I have always thought that level was greater than all else for maximizing AA speed. I recently acquired my magician's epic before I was even high enough to cast the pet, and the thought occurred to me that maybe getting some AAs in my 50s might actually be faster with the pet. I think this may be magnified by the lack of PoP zones with easy exp as well. That being said, is there a level range and zone for really grinding out some quick AAs before moving on to 60? My full group is going to be bard / enc / magician. I know this group is a little unorthodox. I think that is what will make it fun. I'd love to hear thoughts on best places and levels to grind out early AAs.
You could hang out at bugs in seb and make some plat while everything is dark blue I guess? Get some xp for camping your VT shards? Overall I don't think it matters much. Your most important AA on a mage is going to be pet hold, which IIRC requires you to be lvl 59 anyway.
A level 55 alt could get AA faster in PL groups than a level 60. Probably a lot faster. There's a big exp bonus for killing mobs that are within +/- 5 levels of you and it's a helluva lot easier to find mobs within +/- 5 levels of 55 than 60. Level 51 would probably be better than level 55, but you need 55 to buy Archetype AAs. That's for powereleveld alts, though. If you're interested in actually playing your toons, it's very likely better to hit level 60 for spells, higher skill caps, more favorable resist calculations, level-restricted gear, etc.
IIRC the aaxp per kill at 55 and 60 was about the same solo from the miners in PC when I was PLing and thought to check. I was hoping for a big jump but I didn't see it. At 51 AC is still decent XP and fast kills though with the resisty and HT mobs can be a lil deadly. Good plat too from the staves. I agree with the others, just camp your VT shards if you raid or plan to and level up.
On live, there was a belief that the AA sweet spot was lvl 50 or 51. Not sure that's the case here with all of the xp changes that have taken place.
I really don't think there is without having different classes to PL and have either a mag or a wiz(maybe druid or cleric?). Before the PBAE was changed to match xp numbers from AK, there was amazing PBAE AA xp at the infinity spawn, but the PL'd class had to get all of the xp to make it worth it at 51. I'm sure that it's still really, really nice for a toon getting all of the xp solo. I have 7 AAs on my level 51 wiz, and I want to say that I made all of those on the same day. But a sweet spot, in the same sense, that many claim that 62 was a sweet spot for AAing? I don't think so.
60, 62, and 65 were the normal points people stopped to AAXP on EQmac iirc. 65 being the best choice because its almost the same and you are much more capable. I remember pulling all the bats, bugs, imps and efreeti (all the high level mobs in SOLB that you can pbaoe stun) and turning on AAXP on the wizard i was solo PLing and it was trash. I did one pull before changing it back to xp.
