Good morning, With the exception of a week or so just to check out mercs, I haven't played EQ since retiring just after PoP. Kinda got into EQ2 on and off but never seriously. The early info about EQ Next and how its is supposedly built in the style of EQ not EQ2 excites me. So I guess I have some general questions from a gray beard EQ player. Are there still distinct solo classes out there or have mercs equalized everything? I love to solo and explore old content and raid zones. I like doing it with a group as well, I just like being able to do it solo. Some of my favorite memories of leveling was picking a breaking a camp in City of Mist or Old Seb on my Necro, Shaman, and Mage. Is there still a tier to solo classes even with mercs, or is it all equal now? I palyed those toons separately, never really multiboxed. I know from reading the old site the Runes that enchanters changed a lot after PoP. Did they ever really revive charm kiting or any other form or high risk high reward soloing? Playing off the last, for any class is there still such a thing as high risk high reward play? What would you say are the most distinguishing differences in EQ now vs pop? Especially in leveling. I'm not sure if I will be playing one of my misc 55-65 somethings or rerolling. A lot of what I play will determine which guild I join, most likely one of the Reddit ones. Never really been a hardcore raider, but I do like doing some raiding and exploring old content. Like I would like to get my epic 1.0-current, etc. Thanks in advance for the info!
there are still solo classes out there. Mage and Necro can solo with a healer merc at least 95% of group content. Shaman & cleric with a tank merc should be able to do the same though slower. They never revived charm kiting, Enchanters just modified how they do things. This mods results in reverse charming, 'mosh pitting' (most effective), burn charming, or stun&heal charming. -reverse charming is charmign a pet to send vs a mob, when pet is low HP you break charm and kill pet. Rinse repeat -mosh pitting is reverse charming with more than one mob beating on the pet to be killed. -burn charming results with a wizzy merc set on burn and burning the mob to be killed down. -stun&heal charming is what resulted from the charming of old. Exact same as the old days but you use single target stuns & cleric merc to keep the pet alive. Comparatively slow to the above but fairly safe. more zones, more levels, more AAs, more spells, some classes got redefined (IE enchanters had ADPS added, SKs can swarm, bards are nearly pure support now) Leveling to ~70 is easy as your tank merc is overpowered vs content. You have daily quests that you can do that net between 10% and 50% of a level depending on the level. By far the biggest change you will encounter is the bronze, silver and gold account levels. Bronze is free to play but you really can't use any thing worth using, not bad at 80 or lower but 80+ it starts to get hard for gear selection Sliver is less harsh on gear selection and if you have accounts from PoP era they should be auto perm sliver. Namely larger selection of gear (not great but decent) Gold gives you access to all gear for your Level/Class and unlimited AA gaining.
Mages and Necro are very good soloers, all classes can solo to an extent thanks to mercs. Up to lvl 60-70 you will want a tank merc, even if you play a tank class, as it is insanely overpowered (tank merc doesn't seem to hold agro until late teens but gets a lot better at it later). It is fairly fast and easy to get at least to 70, your main problem will be keeping skills up to date. A lot of new expansions since PoP, I'd suggest you roll a lvl 1 and do the tutorial, and if you want to take your time you can explore the TSS expansion (Crescent Reach, the Moors, Goru Kar Mesa etc..) the content is designed to be mostly soloable and there are some nice quests along the way. Teek a NPC in POK gives daily quests for every 5 levels starting at lvl 20, you can pick 2 or 3 of these for good gear and very good exp. They don't take too long to do and will send you to different zones where you may want to stay a bit to exp as well. In the in game map, you can look up the map guide and select 'hot' zones, these zones give extra exp and some unique loot (augmentations) a lot of the time it's a good idea to pick these as hunting ground, although some of the hot zones are a pita. Vox has a decent population of new characters, on other servers you will find it hard to get groups until high level. Find a good social guild asap, don't hesitate to ask questions. Don't be deterred by the minority of smart in general chat, the population in general is friendly and helpful.
There is no difference in gear selection at all between Bronze (was always generally called Free) and Silver (no longer buyable, so unless you have already you cannot get it otherwise); there is only a difference in gear selection between those two and Gold (now called All Access). The actual differences between Free, Silver, and All Access are as follows: Free & Silver: Are limited to rank 1 spells (only applicable at level 71+) unless you buy the rank 2 spell unlocker in the Marketplace. If you have a higher rank in your spell book it lowers itself to whatever rank you have access to (i.e. if you have no unlockers then it lowers to rank 1; if you have the rank 2 unlocker it goes to rank 2). Are limited to the use of Apprentice Mercs; Free can only use tier 1&2 Apprentice Mercs, while Silver can use any tier (1-5) Apprentice Mercs. Are limited in how many AAs they can have assigned; Free are limited to 250 by default, and Silver are limited to 1000 by default. If you go gold and go over these limits then drop your account you will keep all the AAs but not be able to buy any more. There are AA cap increasers that you can buy in the Marketplace that increase it by 100 AA per 250SC. Are limited to how many characters per server they can have; Free can have 2, Silver can have 4. You can only use the 4 most recently played characters. Characters created before Febuary 29, 2012 are immune from this restriction. Cannot use Prestige items. There is no difference in this between the two levels. Cannot use the Auto-grant feature. Cannot set up a /trader or a /buyer in the bazaar. But you can use the /bazaar and /barter commands to buy from or sell to traders and buyers in the bazaar. Have limited access to some quests which were added for HCs. HCs cannot gain the Special Progression AAs. All Access get: 10% off unlimited marketplace purchases. 500 Station Cash reward to claim each month Can use all ranks of spells. Can use all ranks and tiers of Mercs. Have no limit on how many AAs you can have assigned or buy. Can use 8 characters per server. Can use all gear and augments in the game that they can obtain. Can use the Auto-grant feature to automatically be given AAs up to a certain level as you level or at any time after that level. Can make a /trader or /buyer as well as use /bazaar and /barter to buy from and sell to other players characters. Have full access to content unless that content is limited to specific expansions or to HCs. HCs gain a 6/6 Trials of Mata Muram and 4/5 DoN Progression AAs. Possibly more Progression AAs as later expansion AAs are added to the Auto-grant feature. There are more differences but they seem to have not yet replaced the Free FAQ since the change to All Access. Some of the Free level access things could also be changed in the future as well since the All Access change eliminated Silver as an option to gain (those who already have silver keep it or will revert to it upon dropping All Access).
