Stuck at 88

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Rogero, Jun 6, 2014.

  1. Rogero Journeyman

    Me and my gal have two accounts each - strickly part-time players wearing whatever we can scrounge in the bazaar. We got a lot of the HoT AA's swarming light blues, but I don't think we are very good players.

    The harder mobs in Feerrott the Dream are hard for us to kill if we get two or three at once, and we are at a loss for what zone we should be in at 88-87...

    We would like to get to higher levels, but need an idea on where we can go to handle those harder hitting mobs. We are worried that we can't advance with bazaar weapons and gear. We don't play regularly enough to join a guild, and hope that isn't the only way we can improve.

    Also, we have never done any of the instant missions, and have no idea on what is involved.

    Any suggestions for us part-timers would be appreciated. Thanks.
  2. Quirog Elder

    what classes are you using? If you are not using a crowd control class then you I would suggest going to the Grounds and working at the ends of the ramps there. If you are moderately careful you can single pull without too much issue. I did the SW end usually when I was there. And once you are getting single pulls you can start exploring what your spells do to increase proficiency and the best spell set for your use.
  3. dc88 Journeyman

    As Quirog said, a bit more detail on your group makeup would help. Are you free to play, or Gold account? Have you done the HoT quest to get the J5 (gold account)? What about doing the progression quests in HoT for a full set of augs?

    If you are wanting good XP, I would do the daily hot zone quests from Franklin Teek in PoK - level 85 (Old Bloodfields), and 90 alternate (Grounds). You would likely have trouble working in the 90 - Valley one until you progress a bit more. You could also give the Heroic Adventures a try. They scale to your level and will give you Marks of Valor which are used to buy very nice gear/weapons/augs.

    Don't get discouraged - be patient and learn to play your toons the right way. It will take some time to really learn what they can do and how to 2 box effectively. Also, what server are you on? Are you in a guild?
    Malachi likes this.
  4. Crumm Lorekeeper

    I'm also a part-time player in bazaar gear. I box a 96 warrior/enchanter duo. All the tips so far are great, here are 3 more:

    Leave Feerrott. Seriously, this zone is awful. Try Grounds, House of Thule, or even Old Bloodfields.

    Get some crowd control. Think about rolling a chanter or bard, maybe even popping for an 85 Heroic if you're impatient. Mobs will soon start hitting for 5-10k, so the days of tanking 3-4 at once are over. With a chanter, I can withstand 3 adds without having to run for the zoneline. Plus having haste/clarity and slow/cripple is really handy.

    Do Heroic Adventures. These can easily be duo'd if you have a class that can either pull or mez/calm.
  5. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Take a look at http://www.eqresource.com/

    You will find useful info about all quests and missions in House of Thule expansion to the present expansion. Start thinking about the currencies you can earn by completing quests and what gear you can purchase, the better your gear the further you can progress. You don't have to purchase everything in the bazar and you may find you can obtain better stuff yourself. House of Thule is a cool expansion to be starting with. :)

    Seeds of Destruction is pretty cool as well, that is the one with Old Bloodfields someone else mentioned. You can find some helpful information at http://rasper.samanna.net/ If you are a gold member you will find some info on augs you may find useful, not sure which are prestige, so may not be so helpful if you are free to play.

    Hope this helps.
  6. Lawdy New Member

    As stated above, check out eqresource it's an amazing website designed to help walk you through missions and content. Gives layouts of the zone, where mobs spawn and quest npc etc. It also has maps to download so you aren't running in the dark.

    I think you're aiming high trying to kill 3-4 mobs at a time, EQ isn't a game like that. Well it can be with the right gear, but at those levels you really only want single mobs.

    Also, just because you are a part time player doesn't mean you can't join a guild, you should look for "casual guilds" these are guilds with tons of players like yourself, many of whom would probably love to group with you guys.

    If you list your server I'm sure there are a multitude of people who may be able to suggestion guilds such as these for you to join.

    As for Bazaar gear, it'll do you good until you get to current content where you can still find the best group gear in the bazaar( or most of it )

    Instances can be very fun, they differ from the static zone and have steps of which you do to complete and you get a reward at the end, something you both should look into.

    If you do choose to go guildless you can still advance in the game fairly easily, I would make use of the general channel when you log in and ask question. Most of the time there are very helpful people in there with the occasional troll or two, don't be discouraged, EQ is a hard game and isn't meant to be picked up and beat in a day. Have fun advancing your characters and learning!

    Also I would find out what's rare on your server as far as worldly drops, that way you know what to farm and make some plat.

    Good hunting! And welcome to EQ!
  7. Baramos Augur

    I'd go to Valdehalm pit, and the dire wolf pen in there. Valdehalm has mobs with tiny HP and there's a HUGE xp mod in that zone. I think I AA'd there until 90 each expansion when it came out to max AAs before I moved on.

    Start in the pit, and if it's too easy do the wolf pen (you'll find them.)

    The number of blue and light-blue mobs per hour is the key and you'll be roaring through it.

    Direwind boneyard isn't' bad either.

    Good luck.

    Bara
  8. Ancientvine New Member

    Do the 85, 90 and alternate Franklin Teek "dailies" in POK just outside the entrance to the guild lobby. I leveled about 18 characters to L100 doing mostly just these tasks. And you can do the Lunanyn L90 alternate mission at your level when the designated kill mobs are "Oashims"...there are baby oashims that can be spawned in the tunnels that count as kills and they hit for nothing and have virtually no hit points. Bind a druid there, port the group kill them in 1 minute and you're done.
  9. Metanis Bad Company

    Follow the lore, work the quests and missions in a zone. Move on to the next zone when you are done. The levels and the AA will take care of themselves and you'll have more fun by not worrying about them.

    Use Alla or EQResource to learn quickly which quests/missions are available in a zone. When you first enter a zone go find all the "Mercenary" (kill) quests and obtain them. Don't bother actually doing these now!

    Figure out the pre-requisites for the Group Missions, these are known as the "Partisan" missions. Work on these in the required order. The updates for your kill quests will take place automatically while you do these more complex Partisan quests.

    Use roots, memblurs, fades, kiting, pets, snares, mezzes, and running to zone to control your pulls to make life easier.
  10. Rogero Journeyman

    We just have heroic toons, 88 to 85, and she plays healers like cleric and druid and I play fighter types like sk and a mage with a pet. We get wiped in about a min on the grounds - and struck out on the one heroic adventure we tried.

    I think we have gone as far as our skills can take us. Mobs hit too hard, to fast, and while it is probably fun for real hard core types, it isn't fun for us. Neither one of us wants to be in a guild, depending on others to advance, and I think all this is our fault. We found swarming lower light blue mobs for aa a lot of fun, but there really isn't any point to that anymore. We did it at first for extra aa, and now when we have to do the one mob at a time thing, we can't quite pull it off.

    Thanks for all the advice, we will keep plugging away. We have a few months left to play and then we will reevaluate.
  11. idej Augur

    Are these characters Heroic? If so make sure you do the aug quests in House of Thule. Run dailies each day. There are plenty of people who would let you tag along in Valley if you find them a little to hard. Heroic Adventures are good exp for the time. It may seem slow at first but you will get the hang of them the more you do.

    Use your mercs. Get you J5 healer merc and tank until you feel comfortable healing and tanking.

    Play to enjoy. The journey to 100 is far better then when you get to 100 as a part time player. It is nice when new content comes out but for the most part it is not as exciting then when you level up.
  12. Fenthen aka Rath

    Your group makeup is not nurtured by the typical class requirements to sustain a real group. Tank + slow + healer + DPS is what a group consists of. Right now you have healer + tank -- you can add mercenaries to fulfill those roles. If your wife changed to a shaman and you chose either tank or DPS, you can fill the healer roles and tank/DPS with mercs.
  13. Croak Augur

    Make sure your SK is fully buffed as a lot of his buffs with defensive procs add a lot of mitigation.

    As a heroic you get some ok augs, but always good to get better ones

    Work on epic 1.5 prequest 1.5 and 2.0 for SK - the clicky from that ads a huge mount of healing combined with the right AAs.

    Depending on level with a bigger pull or a named you would do the following

    1. if you don't have time, hit deflection to give you a few seconds to hit all the buttons
    2. Click your epic
    3. Click Visage of Death + Second spire & Scarlet Blade if you have them
    4. If you don't have agro on all the mobs hit Explosive Hatred / Explosion of Spite or an AE agro spell
    5. Refresh your "of Power" on all mobs
    6. Terror
    7. Harm Touch

    With that combination in most content your SK is in God Mode for around 2 mins (depending on AA and duration focus)

    Then it is just a question of DPS - the SK might cover half what is needed on some mobs, you need to find some more.

    With my SK I normally use 2 healers mercs 1 reactive / 1 balanced - I can effectively afk on him even when for instance tanking a named plus 2 adds in shards landing, and as I just came back to EQ he is wearing bazaar gear mainly @ lv100 plus decent augs and 9k AA
  14. Mithrandyr Augur

    This. Do all the quests and have fun. The levels and AAs will accumulate before you even notice.

    If you're dieing a lot it's because you're undergeared or your healer is underpowered or you aren't knowledgeable enough about your classes to use all the tools available or all of the above. The biggest deficit you face as a heroic tank is the fact that you don't have any augs. Do all of the feerott quests (mercenary and partisan) and you'll get a bunch of 35 AC augs. The impact of these will be huge. I imagine that the HoT mercenary/partisan tasks give you augs too.

    I would suggest playing a group with some good synergy. I prefer an SK - a druid and two wizard mercs would complement nicely. Druids are rather fun and versatile. Their attack debuffs will make the damage intake much smoother (while putting a heal on the tank) and they have abilities to increase the damage of the wizards.

    Bazaar gear is actually rather good if you can afford it. Tradeable VoA drops can be used at 85 and are equivalent to HoT tier 3.5 gear (grounds is tier 2, feerott is tier 1). http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=101218 For example Malodorous Boots of Wonder is 27 AC and 500 hp more than the heroic boots you start with. Make sure to keep up on defensive AAs - combat stability/agility/armor of wisdom and learn what all of your abilities do and use them often. And always look to increase your Armor Class as a tank.
  15. Bryan Augur

    If you have CoTF expansion on all accounts, the best (in my opinion) is the second mission from Gribble in dead hills. The mission title is "Scouting Ahead".

    It's linear and mobs are dense. It's short and relatively quick - easy to box. Someone that can pull singles or mez adds is helpful here (and many places).

    The experience gain is better (per time) than hotzone dailies (again, just my opinion). You also get good vendor/barter loot, plat reward for completion, and best of all, alt currency you can use for level 85, 90, 95 gear that you desperately need, or save up the currency for level 100 gear (those 4 vendors are in tainted west karana).

    If you don't have CoTF, I suppose Grounds would be a pretty good spot at that level. Quite a few players hunt there and named mobs spawn pretty often. There are often items dropped by the named that rot (players usually annouce in /ooc X rotting at Y location). The gear is level 82 required so perhaps below your needs, but you may find some of it helpful.

    The experience gain in Grounds is pretty good. It's not as good as heroic adventures but it's still pretty good in late 80s to early 90s.
  16. Bryan Augur

    Oh, I read the post describing your group make-up. SK and Mage are solid, as is one healer. I suggest you guys go SK, Mage, Healer, Bard

    If you have gold accounts, J5 caster merc for additional DPS, and J5 tank merc until your SK is geared and AAed well enough to handle tanking at which point switch to two caster mercs.

    Single pulling with bard is a breeze. Once pulled the bard can just afk melody. Just playing melody is enough ADPS and utility to be worth it.

    Bard can also slow but in my opinion slow is counter-productive in this group once you have tankability good. Between the bard and mage, you can get some really high damage shield numbers, so if you can handle it it's better for sustained DPS to not slow mobs you can otherwise handle.
  17. DandinMindfire Elder

    I echo the above poster with Heroic adventures being the best XP / money / gear return for your level. But I just wanted to give you a little encouragement and let you know that the Ferrot / House of Thule / Grounds is very very difficult for heroic characters.

    Basically how Everquest works is, NPCs got significantly harder as the expansions kept dropping, the newer the content is, the harder it will be.
    Skill / gear does come into effect. But both of those come with time. And honestly, even with platinum, and class experience on my side, I tried an experiment.

    I took a level 85 Heroic Enchanter to the Ferrot. I wanted to see if it was viable to suggest a returnee or a new player to go check those areas out.
    I have 15 years under my belt as an Enchanter
    I found soloing in the Ferrot to be incredibly difficult, it took all my abilities to solo down a few mobs

    Solo. No mercenary

    Alright it was a challenge. Not impossible. But not new user friendly.

    Next I popped a wizard Mercenary.

    A little easier. But still a challenge.

    My friend rolled a heroic SK. His main is a Shadowknight. He wanted to do this for a similar reason.

    We teamed up. My little gnome Enchanter and wizard mercenary. His Shadowknight and cleric mercenary.
    He knows the SK class like I know enchanters.

    He was pleasantly annoyed with a few things
    1. No augmentation
    2. Low relative AC based on what is possible with gear at that level
    3. High DI damage spikes

    We where successful in killing some trash, our killspeed wasn't amazing, with baby chanter nukes an J1 mercs, but the first names we found?

    Splat.

    This is base. Out of the box - I-was-created-5-minutes-ago Heroic Characters played by Veterans of the classes.
    The issue isn't skill. It's lack of augments, in a zone where mobs hit relatively hard for that level range.

    When we as players entered that zone at 85, we had similar gear. But we had one thing Heroic characters do not.
    Augmentations.

    I am not saying it's impossible. In fact, if we had a little more DPS output, we probably could have killed the named
    but we are veteran players, playing classes we know like the back of our hand

    This taught me to tell new returning players, to zone OUT of the Ferrot after completing the J5 merc quest, and go somewhere like Toskirakk, or Korsican Warrens for a while, get some levels, some AA. Some augs, come BACK to the Ferrot when your a little stronger. Or have more friends.

    The grounds? That's 1 tier above Ferrot: trash kills, possible. Named? Not without help!
    Quatr likes this.
  18. Brohg Augur

    Problem with the "leave immediately" plan is that the fastest/best source of augments for the Heroes are the mercenary/partisan quests in Feerrott, House of Thule, and The Grounds :) The SK especially would have to do a realllly broad search to come up with a similar set of 19 30ac augments, and Prestige-ness on that broad historical set may be a major issue. Not tackling named without augs & a level or two is certainly fine advice.
  19. Mithrandyr Augur

    Also many of the feerott mobs were reduced in power, allowing a heroic character to kill them for the mercenary quests. That should get you started with one or two 35 AC augs. You should be able to handle single mobs with a heroic tank and healer, especially at 88.
  20. Brosa Augur

    Bottom line is get that SK all the upgrades possible. Your Tank comes first. Look at EQresource/Magelo/Allakhazam/Raidloot or any other means to find the upgrades your tank needs. The rest of your party will have a trickle down effect for upgrading. I would also recommend using a shaman instead of druid. You may be surprised how much better your group will do with shaman buffs and slows at your disposal.