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Exping in the Grey
Thanks to Morillion for this guide.
I did a good bit of xp in the Grey this past weekend, and wanted to share some info and strategies. This zone is doable at level 51 and up, and rarely has more than 4 people in my overcrowded server. The Grey has no atmosphere, so you will need to summon several waterstones or own a permanent Enduring Breath item.
Getting to the Grey is easy. From the Nexus, zone into Netherbian Lair. Go straight and then take a right at the big column room, run down the tunnel and zone into Marus Seru. Levitate and invis/veil at zoneline to avoid greenie aggro from zelniaks and lightcrawlers, and run to the right and enter the tunnel leading to Mons Letalis. In Mons Letalis, just run straight across the zone (still levitating, right?) to get to the tunnel leading to the Grey.
There are several mobs in this zone, and some interesting features that go with them.
First, there are two "traps" that you can set off while walking around this zone. The first is on top of some of the rocks, and it will spawn a shimmering rockfiend when triggered. The second are tiny moving fountains of dirt that spawn a worm when triggered. Sticking to the zone walls is a good idea to avoid these traps.
Mobs to avoid include iksar skeletons (see invis, lower level nusenses), Shissar Revenants (casters), and Shimmering Rockfiends (51 Earth barely makes a dent in these).
The two mobs I concentrated on were Timeless Golems and Shissar Stalkers by the Mons Letalis zone line. Both mobs are lvl 45-47, have about 6k hp, low resists, and hit for about 120. Timeless Golems run very very slow while the shissar can keep up with run3. They are KoS to all, and assist each other. Golems drop about 4pp in coin and zero loot. Shissar drop no coin, but the occasional shissar organ for amulet quest, and polished scales that sell for 19pp to vendors. XP at lvl 55 was about 1% per 3 or 4 kills. Not really that great BUT if you can find a couple other people in zone that are soloing near the temple or the scarlet desert zone, ask them to join a distance group. Get the group xp modifier and keep all the xp as long as you don't get too close to one another. With the modifier and a 5 person distance group, I was getting 1% per 2, sometimes 3 kills.
My primary strategy was chain petting. Malosi to pull and get them back on the western wall, then chain 51 earth pets into them, and a low level nuke for xp tag. Time consuming, but mana efficient. To speed stuff up, I would cast sirocco mid-fight, and scars once for each time a wave did not hit.
For a change of pace, I took advantage of the Timeless Golem's lackluster speed to aggro kite them. There is a stretch along the western wall from the ML zone line to the NW corner of the zone where no mobs path to at all. I would Lavabolt to pull, stick on a dot (wrath) or two (maelstrom) while they came towards me (yes, they are THAT slow), then sick a water pet on them. Still slow, but kind of fun.
You can also aggro kite the shissar stalkers if you have the new improved fire pet. Simply send him in, and have the water pet ready to chain. Fire pet has been pretty reliable in snaring, and when he finally dies, a snared and pissed snake is headed for you. Lava bolt for aggro, and send water pet to finish. Comperable mana efficiency since I didn't use dots. Fire pet would get a shissar to 60%, which is respectible compared to version 1.0.
Adds were sometimes a problem, because the landscape is littered with boulders that mobs can hide behind or in. Main thing to keep in mind is mob speed. Make sure any shissar are aggro'd by the pet first, then take your time with the golems. Then chain pet (without nuking) and have it re-stablish aggro. Most mana efficient solution is to zone, though. If you ever aggro a rockfiend, zone immediately. They are fast, triple for 140 each, and have about 10k or more HP.
Decent zone for xp, pretty crappy on loot, VERY safe and undercrowded.
Zone Information:
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