The Astral Flow burn

So, there's a technique for leveling that's still something of a secret, though there are youtube videos that describe it in pretty decent detail now. There are a few reasons for it being a secret:

1) If the general population learned of it, it would be made much less possible just because everyone would be trying it.

2) The more popular it becomes, the greater the possibility is that it will be nerfed.

Now, let me state first off that I don't think anyone can make a reasonable argument that the method is "cheating". I mean, I'm sure that the dude who insists that logging hate should be a banworthy offense would probably try to argue that it was, but amongst people that don't belong in padded rooms, it's pretty clear we're not doing anything that S/E would see as being alongside the salvage duping. We utilize only existing game mechanics and nothing we do could be categorized as a glitch. It's just that we use them in a way that there's really no way S/E could have ever foreseen.

That being said, the fact that I feel the need to open with such a disclaimer should tell you a thing or two about this method of xp: it's completely and totally broken. Broken like a terrorist after fifteen minutes with Jack Bauer working on him. Broken like Michael Jackson's blackness. Broken like the drug war. Broken like Mike Tyson after a two rounds with Lennox Lewis. Broken like the verisimilitude of "The Shield" after two rounds in the ring with "The Wire". Broken in a way that the word "broken" doesn't even really begin to describe it.

Let me kick the point home with some pithy numerical stats:

Number of SMN-burns I've participated in thusfar: 5.
Amount of time spent per party: ~1 hr.
Average amount of xp gained per SMN-burn: ~44k.
SMN level progression: 16-33
COR level progression: 45-59

That's well over 200k xp for barely 5 hours work. Not limited by level, gear, or really any other factor. Although because it relies on spamming 2hrs, you can only do it once every 2 hours (and because it's an hour's work, it's really, do it, wait 1hr, do it, wait 1hr), it's still an rate that's comparable to meritpo's under IDEAL circumstances. And if you get your COR to reset your 2hrs, you can eliminate that wait and do two runs back-to-back.

Basically the strategy involves:

1) Pulling every trainable mob in Korroloka Tunnel to a holder.
2) Transferring hate over to your holder without transferring claim.
3) Forming a party that syncs to 12-16 with 4 summoners, a corsair, and a level sync designee.
4) Going apeshit with Astral Flow.

It doesn't sound like much, but when you consider the volume of mobs available in Korroloka Tunnel, well, shit adds up. And when you consider that Astral Flow can be used to do considerable damage, as a lowbie, to mobs that are of much higher level, then, you can start to see where this goes.

Now, participation in these has made a few people a bit jumpy, but as I stated, I don't think those that participate in this are going to face any punishment from S/E. There are a few reasons for this, but the big one is simply that nothing in the strategy falls outside of the intended use of any game function. I don't think that the developers intended for them to be used to this scale, of course, but in the end that's not what did the Salvage Dupers in. They found what was clearly a bug in the game's programming, and their reaction to finding it was to use it to their advantage over and over and over. Nobody could make a reasonable argument that that wasn't clearly cheating the intent of the game.

There are no bugs being exploited here, only a game design that allows for nigh unto 200 mobs to be accumulated in a single location, and for players to deliver massive AOE attacks that will accrue no hate onto the player himself. That falls into the realm of nothing but simple player innovation.

I imagine that in an upcoming update at some point in the future there will be a message that falls along the lines of "The distance that linked mobs will follow a player has been decreased."

That will be as sad day, but unlike the people whining over the fortification xp getting gimped, my only response will be to shrug and say it was nice while it lasted.