Upcoming Hot ZonesFollow

For those of you who haven't sent the list of the new Hot Zones


20 - The Lavastorm Mountains
25 - Blightfire Moors
30 - Firiona Vie
35 - The Gulf of Gunthak
40 - Goru`kar Mesa
45 - Natimbi, the Broken Shores
50 - The Broodlands
55 - The Bloodfields
60 - Barren Coast
65 - Arcstone, Isle of Spirits
70 - The Elddar Forest
75 - Loping Plains
75 - Blackburrow

So if I'm questing in Mesa at 50 do I get the benefit of the Hot Zone or lose out because I'm not in the right range?

At 40 most of the NPCs won't even give you quests in there. But I suppose there is Franklins "daily".

You get the xp bonus no matter your level, but of course, greys will give 0 xp, even with a bonus :)

Yther Ore.

Many of the animals con "This creature appears weak." meaning they're much easier than their con. Wolves and Bears near Madu are all this way, and although somewhat challenging to solo, with a merc, they're fairly easy. The giants always seemed an under-con to me, especially the named ones for the Crystalwing aug quest.

Mesa is a great zone, but it's leveling discrepancies has always bothered me. A 5 series quest from Devan for a req 28, rec 35 item, seemed like it would be very difficult for a full group even in the mid 40s. Of course there are lots of quests this way in all of TSS. Reward looks great, but either the quest is too difficult for the level or worse yet, you can't even get the quest till way past the recommended level of the item.

Oops side-tracked again, the key point was Weak mobs, make it suitable to start adventuring at 40, but definitely much higher level can find mobs and quests and other things to do in the zone as well.

EDIT: Just a side-note, with a merc, a fairly crappy equipped mid 30s Ber had no problem with clr merc here. Possibly could of solo'd the animals with some heal potions. With merc, even the Satyr-types weren't difficult.

Yther Ore.

Edited, Jul 7th 2010 5:15am by Yther

I hate it wne they have Gates and Omens zones as Hot Zones, I'd rather get less exp and have fun in another zone than go to one of those zones.

I wonder if the Blackburrow HZ will be the reinforced version or just a higher lvl version. there are a few drops I would like to have, Kranz' earring of command in particular

I'm glad they put in so many zones with lots of good quests to do. On the last set, the hand aug is the only reason I even went to Buried Sea. Was nice to get a bit of a bonus while working on it. Natimbi, Broodlands, and Bloodfields being the exception to the many quests in the zones. And I'm not really found of those three either, but Natimbi is ok. Way back when GoD was new, I used to fear kite the crags on the Ranger, until they started turning light blue back then, green it would be now, was descent solo exp while lfg.

Although Lavastorm is a low-level zone, hopefully it will help a bit with the DoN quests that end in the zone. There's a few a do quite often for faction on various toons.

Blightfire has tons of quests, although not too many of them great, still extra exp.

I still do quests in Firioni Vie from time to time.

Never really liked Gunthak, but the spell quests there are nice, and it's a popular 30s zone for leveling.

Barren Coast has lots of quests, several for the hand aug, but most of the killing is in other zones.

Arcstone has lots of great quests, and as said previously is way better than KT. I still wonder who came up with KT as an exp zone? Had they ever been in the zone, let alone tried to kill stuff there? Although I did get several meldstones while I was there looking to discover the hotzone aug, not likely I'll use them though, with defiant gear, why spend 10-20K on a piece of gear you'll only use for 10-20hrs of play.

It doesn't appear there are many quests in Elddar Forest, but I recall a few good aug drops there.

Loping has alot of good quests (mostly faction, but Vrald's bag is awesome xp, and a great bag), and will probably be one of my favorite hang outs, and maybe get the prices down on the LP attunable gear for new/returning players.

No clue on Blackburrow, unless it's the reinforced version again. It should be good, if so, but very few, if any worthwhile quests. Lots of great gear though, and some nice clicky drops.

Just my toughts, and I hope the servers come up early, so I can start searching for the hot zone augs, but they probably won't, and it'll be later tonight before I can back on. :-/

Yther Ore.

My comment was before the patch and/or patch notes, when the description Sony gave was simply Blackburrow for 75, so it could of been Old or reinforced or something completely different, as you wouldn't think they would of used the original for a 75 hot zone. And, with a reinforced version the past two summers in a row, it's not a far out idea.

Yther Ore.

Usually instanced zones do not count as hot zones. So don't get your hopes up.

You know I thought of that at first but then I realized all you have to do is go hail someone and say a phrase. If people can't do that they shouldn't be in the zone anyways.

As for the xp, they were LB to my 81 mage and doing aa xp it wasn't bad. They were pretty easy kills and they went towards the quest you have to get to get in. I would recommend someone who can snare with you though.

Now Arcstone sucks for xp. I went there just to get the aug but after it dropped I left. I went there with a couple of different toons of different levels and it stunk for all of them. Loping Plains is where it's at for xp though.