Some of those Hotzone quests can be total killers. Like you, I came back and started at level 85 with a heroic toon and got owned in one of the Underfoot zones. Some of the zones are going to be nearly impossible to do at level 85. The first thing I did that helped the most was getting the J5 merc quest done. Next, I made some friends with 85 heroic toons and started grouping together. Stick with it! It's hard, but you can do it! Since then I've made it up to level 98 and recently did Fear Itself.
Somebody else had said the level 85 Heroic is an entry into the modern game. I agree with that and feel that you should think of level 85 as the new level "1" in the modern game. Remember how hard level 1-5 was back in classic? This is no different and you'll have an easier time as you get good gear and level up. In my case, I'm having more fun with the modern game than I did in the classic era of EQ.
This is game isn't designed for new players in mind or even returning players. As they increase player power by 10-15% each expansion, they simultaneously increase mob power by 25-30%. So it is what it is. Can always try another game, lots of f2p mmorpg's out there.
Heroic toons are NOT perfectly geared for content their levels, its the entire reason I made this thread in the first place. If they were nicely geared for the levels, I would have never had issues. Ive spent literally 1000s of dollars on games over 16 plus years of online gaming, with a massive portion of those games being MMORPGs. Ive played almost every major MMORPG that has been out, and had no issues taking on not only mobs my level, but mobs noticeably stronger than I should have been fighting, and still didnt have the ridiculous issues I have using F2P "heroic" characters in EQ1. They are so pathetically underpowered as another poster here put it, for free players they are a 'cruel joke'. Its not the AA's totally, although that certainly adds to how sad they are, but its mainly the pathetic gear. For 35 bucks, I should have good gear, complete with augs, and be able to walk up to white mobs in the zone the game puts you in(the dream) or any other normal zone my level, and do just fine. That is absolutely 100% not that way it is, at all. If you think it is, you have never played a recent F2P account with a fresh "heroic" character in The Dream.
Thanks for the great info, but Im really trying to stay F2P. And unfortunately that is part of the problem. Without access too all the good prestige stuff, the "heroic" toons stay basically pure crap, which is 99% of my problem. They simply are too undergeared to even handle 'easy' mobs in the zone they put you in after the boost, its a complete ripoff for F2P, but to be honest even for gold account its still lame because you still have to get better gear, augs, etc etc for the 'heroics to actually be worth a crap.
Thanks again for all the replies everyone. The main issue here is how horribly underpowered the heroics are, not me alt tabbing(easy) or playing my classes(easy). As multiple people have had the exact same issue, I know for a fact its not just me. Ive been gaming for many years, played lots of MMORPGs and have never had such horribly underpowered and pathetically weak characters in a game. Its a blatant ripoff to label the "heroic" characters in the store, heroic. Even for a gold membership, you are still going to have to get better gear and augs to actually be worth a damn, let alone if you are a free player you are basically perma-screwed. In fact I would go so far as to say the "heroic" characters in EQ1 are some of the worst ripoffs Ive seen in many years, and Ive seen plenty. I will try some of the good advice here, at least you guys are a nice and super helpful community, thank you for that.
Your complaints of heroics being underpowered for the area doesn't make a lot of sense. Mobs in The Dream and lower house were nerfed when Heroic Characters launched. A few of months back I started 3 heroic characters(SK, SHM, ROG) on a new server and completed all of the quests in the dream and lower house without much issue. I'm now level 88 and have been farming TBM missions to upgrade gear since level 86ish.(incidentally the first few TBM quests are worth a bunch of XP for simply running around and talking to a few people, do them if you have the expansion) Couple of suggestions: - Immediately turn on AA XP for your warrior and bank 5 AA, buy the Weapon Stances AA, equip a shield. your tanking life will be much improved (Do franklin teek dailies 65 - 85 or grind in Plane of fire if you have to, you shouldn't have to...) - Complete all the quest lines in The Dream and lower house! You'll get a complete set of AC augments, one for every slot. - Consider dropping down to a 3 box and adding a CLR merc and 2 DPS mercs.
I'm going o have to disagree with you Clamdigger. I got a Heroic toon last weekend and have a gold account. I have found soloing the Dream challenging but fun. I'm now doing Meldrath's Magic Mansion solo, being the current hot zone quest, and am doing fine. Yes it's a bit hard... Ummm, it's supposed to be. But I can do it and have done the quest to completion twice now and will do a third tonight. I have died a few times at the start of the MMM quest and had to do retrievals, all part of the fun, but I figured out how to do it by looking at my failures. Thank the gods for the 96% cleric rez! AAs make such a difference I think you are doing yourself no favors by buying a heroic and not a 3 month gold account. It does make a difference. It won't be easy. You still have to be smart, but you can do it if you really do your research on how to play your toon and use it to it's best advantage. Failures teach more than success, if you're honest and blame yourself. You already spent 35.00 on the heroic, finish the money part and get a 3 month gold account. Just do it and don't even second guess that decision. BTW, I'm using the default gear that came with my heroic with the addition of the few augs I have beat out of a mob or two. It will do until I beat some more out of mobs I guess. The hardest part for me is not being able to find groups or duoing friends... but it is what it is and I'll get to a level that I can guild and then enjoy that part of the game. I much prefer the social aspect of gaming and will just have to work towards that goal too, but I'll get there and after 10 lvls of soloing I'll be pretty damn good at rockin' my toon... so there's that.
Frankly, the gear that heroics get as part of package is pretty much level with HoT group tier 1. Gear that requires Abstruse fragments that drop off much tougher level 88ish named mobs in Feerrott and beyond. About only real good option that is reasonably available is Rustic from Alaris. And that stuff comes from lvl 90-95 content. The three main things that will hamper you: 1. Free to play. You just wont have the AA and inability to use prestige gear will really cripple you. As I mentioned earlier, heroic is a great option for a gold account, especially considering you pretty much can get a free heroic every half year. With FTP AA limits you will not be able to cope. 2. Trying to box too many characters. I box chanter and druid, classes I know quite well, and it took me about a month to get it properly functional. Your cash would have been far better spent on 3 heroics and 3 90-day subs. Finally 3: expectations. EQ is designed ground up a group game. Mob cons are more for groups. Not for solo. That is a fundamental EQ difference. Even someone in raid gear might think twice before soloing a white.
I love how Clamdigger is reposting the same post over and over again, mentioning how many MMOs he played, and that it couldn't be him. This is Everquest and not any other MMO. While mostly all MMOs after Everquest were build with the soloing-aspect in mind, EQ was not. 6-boxing a full group of characters you don't know is not the way the content you are trying was built around. You bought a 6 level 85 toons, place them into a group and think you are as good as a normal group would be. Don't take it personal, but you are not. Noone would be. Because you are missing hours, weeks and month learning the tools while you level them from 1-85 and obtaining gear. You have not enough knowledge about the abilities, the experience from former situations etc. On top of that, you are not focused to one toon, but you need to split your focus on 6 toons. Yes, you will find others, telling about the same problem. But you can find enough here, who don't have the same problem. Maybe those, how wrote about the bad heroic chars had the same problem than you? Oh, and what you should also consider: Soloing (without Mercs) in Everquest mostly means: Kill mobs without getting hit. Thats why casters, bards and Rangers have it a lot easer, that Melee. And because that might have been unfair, they introduced Mercs. Mercs have the advantage over multiboxing, that you don't have to actively play them, meaning spending more time on your toons. You choosed the most hard way to box, thinking you can play all 6 parts of the group alone. While I am completely with you: This seems exciting, it is also very hard and needs you to know exactly how every character works. I am totally with you, that Heroics might seem as a rip off, because DB should know, that Heroics will be bought from new players, having exactly those issues. DB should also know, that most Heroics will have to solo a lot. As this isn't that easy, Heroics are not, what they seem to be! Giving you better (overpowered) gear on those characters, so its not that bad, that you miss all the experience with those toons, and don't fail because of that, won't help over the long term, because, while you level, mobs get harder, but your armor does not...
Clamdigger, you do not have to spend a lot of money but you should be going All-Access on your warrior. Without All-access you will not be getting auto-granted AAs for your warrior which will really start to hurt in your 90s. Warrior+J5 Cleric Merc on reactive + Bard on /melody with A2 wiz merc + Shaman with A2 wiz merc this should be pretty easy to play until 105. You just play your warrior , Bard sings , have Shaman Buffs/Counterbias Slow/Growl maybe a heal on tougher mobs. What someone else said, you need to ENABLE your Weapon Stances in Archetype AA! Costs only 5AA for first two levels. This is HUGE help in tanking. You can make a playable F2P tank at 105 but it is a major undertaking and not optimal. For a positive experience with a heroic warrior read this: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/i-drank-the-warrior-kool-aid.239952/
Dear Clamdigger, I feel with you and can fully understand your frustation. I had the same problem some expansions ago. I played that game from the very beginning and meanwhile own about 21 accounts and it is even possible with [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software] to control them to a length to play raid missions to a certain extend to equip the noobs too. If you don't want to dig into the learning curve and money for [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software], try WinEQ. As long as you don't annoy real players with toons training and showing off the inability of the boxer, you and everybody should be fine with it. Respect other players and the usual "play nice-rules". WinEQ worked for nearly a decade for me. I managed to box EOK beta without any extra tool but it was really frustrating if you get some wipes - but 5 chars without WinEQ, that is too much. I was first frustrated because my Warrior was useless as a tank and I complained the same and I got always the same: You are too stupid to play the game! I thought - ...wtf (besides this kind of post is not helpful at all and kept frustration levels high) - I played the game from the first day and know my chars, have played every class and the most important up to 105 with nearly full AA and still lacking something to get the big mobs or some raids going. But they all were right. Every expansion and every bigger "bugfix" or "nerf" the rules for the game changed slightly and features are gone or new ones arose. The more you have a setup of characters which are at the limit of killing something - the more you need to dig into the characters. What "pissed" me off was that many simply didn't help with their posts - they only bragged about how cool and easy the game is. BUT SOME DID and that is awesome if players are really there to help you in small steps understand the new ins and outs of the game and have the endurance and perspective to recognize what part is missing.If you want classic EQ then only play on classic servers - the game is hell different from classic to today but still as challenging. Classic has less options, less features, less specialities of the classes AND in classic you don't had so many AA/Disc-Options like today. But to be able to play means you have to know these specialities because esp. in these 85+ levels they make a hell of a difference. I don't know how to really estimate it but every 1000 AA seems to be some real LEVELS (!) of difference. Here somebody posted about the warrior and said the most important thing: YOU NEED TO KNOW A TANK. That sounds trivial but after even pushed a mage up to the max to have a good tank because my Warrior sucked, some gave real good advice what my Warrior lacked of. You definitely cannot expect to get them on auto and tank without knowing/having/using the right "Defensive AA/Disc", having the appropriatary augments (mostly AGI for groups/solo or AC if you are grouper depending on expansion/lvl), having the right macro or keybinds to change from every AA/Disc if the current wears off and you need much time or the incredible help of some here in the community who are really able to step by step explain and help further if you think you have mastered a part of it but still struggling with that next dumb mob. If you have a good tank mostly a merc healer (even f2p) is mostly enough to keep you alive but like peeps said - you should go for a J5-merc and this is only possible if you have at least one single active account. Your tank should be a real deal as warrior or you should change to something which can tank even in f2p without so much ability in handling. Shadowknights got nerfed but they perhaps do a bit better while a Mage pet (also got nerfed) is sometimes much easier to handle and if it dies you have your crowd control (Enc/Brd) or a second pet with your AA-Ability ready and fully buffed. I don't know how the Pally runs in f2p (mine is only L93 but does fine) but I am out of the game since some months now and some changes/nerfs changed things a bit more deeply (SKs, Mage Pets, War DPS). If you have a good tanking ability (Sword and Shield) then you DPS sucks, if you use 2Hx-weapons then your tanking ability sucks (esp. after the nerf). If you miss the "defensive" ability then your healer has a hard time. If you forget to through in the emergency AA/Discs on damage spikes then your tank is simply dead (and with him mostly the box, if you cannot get to the crowd control toon fast enough in hope to not have dotted him or you get to your second tank for emergency). And if your "lizard" runs because they are so whimpy and you have no snare/root active and your DPS sucks to kill him on the scratch then happy trains.... Try your skills on lower levels to get the boxing system working. Try even greens if you struggle with the automatics and use zones where you don't get into trouble with real players and you can learn a lot through it. Boxing is a kind of "elite gaming" if you do the stuff which is on the limit (like every limit part of the game). If you know your Warrior then he can easily tank everything in Feerott too, but without these parts (mentioned above) you have a hard time. Some Named are more than nasty for a Warrior - Pally and SKs have lesser problems because of the mobs casting "fear". Some Named are wellknown for countless adds. Some are no problem. Use the posts with - optimizing Warrior gameplay - optimizing DPS/Burn e.g. the threads around Burn Baby Burn - optimizing Healing Forget to get a fast leveling without that. If you want to avoid Quests then forget to get some good equipment of the game, fast level ups, excellent augments. The best stuff is mostly in doing quests, missions, HAs, esp. in the later game except you are raider and get your gear mainly through that (but you need a guild for that... like said in another post). I found that macro thread for Druid and Mage but there is one for nearly every character, esp. one for a Warrior and Cleric too, to get all the features you need esp. for boxing. It is only a learning curve and optimization. If you have a strong warrior even a mediocre Cleric or healer merc can do the trick. For named mostly DPS-Optimization and Healing-Optimization is necessary. It is possible to do every Named with a boxed 85 group if you know and automatize your chars. Never expect to simply put Warrior on auto, spam heals and wait till next year killing the mob without real DPS. Don't start with 5 boxed chars until you are ready for big frustration and countless resurrections. Take a tank, healer and dps and if you add mercs then you still have a full group for missions. If you lack on tank ability take another one for safety (e.g. Mage Earth Pet). If your tank is fine then perhaps go with 2 DPS classes. But 5 boxed chars without a switcher and without the above macros ... boy that is crazy and I would not waste my time with that except you love pain or you only have them as buff station, transportation unit, etc. at your side. Bards can play notes without intervening but even then you can use a automatic list to make them play different songs. Automate and optimize as good as possible if your mobs are white, yellow or red/named. Then you are able to come closer and closer to a real players combination but good real players are still mostly unbeatable. Use sites like Alhakahzam EQResource especially the House of Thule - Part if you stay there EQTraders (for recipes/tradeskills) and more (Fanra, etc) to get the information you need if you don't want to end your real life and invent the wheel new. But without that - regardless which game you played - EQ is still one of the hardest and most complex games in the MMORGs - but not because it is simply hard - because you have to even optimize a simply numb "Warrior Tank" as long as you try to get into the end game to make your own "limit game" with solo, molo or boxing (but it is the most challenging at all and never gets boring like the endless raid runs or HA-grinding). have fun with it...
"Because you are missing hours, weeks and month learning the tools while you level them from 1-85 and obtaining gear. You have not enough knowledge about the abilities, the experience from former situations etc. " For this reason alone, I chose the long and lonely road of starting over from level 1 Bard on Agnarr the get a feel for the game once again after not playing in over 10 years. Looks like I need to do some research on what Full Access membership gets me to help my new toon level up faster.
The cut and dry is: at 85, Heroic toons have more than enough armor and AAs to Solo/Molo the current content of your toon (House of Thule). Biggest issue i can see (aside from trying to multi-box), is lack of character knowledge. Yes multi-boxing (even by means of alt tabbing) is easy. Yes playing your character is easy. But to know what your class is capable of via skills/abilities/AAs/spells...thats another story. A level 85 Warrior should have absolutely no problems in Feerrott the Dream. Even as a ftp account. Heroic characters have all the AAs and gear you need. And you can probably get by up to 90 as FTP with what you start with. Once you hit 90 though, you'll need the AAs and new gear to stay upright.
Then this nerf to the mobs wasnt enough on lizardman and spiders in the dream, they hit like elite mobs instead of normal mobs yet they still give just as crappy exp as anything else...its insane. Im a free player so not sure if I can even get any more AA points but I will try so I can get those weapon stances if not already there, and thank you for all the advice.
As Ive mentioned Im a free player, and trying to keep it that way. And Ive also mentioned, Ive played and still play extremely hard, very intense, and many times downright brutal games. Come with me and run extractions in ME3 co-op and you will see. I dont have trouble with hard games, but having characters so pathetically weak they cant even handle whites and blues in the zone you are placed in, doesnt have anything to do with my skill...its the heroics as has been mentioned before they are more of a joke for free players than anything else. What class did you roll? Maybe I just need a more solid class. And for a REAL comparison make a free account, THEN buy a "heroic" and get back with me how that works out for ya Even though Im trying to stay a free player, how much is gold membership is it still 14.99 per month? And thank you for the advice and info.
As so many have told you, free play is not going to cut it. Just one example is your inability to use J5 mercs (3 of which can likely kill the mobs you are struggling to 6-box without any input from you). But mostly I think your expectations are off. EQ has never been about instant gratification like the other games you've played.
If heroic toons are as good as you say, then I must be doing something horribly wrong. The only thing I can think of, is not using more and knowing more of my AAs. I pull with the warrior, hit a few AAs, and thats IT...I dont have time to do anything else because he takes so much damage its actually stupid. Its stupid, you understand? Not fun, not challenging, just freekin' stupid...that a tank class, cant even last more than a few seconds, vs white and blue mobs...before I HAVE to swap over to one of my healers, and spam heal him just to be sure he wont die....and sometimes he still does LOL. I will go through all my warrior AA's, re-read them, try to find maybe some of the more defensive ones, and try to get the weapon stances another poster mentioned that should help toughen him up, as well as go back to sword and board vs dual wield. Thank you for your reply and info.
Thanks again guys for all the additional info, Im not giving up on this neat old game just yet. Next time I log on, Im going to study much more into my warriors AA's, re-read them all. Maybe there was some type of temporary damage shield I should be popping right after I pull, or maybe an avoidance buff etc etc. Also, I will find those weapon stances, put some points in which ever is the defense based one and swap back to sword and board. Going to try and toughen him up all I can. Once I can get the warrior to, you know, actually freekin' tank stuff as if he isnt wearing paper armor lol, then I can actually start enjoying the game. My slacking on the AA knowledge/usage combined with maybe needing to farm some free to play augs to put in his armor would help a lot I think. Thank you all again for being so helpful, awesome community here for sure.
