Finally after hitting 80 on my necro/mage box(lev 79 bard too) with ~500aa, I noticed the relative power increase (due to level 80 gear and pet focus V) people were talkin about. However, the increase seems *huge in survivability, not as much in dps. I just started paying more attention 2 spell power stats on new gear buys, is there any other stats I should been looking at for caster dps? (worn focuses are always maxed for me, terror infused & good non-visibles currently) . I have the luxury of shopping on fv, btw, so don't hold back on recommendations 2 buy . Also I noticed its hard 2 find augs with spell power, is there any powerful augs I should keep an eye out for in bazaar? I noticed some nice "symbol" augs attached 2 a deity, but can't find any for my necro's (cazic) ever, almost thinkin about switching deities it's so bad. Finally, any suggestions 2 hunt? (total newbie so I'd have 2 be told how 2 get there). Loping plains orcs/worg killquests seem the best bang for the buck but I need somethin 2 break up the monotony. I tried that zone from DSH u get to with the cannon, but I can't micro the 3 toons well enough 2 hold off those nasty robot adds, too dangerous. Likewise in bloody kithicor, my bard doesn't have the song skills & levels 2 pull those big camps. So thus far I've been killing the zombies in OGH and corrupted big animals in old commons for a change of pace, but it's slower exp cause I couldn't find killquests for these Lastly, I am still using either 1 or 2 J1 clerics depending on how many I'm pulling. They work ok still but I'm thinking of trying 2 bribe high level player like 30k to run me through 2 J5 mercs. Can I jump right to that quest from J1, and is it terribly involved? Travelling and questing is a huge pain with my 3box, even with CoH cause my computer sux. Anyway thanx in advance for suggestions. I definitely got the EQ itch again, at least for now Necromonious 80 necro Dirkadirka 80 Mage Screamo 79 bard FV
The deity augs you are looking for are for cultural armor only so they won't likely help you. If you want to increase your spell power, AAs are one of the if not the best way to do so. At 80, 500 AAs is pretty low. Start looking at increasing your AAs rather than level for a while. As for mercs, you don't have to do any of the merc progression except the tier five one in order to get the tier five mercs. That means you can skip doing the stuff for Tier 2-4 if you can get someone to run you through all the tasks. Hunting areas, at 80 you could try going to Field of Scale. Mobs there like snakes, birds, scorpions, and scaled wolves are "easy mobs" so they will have less hps and hit easier for you. The normal mobs are doable as well if you kite. Not sure about pet tanking.
It seems low, but that much AA has most bases covered. Necro is a beast at 10ca/8cs he can drain tank multiple dark blues. Both casters have all their mana conservation AA, including gift of mana lines maxed, 5ish on each mana regeneration AA (items and innate). Necro has all DOT crit chance and damage AA maxed, Mage has his crit chance on nukes maxed for his lev, all he can so is 1 more rank for crit damage. Both toons have about 5ish pts in pet flurry and pet crit AA, Mage pet survivability AA is maxed. Unless I go swarm there is literally nothing I can take for dps unless I keep pumping the flurry/crit pet AA....
500 aa does not have all the bases covered for dps aa for either of those classes at lvl 80. You definitely need more aa and will see improvements in dps. Just stick with LP for now for at least another 500 aa on those classes. I hope your bard has his Fade aa if not get it asap. If you can make a magelo account so we could see how the characters look, you would receive better advice.
The first thing you want to do is continue the grind to 81, as your 81 air pet with an EM5 pet focus (or better if a raid item is available) will be a monster. I tend to suggest working on mage pet AA and necro dot AA as mage pets can be very good tanks and air pets are very good at DPS, while the necro rogue pet can be good on DPS and necro dots are serious nasty.
Ty for the advice, I will try to set up a Magelo. Thus far I've kept AA around 20% of exp, and once I hit ~15 new AA I comb thru the list of AA looking for anything I can take for dps. I'm too low for the necro Spires AA to open, blood magic seems pointless cause necro never ooms, everything related to DOT crit/damage is maxed for necro level, necro nuke crit chance weren't touched cause he never nukes. Just because I am askin about dps doesn't mean it is BAD, however! LP Vicious Worgs die in about 25-30seconds each with both pets (with affinity and bard songs on pets) & 3 necro dots which crit for 4500-5k-ish(using more than 3 dots is overkill ATM), Mage nukes crit for 9k-ish, Mage only needs to nuke 1-2 times per mob to try to proc a Gift of Mana which I use on rancorous servant which massacres. Dps isn't bad by any means, I was just looking to squeeze out a bit more wherever I could when I realize that I'm going 2 have 2 grind out 9488573 more Worg kills, I need them 2 die as fast as humanly possible Ty for he info on zones and mercs. Do u guys think offering to General chat ~30k pp for a run thru J5 mercs is fair? I don't want to be seen as stingy but don't have much money :/
www.eqaasearch.org may be of great use to you. Go to 'search' and then select one of your classes (necro or mage for instance). You can then use the category list to search for what you want. Spell DPS, pet stuff, etc. All AA's in game are broken down by category and you can also set a max level so you only see AA's that are available for you through level 80/81/85 (or whatever you want to set it to). Caviat - necro RoF archetype/class AA's are not yet in the database but everything for mages is (and everything level 95 and lower + lvl 96-100 General necro AA's are in the site).
Completing the warrens tasks to allow hiring J5 mercs would be a boon. You should do the first task in the line on your own, the second task to hail the thralls is a problem as unless you have help the mage will die (fd is nice on necro) i use a mage to coth from Sterikon a timed hail. A high level or 2 can prob get all the kill credits you need, but, big but, Murdunks last stand is a 15 level limit and your heroes are likely 100. I would suggest getting level 81 for the new mage pet and if you haven't found a friendly guild start looking for one as most of them will probably assist with the J5 tasks. Without a guild to help, then work your way to 86 or so, work through the task list, until you can get the 2 kill lists from Ylatra, you could possibly hire a level 100 to handle deep in for the Shocktroopers etc, and possibly murdunks, but at 86 with your current mercs you should be able to handle it. On my home server, i usual just assist with J5 tasks because everyone knows i am nice, FV seems more plat focused, but i am not there enough to say wether you can find folk willing to help for the goodwill and player encouragment it brings
I figured I'd post an update. I don't really have any questions, more just observations. Both this Necro and mage are 85 and nearing 1000AA's. This necro I twinked out with multiple awesome raid items...which I sort of regret doing now. While it is cool that necro can tank almost as good as mage pet, and it is literally almost IMPOSSIBLE (not kidding) for him to OOM (necro buff + bard mana regen + KnowledgeofPast IX + 10ranks into each mana regen AA's @ 85)....none of this matters because there is literally no where that he can kill efficiently!! (in my box group) This is because the mage pet, even with EM VI and EVERY mage pet defensive AA available to this point...simply cannot handle 2+ level 85 mobs at the same time (meaning legit, tough mobs like FoS iksars or Rosallian Ogres). Not even if both mobs are slowed 50%....with two J1 clerics pumping heals into the pet. Sometimes it's fine, other times a spike of quad 2.5-3k swings takes a dump on it's face. The pet is a beast when I pop frenzied/fortify/blessing, but these have long cooldowns. I'm thinking of trying the 84 Earth pet. But it's really apparent now that J1 mercs suck pretty hard at 85. What is annoying (or brilliant, depending on how you view the difficulty), is that pre-85 there were lots of zones with heavy-packed wandering single dark blue mobs to grind. Zones like Goruk Mesa, Direwind Cliffs, Loping Plains, DSH, etc. At 85....nope! Not freaking anywhere. Instead, it's all clumps of 3-5 mobs in just about every zone, even outdoor. I know I can break these up with bard pulls but it's just annoying to have to do this literally every single pull, everywhere you'd ever want to hunt at 85. In a box group it's hard for me to micro adds, meaning one mistake and most likely I have dead pets, dead mercs, and/or dead players. I miss my lazy, sprawling outdoor zones with single pulls. So far I've had the best success at Ashengate (although necro/mage is a bad combo here with all that fire damage being useless), and Korascian Warrens. Still haven't tried Bloodfields yet. Open to suggestions. Gear not really an issue lol edit: man it p***ed me off when I found out Forceful Rejuv doesn't reset Mage pet activate AA's. Man I knew that sounded too good to be true....
oh and as an addendum: box'ing with a mage pet tank looks great on paper...but it can get really annoying with the "attack the pet unless there's a player in range" coding. In tight spaces, having to move my bard as close as I can get to stick his slows, but if he moves too close to that mage pet....he gets massacred, esp since I'm mostly on afk melody with him. My bard dies so much. His corpses litter the ground of everwhere I've been...
With max pet AAs at 85 and EM6, you shouldn't have too much problem with air pet and single "tough" mobs in FoS, etc. Multiple will be chancy, as you have found; this is because air pet stuns only affect one mob at a time. Switching to earth will improve defense considerably.
