Ok if you wanted to level from 1-105 *without powerleveling or grouping with higher level characters* Just a pure speed run. 1. What class would you pick? 2. Solo? or group (&what would be your choice for fastest composition) 3. How long do you think it would take you? And what special strategies would you use? like, is bard swarm kiting still a thing? etc.
If you did a speed run with bard charm kiting, you would probably get arthritis. First charm you would use for kiting is at 18 or 27 I believe. But if you did nothing but charm kite from there on, chances are you would regret it. For a speed run, I would say, find 5 other people that want to do the same run. Create the perfect group, and power through. Maybe in that group, include a ranger and sk to do headshotting/swarming or something. Even if it were on a small scale, that's a considerable chunk of xp... If you do it solo, go necro
Same type post in the Veterans Forum called "leveling alts" although it refers to pl it can be used solo. Plus I think it is so fast to level now that any class/combo is capable of getting to 105 within a few days.
If I were to do a speed run without being pl'd, (I'm going to leave twinks out as well for this instance), I would choose a necro, solo since it's better xp per kill and only group when I get bored of soloing. At the low end you will have a little downtime after a few kills, but with the new ooc regen system it's barely noticeable. Necs can solo or duo with a merc almost any named in every expansion with the exception of eok, so gearing up is not too difficult once you have over 1k + aa's. In today's world of eq, you even get an experience bonus of up to 5k aa's or so I believe. That means from 0 up to 5k aa's you get an experience bonus making it easier to gain even more aa's per kill than in the past. This plus the newly implemented regen system means that there is very little downtime when soloing with any class, let alone a nec. Tbh once you hit 800-1000 aa's plus at level 90, the downtime becomes less and less as you max your dot dps aa's. They even get a few mana regen tools which work both in and out of combat (death bloom and lich) to raise their mana regen and lessen downtime between kills. Tbh I would rather not start all over at any level with a new toon, whether it be level one or an 85 heroic toon, but of I did it would surely be a necro. Most other classes need to be pl'd or twinked to be able to duo most mobs using a merc, let alone solo. While a nec can benefit from both of those as well, they simply don't need them to be able to solo at low or high end. Not saying that necs are the best class in game, but from what I've seen they certainly are the best solo class in game. You don't have to wait hours on end lfg just to be able to get a few kills, you can simply go out and solo whenever you wish. Once you learn the tricks of the trade of the class and claw your way to the end game, it simply gets better and easier to kill, solo or group from there. Necs have several tools for pulling, kiting, root rotting etc meaning they can solo basically at any spot in the game, even some spots where mobs summon in a few instances when you get good enough to do so. All of this means that when you are lfg, the more and more you learn your class, the more and more people will want to group with you, making it easier to group and usually more fun when you do so. From there you can choose if you wish to raid full time or not, or if that's not your thing you certainly are welcome to the open raids any time. When you win a piece of loot from raids or a spell, it further improves your dps, making it easier to solo, have less downtime between killing more mobs and also causes more people to want to group with you in the off-time raiding hours as well. Sorry for the long post. I'm just waiting for the devs to give us our promised dot revamp if and when they get to it because necs will truly be insane dps for a bit until other classes complain and they nerf us again. I'm hoping I don't miss the part of the game where I can hit number one on the raid and group parses again, that is if I even get back into raiding or simply playing eq again. In the end I will add that some melee classes can clear entire zones in a single pull at the high end, but so can some casters, and they usually need a merc to do it with, lowering the amount of xp they would get. Tbh that's mostly for pl'ing other toons or gaining tradeskill items in order to maximize your tradeskills and earn the artisan's prize, which is pretty much the best aug in game currently. Even though necs can't clear an entire zone in one pull, they can still kill more mobs at the high end at once than any other class besides a few skilled classes and players from what I've seen, and they don't need a merc to do it, meaning more xp for them. So again all and all if I were to start all over my choice would definitely be a new to solo from 1 to 105. Even in todays era of eq with off of the bonuses we get, realistically its going to take you more than a few days to hit 105. The exact time depends on how skilled you become at your class, how good it is at soloing, how much time you have to play and what you are able to do with that time.
Also: "That means from 0 up to 5k aa's you get an experience bonus making it easier to gain even more aa's per kill than in the past." If not all-access, can only go to 1000 AAs. If all-access, you get auto-grant AAs up to ~9500 AAs, depending on class. So, the accelerated AA XP (which does still exist) means a lot less than it used to.
All you do is play the game 4+ hours a day doing hotzones and dailies at first until 75. Then focus on HAs from TDS, TBM and EOK (if you have it) and you can also do progression for COTF to EOK while getting great experience and rewards such as augs, gear, AAs, titles and clickies etc. EQ is not the same difficult time consuming game it used to be in 1999-2001.
4+ hours a day isn't time consuming?!? Back in '99 when I was 20-something for sure (I remember several 24+ hour stints in HHK back in the day). I have a life and a family now, let alone other games & hobbies pulling on my free time - 4 hours a week is a good week for me! Luckily I enjoy the ride and am more than happy to have done 1-65 twice with 2 groups in the last few months
Don't forget to use that tank merc till level 50-60 that will pretty much do your fighting for you. Or a double experience weekend. Exp potions.
With the rework of Headshot, making it so you can HS mobs just 1 level below you, and Endless Quiver available at 59, (where a tank merc will run you to 60 in no time)...a ranger wouldn't be a bad idea either. Granted. Headshot doesn't proc near what it used to back in the day, but it's still viable. And with all their tools and utility and all their fun stuff, they can do good dps and have high survivability. May not be able to Solo a namer like a Necro can, but you also really don't need to either
I don't know.. leveling a ranger now with a j1 wizard merc... that dude destroys everything in his path. I feel like so far (35) the wizard merc has blown the tank merc out of the water.
I haven't played the low level game in ages, but I've heard more than once that the wizzy merc tanks almost as well as the tank merc, while obviously doing more DPS. Many folks just roll with that now.
You've likely avoided the zones which would one shot the wiz when he got aggro. Also, how many mobs are you pulling at once? Plus, consider the fact that you're All Access and using a J1 version rather than the A2 (highest available to F2P) or the A5 (highest available to Silver; the latter two only do not offer AE Burn as a stance option. Also, apprentice mercs can run away. If they stick to the low level or old world zones then yes, but once you get into the more current zones their squishiness becomes apparent. Also in doing that they are missing out on higher ZEMs. I also suspect that it actually requires one to pay attention to the wizzy merc's hp regularly to where that really isn't the case usually with the tank merc. Those people also are generally using the Journeyman tier merc and its Burn or Burn AE options, where those stuck with Apprentice tier can only do Balanced, so they will only attack a single mob at a time and really only can hold aggro on one. Apprentice Tank mercs can hold aggro on multiple mobs even though they will only DPS on one.
If I created a 6box team to get to 105 the quickest I'd probably do something really simple that requires minimal setup and spell/item gathering as I level. Maybe a shaman that just spams whatever top ranks of group healing he has, a bard mostly for selo's and mana, and 4 mages that I can just equip with a few spell types (pet, a couple DDs/AEs, and remorseless servant). This setup should be able to totally ignore gear (except for maybe pet focus earrings) and still cut through content quickly. I'd probably set it up such that mage 1 always targeted #1 on the ETW, mage 2 always targeted #2 etc, that way as long as I pulled 4 mobs or fewer I'd always have a dedicated pet on the mob. I should be able to tear through a zone, get 5-10 levels, do minimal prep work and head to the next zone. Any deaths of the tank pets would be quickly recovered from, I'd have to spend minimal effort changing my setup as I level and sustained DPS would be fairly high. The other option would be to build a proper AE group that probably revolves around 3 wizards, a dedicated tank, dedicated healer (druid probably) and a bard (again for selo's). I'd have to worry about gearing the tank, and spend more effort setting him up with whatever AE aggro he'd get at each level, but you might get better results especially once you got good at mass pulling -> deflection/fort/whatever invuln shielding->AE destruction. I just think that from a pure grinding perspective you'd spend a lot of time learning/prepping for too little reward. I think the setups using mercs would out-pace my team in the first ~45 levels, but would get overtaken by level ~80 when their DPS drops. I'd love to see a Quarm-like server that had people level from 1 to try out the above.
Hence my comment about the low level game. I thought the context showed we were talking about levels 1-60.
Doubt it. The people you see all the time are those who do so, but that's not "most people", it's "most people who do play a lot". I'd imagine the vast majority play 1-2 times a week. And another large group who plays less than that, in this age of F2P.
I'm playing a board from heroic star and am now lvl 87. I have been doing some quests in the bixie warfront instances. I basically get no xp for any of the kills, but once I finish the instance quest, I get about 18% of my lvl. The instance quest are taking me about 1.5-2 hours to complete. I think I need to try some xp potions but I'm not sure how much those cost. I want to get to 105 so I can start grouping and making more friends. I tried to talk to the adventure guy but I guess I don't have that expansion yet. Honestly I want to try and do some of the other hotzone quest but I spent like an hour trying to figure out how to get to the damn bloodfields and basically I can't figure out how to get to the plane of time lol. If anyone can give me some advice or help that would be great. Also I'm more in the 10 hour a week range at this point. Thanks.
