I'm a 46 Druid who loves to both solo and group depending on what the day may bring. I probably solo 70% of the time, because I have an hour here or there, but when I do have time to group, I do. Anyway, I currently am quadding or root/rotting in CS (KEI or no KEI) and I get a solid 1 - 1.25% xp per kill R/Ring and 5-6% per quad. I have not seen anything less so far. But when I brought a friend in to group, the xp went down! To 10-11 R/R kills to get 5-6%. My friend is a 40 warrior. I also noticed the same low xp when a 52 Druid and I were over at Keal hunting Giants...very slow compared to what I can get solo....is this normal? I thought there was group XP modifiers in place.

from a druid who soloed/duoed up to 65 with a few groups here and there just to check them out, i can firmly say that grouping sucks =D

of course that was before the massive exp bonuses to grouping.

Some time back SOE made a big push towards grouping and changed the exp levels for grouping. As recently as the last patch, they were still lowering exp that could be gotten solo. Those of us who "soloed to 65" probably had a better choice of soloing spots than exist in game now.

As for the exp dropping... yeah it's out of whack somehow. I soloed frogs in PoS, but when I grouped with a friend my exp was cut down to 1/6 of what it had been solo. I think it goes up as you add more members to the group or something. BUT, be careful with groups. There are so many people who have bought or were given a high level char and they are learning to play in a group... OR two or three boxing and they fail to mention any of these things. There are a few hints that lead to the discovery of this, usually after a complete wipe. The one I particularly like is the cleric who doesn't have a clicker who says "um... darn no clicker. Anyone know what the last res spell is called?"

Oh! Also there is something wierd about grouping... for some reason you can play in a PoP zone and get a very low % of exp per kill whether solo OR grouped. If you are playing with level 52s, you're ok. But if you have all 52s except for one 46, exp drops to the minimum for all. I *think* 52 is the magic number. It may be 51 and it may no longer be limited to PoP zones. Solo too. If you are 50 and soloing a frog, for example you will gain a small % per kill. As soon as you hit the "magic number" (again I think it's 52) your exp per kill jumps by several hundred percent.

The only group xp bonus I know of is that going from 5 to 6 members doesn't impact the xp-per-member. Grouping will always reduce your xp-per-kill when you're killing targets of the same difficulty. The only way to make grouping worthwhile is to have a a high enough kill/time ratio that it makes it more time-efficient than soloing those same enemies. Grouping vs. dark blues in a zone with no xp modifier is a long grind. Grouping in the planes vs. yellows and reds goes pretty quick.

I haven't grouped with more then 3 lately, but it all seems the same...I mean here I am in CS racking up xp per kill, then a friend joins, we group and except for a bit more mana saved, the xp world stands still. I'd really like to know if it's zone specific, level specific or just SoE's way of doing business...Honestly, I get tells to group and alot of times just say no because the xp seems better soloing. LDON seems different though. Seem to get good xp, can't say percentage wise since the UI I have now wasn't used during my last LDON and I see exact percentages now.

I solo HoH alot and get over 1 yellow AA per 4 kills. If I group the exp goes way down. Only way to get more exp in a group here is to get a chanter to charm a guard in one of the basements and chain pull.

I too thought that the change SoE made to push grouping was that you got more exp per group member, divided by the number in group of course, up to 5 with no additional exp for the 6th.

Another note to support solo'n and why druids and necros level faster...
We get our kei and are killing asap. No waiting around looking for peeps, then you need to wait for them all to get there, then one has to run off to rezz someone, then one leaves, etc. I can get 1-2 yellow AA just waiting for peeps to group easy. Thats why if I group I try to be the last one in.

I'm positive you don't get more xp for grouping on a per-member basis. They may well have raised the total xp awarded to the group so that you get more now per-member than you used to, but I know that I get much lower experience when grouped than when solo. Now, if you're group is semi-efficient, you can make the same amount of exp over time, but the exp per kill will be lower.

wow... down on grouping much are we? Grouping is a great way to make friends in game and enjoy the skills of other classes and learn what they have to offer. Trust me.. after so long... just killing to get xp is BORING. About the only time I play anymore is on tuesday's when my guild does raids... nothing uber or anything like that.. but last night we took out larukeen the rigid in PoS and some other nameds.. we did that with 14 ppl.. and it was tons of fun.. hardly any xp out of the deal... but I personally find that grouping with people and accomplishing things is way more fun than "getting to the next level" or getting aa X. The game in its 'single player' mode gets way boring. Friends are what keeps this game going.

Grygonos Thunderwulf, you are that rare player that VI and SOE have been trying to mold all of us into. When they saw that wasn't working however, they turned it into a race for loot. The "new and improved" social EQ means you HAVE to join a large guild if you want to move forward after you get to a certain point.

Soloing, usually is better xp. (though a group of druid quadding at tables in Fire is SICK!!!) I prefer grouping, due to a little more social interaction, and the time goes by faster, if you get a good solid pull group you can almost match solo xp, with 1/6th the risk.

And with a group, you get group leader experience and/or benefits (more hps/mana, etc.).

Going back to the original post ...

When in a group with 2 people you really do have to kill twice as many creatures to get the same xp as you would solo. That's actaully very hard to do but it does make sense. I expect when you were grouped with the warrior you were only killing a few more creatures than you were solo as a warrior is actually a really bad partner for a druid.

Best duo partner for me has alwasy been necro. I hate kite (rabbit), he/she dots. I would wager, though, that the best duo partner for anyone would be a bard willing to tote you around while he swarm kites entire zones.

Actually, adding additional group members will raise the exp bonus received. From the 6/11/03 patch message:

** Experience System Change - Grouping **

We've made some improvements to the way experience is rewarded in EverQuest. These improvements are aimed at positively reinforcing the act of grouping. After all, this is a Massively Multiplayer game.

Prior to this update groups gained a 2% to 20% experience bonus for having two to six members.

As of today this bonus has increased to range from 20% to 80% for having two to five members. When a group adds a sixth member, the 80% bonus remains, but the experience gained is only divided by 5 before being distributed. The sixth group member no longer causes the experience gain to be divided by 6.

First, if you're going to compare XP gains, stay in the same zone with the same mobs. Different zones can have differents ZEMs, and different mobs can different amounts of XP.

Second, the amount of XP per kill is not a good way to compare soloing vs. grouping. Soloing will always give you more XP per kill, even with the bonuses. The advantage of grouping is to kill more mobs in the same period of time, thus increasing overall XP per time period.

Third, a druid is a very competent soloer. Adding one person so you have two people is NOT going to increase the rate at which you gain XP, in general, because of the way in which the mob must be killed (i.e., you are still going to use soloing techniques in most such cases). This is especially true if the second person is some kind of tank. Of course, if the second person is a type that can add significant efficiency to the killiing process, then you do stand a chance of seeing XP per time period go up.

Solo gets boring after a while. I suggest solo till you level 60 then just group to reach to 65.Unless you having problems finding a group. :) As to which one its faster depends totally on the speed of you soloing the group's kiling speed.

DUO with a bst. Your DS, strength and skin on us and our pet. we tank and keep our pet healed and protect you from adds in tight spaces. we take small amounts of healing(if we are smart enough to slow/weaken/dot/nuke the mob and let our pet do most of the fighting while we heal him and provide occasional dps which we can heal ourselves. our paragon refreshes both our mana. you get bst crack continually. Never would have dreamed it but bst and druids seem to duo very well together. much better then druid/paladin or druid/warrior or druid/sK. druid/ranger have some interesting techniques outside.


As for grouping. crap shoot. Get a group that organizes fast and everyone knows what they are doing with a good puller. They will make equal exp with less risk. Get slow getting organized or get one or two goofballs in the group will be less exp for same or maybe even more risk. If you are grouping with guildies you know and have advantage of guild chat to organize, you are probably better off grouping. Pickup groups, errkk. you always get the one idiot who will get you killed.

Bad pickup groups are very funny though. They're worth their weight in gold.

for duoing with a druid, nothing can beat an enchanter. A 65 druid and 65 enchanter can generate exp faster than any other two classes. with teh only possible exception of two bards swarm kiting in one of the few zones that Sony hasn't nerfed to prevent swarm kiting.

Comparing Grouping vs Soloing for xp is more complicated than even Scirocco suggests. He is right in everything he has said, mind you. But you also have to consider *where* you can solo and where you can group. Example : is it better to solo quad kite in PoFire at Tables, or to have a decent PoE group?

Personally, I found the difference between those 2 alternatives minimal. But a good PoE group also has the advantages grouping can give you...

There is no obvious answer anymore, I think, for us. Before, soloing was better by far. Now, it's not so clear.

I think however that a few classes surpass us in their ability to gain solo xp fast. Bards, wizards, necromancers for example. I would not call druids a pure solo class anymore.

Callahad

I remember my youth when I could do nothing but solo exp for 8 hour sessions..

Today, if I am soloing I am lucky if I can last an hour. Just too boring.

That being said.. Solo xp has always blown away group xp for me.

Thanks for all the responses. In my original post, the friend (warrior) isn't my normal grouping partner, he just happened to see me in game (guildy) and asked to join. The XP is lower no matter who I group with, as verified many times in this post through many responses. Its just really boring duoing with a tank. I did group with another druid (52 level) the other day and we duo/quadded in CS. It took some timing to get it down, but I auto-followed her and when she stopped, I cast LS, which hit right when she casted LB, then we ran again until spells were able to cast…rinse/repeat. Now that was FUN!!!! Didn’t get the XP as with doing it solo, but we cleared that zone out quick…

Cobalt Scar is Druid heaven at my level. I made almost 2 levels since my original post in about 8-9 hours RL play time. I use my 34th level LS spell, dishing out an AMAZING 184 dmg per mob x 4 when quadding. With KEI up, it takes about 65-70% of my mana, but med time is quick and I can clear out 3 groups of mobs in 30-45 minutes which is most of the zone mobs along the Ice finger stretching to the skyshrine tower...one more level (49) and I get LB with a truly whopping 477 dmg per mob x 4. That’s over 2.5 times more damage at 1.5 times the mana cost (149 versus 234). Do the math if you want, but I should be clearing out two groups of 4 before needing to med, and XP will come that much faster. And I doubt a group of 5-6 can do it faster, since the pop times are a bit long, but that’s CS. RTH MTN has a lot of giants running around there and a group can stay very busy killing them.

Now, I am NOT just about getting XP as fast as possible. I like outdoor zones. I rarely solo inside zones, but have and tactics are much different. I like to group, but not all the time and it must have some purpose besides just having friends along (LDoN, etc). Depends on how much time I have to play at anyone sitting. Boring? Well, it can be, but I usually have guild chat up and keep a constant dialog running, so whether they are in zone or not really does not matter. And I travel to many different zones if time permits (went to POT yesterday for the first time, though only there for a few minutes…now I know where all the really high level player are). But, I had heard SoE made changes to the group XP modifiers, which they have…but it still doesn’t beat soloing and so, until I get to those higher end zones where grouping is REQUIRED, then it is a mute point…

Cobalt Scar will still be fast until 51 or 52. I didnt really think it was all that great until I hit 49 and got the big ae spell. The thing is the cash is great so you might be tempted to just stay there until 55, even if it is slow. Be sure to try the Spirocs in Tim Deep if you havent already. They are really good from 49 to 51. Also try to make it over to Dulak and try the first three boats, they are good too.

Here is a small example of solo XP vs group XP.

Plane of Fire tables, you quad kite 4 Red con to 65 Mobs, when you finish you end up with about 55% of an AA so lets call it 13 Blues bubbles. If a 6 person group killed those exact same mobs then each group member would end up with tick or so over 5 blue bubbles.

So solo its 13 Blues of AA's generated
6 person group = 30 Blues of AA's generated (5 blues x 6 People)

It might take about 40 to 50 mins in a group setting to quad 5 sets for your individual AA, and potentially about that same amount of time for you to generate that AA solo.

I generally perfer to Solo or 2 box with my BST, I also enjoy the time I get to group.

Gwyn

Soloing has the massive advantage of almost zero set-up time (sure, ya might spend a little grabbing a KEI and checking a few camps) and the disadvantages of very little loot potential and (for many) relative boredom.

My main has been a Rogue for years. There's no soloing potential there but there is pretty decent group-recognition and thus relatively little /lfg time spent. It's not too hard to find LDoN groups even if just straight pick-up and exp grinding random groups are still the usual luck-of-the-draw. Still, I'm generally pretty welcome in guild groups for a variety of reasons.

Now, when I retired my Druid that was not the case. I could easilly smoke my exping options by soloing, especially as Druids were relatively unwanted in groups at that point. Today your mileage would vary I imagine.

My solo character these days is a Necro, even less group-desired (although frankly I still wonder why) but a very potent soloist even with the ability to quad. Frankly, for just grinding, the Necro solo is pretty hard to beat for exp/hour if you are attentive. Although he's not flagged or geared well enough by a long stretch, I know from my Rogue that a Necro can also make even better exp in a kite group with willing people. I also know from my Rogue though that nothing is more irritating that being in a kite group as a Rogue ;)

In the end, I always like to have characters for both options. Druids are very good solo and very good in groups. That's definitely a positive move over the past couple of years!