AAs at 65

[Arkendar]

Well, mage is at 65, bard at 61. planning to freeze him now and grind out AAs (and I'll freeze bard when he hits 65 as well).
Figure this is a decent time, can plow the Hole quite quickly and get decent xp out of it.
Currently have:
Run5
Spell Casting Mastery 3
Spell Casting Fury 3
Pet Affinity (for bard songs)
Fury of Magic 2
Elemental Fury 5
Quick Damage 2
Elemental Alacrity 5
Spell Casting Subtlety 2

If anything is too messed up, I can always reset them and fix (palying on test)
Just curious what is recommended for buying at 65? Mostly focusing on DPS atm as I'm using merc tank to tank while bard chainpulls to me.
Lesser question to go with this. Is Planar Power really worth anything for the mage? Dunno how much mana it'd add, and I don't see that it'd raise damage any. Might grab them anyway, just for the mana, but curious what you guys think.

[Voragath]

Planar power is a good buy but I wouldn't put it at the top of your list. It'll add mana and other things as well. I didn't grab this until I was trying to push myself up the leaderboard and squeeze out every last point of mana I could lol

[Arkendar]

well, haven't been playing the bard much lately. Been running around with mage/monk getting the mage some AAs and other stuff. Running through creators and suchout of boredom (I needed a break from the hole).
Got mage up to 138 AAs. Still a few DPS AAs he could grab, but I think I'm gonna level him to 69 so I can drag him to RSS and farm runes while I grind AAs.
Figure once he's 69 I'll hop on bard and level him up a bit. His levels should fly (not quite as fast as with the monk, but at a decent rate)

So updating the question for lvl 69? I figure at 69 I'll start working on pet defensives as well so I can trash the tank mercs sooner or later.

[Deq]

I've no idea how you cope with bards, the constant finger work used to wear me out. Did they ever automate all that twisting of songs together?

i'm right with you at the moment, level 66 and about 250aa in, I think I posted most of my current ones in another post, there are a few more since. I'm rambling though, I have a question.

The AA companion of need (or similar name, summons a memblur pet) is great, but there's a level two. I googled it and just found a world of anger with no details of why. Is it broken? I won't touch it if it is.

Thanks

[Arkendar]

Well, I honestly haven't played the bard since that post, as I can get faster xp on the mage (and get progression in a few things) if I group with the monk, who is on bard's account.
but to answer the question, yes, they automated it.
/melody # # # # = autotwisting.
I can go out, pull, get back to camp, hit one button to twist buffs, and alt tab back to mage.

A question of my own unrelated to this thread. Was considering making a new thread, but not sure where I'd put it, so..meh.
What kind of AA # would it take for a mage/bard box to start SoD progression?
I assume as far as levels go, ~74-75 would work. But I'm clueless on the AA # required for much on mages. Bard is kind of a "background" character, so I'm not too concerned on him (Figure if I pick up his pulling AAs and some of the singing ones, I'll be happy. Dun expect him to tank)

Mage is at 70 with ..151 AAs now, I think. (might be more, not online atm) Starting to work on pet defensives a little bit.
Haven't quite figured out what I want to do for now (I hate just grinding xp and my monk isn't geared enough to go pull all of the castles in fire anyway).
Gotten him started on DoN, kind of tossing the idea of working on handaug around in my head, but I've done it twice now and hated it both times.

[Zatpus]

Ashengate the 4 (or 5) non-lore augs would maybe make a good camp for a day or 2 soon. Its also hotzone still, right?
Katta the elementals-camp north of center pyramide, another mannaaug from the named in the pond, and the elementals are a nice target.

For your bard get boastful bellow aa, atleast some, its a nice instantpull with short recast and debuff-component.
Quicktime-AA is a nice boost to meele dps. Dance of Blades buffs an procc (Bladewhirl) which decreases the mobs dps-output.

For AAs for your mage I would suggest:

Group-invis, group-levi for utility.
CoN and the new Pet-DA to survive bad situations.
Than all Pet-aas available, defensive and dps.

As far as level goes the first level of each expansion is the sweetspot for AAs for mage. That would be 71, 76, 81.
These are the levels of new airpet + new bold.

You may want to get some KcKenzy missions done when possible. The Petfocus EMII you can get there for 21 brews (Red Dragon Tooth) you won't see otherwhise til SOD progresssion is almost done.

In the meantime, at bazaar you might be able to find the mask from the cauldron "Skull of the Spire Servant". It offers the EMI petfocus in form of a buff on yourself. Have it on you when you summon a new pet. The EMI petfocus works for all pets lvl 71 and above.

[Merlaina]

A question of my own unrelated to this thread. Was considering making a new thread, but not sure where I'd put it, so..meh.
What kind of AA # would it take for a mage/bard box to start SoD progression?
I assume as far as levels go, ~74-75 would work. But I'm clueless on the AA # required for much on mages. Bard is kind of a "background" character, so I'm not too concerned on him (Figure if I pick up his pulling AAs and some of the singing ones, I'll be happy. Dun expect him to tank)

Mage is at 70 with ..151 AAs now, I think. (might be more, not online atm) Starting to work on pet defensives a little bit.
Haven't quite figured out what I want to do for now (I hate just grinding xp and my monk isn't geared enough to go pull all of the castles in fire anyway).
Gotten him started on DoN, kind of tossing the idea of working on handaug around in my head, but I've done it twice now and hated it both times.

You can probably start the progression with that box combo around level 71, but you would probably have more success around 76 (pet difference from 71 to 76 is pretty huge). You may have trouble with the second defend the village task in oceangreen just because it can be easy to miss a mob slipping into town when it's just you two boxing. Bard tracking may make that easier though.

I found Kith progression to be considerably easier, since there are very few group tasks in it and they're not that hard. Mobs are a little higher level, but again at 76 with healer merc you should be ok.

As far as AA required, as long as you spend your AA wisely you'll see a diminishing return on them over time, so I wouldn't say there is a set number. Obviously the more the better, but even just 300-400 AA is a huge boost over none, while 800 AA is a nice boost from that, but not as much as those first several hundred. Utility AAs are nice, but I would say most aren't really "necessary" except maybe AA malo (harder to resist, saves you mana, what's not to love?). My list of must have AAs:

Frenzied burnout 2
Fortify Companion
Extended burnout
Malo
Pet flurry
Pet dodge (elemental agility?)
Pet crit
Pet health (companion's durability?)
Mend companion
Gift Of Mana (as high as you can go)
Companion of Necessity (rank 1, since at rank 2 it hangs around longer and might get killed before blurring)
Theft Of Essence
Perfected Invis

For the pet AAs I'd probably get 3 ranks in each and then drop down the list and get the rest and then go back up to those and max them out. Typically the first several ranks are more effective per AA than the later ranks. Theft of Essence you might want to either hold off on or get earlier, depending on how much you want to grind in Katta or Paw. If you plan on going there often it's an absolute must have AA. If not then you can do without it for a while.

[Arkendar]

Working on the brews lately. Did all 3 with guildleader, hopped on tonight and grabbed a guildy before he went to bed. Soloed the Guk ones (Got mage the banded belt in the process)
Currently have 270 AAs + 7 brews. About to see about doing SolB duo, but doubt I can. Would also have to find a third to zone in so I could finish (Stupid chest rules!)
The 10 AAs per mission is rather nice, and if I get gear, even better!
Okay, as I thought. No way I can duo SolB. Just spent an hour and a half trying to figure out the King/Advisor/Priest/Champion split.
Managed to clear a good chunk using charm but respawns are just too fast

[Zatpus]

Okay, as I thought. No way I can duo SolB. Just spent an hour and a half trying to figure out the King/Advisor/Priest/Champion split.

If you get sufficient faction masskilling undead frogs in normal zone and take a cleric toon, you can easily lullpull them one by one.
If you gain faction enought for atleast 2 toons, you can skip all trash and just do the nameds (plus a couple of mobs around them).

You will loose some faction on your way through. So you need enought faction to arrive non kos at king. When zoning out the faction hits you took inside reset.

[Arkendar]

You have SolB and Live guk mixed up.
SolB has the King/Advisor/Champion/Priest which all like to aggro at once (Giving you a nice 8-9 mobs in camp)

I have no issues on Live guk, but SolB can be a pain. Got a tip from a guildy to use mage/necro to do SolB and it worked out nicely. Can burn the named down before I die usually.
Finally got SolB done, been running the three daily now. have something like 350 AAs. Also have 4 drops sitting in bank for when he levels to 80 (and an earring from Warrens)
16 brews down. Depending on luck tomorrow on drops, I should get aug either tomorrow or the next day.
Hoping to get all the drops I can use from the MMs (that are actually drops) and bank them before continuing