Many new TLP Guides

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by AlmarsGuides, Jan 3, 2018.

  1. AlmarsGuides Augur


    Well I surely don't know everything there is to know, I usually research everything just to refresh my knowledge before I end up making a guide!

    I agree with you that the guide could include information prior to SoF; since they changed Heroics to be on that gear... I'm going to add in what I can but I still don't fully understand your argument/what you're inquiring about. Also I don't use the word argument negatively, one can argue points to learn something new and you often have to. Giving up knowledge you once had thought to be correct and accepting something new isn't as easy as you'd think. People can be quite stubborn sometimes!

    I supplied you with a bunch of links in a previous post to reading material on people talking about Heroic Strength matching up to Heroic Dex. Also like I said if you google any material about Heroic Strength vrs Heroic Dex you come up with everyone unanimously agreeing Heroic Dex is better. You don't have to take my word for this.



    I think what this all boils down to is a difference in playstyle then. I don't agree with the min/maxing for damage when the min upgraded you get is so small. I think it's an extremely foolish way to play because you do take damage on raids whether you can picture a scenario where you can or can't. Raids wipe, groups wipe - people make mistakes and die all the time. You may be thinking of content once you have it on farm at the end of the expansion when it's not hard anymore. I am thinking of content that's difficult and challenging to progress through.

    I'm trying to give people more practical advice (and advice I would argue is better anyway) than min/maxing. Staying alive is the best advice you can get. You can't do damage if you're dead. Your minimal increases are worthless when you're dead.

    That isn't to say I don't understand your way of playing, my irl best friend is like that too and we had an argument on skype about this very thing when I made the guide (although we argued more about Spell Damage and how much that sucks and why it isn't worth focusing on) he played devil's advocate of why it would be worth focusing on to someone. If you'd like to see it I cut out the skype convo.

    Basically the TL;DR, my argument is Min/maxing is a purely theoretical argument with very little practical application. I understand that people like linking that one parse where they did the best to boost their ego but in order to get that one really good parse you end up doing crappy on countless other parses cause you die/something goes wrong/you're just unlucky. I think telling someone to min/max their character and put survivability second is very bad advice in any and all situations. Even the one situation it applies to which is a very.... very esoteric situation that only a handful of people are a part of (the end game raid scene; after content is on farm).

    Min/maxing your character WHILE your guild is progressing on content that you're wiping on only hurts you and the raid (aforementioned reason you can beat basically any raid that doesn't enrage((very few)) in EQ with enough tanks and healers - you don't need DPS classes). So the argument for min/maxing really only applies to the single situation of where your guild has the content on farm and beats it every night without wiping/very easily. That's the only practical situation where it would be useful to tell someone to min/max in and forsake survivability.
  2. AlmarsGuides Augur


    Obligatory

  3. Machentoo Augur


    That much is clear. While I applaud you for making the attempt to help other players, maybe the sheer quantity of guides you have attempted to create exceeds your actual knowledge. Guides based on guesses and conjecture are worthless.
  4. AlmarsGuides Augur


    I couldnt agree more which is why I don't make guides on conjecture and what happens in theory. I remain practical and make sure what I say is rooted in facts. Opinions are worthless unless you provide factual evidence to back it up. I leave my opinion out of my guides as much as humanly possible; when I do include my opinion I make sure to say it is an opinion which is exactly what I have done with my Heroic stats guide (in the part of it that is opinion based - the part I have gotten arguments here about).

    The arguments/evidence presented to me in this thread wasn't as strong as my argument/evidence. Basically what was argued is "Some people want to min'/max so you should cater to them and tell them how to do it" and my answer was "no". If people want to play that way then fine but I'm not going to cater to an esoteric playstyle which I feel is actually more detrimental to play as in the first place. I could also write guides for players who only have one hand but I can't really see that guide being very practical or catering to a very large audience, can you? What if I put instructions into each of my already made guides as addendums of how to play with one hand? Don't you think that all that extra information is going to just confuse/bother most of the regular readers that have both hands?

    I'm sorry and I am really not trying to be rude. I already have plans to make guides on Spell Damage; break it down mathematically and explain why the stat isn't that good & isn't worth focusing on and I may create similar mathematical breakdowns for other stats explaining what they do and such... but that's not going to change the facts which is min/maxing DPS is a subjective argument and it's NOT a good argument. It's one way for you to play this game and I will gladly argue that it's the wrong way. Min/maxing DPS may be more *fun* for some players but again, 'fun' is subjective.

    My argument is rooted in a fact: You can beat 90%(probably more - EQ very seldom uses enrage timers for mechanics) of all raids with nothing more than tanks or healers. The amount of DPS you do is generally irrelevant and only speeds up or slows down the encounter. Therefore; it's more important that you (and your raid) stay alive than it is for you to do DPS. Whyyy would you choose to do more DPS when it doesn't matter how much DPS you do? (cause it's fun obviously) -- My previous argument wasn't so much that Heroic Strength was useless but that Heroic Dexterity was more useful. If you want to mince words I called Heroic Strength useless, for sure. But I provided evidence for why Hdex was better, lots of evidence. I also provided a means for everyone here to research Hdex vs Hstr themselves; which if you did research it you'd realize basically every post on the entire internet says Heroic Dex is way better. I'm not being snide when I say this but I literally couldn't find a post that said to focus on or even get Heroic Strength. If there's one out there someone please correct me, I would like to hear some arguments for Heroic Strength.... But my point is have you ever stopped to consider that your playstyle (min/maxing) has lead you down this road? I can't find ANY opinions online that validate your playstyle or provided evidence to support the claims of the two people who argued FOR Heroic Strength because of min/maxing... But yet you're skeptical that *I* am wrong? I'm the one who has provided evidence and factual claims - so far all I have heard is opinions and my evidence was discarded because people said "well i don't really take damage on raids" which is a totally silly statement. If you can't think of a situation right now where you've taken damage on raids from AoEs/Ramp/Adds/whatever you're just not thinking hard enough.


    Plus, let's put all of that aside for one brief moment... Do you realize how small the top end raid guild population is in this game that even care about min/maxing their characters? I doubt the level 65 players that are just struggling to level up really care about min/maxing their character. We're talking less than 5% of the population. Maybe you should be asking me to make a DIFFERENT guide on how to min/max a character rather than suggesting I edit information that's relevant to 95% of the game to cater to the less than 5% that disagree.
  5. Bobbybick Only Banned Twice

    I'm late.

    Heroic Strength is a garbage stat, you shouldn't go out of your way to gear for it ever unless you are trying to pad ATK on magelo for some weird reason.
    AlmarsGuides likes this.
  6. AlmarsGuides Augur

    [IMG]

    For realz though, I'll add some math to my website for each heroic stat as well as explaining each one in even more detail (hopefully with proof) just so I can save time with future arguments like this. Not going to do it right now but I'll do it when I do the mathematical breakdown of Spell Damage and the 'guide' on why that stat sounds really useful but it totally isn't.

    More arguments to come!
  7. Guzzle Augur

    So earlier you mentioned that your ranger friend insisted that heroic dex is for bow damage. I came across this:
    http://everquest.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=30106

    Might he be right? Granted, there are other types of range damage. If the patch was reverted at some point, that would make a difference... But per the official post (lower) it doesn't seem that going past the cap unless you can hit 400 or more really matters.

    What does that patch note mean? Also per the

    https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...u-may-2016-patch-preview.232498/#post-3430009

    It doesn't mention anything about crit rate or anything else from increased dex. One would presume that the extra dex would increase your proc rate due to the general skill cap increase, but no mention of crit anywhere.

    It would appear that, for current TLP's, getting to dex cap would be your maximum capabilities aside from negligible potential proc chance increases through raw dex. Adding hstr appears to be the only way to increase your actual raw DPS, and as Bobbybick mentioned... your ATK. To your credit, your guide does (or did) say that hDex is not as useful as some people will argue.

    Now, it does appear that either way you slice it, unless you can get to 400 of any given stat, that the benefits are negligible. This would, in my opinion, make it apparent that the priority should 100% be (after cap) hSta, or a balance of hSta and hWis / hInt if you are a druid, cleric, or cloth caster since they always give a flat and reliable increase to the two primary resources in the game indefinitely.

    Thanks for the discussion!
  8. Baldur Augur

    I'm gonna agree with guzzle again on this, and what he has said is what I've done on my characters for the most part. When you can only get 2-7 of a heroic stat per piece of armor and 2-5 per aug, we're not getting to 400 of a heroic. Not sure when you can start getting to 400, but my guess is it's not for quite a while. So once you hit the cap (35 in most cases) it really doesn't matter that much.

    For tanks:
    hsta up to 35 > hagi up to 34 > ac > hps (I don't want to start ac vs hps debate, but this is just my personal preference, my main is also a pally)

    For melee dps:
    hdex up to 38 > hsta up to 35 > hagi up to 34 > after that it's whatever you want, I personally prefer hstr because it's the only thing that will increase dps, small as it may be, or more hdex I guess if it increases crit chance

    For casters:
    hsta up to 35 > hagi up to 34 > hwis or hint to infinity or hps or whatever your personal preference is
  9. AlmarsGuides Augur

    I've finished a few more guides:

    Both Skyshrine & Kael Drakkel Raid Armor Sets are now done:

    http://www.almarsguides.com/eq/quests/Velious/SkyshrineArmor/

    http://www.almarsguides.com/eq/quests/Velious/KaelDrakkelArmor/

    And the Kael Drakkel Zone Guide: http://www.almarsguides.com/eq/leveling/velious/Locations/KaelDrakkel.cfm

    Tower of Frozen Shadow Guide: http://www.almarsguides.com/eq/leveling/velious/Locations/toweroffrozenshadow.cfm

    and finally Crystal Caverns will be done in about an hour: http://www.almarsguides.com/eq/leveling/velious/Locations/crystalcaverns.cfm


    I think I am going to be doing PoP Armor Guides this weekend as well which will (somewhat) benefit players on Phinigel but I am more so making them for Agnarr when they reach and inevitably get stuck on that X-pac. I also hope to finish all of my PoP leveling locations before I switch over to updating/writing Tradeskill Guides. Right now my PoP leveling guide links to a bunch of blank(ish) pages for the high level locations which is no bueno =(
  10. AlmarsGuides Augur

    Finished a guide for Gates of Discord Tradeskill quests.

    http://www.almarsguides.com/eq/quests/GoD/Tradeskill/

    Ironically i wrote the guide for live server players as we have to come back and do these quests to raise our tradeskills 300 - 350. Considering Ragefire and Lockjaw just got GoD though I figured maybe it could be of aid to someone... The quests were all extremely basic and don't really need guides - people will probably find the maps I made most useful since it shows the location of every single NPC.
  11. AlmarsGuides Augur

    Thanks for your list of Tinkering combines - it made my job a billion times easier. I still have some info to add to the sub-guides that it links to but my tinkering guide is now finished.

    Ask and you shall receive!

    http://www.almarsguides.com/eq/Tradeskills/Tinkering/pop/