Is it worth spending the time to do the Lambent armor gear quests in Classic, or is it better to just get to 50 and go get raid gear as a bard?
There is much better armor stat wise for the same or less price. Example: Lamb boots selling for 300-400? You can get Dwarven Work boots for 150-200 or less and the stats blow away Lamb. There are tons of examples like this.
Vanilla gear is hot garbage. It's not really until some Kunark but really Velious where gear becomes actually good. Being blue is awesome though. I did my quests on Phinny as a bard just because I enjoy the quests, but yeah, the gear itself is terrible. Beyond some hp and ac, resists are really the only important thing for raiding, especially as a bard. None of those other stats are going to have any noticeable affect in turning a fight into a win/loss. Raiding bards, esp in Vanilla again, are mostly going to be using instruments and swapping around, so weapons/haste (the most important things for a melee) don't even matter.
What's your play style? The honest to Agnarr truth is that eq can be won with numbers over quality. Look at the server first kills for example. So... need is not there. But if you like to quest then for sure. I fell somewhere in between. I'm not going to quest each piece but the pieces do drop in exp zones. So i got done along the way. My character was definitely better off for it. Some of the lambent has good stats. If you're taking your time leveling up then its worth it. Plus if you played classic then you know the fashion really is iconic.
^^^ What Hooden said. Some things I want to relive, some things are worth the effort and some things I just simply do not have the freaking time lol. So, if you played classic and remember seeing your first fully lambent bard....then you wouldn't be asking this question...because I was in awe myself. Now a days...it just depends on your goals and time restraints. I for one, would love to go explore old zones, do old quests that I never got to do as a kid...alas, ive heard horror stories of some people spending dozens of hours camping one mob...that would equal 2-3 weeks for me if I spent 30-40 hours on a single mob. Heck I want to go farm rathe giants just because I remember watching my brother do it as a ranger but...ran there with my monk...not good solo class anyways really, and daaaaaaang. Looked like EC tunnel in that mofo. So...Lambent armor for fashion if you have the time? Yes please...but if your grinding quickly to end game for raiding...you may find it easier by upper 40's to buy some things, get guild runs on others, and just flat out group for gear drops to hold you over. Id say it wont make or break you....but dem graphics....mmmmm
Go for resist and hp gear. As a classic bard, i believe those will help you in all areas. Lambent is for show.
It was cost effective to do the quests in the first month of the server. Now it would be cheaper to buy the pieces.
Yeah the first bard I can remember seeing back in the day was wearing Lambent armor, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. My bard is on a second account, and only level 19 at the moment. I plan on playing him some what slowly, but I could see myself raiding on him eventually. My actual main is a level 46 necromancer right now (on my main account). I had the same reaction the first time I saw a warrior in full cobalt armor back in the day. OMG I loved that. It's a shame that these armor looks go away as soon as there is an upgrade available. I wish we had appearance slots in EQ to put old gear like Lambent in.
Stat wise lambent is hot garbage. Way better armor to be had cheaper. Armor that you can actually transfer to other characters via shared bank. I wouldn't waste any money on Lambent. Doing the quests yourself can be rewarding and worth it for the style, but if you are just selling a krono and hitting ECT there are much better deals to be had. Skull shaped barbute, silver plated, mithril plated, charred plate are all cheaper and much better stats. Plus you can share them with a twink war/pal/shd/clr.
