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Soloing Jagged Pine Forest
This guide kindly provided by Morillion Vale.
Intro
Jaggedpine is a great zone for high 40s, low 50s. There are quite a few mid-level wolves, bears, and cats wandering around that have the dreaded Critters of Jaggedpine faction. Kill one or two, and you are KoS forever and will have to worry about adds. My advice if you've never been here is to not kill the animals. There are also some camps of poachers (bandits), several dryads, treants, turtles, and potamieds, as well as a couple caves full of gnolls. One cave is full of good gnolls, one is full of bad gnolls. /con everything to be sure you don't kill the wrong ones. The xp in this zone is good, and the loot is fair.
Getting There
Easy zone to get to. Take the PoK book to Qeynos (neutral area, between Shar Vahl stone and Plane of Tranquility stone). Run North and zone into Qeynos Hills. Keep running North across the whole zone until you get to the Surfall Glade zone in. Very little in QH could hurt a 45+ mage unless you are evil, in which case the guards might be a problem.
Once in Surefall, run out of the entrance cave, and dive into the water surrounding the middle building. Behind it is a waterfall, which you must pass through to a system of caves. Inside these caves are low level grizzly bears, so no worries about being attacked. Follow the path towards the East, and you will find the teleport gem to Jaggedpine Forest (JPF). Click it and you're there.
Hunting
There are a couple good places to hunt in this zone. The three I am going to focus on with this guide are the evil gnolls, the poachers (bandits), and the dryads.
Darkpaw Gnoll Cave
The Darkpaw Gnolls reside in the northern cave in the zone. There is a large cavern in the back that has several static spawns with fairly a low aggro radius. The trick is getting there. Some of the mobs along the way are casters, and can see invis. Because of the low aggro radius, you can move slowly and /con everything, then move around any see-invis mobs. Enter the cave, and take the first left fork. Take a left when you come to the next chamber, then take a right in the third chamber, then a left in the fourth chamber. This will place you in the large cavern.
Once there, you will notice several types of gnolls scattered in stationary spot around the room. On the back wall of the right chamber, there are two spots in between spawns that are safe for casting a pet and buffing (see map above). Go to one of these, cast pet, buff it, and cast your horse if you have one. Because it is a tight area and the mobs run at 20%, I recommend an earth pet to root. Otherwise, be prepared to nuke it down before they run, because they are sometimes have SoW on them from a wandering shaman.
I also recommend a chain-casting strategy here. 51 Earth pet can go toe to toe with the warrior mobs, and will have very low health after the fight. Reclaim and recast is much more mana efficient than healing in this case.
There are several different varieties of mobs here. Casters have lower HP, but can land some nasty DoTs if you don't have sufficient resists. I mostly stayed in the largest cavern, and had just enough time to finish all 7 when they started re-spawning. Spawn time is about 18 minutes. They have probably 2.5-4k HP, and hit between 80-115.
Darkpaw Warrior - Straight forward Warrior - most common
Darkpaw Oracle - Shaman
Darkpaw Defiler - Necro w/o pet or SK
Darkpaw Curate - Cleric (can Complete Heal)
Darkpaw Corrupter - Necro w/o pet or SK
There is only one wanderer that I have ever seen. He comes in from the eastern cave, goes in a short ways, then jogs back out. Easily avoided, but be mindful of it. Most often a warrior, but I've seen a caster a couple times.
Poacher Camp
In the Southeast area of the zone is a large encampment of poachers. They are the typical human bandit models and drop bandit loot (FS, mid-range gems, armor pieces) and sometimes drop animal pelts. Its a good way to get pelts without trashing critter faction.
The poachers have a low aggro range, and most can be single pulled. There are three that spawn near the campfire that cannot. You can pull just two though, and a good mage can take them both with chain casting and aggro management. Its worth it because a named can spawn at any of the three spots on the campfire and will drop decent-selling loot. Otherwise, pull singles from the tents.
The setup is key. Animals wander all around the camp except for one spot, which is directly out of the northern-most tent. This spot rarely has animal roamers, however, it does have the occasional potamied roamer. Potamieds are funky green chicks with a small baithing suit stuck to them, and can be nasty at times. Mostly they are about as tough as the bandits, so rarely a worry. Pulling single poachers is sometimes tricky, and you might need to run to zone a couple times to learn the different tents. Be sure and call it, because there is usually a person or two at the TP gem.
Earth pet is good here to avoid adds, and chain-casting will keep the mana high. The poachers have a wide range of levels. 3-4kHP, and hits 80-120. The named are harder with more HP and higher max hits, but a chain-casting mage can easily dispatch them.
Dryads
Dryads are treehugger chicks that litter the landscape around JPF. They appear initially as a flame burning on the ground, usually near a tree. When you walk near the flame, you trigger them to spawn into a targetable form. You will get the message like "a flame has merged into convalescent form" or some crap when you trigger them. They have multiple spawn points all over the zone, but the two spots I frequently hunted them were right outside the Brell Gnoll cave, and just South of the poacher tents.
There are two different types based on the color of the flame. One is a ranger, and the other is a Druid. They have low hit points, but can cast some nasty DoTs and DD on you and your pet. When they first appear from the flame, they immediately begin buffing themselves. Best strategy is to attack them before they do this, otherwise you will need to dispell the damage shield and skin like treehugger before doing any damage.
I personally prefer the Dryad camp by the poachers. There aren't as many, but it is safe from roaming animals. If you do the camp by the Brell Gnoll cave you WILL get animal adds, so be prepared. The benefit is more xp and more mobs. Its also closer to the TP Gem.
One note to mention is positioning. Since most spawn next to a tree, it is very possible that most of the fight will take place up in the tree, and sometimes the corpse will be too high to loot. When you attack, try to position the pet between the dryad and the tree, and you will not have this problem.
Dryads have about 3k HP, and hit in the 80s and 90s. Have the pet attack first whenever possible to avoid their DoTs. Also, you might cast a DS on yourself and have a junk buff like see invis in the first slot so they try to annul you first instead of do damage. They drop barkleather armor, which sells well to merchants.
Enjoy the zone. Its one of the better ones in the game, and has a lot to offer the solo mage.
Zone Information:
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