I started on Agnarr at launch, made a Paladin, and enjoyed that first week of grouping and chaos. At the time I was still playing on a live server, and so I neglected Agnarr and fell behind. During VeIious I came back and solo'd to 35. Around that time I realized soloing was really slow, so I subbed a second account and made a Bard, soloing her to 23 before life got in the way and took me away from EQ. Just shy of two years later, I'm back with both accounts subbed. Solo'd the Bard a few more levels and then grouped her with the Paladin. They are now 39 (Paladin) and 35 (Bard), and in one more level I'll be taking them to Lower Guk to screw around and really test the combo out. The plan is to eventually hit 65 with AA's and such, and use the duo to try hard things. I'm curious, from others who've spent more time in these expansions and on TLP's in these eras, what kind of targets I should be looking at. What is feasible? What is not? My initial thought was the Kael Arena for Thurgadin quest armor, but after some thought, that armor might be lower than what I'd have from the bazaar and Luclin/PoP drops on the way up. Still it's kind of a starting point. As I understand it, things like Nagafen and Vox can be done in AoC instances without the level restrictions. Is that true? If so, I know they will have MoTM, but are they still feasible targets for a duo, especially with the tank being the healer? Ideally I will eventually hook up with a guild and have more options to try hard things, but sometimes when it's just me online, I want something to try. I'm not likely to do much raiding, if any, so I'd be group/bazaar geared for this. What are some targets I should start looking at? How tough would you expect them to be?
Heya, so yes Naggy/Vox can be done in instance without level restrictions. They will have MOTM. You won't be able to do any real raid targets as a duo if you're just planning on having group/bazaar gear. You may be able to duo Phinigel but that's probably it. I'd say as a duo you can do pretty much any group content outside of elemental planes. Cazic Thule is a pretty cool place that has nice drops. I think breaking POFEAR as a duo could be a fun challenge. Kael arena as you mentioned. Possibly some pre elemental planar camps. I know you mentioned not doing much raiding, but I'd challenge that assertion a bit. Raiding is not very time consuming at all. For example, my guild clears POTIME in its entirety in under 2 hours. We raid less than 5 hours per week, and do fun/casual raids (VT fridays, Kael saturdays, backflagging every few months), without any minimum raid requirements or anything of the sort. So you can literally pop in whenever you have time, raid, get gear. All loot from phase 1-2 of potime just gets rolled out so you don't even need to spend DKP to gear up your character for the most part. If you start getting raid geared, the content you can duo opens up immensely. For example if you're elemental/time geared you can definitely kill Naggy/Vox. You may be able to get some of the other Kunark dragons too, and elemental group content can open up to you. Anyhow, main point is I definitely wouldn't discount raiding! It's much easier and less time consuming than you likely think.
Thanks Xeris, that does help with setting my expectations. Your description of the raiding experience has piqued my curiosity a bit. My main issues with raiding coming into this were related to time commitments, and required raids and stuff like that. Secondary to that would be things like needing GINA to be able to raid, where as it's not needed in the group game. Not sure if that is important up through the PoP era or not. I did witness last night your guild calling out in General for people to come get flagged from a kill they were about to do. They spent a lot more time asking for people to come than they did actually killing whatever it was, so that certainly supports what you said. I'm going to keep leveling and thinking about this, but considering raiding could certainly open up my options.
You have potentially the lowest dps 2 box combo you could make but you might be able to duo some lower tier planes group trash. Vox might be possible (especially with healing potions) but the thought of going through her HP pool (with her CHs and MoTM1 ) with that amount of dps sounds excruciating.
What kind of person rolls a Paladin and Bard box... ... You can duo comm1-2 and the cleric key dropper on the top floor.
If you're interested in tackling difficult content, you're going to want to raid. Having access to a tank with best in slot or close to BiS gear makes a world of difference.
That combo is going to be rough. I have a bis paladin on agnarr and while it's my preferred tank in this era their dps is god awful and bard isnt much better. But you will have a solid base for a group, even though you said duo. That option will be there.
Good tips, and good point about the DPS. This duo wasn't an intentional creation, although if it had been I would certainly be one to try weird things. Originally I didn't have a side by side Truebox setup. I was soloing my main (cuz the server left me behind), and had a PC in another room I could use. The idea was to add a class that was helpful but could be hands off. The bard is really the only one, other than doing heals and buffs during downtime with another class, but I didn't want to run between rooms. So this started as a Melody/Autofollow bot situation, and developed into a true duo. I have a 64 Bard on a live server that I've had a lot of fun with, running with a tank merc and doing lots of charming, mezzing, and so forth. Eventually I plan to main the Bard and have the Paladin be secondary. Then I can take full advantage of the flexibility of the Bard, and have the Tanking and Healing be more reactionary. Now that I have two PC's side by side it made sense to play the two together. It's been great for killing Frost Giants in Great Divide, and really sped up kills and downtime. Otherwise I'm sure there are plenty of duo's that make more sense, I may even play them at some point. Shaman/Monk, Cleric/Ranger, Enchanter/Mage. But for now this duo is fun, and makes an easy core for a group if I want to add others.
Ya there's definitely no GINA needed for raiding anything on Agnarr. We raid 8-11pm EST, but we're typically done about an hour early because we finish our targets. Last night HOH and Mith Marr took maybe 40 mins total. And ya like I said, we realize that the server is very casual so we have 0 raid requirements. Show up and raid if you want... Or don't raid if you want. Plenty of people do xp/grouping/questing. Agnarr's fun for this you can play as casually as you want and slowly make your way to BIS
Im not trolling you with this post, but im going to be cliche ..........roll mage/mage.....you will get them up to your other toons real fast, and than you can play pal/mag or bard/mage or hell stay with mag/mag. Im doing it right now on Agnaar in the Mando guild playing perma death rules and im having a blast with these 2 toons. You only need a pet assist key, a nuke key and a auto-follow key and your a boss. There is no pet nerf on Agnaar so the pets can take some hits and do a lot of dps. It will only take you a day off to catch back up or maybe a few evenings if you only play a couple hours at a time. You will have a great farming combo or you can add it to either bard or pally however you see fit.
That makes sense, and if I was most concerned with which endgame targets I could tackle, that would be the advice I would follow. But I wasn't kidding when I said I would be the one to try weird things, and knowing this character combo is challenging or limiting actually makes me want to play it more. Down the road, once I start hitting roadblocks, I may reconsider the options. In all my time in EQ I've never played a Paladin past level 10, so I really wanted to do that here. The Bard brings all the other tools that give this duo real versatility. DPS is the main thing it lacks, and Healing may be a bit dodgy, but it's been fun to play so far. Will probably hit Lower Guk this morning so maybe my opinion will change quickly if I screw it up real bad.
mage/mage is great for group content but you can't do any raid targets with that. motm doesn't let pet tanks on raid mobs so the mages will get eaten quickly.
Mage/Mage will have a tough spot IMHO. From ~level 49-60 there will be just about no way to finish the Epic so there will be no level appropriate Pet Focus items available. Before I bailed on Agnaar, I was running a Druid up on my second account which would be strong enough. I think a Cleric would have worked well too except for lack of extra DPS. Mage/Mage just doesn't have enough buffs and healing to be viable w/o Pet Focus or one hell of a buff monkey.
Im not worried about epics but I agree with the level 60 content. Pre 60 though there is no real reason for healing. You just recast pets if needed, mages can bind wound each other while medding , while pets are killing. As it has been mention before though this would not be a good raid set up, so for leveling and farming mage/ mage is very powerful. Epic pets though is not needed and not worth the time imho. 61 air pet is just fine.
A few questions for anybody that might know. Do mana drain spells have any effect on bosses like Vox? Like if I mana drain her will she stop casting complete heal? Can you multiquest the Thurgadin armor? If I go to the Kael Arena with 2 plate classes and other pieces drop, can I loot them and them with my alts? I saw some comments on Allakhazam that would make me think otherwise, so I wanted to confirm.
https://eqtlp.fandom.com/wiki/Plate_cycle_(Kael) Repeatable cycle of mobs that drop plate frequently.
