Heroic 85 SK getting destroyed.

Topic pretty much says it all.

I am a 85 heroic SK trying to do the heroic character quest (No Heroism Without Fear) and I am getting quaded for 4.5k~ on bad rounds (which aren't that uncommon). Now this quest started easy enough being flagged as a solo task with weak con mobs and then quickly escalated into me getting the smack down.

Stats:

34khp
4k ac unbuffed
epic 2.0

Fair enough... maybe it's group content. I was entitled to some old heroics on some alt accounts so I made a bard/druid box and set up all the macros. Bard doesn't do anything but melody, the druid chain heals, and the SK single pulls. Both are using apprentice DPS mercs (SK has has a cleric) and I am still getting destroyed by back to back bad rounds.

I couldn't even outheal it with a cleric merc and my druid spamming Granvida/Adrenaline non stop.

Is this an AC/gear problem or is just out of my league until I get some more levels?

I don't see any way to increase it without going gold ATM as all the AC augs I could camp are prestige.

switch your mercs to healers and use the druid as dps. give it a try to get over the hard part

What are you fighting? All of the mobs you need to kill for this quest are weak. I tanked it with an enchanter (and regular J1 healer merc).

1st thing completing that mission will flag your toons for J5 mercs but you will still need to be gold to use them.

For non prestige AC augs check out hotzones - http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Hotzones
You can pick up the following with little trouble from hotzones
Slice of Veeshan's Scale 20ac
Dark Black Gem 20ac
Portal Scraps 20ac
Scale of Vergalid's Spawn 20ac
Tablet of Forgotten Lore 26ac
Energetic Barnacle 17ac
Gnoll's Gnawbone 25ac
Experimental Device 22ac
Petrified Bladefin Eye 18ac
Shard of Expanding Power 15ac
There are also a number of 10ac augs from hotzones which you can also go for.

I believe there are also a number of Heroic AC Augs from HoT tier1 missions but I don't know if they are prestige, hopefully someone else will be able to provide more info.

Using a J1 merc over the garbage A5 will probably be enough to put you over the hump, along with the other suggestions posted here. But if I recall correctly, you need gold for the J1 as well, let alone the J5.

Regarding:

Those augs are non-prestige and are very nice starter/filler augs, especially for tanks. I'm still using the heroic charm aug on my bard until I do enough RoF T1/T2 quests for my Stone of the Landing to overtake it.

Not being there makes it hard to say just what the problem is. I bumped my 50 SK to 85 and ran the quest without a hitch, (meaning I only died once). Biggest issue for me was getting accustomed to the new spells, discs and aa's. Once I got a handle on how things worked it went like clockwork, in fact I just hit 86. The only advice I can really offer is to make sure you are self buffed with Mindshear, Malarian and Blightborn. If yiu don't have a DS then Drape of Korafax is probably a good idea. Make sure your aa's are hot keyed and use 'em.

Full disclosure: I'm still just getting my feet wet here and might be giving bad advice. I've done the quest so I'm flagged for the J5 but since I'm on a silver acct I'm still using the A5. Most of the time though it's set on passive. I find that between buffs, taps and aa's like mortal coil that I can self heal well enough that so long as I don't get crazy I don't always need a healer.

As far as augs go, 3 easy ones to get are in Air, (20 ac elemental core), CGH, ( 14 ac Oceangreen clover) and the housing quest aug which is very easy and is like 110 hp, mana and end. Defiant augs in the baz are pretty cheap as well with elegant and elaborate offering 15 andf 12 ac respectively. Diaku armor frag is 10 ac and drops off trash in Tactics. Not much xp from these but they're a start and with the augs listed in the post above will help get you going. Granted they are pretty weak at 85 but my view is that they are better to have than not to have anything at all at least until something better drops.

But like I said, I'm still a novice at playing an SK so take it for what you will.

Best of luck and I hope things get better for you.

Heroic Augs are not prestige and are all 30+ AC with a choice of either Hdex or Hagi. Get them ASAP. They're your best source of augs. They're all available from the HoT progression quests.

Are you using the clickies from your non-visible gear? Rings, Shoulders, etc. Try mixing in Promised heals from the druid. And make sure that you are blocking Complete Heal from your cleric mercs.

I've seen this in several different threads. Why is that? Isn't complete heal a good thing? Or does it make the cleric merc use its mana too fast? Something else?

Thanks.

Complete heal takes a long time to cast and is now a lower hp heal at high levels.

Complete heal is a ten second cast for a 10khp heal. In other words, you get healed for about 1/4 of your hp every 12.5 seconds if you chain it.

Back pre-PoP and up to TSS roughly (for expansions) complete heal was used very heavily. However as hitpoints grew, encounters became more challenging and the creation of new spells for clerics, complete heal frankly lost its power ... especially when it underwent some adjustments (cast time can't be modded, heals can't be focused/critted, etc.)

Since mercenaries are given this spell, it's very much worthwhile having it blocked, because damage from today's mobs in HoT generally won't wait 10 seconds for a heal to come in. Damage is quicker, more spiky now, so making these adjustments to block the merc from using certain abilities is well worth the trouble.

I forgot about blocking complete heal as I did that years ago on my main and was a nice improvement on merc healing.
I used to have a macro to block/unblock Heal over time spells which I used when I wanted Merc to only cast their large (non CH) heals.

First, make sure you're using 1hand and shield. Then, assign bash to a ability slot. Create a macro like the following:

/doability # (use the number that bash is on your abilities page)
/disc Withstand (I think that's the mid-80s disc that mitigates damage from your next two attacks, if not, it may be Defy—if that's the case, just /disc Defy to replace Withstand).
Timer 100

Hit that every time it's up, it'll help against damage spikes.

Don't be afraid to your your Skin/Carapiece /discs (there are two on different timers). They help make damage less spikey.

Did the heroic characters get the spires AA's ?
If so, the sk's 3rd spire is also useful for mitigating spiky damage , for a minute or so.

Are you using your lifetaps, mortal coil, maybe a stun aug in your weapon? Have you tried doing this with level 100 buffs? Bought some healing potions for your potion belt?

I went back and ran through the quest again and found that if you stick just to the quest mobs you'll rarely get hit for more than 1.5-2k damage. I pulled some of the regular DB trash mobs and was indeed getting hits up to 5k, although most were in the 1-2k range, but was able to self heal with taps and procs well enough to never get below 50%. I took my healer, (A5), off passive when I picked up a couple of adds but that was the only time I needed her. I was buffed with gallantry from my healer merc, rk 2 lvl 85 shammy buffs and rk1 85 ranger buffs with my self buffs and level 100 mage ds.

I run this same exact set up and I was getting smacked around at first too. First make sure you have all your self buffs active. Make a macro with your hate spells (terror line and AC/ATK buff hate spell, charge of power at the end of the macro), since they all have cooldowns you can just spam 1 button for hate, you will never loose agro. Then make a macro that as all of your taps on them (I have 4 on my spellbar) and you can spam 1 button for taps that will cycle which makes it so that a tap is always active. Make a macro that has the best tap first and so on, this allows you to chain tap and makes it so its a lot more easy to heal you. Also ac augs is a must, I went to bazaar and bought anything I could at first to fill my armor then did the quests in HoT for the +30augs (PS thanks for the list of augs in this thread, im going to have to camp a few of those for upgrades). With just my crews buffs (bard songs/cleric merc/self buffs) I have over 5kac in combat now at 86 and gaining (can handle named with only A5 cleric merc and my druid with ease). If you do all of this and are still having trouble set up a macro on the druid that spot heals every few seconds that you hit once after you get agro on the SK, looks like this if say the heal is in spell slot 1 (I do this on named):

/pause 50,/cast 1
/pause 50,/cast 1
up to five times, you can mix in other heals as well like
/pause 50,/cast 2

SK macro would be like this, if you have your 4 taps in spell slots 1-4

/cast 1
/cast 2
/cast 3
/cast 4

Cake. but this should help, did for me.

Note that the second macro (the /cast 1, /cast 2, etc.) could be used for your Terror spells and your Provocation spell (two terrors and your ac provoke) for tanking. You push one button repeatedly and you'll likely not lose aggro.

Your AC is low for your level. Should be around 5600/5800 unbuffed.

Going from 4k to 5600 or 5800 would be about a 20 to 25% decrease in INC DPS.