"Advice Column"       

Binding and misc advice .. 8-)

1 - PoM run and CoH setup. Dont camp the COH mage near walls as they will port you back to ToV Ent. I suggest you first CoH a Cleric and tet camp him/her out until you find a safe point to camp. This also has the added advantage of having a Cleric camped in case someone agros and gets the CoH mage killed .. 8-(

2 - The forest Area has a few Grumpy Trees that throw KOS Pansies at you in groups of 1-2. These NPCs despawn for at least 2 hours once they lose agro. There appears to be about 10 locs that these "Traps" are set off. They may change locs, but it's hard to tell. They also have a very large agro area. Pod People do NOT assist them, but "My Finger", "Not Yours" and the entire inside area of the Castle will .. so you cant escape by running up the ramps. These do NOT see invisible and for those who are bound at the entrance, you can avoid them, but be careful, by running back and along the actual rim where the see-through glass wall/gate is located. These things can be very tuff. They can hit for upwards of 140s and have a ton of hp. As a monk or any FD class, I suggest to clear these before doing ANY hunting in the forest or porting people into the zone. This can be done by running around the forest (at least Jboot speed) and collect/set off all the traps and then FD. This will despawn them for a time.

1 - neg 1050, neg 72 = 1 Dandy Pansy.....
2 - neg 1230, neg 275 = 2 Angry Pansies.
3 - neg 870, neg 485 = 1 Puny Pansy.......
4 - neg 1275, neg 525 = 2 Angry Pansies
5 - neg 1238, neg 617 = 1 Dandy Pansy..
6 - neg 900, neg 985 = 2 Angry Pansies..
7 - neg 700, neg 1040 = 1 Puny Pansy....
8 - neg 630, neg 1565 = 1 Dandy Pans...
9 - neg 238, neg 1300 = 1 Puny Pansy....
10 - neg 195, neg 1235 = 2 Angry Pansies.


3 - There is an exit point (a tree) to Cobalt Scar at loc -676, 536, just click on tree and you port to 0,0,0 in CS, in the middle of the lake. You appear underwater. Warning there are sometimes sharks and sirens nearby .. only 5% of the time though. I use this all the time and swim toward the tower and get pick ups at the first otter camp. The tree is hard to find ... but based on the first flat area along the walls to the East (left) if you go straight out from the 2 post to the second tree in a straight line, you will get to the exit.

4 - The gates (2 of them) as you enter the castle in PoM from the forest area cast pillage enchantment 8-(. So 2 of them cast it as you go thru them ... so debuffing at least 10 buffs. I rarely get past them with anything for buffs left, even with 200+mr I dont seem to resist at all (not sure it can be resisted)

5 - Binding ... I would suggest if ppl want to bind here that they bind either at the Exit tree, at the zone in point or somewhere inside the castle. Each has it's advantages. PoM is not a bad bind point. You can solo to lvl 60 here with no real chance of getting stuck without a place to lvl. The plat is very good from almost all NPCs and at anytime you can zone to CS in a fairly safe place. If you bind at exit point (tree) there are no kos npcs there and you can zone right out. If you bind at zone in, you are very safe and with a lil skill you can stay on the back ledge and get to the zone out point without agroing the traps. The advantage to binding inside the castle is that you avoid the dispelling gates if you are heading inside. 

6 - As soon as you get in PoM try to get a King Kod Card form either "Dinner" or fishing and turn into Fenj .. once you have your Deck of Spontaneous Generation .. even if you leave PoM you can make the basic items ... if you can get Words of Wealth then I would also suggest getting Pot of Gold from BoB the painter .. with these 2 containers .. other people who are in PoM can get tradeable cards and you can still make all the items outside PoM 8-)

7 - Dont hail Hall Monitor Willy, Life and Gorilla Scholar, as they may agro ... for example .. if Life is hailed he Death touches you ..hehe. Thanks Coladar for the reminder to add this 8-)

Here are a few hunting tips in PoM for soloers:

If you move around in the forest, do so invisible. Try to remain on the periphery unless you have some sort of reliable invis.

Carefully pull to the edge of the forest (far corners are good) and do your killing there. Awareness of what else is going on in the area at all times makes a difference because of high speed roamers.

Pansies are a pain, and have lots of hps. Best to just avoid them.

Adds in the garden, forest and rat maze are a big problem - unless you're a solo monk, of course, or hunting in a group (but we're talking about soloing here). Choose your battles wisely and time things right. The careless die quick and often.

The garden is tougher than the rat maze which is tougher than the forest.

Watch the -faction you get from killing Stomples (last room of Alice area). He drops throne cards so at some point you'll probably want to wax this level 60 easter bunny (with nasty sharp pointy teeth). You can (and should) repair your faction by giving an item from Stomples to Debbis the Fish outside the door.

If something goes wrong and you manage to gate, make sure you relog right away to remove agro. Otherwise, things happen.

Have fun, enjoy the scenery, take some snapshots to show the folks back at home.

Finally, moderate your expectations. This isn't anything like a 3 hour raid where a nice robe may drop. Nor is it like a long boring solo camp (eg. jboots). No, here people spend weeks and months working hard at these quests - mostly due to meager drop rate and 13 hour respawns, among other things. It's a royal pain seemingly reserved for those of us gifted (cursed?) with long attention spans.

It's a long, long road but at least now you can see something useful at the end of it. Best of luck.

Onetree Tallbarque <Valoran> Wood Elf Preserver of the 55th Circle