Hey guys, I just bought a Heroic Beastlord and Bard I plan on leveling. I have not played since the VoA expansion and Cannot remember the good spots for leveling. I dont have any plar for gear so I will be grinding for my own gear. Can you guys help me with a few questions please? 1. Leveling zones 85-90, 90-95, 95-100 etc? 2. How good is the synergy between BST/Bard? 3. How much progression is needed nowadays and Can I complete it just boxing the BST and Bard? 4. Any good zones to grind AA and if so what is the best Level to start AA grinding? 5. How well could I possibly box named NPCs and Dungeons? 6. Any good Zones to farm gear in, in those level brackets? Any help is appreciated, Thanks.
OK I'll take a shot at this: 1. A good zone to start at 85 is Argath. It has a ton of quests and lots of named mobs for loot that is droppable btw. Some of the tasks in this expansion require learning Alaran language (instead of faction), but there is a short-cut, by doing the first 2 tasks in Shard's Landing (no killing, just running around collecting things invis), that will allow you to max Alaran language fast and easy. At 95 you can move onto Shards Landing itself for XP, completing partisans quests and such gives a lot of XP. 2. BST/Bard is OK, bst pet can tank so the bard doesn't have to (bards traditionally don't hold aggro well at all), bst can buff and slow but not as well as a SHM, Bards excel at pulling and crowd control. 3. If you intend to take these toons to 110, you simply MUST complete EOK progression. The reason for this is to get the innate blocker for the green sarnaks' AOE breath, which is granted during one of the partisan tasks in Kor'Sha labratory. Of course, you have to complete all the tasks in front of it first, before you can get that task. The current top expansion, Ring of Scale, has many of these green meanies, and if you don't have the blocker, you're going to be in a world of hurt. 4. Several schools of thought on that, personally I subscribe to the one that says level>all. Get your levels first, you'll get some AAs from completing tasks in the meantime. Some AA's you gotta have of course, for the bard you need fading memories first and foremost before anything else, and try to complete Shauri's clouding asap for group double invis (both invis and Invis vs. undead with one click at top level). One of the best and most popular places for grinding exp is the Gribble missions out of Dead Hills. You can pretty much always find others who'll group for that. As for zones, there's lots of good ones, just one really bad one to keep in mind is Plane of War, exp is horrible there (but good loots), and it requires a quest to get in there anyway. 5. You should be OK for names and dungeons with these 2 toons. I'd probably pop 2 healer mercs for namers though. Just one for normal trash, so you can have a DPS merc up too. 6. Loot gear is pretty much everywhere, I mentioned PoWar because there's a mission that drops a nice aug for the level, also you can find weapon damage augs in Kael Drakkel (RoF), Windsong, Combine Dredge, and Sul Vius, demiplane of decay.
Level 85's in heroic gear in argath are going to get wrecked. Even if you could do it, the xp is horrible there. Also, forget EoK progression. It's a waste of time, unless you really want to do 1 mission in the ring of scale. The other two missions in ring of scale don't need it. If you want to do progression, wait until 110. Stay in dead hills until 100 or so, you can get gear at the merchant in Western karana
for Heroic toons you want to do the quests/tasks in Feerrot and HoT they give you 30AC augs for every slot pretty much +hme ..then move on if you want too .. HoT though has some easy repeatable quests that give 1 to 2% xp everytime you finish then rinse and repeat .. if it were me i would grind it in those zones till 90 or 91 .. then move on to argath .. oh btw dont worry about AA's till your lvl 100 .. hit your autogrant checkbox (if your a paying subscriber) and everytime you lvl you'll get the all the aa's for that lvl up to lvl 100 up thru the CoTF expansion.. bst and bard should be a good duo , I would use 1 healer merc and 1 wizzy merc.. your pet should be able to handle most named .. make sure you get pet toys/weapons for your pet also if using 1 healer merc you might have to throw in a heal or 2 .. also you have pet runes you can use that will help your pet survive.. another good tidbit .. you can now melee along side your pet and your pet should be able to keep agro on mob .. iirc at the time you played NPC's targeted the closest player in melee range regardless if pet was attacking or not .. now pets are highest on NPC hate list if taunt is on so PC can be right next to pet fighting alongside and usually dont have to worry about pulling agro .. but if you do pull agro you can FD as a bst.. starting with RoF your gonna want to do progression all the merc/part tasks and group missions not sure if hunter is needed or not .. reason being is once completed you get hero's vitality , fortitude and resolution.. which increases your base stats even further than what aa's can do .. i'll add more as it comes to me ..
You got all the AA for your level of 85 when you created the Heroic so focus on exp, augs and armor for a bit. Many newly created heroic players complain that even HOT is too hard. So I would not rush into those higher zones. At 85 I would suggest you go see Franklin Teek and get 3 daily's at one time - those kill tasks will net you gear, plat, extra exp and the hot zone aug should drop - even the 2 below your level will have goodies. Extra exp throughout the hot zone even if no task. Rinse repeat. You need to beef up your augs and armor before you can do much in the newer expansions. Then I would move on to the other dailys from Franklin's cousin Clayton who stands next to him. These will give you exp but its at the end along with more bonus exp at the end. And he will port you to the zone. I found the ones from Marla to be super easy but most other players like the ones from Gribbles. Also if your staying paid then do the J5 merc quest in feerot - No Heroism without fear - that will give you guys the top mercs. If free accounts then you cannot get those mercs but still get the highest you can. Also those special heroic augs Zamian mentions. As for which merc I would suggest you try them all. A lot of good suggestions buy everyone's set up is different. At least a healer I would think. And don't forget a double exp holiday special is coming up in the next week or so which will net you 50 - 100 AA per Clayton Teek dailys. Of course you can do those daily's other than when Clayton offers them but Clayton's will give you bonus on top of the special holiday bonus. So the thing to work on now is Dead Hills access - google this and read up on it in Alla so you can get to the Clayton tasks.
2. The synergy is OK. The bard helps the BST more so than the other way around. The bard specifically will give some defense and +healing crit to the pet, helping it stay alive against tougher situations. The bard's CC and pulling will allow you to fight one mob at a time. 3. You'll probably want to team up for the harder content in the game. Some of the progression quests are a bit hard with undergeared / under AA'd characters. 5. It'll be a bit of a chicken and egg problem. You'll be able to box named once you get gear (especially enhanced minion earrings), and you'll need to kill named to get gear. More AA's / levels help killing named, and better gear helps getting more levels. In short: You'll be fine, just be prepared to farm lower level named, get boosted by rotting gear, and team up against tougher content. Also note: I think if you delete your heroic character you get a heroic slot back, so if you want to back out and pick a different team (brd/war or brd/sk for example) that might be more effective you can.
This isn’t a specific answer to question 2, but I’d say that bard/bst synergy is better in theory than practice. As most have said, you can do fine with these two, but I think you might find that it is very tedious to play these two together because the beastlord is a very busy class and you’ll get sick of moving two melee around for constant positioning. In general, boxing multiple melee can get very old very quickly. You can totally ignore this, but I would recommend mage/bard over bst/bard. The tools available to both of these classes are highly complimentary and you can have a ton of fun playing them to near-max potential without exhausting yourself from mashing buttons. If anything I think any player that’s boxed content will agree when I say that the mage’s Call of the Hero makes a huge difference. In general, boxing multiple melee can get very old very quickly. To the contrary, if you box a mage and a bard you can add on a caster like a wizard or druid for more utility (ports, CotH, and bard selo’s/double-invis create amazing play opportunities and vastly increase quality of life) and it would take very little additional effort (somewhat depending on your setup and play style). I think you’ll also find that the mage and bard can both do fine in non-prestige gear, but that may not be a major concern to you. If you plan to have at least one paid account, I might recommend playing one of the tank classes with the bard. The tank would add a level of difficulty in that they are quite gear dependent, but the exchange would be that if you someday plan to raid and get good gear, you’re tank will be massively powerful. You’ll want to try all three of the tanks to get an idea of what you like; don’t take anyone else’s word for it because they are all a bit different. For example I like paladins but I think they can be a bit frustrating to play. As far as the content suggestions, I think some of the responses are overly optimistic. The bard is a very weak class in many circumstances. They become quite strong eventually, but not without a lot of work. You may feel like you are soloing with the beast and only really gaining some safe pulls and mild buffs for quite a long time. I’d get the augs from House if Thule and such and then move to the gribbles heroics to get a feel for playing. If you can get to 92, you can buy RoF gear that will last you quite a while and help you tackle lvl 90 content. Good hunting.
I do play a main bard, with a mage alt. Another very handy feature with these 2 is that the bard can drag a dead mage just about anywhere in the game, revive him with a rez token, and commence to COH everyone else you need at that spot. I've used this with great success to get to places like the bottom of Chardok very quickly, where it would have taken a group the better part of an hour to get there.
Argath will be a royal pain in the with a new heroic. Go to the Feerot. Do the mercenary quest and get your upgraded mercenaries. Work through all the quests in the zone to get your heroic augs. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...ot-quests-for-augs.209049/page-3#post-3089509 If you feel like you are dying too often, go level. Levels make everything easier in this game. You have a few options. Read up on Gribbles. Dead hills adventures. Do the second one, pop lesson of the devoted right before the turn in, then attempt the first while lesson is running. Gribbles have a bad rap, but it's literally the easiest xp for heroics. https://www.almarsguides.com/eq/leveling/CoTF/Locations/DeadHillsGribbleHAs.cfm Do the daily task from Teek in plane of knowledge. Check Almar's guides for places to go ( https://almarsguides.com/ ) Get one or two levels, then go back and finish the Feerot. You might do this repeatedly, because mixing up your adventuring areas makes it more interesting. Main your beastlord. That will be your main dps and your tank. Get to know it well. This is the only post I have bookmarked. I used and it's a place to begin. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/heroic-beastlord-guide.218894/#post-3187548 To start, use your bard mostly for melody. Here's some bard tips. I recommend the melody setup for melee dps. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...oper-care-and-feeding-of-heroic-bards.209160/ https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/melodies.232369/#post-3447022 https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...eroic-bard-pulling-basics-at-level-85.218148/ Good luck and have fun. p.s. I think beast + bard will be strong. You will only be limited by your skill and patience.
Bard and Beast is a great combo with tons of synergy and covers lots of bases. The beast's warder can tank just about any named with 2 healer mercs. You have buffs, slows, awesome ADPS for melee toons, awesome pulling, fastest run speed and tons of other tricks you will need to learn. A couple of tips, not touched on previously, are when you run to duo around the bard will always have a faster run speed than the beast. It is best to put the bard on auto follow and drive the beast around. I have a hotkey on my bard that auto-follows my beast, casts run speed buff, and group (double) invis. Get your epics on both toons as they are useful even at 110. While you are learning the combo I recommend you run a tank merc and a healer merc. Don't forget to mark the bard as puller and the tank merc as main tank. The tank merc will buy you time to switch toons and get the pet on the mob. Once you learn your toons you can swap out the tank merc for a wizard merc. In some instances, you can use 2 wizard (or rogue) mercs and have the beast heal the pet. Make sure you run the overhaste aura on the bard as it is the only haste that will land on temp pets from the beast or bard. This also affects any pet proc'ed from a weapon. For this reason, it is worthwhile to hit up fabled mobs to get fabled pet proc'ing weapons for both toons. Bards also have an AA that increases proc rate. There is a hammer from Tower of Rot (lvl 100) that procs ghosties. Get the pet proc'ing weapons for the beast first as his pet AAs also affect the proc'ed pets. You should be able to do all progression with this duo until you hit some of the higher hero missions. There are some missions in CotF, TDS, TBM, EoK, and RoS that just require more resources. Some have anti-pet tanking mechanisms, require multiple tanks, or more DPS then your duo has a hope of generating.
Just wanted to put my 2 cents in here since I just did this with a paladin/necro. You don’t have a tank, so it’s not as important, however I still recommend getting to TBM ASAP. You can gear all the way to 105 in TBM and doing the 6x4 missions (look up the /ach lesser group armor) is actually pretty nice experience I found. The 6x4 missions will give you plenty of remnants to buy gear. In addition to the 6x4, do into the temple (b) repeatedly. You will get some remnants and occasionally nice type 5 augs drop that you can either use or sell. I pulled in over 700k worth of augs from into the temple just simply /bar’ing them. Didn’t even try to sell for more. Obviously Gribbles will be the best xp but definitely work your way through TBM when on Gribbles cooldowns.
85-90 - HOT Expansion the grounds, Swamp, and out front. 90-92 - HOT Expansion the Library and Erudin Burning 93-95 - HOT Expansion the upper floors Do the progression quests and missions, great learning zone. Any time someone offers a group in general jump at it. XP in a group in EoK/RoS is going to be much greater than anything you can make on your own. 95-100 CoTF Heroics in DH/ move to ETWK Heroics, all COTF Progression. 100-105 - TBM till fully geared then can move up to EoK FM 105-109 - EoK Labs 110+ RoS HS. Just my thoughts.
