level up or AAFollow

Your equipment will also play an important part in deciding when to stop levelling and earn some AA.

As a tank you need to be able to do your job - survive getting hit a lot. Your AA will help you to do this.

Tanking in PoV without AA is doable. Tanking in HoH / BoT is slightly harder. WoS / PoE slightly harder again. MPG harder again.

And tanking in Riftseekers / Nest / certain DoD zones without AA is difficult.

Unless you have equipment that is high end progression, I'd suggest levelling to 60, getting Run3 (and regen3 if you like), levelling to 65, getting everything defensive that you can grab at that level, and then push to 70.

Ash

Go with whichever seems more fun to you until it isn't fun and then try the other.

Enjoying your time in Norrath > all

See. I always have to disagree with this logic. Because the level 65 guy isn't competing for the same groups/camps as the level 70 guy. A level 65 with 50AA points will find it much easier to get into successful groups then a level 70 with 0AAs. Because the level 65 guy will be getting invites by other level 65s, and he'll rock for their group. The level 70 guy will be fielding invites from other people his level, and he'll suck for them.


Look at it another way. You're level 65. You're hunting in a level 65 appropriate area. Which do you want for your group? A level 70 with zero AAs, or a level 65 with 50AAs? Remember that a character takes exp from a group based on his level, not his AAs. So a character with AA points is "free" for the group. It's a straight bonus for them in every way.

Being level 70 with no AAs sucks because you'll be competing with all the other level 70s on your server (most of whom will have gobs and gobs of AAs), or you'll have to drop down to a lower level group (losing any benefit of the whole "wait to get higher level to work on AAs" concept), and *still* find it harder to get groups due to lack of AAs.


Ultimately, it depends most on your playstyle. However, there are a couple hard rules though. Casters can "kinda" get away with minimal AAs and focus on leveling. No one really notices that much if your wizard nukes for 20% less then he could if he had more AAs. No one really notices if your slows aren't quite as efficient, or cost you a bit more mana per cast. Support melee can definately get away with minimal AAs (although some of the class specific ones will be wanted). Same logic applies. No one really notices if your rogue BSes for a bit less then he could, or if your range crits a bit less often.

For tank classes, it's absolutely required that you get as many defensive AAs as soon as you can spare the time to do so. I'd definately look at having your basic teir1 and 2 defensive AAs completed before you move on to level 66 (or maybe get level 66, but no further). Everyone notices the rate at which a tanks health drops. It's night and day. I have had groups tell me that my level 66 paladin tanks better then most level 70s (this is usually in WoS though, so odds are most level 70s there are AA deficient). That's not due to gear (mine's slightly above bazaar quality, but not much). It's 100% AAs. Sure. I could have been level 70 a long time ago (and most of that is because I've hardly played in the last 3 months!), but as a tank, if I can't do my job, no one's going to want me in their group. With any other class type, you can get away with minimal AAs. You just plain can't with a tank class though. Lack of AAs will kill you hard (as witnessed by all those level 70 tanks hanging around in WoS competing with my level 66 for tank jobs and often losing)...

A lot of people advertise thier aa's on tribunal. LFG is very competitive. Whatever you can use to make yourself more attractive to that group leader looking for another person. When I set up my groups, I actually look for people who post thier aa's. It's a given that a lvl66 with 250 aa's is going to be more effective than that 70 who has 53. I'm fine with staying at 68 and grinding out another 70 aa's or so, so when I can finally group in RSS, or even anguish, I won't go SPLAT!

"AA's go MUCH faster at 65. "

"Each AA is like getting lvl 51 over and over again. "

"In Sol Ro I can get 3 - 4% per kill. Not bad."

This was mentioned above but is not true anymore. If it was my exp in RSS as we chain kill yellows to 70 would Ping us constantly if we were a group of lvl 51's. The total exp you get from mobs doesnt change but the total you need for each AA does.
Having said that Sony has programmed the DOD monster missions to give X number of exp that equals about 1 AA. As a Human Bard I get about 1.05 AA each mission.
Just last night I was at 97% completed an AA and after the mission I was at 2% and had only received 1 AA for the mission. So in net I only received 5 blue ticks of exp for that mission instead of 2AA; 1 for the mission and 1 for the completed AA bar.
I felt ripped off for a half a second until I figured out that the coding has to be this way in order for sony to graduate the AA for the mission to be the same for everybody. Meaning at lvl 70 with 305AA I get 1 every 15min at the Nektolous Monster missions, and at lvl 55, some random LFG ranger gets the same 1 AA every 15 minutes also. Sony cant equate it into a quantity of exp because the scale is graduated like our federal income taxes so they just make it 1 for everybody. Since I effectively pinged during the mission it doesnt count because exp gained is not being calculated just assigned. I was assigned 1 AA for the mission, which I received, albeit I was now 2% into the next AA when I was 97% into the next AA when I started the mission. I didnt bother petitioning because I jus figured, hey in 10 mins it takes the GM to respond I will have completed another Orc mission and got another AA so jus forget it. I just took the 5% of an AA for that mission in stride and got back to work.

Another person said:
" 1 AA per 5 hours at level 50 "

" 1 AA per 3 hours at level 60 "

" 1 AA per 1.5 hour at level 65 "

The new chart should read:
1 AA per 15 min in DOD Nektolous missions at any lvl from 51-70

So in 5 hours, the said lvl 51 person could easily have 20AA the same as anybody else. Since the Orc mission has a 30 min lockout timer you need to alternate to the fairy one every other one even though the faerie one is longer. Orc missions normally take 9-15 mins and Faerie ones 15-20.


Edited, Sat Oct 15 14:37:14 2005 by kirbyramz

Edited, Sat Oct 15 14:40:51 2005 by kirbyramz

The way it was explained on the EQlive boards by a dev (Rashere I believe) was that a MM was designed to give about 1 aa point for a level 70 character. So a level 51 would not recieve a full aa point if they completed a mission. Maybe that changed, but I truely doubt it. (Was brought up during the werewolf double exp message deal).

As for my opinion, as soon as you can, try and get Run3. After that, go back to normal exp until 60+. At this point it really comes down to what class you are and how you play the game. Tanks need their defensive aa's a lot sooner then a monk does for example. There is no cut and dry answer.

I do agree though... go 100% no matter what you choose