[Sunken Temple Zolo Boosting]The tips and Tricks

[Overflo]

First off id like to introduce myself to the Dual-Boxing community i began last week after a couple of months of viewing these forums to get myself on my way with 5 shaman, the journey has been interesting thus far and I thank everyone who has contributed to these forums in helping people like me who at first had no idea what the heck was going on.

I have recently entered Sunken Temple and did alot of research before i did in order to not find myself running around in circles all the time.

I have come across a few interesting discoveries that i could not find on these forums, due to them either not being suggested or me not searching hard enough.

Zolo is a boss in Sunken Temple who spawns totems, which spawn skeletons these skeletons despawn after 45 seconds and give experience to surrounding party members, the logner zolo stays alive, the more experience the party gets, many prot pallies can keep zolo alive for extremely long periods of time which nets in extreme amounts of experience.

Unfortunately this guide is a bit biased i dont have experience doing this with any class other then a pally, though i know other classes are capable of it, some suggestions will be very pally oriented and not capable by other classes.

The 2 deciding factors in how much experience you can get from zolo while boosting alts are:
1) How long you gears durability lasts
2) How long you can keep zolo alive.

There is no permanent solution for your gear however there is a permanent solution to keeping zolo alive indefinetly(this is not the reset technique)

1)For your gear, your best bet is to purcahse green or white shields from vendors or the AH, the more shield you carry on you the longer you can tank Zolo, Paladins have many tricks when their gear is completely broken, bubbles on cooldown to get a heal off, if specced for zolo uninterruptable healing, lay on hands and ardent defender, I try to carry about 10+ shields with me and always have prot rings/ammies/trinkets on if you can for avoidance purposes. If you are an engineer carry lots of cash and a repair bot and you are good to go. Also Figurine of the colossus is a must have trinket to do this unless you plan on bringing a healer along.

2)Now for keeping Zolo alive, if you have atlas loot it shows you all the trolls that appear in the centre, now maybe by coincidence/luck this happened for me but i found their spots are random but their order will always stay the same, so zolo will always have the same 2 trolls to the left and right of him. I am not however sure if the order can flip, i havent run into that problem yet, but like i said this isn't conclusive it seems to hold true.

There is another troll usually to zolo's right named Mijan, this troll is the key to keeping zolo alive forever, you do not need to be careful with your dps, just make sure you aren't trying to burst Zolo down and Mijan will keep him alive forever. Mijan has a large mana pool and only ever seems to use it to cast renew, heals and thorns which generally keeps him at full mana for the entire fight.

This way your gear will break but you will get the most bang for your buck having downtime only when your gear is broken into oblivion, white shields work fine, use max rank BoS to reduce incoming damage, if you have the moroe's trinket use it everytime it is up to maximize your durability. I would advise against using the blocking trinkets because it eats your durability very quickly.

Spamming rank 1 consecrate will insure you tag all the skeletons and not ever lose out on experience, maximizing your xp/hour, levels 35-50 could not possibly go any quicker, and could not possibly bore you anymore but it is well worth it.

Side notes: You must clear the path between Zolo and Mijan and you can never pull a witchdoctor with you once you've started, if you get sheeped then your alts will wipe most certainly.
-All troll bosses can be reset so you can't just tag mijan to Zolo you have to constantly hit him so he does not run back to his circle.
-once again bring lots of shields, buy 40 white shields and you will probably never run back to repair. your gear will be broken but bubble/heal and lay on hands should be enough to keep you alive, your health will drastically drop though so use your own discretion
-prot gear is the most effective as your avoidance will help keep your durability intact for much longer, though it creates a more expensive repair bill

Id like for anyone else with suggestions to please include them in this post, if anyone has any questions about what I have mentioned I will do my best to answer them.

The purpose of this thread was to help people like me who were constantly searching for more efficient ways to powerlevel your toons.

Peace, Overflo

[Zub]

You'll find alot of information on this in this thread as well.

It can also be done successfully with a prot warrior, a resto shaman, and possibly a bear tank.

With the shaman
I would suggest you use Earthen Elixir, Earth Shield, Lichen Guard shield, Healing stream totem, Stoneskin totem and Wrath of Air. Basically the Lichen Shield will tag the mobs for you, all you have to do is stay alive while mobs are beating on you. Earth Shield and Healing Stream totem should do this alone if you're sufficiently geared. I'm in Kara/GL/ZA gear and never had to do anything else, and mana regen makes me stay at 100% mana.
Advantages:
- none really, but if you only have a shaman available you can do it :-)
Disadvantages
- costly. As you only block 5-10% of the attacks, you gear will all be damaged, giving you high repair costs. My shaman can last about 40 minutes before he needs to go repair.
- slower xp than paladin/warrior. Due to the low block rate, not all mobs will be tagged, and therefore you will miss some skellies and not get xp for those.
over the 40seconds they are spawned they will each hit you about 15-20times, so still a good chance they get tagged, but not all.
- You need to use you high level gear to do this as you'll need good healing/regen and armor to mitigate the damage. The lichen guard is an easy solution for tagging mobs, but you can also use a iron shield spike on a different shield if you want.


With the Warrior
All you need is enough avoidance to be untouchable by level 49 mobs. Someone recommended the "tankpoints" addon to check this and it helped me lots to check my avoidance.
With enough dodge/parry/block and the miss chance, you'll eventually never be hit by the mobs. It doesnt matter how much hp or armor you end up having because no skeleton will ever harm you... until your shield is broken.
Advantages
- Cheap. Only your shield gets damaged, and since armor is not important here (avoidance is, not mitigation) you can use a white shield that you find on vendors in starting zone.
Note however that with 40%+ block your shield will get damaged *very* quickly, so try and get the cheapest shields with the highest durability you can. I've used "Metal Buckler" which has 85 durability and costs 1g30 to buy, and about 9silver to repair when at 0 durability.
- Efficient. to have that much avoidance you'll probably pack about 40-45% block. which means that the shield spike on your shield will most probably tag all the skellies that hit you, giving your all all the xp you can get from these. Also, as long as you have shields to use (with spikes) you can last forever. Only your shield gets damaged, the rest of your armor does not.
- It is something quite enjoyable to have about 40-50 skeletons on you, and see a stream of block/miss/dodge/dodge/block/parry/block/miss/dodge... on your screen :-)
Disadvantages
- you need to be well geared to be able to pull this out, I've done it with a warriro geared in GL/ZA/Kara gear but if you have lower avoidance and you will get hit, eating through your hp and durability little by little. Eventually you will need a heal and repairs. With enough block however, using the figurine of the collossus at any time will refill you hp bar completely (+10-12K hp easy)
Note, a "Metal Buckler" lasted about 5-8 minutes when used on the warrior

My shaman's gear can be found here
My wife's warrior can be found here
Note that i tried to do it with my own warrior (here) and could not do it.

Hope this helps.

[Stabface]

OK, I'll bite... If you didn't read about Zolo in the various threads on this site.. where did you read about it ?
Actually I'm serious here, I'd like to know more sites that have tricks like this one.

BTW a lot of posts about this here... 1st one is the mother of all Zolo threads pretty much.
[WoW] AOE Paladin Boosting, when to move on to next instance?
The downside of boosting with Zolo (no gear)
Zolo Trick - Can't get heals off...
Looking for instructions on Zolo boosting trick with a 70 Resto shaman

[Overflo]

to answer your question stabface i found my information about the healing technique from http://wow-exploits.blogspot.com/200...-leveling.html it gives you a video of one strategy used also, but does not show the Mijan technique though they mention it and after trying it you will not be dissapointed, definetly saves a ton of time doing this method

[Zub]

hum

wow-exploits.blogspot.com/2008/

i don't believe Zolo boosting is an exploit tho. And if it is, we should probably not discuss it here then

[Tidomann]

In this particular instance, it's not really exploiting, but more taking advantage of a boss.. I guess that is exploiting >_<.. Boosting in general is not. I say this is more of a leveling tip, rather than a leveling exploit

[Overflo]

I'm sure a GM would just say a creative use of game mechanics. They must know that this form of powerleveling is possible and the fact that they have done nothing about any of the forms of powerleveling through instances must say something. Besides if they wanted make skeles worth 0 xp or significantly lower xp then problem solved, id prolly still do it for lower xp though i only look at my screen to change broken shields and trinket while i do other stuff online.

[Marathon]

There have been people on these forums who have contacted Blizzard about the Zolo power leveling thing, T-dog I think, and they did not get it was an exploit answer. I personally leveled all 4 of my shammies from 35 to 58 using Zolo and god only knows how much time it saved me.

[Knobley]

Seems to me the Zolo trick deserves wikification by someone qualified to do it.

[Bena]

Mentioned this in the other thread.. if you stand on the corner of
platform and let Zolo stand to your left and back (7 o'clock) he will
not take any damage and will last forever (well up to when you decide
to go repair).