Extra merc slots are IMO the absolute best thing you can buy with SC. I got 3 extra slots so I can have 1 of each merc type. It makes forming groups so much easier, and is especially useful for keeping a group together as people log & others join. Swapping is free; you only pay for the initial purchase at the liaison. There's a 5 minute swap timer and you can only swap out of combat.
Okay! Now that does sound good. Right now I keep going back and forth to the Liaisons a lot — like I go get a Healer when I first level so I can facetank up my defensive skills, then I go back & get a Tank, etc etc. What's the point of > 4 slots? Just being cheezy? (like dumping an OOM heals / wizard for a full-up one, etc)
That, or if you go Silver or Bronze alot, you may want the extras for the Apprenctice Tier mercs for when you are free to play and not All-Access. The cheesy way prior to multiple merc slots, was to have two people (or a box) with two cleric mercs and alternate their passive / active stances so you always had plenty of mana. Yther Ore.
That's one of the main reasons. The other is to swap between different skins, of which there are quite a few.
Extra merc slots are quite valuable in day to day play. Having the option of putting away a redundant healer or tank for one of the dps variety is super beneficial to groups. You pay maintenance on each of them as their timers count while they're active, there's no additional swapping charge.
I use extra merc slots for redundant healer & nuker merc just so I can swap more readily. There's a 5 min cooldown when you put a merc away, if you have a second of the same kind available then pretty hard to have a wait.
Lovestar, how has it gone so far? What class did you end up with? If you are on the Vox-server i'd be more than happy to help you out, we have a great guild here as well! Lots of friendly people.
I recommend getting at least one extra Merc-slot, so you can switch between Tank or Healer. So when a friend leaves the party, it's easier to fill a spot while waiting for another friend to show up. If you are a Tank/Healer yourself, i'd replace one slot with DPS of course.
Hey! It's been awesome. All the info here, all the replies to my questions, and all the guides like Borek's have helped me get up to speed really fast. If I was just starting on my own without all these resources, I definitely would have given up — this game is really intimidating at first. Now that I mostly-get it, though, I'm having a lot of fun. Way more than I expected it to be — at first I was just getting a chore over with cuz I want my money & I'm too stubborn to back down from a challenge. At this point, tho, I'm logging in because I want to. As for class — I'm still figuring that out! Every time I think I've got it, I stumble onto something else that feels even better. It's been a chain of Bard → Casters → Priests → Tanks → and now I'm trying out the non-tank melee classes because the posters here started a chain reaction by convincing me to try WAR and MNK. Right now I'm on Rathe — we'll see how it goes, but I appreciate having an offer on Vox too. I'm supposed to join Roxxanna's guild but, I'm still so overwhelmed just learning everything that I haven't even done that yet. One thing at a time! Yeah, all the replies here pretty much convinced me this was a non-debate — once my EQ1 account gets its All Access SC grant this weekend I'm going to unlock the Merc slots. btw, TY again to whoever posted that RAF link when I was just starting — it was kind of annoying making a separate account just for EQ1, but I'm really glad I did. The 100% WR bag is making my MNK's life a lot easier, the Heirloom horse makes zipping around TSS zones a lot of fun, and I have a huge cache of Defiant sets to break into whenever the Achieve/Task rewards slow down.
The sophistication in EQ is in the content how the classes interact (wait til you get to raids - that's another level of interaction.) It's amazing what you can do with people who know their class. The fancy graphics of the newer games is fine and dandy but it doesn't keep you playing long. It's too bad that new people often don't stay long enough to see the light.
It's funny though Lovestar, your doing the same thing I am the last month. About the same timeline really. I'm sort of between Monk Cleric and Ranger right now, but its mostly I love being a support or healer but I also like beating things down. Like a combat medic. EQ doesn't quite have that class. I'm on the Rathe as well. Once my main is set he will be named Cenki, but I use alt names and such to try stuff. There is a guild that invited me to join them and have been helpful with info once I finally decide on something for sure. Hopefully we figure out what to do soon. I keep thinking im surely going to go cleric, its just a nightmare starting out with the starting weapon they get (I have great starting weapons for monks/beasts/rangers from like 15 years ago )
From what I've seen, deffo CLR or PAL for the 'combat medic' thing. Once it's leveled up and AA'd up, I think PAL becomes a non-trivial combat support, especially when it's offtanking / not tanking. Likewise CLR can put out non-trivial melee hurt when it's AA'd up. Either way you'd want to grind through to 70ish ASAP, especially with CLR. Or just go Heroic 85 if it's in your budget. For leveling CLR you're probably better off either healing a Wizard merc, or going Conan with the best weapon you can get and facetanking through the easy range. If you're OK with being more of a support (buffs / regen) and not a 'healer' specifically, look into BRD and BST. They get to do a fair share of beating (especially BST), while still being more focused on group support (especially BRD). MNK is pretty much DPS / utility, and RNG likewise — RNG does a bit of heals and buffs, but it's more for flavor; mostly RNG is focused on DPS and offensive support (dispels, snares). At least, that's what I know after playing a month. I'm sure someone more experienced can add more.
Paladins' non-trivial combat support, as you put it, rises to the level of self-healing as a tank against all but the most brutal content. It takes being well rounded and geared out, but it's real. Pal (& SK) interact particularly well with bard healing-boosting songs while doing that. Paladin and cleric basically come to the tank-AND-heal thing from different directions, but both get there; once there, they have roughly the same content cap for viability of that plan, beyond which they retreat role-wise toward their tanking/healing strengths respectively. Bst and Rng are more similar to each other than either is to Brd. Bst & Rng both melee classes making heavy use of their mana to pour out damage, with heals and some utility. Once their AA are built up, their heals are more real than they'd like to admit, since they (and, to be fair, everyone around them) would rather they be casting damage spells. Still, real. Their respective utilities are different - Bst has debuffing and beefy companion, Rng has crowd control via special roots and a "safe mode" with their bow that other melee classes don't get (even though the bow isn't great damage compared to melee). Both Rng & Bst have good buffs to cast, and sexah group boosts to use when everyone discs up for extra damage. Mnk is one of the three high damage "pure" (just means no mana bar) melee classes. Their utility is limited to personal survivability and pretty good single-pulling stuff. Other than that, their stuff is all personal damage stuff. It's pretty good personal damage stuff Brd does melee for their personal dps. At high level, brd melee is very like base warrior melee; that's not great. Bards have seriously robust pulling, crowd control, and utility tools with mezzes charms slows snares resist debuffs, etc. The whole bard class thing really, though, is the songs they sing and the abilities they use multiplying the effectiveness of their teammates. Tanks get tankier, damages get damagier, mana bars seem to just never go down, s'crazy.
Thanks for the detailed explanation / clarification, Brohg. Roughly, how would you rank the different melee classes in terms of damage contribution to a group? (I mean directly, not eg, trying to analyze how much BRD adds globally via its buffs, etc.)
He may have been thinking of Druids. There is a decently sized minority of Druids who go Evoc first, and Alteration second. I've been in that group since 2001 Of course, if you're a raiding druid, and your role is pretty much healing and nothing else, this would be crazy. But for non-raiders, it's a reasonable alternative. Tat
Could someone explain Quivers to me, and whether they matter? Asking GenChat got me about 10 different answers, half of which contradicted each other.
Short version is that quivers provide an additional source of haste that only applies to archery, and is based on the quiver's weight reduction stat. Put the quiver in your top inventory slot (bag slot #1) and leave it there. Unless you're playing a ranger, don't worry about it.
Yeah, I'm trying a RNG right now since it was one of the classes you recommended when I was like "How do I play DPS WAR?" Really, really like MNK so I wanted to give the other one a go. Does the Quiver only work if it's the #1 slot?
Also as far as weapon choices when DPS'ing (or trying to DPS, for the Tanks), basically it's like this? BRD: Dual wield BST: Dual wield (don't use 2HB) BER: 2H MNK: Dual wield (don't use 2HB) PAL: 2H RNG: Dual wield? They have so many weapons available, I can't tell if the 2H's are meant as a viable alternative or if DW totally eclipses them like for BST / MNK. ROG: Dual wield SHD: 2H WAR: DW or 2H, depending on what Stance you've purchased / are in / feel like at the moment? I mean longer-term, once gear becomes more standardized. I know while slumming the low levels there's all kinds of weirdo stuff like this Woodsman's Stave I found on a PoK vendor that's 31 / 35 at level 12 . Oh! And on the topic of vendor-mining (thanks for that idea Borek ) I did finally get a Shaded Blade — for 7p, ha ha ha. Take that, people selling on /baz for 2000p!
BRD: Dual wield (no other options) BST: Dual wield (Situationally 2HB) BER: 2H (no other options) MNK: Dual wield (Situationally 2HB) PAL: 2H RNG: Dual wield. There are some levels when Archery comes out ahead while using burn discs, but melee is currently the best ROG: Dual wield (no other options) SHD: 2H WAR: 2H, DW. There might be some levels where 1H+shield is the best DPS. Not sure if the weapon stances removed that. You put the quiver in your first bag slot so you can drop arrows into your inv and they'll fill up the quiver first. Since nothing else will go in it, you might as well use it to hold some arrows. Nice vendor finds. There IS a damage cap for low level characters, so if it seems like you're hitting for too little with one weapon, that's why. It gets lifted at 20 or 30, afair.
