-instant spell for the whole duration of the fight until you jump. Unless you have 100% pushback resist or a priest/mage/paly bubble etc.

3)i guess it's proximity agro, and the fact that you tagged Zolo and have initial threat.
an alt might be able to buff you without taking agro from skelies, but any healing will definitely agro a bunch (probably all those that have not been shield-spiked)
The VW with thorns will probably work like a totem or a hunter pet i guess. it will only give xp to the pet since he will tag / 'kill' the mobs alone.
i don't think your clone will get any xp from it unfortunately.

[shaeman]

I didn't have a shield spike.... Dont know if that makes a big difference, and every so often I would rank one magma totem to tag.

You need a shield spike its the only way to mitigate dmg back to the skeletons. Just like pets if a totem does all the dmg to an NPC mob you get no xp. You must do some dmg to it, ala shield spike.

Also have the pally put Blessing of Sanctuary on your booster.

NOOOOO!!!! Either or, do not do both. They both proc off of block and the idea is to do the least amount of damage while still tagging mobs. Totems do not tag mobs which is why it doesn't work. They are considered pets, and all pets, guardians, creations, minions, w/e do not tag mobs.

HOWEVER since you are boosting a paladin have the paladin lowbie cast BoSanct on your shaman rather than using a shield spike. The reason being is that shield spike only deals back damage, BoSanct deals back damage AND mitigates a HUGE amount of damage when we have tons of soft hitting mobs like we do in the Zolo method.

I put the shield spike on my shield prior to reading the suggestion to put Blessing of sanctuary. So I ended up with both.

I don't think it matters having both to be honest - Zolo wasn't being damaged enough to be in danger of dying any time this century I was having to bail out I guess when I just hit a critical mass of skeletons and was more or less out of mana, so couldn't pop a quick heal or earth shield anymore. The Blessing of Sanctuary did allow me to stay alive longer that's for sure.

It would actually be quite nice to not have a shield spike and replace the spike with +18 intellect on the shield. Although quite expensive if i were to do the four shields I bought specifically for this purpose.

[Yagamoth]

Have to make a pally... Argh...

Short input - If you sololy kill (Or like it is here - despawn after a while) an enemy with Thorns from the druid, you probably won't get any exp aswell. I'm saying that, cause before a while I walked through Deadmines on my 70 dinged druid just for fun and wanted to run through everything and then get a coffee or sth similar. After I came back, most of the mobs were lying to my feet, but I couldn't loot anything.

I like the idea of watching movies while levelling easily :love:

[Zub]

Went back in ST tonight, go the clone from 37 to 40, using the resto shaman to tank zolo again.
God it's boring.

I can confirm that the magma totem trick indeed does *not* work. i wonder however if Gift of Arthas would tag the mobs tho.
It's a debuff, but it doesnt do any damage. 30% chance to apply is great, you can be sure all the skellies will have tag it. Just have to check if it does indeed work.
30 min duration is good. That would allow for more mitigation (grace of Air for example) and therefore less durability costs. Have to try it.

Another item that might work for you paly tanks: Razor Gauntlets from Dire Maul.

After i dinged 40 i decided to go and try the ever spawning mobs in the Lycaeum, BRD. It took me a good hour to have them all in the lava under Incendius, to what point i realized that you can only side walk for so long, at some point you need to laval jump for a little while, and that ticks for 600dmg every 3sec.. no way my little 40s can go through with 1500hp. So i canned it. maybe some other day.

Back to ST i guess.

[shaeman]

Well I had another little play in ST today.

This time I took my pally and my shadow priest. (I could see the group bonus kicking in which was nice).

I actually managed to get some serious time on Zolo. (after an initial false start where I went to the place he was in last night and it was another guy with a slightly different name).

I came prepared.

I brought mana potions (I later started swapping in mana tide, mana stream totems, which helped reduce the number I chugged).

I got my alchemist to make Earthen Elixir (this reduces all damage taken by 20 per hit). This made the difference between me standing there for 10 minutes then having to leap off, and me standing there for 40 minutes.

I bought a repair bot (I don't have that particular engineering pattern). This allowed me to move to a corner to die (instead of jumping) then repairing.

I'm going to look to see what food buff items I can get and make some mana oil on my enchanter to coat the shamans weapon in (extra mp5 is always going to be good).

All in all this is a costly way of levelling alts, but I have never seen anything yield the xp. I topped 106,000 xp per hour (with some rested bonus inflating that) but still impressive.

(I love my shaman)

[Greythan]

in short, totems have a 1min duration, and summon skeletons that last 30seconds.

So, just to make sure I understand: at the end of the 30 seconds they "die" versus despawn (my distinction) meaning that if they've taken at least 1 point of damage its treated as a kill (i.e., yields exp) versus a despawn (i.e., wouldn't yield exp). Stated another way, there are three possible results:

1. You kill a skeleton before the 30 seconds is up (yields exp)
2. You damage a skeleton, but don't kill it, at the 30 second mark it "dies" (yields exp)
3. You don't damage a skeleton and at the 30 second mark it "dies" (does NOT yield exp)

Is that correct?

I'm now wondering if there is some combination of totems/auras/buffs that my team might cast on my warlock or his pet to make this viable.