Why are dolmens so popular?

Biscuit_290 · March 2023

Everyone says it's good for grinding xp but I've been trying it on and off for 2 years and never gotten anything. Dolmen xp is really really really low when I play. Barely get 6-7000 per trip even if I'm there from start to finish (yes I go to all 3 in the right order), if I'm lucky. Compared to that, greenshade zombie farm nets 10k easily from a single pull that doesn't take more than 1 minute to kill. Skyreach gives another 12-15k in the first 2 rooms itself. Blackrose prison is 30k minimum in 3 minutes. Forget skyreach and blackrose, even a very easy spot like greenshade produces way more xp per minute than alik'r dolmens.
I cannot understand what's going wrong here. It's not like I'm losing enemies. Using lightning staff heavy attack so that I don't miss hitting any enemy. Just hold down m2 and spin the camera to hit everything before they die.

colossalvoids · March 2023

It probably have everything to do with ease and mindlessness, so you can basically afk on spots to consume other media. For xp I prefer brp, it's not an afk method but I genuinely like it. It's also more visually pleasing personally, I really hate when something is done "because it should be done" which are dolmen-style events we're getting still for some reason.

Aislinna · March 2023

I used Dolmens to semi-afk and get jewelry to level up my jewelry crafting skill line. After a point XP didn't matter to me anymore.

endgamesmug · March 2023

Originally it was decent xp at an early point in the game but it got a bunch of nerfs, but ive done every kind of xp grind over the years mostly grinding mobs in various places. I havent been able to dolman grind for any reason for a long long time, i prefer dungeons over fastest grind these days for various convenient reasons.
Does anyone remember the heavy attack bots that used to setup around the edge of the dolmans? 😆

Biscuit_290 · March 2023

oh

OBJnoob · March 2023

Grinding dolmens is a good way to level up the Fighters Guild. I've always assumed this was the main reason.

Brrrofski · March 2023

Firstly, fighter's guild. It's by far the quickest way to level it. You get a chunk for every dolmen that you do. Outside of that, the only way to level it up is by grinding daedra, undead etc, which gives you 1 xp per kill.

Secondly, it's ok for early levels. If you have a new toon and need skills or skill lines before you can start grinding properly (like a good aoe skill, heals etc), then it's a good way to get there. You can put whatever on your bar and it doesn't matter as you don't need to do much killing.

It's also easy, so like someone else said, you can watch something at the same time and only half concentrate on grinding.

Getting jewellery is another thing people might use them for too. Only quicker way is to spend gold or AP to get jewellery as far as I know.

But yeh, it isn't the best xp. So if you want to power level, it isn't great.

Araneae6537 · March 2023

@Biscuit_290 were you in a group when doing the Alik’r dolmens? I think there is an XP bonus for being in a group, and then the Alik’r dolmens are so crowded, it’s impossible to really hit everything and you’ll get XP for enemies taken out by others in your group.

As others have mentioned, it is easy to do on repeat. I find it relaxing in a way to do for a bit. I use it mostly with XP scrolls when I want to get a skill line finally to 50 or have several previously unused skills to level for a build, and leveling Fighter’s Guild is welcome if it’s a character I’ve not run a lot of dungeons on. I think Skyreach and BRP are also popular, but not as accessible (I see a lot of lower level characters running dolmens).

Necrotech_Master · March 2023

ive used dolmens to farm jewelry (basically afk'd with my 2nd acct next to one of the alikr dolmens)

i dont enjoy dolmen chasing when theres 40 people at them, they are horribly boring, i would rather do normal DSA for xp than dolmen farming lol

my preferred method on a new toon is to get to lvl 10 doing public dungeons, and then go live in imperial city sewers until 50 lol

Katheriah · March 2023

I do it while working from home and being in some online meeting that could have been an email.

Biscuit_290 · March 2023

Araneae6537 wrote: »

@Biscuit_290 were you in a group when doing the Alik’r dolmens? I think there is an XP bonus for being in a group, and then the Alik’r dolmens are so crowded, it’s impossible to really hit everything and you’ll get XP for enemies taken out by others in your group.

As others have mentioned, it is easy to do on repeat. I find it relaxing in a way to do for a bit. I use it mostly with XP scrolls when I want to get a skill line finally to 50 or have several previously unused skills to level for a build, and leveling Fighter’s Guild is welcome if it’s a character I’ve not run a lot of dungeons on. I think Skyreach and BRP are also popular, but not as accessible (I see a lot of lower level characters running dolmens).

I joined group, left group. Wasn't any notable difference between the two cases.

Biscuit_290 · March 2023

OBJnoob wrote: »

Grinding dolmens is a good way to level up the Fighters Guild. I've always assumed this was the main reason.

Fighter's guild is very easy to level. Idk why people try to grind that. Probably the easiest skill line in the game. Don't have to do anything but keep playing normally.

Biscuit_290 · March 2023

Deconstruction jewellery seems to be the only thing it's good for now.

Nestor · March 2023

Biscuit_290 wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

@Biscuit_290 were you in a group when doing the Alik’r dolmens? I think there is an XP bonus for being in a group, and then the Alik’r dolmens are so crowded, it’s impossible to really hit everything and you’ll get XP for enemies taken out by others in your group.

As others have mentioned, it is easy to do on repeat. I find it relaxing in a way to do for a bit. I use it mostly with XP scrolls when I want to get a skill line finally to 50 or have several previously unused skills to level for a build, and leveling Fighter’s Guild is welcome if it’s a character I’ve not run a lot of dungeons on. I think Skyreach and BRP are also popular, but not as accessible (I see a lot of lower level characters running dolmens).

I joined group, left group. Wasn't any notable difference between the two cases.

Group Exp Bonus is only there for 4 or less, best with 2. The two zones for grinding with a zerg are Alikir and Auridon, with a partial in East Bangkori. You get most of the exp from the Dolmen itself. If you are solo, just tag mobs with AoE so you get credit for kills. I run around Benny Hill style dropping pulsars.

Remember to drop an Exp Scroll or Potion.

OBJnoob · March 2023

Biscuit_290 wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

Grinding dolmens is a good way to level up the Fighters Guild. I've always assumed this was the main reason.

Fighter's guild is very easy to level. Idk why people try to grind that. Probably the easiest skill line in the game. Don't have to do anything but keep playing normally.

People grind it just to get it done faster. I'm mostly talking about people who've made new characters of course. I don't know how long it would take to just "accidently" max it out by killing undead and I don't intend to find out. When my new toon (not that I've made any recently,) reaches level 50 it's PvP time. It's bad enough that I'll have to max Undaunted eventually-- I will not still be unlocking new skill lines.

Back when I was a noob (no wait I still am, oops,) and rerolling through the under 50 campaign I used to get Dawnbreaker before level 20. On every character.

Jaimeh · March 2023

Biscuit_290 wrote: »

Everyone says it's good for grinding xp but I've been trying it on and off for 2 years and never gotten anything. Dolmen xp is really really really low when I play. Barely get 6-7000 per trip even if I'm there from start to finish (yes I go to all 3 in the right order), if I'm lucky. Compared to that, greenshade zombie farm nets 10k easily from a single pull that doesn't take more than 1 minute to kill. Skyreach gives another 12-15k in the first 2 rooms itself. Blackrose prison is 30k minimum in 3 minutes. Forget skyreach and blackrose, even a very easy spot like greenshade produces way more xp per minute than alik'r dolmens.
I cannot understand what's going wrong here. It's not like I'm losing enemies. Using lightning staff heavy attack so that I don't miss hitting any enemy. Just hold down m2 and spin the camera to hit everything before they die.

With dolmens you don't have to reset the instance, like in BRP/Skyreach, every time you finish the loop, and unless you are grouped with somebody it can get annoying asking people to group up for a moment so you can reset it. Also, the chest from the dolmen can drop jewellery so some people combine xp grind with jewel farming. Finally, if someone decides to go the dolmen route, they can also level fighter's guild, though other places are good for this too. These are some reasons I can think of for the dolmen grind.

Araneae6537 · March 2023

Nestor wrote: »

Biscuit_290 wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

@Biscuit_290 were you in a group when doing the Alik’r dolmens? I think there is an XP bonus for being in a group, and then the Alik’r dolmens are so crowded, it’s impossible to really hit everything and you’ll get XP for enemies taken out by others in your group.

As others have mentioned, it is easy to do on repeat. I find it relaxing in a way to do for a bit. I use it mostly with XP scrolls when I want to get a skill line finally to 50 or have several previously unused skills to level for a build, and leveling Fighter’s Guild is welcome if it’s a character I’ve not run a lot of dungeons on. I think Skyreach and BRP are also popular, but not as accessible (I see a lot of lower level characters running dolmens).

I joined group, left group. Wasn't any notable difference between the two cases.

Group Exp Bonus is only there for 4 or less, best with 2. The two zones for grinding with a zerg are Alikir and Auridon, with a partial in East Bangkori. You get most of the exp from the Dolmen itself. If you are solo, just tag mobs with AoE so you get credit for kills. I run around Benny Hill style dropping pulsars.

Remember to drop an Exp Scroll or Potion.

Really? I had heard that groups gave an XP bonus and then just always assumed that was why people are always looking for dolmen groups in the zone. I thought too that taking out more enemies contributed to the final dolmen XP, as I thought I had just made it to a dolmen before for a few hits on final enemies and had the dolmen XP be much smaller, but perhaps I misremember. 🤔

blktauna · March 2023

I just enjoy the mindless mayhem.

That and its great for levelling a different skill morph (I re spec toons allot), getting fighters guild head started, and jewelry mats galore.

Rkindaleft · March 2023

Dolmens are pretty good for a few reasons:

This is based off the Alik'r dolmen train.

1) It's by far the fastest way to level Fighter's Guild, but this is really only useful for alts or new characters.

2) The XP is still decent, there are faster ways to level but it's decent.

3) It's also a pretty fast way of obtaining jewelry with traits, each lap gives you 3 pieces and it can be done in like 5-6 minutes, so it's a good way to train the skill over time in a way you don't have to pay for it.

4) It's also relatively AFK, as if you group you only need 1 hit on 1 single enemy to get the xp drop at the end. It's one of the easiest ways to get passive XP for almost zero effort.

Nestor · March 2023

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

Biscuit_290 wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

@Biscuit_290 were you in a group when doing the Alik’r dolmens? I think there is an XP bonus for being in a group, and then the Alik’r dolmens are so crowded, it’s impossible to really hit everything and you’ll get XP for enemies taken out by others in your group.

As others have mentioned, it is easy to do on repeat. I find it relaxing in a way to do for a bit. I use it mostly with XP scrolls when I want to get a skill line finally to 50 or have several previously unused skills to level for a build, and leveling Fighter’s Guild is welcome if it’s a character I’ve not run a lot of dungeons on. I think Skyreach and BRP are also popular, but not as accessible (I see a lot of lower level characters running dolmens).

I joined group, left group. Wasn't any notable difference between the two cases.

Group Exp Bonus is only there for 4 or less, best with 2. The two zones for grinding with a zerg are Alikir and Auridon, with a partial in East Bangkori. You get most of the exp from the Dolmen itself. If you are solo, just tag mobs with AoE so you get credit for kills. I run around Benny Hill style dropping pulsars.

Remember to drop an Exp Scroll or Potion.

Really? I had heard that groups gave an XP bonus and then just always assumed that was why people are always looking for dolmen groups in the zone. I thought too that taking out more enemies contributed to the final dolmen XP, as I thought I had just made it to a dolmen before for a few hits on final enemies and had the dolmen XP be much smaller, but perhaps I misremember. 🤔

In the two crowded zones not being in a group can cost you a kill, so it is laziness as just being invloved gets you some exp.

However, exp is really less per kill for groups larger than 4. If you can run an addon that shows experience per kill, you will see just how low it gets.

They may have made a change when they limited the group size to 12 in the overland to 10% across the group. But it did not seem that way the last time i did a dolmen zerg.

zaria · March 2023

I say that the less populated dolmens like Auridon give more xp / time than Alki'r then busiest.
if you are 4-8 players you will get get damage xp on most enemies using aoe and the dolmen goes down fast anyway.

But its less jewelry and you need to fight. Alki'r is nice for leveling up skill lines like learning an new weapon.
I fond random normal dungeons to be very nice for leveling alts if you don't mind it taking time.

Castagere · March 2023

For me, they are just super lag areas now. I used to love doing them but not anymore. If I can come across one with no one there I will solo it for fun