I realize there is a hunting guide at the top of this forum, and I did find Shallamurine fun. But my issue is, things are either kicking my butt, or resulting in zero gold, or like the krokani and gorgogs (which I can barely survive at all) they are bashed out at all times. I basically need a place to bash that results in more gold than the potions I put into it. (And of course more is better.) My character is currently level 68, and I really want to get to 70 so I can finally get staff. Any suggestions for what to do? (By the way, I'm an Aquamancer, so I can't bash out anything "on the light".)

Try Shallach, keep checking on the Krokani. If you feel like tempting fate, spectres are some of the best xp around. You're at that level hump that's hard to get around. I found 70-80 to be really frustrating as non keph mage. Just too squishy to take anything too big. You can try reflection bashing in the UV...just run past the cave fishers.

Being Keph would be interesting, but I just love my 18 int (20 with knowledge blessing) and level 1 eq.

As far as my leveling, I've decided that I'm just going to level up to 70 and 50% on what I already know and then explore a bit to find new areas, maybe learn how to quest (cause I surely don't know how to now). The reason I'm leving first is I've been trying new things, like the hammerheads in Boldero but losing 6% for every vitae gets steep after a while.

If I find anything super great, I'll be sure to let you people know.

Yeah, Akui is at 61, I hear you on the bashed out woes.

The Krokani are perpetually empty. It's almost not worth the trip down there- basically, I go down there, it's always empty (I've yet to arrive with it anything other than utterly decimated, ever). So, my stubborness happens, and I sit around and wait. I kill a few, and then someone who I swear must have it timed arrives and starts clearing fairly fast. (It doesn't help that you can't toss a dead weevil without hitting a monk, who seem to chew them up really fast).

I mean, Akui is a Serenguard, and it's really frustrating at times. I can't imagine what it would be like for a Celestine or a druid or any poor, altruistic soul that took healing.

My other option is the orcs, which are almost equally as empty, but usually I can scrounge up an acher or two who wandered off the track of the kill-mobile when it came through, and sometimes Sabretooths, which are doable but nasty at times for a somewhat squishy aslaran- but even those have been empty lately .

The other day I did a few rounds of bards, scholars, and rockeaters, but I feel bad doing that because the novices almost need those. As a last resort? I'm not too proud to weevil!

I seriously wouldn't mind a per-character coded kill cap on some of these things, per IC month, if only to make sure people who aren't terribly effective (like myself) can at least get something, and hopefully be spared the frustration of doing the ghost-town tour of the Basin of Life.

...or maybe I just need to find a better time to go hunting.

Bashing seems to be worse in Lusternia than any of the other IRE games.

In Imperian, each City/Council has four or five bashing areas specifically designed for them, with specific level ranges in mind, going from level 20 - 100. If the place you want to hunt happens to be empty, there are a ton of non-affiliated places you can hunt at, that are just cool for everyone.

On the rare chance all those places are hunted, you can always go into one of the other cities places and kill their things.

I -never- wanted to bash there and couldn't. Here it happens all the time.

I've always felt the bashing areas issue was a big problem for Lusternia, but then you have to realize that there is also influencing, and many more quests than the other IRE games tend to have.

Even so, I feel it would be good for the game to add more bashing areas, just because most people don't expect to need to quest, and no one new to the game will expect to go influencing. The quests and influencing should be a bonus rather than something people are directed towards since they don't seem to be directed towards it very much and it often manages to be less interesting than bashing (though I love the skeletons in angkrag and rock eater quests to be sure. Now if they were on timers for individuals instead of their own things... but I've barked up that tree before).

One of the the main problems for me is the lack of high level bashing grounds that are as productive in both gold and experience as some mid/mid-high areas (gorgogs, Moors etc.). Because of this, most high level bashers, who are generally more active in bashing, are forced to go into these mid/mid-high areas. The only area I would classify as high level is Astral, but that is hardly good for gold unless you have access to a cubix.

I know an inactive level 87 Igasho druid and his bashing doesn't really suck when he was still active.

I agree. There aren't enough bashing grounds and the options are.. painful, literally. Being a faeling Cantor and bashing is hard, especially at level 74 on Astral, the aetherbubbles, and some other areas (Presidio, Undervault, gorgogs... just barely coeurls). Only way I manage now is to fight non-agro creatures with reflection or influence. At 73 I was gaining about %.5 per monk in Tosha with charity influences and a harmony blessing. That worked rather well (except the monks move around too much while influencing them). Seems like there's such a large gap between certain race/class combos that it ends up hurting those on the lower end of the HP spectrum. Heck, even with enchantments, Starlight, Lovecanticle, and faeling lvl2 elixir bonus, I still have to sip after every attack against me and even then I have trouble keeping up sometimes. I'm not about to add sparkleberries or scrolls into it, it'll far outweigh the gold earned. I guess my race/class combo is meant for influencing. More influencing spots, please? Kephera don't give out enough xp for influencing.

I think certain races need their stats examined. Right now, some of them have absolutely no benefits worth the trouble. Just become a high constitution/strength race with a knight/monk class and there you go, all the bashing/gold you want. Be a high charisma race and a class that helps charisma.. what do you get? Not much really. Sure, you don't have to worry about death from lack of HP, but you also get less xp and it takes more "attacks" to finish than it does fighting. And it's not like there is an "ego weapon" to use to help damage and speed with influencing. I want creatures that hand over 200+ gold after influencing like Astral creatures do when slain. But anyway, rant over.

I suggest influencing for now, even though it's horrendously boring and slow and rewardless (oh wow, I can sell fully esteemed items for 5k-10k or more, assuming players want to bye them.. btw, most things don't even give out 3% esteem, so it's a long process. I make more being bored to death harvesting ), but safe. Places to influence: Krumcandivia, Tosha, guards, Undervault (illithoids and kephera)... Some creatures can be influenced too, spawns can be and I know of some others but I can't think of them right now. I'd like to know if Ecologists can influence more powerful beasts (cats/mammoths in Snow Valley, rocs, eagles, sandojins, hammerhead sharks, astral critters, undervault critters, etc). Though, if you have forceshield or whatever that aquamancer skill is called, you shouldn't have much trouble hunting. So yeah, just influence your way to whatever level you want. I suggest using at least the weak /and/ medium ego attacks. For most of those places above, using the weak attack will just get you a willful target (that's why I never bother with guards and didn't do Tosha until I got Supplication). But beware, certain ones like the Kephera will burn through ego very quickly (if they're so high level, where's the rest of the xp and gold...) if it's not high enough, and they will move around in the middle of influencing at times.

I'm Inept in Influencing. Although I've always wanted to make a true-rogue influencer (although I'm sure it's been thought of and possibly done before) I just think getting to demigod on influencing would be awesome.

But yeah, if I had Forcefield (or whatever it is called) I would be on easy street. (Something nuts like 4.5k ego after I twirl, as opposed to the 3.3k hp I get now after a twirl.)

Also I promised you guys I'd reveal whatever I found, and what's been working well for me is the hammerheads in Bondoro, keep vitae up when you fight them because they are aggro, hit quick, and one of them alone will cause me to shield after two hits (two of my hits, not theirs). But they drop 250 gold per kill or so. And then you can of course sell them as well for another 75. Check it out if you can take them. (I started doing them at level 70 as a Merian, and they kill me from time to time)

Between 55 and 75 or so is a really odd limbo for a number of people, since there's not much new to bash that's worthwhile until you can survive in the UV, unlinked astral, or gorgogs (unless you're a monk, in which case you can probably bash gorgogs by 65 depending on your race, trust me I've seen it done).

If you haven't tried them yet, consider:

Brains and Aberrants under the Presidio (Mags will bother you if they catch you hunting the Viscanti that live in the Presidio proper)
Sandojin and other assorted critters in the Skartch Desert
Basement of the Lucidian Observatory - spiders and crystalline freaks
Vesavir Valley - wolves, taurians, or both (hunting either will get you enemied to their respective denizen group - you won't be able to do the quests there anymore, but neither side is decidely "lighty", though some will argue the taurians practice necromancy - take it as you will)
Inner Sea and Sea of Despair - Sharks and other assorted critters

Snow valley, as previously mentioned, isn't bad either, though might prove a bit tricky.

Most of these suggestions won't seem great, but they're always something to check on if all else fails.

EDIT: Hammerheads, while nice, aren't a good recommendation unless you're a race that can innately dive or an Aquamancer - otherwise, it takes a lot of lessons in environment to learn how to dive, and there's very little else you can do with that skill besides hunt hammerheads or chase Aquamancers.

If you are able to survive in the UV tunnels, bash there - cave-fishers are nuts for exp at that level. The UV is ridiculously large, and if you are able to bash down there...there's very little reason not to.

Traitor.

Don't listen to a word he says. It's an evil place. All the denizens do around 3k damage to me and give almost no experience and gold . Well, the eastern side is anyway. The western side is good.

No, the tunnels are godly exp. The hives are utter crap.

Actually, the hives are unbelievable when they're enslaved and you're hunting the slavers. :P The money beats gorgogs -handily-.

Only ever seen it that way twice, though...

Fishers are probably going to be tough on you. They can hurt hard, and randomly break limbs. Great experience though and if you can survive two long enough to get away, you can wander all around the Undervault finding them - just learn to avoid the Illteeth lake area for the adoraths unless you're sure you can handle them. Basidions pay out well, but they're few and gathered in groups - three of them that I know of.

Cave-fishers do about 2k to me and they're somewhat fast.. and they have one attack that hits far over 2k (I've been hit and survived and then I've been hit and instantly died). They're demigod/titan/knight fodder I guess (like everything else that's good bashing). You could pull it off if you had someone with you reflecting. Could try those other odd creatures. I think I managed to slay a mantasomething without trouble once. Stay away from krakans and adoraths.

Try Krumcandivia (just watch out, they team and the "bosses" use aeon) and Cankermore (I haven't really bothered here much) and Dramube (they do hit a bit hard. the halibuts make me reflect after two of their attacks). There are eagles or something flying in Snow Valley if you have a way to fly. Coeurl in Zoaka are good but they hit hard and afflict with haemophilia and paralysis. Astral doesn't seem to be worth it anymore (at 74 I'm getting less than 1% from lobstrosities and urns, and it takes far too much effort to slay them). Oddly enough, the creatures on Celest's Nexus world, with a harmony blessing, can give .10-.40%, I believe. Rockeaters/mooses are about .20% with harmony. Nagaradja are.. .40% (?) and cause asthma. Try clearing out the Hifararwhatever Hills completely and seeing how much you get. Gromagh and Nidhuug give about 2-3% for me, but they're strong and tricky. Let's just say the spawns are like krokani (when it comes to profit) but a few steps from Serenwilde . At this level, just bash anything and everything you can.. even Toronada if you have to. You probably already know about the snails in Shallamurine. Carai Caroo, but I'm not sure if those are even worth the effort for xp.


Edit: forgot to mention that Celest has the Spire up, so that's 25% increase to xp on aetherbubbles (I think that's why nexus world creatures give me more now.. I wonder how much Harmony blessing affects it).