Frustrated At The Difficulty.

Regarding reforging difficulties, I really can't comprehend how you have trouble.

The caps are freely available, and all you have to do is get your stats to that number, by reforging in and out of others. It's basic maths, like age 7 stuff.

You probably get ripped off with your change from purchases if you can't do this basic math.

Try this resource: http://www.dragonsarmory.com/

You can look up your character and it will tell you what stats (if any) you are over-cap on or at least over the soft-cap. It makes the numbers a bit easier.

And before someone comes in and starts talking about how you shouldn't have to go to third party sites for stuff like that:

https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/index.php?threads/some-of-the-current-systems-formulas.542211/

It's really just quicker to look on Dragon's Armory because of the colors and telling you which pieces of gear have what faster than I personally can dig through all my stuff. It also makes comparing very easy.

Original post is actually one of reasons why EQ is better than other MMOs like WoW, where you get to max level at extreme speed, and the only challenge lies in raids, which aren't actually everyone's cup of tea. Having to actually progress your character instead of being constantly hand-held in danger-free world is how it should be. Godmode on rails becomes boring very fast. I wouldn't call EQ2 that hard (but I am only 90 now.), but it is miles better than some other games.

And in other words, whats the point in gear, in so many stats, in character progression if world isn't challenging?

Actually in OP's case it isn't good advice. There are many AA's which increase survivability but only marginally (if at all) increase damage output. I guess, that most of people in high end guilds who play primarily damage-dealing class, have minimum of survivabliity AAs and maximum of DD AAs, and they have gear to back it up. OP doesn't have gear to back it up, so he should look more into AAs, etc., which allow him to survive.

I play necro myself and my small advice to OP, if you don't use healing merc, maybe you could consider one? And let pet take most of beating (preferably with AAs which boost pet's survival and damage/hate). Investing in Adept/Master version of pet could also help a lot more so than in any other spell. Necromancers just aren't a class which can calmly take beating in face. And even if you still struggle but don't want to invest time/plat in improving character, there is nothing wrong in asking someone else to help you with such-and-such quests.

The discussion was about reforging and even adornments rather than AAs so much at that point. That said, I would argue that there are in fact relatively few durability AAs in the greater scheme of things for dps classes and if you have to deviate from a typical "raid" spec to get them I would kind of hope that a solo player would be able to figure that out on their own. It's also true that dead things can't kill you so making the bad guys eat dirt faster is still a good plan. That's also part of the reason that I think Daeron is a better choice. He is an infinitely better merc all the way around than any of the normal ones you can hire. I personally prefer the 10 year ones but I'm assuming the OP doesn't have access to those. My AS zone-clear times went down considerably when I switched from Stamper (who most consider to be the best healer) to Daeron and later the vet mercs.

I just wanted to say I appreciate your website it helps tons and thank you, this is a great idea for the OP.

Actually in OP's case it isn't good advice. There are many AA's which increase survivability but only marginally (if at all) increase damage output. I guess, that most of people in high end guilds who play primarily damage-dealing class, have minimum of survivabliity AAs and maximum of DD AAs, and they have gear to back it up. OP doesn't have gear to back it up, so he should look more into AAs, etc., which allow him to survive.


Most raiders including dps classes spec for survivability and also for dps. I would be toast if I went into Guardians raid zone with just Dreadscale gear on and jewelery that procs damage to myself or others with also putting zero points in health in my AA A necro usually specs even more towards health in the first place for their lifeburns so copying a raid specced necro would actually be a good idea.

Great idea

Remember naked corpse runs to Plane of Fear after a raid wipe?? That still gives me chills, and I was only a volunteer trying to help break in so they could do the CR. THAT went about as well as the raid did

Unless it is an instance that requires cures (I'm always accidentally curing the merc rather than myself, so I prefer to let the merc do the curing) my necro uses Daeron. The necro heal is quite handy when his mend is down, and if you happen to die in Nexus to those flying cuisinarts, just stay dead - he'll kill the boss for you. You get the quest update, then rez, run back and loot.

Mage pet is the only one really worth mastering out, honestly, and you don't exactly want it taking a beating. Let Daeron or Vittia do that.

When my necro first entered VI she had a mixture of CoE gear (not one obol piece) and CS collection gear. VI required her to pay attention to what she was doing, but wasn't all that bad. That named in the cavern for the first quest tends to not live long enough to be a problem. Someone was always smacking him down, and they still are from what I've seen on Freeport. There's a rare chance his chest will be Exquisite, which makes him worth killing. He's one of the easier ones, too, once you have some overland gear.

hmmm- I am a squishy class and i can do it. the thing is, when i first entered the zone i had problems because i was in mastercrafted gear with barely any augs. my merc kept dying and i died. a lot. i couldn't even do the quests because going into the zones for them meant death.

then i read up on what was required to be able to kill here. after all, i was level 95 with 320 carefully placed aas. what i did not have was any crit chance. well, not much anyhow.

so i made all of the superior crit chance augs and put two in each piece of armor. i made sure i had my aas lined up for crit bonuses and crit chances. I began to survive most encounters. By the time frostfell came along, i had 340 aas and most of the quested gear. i bought frostfell gear to replace the quested gear.

then bristlebane came along with a nice cloak and belt. I made all of the augs from vesspry by buying the books. i focused on crit chance first. my crit chance went for barely 200 to over 740. I added other augs to help with other stuff. those purple crit chance augs are awesome and all of the newer armor and jewelry raised my crit chance. I finally was able to finish the entire signature quest and this is on a level 95 wizard with a healer merc.

no it isn't easy. and eq2, like eq1, is now featuring mobs way higher than us with a lot of hp and force. however, it is doable. hang in there. do what you can, develop strategies, and keep trying. if you really can't do it alone, try finding someone to go in with you. but make sure you focus on what is necessary to kill the mobs- crit chance.

I have one of everything; class, race, craft, etc. For some characters the newest content is dead easy, for others I have to wait until the next expansion comes out. As expected, my raid geared characters have a much easier time than my solo only characters.

I never buy gear from the broker or the Auction channel. I no longer bother with Mastercrafted gear either since it has become worthless. I mostly use the quested gear and upgrade my spells to Expert as they appear. I can say with certainty that not all characters are treated equally in EQ2.

It helps immensely to upgrade spells, to use appropriate adornments, and to watch your AAs. Reforging is most useful for raiders and min/max folks, but it is not really needed for solo characters. However, some classes are just not playable, even with Mercs, until the content is dated. There are exceptionally motivated folks who seem to be able to everything no matter what obstacles are placed in their path, but most folks will not be able to match their performance. To imply or state, as some have posted here, that a player who is struggling is stupid or incompetent is just mean and counterproductive.

To the OP, you are not alone in your struggles. Take what good advice you can from this thread and ignore the trolls.

In the past, the solo zones used to be /afk and merc. Now, they are not as easy as the lets say SS instances. The Vesspyr Isles solo content is already a joke. It is not hard. I don't understand why people feel that 1 CA on a mob should kill it. Pretty sure even the soloers that don't group don't want mobs that die in 1 hit. ToV is the only expansion where its really been balanced with the Solo/Heroic/Even some of the raids. Its a pretty linear progression path and even with all the gear choices, its still pretty simple. I ran lots of alts through VI quests. Before anyone comments, the alts that I run, are usually outside of guild with zero potent and no good jewelry. It is absolutely doable and if anything, its fun taking some time killing stuff as opposed to 1 shotting everything in the solo portion.

this game is pretty tough.

How can you state with any certainty that some classes are absolutely unable to do the content when you admit you don't understand reforging? Reforging is absolutely not only for mix/max folks, it's a key feature that this entire expansion's itemization was built around. You're supposed to be reforging.

I never said I don't understand reforging. You are mistaking me for someone else in this thread

You, and several others posting here, need to read carefully before putting your feet securely in your mouths. Learn to read the posts carefully before making quite emphatic comments that that are totally off base and irrelevant to the conversation.

BTW, I use reforging extensively on my raid toons, but it is really unnecessary on solo toons because there is very little to be gained from reforging quested gear. Additionally, on my raid toons I don't bother adding adornments above lessor until I get Potent gear but on solo toons it is a make or break item that should be at least Greater as soon as possible. I have over 40 toons at various levels of competence and I stand by my comment that some are too **** as soloers to do current content without help from other players.

I can't edit my post, so I am not sure what the **** is for. I definitely did not use offensive language! I suppose there must have been a character string in the word i used that triggered the filter Sorry for that.

The problem here is perception. We aren't quantifying what difficult equates to. For some of us, whipping up a five course meal is fun, for others, microwaving a bag of popcorn is plenty work enough.

I find the game hardest on young clothies. They really don't hit their stride till their eighties in terms of damage and survivability. That's fine by me, my wizard is smart and savvy, she doesn't need brawn too. Someone else might find a cloth class utterly hard and frustrating. I find it a nice little challenge, and I bribe a guild tank to adventure with me. Shadow knights make great shields.

I do think this game isn't difficult but it is as deep as you want it to be. Read some of Koko's work and calculations, they're in his signature. I did and it really gave me more appreciation for the game of math and the subtle tweaks that we can make to improve our fun. Because in the end that's what it comes down to. A few hours reading up on hard and soft caps and adorns, can seriously increase your stats and make dying a lot less of an occurance. Thus, fun increases, frustration is decreased.

If you don't see the benefits of reforging even at the solo level then no, you don't understand reforging. Every single class is completely viable in the VI solo line. Every. Single. One.

Question on Fear is, west wall or north wall breaks?
EQ1 rogue here. Spent many a night dragging piles of bodies out from under dragon noses in the original ToV.
Good times.