by Garshok » Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:53 am
Fendaann - I'm actually trying to AA up an alt mage right now, so going through a lot of the same questions you are.
I'd recommend for the SK to make sure that you have CS, CA, TOTC, SA, ToL and SCF maxed for each level, or at least every five levels. Add in the various other basics (PE, ND, etc), and you will be about 1200-1400 at 85 for the SK just for the 'survival' AAs. If you want to start adding in offensive AAs as well at lower levels, you'll end up with a fair bit more. That's a lot more than you'll need for the mage to get basic functionality. So while you will probably want to keep the mage and SK the same level, you're probably going to want to split your time so that sometimes you are working on njust the SK and somethimes on both.
Slightly off-topic.... Not sure how you are PLing if you are. I tried the pincushion approach at various levels (SK ungrouped wearing mobs down with DS' while the mage kills mobs with spells/pets), and while that was great for leveling up, it seemed awfully slow for AAing at the various levels I tried it at (51, 62, 70, 75). I never did the merc trick at lower levels. What I finally did was simply start grouping with my main where Garshok did his usual LOTD burn.
I've seen on the boards - but haven't seen a dev post confirming it - that AA exp has been changed again so that as long as the highest level character gets exp, there is a level modifier applied for lower level characters. While that may or may not be the case, I have tried some runs with the 75 mage on LOTD with Garshok and netted 19 AAs and 15 AAs in 30 minutes (mage had about 130 and 150 AA at the time). AA did seem to go a lot faster. While I had managed to get about 26 AA in a single lesson using the pincussion technique earlier, that had taken almost two hours camping my mage out while waiting for mobs to get to 20%; I would have gotten almost twice that AA that just killing with Garshok for that same period with an LOTD burn in the middle.
So I'd say try soloing with the SK for AAs, try the mercs, and try it with your SK (and mage) grouped while your shammy kills, see which gives you better results. Or more fun results, at least.