I am going to start a new series (on my twitch and youtube) based on playing a brand new character in EverQuest and using the alternate personas feature. Here's the scenario: Starting a brand new character with nothing on him Will be starting on the Mischief server Planning to level from 1 to max soloing with only a mercenary to help me Will not accept gifted gear. Only things I will use is what I can pick up, get from a quest, or save the plat to buy from the bizarre No boxing Very minimal grouping No raiding Not planning to rush through the levels My goal with the series is to see how successful a brand new player in the world of EverQuest can be if starting out in 2024 (or well... December 2023 actually). A side quest of this experiment is to include use of the Alternate Persona system as it is implemented today. As such, I will be running two to three personas on one character. Here's where I need your help as I have not played Live EverQuest in a really, really long time. What classes should I choose for my 2 to 3 personas to play knowing everything I said above. For instance, I would assume that choosing a rogue as one of my classes would be illogical considering I intend to solo/molo the entirety of the game. What mercenary type should I pair with each of the personas? What content path do you suggest I take for each persona? Should I do the tutorial on each one? Should I go to Crescent Reach and follow the heroic track (what ever it is called)? What levels should I stop and grind AAs at for each persona you suggest? Are there certain chase items I should work on getting at certain level ranges? Thank you all for your advice!
Honestly, that's the answer I was expecting to see the most lol. In all reality, one of my personas will be a Shadow Knight. I'm thinking about doing Shadow Knight, Paladin, and Warrior as my first three personas just because they can all use the same gear for the most part.
Go MAG/BST/NEC choice. One item which makes all the difference to those classes - Enhanced Minion earring, and it can be shared and used by all 3. All 3 classes can actually molo from level 1 to level 125. Once high enough level you can save up your pp and eventually buy raid-level EM earring. MAG and NEC can live with whatever group gear you loot/trade for and BST will need some good weapons in the future to stay close to the top. EM-focused pets will do the tanking at the top level without the need for expensive gear (besides the earring).
I would go Mage/nec/chanter with healer merc. Especially as you will be short on inventory space for gear. reasons Only need 1 set of gear for all 3 All 3 are good at molo Leveling I'd do once in the tutorial. Quests are one time only so not worth doing a second time as you won't get the extra Exp or gear, but then you won't need the gear either. Personas also miss the first quest here to escape. TSS for the other personas, TSS is one of the best places for leveling lower levels chars and the achievements for gear are 1 time only and with the speed of leveling you will out level the quests before you finish the achievements, so you can finish them up on a second persona.
Maybe you should pick one of those for it, at least if the goal is to see how it would be for a new player, since they may only want to play a class such as Rogue Especially with Personas so you can kinda show the success differences between a few classes maybe, maybe even 1 class per archtype (priest, caster, melee/hybrid, tank)
"See how successful a player can be" Being unguilded in an MMO, to me, is a fail point. To Wit: Earlier this evening, in a DM conversation on this forum, a quote: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's also discord. The people who discuss M~Q and Redguides stuff switch channels 100% of the time and it forms a sort of guild within a guild. Happens and not in all guilds, or even a majority of them, but every guild does have players who do for sure. Of the denizens of these fora, you come down on the correct take on the rule set we play under more often than not also backed with a sentient take on the general scheme of things. I find you also aren't much for spouting ad hominem diatribes at anyone who might disagree with you. I play on all servers in some form or other. Game's on 24/7 in our living room. Some people play TLP cycles for loot, some for familiarity. I surf them for EQ players I haven't met yet. Over the years, as I meet them, somehow I end up with a character or 6 in their guild. Go figure. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As far as advice. It's easy to get to 85, Judicious use of Overseer thereafter can see you at 9-12% XP a day to max. Hotzone dailies another few % There are repeatable tasks, Gribbles (Heroic Adventures) some require 3 players to request. You can ask in chats /oooc for a joinmy group until I ge the task kinda wheelie dealies., The Hero's Journey arc (Type /ach and see left column) is a very good way to get to 85+ I started characters from scratch again on another server recently. My first priority was a guild. Enchanter / Cleric is potentially the strongest player/merc duo in the game, but has a steep learnng curve and stick toitiveness is necessary. Mage and cleric merc can in fact molo to 120. Beastlord with a cleric merc can hang too. Necro can solo to 120,either merc, healer or wizard, optional. ANY class can walk around naked behind a Journeyman merc tank without a healer, for the most part to 60 in 2 days if you just grind- Tutorial, Crescent reach, Blightfire to 40+, Then Velketor's Lab / City of mist to 50+, the somewhere like Grieg's End will easily get you 60+.
Wizard should be interesting as it is the only class with no compatible merc, even that moloing is the way to go today. Two options: 1. No merc; 2. healer merc. Rogue is weak in moloing but it is absolutely doable until lvl 115 and further. It might just take more time than with some other classes, but not sure on that as the rogue can kill fast, but can also die a lot. 1. What classes should I choose for my 2 to 3 personas to play knowing everything I said above. For instance, I would assume that choosing a rogue as one of my classes would be illogical considering I intend to solo/molo the entirety of the game. 2. What mercenary type should I pair with each of the personas? Go for classes that are not the best in soloing, else it would be boring and to easy. You should define a better goal than just showing the players how to level to max by using APs. Show how different the classes are in soloing, and their weaknesses. Also demonstrate different play styles if possible. Visit lots of lost and exotic places that rarely got used to level up. Wizard + healer merc (or just solo) Demonstrate quad kiting at lower levels when mobs do not summon yet ! Enchanter + healer merc (or solo with charm) Demonstrate chain killing with charm ! Cleric + tank merc (or solo for AoE nukes) Demonstrate an offensive style by using melee and DD nukes + hammer "pet" + Mark of Karn + reverse DS ! Also demonstrate multi pulls (4 mobs) and AoE nukes at lower levels with Word of Pain / Word of Shadow / Tremor / Earthquake / Word Divine ! 3. What content path do you suggest I take for each persona? Should I do the tutorial on each one? Should I go to Crescent Reach and follow the heroic track (what ever it is called)? Don't do the tutorial and CR, as there are already dozens of videos about them. Take a classic route and pick a starting city on Odus/Faydwer/Antonica. You could do Kunark from 1-60 and level in lost and exotic places like Field of Bone (Underground, shore, forest), Crypt of Dalnir, Kaesora, Swamp of No Hope, and Timorous Deep. You could also do Luclin from 1-60. 4. What levels should I stop and grind AAs at for each persona you suggest? Just as they do get unlocked. 5. Are there certain chase items I should work on getting at certain level ranges? Dunno.
I guess I might ask of OP- Is the party where the people are, or are the people where the party is? What's the reason for not grouping in an MMO, to determine how successful a new player can be, in an MMO. multiplayer is a key factor to the experience, not least of which, enduring real life friendships and not just superficial daily grind. It is also THE best way to learn to actually play. For what it's worth, the last two new characters I started had to shoo away at least a dozen offers of free power levels, both by guildies and by just random players doing hunter achievments. I did take some random level 75/80 gear pieces someone was giving away in general chat when I was level 60.
The bard certainly isn't the strongest soloing or moloing option, but they have *so* many things going for them that I favor them above any other class as a single player here. Tracking, likely the most mobile class available, picking locks, etc. There aren't very many places that you wouldn't be able to go as a bard.
Bst and shm are great as well, in addition to being great solo classes that benefit most classes grouping, they are also wanted in raids in case you every want to add raiding to your series. Otherwise necro is really the best solo class to max level.
Someone did something like this recently (albeit without personas) The biggest criticism people levied was that by not effectively grouping, this player didn't get the "real" EverQuest experience. Because of how EQ gameplay synergizes with grouping, this is fairly true (although many players molo/solo). EQ is inherently a social game and a video of you soloing on an effective solo class (like a necro, bst etc) would be extremely boring. An SSF hardcore would be more interesting, but is a different video than what you want. My recommendation: Make a video on effective start on a Mischief server and detail the right way to not only play a class, but also how to reach out to other players effectively, get reliable groups, join a raiding guild, become an officer, get access to the guild's bank and then sell the guild's bank for RL $$$ and start on the next server. I'm kidding on the last part, but seriously, it'd be more interesting to focus on the social aspect and what's required in 2023 to play effectively without boxing.
Updated one of my old posts: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...-advice-on-class-to-play.295083/#post-4271745
Just to pick a slight nit, that's a worthy goal, but that's not what you'll actually be finding out. Because coming into EQ brand-spanking-new, there is a HUGE learning curve involved, it was like that in 2000 when I started, and it's even more that way now. You're already starting with that learning curve fully complete. What you'll actually be finding out is, "if I knew then what I know now, how quickly could I progress?" Still, sounds like fun. Please update this thread as you progress.
I made a flippant remark earlier in this thread, which was a bit unfair of me. This is a more considered reply. IMHO, Mischef is the wrong server to use. Because of all the bonus loot drops, you'll be raking in plat a whole lot faster than a genuine new player would be doing on any Live server, or, for that matter, any other TLP. You'll also be finding lots of discarded gear for dirt cheap on vendors and in the bazaar that a player would never see at that level on Live. It isn't just raid pieces, it's everything, that's the nature of the Mischief economy. You'll be doing your gear progression so fast that you'll lose the sense of where the grind is when this levelling process is following standard rules. Also note that some of the significant low-level quests are non-repeatable. The tutorial questline is non-repeatable. So, if you start there, only your main is going to get the Gloomingdeep armor set, and your APs are going to have to make do with stitched burlap and pray for Crude Defiant drops. A lot of the Hero's Journey quests are also non-repeatable. Your APs will all be grinding XP by simply killing stuff until they ding 20, at which point they can start doing the repeatable Teek quests (IMHO quite boring), plus whatever other old-school content you wish to explore. If you truly start naked with an empty bank. those APs are going to give you a big headache when it comes to bag space, unless you restrict your choices to just one armor type, which sort of defeats the purpose. Networking on most servers will get you to a few bag crafters who can sell you some 16- and 20-slots to get you by for a while, but I'm not sure Mischief has ever had any bag crafters. However you ultimately decide to pursue this, good luck!
Bard, Enchanter, Beastlord are my own three favourite classes and in that order. Each has their own versatility and can fit into groups and other situations in a different ways. The bard is the jack-of-all-trades Swiss Army Knife but is not as good at each of them as another pure class.They can picklocks and so a bit of rogue-like stuff. They can charm and mez, but in VERY short intervals. They can put up a variety of buffs and even some damage in their songs but in short durations that need to be constantly renewed. They can also run faster than nearly all mounts and carry the group along with them. Their own damage is not as high as what they can bring to the damage of the others in their group. They can even off-tank very briefly in some encounters and are great for pulling. AND... they can also be boxed for a fraction of all those abilities I mention but as a mostly passive booster for the group in a decent capacity.
