Hello! I'm a prospective new player and defiantly willing to pay for a subscription to this game. I have a few questions to ask and wonder about the pros and cons about the choices. I haven't decided on a server yet so any ideas to that would be great. I've read a few recommendations on this forums already and just wanted to weigh in some more thoughts. My planned character that I think I will play is an Iksar Warrior. I like the idea of wearing heavy armor and using any weapons that I want and figure out the play style I want to go with him. I'm more into melee combat so not interested in casting spells and I like the idea of a lizard race. I'm into RP but not necessary for my game play experience. What are the pros and cons to this class and race combo? Will I regret some things later on? If they don't start out with great faction can they be improved over time with effort? Is it easy to find gear early on? I plan on doing mostly solo activity and it's just for fun when I have time but interaction with other players won't be avoided. If I can find people I'll definitely play with others but I have no idea what it'll be like. Any other info would be great! Thank you for your time.
Welcome! You've come to the right place. Iksar warrior is pretty good. Play something you will enjoy. They get a small bonus to their armor class and hitpoint regen, and I think warriors are supposed to gain XP 10% faster (for leveling, not for alternate advancement). I think iksars may also swim a little faster, for what it's worth. The one big downside to being an iksar is that pretty much everybody else hates you. But that will only matter if you choose one of the Progression servers, where traveling around the world and to other home cities matters a lot more. It's dangerous under level 60 or so, but in all of the neutral areas it's really not a problem. I started an Iksar a few weeks ago and it has not been a problem at all. You can improve some factions over time, but we're talking a LOT of time. Generally not worth it. Another downside is that you're kind of tall so you might be looking up and down a lot, or you may need to get a shrink ability. Low level warriors can't heal themselves very well. They are traditionally the class that is most dependent on a group. They could bind wound and sit down to recover HP. On normal servers this has been sped up a ton with Out of Combat regeneration. (You'll see a timer in the small window that shows your health.) In general the pace of the game is much faster on normal servers. You can pick up a mercenary (a tank mercenary has insane regen until about level 70), a healer mercenary if you want to get used to things punching you in the face since that's the warrior life, or a wizard mercenary if you just say heals be damned and you want faster kills. You can get away with all of that at low levels, and especially if you ask other players for level appropriate buffs. Warrior combat is kind of boring, at least until level 65+. You'll mostly be hitting the autoattack button and then waiting to practice Taunt and maybe Bash or something. That's okay because you shouldn't take more than a few weeks of playing on and off to get to that point. You'll get some more interesting combat disciplines later on which will really begin to define your role in a group or raid setting, and that's when you'll begin to feel more useful. There are different EQ experiences available. On the Progression servers you'll have much more activity in the lower levels (below 65) and opportunities to group. Your XP gain will come much slower and the gear won't be very good. It's more of a classic EQ feeling. The downsides are that some of the new systems and other improvements to the game will not be available for a few years until things are unlocked over time, and you must be a subscriber to log in and play on them. The rest of the normal rule set servers are very top heavy and you probably won't be in many groups for the first couple of months unless you get lucky or go way out of your way to make some friends in your adventures. I know many wonderful people on Luclin and Bristlebane servers, but take your pick of one in the list or try a few different servers and see which one feels the most like home. I started watching this returning player on YouTube. Looks like he just got started again a couple of weeks ago. Here he's being a big dork on his new warrior:
Being a warrior Cons: Being a good warrior is now probably one of the tougher classes to master. Mob positioning is important for groups and very important for raids, all of which rely on the warrior. And you have to be able to pay attention and hold agro continuously. In a group setting you will need to watch and pick up adds quickly or else the squishy DPS classes die quickly. A lot of other classes are able to pay attention to other things a bit more. Also warrior is probably the most gear dependent class in the game. Pros That said a warrior has an amazing ability to mitigate damage. Really with a healer merc you can molo a ton of content, and with a true healer it trivializes a lot of challenging content for other classes. Warriors have slightly below average DPS but their ability to mitigate in coming damage more than makes up for it. Race Race has little effect on the live servers. IMHO by 105 any racial differences are pretty insignificant, so if you like being an Iksar be an Iksar. Roleplaying - if you enjoy it try it. Unfortunately it is not a big part of the game for most people so you may have to be willing to jump in and try and pull your group along with you for the ride. Gear On the live servers the gear is very fast and easy to get up to level 82'ish. You can buy "Defiant" gear appropriate to your level cheap in the bazaar or level appropriate drops regularly in the zones you are experiencing in. Also on the live servers you can hire a tank mercenary, anything you may have trouble killing your tank merc can breeze through below level 50. So if you need a drop you can just summon the tank merc, clear the room that drops the item, and then go back to using a healer merc. Gear shouldn't be an issue until the higher 80's or so. However, as I stated above gear is more important for a warrior than any other class. As you reach the low 90's and above you will have to start making sure you are maximizing your Gear as you progress. Check on the warriors page on the best way to do this. AA's IF you are paying for a subscription I would turn on auto grant for AAs starting at level 50 and ignore them. Do not put any xp into AAs before level 95. (you didn't ask about AAs but when you hit level 50 you will). ENJOY
If it's your very, very first character an iksar shadow knight might be a little more forgiving than a warrior, and they fill a pretty similar role. Out of all the classes Warrior is most dependent on its gear. Either way you should find a wealth of friendly folks to help you, especially on the more populous servers. Welcome.
