You definitely don't need to do every conquest/quest/any plane of war content to be top end in EQ. Top end is all about your performance in relation to others, which comes down almost entirely to what you know and your ability to execute. Gear plays a small part and those silly achievements play absolutely no role at all. Nearly half my guild has absolutely no CotF progression done and we are a top 10 guild. It gives virtually no benefit to your toon and since it isn't a requirement for raiding many simply ignore the group game all together now. They log on solely to raid and we only do that for 7 to 8 hours per week. These people's alts are better raid geared than most people's mains since that is where all our loots have gone for the past couple months.
I guess my definition of top end is different, Top end to me is actually accomplishing stuff in game with my own effort, It's actually ridiculously easy to get into the raid game atm and aside from 2 recently released raids raiding has been for the most part easier than the group game. (cotf was easy for both groupers and raiders though)
You are both correct actually. It can be difficult to perform as an equal to someone with the same skills if you do not possess the same gear/stats as the other. Then again acquiring gear/stats with the aid of the many does not mean you are top end if you do not possess the skills to perform at the level of some one with better skills and lesser gear/stats. My point is you might suck as a player but might be top end in gear and stats. I've seen it.
Until very recently I actually have *for years* my playtime is reduced atm and outside of using EQ as a chatroom and doing a couple anniversary tasks a day I havent been playing as much but yes prior to just very recently I have been completing everything current content throws at me, havent even needed a crutch of 6-12 end game raid geared toons to pull it off either =D
You have not completed everything in the Plane of War, which is what you claimed when you said you are "someone who has done it"...unless of course you were talking about "throwing your life away," in which case I retract my statement and agree with you wholeheartedly. No, you rely on multiple Mage boxes and their pets, which can out-tank and out-dps most raid geared toons, plus the rest of your box army. Outside of the Plane of War, I group with only 2 other people and their mercs. (And of course, when it comes to the Plane of War, you had help killing Judicators too...)
I'm not really even sure why you targeted my post in the first place, you must feel like you have something to prove or something I don't know. I have a long history of completing group content / and conquests, I do have a few loose ends currently but that's an exception to the rule, I am grandmaster flagged etc. Granted I have not killed the grandmaster, and I doubt people without a raid guild / easy access to numbers that can brute force it will beat it anytime soon) and have a few other loose ends since I have a tendency to not trivialize difficult content by throwing more end game raid players at it until it's "easy" My mage pets are situationally useful but they are useless against most of the hard content in the plane of war so that's a moot point, and even so my 2 mage pets won't be out tanking 6-12 man non boxed crews of raiders, pretty hard to cut through multiple raid geared warrior / paladin tanks while raid geared wizards / mages are dpsing it. I'm not sure what help I've had killing judicators, We managed to kill the judicator a lot of times sometimes he'd bug out and warp early on after the zone launched, we could not control that I wouldnt call that "getting help" we killed quite a few judicators with just 2 human players. That isn't saying much though he's an easy named mob for the most part. The fact remains though and this is the most important point that I am trying to stress here: EQ quests and missions should NOT be tuned with the notion that a person must cut classes, skip work, throw away life obligations just for having a decent shot at completing it before the content either is obsoleted or becomes a ghost town. I don't mind challenge but the huge tedious timesinks and cheesy ways of extending content are a part of the game i'd rather not see go forward. That is the only point my original post was trying to make and I wont be derailed from that point further.
No offense falos (and this isn't meant to knock those who utilize pet tanking I even do it at times) but I agree with beim here and disagree with the fact content should be easier. Missions like this are awesome I'm my opinion. My reason for this is even though it is able to beat boxing and with mercs as ppl have stated doing so it is an extremely hard mission that mainly requires a full group of players and coordination. This game was built on the "community" aspect of ppl building relationships (guildies, friends, etc.). The game is now overwhelmed with boxers ( which I box too when I'm on and not many are). But missions like this push people to group with others and I think that is greatly needed. Doesn't have to be everything in the game that needs more people but one or two missions should definitely not be something people about. The achievements are the only thing in this expansion I have yet to complete and I only play a few hours a day and don't really play Friday through Sunday afternoon. I'm guessing you are at a similar spot so I'm a bit unsure why you wouldn't enjoy the difficulty of actually having to do something multiple times to get the achievements with proper group make up and good players who can make it work. I love difficult long content ..... Doesn't mean people have to beat it that day or the first week it's out. Once again falos not trying to knock those who strictly box( and you may not just do that). But for those who do that I do not believe everything should be able to be beaten in that manor. But back to my main reason of being on this forum anyone get all the achievements yet? I'm pretty set on the fact that I need a group of 5 that can beat the mission while I lock down the adds and do only that.
I don't know why people consider this mission so hard. All it comes down to is getting lucky on the beguiler's mez. Having to get lucky on something isn't much of a challenge.
I tend to three box all the time. Generally do what most do I think, removing boxes as real players come LFG. This mission, like the raid, are a breathe of fresh air around this stale, boring easy mode EQ. I have yet to beat it but have only attempted 3 times. If I have time today I will probably look at tackling this mission with some guild mates and friends. I will not only look to beat it with a group of real players but I love tackling hard missions with my 3 box just to say I was able to where others were not etc.I play a beastlord (main), bard, and cleric 3 box. As for nerfing the mission I think they should give an option to doing the "hard" version with a reward like a title.
I agree with ya would be nice to have the option of keeping the hard mode .... Maybe make chase items available as loot from it or something like that..... Like those rares they decided to put in as random drops in cotf then took them out .... Would be cool rewards for those groups who wanted to run it often and give them a reason to continue to run this content
The cries of victory and accomplishment have been drowned out by the whining and complaining of "it's too hard." Except for the lag and dizzying spiral ramps, am enjoying the Tower even though it is very very minimal content for a "large" release. Side note that heroic adventure, come on. Kill 20 mobs and your done.
Yes, we did last night. It took us two attempts, our enchanter used a different spell to mez the royals for Battle Royal and we got all three achievements at once. It was a fun encounter for sure. It isn't luck by any means. You know it is going to mez, so have someone ready, away from the beguiler, to cure it. You can still type or talk in ventrilo to say if you're mezzed.
Lucky? If your relying on luck... your doing it wrong. Last run through the most we had get mezzed was 1 person per wave of Beguilers, Positioning is key.
Hmm actually I think i'd call the mission more 'tedious' and artificially time consuming than 'hard' I think many times it's easy to confuse something that is tedious as too hard but in this case I think tedious is just boring and that makes the mission less pleasant. The aura really needs to go to help alleviate the slow pace imo.
Some missions are endurance runs, some are burst festivals. Either one can be challenging, but your doing a great disservice to the Dev's by trying to imply that this mission is "just tedious". IMO They put alot of thought/effort into this, in order to make it a challenge and I believe they succeeded, Regardless of gear its a challenge (raid or group). I think this is a step in the right direction. It may be a bit long, but it is a true test of perseverance on the group who is doing it, Micro managing cooldowns, keeping track of timed/% adds, Not going to fast, but also not going to slow. It idiot checks you pretty quick if you do something silly. As far as the aura goes: thats the only thing that prevents this from being a 10 minute burn festival, and it should stay. Without the aura, there would be next to no challenge in this mission. ***Without the aura here is how it would go: zone in, burn down named 1 kill adds while soft tanking named 2, rinse repeat, rinse repeat, rinse repeat, /open chest < If it took longer then 10 minutes I would be surprised.
Perhaps, but some classes feel the sting of no mana more than others later in the mission, Shaman and to a lesser extent necros probably can handle the mana stuff just fine, in fact warriors, necros, and clerics / shaman are probably all good classes to take for this (clerics mainly so they can quiet miracle others and use their viral ds thingy on the adds) To me it just isn't fun being a dps class and being pretty far into the mission yet having very little mana to work with and basically relying on mana free nukes, and the caster equivelent of 'auto attack' Even when you try to preserve your mana there are limitations to what some classes can do with the gear they have (even if using mana restore abilities and mod rods) I'm sure the devs did put a lot of time into this but I still think there are other more enjoyable ways for a mission to be challenging. The rubak challenges were kind of fun, the chelsith challenges were fun because they were highly skill based but it wasn't a super long encounter, the xaric copy / paste raid mission was not enjoyable because the conquest in that mission was very much a gear check (depending on your class the frequent dt's were almost impossible to survive for groupers going after the cart before the horse conquest) It was a skilless 'gear check' that required some luck for groupers and I didn't particularly like that form of challenge even though I ended up completing it.
Due to the Aura reducing duration on necros dots, and the fact it would be unwise to overload dots on the named and potentially pop more Adds then you would want, Necros aren't really all that Hot in this mission. ***However: If you have intelligent DPS in your group and they synchronize with a necro burning the nameds and keep up/can keep up with the adds as they spawn, necros can be really awesome here. However that method is very risky, since if for whatever reason you fall behind on the adds... the necro cant really stop burning. However since Shaman can Viral slow, and the sheer amount of adds ill say yeh your right. If your running out of gas before the end of this mission, your not pacing yourself correctly and your failing the idiot check. Try bringing a bard and getting druid skin/chant buffs afore the run. Use staunch, use steadfast servant, use kiss of emarr, use everything and the kitchen sink. Mages are actually probably one of the better classes to bring along for this due to a couple of your aa's and spells being very very useful... Ill let you figure out which ones
I completely forgot that the aura reduced dot duration, though in my defense my necro is only level 93 so I don't really play a necro ever, i mainly was referencing their near shaman quality of mana regen but you're right. As for the pacing, yeah there are tricks to help the pacing and I know of quite a few clickies and such that would help, but if some groups are only able to beat the mission with steadfast servants / kiss of emarr/ staunch etc thats probably a bit much to expect of groupers. Especially since lots of players do not have all of those abilities. Some do but a lot do not. I actually try to be a supporter of making most things more accessible which is why even since early ROF (and probably a bit before that) i'd be a bit vocal about how certain mechanics or things should be changed in some missions so that more groupers can experience the content, I'd generally be vocal in favor of those changes even if I myself was able to overcome them. I have not had much time to spend on this mission yet, my play time will be a bit sporadic until the next weekend, I have no doubt that this is a mission that i'll overcome but much like other missions i've beaten in the past I still like to see content like this able to be experienced by more people. I think faster paced challenges also help make more people willing to attempt the content as well. As the game gets older I just like to see larger amounts of people being able to enjoy content, I've said for awhile that I do not feel like they should tune the nature of the content and the time it takes to complete things towards myself or people like me (the forums seem to have a higher concentration of players that *play* like me however my views on how content should be handled seem to differ. I try to sometimes be a voice for more casual players I know, many of which don't post on the forums but would like better shots at enjoying certain aspects of the content
Since the Deathbloom nerf (and no elidroth i am sorry, but death blossom isn't an adequate replacement, do to the server not syncing with my toon correctly, it sometimes takes 90s before i can cast it...) They are nowhere near shaman efficacy levels. As far as Kiss/Staunch/Steadfast being required: they are not, they offer a margin of error though for those that make a mistake in resource management early in the mission I've done it with group geared people who never had to use any of those things, But we also went in knowing it would be a long run so we brought a bard... It all boils down to forethought and pre-planning, if you don't do either one any content can be much harder then it is. Also if all the content was 10 or 15 minutes, that would be pretty one dimensional and boring. I think thats what made the ROF group missions nice, some took some time, some were 123bang festivals, It seems like COTF may shape up to be similar. before this, there was not a single COTF hero mission that couldnt be completed in under 15 minutes from zone in (other then Neriak 2). Hell some of them didn't even take 5 minutes (DH2, Neriak 1)
