Lavastorm needs some loving
 

I think Lavastorm deserves a ZEM increase. Very underused zone, way better than Oasis.

Lavastorm sucks. Period. There's a reason why 20+ years later people still use the same 'hotspots' for leveling and other zones are practically empty. If you enjoy the zone, good on you, keep the mobs for yourself. Overall, between the need for levitate to have remotely efficient travel, no major landmarks to direct people other than 'X direction from rings', and a general ugliness, even with a ZEM I suspect most people would pass on Lavastorm in favor of a better zone.

Not to mention the pants-shitting lavastorm explosion noise, which after 20 years I still always forget about and it scares the shit out of me every time

Blackburrow is always empty these days which makes me sad. I remember back in the day there'd be like 30 people in zone with multiple groups, and there'd *still* somehow be full trains to zone all the time. Now, if there's like 3 people in zone basically every mob will be dead.

Yeah sadly lavastorm is kind of an annoying zone to play in. You have low HP at the level range lavastorm is good, and there are a lot of things that can chunk your HP down in lavastorm, which will slow down your xping.

Forget about a lava pool at the bottom of a hill? Might take some lava damage.

Don't have levitate to avoid fall damage? Need to be careful about running up and down the majority of the zone, which is hills.

Didn't see a mob due to the hills? Guess you have at least one extra mob on your pull.

I do remember leveling there on Live though. Pulling to Najena entrance wasn't bad if you can stick to that area, and you can run into Najena if things get hairy.

So then those are all arguments for why there should be a bit of a higher ZEM boost there. Risk vs reward

I am all for increasing Lavastorm ZEM, I don't see a problem with it. But I don't think it will offset the problems I mentioned, unless the ZEM increase is ridiculous, like making it another Unrest or something.

To be fair increasing the CT zem definitely did get people to start making pickup groups there, and it's also an extremely annoying and potentially dangerous zone with all the adds and healing mobs. It was a ghost town before the change.

True. But I would say CT is a better zone overall because you get much better loot for the level range. Lavastorm is just a leveling zone, and there is plenty of competition for good leveling zones in that level range.

Lavastorm is respectable cash for the teens. Not on par with guk, certainly better than most alternatives.