I'm straddling this folder; around 260 in weapons, but 270-300 in defenses on my thief, orc bandits and warcats have slowed down. The next tier of orcs, according to the wiki, is 380 ranks to hunt (??). I've tried gryphons in Shard, the fledglings are ok, babies hurt, spawn seems terrible, and I miss boxes.

Anyone have a suggestion I've missed that is skinnable, and box dropping, in the 260-280 to start range? If I had to choose I'd probably skip skinning for a while, it's at 290 vs. locks at 240.

This is on a thief, so no necro 'skinning everywhere' hacks Uz.

I tried a whole bunch of stuff in that range on my thief before I was able to comfortably jump back and forth between mountain giants and gryphons in shard (buy ice skates). I'm pretty sure you're too big for Geniis but I could be wrong, def. worth checking. Others to try:

Germish'din or Wir Dinego, whichever one doesn't have the "only comes out at night" thing
Adan'f south of shard
Chaga/Conjurers if you're willing to live in Muspar'i (it's great for thieves as long as you hate other people and are willing to stay for long enough that you get over your annoyance at having travelled there. Oh, and can repair your own leather armor).

These might be a bit hard as I tend to overhunt.

>Is there anything wonky about them? I've normally skipped them, and remember something irritating about the mages.

The annoying thing about mages, I think, is MB. Worst case, you should be okay if you roll with Serenity.

Adan'f used to do the tail whip thing that took you out of hiding. Not sure if that's still a thing, but it was avoidable with enough skill.

Mages steal items from the ground and put them in their cloaks. This was only really an issue if you died or used thrown weapons, and they've been updated to not pick up these items anymore while the janitor protection timer is still on them.

---

Elanthipedia - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
Epedia Admins - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Elanthipedia:Administrators

I'll second (third?) Adan'f south of Shard. They should work pretty well at your level, though the warrior's plate armor can make them hard to kill. As long as you haven't ignored your mentals the mage's MB shouldn't be too much of a problem. The only real issue I've had on some character's I've hunted there is they have a special attack if your health gets too low (~35-40%) that will instantly kill you. As long as you stay above 50% health then you should be golden. Plenty of skinning and boxes to go around there, and the warriors seem to spawn more than the mages.

That should be more than enough to avoid being stunned by MB.