Eureka - tips, info, general knowledge. Let's share.

I'm not a regular poster here, nor do I intend to be, but I realized very quickly that there are a lot of idiosyncrasies in Eureka - and we'd all benefit from sharing what we've learned.

NM's
These can be spawned (popped) by mass-killing the appropriate mob at the correct spot (example: the cacti can spawn the cacus nm). Weather may factor into this as well. NM's I'm aware of:

lvl 1 cactus thingy
lvl ??? emperor fly thingy
lvl ??? bear
lvl 6 (I think?) numbers (i hate this one...)
lvl ??? eagle thing... (can someone get me these names? lol)

XP
It's all about the chains. Chains come from killing same-level monsters in quick succession - up to 30. However, the level matters as well. Example - I was in a party as a level 7 killing level 10's with my level 6 friend. He got more xp per mob than I did (substantially more actually). This seems to be a throwback to the whole Tough, Very Tough, Incredibly Tough system of XI. So, so far anyway, +4 seems to be the sweet spot. +5 and they start to hit hard.

Grouping
Much like XI, you'll probably fare much better if you form your own party. I saw many folks spamming LF PT x lvl y class! I just hop on, start up a group, and I'm off. It does help to be a tank though. I find that 1 tank, 5-6 dps and 1-2 healers works fine for 30 chains (where they reset) - so far anyway. I prefer 2 healers and ranged dps because of safety. If a healer dies, or you overpull, you have some backup. Ranged dps is nice because if I miss an interrupt or something, they aren't in pbaoe range.

Skills
CC and interrupt skills make this a LOT easier.

Aggro
Things can typically be easily snuck around. So far the two types of aggro I've seen are sight (they see you) and health (I see everyone call this "blood" aggro). Sight is obvious - blood aggro, however, has to do with health. Once someone near the mob (always undead so far as I can tell - and they seem to always be fire attuned?) drops below a certain % (so it seems), the mob will aggro you.

Elements matter. A lot.
That little elemental wheel - it's a whole lot of explaining, words and diagrams to simply say this:

-If you're tanking, attune to the element of the mob you're fighting.
-Otherwise, attune to whatever it's weak against (look for the arrow pointing from the sword to the shield as you have the mob selected).

Especially after 3 aetherites, the difference is huge. This can be seen when I'm chain-pulling monkeys (water) and it's night, so I grab a skeleton to get it out of the way (fire). The skeleton takes far longer to kill, in one case interrupting our chain. Chain pulling is the name of the game, so you want to keep as efficient as possible.

Grouping/friends/etc
You can power level friends, sort of. For example, I took one of my sons with me, I was level 6, he was level 1. I got little to no xp, we were grouped, but he chained like nobody's business and lvled from 1 to 3 in less than an hour (I didn't time it, was just surprised). It's an easy way to play with your underlevelled friends.

Also, it seems heals are not really impacted at all by level, so don't be too afraid to have a "low" level healer in the group.

Monsters also hit for far more reasonable amounts so long as you are no more than 4 levels lower than they are.

Death
Level 1-5 (inclusive) - no xp loss
Level 6-11(??) - xp loss equal to 25% of total required for level. e.g. about 8k at level 6, as you need about 32k to level up. HOWEVER, getting a raise will prevent this loss. You don't lose xp until you actually release manually or the 10 minute timer expires with no rez. No de-levelling.
Level 12(???) - on: You can de-level.

Pulling
I know that a lot of parties like to go old-school here and have a dps run and grab a mob, then have the tank pick it up. That's great if that works for you, but I find that since mobs die a lot faster here than XI, and we don't have the traditional sneak attack/trick attack combo (plus how hard the mobs hit!) this is kinda dangerous. I've found, so far, that shield lob (in my case) works just fine.

Use liberal use of sprint as well, and watch the timer on those chains. Try to plan it so that you are pulling the next mob as the current one only has a few seconds left to live.

General
-You can q solo or in a group.
-Mah FPS! You can alter/turn off effects under the character config > character > Battle effects settings section. I turned mine off for all but me.
-You can enter/leave at-will with no penalty.
-You can change jobs in-town at any time (this also resets your wheel spins).
-You DO have durability there!! Pay attention :)
-Be aware of spawning and pathing locations. I can't tell you how many messy situations I've seen because of bad NM or even just camp placement.
-Be respectful of other parties (don't face those bears on them to cleave them...)
-Call out the elemental when you see it, it's the nice thing to do.
-Toss out a rez, as you pass someone, if you can. It could save hours of work and takes only seconds (once you're made sure you are safe too!)
-Have fun! Take it in spurts. Don't burn out.


What tips/tricks have you discovered you'd like to share?

Forget it, I didn't read correctly

Tip there is going to be a lot of stupid groups zerging to spawn NMs. Don't join them. While NMs are rewarding those zerg clusters net almost nothing. Form a group and grind some where near ish to where the zergs are working to spawn. Earn stuff then reap the rewards when they spawn the NM and help kill it.