Hello, I am brushing off the dust on some heroic characters I created from the promotion a few months back and decided to try and get back into the swing of things on a Live server. I chose FV because of the trade rules and it seemed one of the more populated servers. My question is, how do you appropriately gear Heroic FTP characters in the current version of the game? I've read multiple places that Gribbles HA's were a great thing to do. I ran two of them successfully and got my marks of valor, but looking online at the vendor gear, it seems it is all prestige and I can't use it anyway. So aside from exp, those HA's seem like a waste of time for an FTP player. Where/how do you get gear that is usable by a FTP player? It seems that if you just strictly leveled without worrying about gear you would soon get overwhelmed by the difficulty of the mobs. I understand you can buy gear on FV, but just starting out and not having a whole lot of platinum doesn't make that a feasible option (unless we grind platinum for days). Just curious what other have done to get around this?
Assuming your guys are level 85 ish then you could be in Feerrot killing named and getting drops to make the armor from the npc in there. I would buy the templates thru the bazaar though - much cheaper. http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/eq:House_of_Thule_Armor_Guide You can go up levels by going further into the grounds and killing named and getting higher drops that you combine from your first drops combine. If your a higher level then keep an eye out for "fear" armor in baz. Or go farm it. You only have to buy the box once unlike the ones above that you have to buy the combine shroud for each piece. Plus Fear armor makes boreal which is level 92 ish and free account useable. HP 2000.
I believe the first 2 tiers of armor from HoT expansion are non-prestige. Only the T2 from that expansion will be a noticeable upgrade from the armor which comes with the heroic character. In VoA, T1 and T2 gear a non-prestige. For the visible armor, the names are "rustic" and "formal," respectively. In RoF, it's only the T1 gear which is non-prestige. "Boreal," is the name for the visible pieces. As for CotF, the coin you earn can be spent for the T1-equivalent armor, which costs about 960 marks of Valor, is useable for FtP, but the T2, which is more than 1000 marks, is prestige. For the vendors which sell previous expansion quality armor, you'll have mixed results on what is prestige and what is not. TDS has T1 armor which is not prestige. TBM also has an alt currency track which is relatively quick to accumulate. You won't be able to purchase the best items, but you can purchase up to the next level down. The drawbacks are that you must have purchased TBM expansion or purchase EoK expansion. Also, TBM uses a strange system to augment the pieces to make them level appropriate. You can search on EQResource for a list of the augments. Finally, EoK has it's first tier of armor non-prestige. This is level 105 gear only, though. If you would like to find specific pieces of armor which are useable with a FTP account, you can try searching raidloot.com. On the search page, you can select Source=Group and Prestige=exclude plus any other filters you want.
Go farm plat and buy a Krono to go all-access. then once a month, rinse and repeat. DB will appreciate it as it is a time/plat sink, and your fellow players will appreciate it as it puts plat in their banks. You will like it because all it would cost you to play the FULL game is time and effort. Then again, just subscribe!
Not sure where you searched but raidloot.com is really good for looking up gear from the marks vendors. Tons of non prestige gear on them. You can even search for non prestige gear. Doing HOT progression in Feerrot and house of thule will give you a full set of slot 7 augs that are non prestige (for heroic characters only). Hero's journey quest line has a ton of quests that will get you non prestige augs also. I have two mages I sub off and on throughout the year and they have a full set of non prestige augs. Nothing game changing but still better than nothing.
I think most people pay up. The FTP game is only good until about level 60. Go All Access so you can wear your gear and pay for a krono. Sell the Krono and you will have enough plat to buy all the gear you need all the way to level 105. The free Heroics are only given out for one reason, and it's the same reason every drug pusher uses: the first one is free. You are at a severe disadvantage as a FTP player, and unless you can find a group of other like-minded people to play with, you will always be a drag on any group you join.
Since the OP states he has heroic characters he obtained for free I would assume he has multiple ftp accounts that he plans to box. Maybe his main is all access and he just wants a couple extra toons to make a full group? While I would not suggest rolling your main as ftp and unless I know the person I would be reluctant to group with a ftp person in current level content due to the potential for them not holding their own I see ftp boxes as potential money makers for DB down the road. This is how I ended up with 5-6 all access accounts at all times and subs on 3-4 other accounts throughout the year and expansion upgrades on all of them including 3 buff bot accounts when ever an expansion is released that has new buffs. Like you said these perks are like a drug. Once you try them its hard to put them down.
