Not sure what you're talking about... but the aug vendors are in Plane of Health just outside that temple thingy at ZI. https://tbm.eqresource.com/pohealthgroupvendor.php Is the guy that is supposed to give you stat gear... and requires flagging above and beyond Into the Temple (B). He's with the aug vendors.
T1 Group gear...its in PoT (https://tbm.eqresource.com/groupt1vendor.php) T2 Group gear, PoH (https://tbm.eqresource.com/pohealthgroupvendor.php) T3 Dropped: Crypt-hunter, etc. Augs are in Plane of Health.
Ok... didn't even realize there was a level below the one in Health. Thanks for the info. If I have this right, Tier 2 visibles are from that vendor in health... I don't see any non-visibles listed. The Tier 2 non-visibles you get in chests at the end of the early missions. I don't think I've ever seen a visible item in a TBM chest. As it happens, the first chest I opened on this server(at the end of Into the Temple B) had the 1hs Broadsword of the Stranger in it... and that's significantly better than the T1 variant Armsman's Sword sold in Tranq. I've also gotten a charm and shoulder in drop.
I was just going to comment on your comparing EQ to WOW. EQ was made for grouping in mind and end game was an after thought. WoW was made with people who liked the end game of EQ. So they made WoW so you could get there fast. People come back from WoW and forget what EQ was about.
WoW was made for everyone. Hence why the levelling process is streamlined and the game is well-designed and simplified, while appealing to like 10-15 times as many people. I liken EQ to a very big combination lock puzzle, where all obvious means of opening it don't work, and instead you have to learn obtuse methods of insider information that don't really make sense(well gosh... there is that vendor there... or a completely different random one not even in the same zone), in order for it to open. Trust me.. I love EQ to bits, but it is what it is.
To summarize the thread for the OP. The combination lock opens like this. 1-70: You have this covered, right? I don't think anyone has trouble getting there in the current game. 70: Go buy level 70 TBM T1 gear with RoT(Remnant of Tranquility) currency from the Bazaar. You should be ok to get 75. 75: Get your mirror(initial TBM quests) from TBM by any means necessary(I did this in two-box with some serious hijinks, so three-box should be easy breezy, but you'd better know your **** or it'll take a while). This will open the aug vendors. Buy the augs with RoT for the gear you bought @70. This will give you the heroics, HEM, and damage for... 75-100: You can now pave over this while you hear the lamentations of their women. Simply pick which expansion of that level range you want to destroy. Suggested is to keep doing HA's from TBM along with the progression and you'll get better gear while you do it. Level 100: You can catch a set of Conflagrant at 106. I highly suggest you learn how to DPS a class. And by DPS I mean start to reach the far extents of what one can do, not simply attack or cast. If you think that the levelling is obtuse, you practically need a wiring schematic for a dynamo to really get some classes setup to DPS proper... particularly if 3-boxing.
While I understand people's desire to get to end game as quickly as possible, I prefer not to use auto grant for AAs. In the past, every time I used auto grant, I ended up not truly knowing what I had and understanding when and why to use it. This time around, I am gaining my AAs the hard way. I am leveling a 77 SK, 76 Enc, and 76 Mage right now on FV, and I'm at about 500ish AAs so far. I'm honestly enjoying the game much more this time around than all the times I just auto-granted, and I feel like I know my classes a lot better.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. I have a bunch of 110s and I really don't know how to get the most out of them because I was worried about the leveling first. I really wish their was a repository of 110 guides that showed the AAs as well as spells/disc needed to get the most out of a toon. I spend a awful lot of time digging through a bunch of threads here and elsewhere trying to study up.
Everyone is always recommending TBM for new, undergeared players. In my experience, coming back after a long break and leveling new heroic characters, the TBM path simply sucked. Unlocking the vendor was impossible and I finally had to get a few raid geared friends to drag me through. Then, earning remnants turned into a huge time-sink, and the TBM HA's scaled horribly. Any named you finally spawned usually didn't scale down at all and would result in a TPK. I spent probably two or three man days of my time beating my head against that wall. It was frustrating and I simply can't recommend it. Instead, I used marks of valor from the dead hill's missions to buy CotF armor while doing Teek quests. Saved up my plat and bought castaway armor for my main as I moved into TDS. As soon as I could, I moved to EoK and starting acquiring gear. Once I was fully EoK geared, I went back to TBM and earned remnants.
You certainly do not need raid geared friends to do Temple B. You need 2-3 people (or boxing, defiant gear is fine) that are the same level based on how it scales. And CC, Paci, or some alternative and you can single pull everything. Tank Merc and healer Merc at 75 can handle it...it’s just slow, but you only have to do it once. For grinding CoTF HA are much easier, but valor gear isn’t near as good, but with Temple B giving 1500+ tranquility for 110 characters the price of tranquility in bazaar is generally cheap. So I agree, it’s not that great to farm, but it’s the easiest gear you can buy. If you only want gear you can farm yourself, then the valor path is better. But if you have/farm a couple 100k then TBM gear is better.
I did it with Warrior/Shaman, and didn't realize the second piece was a ground-spawn(#facepalm) behind the platform so ended up killing like 80% of the zone. On 3-pulls, i'd put the shaman at ZI, pull to there, VP a mob on the way in, and zone out both characters. Then zone back in to single mob. Ghetto splits, but it worked. After I got key items, I've been taking a buy as I go approach rather than dumping a large chunk of change /shrug. But then, i'm actively avoiding having to buy Krono unless absolutely necessary. Either way, its good xp to get levels with and the drops are better so /shrug. I can also see tangible returns as I get geared up.
I think you and Risiko, while bringing up a valid issue, are taking the wrong approach to things. There IS a place to go to get a good review of AAs: http://www.raidloot.com/AA.aspx You can get a totally comprehensive review of all the AAs there, for every class. You can learn all you need to, without the drudgery of XPing to get them all. Honestly, if there was no auto-grant, I'd never start a new char in EQ. Learning what the AAs do != XPing to get the AAs In-game, there's a very easy way to make sure you have the active AAs covered. There's a drop-down in the AA window to just show "activatable" AAs. Then, you can make sure you have a hotkey for all of them.
I should have been clearer. I am talking about putting it all together to make the toon effective. Unfortunately, just reading AA and spell descriptions will not get a person there without a lot of experimentation.
Hence the need? for a Heroic Gloomingdeep* that you could zone into @ 85 that teaches you how to play that class at 85-100 (make those 15 levels come easy in this new tutorial). *I wouldn't make it Gloomingdeep though... this is a case where a brand new zone could be a worthwhile investment.
In-game, class-specific, heroic+ level tutorials would be cool to see. I think that is something that would have benefited this game long ago. They'd help both returning players, players new to a class, and players that simply don't understand the possibilities of their class. The developers would need to rely on the knowledge of players to help make them worthwhile imo. The only problem would be the resources required to make them and any future maintenance needed to keep them up to date as changes are made (e.g. AA consolidation). It'd take a lot of planning and testing.
^Yeah it's probably completely unrealistic to hope for. They would make more money making Heroics level 105 which would be less work to do anyways. --which basically solves the issue if it is an issue to a person, but doesn't stop you doing the long way on your own either.
It got a lot of crap but when WoW implemented "The Proving Grounds" and instanced zone that gave allowed you to work a character through challenges required by their class (DPS, Tank, Heal, etc.) and then made it a requirement for the player base if they wanted to do pug dungeons (not applicable to EQ because we don't have random dungeon finder). The base idea was genius this sandboxed environment were you could teach players how their characters work and allow them to reach a certain level of competency before throwing them to the wolves.
Pretty much the key take away is this. If you expect to level past 75-ish and not gear up at that point either through CoTF or TBM, you're gonna get owned or its going to be a very slow tedious process. I'm about halfway geared into TBM(the good half, if you're working a tank it'll come down to Imp Dodge/Parry V, 8% to dodge, Fero/Cleave, and a metric ton of hAGI to close the gap on mobs higher level) and I went to KW to work the J5 merc and had a fun time of it. I wasn't annihilating the mobs, but they were dropping decent. Korascian Prime was level 88 and he went down very easy(just over a minute, 67 seconds.. and the mob can hit for 6K). Most stuff is single-pullable there, so it was just butter.. a lot more fun then having to split most stuff in a HA. At 82(War) and 81(Shm), I think I have enough deeps for Last Stand, but ran out of time so didn't finish the last two quests to request it. I nail the J5 mercs, and then i'll be cooking with gas. Either way... hope this thread helps out people who have gotten stuck or whatever. It can be done, you just can't expect to simply go somewhere and xp, you have to use the means provided to gear and transition into it.
