Wizard Solo Spots for Runes

[Estu]

I have recently been soloing my wizard at the aviaks in South Karana. This is an ideal spot since I can generally single pull and root-nuke, there's a merchant right there, there are plenty of safe places to med, there is no danger of trains, and most importantly, the monsters drop runes, which I can use to craft spells.

Soon, though, this place is going to be too low level for me. Are there any other relatively safe spots I can solo in a few levels and expect runes to drop at, or would I pretty much have to go group in dungeons? I'm completely unfamiliar with Kunark, so if there are any such areas there, please be specific about where in the zone they are, whether there are friendly merchants nearby, and so on (though since I can teleport, nearby merchants aren't the biggest deal).

[Fobbon]

If I'm not mistaken, Words/Runes/Pages drop off of any level-appropriate mob, so there's not really a place you can go for research drops. As for hunting, you can try moving over to the splitpaw spires. There should be 2 spires with a single mob (plus one with a duo) and the occasional wanderer. You can stay bound in kfc to sell then run back to camp.

[Estu]

Originally Posted by Fobbon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If I'm not mistaken, Words/Runes/Pages drop off of any level-appropriate mob, so there's not really a place you can go for research drops. As for hunting, you can try moving over to the splitpaw spires. There should be 2 spires with a single mob (plus one with a duo) and the occasional wanderer. You can stay bound in kfc to sell then run back to camp.

It's not the case that they drop off any mob. For instance, before I moved to SK aviaks, I was hunting crag spiders in EK. They never dropped any research components despite being the same level range as the aviak darters. My ogre shaman used to hunt guards in NK - they never dropped research components. I don't remember whether the splitpaw gnolls drop research stuff, but I'll check it out when I get high enough for them. One annoying thing about those spires is that they're very often camped, though.

[Rasah]

Originally Posted by Estu [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Soon, though, this place is going to be too low level for me.

Depends. How many aviaks can you kill every 7 minutes? Near the Centaur village there are Centaur Archers, Coursers and Chargers, as well as Aviak Rooks, Harriers and Avocets. Given the mana regen rates, I would suspect that you probably won't be able to kill more than 2-3 per spawn cycle. Some of these will remain dark blue through 40. Boring? Yes. Safe? Absolutely.

Centaur village has a vendor, and nothing gives faction hits. (Except for Knari Morawk. Don't kill him too many times, or the Aviaks become KOS.)

[Messianic]

In case you havent narrowed it down, really the only spells which are research-only and you will actually use are as follows:

Pillar of Fire
Project Lightning
Enstill
Cast Force
Column of Lightning
Circle of Force
Thunderclap
Gravity Flux
Ice Comet
Paralyzing Earth
Supernova


Now, there are places which seem to drop more runes (and certain runes significantly more often) - although I have no data to back that up. Mammoths in EF drop tons of research components and the shaman spell vendor carries most level 20 and 24 runes. I researched all my spells in that level range using that vendor.

I found lots of level 24, 29, and 34 runes at the vendors all around the Felwithe Banker. They also seem to drop pretty frequently from Spectres (including level 39 and a few 44 runes, a single level 49 rune [impetus]), so anywhere a vendor is close to specs is a good bet (the magi pet spell vendor on AC isle and the vendors on sister isle in oot are good examples).

[Estu]

Originally Posted by Rasah [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Depends. How many aviaks can you kill every 7 minutes? Near the Centaur village there are Centaur Archers, Coursers and Chargers, as well as Aviak Rooks, Harriers and Avocets. Given the mana regen rates, I would suspect that you probably won't be able to kill more than 2-3 per spawn cycle. Some of these will remain dark blue through 40. Boring? Yes. Safe? Absolutely.

Centaur village has a vendor, and nothing gives faction hits. (Except for Knari Morawk. Don't kill him too many times, or the Aviaks become KOS.)

Do centaurs drop research components? I've only ever seen them drop chainmail, I think.

[Estu]

Originally Posted by Messianic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

In case you havent narrowed it down, really the only spells which are research-only and you will actually use are as follows:

Pillar of Fire
Project Lightning
Enstill
Cast Force
Column of Lightning
Circle of Force
Thunderclap
Gravity Flux
Ice Comet
Paralyzing Earth
Supernova


Now, there are places which seem to drop more runes (and certain runes significantly more often) - although I have no data to back that up. Mammoths in EF drop tons of research components and the shaman spell vendor carries most level 20 and 24 runes. I researched all my spells in that level range using that vendor.

I found lots of level 24, 29, and 34 runes at the vendors all around the Felwithe Banker. They also seem to drop pretty frequently from Spectres (including level 39 and a few 44 runes, a single level 49 rune [impetus]), so anywhere a vendor is close to specs is a good bet (the magi pet spell vendor on AC isle and the vendors on sister isle in oot are good examples).

Yeah, it's totally possible to just buy the runes instead, and I'd definitely consider it, but I figure as long as I'm going to be soloing to level I might as well get them as drops (research stuff gets you a lot of money with negligible weight) and if I have extra runes I can sell spells to people. I'll check out specs and mammoths, thanks.

[Rais]

Lavastorm druid rings, WC druid rings, Merchants in High keep.

I made every single one of my wizard spells lvl 16 to lvl 50 from buying them off these vendors.

[tocasia]

Tundra Yetis in DL drop the lvl 34 runes fairly often. I got the lower lvl ones in Mistmoore, so I guess that doesn't help much.

I bought most of my runes from vendors though. FV is an excellent place to look for them, as is the Freeport Port Authority and other vendors in FP.

[Polixenes]

Just on the generic question of whether any mob can drop level-appropriate research components, on live it seemed to me that some research items were dropped selectively.

I might have been unlucky but I leveled my necro to 39 using the L29 pet because I never once had the L34 words drop. I did about 9-10 levels in Overthere so it suggested to me that certain words might be zone or mob specific.

Emphasize 'I might have been unlucky.'