AoE farming in WotLK

[masterpoobaa]

Finally got my WotLK beta account working again.
Tootled off to northrend to muck around, try to work out seals and judgements and to try a spot of AoE farming.
Compared to my live toon, this one seemed to have 5% better dodge, but less defence overall.

Now i dont have the figurine of the collossus, so my aoe farming isnt perfect.
But when i did it with my live char i found AoE farming a balance:
Downranking consecrate to save mana, and balancing SoL SoJ JoL and JoJ for HP/Mana balance.

But not on beta!
JESUS BHUDDA VISHNU Aoe farming is rediculously easy!!!!onoeneone

Anything more than 4 mobs at once and BoSanc was returning more mana than i could effectivly use.
Deep prot talents meant my spellpower was 500+ instead of 300, so the dps output from consecrate was impressive indeed.

With my kara-ish geared L70 tankadin, just the hp return from judgements was enough to keep my health close to max most of the time.. even vs 8 or 10 L68-69 mobs.

It was just so so rediculously easy...

To test my hypothesis, i quickly popped into utguarde keep and solo'ed the first 2 L70 elites there.
9400exp each (rested of course)
They got my health down close to 1/3 at one point, but that was it.
I burnt them down pretty damn easily.

[Braundo]

JESUS BHUDDA VISHNU Aoe farming is rediculously easy!!!!onoeneone

Anything more than 4 mobs at once and BoSanc was returning more mana than i could effectivly use.
Deep prot talents meant my spellpower was 500+ instead of 300, so the dps output from consecrate was impressive indeed.

This is what I was hoping to hear. I somehow haven't gotten a beta invite yet despite just about all of my friends having gotten theirs, but I was assuming that even with slightly lower avoidance rates on 3.0.2 BoSanc would give back more than enough mana to keep max-rank Consecrate up full-time in addition to HotR and the other skills.

To test my hypothesis, i quickly popped into utguarde keep and solo'ed the first 2 L70 elites there.
9400exp each (rested of course)
They got my health down close to 1/3 at one point, but that was it.
I burnt them down pretty damn easily.

Would this be more time-efficient than questing if you're after the fastest XP possible?

[Rasmfrackn]

JESUS BHUDDA VISHNU Aoe farming is rediculously easy!!!!onoeneone

Anything more than 4 mobs at once and BoSanc was returning more mana than i could effectivly use.
Deep prot talents meant my spellpower was 500+ instead of 300, so the dps output from consecrate was impressive indeed.

This is what I was hoping to hear. I somehow haven't gotten a beta invite yet despite just about all of my friends having gotten theirs, but I was assuming that even with slightly lower avoidance rates on 3.0.2 BoSanc would give back more than enough mana to keep max-rank Consecrate up full-time in addition to HotR and the other skills.

There was some guy on /trade on saturday complaining that the new BoS was going to kill our AE farming because it didn't work as well against all the trashy little mobs like the demon hunters on the terrace. We yelled at him and he went off to try it on the terrace: he came back and apparently healing non-negligible amounts from SoL (up to x3 every 6 seconds from HotR) and getting infinite mana from BoS is surprisingly good at making for up for a loss of somewhere on the order of 15 damage per hit.

[Chunes]

nah, they have plenty of health and a single quest nets 20k+xp, some quests can be finished in the time it would take to kill the first two guys in UK. not to mention grinding is pretty dull and northrend looks amazing. I dont understand people that want to instance grind up to 80...

what is even more entertaining about aoe spanking mobs though, is that if you have to kill an elite, it's actually easier with 2-3 little guys whacking on you.

I was soloing runed stone giants in the fjord and 1v1 i had to blow loh/bubblewall, but with 3 little dwarves tickling me, i didnt have to use either, and i killed the giant faster.

[edgeta]

JESUS BHUDDA VISHNU Aoe farming is rediculously easy!!!!onoeneone

Anything more than 4 mobs at once and BoSanc was returning more mana than i could effectivly use.
Deep prot talents meant my spellpower was 500+ instead of 300, so the dps output from consecrate was impressive indeed.

With my kara-ish geared L70 tankadin, just the hp return from judgements was enough to keep my health close to max most of the time.. even vs 8 or 10 L68-69 mobs.

It was just so so rediculously easy...

To test my hypothesis, i quickly popped into utguarde keep and solo'ed the first 2 L70 elites there.
9400exp each (rested of course)
They got my health down close to 1/3 at one point, but that was it.
I burnt them down pretty damn easily.

This scares me since I can see a huge cry of "NERF!!" being yelled by every other class.

[Eaglestrike]

It depends on the quests and how quickly you can do them. First time through...grinding might be comparable exp to questing. But once you know where to go quests will easily be better. And unlocking quests to complete dungeons are great. 25-40k exp on the dungeon quests at 70-72.

And yeah, AOE farming is crazy good. Just need to find the right place to grind a bit and that may be worthwhile for early WotLK leveling with other people all over quest mobs.

[Kelaan]

I was soloing runed stone giants in the fjord and 1v1 i had to blow loh/bubblewall, but with 3 little dwarves tickling me, i didnt have to use either, and i killed the giant faster.

Thanks for the tip, I'll shelve that away. Hooray for HotR + BoSanct mechanics, then.

[Chunes]

I was soloing runed stone giants in the fjord and 1v1 i had to blow loh/bubblewall, but with 3 little dwarves tickling me, i didnt have to use either, and i killed the giant faster.

Thanks for the tip, I'll shelve that away. Hooray for HotR + BoSanct mechanics, then.

yep

and for what it's worth, i was using seal of light + judgement of light and consecrating nonstop. SoV would have been more ideal, but JoL alone isnt enough to keep my hp afloat with the damn debuff the giants put on you (shadow dot iirc).

*edited for spelling*

[masterpoobaa]

I gotta admit im a little rusty with the new abilities...

How many ways do we have at the moment to get health back?
I know SoL and JoL, but whats this about HotR?

[Fridmarr]

I gotta admit im a little rusty with the new abilities...

How many ways do we have at the moment to get health back?
I know SoL and JoL, but whats this about HotR?

HotR can proc your current seal on each target it hits. So when you are using SoL you'll proc it 3 times on each HotR if you are AoE tanking.

[masterpoobaa]

AHHHHHH

THATS why my health suddenly shot up that one time!
Was wondering about that.

Woots.

now i need to find a nice northrend place to practice my AoE tanking.
suggestions?

[guillex]

AHHHHHH

THATS why my health suddenly shot up that one time!
Was wondering about that.

Woots.

now i need to find a nice northrend place to practice my AoE tanking.
suggestions?

Ermmmm ... The mines in Howling Fjord, or that village just north of Valgarde ... Or even the mines north of Valiance Keep on the Tundra...

I haven't quite gotten past the two first starting zones.

[Dianora]

AHHHHHH

THATS why my health suddenly shot up that one time!
Was wondering about that.

Woots.

now i need to find a nice northrend place to practice my AoE tanking.
suggestions?

Howling Fjord, the iron dwarf at the Big Lewbowski dig site. Lots and lots of melee only mob. just ride and aggro 10 of them at a time.

[masterpoobaa]

10... is that all?
bummer.

[Galoheart]

I'm currently 80 in Beta. I leveled entirely Protect and in full Tank and WotLK armor gear.

Protect grinding is very easy. And much easier if you know how to use your abilities to your advantage.

For multiple mobs group like 4+ SoL and JoL works best and assuming you have BoS up. You won't have any mana problems.

The most mob group I've pulled in a grind around 78-80 was over 20+. It was pure heaven. It's virtually impossible to burn the amount of mana BoS generates in such circumstance. But at that level as well I had allot of AP which scales SoL and JoL allot, so healing on seal proc of SoL with HotR can relatively keep your health up in a stable way while you DoT everything in Consecrate and damage with everything else HS, HotR, Ret Aura.

The one problem I've found pulling that many mobs up to like 20 for example is that the mobs are so many they start surronding you and start to hack you from behind. Also with the range on HotR sometime when the mobs try to surround you the target can move to the end and out of range of HotR. However it's just easier to switch target to one directly in front of you or move as needed. But it can happen often that it's noticable with many beating mobs.

*Best place to grind in Howling Fjord I remember is at the large "Skon" camp for the giant Vikings. They spawn fast.

Their is also a camp with some stone Elementals and Rune guardians by the coast close to one the down lifts. That's a grind spot. But by far the Skon camp is much better. The camp happen to be a quest area as well.

*For 77-80 the absolutely best grind spot I've seen is a "Dig" area in Icecrown can't remember name but it's SW of the giant camp area in the central map area. It's all "Undead" as well as DK but undead all the same.

The mobs spawn there faster than you can even loot them. They now have loot as of this last patch. They can drop greens and food recipies. But very good grind area with huge groups of undead. I call it a fun area. From 78-79 I had so much fun there playing and testing that I grinder out the entire level in maybe 3hrs or less in non stop AoE with quite a bit of rest bonus. Funny thing I was the only one there. But great grind area.