Importance of Heroic AAs (Progression)

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Gio-Cefalu, Mar 2, 2020.

  1. Gio-Cefalu Augur

    I have a max level SK with T3 TOV gear and nearly maxed out AAs (48K). I 3 box including a shaman and mage. I use a healer merc and 2 melee DPS mercs, with the shaman acting as backup heals.

    I have never been a big fan of the progression tasks as I prefer the old-school feel of running around, grouping in an area with friends and killing for drops, so I have completed very little progression historically, and also because I was gone for many expansions. Additionally, I have been frustrated with progression several times because of bugs. I was working on the DON raids which first required a faction grind, and every time I would log back in, my faction would reset, so I would lose hours worth of work, and eventually frustrated me enough last year that I just quit the game for a while. Customer Service was of little help and told me to report it with /bug, and that was the last I ever heard of it.

    I have been struggling with the current missions when someone from my guild mentioned I should go do all the old progression. He stated that a friend of his added up the benefits of all of the progression AAs, which would add ~400K in HPs to a current tank. With all of my current self buffs, shaman buffs, merc buffs, etc. I am barely hitting 364K HPs. I was blown away that progression AAs would actually add enough to double my buffed HP levels.

    1. Do progression AAs really make this much of a difference (not just in HPs), or is this an exaggerated figure?
    2. Is current group content difficulty designed with the assumption that players have completed all prior progression up to this expansion?
    3. If I'm going to back-fill all that progression, where should I start? One person told me I should start with COTF (ignoring anything before it) because that's when the benefit becomes significant enough to warrant the time to finish it.

    Thanks.
  2. Riou EQResource

    Extremely exaggerated figure, though every bit adds up, it's more like 4k effective hp (2k above, 2k below 0 HP) for the Vitality line

    Fortitude is AC and Atk

    Resolution is stats + stats cap + hp/mana/end regen + their regen cap

    CotF+ is when it really starts, and finish DoN, if you want to bypass most of DoN you could claim a heroic character on the toon (there is a free one coming for anniversary in like 2 weeks per account)
  3. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    You don't have to start in CotF you can work backwards from ToV. Bug they are correct you don't need to do anything prior other than DoN progerrion and maybe trials from MPG.

    I tend to level last up by doing Progression in each expansion. It may not be huge amounts but every little helps.
  4. Qbert Gallifreyan

    The exaggeration likely stems from someone misunderstanding the aa descriptions. The descriptions are cumulative for current/next ranks as you read them, which bleeds over into the task reward as well. So for example, if it says you'll gain 1400 hp from the next level, you probably had 1350 already and it truth it is +50, not +1400 more.
    Gundolin likes this.
  5. Gio-Cefalu Augur

    I knew a Heroic toon would give you the MPG trials automatically, but I didn't know you also got all the DON progression, so a heroic character is going to also give me 1% spell resistance from DON?

    Thanks for the other responses as well. Qbert, I bet you are correct on the person misunderstanding the effect of each round of AAs; that makes perfect sense.
  6. Hellowhatsyourname Augur


    More important than the 1% resistance is the 2% (or whatever it is) innate crit chance you get. +dps!!!
  7. Gio-Cefalu Augur

    Any ideas if adding the heroic boost to my existing character is going to jack up all my hotbars or set anything else to default values?
  8. Riou EQResource


    Well a Heroic toon just has to kill vishimtar and turn in that drop to get everything from DoN progression iirc, but any Heroic should be able to solo this, the hard part is getting 6 toons to request the raid if you're solo
    Quatr likes this.
  9. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Just say no when you do it to changing hot keys/spells and you will be fine. Did it on an alt a while ago.
    Gio-Cefalu likes this.
  10. enclee Augur

    I would say it’s not worth it, if you don’t find it fun. There’s probably something in your play style that will have a much larger impact, maybe you’re mistiming an ability or forgetting something.
    Tucoh likes this.
  11. Gio-Cefalu Augur

    I already killed him and some of the other raid targets a while ago, but it was the faction and build up to that event that I was catching up on. I think I have the drop from Vishimtar still, so I'll just add the heroic to my character, double check that I have the drop, and do the turn in if that's all that's required. Many thanks.
    Yinla likes this.
  12. Cadira Augur

    One thing to note. The don aas are all amazing, but the hp bump (third don aa maybe?) in particular is especially nice as it is actually a % based increase (maybe 3%?) Exactly like natural durability aa. So it adds thousands of hp to a current day toon.

    The fourth is the crit increase chance to all things that can crit, very important and nice to have too.
    Jhenna_BB likes this.
  13. Tucoh Augur

    The DoN stuff is legit, but it's best not to think too hard about how much of an impact the heroic AAs have. Do them if you want to, but don't expect to spend a few months grinding them out and then notice much of a difference. Same with the alaris tear.
  14. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    Heroic aa lines are better than nothing, but not near as important as some make them out to be. But no reason to not blow through cotf/tbm as they are extremely easy.
    Quatr likes this.
  15. BadPallyGuildLeader Augur

    I think the most relevant piece of this dialogue is the fact that alot of stuff is still bugged. The fact is that alot don't like the task system or progression because it's hidden behind (literally) ????? in the task system. Instead of a straight forward system for questing and tasks that you see in every other MMO, you get something that requires third party site research, calls to 1-900-DUDZORS tip lines, etc etc.
  16. Mintalie Augur

    Hmm. This thread is interesting! I did not know that heroics included previous progression to some extent.

    I've done DoN and MPG, but I started playing in Serpent's Spine and took a break during part of TBM and returned just before TBL.

    Is there anything of note besides DoN and MPG that a heroic character receives that might benefit my character? I'm max level, max AAs, and finished everything in ToV already, except the raid achievements and, obviously, T3 raids.
  17. Szilent Augur

    there's a low level fire proc aug, if you felt like making a fire-procs-only weapon.

    otherwise no.
    Mintalie likes this.
  18. Bigstomp Augur

    Nothing makes a big difference.

    Everything makes a small difference that adds up.

    A whole bunch of small differences add up to a big difference.
    Quatr, Yinla and Duder like this.
  19. Ted the Mechanic Journeyman

    Not to take away from what anyone above has said; it's all min/max when you look at it, but the biggest benefit to heroic AA is that they raise the cap on the stats, which means if you want to roll around in best in slot gear/raid gear and get all the stats from it; you'll want these. Especially If you magelo.
    To answer your main question: more and more content in current expansions is dependant ( but not necessarily reliant) on previous progression. See Artisan's Prize, ToV tradeskill earring, evolving TBL items, RoS sarnak resistance AA for example. None of these are requisite, but add them to your list and the difference gets bigger and bigger. I expect the trend to continue
  20. Chorus Augur

    I don't much care about the HP, but the mana regen caps are like 2 per, and right now that would put me 60 mana regen/tick behind. I consider the relevant on a bard with our limited mana regen scheme. So I'm grinding through them now to fix it.
    Yinla likes this.