Post by Vizier on Oct 6, 2007 21:26:09 GMT -5
Objective:
This guide really has two goals. First, I wanted to create a comprehensive, step by step guide to the safest, fastest and most effective way to charm solo Ive discovered. A byproduct of this goal was that I ended up soloing myself to ally with Combine Empire Merchants faction, a goal which many returning Enchanters, as well as veterans, are striving to accomplish. I know there are other charm guides out there, but none of them went into the level of detail that many new or inexperienced enchanters require to really be successful with charm without killing themselves many times during the learning process. Please keep in mind that this guide is a work in progress, one that hopefully the wonderful community of The Runes will help me with, ie links, locations etc.
But wait Viz! Exactly how effective is this method? I don’t want to waste my time reading this ridiculously long post if I don’t have to... Well my 1st full gaming session using this technique I earned 31aas worth of exp in 10 hours, including time spent refreshing quests, normal idling etc. If you already get exp at that rate or faster, then this guide does not apply to you.
Background: Ive been charming for a long time, both solo and in a group. I don’t have uber gear, rk3 spells or any alt characters I can box to snare, give me buffs, heal, etc. Everything in this guide will assume that the enchanter will have no outside help. This way if you end up getting some cleric or druid buffs, it will just be icing on the cake.
Level and Gear Requirements
If you follow the techniques described in this guide to the letter you will not need raid level gear to be successful. Once you get the hang of it, you will go long periods of time without even being hit. This guide is written for a lvl 75 Enchanter with all TSS spells at rank 1. This technique however WILL work at lower levels but I make no guarantees regarding how many aas you get per hour etc. When I started I had approx 8500 self buffed hps and 9500 self buffed mana, so don’t be afraid if you are returning to the game and your gear is several expansions old, this guide is your ticket to some damn nice gear!
That being said, there are some basic requirements:
Required AAs:
Run Speed 5
Enhanced Forgetfulness 5
Extra Spell Slot AA
Required Items:
Boots of the Mosquito (or equivalent)
Blue Ceramic Band (or equivalent)
Any Item with Extended Reach VI or better
Any Item with Spell Haste VI or better
2 pet weapons of your choice
HIGHLY Recommended AAs:
Total Domination
Eldritch Rune
Veil of Mindshadow
Gather Mana w/ Hastened Gathering
Mind Over Matter
Azure Mind Crystal
Combat Agility
Combat Stability
Step 1: The Setup
Get yourself over to Katta Castrum and bind somewhere near the central pyramid. There are two repeatable quests that build up Combine Empire Traders faction that will, eventually, get your faction to ally. The first is called Serpent Slayer. To get this quest say "Serpent" to Guard Captain Parvus, located at the tents near the zone in from TBS. The second quest is Herb retrieval, just say "Retrieve" to Alchemist Hesia in the pyramid. The quests themselves are simple and self explanatory so I wont get into them here.
Now head over to the greenhouse area. The greenhouse is the domed building in the north east corner of the map. The mobs we will be killing are a shissar alchemist and a shissar herb tender. When you arrive at the greenhouse take a look at your surroundings. Ive found the greenhouse to be the ideal place to practice charming because it can be single pulled, has a wide open area to work with, no pats to worry about at all, and a steady supply of ideal level mobs to kill. And of course, it contains the mobs you need for the herb quest.
Ok Viz, I’m here with all this crap you listed now what is this damn technique you’ve been blabbering on about for 7 paragraphs? Essentially we are going to be using a combination of two distinct charm soloing techniques, reverse and ally, to maximize kill speed, and minimize personal risk. Heres how:
Step 2: Creating Buzzsaw
Recommended Spell Set:
1. Draconic Rune
2. Mind Shatter
3. Dyneth's Whisper
4. Greater Fetter
5. Echo of Tashan
6. Memory Blur (more on this later)
7. Spinning into the Void
8. Desolate Deeds
9. Bewilderment
To get started, first you should setup your hotkeys. Like most of you, I use the wasd keys for movement. With that setup I recommend you bind Mez to the E key and Root to the Q key.
Now it’s finally time to charm something. The best mob to use in my opinion is a shissar arbiter. You can usually find one in the building just to the south of the greenhouse. If there’s none there, you can use a shissar shadowslither or as a worst case scenario you can use one of the alchemists or herb tenders. Obviously you want to avoid those if you can help it since those are the mobs that drop the reagents for the Herb Retrieval quest you are doing. Do NOT use a shissar flametounge, he summons and it gets ugly.
Once you’ve selected your pet, pull with tash from maximum range and use your root hot key to root the mob somewhere out in the middle, I normally put him on the grass behind the road that runs in front of the greenhouse. Get used to casting EVERYTHING at max range is possible, I know that for many of you that may go without saying but it’s easy to forget, even for veteran charmers. Now with your pet charmed and rooted, give him 2 weapons and cast Speed of Ellowind on him. Make sure your Boots of the Mosquito are in a main inventory slot and hotkeyed, back off to max range and click them. Now cast memory blur on your ex-pet. That mob is now your own personal meatgrinder, nickname him Buzzsaw.
Step 3: Reverse charm all the Blue mobs
At this point Buzzsaw should be sitting there rooted and not aggroed. When mobs are just sitting, root is pretty reliable so you don’t have to worry about him walking off. Now go into the greenhouse and survey the situation. The entire greenhouse can be single pulled easily and it’s much easier to see it with your own eyes than for me to attempt to describe how here.
We want to pull all the blue mobs in the greenhouse first, then we will deal with the white con mobs in a different way. Pull a blue mob from max range and immediately run outside. Head towards Buzzsaw but stay out of aggro range. Start casting charm at max range, and if you have both extended reach 6 as well as spell haste 6 you will land charm before the mob swings at you. If you have a laggy connection or just cant quite get the timing right, consider casting Spinning into the Void first then cast Charm while its stunned. It takes more mana to do it that way but it IS safer.
Once your pet is charmed send it over to attack Buzzsaw. As soon as pet engages refresh root on Buzzsaw. Keep Buzzsaw as your target and refresh root as soon as it breaks. When you pet is at 30% health, refresh root again even if you recently cast it. Now target your pet. Timing here is critical, so keep your mouse hovering over your Boots of the Mosquito and a finger ready to press your root hotkey. As soon as you see your pet hit 9% or less click the boots. There’s no refresh timer to wait for so immediately after you click boots you can hit your root hotkey (Q). There’s a little bit of finesse required at this part. Ideally you want to root your exp-pet fast, but far enough away from Buzzsaw that it will be out of aggro range. You wont always be able to make this happen but with a little practice you’ll get the hang of it easily. No matter what else happens the critical part is keeping both mobs rooted.
At this point you should have Buzzsaw rooted, and a beat up alchemist rooted, hopefully a sufficient distance away from each other. Now cast Memory Blur on Buzzsaw. You will be able to tell if the blur was successful if he turns away from you or simply stops looking at you as you strafe around him. Finally, cast Mind Shatter on the beat up mob.
But Viz, I have a much more powerful dot adn my Nuke is maxed out and stuff, why shouldn't I use those? Because Mind Shatter has no DD component, it will not break root! This is a very important detail! Your nukes might be great and all but they are most likely going to break root, therefore you only want to cast a nuke if you can be sure it will finish the mob And since you dont have the room to mem both a nuke and Mind Shatter...you get the point.
A single cast of Mind Shatter will do about 3% damage to the mob, so you may need a couple casts to finish it off. If you have done everything perfectly the only danger you have to worry about at the moment is a very low hp mob that is rooted and dying slowly. This is a good thing.
At this point you have a choice, you can either hang out and wait for the dots to kill your mob OR you can run back into the greenhouse and grab the next blue mob in the same manner as before. If you choose to grab another pet right away don’t waste time with Mind Shatter, just have your new pet finish off the low hp mob first then send him after Buzzsaw. In fact, I will always go get a new right away pet if I know there’s another blue mob up unless I'm really low on mana OR I see the mob only has 3% or less.
Whatever you choose to do keep repeating this step until all the blue mobs are dead. DO NOT SKIP ANY STEPS! Make sure you are rooting as I described and mem blurring each and every time! Also make sure you refresh tash on Buzzsaw every now and again.
Step 4: Ally charm all the white mobs
Ok Viz I killed all the blue mobs, but what about the white mobs in the greenhouse?!...I can’t charm those. Correct, the white mobs require the other charm archetype I discussed earlier: Ally charm.
Ally charm is probably the most common way people charm solo. Veteran charmers are most likely already familiar with this technique, but I wanted to write this guide in such a way that anyone could pick it up and know what to do.
So at this point you should have a rooted, mem blurred Buzzsaw, chilling in front of the green house. Target Buzzsaw and get to max casting range (like always) break charm with your boots and root him asap. Refresh tash, and charm him. Go into the greenhouse and pull a white con with Desolate Deeds (slow). Immediate run out and get a decent ways behind your pet, so that the mob running at you will have to go through pet to get to you. Click pet attack and start casting Tash. Alternately you can pull with tash and slow after but that’s up to you. Now cast Spinning into the Void, followed by root, then another spin. Chain cast Spin from here on out, and refresh root immediately if it breaks. If done correctly, Buzzsaw will easily kill the mob and have about 65% hps left.
Now you can grab another white con and repeat the process. After the second white con goes down however, your pet will be low on health. So now you have to heal up your pet. To do this get at max range (as always), break charm with boots and spam your root hotkey. Mem blur your pet and med up a little. This is a good chance for you to regain some mana as well. You can sometimes stretch it to 3 kills, but when first starting out I recommend sticking to 2 kills then healing / medding.
And that, my friends, is essentially the strategy. From here on out simply alternate between the two archetypes as the situation dictates.
Step 5: Tips, Tricks and Clean Up
-Hey Viz, whats the Blue Ceramic Band needed for now that we don't have to deal damage to mobs while charming to get full exp? At some point you will find yourself in a situation where you need to break a root. BCB is your rootbreaker!
-Sometimes when you blur Buzzsaw he will warp. Don’t freak out, he is still rooted. Just look around, back towards where ever he spawned from and find him. I wouldn’t recommend trying to move him after he warps if he’s still rooted, just send your blue mobs to his new location and move him when its convenient.
-I can't stress enough how important it is to root and mem blur EXACTLY how I described. Repetition is going to be your key to success. Do it exactly how I wrote, over and over until you can do it in your sleep. If you try and take shortcuts, like not mem blurring Buzzsaw inbetween blue kills, you can bet you butt he will choose that time to break root and beeline right for you. You don't want to be on the receivng end of Buzzsaw's fury, trust me.
-Even though it’s easy to single pull, sometimes you will get adds from the greenhouse. Obviously there are many ways to deal with them but what I usually do is just to charm one like normal and send it on the add. Then you can mez the add at your leisure and send the pet to attack Buzzsaw. After that you can blur the add and ignore or keep it on ice for the next kill as your mana dictates.
-Bribe a mage to duel you and kill you, then have him give your nekkid toon 8 bags of summoned pet weapons. Now he kills you again and you loot your gear. Keep the corpse someplace handy so you don’t have to waste time hunting down a mage every time you want to solo.
-Ok Viz, I did exactly what you described and after many mission (120) I finally have ally faction, BUT I DONT HAVE ANY ORUX! Ah yes, the only flaw with this process is the fact that solo mission yield no orux. Well there is a solution but you may or may not like it. Orux is tradeable and platinum can be purchased on many if not all servers from SoE without violating the EULA. Everyone has to make their own call about that but it was an easy decision for me. /shrug.
-If you have the mana pool / mana regen to be able to use Memory Flux instead of Memory Blur then go for. Memory Blur CAN fail, though id estimate its success rate to be about 95%. As far as I know Memory Flux has never failed me. Before I was able to hook myself up with some Praetorian gear I was having a hard time keeping up mana wise over long periods of time. I cut Flux for Blur and that was the turning point for my regen / mana pool. I sitll use blur even though I have upgraded my gear signifigantly since I started, but thats just me I guess.
-Don’t forget to loot your kills! Once you get into a groove the kills go really fast and you need those components for the Herb quest. Don’t let any herbs rot since you can use extras for future iterations of the quest, simply drop them on the ground and pick them up again for the quest to update. Also the shissar will drop a bunch of scales, unless you are ridiculously rich you should keep all of those and sell them to the vendor in the merchant area inside the city. The shiny scales sell for 9pp each and the Shining are 24pp each. Not bad cash when you come back after a long haul with a few stacks of each.
-Gate back to town when ever you finish the Serpent Slayer quest, at a minimum use that time to refresh the herb tender. as well. remember you can pre-loot the herbs, but it will require you running to the greenhouse each time to get the initial quest update.
-If you haven’t activated the teleporters getting around Katta is a pain, but there is a shortcut. If you have FoE you can make it over the east wall of the city by running due east off the southeast corner of the pyramid. There’s a building along the way with a small groove in the side near the top, you can use that groove to get the extra distance you need to get over the wall.
This guide really has two goals. First, I wanted to create a comprehensive, step by step guide to the safest, fastest and most effective way to charm solo Ive discovered. A byproduct of this goal was that I ended up soloing myself to ally with Combine Empire Merchants faction, a goal which many returning Enchanters, as well as veterans, are striving to accomplish. I know there are other charm guides out there, but none of them went into the level of detail that many new or inexperienced enchanters require to really be successful with charm without killing themselves many times during the learning process. Please keep in mind that this guide is a work in progress, one that hopefully the wonderful community of The Runes will help me with, ie links, locations etc.
But wait Viz! Exactly how effective is this method? I don’t want to waste my time reading this ridiculously long post if I don’t have to... Well my 1st full gaming session using this technique I earned 31aas worth of exp in 10 hours, including time spent refreshing quests, normal idling etc. If you already get exp at that rate or faster, then this guide does not apply to you.
Background: Ive been charming for a long time, both solo and in a group. I don’t have uber gear, rk3 spells or any alt characters I can box to snare, give me buffs, heal, etc. Everything in this guide will assume that the enchanter will have no outside help. This way if you end up getting some cleric or druid buffs, it will just be icing on the cake.
Level and Gear Requirements
If you follow the techniques described in this guide to the letter you will not need raid level gear to be successful. Once you get the hang of it, you will go long periods of time without even being hit. This guide is written for a lvl 75 Enchanter with all TSS spells at rank 1. This technique however WILL work at lower levels but I make no guarantees regarding how many aas you get per hour etc. When I started I had approx 8500 self buffed hps and 9500 self buffed mana, so don’t be afraid if you are returning to the game and your gear is several expansions old, this guide is your ticket to some damn nice gear!
That being said, there are some basic requirements:
Required AAs:
Run Speed 5
Enhanced Forgetfulness 5
Extra Spell Slot AA
Required Items:
Boots of the Mosquito (or equivalent)
Blue Ceramic Band (or equivalent)
Any Item with Extended Reach VI or better
Any Item with Spell Haste VI or better
2 pet weapons of your choice
HIGHLY Recommended AAs:
Total Domination
Eldritch Rune
Veil of Mindshadow
Gather Mana w/ Hastened Gathering
Mind Over Matter
Azure Mind Crystal
Combat Agility
Combat Stability
Step 1: The Setup
Get yourself over to Katta Castrum and bind somewhere near the central pyramid. There are two repeatable quests that build up Combine Empire Traders faction that will, eventually, get your faction to ally. The first is called Serpent Slayer. To get this quest say "Serpent" to Guard Captain Parvus, located at the tents near the zone in from TBS. The second quest is Herb retrieval, just say "Retrieve" to Alchemist Hesia in the pyramid. The quests themselves are simple and self explanatory so I wont get into them here.
Now head over to the greenhouse area. The greenhouse is the domed building in the north east corner of the map. The mobs we will be killing are a shissar alchemist and a shissar herb tender. When you arrive at the greenhouse take a look at your surroundings. Ive found the greenhouse to be the ideal place to practice charming because it can be single pulled, has a wide open area to work with, no pats to worry about at all, and a steady supply of ideal level mobs to kill. And of course, it contains the mobs you need for the herb quest.
Ok Viz, I’m here with all this crap you listed now what is this damn technique you’ve been blabbering on about for 7 paragraphs? Essentially we are going to be using a combination of two distinct charm soloing techniques, reverse and ally, to maximize kill speed, and minimize personal risk. Heres how:
Step 2: Creating Buzzsaw
Recommended Spell Set:
1. Draconic Rune
2. Mind Shatter
3. Dyneth's Whisper
4. Greater Fetter
5. Echo of Tashan
6. Memory Blur (more on this later)
7. Spinning into the Void
8. Desolate Deeds
9. Bewilderment
To get started, first you should setup your hotkeys. Like most of you, I use the wasd keys for movement. With that setup I recommend you bind Mez to the E key and Root to the Q key.
Now it’s finally time to charm something. The best mob to use in my opinion is a shissar arbiter. You can usually find one in the building just to the south of the greenhouse. If there’s none there, you can use a shissar shadowslither or as a worst case scenario you can use one of the alchemists or herb tenders. Obviously you want to avoid those if you can help it since those are the mobs that drop the reagents for the Herb Retrieval quest you are doing. Do NOT use a shissar flametounge, he summons and it gets ugly.
Once you’ve selected your pet, pull with tash from maximum range and use your root hot key to root the mob somewhere out in the middle, I normally put him on the grass behind the road that runs in front of the greenhouse. Get used to casting EVERYTHING at max range is possible, I know that for many of you that may go without saying but it’s easy to forget, even for veteran charmers. Now with your pet charmed and rooted, give him 2 weapons and cast Speed of Ellowind on him. Make sure your Boots of the Mosquito are in a main inventory slot and hotkeyed, back off to max range and click them. Now cast memory blur on your ex-pet. That mob is now your own personal meatgrinder, nickname him Buzzsaw.
Step 3: Reverse charm all the Blue mobs
At this point Buzzsaw should be sitting there rooted and not aggroed. When mobs are just sitting, root is pretty reliable so you don’t have to worry about him walking off. Now go into the greenhouse and survey the situation. The entire greenhouse can be single pulled easily and it’s much easier to see it with your own eyes than for me to attempt to describe how here.
We want to pull all the blue mobs in the greenhouse first, then we will deal with the white con mobs in a different way. Pull a blue mob from max range and immediately run outside. Head towards Buzzsaw but stay out of aggro range. Start casting charm at max range, and if you have both extended reach 6 as well as spell haste 6 you will land charm before the mob swings at you. If you have a laggy connection or just cant quite get the timing right, consider casting Spinning into the Void first then cast Charm while its stunned. It takes more mana to do it that way but it IS safer.
Once your pet is charmed send it over to attack Buzzsaw. As soon as pet engages refresh root on Buzzsaw. Keep Buzzsaw as your target and refresh root as soon as it breaks. When you pet is at 30% health, refresh root again even if you recently cast it. Now target your pet. Timing here is critical, so keep your mouse hovering over your Boots of the Mosquito and a finger ready to press your root hotkey. As soon as you see your pet hit 9% or less click the boots. There’s no refresh timer to wait for so immediately after you click boots you can hit your root hotkey (Q). There’s a little bit of finesse required at this part. Ideally you want to root your exp-pet fast, but far enough away from Buzzsaw that it will be out of aggro range. You wont always be able to make this happen but with a little practice you’ll get the hang of it easily. No matter what else happens the critical part is keeping both mobs rooted.
At this point you should have Buzzsaw rooted, and a beat up alchemist rooted, hopefully a sufficient distance away from each other. Now cast Memory Blur on Buzzsaw. You will be able to tell if the blur was successful if he turns away from you or simply stops looking at you as you strafe around him. Finally, cast Mind Shatter on the beat up mob.
But Viz, I have a much more powerful dot adn my Nuke is maxed out and stuff, why shouldn't I use those? Because Mind Shatter has no DD component, it will not break root! This is a very important detail! Your nukes might be great and all but they are most likely going to break root, therefore you only want to cast a nuke if you can be sure it will finish the mob And since you dont have the room to mem both a nuke and Mind Shatter...you get the point.
A single cast of Mind Shatter will do about 3% damage to the mob, so you may need a couple casts to finish it off. If you have done everything perfectly the only danger you have to worry about at the moment is a very low hp mob that is rooted and dying slowly. This is a good thing.
At this point you have a choice, you can either hang out and wait for the dots to kill your mob OR you can run back into the greenhouse and grab the next blue mob in the same manner as before. If you choose to grab another pet right away don’t waste time with Mind Shatter, just have your new pet finish off the low hp mob first then send him after Buzzsaw. In fact, I will always go get a new right away pet if I know there’s another blue mob up unless I'm really low on mana OR I see the mob only has 3% or less.
Whatever you choose to do keep repeating this step until all the blue mobs are dead. DO NOT SKIP ANY STEPS! Make sure you are rooting as I described and mem blurring each and every time! Also make sure you refresh tash on Buzzsaw every now and again.
Step 4: Ally charm all the white mobs
Ok Viz I killed all the blue mobs, but what about the white mobs in the greenhouse?!...I can’t charm those. Correct, the white mobs require the other charm archetype I discussed earlier: Ally charm.
Ally charm is probably the most common way people charm solo. Veteran charmers are most likely already familiar with this technique, but I wanted to write this guide in such a way that anyone could pick it up and know what to do.
So at this point you should have a rooted, mem blurred Buzzsaw, chilling in front of the green house. Target Buzzsaw and get to max casting range (like always) break charm with your boots and root him asap. Refresh tash, and charm him. Go into the greenhouse and pull a white con with Desolate Deeds (slow). Immediate run out and get a decent ways behind your pet, so that the mob running at you will have to go through pet to get to you. Click pet attack and start casting Tash. Alternately you can pull with tash and slow after but that’s up to you. Now cast Spinning into the Void, followed by root, then another spin. Chain cast Spin from here on out, and refresh root immediately if it breaks. If done correctly, Buzzsaw will easily kill the mob and have about 65% hps left.
Now you can grab another white con and repeat the process. After the second white con goes down however, your pet will be low on health. So now you have to heal up your pet. To do this get at max range (as always), break charm with boots and spam your root hotkey. Mem blur your pet and med up a little. This is a good chance for you to regain some mana as well. You can sometimes stretch it to 3 kills, but when first starting out I recommend sticking to 2 kills then healing / medding.
And that, my friends, is essentially the strategy. From here on out simply alternate between the two archetypes as the situation dictates.
Step 5: Tips, Tricks and Clean Up
-Hey Viz, whats the Blue Ceramic Band needed for now that we don't have to deal damage to mobs while charming to get full exp? At some point you will find yourself in a situation where you need to break a root. BCB is your rootbreaker!
-Sometimes when you blur Buzzsaw he will warp. Don’t freak out, he is still rooted. Just look around, back towards where ever he spawned from and find him. I wouldn’t recommend trying to move him after he warps if he’s still rooted, just send your blue mobs to his new location and move him when its convenient.
-I can't stress enough how important it is to root and mem blur EXACTLY how I described. Repetition is going to be your key to success. Do it exactly how I wrote, over and over until you can do it in your sleep. If you try and take shortcuts, like not mem blurring Buzzsaw inbetween blue kills, you can bet you butt he will choose that time to break root and beeline right for you. You don't want to be on the receivng end of Buzzsaw's fury, trust me.
-Even though it’s easy to single pull, sometimes you will get adds from the greenhouse. Obviously there are many ways to deal with them but what I usually do is just to charm one like normal and send it on the add. Then you can mez the add at your leisure and send the pet to attack Buzzsaw. After that you can blur the add and ignore or keep it on ice for the next kill as your mana dictates.
-Bribe a mage to duel you and kill you, then have him give your nekkid toon 8 bags of summoned pet weapons. Now he kills you again and you loot your gear. Keep the corpse someplace handy so you don’t have to waste time hunting down a mage every time you want to solo.
-Ok Viz, I did exactly what you described and after many mission (120) I finally have ally faction, BUT I DONT HAVE ANY ORUX! Ah yes, the only flaw with this process is the fact that solo mission yield no orux. Well there is a solution but you may or may not like it. Orux is tradeable and platinum can be purchased on many if not all servers from SoE without violating the EULA. Everyone has to make their own call about that but it was an easy decision for me. /shrug.
-If you have the mana pool / mana regen to be able to use Memory Flux instead of Memory Blur then go for. Memory Blur CAN fail, though id estimate its success rate to be about 95%. As far as I know Memory Flux has never failed me. Before I was able to hook myself up with some Praetorian gear I was having a hard time keeping up mana wise over long periods of time. I cut Flux for Blur and that was the turning point for my regen / mana pool. I sitll use blur even though I have upgraded my gear signifigantly since I started, but thats just me I guess.
-Don’t forget to loot your kills! Once you get into a groove the kills go really fast and you need those components for the Herb quest. Don’t let any herbs rot since you can use extras for future iterations of the quest, simply drop them on the ground and pick them up again for the quest to update. Also the shissar will drop a bunch of scales, unless you are ridiculously rich you should keep all of those and sell them to the vendor in the merchant area inside the city. The shiny scales sell for 9pp each and the Shining are 24pp each. Not bad cash when you come back after a long haul with a few stacks of each.
-Gate back to town when ever you finish the Serpent Slayer quest, at a minimum use that time to refresh the herb tender. as well. remember you can pre-loot the herbs, but it will require you running to the greenhouse each time to get the initial quest update.
-If you haven’t activated the teleporters getting around Katta is a pain, but there is a shortcut. If you have FoE you can make it over the east wall of the city by running due east off the southeast corner of the pyramid. There’s a building along the way with a small groove in the side near the top, you can use that groove to get the extra distance you need to get over the wall.