How to return to higher lvl toon after very long break?

I have a Rogue up to 94 I grinded 2-3 years ago, but had to to stop playing.
I logged back in yesterday and was greeted by a mess of text based hotbars and far more combat actions that I can remember. I'll be honest, it's little overwhelming.
Even when I was playing the class I still had no idea what skills were prioritized in a rotation since many shared CDs.
Is there any kind of guide on Rogues skill/AA set-up for higher levels?
Short of starting over and learning again as I level and regain the abilities, I dunno what to do.
Main reason I rolled rogue is to have the freedom to explore zones and hunt rares. But found it very difficult to molo with after 80.
Perhaps there is another class I should start fresh with and relearn that way? Open to suggestions.

[quote="Foxpaws Dragonlover,
Perhaps there is another class I should start fresh with and relearn that way? Open to suggestions.[/quote]

Absolutely, necro all the way.

Beastlord, necro, mage.

Could add a bard if you get bored with having only one character.

It will take a long time to get back to 94 starting over again.

People are probably going to suggest you start learning how to box.
I suggest boxing UI it got shut down real quick, this game vast majority of people 95+ are boxers. In TLP they open boxing at certain level because even the developers know, after certain level, its a boxing game from here on.

Live server is ghost town 1-110 and 90-115 that's hell for solo/molo. Even with overseer. Which is something else people suggest. It takes awhile to level. Like a couple months to go from 90 to 115 doing overseer.

My recommendation is if you are looking comeback to the game play TLP. Play Yelinak if you cannot wait for the new TLP coming out next month.

Absolutely, necro all the way.[/quote]

Necros are a good pick, good at solo, raids, dps check content.

Time to level itself isn't a giant concern, as compared to the absolute grind of my painful days of Kunark through POP, the game has changed a ton.
I've been messing around on FV cause the loot system feels a lot more like the old days of open market loot. And recently read it has a server wise XP boost? Though I dont know if that is still true.

I have no idea how people box this game, especially when classes like rogues have a crap ton of skills to juggle through. I dont know if I have the mental bandwidth to be messing with multi-toon boxing.

necros do seem to be a common suggestion. I know they've been good soloist forever, I just wasn't sure how well they can manage dungeon exploration and such. There's like 20+ expansions of content I want to poke around in without getting my face ripped off.
Shame SHM isn't as well loved for Molo. They sound fun these days with good slows and werewolf'ing.

Necro has invisibility to live and undead mobs and has feign death so doesn't have to die to a bad pull. Shaman is more vulnerable for 1/3 the dps capability. If I were to play JUST one character and no alts, Necro can do the most with the least and is VERY survivable when things go badly. The only real vulnerability is summoning mobs your pet cannot tank, nor can you. Friendlist a tank. join a guild and or run a box account or two. Myself, prersonally, I just roll alts on at least 2 other accounts, even if they're free to plays for- buffs, utlity, storage. Fellowhips are a massive convenience. Being able to 3 box = group missions completions in conent few people play in anymore

Join the rogue channel and general channel ask questions, tell them you are returning, there are a lot of helpful players on the servers who will likely give you some help if you ask for it.

Pet classes are overpowered when it comes to being able to tank. That's why you see suggestions saying reroll as a mage or necro.

If you want to solo. Go mage or necro.

Rogues are fun to run around with exploring zones but you aren't going to be able to solo even con content with out extremely good gear and skill. They have very good DPS for a melee but you have no good damage mitigation.

With the DoT changes shamans can lay out some nice DPS and as long as you are quick you can still solo some stuff as long as its rootable, otherwise same problem as your rogue.

Another option would be to go shadow knight. They have several damage mitigation tools and between their epic and life taps can keep themselves going fairly well.

All of the classes have a TON of abilities. If you start a new character you'll grow into them. If you decide you want to pick up on the rogue then I'd suggest the following:

Learn how to setup your spells/abilities to cast from a single key binding.



After that you need to figure out WHAT buttons to mash. As you've seen there are a lot and they are on different timers. I would ask here or in the class forums if anyone has a write for ~ level 100 rogue. Failing that I would read though http://forums.eqfreelance.net/

You might find some good information from the TLP forums as well.

Good luck and welcome back.

Thank you for the info.
Poking about I've read that Druid can have the same issue as Shm. Great solo, assuming you can root stuff. But if they are unrootable or summon, it can be a bad time. I'm a little surprised Druid/Shm never went on to be full pet classes in later expansions, but thems the breaks. It's funny I never heard about Encanter as soloist. Once upon a time they did great with charming big nasties to pet-tank for them. And poor Wizards... forever alone, haha.

Hmm, not exactly. Group-level EM is not that impressive. Only with raid-level EM pets become good tanks, good enough to tank mission bosses. Yes, for a pet class character just 1 raid item makes all the difference, but it is a raid item nontheless.
5 out of 6 mages in my team have raid earrings and are an all-around tank/dps package. 1 mage still has a group EM ear and can do dps and can only occasionally off-tank an add for some duration with other-than-earth pet. The difference is noticable.
Anyway, a pet class character can definitely molo into the top level.

Shaman DPS is much better than you give them credit for. Not great but not 1/3 of a necro.

Dont underestimate what a Shammy and Tank merc can do though. It is a very powerful combo once you can actually get gear and AA on the merc.

Necros are great. If you actually plan on boxing though i would argue shammy over Necro.

Also, in the modern game necro pets tank pretty good. All pets are OP ~95+. Even chanter pets can do some tanking these days. Its not as good as mage and beastlords but its not as far off as people seem to think.

Sorry, what is EM? I'm not familiar with the abbreviation.
As for Pet classes, that's concidered only Necro, Bst, Mage, correct?

EM = Enhanced Minion, a focus effect on an earring, which improves the pet. Makes it bigger, better, stronger, faster, higher GPA, better income, larger house, faster car ... (I deviated).
Raid earrings have higher level EM on them and pet boost is significanly stronger than group-level earrings.
Yes, pet classes are NEC, BST, MAG, and those EM earrings are only wearable by those classes. In fact, EM Focus effect itself is limited to those classes only. There are a few items in EQ with EM effect, which is usable by other classes with pets (chanters, shamans, SKs) but those have no actual effects on those pets.

also 90+ is FM friendly Getting 94-120 cos you're in a current group works fine and- whatever rotation you learn along the way, then change a bit and relearn and so on doesn't stop until max anyway, so new level 1 vs new level 94 as far as relearning muscle memory and proper rots.

EM is enhanced minion, which increases a pet's power by a flat percentage upon summoning. expressed as EM ## (roman numeral) by rank.

As mentioned above, ear is typical, but other slots happen (as well as augmentations). They do not stack, highest # wins.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=65902

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=54393

There are mage summoned items that do this as well, such as

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=72353 there are higher ranks of these, oft times in the bazaar / guild banks / ask in general chat.


Check here for more info: https://www.paullynch.org/eqguide/guides/pet-focuses/


also- the NPCs in Plane of Knowledge who sell Defiant non graphiced items, near the tutorial NPC / Loyalty merchant and Crescent Reach stone offer Summoner's earrings beginning at I think Intricate? at 48 iirc just for plat.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=100567

All/All

It took me some time to get it. It went to my enchanter of a proper level and ... nothing, summoned pet was not affected. That was some disappointment.

This stands out.

Crowd control or some way of NOT dying when you get 6 adds makes a MUCH better experience. a SHD with a cleric merc is very durable and can FD out, let the merc die, then when aggro drops, reset before respawns and not have to abandom camp or crawl position. Necro excel for this by way of the same mechanics. They also can invis undead AND vs live mobs.

Mages not so much.

Monks are quite doable as well. If you are solo / molo without crowd conrol spells or evacuation ability, it's die or pretend to be dead.

also - not mentioned anywhere I've ever seen....

The requirements for an alt box cleric to attain the once once day AA ability "Divine Resurrection" which restores 100% of lost XP and full health and mana is... level 59 and with a temp, Harnessing of Spirit and a damage shield, can be soloed in a day.

on as many free to play accounts as you want, even 5 at a time.

There is also no more summoning stone for Plat sink nonsense.

Death is easily overcome, so play what you LIKE playing.

also Legacy Veteran Rewards, once unlocked on a character's birthday once per year are now QOL (Quality of Life) granted at level 1. You get a freebie rez all your corpses once a week as week as well. https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/spell.html?spell=6883

Druid WTB EM XXIII for Boo Boo PST w/ price.


and yeah, the A/A to equip is cheesy unless they had added a nonlike other focus. It's sole focus effect is normalized EM classes.

Every single class in the game has a FD or some kind of escape ability these days. Mage one sucks at 10 minute recast but they can still bail on a bad pull.

What? Mage has IVU...

you selected ONE part of it.

good luck with the FD

I also said pots work fine earlier.

Still does squat for crowd control on a bad pull.

Geez, kids these days.
;p


FD s clearly superior.