I finally figured out why I don't like EQ post 70

Rain of Fear is honestly my favorite EQ expansion. Most people either never make it to RoF and complain that EQ sucks or those that do make it to RoF generally make it all the way.

The struggle that most people hit is the 70 - 100 gap. Defiant gear begins to suck and there's no one around to group with. Heroic stats come into play and you just hit this 'wall' that seems impossible to bypass. The issue is two sided, 1 the best gear they can get in that era comes from armor quest turn ins, most of which they don't even know about. They'll search the bazaar and realize no gear is for sale and not know what else to do. (this holds true for higher levels too, you'll notice that there just is barely any gear listed 70 + in the /baz).

I'm actually working on a guide now for people who are used to the TLPs/come from the TLPs to help the transition into live as I wholeheartedly feel live EQ is a better game than what I have experienced on the TLP servers.

I definitely understand where people are coming from when they feel that burnout at 70-80, I hit it for many years until eventually I pushed through with boxes/mercs.

The lack of hot zones was part of this discussion. How many months must a normal person spend moloing to get to 85 these days?

You can do 1 - 50 in 2 days easily with a tank merc. Casual like too.
50 - 65 can be done in about the same speed as 1 - 50.

65 is when you start hitting a wall. The tank merc is still really good but he isn't as invincible as he was before. You'll have to be selective in what zones you pick 65 - 85.

65 - 85 should take about 4 days (a week or more if you're not gold for Autogrant and a Journeyman merc... That is assuming you can even get to 85 without getting any of the AAs up to that point)

Once you reach 85 TBM HAs and CoTF HAs should be able to finish you the rest of the way.

I honestly don't know how well the HAs scale as I have never done them below max level, I guess I will need to do them at some point for the accuracy of the guide I am writing. I'm assuming they scale fairly well as the whole idea behind most of TBMs content was to nullify this "brick wall" of the 30 levels leading up to max level.

Also because of TBM and what Daybreak is trying to accomplish with it (the gear they added + the streamlining of content) is why I am making that guide. People just have to know about this new content and gear because it makes the difference between hitting that wall and not hitting that wall.

They do scale fairly well, there were a few in Bixie Warfront that didn't scale low at all at one point though.

I will add if you're only going to the hotzones and your sole concern is xp per kill, you're doing it completely wrong.

Currently my guide has them following most of my previous zones.

Cresent Reach 1 - 15
Blightfire Moors 15 - 30
Lower Guk 30 - 38
City of Mist 38 - 50
Plane of Hate 50 - 58
After Plane of Hate I am going to send them to Crypt of Decay until 65-70 and after Crypt of Decay I will send them to Dragonscale Hills until 75 I think.
For a new player making sure they hit Lguk/City of Mist and Plane of Hate is vital as they all have high plat dropping mobs as well as vendorables. If they ever want to afford the merc + spells + defiant they're going to need to hit up these zones and vendor a lot of the gems and such. I may cut Lguk as getting there is a pain in the rear but at the same time I'm sure a lot of the older veterans would be thrilled to hit up their old stomping ground.
at 75 I am going to point them to Gribbles in Dead Hills or Plane of Health in TBM.

The TBM HAs I've done at lower levels scaled decently. The final kill for 'We Make Our Own Rewards' seems a bit hotter than it should be. The named, however, are not scaled and will destroy you. The scaling gear at lower levels is just as messed up as it is at 105 if not more. The type 9 augs with the same naming convention also have different compromises with mods and heroics at lower levels than 105. You're better off with ROF T1 gear at 92 than either scaled level 90 or 95 gear. Scaled level 85 gear gives a huge HP boost over heroic/paragon, but you lose a lot of AC and attack if you're a class that cares. The HP is enough to probably be worth the compromise though.

If you get the first time achievement (e.g. partisan), you can get about 6% exp for one TBM HA at lower levels. If you do it a second time, the exp is closer to 3%. You're still much better off doing Gribbles (welcome back to the types of zones and encounters the OP hates about higher levels) if your goal is to level as fast as you can. It seems the HAs are more about progression and currency than exp. If you have high level friends, tagging along for camping augs and such in static TBM zones can be really good exp, but you're not going to contribute much at all.

Thank you very much for that information. I've never done the HAs on a lower level before so any information at all helps me write the most accurate guide i can possibly do. So far I have 1 - 65 finished and I have a full write up explaining TBM Gear, the slot 5 and 9 augs and such. I've been working on the guide all day and I hope to have it done within the next 24-48hrs.

In light of the information you provided I may direct people to TBM initially for gear then direct them to Gribbles. I'm going to hit up the CoTF HA NPCs to see what the gear on them looks like 75-90. If the gear on the vendors in Wk2 is close to what you can get from TBM then I may just direct them to gribbles until 100+

It was a bit over zealous to think I could finish it that quickly. I haven't written a guide in a few years and there's a lot of information and detail I want to put into this one as it's very important to me and I feel the game in general. I'll make a new thread for it when I am done hopefully later this week.

I'm very excited to unveil this guide though as I think it will help a lot of people. A special thanks to those in this thread too that contributed information, thanks to you and thanks to the amazing people at EQresource and Allakhazams I am able to make the best guide possible.

One good HA in cotf that is overlooked is the Seeking Refuge one from Marla Gaslow (in Ethernere Tainted West Karana) as part of cotf release 2, the reason it is nice is because iirc nothing outside of the named summon, I'm not sure any of the other HA are like that.

The zone is also a wide enough area to kite and all that safely.

The only downside is you have to do a HA before that before you can request this one.

So far this is what I have for my 1 - 105 walkthrough.

100 - 105 is unfinished and is probably going to take as much time as 1 - 100 took me, which was about 12hrs.

http://www.almarsguides.com/eq/gettingstarted/guide/

Let me know what you guys think of my progress thus far I am having fun writing the guide, it's fun to be back!!!

@almars love how your trying to recruit for your FV server .. good advertisment for upping the population on your server..

Main downside, you'll only have time to do it once per night.

I'm just being honest, it's the only server I would play on and I would advise everyone I know interested in EQ not to play on live because of the NO DROP augmentations. Hell, you could make just augmentations droppable on live and I would be happy as a pig in poo. I really loathe the idea of actually having to camp each aug you want though, it's such a lame concept - what if you wanted to mess with say a Rogue because you never have before? Having to get him NO DROP gear is bad enough but at this current point in time you'd need to complete ALL TDS progression just for a Romance's Eye patch thingy from the top floor of Arx.

I'm definitely bias towards FV, like I said in the guide if it weren't for FV I wouldn't even be playing EQ =P

I too have seen people (like the OP) burn out around level 70. However, I think it's more about knowledge than anything else. A combination of Defiant and GL buffs should let anyone get to 80+ in POP zones in a reasonable amount of time. You can also throw in RSS, Paw and such for variety.

At 80, you can buy T1 HOT gear in the Bazaar, which is a huge jump. After that the only problem is that leveling slows down in the 80s. I always recommend camping something -- LDON points for the Dodge augment, augments, quests, COTF points, etc -- instead of just grinding XP. Short term goals make the game more fun.

If you read the original post, it's not that he's not capable. It's that he doesn't enjoy the turn in direction the game took around that time. If you look at past posts from Ultrazen, he seems to be more than capable of playing the game. Combat mechanics change a lot at those levels as well as zone design got lazy.

In his previous posts, the OP had two complains:

I can't help with the zone design issue since it's highly individual, but using GL buffs and better zones (instead of WoS) should help with the slowdown issue.

As far as the "got agro, dead" issue goes, it doesn't have to be that way post-70 or even post-90. Sure, if you are fighting white-yellow cons in the latest expansion, you can die quickly. But if you don't like that kind of pace, you can simply go back a few expansions and fight light blue cons. At 85-90, when the OP "hits a brick wall", the highest zones in TSS and TDS are still light blue. At 90-95 all of HOT and much of SOF/SOD are still light blue. At 100, most of HOT and all of ROF is blue. You just need to have Bazaar-purchasable level-appropriate gear to be able to fight effectively there.

I do think it's about knowledge too. There are a lot of gear quests people can do that there aren't any guides for (damn that lazy Almar!!). I feel as if the reason leveling slows down and becomes harder is because you've finally reached a point at 80 where you can't grind the easiest mobs and the easiest expansions anymore for XP. Most people who feel that burnout follow the old zones until they can't anymore, then the game actually becomes difficult and they hit a rut. At that point you really gotta group or box otherwise you get beat up by just about everything.

I mean you literally go from fighting mobs in Planes of Power that are 10 or more levels below you with gear from 12 - 15 expansions ahead. To fighting mobs maybe 5 X-pacs behind with gear from 3 X-pacs ahead.

Also is getting GL buffs common? For me, personally, if I had to get buffed to do content I would most likely quit as 1 death would ruin your whole day or if someone didn't cast any buffs in the GL over night you can't even hunt the next day. Also, you'd have to leave your computer running 24/7 for that to work as well

TI know the example he gave with attrition and things of that nature, in the old zones I can kind of agree, you definitely notice a damage difference in say Old seb versus The Steppes. In The Steppes the mobs are the same level and hit way harder. That's one of the reasons I always tried to avoid telling people to do the new zones, added in TSS onwards. Yea, The Steppes is a level 50 zone but you have to be on crack to handle it where as a zone like Old Seb you can much more easily handle.

The thing is though (as people said before) you can't make content harder without changing exactly what changed. If in each expansion they didn't make the mobs harder what would be the point? =P

I guess a lot of it is personal preference, I think the game is pretty good up until about OoW then it hits this weird era for years up until around SoD then it steadily starts getting better and better finally hitting a pinnacle at Rain of Fear. So far based on what I have seen on the TLPs these X-pacs aren't even half as good as RoF was. Granted I haven't hit the peak of 60 (Velious) and the legendary Planes of Power so I am still excited/holding out in hopes that the early days of EQ are more than just nostalgia for everyone. Cause right now, despite what is said a remade Original Everquest would be a giant flop in today's market - the only reason I am having fun at all in Classic EQ is nostalgia

As far as zone design too the OP was being extremely bias and selective. OoW has muramite proving grounds, one of the legendary dungeons next to Wall of slaughter as well as Riftseeker's Sanctum. Next to DSH is Crystallos, a bit further off of DSH is Frostcrypt, Ashengate and he must have never stepped foot into SoD zones as over half of them are dungeons. Kurn's tower got a revamp, Kaesora Hatchery is a dungeon but lame, Kaesora Library on the other hand is amazing.

Then you got Toskirak, Warrens, Korafax, and that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Looking at the Atlas there are about 15 dungeons I see that I haven't even explored yet from later X-pacs and a few of the ones I have are totally awesome.

I agree that there is a noticeable bump in difficulty at 70+ when you run out of easy Luclin/Kunark mobs that hit for under 200. At that point you have to move to places like PoP, OoW and Paw where mobs hit for 400+ and eventually 1000+. That's a big jump and the tank merc can no longer do his job without heals. At that point non-melee/non-priest characters have to either use their classes' signature abilities (charming, kiting, root/doting, pet tanking etc) or box so that they would have a tank/healer team. GL buffs provide a shortcut to 80+ because 1K/tick regeneration outheals most PoP mobs' DPS.

I never had problems getting GL-buffed on the servers I played, but perhaps it's server-dependent.

I wonder how it is now adays with autogrant AAs. Back when I wrote my guides/played 1 character I wasn't lucky enough to have auto grant, I had to walk up hill both ways in the snow!!!!!!!

No but seriously, most of the time I got to 75-80 I only ever had like 400 AAs tops. I can't imagine how much more awesome you are with maxed AAs for each level.