Hello, I am a returning playing and have been two-boxing a level 85 heroic warrior and level 85 heroic shaman, which I have been going through the House of Thule expansion and am almost to level 89 on both of them. I have been wanting to add a third-box, a heroic bard but I wanted to get input on whether I should do heroic level 85 or heroic level 100. I thought about switching my path to Heroic Adventures in the Dead Hills and I thought that maybe making the bard a level 100 heroic would overall make these Heroic Adventures too tough for my whole group of 3 as the warrior and shaman would only be level 89. Any thoughts on which level heroic bard to make would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much.
For the $5 difference if your going to spend then go with the 100 Heroic Bard. He will help a ton with buffs stuff. You could also try a couple HA first with your current 2 characters, although I always found the HA from Marla in Tainted Karana to be much easier at the beginning than those in Dead Hills - or just try whichever Teek is offering that day cause he will port you to them.
That is exactly what I was thinking about choosing between 85 and 100, I just thought I read something about the adventures scaling to the highest level so wanted to make sure my tank/warrior (probably undergeared) would not get crushed by the scaling. When it comes to Teek, can I choose the daily, say level 90 quest with each of my toons, including the level 100 so that they all get ported there together?
Franklin Teek gives level specific quests, he doesn't port you. Clayton Teek gives you adventures, these scale to highest level person in your group. Also, yes some of these adventures have mobs that didn't scale (say your in a lvl 85 scaled adventure, the boss didn't scale so lvl 85s fighting a boss that is technically for lvl 100s). Avoid Neriak 4th gate adventures those usually have the mobs that didn't scale. Also, you may not have the language for it which makes it more difficult. Common adventures people grind are the Bixie Warfront ones and Gribbles adventures. 100 with 2 85s the adventure is going to scale to highest level'ed person, so lvl 100 adventures. Its about 20% extra 20% if you have bonus (doesn't matter if lvl 85 is getting lvl 85 adventure reward or lvl 100 adventure reward, same xp is given). So about 20% per hour xp to give you idea vs just killing stuff (adventures are faster for leveling up) Also expect to CC. So if your bard 85 cannot mez 1 lvl 100 mob, 2 85s and a 100 might be a bad idea if the 100 has no CC of its own or pull singles and be safe distance away to avoid wipes from an add you cannot CC. Pretty much with 100 and 2 85s setup, adds are the worst, because they usually go after the weak member and kill them really fast and just tear up your group going after people not the tank.
One option would be to create the Bard at heroic 100 and then de-level him to 89. I believe the heroic slot allows you to delete the character and create a new one at 100 whenever you like. However, you only get the heroic goodies (like plat) the first time. Subsequent creates just give you the equipped character. From what I remember, the HA's start getting pretty challenging in the mid 90's. I would expect the 89's to die pretty quickly in a HA scaled to level 100. Especially if the 89 is the tank. I don't think he could take the beating for very long and the healing wouldn't be able to keep up with the damage he would be taking.
The other alternative is just make him 85 and wait for the bonus exp coming in a about a week so you could use that to help level them all up. But if you go the level 100 you get far more AA and you don't have to wait to 15 levels. Yes, while the HA are supposed to scale but they have messed with it so many times and changed the scaling that its not something to go by. Most of the early changes were to levels Get your port attuning done so you can at least get to them all While this is older, the poster named Picaresques has some good advice https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/help-advice-for-my-first-ha.230201/
Wow, thank you everyone for the insight, it is much appreciated. I had never though of doing the de-leveling idea from 100 to 89. Would that be a long process and it would not screw anything else up with the character? At that point I would probably not even have to delete him to create another heroic character as I would just level up to 100 with the other two toons. I also figured that with a 100 heroic bard I would be able to kill stuff for exp much quicker and therefore the exp would be much quicker than it currently is, obviously not as quick as the heroic adventures, but atleast I would not be doing the same adventure over and over. I would assume I could take upon stuff a little tougher than I currently am, but maybe after I got a few more AC augs for the tank? Currently in the House of Thule lower levels I am getting approximately 10% an hour killing snakes and rotdogs and doing the kill quest (counting that exp in my calculation), and not considering the bonus from Lesson of the Devoted. This did not seem so bad compared to what I was use to grinding exp back in the early days of EQ.
The process of de-leveling is basically binding in a place where you could die repeatedly. You'd need to do it in a city zone so your bard could bind there. Neriak 4th Gate is a option as the guards are level 100 and Clayton Teek can port you there if the daily HA is in that zone. I'm guessing it would take about a minute or two for each level lost. You could also do it by binding in PoK and zoning into Feerrott and dying to something there, but that will take longer because of the extra zoning and running around to find something to kill you. The armor has level restrictions. If you go below the required level, the gear won't count. It looks like the heroic 100 has gear with a required level of 90, so you probably don't want to go below that. He'll have access to the AA abilities according to his actual level. So if he's 90, he'll have the level 90 AA abilities. One thing you didn't mention is if you are using mercs or not. In case you don't know about them, they are NPC helpers you can have join your party and they'll fight or heal for you.
Points to consider what server are you on and do they mass buff with some regularity. Second is that with mercs a 100 Bard can have a 100 tank merc, and if there are mass buffs, anyone at 75 or higher can get the level 120 buffs which will boost your 100s and your 89s significantly. Doing the Clayton tasks for Ethernere the trash cap difficulty at 100, but, you have to have won the first to do the second and the second to do the third, some times the easier is not the first one, of course straight out zone killing if you have a zone or two that you like works. Having a 100 for its skills plus a 100 tank, will make zone grinds go better if you are working where your 89s are not over stressed, increased kill rate and reduced risk would be nice. Also as you have passed 85, you should look into Overseer, it is a sub game of sorts that can add 10% (more when in game Bonuses are on) or so per day. Just go slow read up and maybe watch the Youtube Video to get ideas on how to proceed, building a supply of agents is a big deal before you start converting the low ones into higher ones, as all your starter tasks basically use low agents.
Roll a 100 druid, use it to level the 2x 89's to 100, then delete and reroll the druid as a bard FTW. i habitually keep a couple heroics in original gear just for the flexibility to delete and reroll by class or even server needs.
An option that I haven't seen discussed is to do the level 100 and then not doing the HAs until your Warrior and Shaman are closer to the Bard. So like continue through the HoT expansion, or even go to VoA and level up there. Valley of Lunaryn is great for leveling and farming named from 86-95 for T1 gear. You can do the Partisan and Merc tasks for Valley and Argath. Maybe some of the missions for Valley.
