So I played EQ from launch til about Secrets of Faydwer when I finally put it down, until now. 80 Iksar warrior, about 500aa is my current main character. I feel so lost when it comes to trying to get back into gear and catch up. Whenever I try and go do something say like grab a healer merc and just try and molo a mob or two in loping plains I get womped. I'm f2p atm but from what I read I'm missing out a lot on augs and such and the aa cap so I may as well go gold now. As far as gear goes what should I be going for? Where should I try and get groups? When I left my gear wasn't bad it's mixed anguish with some other stuff here and there, and I'm using BBoB and my 2.0 as weps. Any tips for an old player ? =/
Welcome back! If you have the cash, go to the bazaar and get some Tier 1 HoT armor. See http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/eq:House_of_Thule_Armor_Guide#Tier_1_Group_(Abstruse) for details, and if you'd rather farm it, but if LP is too hard the HoT definitely will be. Gain another level and buy up the trade-able HoT Tier 1 Jewelery. If you plan on staying f2p for a while, I'd not bother auging it unless you augments without the PRESTIGE tag on them. Check out http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Hotzones for lists of non-prestige augs that are easy to get. Some of them are fairly descent AC and even some heroics on the higher level ones. You can get upto 1000 AAs without any purchases while Silver, and I'd probably work on a few of those at least, since, even just the core at 500 you'd be a little short on. Although with friends you can probably just level up first then leach off them for a while to get the AAs built up. Just depends on how you want to go. Once in HoT gear, LP will seem breezy, at least once you get the core defensive and offeensive AAs. Epic is still good because of the aggro mod, but for moloing (and I even don't use it when grouping any more at 83 with HoT weapons and good aggro augs, although I may have to rethink that since that account went Silver). The DPS on the HoT weapons will make a big difference, and I think there are some non-prestige hate augs. Seems like the LDoN ones are non-prestige, can't remember about the DoN ones. Aggro Procs is a good list of upto around SoD or UF I think. I think there's a few HoT weapons that aren't Prestige that have good hate procs on them as well. There's been alot of good +Dmg augs added since SoF (a few in SoF in Crystallos also, but better and as easier to get in newer expansions) if you want to molo only to keep your DPS up. Going gold gives you lots more options though. Getting a Journeymen Tier V merc is a huge improvement over an App V one, even over a J1 one. That's about all I got for general advice at that level. Or at least that I can think of atm. Hope this helps, and again welcome back! Yther Ore.
Bumping a little bit of an older post here and I apologize. I am in a kind of similar situation as the OP and was browsing threads looking for aug advice. I am 83 and 870AA currently so once I hit 86 and AA for a couple days I will be going gold. I have been running the odd LDoN mission in Everfrost here and there to get the avoidance aug, and was looking picking up at the marble sphere of ire as well. I am currently using a Sword of the Specter with a wulfenite gem in it. I noticed a couple Rune augs in that list,Jade of the Ether and Icepaw Defending Stone, and I wouldn't mind generating a little more AE aggro but according to the comments on allah these might be a bigger time investment than just plowing a through some LDoN's. Is this a situation where I should just smash and grab the LDoN aug because better things are coming soon? Or would having one of those rune augs in the bank be a good idea?
The Wulfenite Gem is actually decent agro because the proc has a built-in stun. If you want a quick, better upgrade, skip the Marble Sphere of Ire, pick up some Radiant and/or Ebon crystals from the bazaar or by working DoN progression (which is a good idea anyway) & get the DoN agro augs (straight agro or stun+DD) from the vendors in Lavastorm. The rune augs are nice, but will be difficult to acquire. I still use my Icepaw stone at 92, but it was hard enough getting people to run boomerang missions when the expansion was current, & now it's a ghost town. When you hit 90, though, there's a rune aug that drops in Beast's Domain.
While you're not Gold, the Wulfenite or switching to a non-prestige innate weapon proc, or cultural weapons with hate symbols are you're pretty much only option for pure hate. It looks like the stun and rune proc augs are the same way. There is a few good exceptions if you on Zek as most of the augs from the discord merchant are not prestige. If this is a plan for after going gold, then as mentioned the Enraging Blow proc augs from DoN are the fastest, easiest, and some of the highest aggro augs to get. See Deep Crust Fire Geode and Deep Crust Fire Geode. Poisons are your next best option, and a good one for adding some more hate. If you go with cultural weapons, andy of the various symbol of hate augs for the level would help, such as Venerable Reaching Symbol of Hate. Just thought I'd point out some non-gold options, since most good augs are prestige. Yther Ore.
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I am going to get one of those DoN augs. I may try and box the boomerang mission and see how it goes but that will probably be one of those things I try a time or two and if it is a pain I will just wait for something further down the line.. I finished my last Everfrost LDoN mission to pick up the icy prism today so I can mark that off my list. So I have DoN and MPG trials on my list of things to do for the innate boosts. Are there any other similar progression boosts that I should do around level 85? I will most likely be 85 for a while to get a rather big chunk of AA's done before I progress further. Is there anything that was just flat out fun to do around this level. I'm not much of a min/maxer so I don't mind getting off the beaten path and exploring some.
if you have the plat, I would suggest getting gear in the bazaar, then head to the hot zones for your level, 80-hills of shade, 85- old bloodfields. Go for AA;s first til you have about 1500 and use them to max CA, CS and armor of wisdom, then shoot for level 90-92 as fast as possible. once there split exp between AA's and regular, continuing to max CA, CS and armor of wisdom. Go to valley of lunanyn for wraith's camp or the grounds, both are level 90 hot zones. upgrade your armor as you go, when you hit 95, check bazaar for Tier 1 ROF gear to buy. Regarding augs, there are 4-8 25AC augs that are relatively easy to get in Riftseeker's sanctum. I believe I soloed them with my merc at level 85. There are only 2 different AC augs in the zone, but they are not lore, so you can get 4 of each. Once you hit level 90, you can camp augs in HOT expansion. Many of the augs there are easy camps, not a lot of mobs. At worst , you may need one additional friend for some of them. That should get you to level 95.
One more question for you folks, well at least for now I am sure I will have more as more content opens up to me. Regarding Power Sources.... Is adding Katta faction to buy them for Orux worth adding to my to do list or just try and find them in the bazaar. Do people normally use them all the time or just for raiding or tougher group content? Anyway just a little update. I'm 85 now, have gone gold, going to hopefully finish the merc quests this weekend, that and getting my shaman to 85 are my priority right now. Then it's off to RSS to aug camp and then I will start working on some DoN progression for the AA's to break up the AA grind some. I plan on staying 85 until I am in the 2k AA range. I may knock of epic 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 in there as well if I get in a nostalgia mode or another break away from the grind for an evening here and there. Oh yeah, I made a magelo profile but I have a feeling I will be going back to my Abstruse the next time I log in since I don't have VoA yet(you know the whole preorder early access now no access thingy). I didn't update my AA's today either so there's a few more levels of CA and CS on there as well. I also didn't swap whatever augs I have in there over to the new armor yet. I have most hot zone augs from the last 20 levels or so already, Any gear suggestions would be appreciated. http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1362410
I use powersources all the time. They're usually not too expensive in the bazaar & last a good while. I had fun doing the Katta quests though so if you're having trouble finding affordable powersources, definitely do the Katta quests. Just realize it'll take a while. For tanks I highly recommend getting one of the flagging raids done to use Pure powersources so you can use Metal, which gives you the best AC. (Most raids SoF+ will qualify. You'll need some help for this, but it's relatively easy for high level toons these days.) For other toons I use Light cuz it's all positives & cheap. You can see a list of powersources & what they do here. (Metal is in the raid list on the next page here.) You don't need VoA to wear VoA gear. Your magelo looks decent for the level (aside from the lack of augs, but you addressed that already); the only thing that sticks out really is your horribly obsolete charm. There should be a bunch of relatively cheap charms in the bazaar that will blow that thing away.
