Hi All, Decided to head on back to EQ good 'ol fun and had a few questions. Initially I had planned to play on the new TLP server (Mangler?) but due to time constraints with work/life I don't know if that's a viable option. Having only a few hours a week to play and an hour or two per session I doubt I'd be able to do much at all on Mangler. So I think the best course of action would be to play on Live (FV Server) and try to have somewhat of a classic experience. I'm planning on doing old content like CB, Unrest, Lguk ect. and farming up items like SMR & BAM. I plan to go through each expansion in chronological order as if I were on a TLP while avoiding items that would be considered OP from a TLP view point like Defiant Gear. I always loved playing Enchanters and plan to main one in this run through, using charmed pets as my dps. I plan on using a Mercenary as I'll most likely not have the opportunity to group while I play but am also considering boxing a character or too as well. I'll be using free access accounts to start with as I don't want the auto granted AAs and want to give farming them a go. As I'll be using a free account my mercenary will be much poorer than that of a gold account but I'm not sure by how much. Would I be able to molo through all the content at the appropriate level if I'm avoiding non classic gear? If I 2-3 box in order to have more mercenaries would they compensate for a payed account merc? I had thought of maining the Enchanter while boxing a Mage (for summoned gear & simplicity) as well as a druid for sow/ports. My end goal is to get through each expansion without too much hassle and to be able to get each characters epic 1.0 & 2.0 (not sure if that's even possible without help/raid). Will 3 boxing & using free access Mercs allow me to do this or will I struggle with this group? Also any tips & info for progressing through the expansions, experiencing old content, epics or even general info on classes would be most welcome. Thanks in advance.
You can make it 1 - 60 with a free merc after that they start having issues. Free play only lets you have 250 aaxp. That may have changed since I went to pay. You can do pay after you get the 250aaxp. You can turn off the auto grant. If i remember right the Merc tank for low levels is pretty good. Might want to do second box as an cleric or a druid. You can always have your Enc account with a war merc and the druid account with a cleric so you can get rez. On your 3 box i did 1 to 60 on Vox free play Mage,Enc,Mage and then did a Merc war and 2 cleric mercs. Had no issues till I hit 60. Warrior Merc got beat down fast and cleric mercs would go out of mana. If i remember right you can adjust the way a paid merc cleric heals where you can't do it on a free account cleric merc. Try and get your account back if you can. You will get Vet rewards and may have loyalty coins which you can buy nice items. Later on can't remember what expansion it was but you went back to original qyenos. If you do the achievements for completing quest lines you will get high level gear that came live from another expansion that was newer. Also at some point you won't be able to use all armor/augs if they are tagged as a premium item. I think it is prestige. So at some point in the 60s range you will need to pay for better mercs , more aaxp, and able to equip prestige items. Until then 1 - 60 a few days a week and you will be set for a while on Freeplay. Other things like Planes of power on live you don't have to do flagging everything opens up depending on level. Hope something here helps you
welcome back to the game , do you still have your old account info? for the veteran rewards you can have it is well worth it . if you want ( all free like always ) a very fast mount and some plats and some advices , you can send me a tell @ veggy or send me a game e-mail or let me know your toon name here . btw the veteran rewards are : Rewards[edit] 1st year -- Lesson of the Devoted: The player is surrounded by a beautiful blue/white glow as they gain double experience for half an hour once every 20 hours. 2nd year -- Infusion of the Faithful: Usable once every 20 hours, the player enjoys maximum resistances, statistics and a faster run speed for 15 minutes while he glows brightly with power. 3rd year -- Chaotic Jester: Usable once every 20 hours, this summons a Bristlebane puppet that persists for 15 minutes or until you zone. Bristlebane will randomly cast various spells that provide benefits or minor penalties. His wry sense of humor is sure to get you noticed at that next gathering! 4th year -- Expedient Recovery: Usable just under once per week, all the player’s corpses are summoned to their feet and given 100% experience resurrection if they are still eligible. This reward is very handy to use for those difficult situations where getting a resurrection is inconvenient. 5th year -- Steadfast Servant: Summons a faithful servant that casts healing spells upon the player and others nearby. Lasts for half an hour or until you zone and is usable once every 20 hours. 6th year -- Staunch Recovery: Usable once just under every 3 days, the player is fully restored with health, mana, and endurance. Great for those emergencies but it does take a few seconds to cast. 7th year -- Intensity of the Resolute: Surrounded by a glow of energy this greatly increases the power of the player’s melee abilities, spells and heals for 1 minute. This handy ability is especially useful for tough situations requiring your best and is usable once every 4 hours. 8th year -- Throne of Heroes: Usable every 72 minutes, the player is teleported to the Throne of Heroes in the Guild Lobby. 9th year -- Armor of Experience: Usable once every 20 hours this grants you several layers of protection from harm for 90 seconds or 10 strikes. This protection lessens as you take more damage. Great for when you know you’re going to take a few hits. 10th year -- Summon Resupply Agent: Usable once every 20 hours this summons a helpful mechanical merchant to your side. This is great for stocking up on supplies or selling loot when getting to a merchant is inconvenient. He will stay up for 10 minutes or unless dismissed by the player. 11th year -- Summon Clockwork Banker: Usable once every 20 hours, a helpful mechanical banker is the latest initiative from the new Norrathian Banking Consortium. 12th year -- Summon Permutation Peddler: Usable once every 20 hours, this summons an augmentation distiller vendor to your side. 13th year -- Summon Tribute Master: This summons an tribute master to your side. 14th year -- Blessing of the Devoted: Reduces the reuse time of all other Veteran's Rewards by 25 percent.
Thanks for all the info guys and a break down of all the veteran rewards. Never knew what all those rewards did. Are those items claimable on all characters or are they one per account? I might reactivate to gold account for a smoother play through on my Enchanter with a stronger merc and then free accounts for the 2nd and/or 3rd box. Will Ench/Druid/Mage work well getting through content or am I better off with a different combo? I've read that Cleric is very good with Enchanter due to Complete Heal but you'd lack all the utility from the Druid.
Use a tank merc on which ever account is going paid. Use the healer merc on the other. My basic set up is Ranger/Healer merc (who also will rez) and Enchanter/tank merc. Nice little group. You can switch back and forth on the paid part. One month one account the next month the other to get all the Auto Grant AA which are beneficial around level 85 and up - not much use under that cause not many AA at level 51-75. You can use tokens of resurrections from the Loyalty Vendor - you will have max loyalty on the vendor if you are on your old account. If your on a paid account you can also buy bags of plat that hold random amounts from 12k-15k or so. But plat is pretty easy to get. You have to be level 75 to get the J5 merc on a paid account the long hard way - lots of fighting or you can get a J5 short quest at 85 also on a paid account. Free accounts cannot run the top merc.
Started up with my gnome enchanter and gnome mage as well as another temporary gnome mage am level 5 so far. Have got a lvl 16 wood elf druid on one of my free accounts so I'll replace the 2nd mage once the group is in xp level range. I have a question though about the mercs. My gold account has a apprentice 5 merc while my silver account has the same. I think the free account is only a apprentice 3. Is there a higher tier merc for gold account or is apprentice 5 the highest? Right now the apprentice 5 tank seemed to have a bit of difficulty with a few yellow cons. I remember the gold account merc being OP and never needing heals. Right now I'm using a apprentice 5 tank, apprentice 5 healer and an apprentice 3 tank. Am I better off changing the apprentice 3 tank for a Dps? Also in regards to macros for the mages I'm having a bit of difficulty. Currently I've got: /target minichanter (my enchanters name) /assist minichanter /pause 7 /pet attack This macro works well. I also have: /target minichanter /assist minichanter /pause 7 /cast 1 (burst of fire spell I think it is) /pause 30 /sit This also works, however when I tried to combine them in one macro it doesn't seem to do the spell portion: /target minichanter /assist minichanter /pause 7 /pet attack /pause 7, /cast 1, /pause 30, /sit Is there something I'm doing wrong with the macro or is there a more efficient macro I can use? If anyone has any good macros to use for a boxed mage and druid that would be a great help.
I don't think you can do multiple commands on the same line like that. Also, in the OP you mentioned doing epics... From a physical standpoint, people solo 2.0s all the time now, BUT you will need 6 toons to get some of the instances, like Asylum of Anguish. They don't have to be in zone, just in the expedition, so you can usually ask around and people will have AFK bots they can contribute to the cause.
You do not need to /target before you assist. You can write /pause 2, /assist minichanter In one line; the pause comes after the command, not very logical. One pause command, and one regular command, pr line This way 3 lines becomes 1. Same with /pause 30, /cast 1 You can easily fit assist, pet attack (before nuke!), and nuke in the same macro. Journeyman is better than aprentice.
+1 on switch gold account Merc to Journeyman. The apprentice Mercs will take you at least to level 50 and with some difficulty to the 70s. Beyond the 70s you really need the Journeyman Mercs and upgrade them by doing the quest.in Feereott the Dream. IMO and I am open to other opinions, the difference between maximum levels you can comfortably obtain are ~20+ levels between each available options like f2f, Silver, Gold. This is related to other benefits like the number of AAs you can use and perks like the veteran rewards. It isn't just about Mercs, eventually you hit the AA ceiling too but that isn't until after the 50s. I also like your box setup but there is a lot of redundancy. All three character types can harm shield for example. With a three box it will work out no matter what three character types you choose, particularily because of Mercs. What makes it work is you have a healer and transporter in the Druid, a mana pump with crowd control in the chanter, and DPS tank with the Magician's pet. It can make the Mercs unnecessary! Don't rule out a caster Merc either. They are really fun to run against MOBs that don't have high magic resistance. You will be fighting a tough MOB thinking this fight is going to take 5-10 minutes and all of a sudden the caster Merc will light up the MOB and they drop like a bag of dirt.
Thanks a lot for the help and tips guys. So far it's been going well, have reached level 20 without too much fuss. Only dilemma now is that I'm struggling to find plat. I like getting all the spells each level, even though it's probably not necessary. I wanted to avoid using plat from my other character I have but I've needed to 'borrow' around 600pp for spells! I've just started in unrest and I should be able to get some bronze weps and other gear to sell but I think it'll be a struggle until I can do hill giants or something. Any recommendations on where to farm up some plat in classic around level 20 in order to afford spells?
Also any recommendations for spell specialisations for ench/mage/druid? I'm guessing evocation on mage is ideal but not sure about the other two.
About that level I like the Forest Giant Fort in the Warsliks Woods. Kind of a PIA to get there, get a SoW and travel invisible. The drop fairly good loot so bind near the fort and origin back to sell stuff, rinse and repeat. Occasionally, rarely, they drop a Forest Loop ear slot item that sells for a couple of hundred pp. It is a good area to level for quite a while. Lot's of people visit the Goblin area when they finish with the Giants. You may just want to hit the hot zones and power through the next 15 levels though. Hill Giants are doable at ~level 35 and drop some of the best coin in the game. Hotzone for level 20ish is South Karana so the Aviaks will give you levels, just not a lot of loot. Don't worry about spells, for most of my characters they only have 1/2 their spells. You need whatever your best 1 or 2 buffs are, a debuff, a burn, and a DOT. You should already have some of the other essentials like Mez and Charm. I usually don't worry about specialization either, just let it happen. I'm sure there are others that will give you better advice for an Enchanter. I am enchanter challenged!
Got to around 30 in unrest which helped a bit with plat and then made my way over to HGs which helped A LOT, however after buying spells up to 35 I'm broke again haha. Thinking of either going to runneyeye to try my luck at a few BAMs or if I should just head on over to Lguk and try for an SMR or two. Lguk is quite nice for xp and plat but BAM is pretty nice too.
Congratulations on the levels! I think you are doing it right. Loot everywhere is pretty poor before the 50s. You have to be willing to trade off things like Hot Zones with rapid level gains for zones with good money or hit somewhere in between. I can't tell you what you would enjoy more other then levels. I would rather have a character that is in their 50s with half their spells then one at 30 with every spell but that is just me. Something that works is Giants all the way into the low 50s. Hill Giants in Rathe Mountains have a vendor right there at the hill. Sand Giants in the Desert of Ro and Ice Giants at the Permafrost entrance have the same setup with vendors near by. That strategy gives you experience and pp somewhere in the high side of pp and low side of experience compared to a good Hot Zone. I even hit the Giants in the Frontier Mountains at lower levels. They don't have the cash of other giants but drop stuff that sells well like Giant Foreman's Tunic and Lumberjack's Cap. Just remember you are taking advice from a guy that gets characters to level 50+ with next to no spells and zero pp! It is not the strongest part of my game. You will probably come up with something optimal for your goals as you wander around a bit.
I think I might have to hold off buying every spell if I want to explore low plat farming areas. In regards to hot zones, do they provide more xp than dungeons or roughly the same? I thought dungeons applied a bonus xp modifier. Also is everything in a hot zone applying bonus xp or is it things in a particular level range?
Hot zones are in a word, HUGE when it comes to leveling. I do explore and occasionally cash up, but that is the only time I am not doing hot zones. I'd rather take a level 70+ character to explore say The Hole then slug it out with a level 50ish, just me and my priorities. Ditto for making cash, a level 60 Magician thumping giants like they are spiderlings takes no time to cash up. Thing for me is the price of spells never changes but the rate of making pp does. All those low level spells that are expensive for a level 20 character can be bought at level 50 for a few minutes of work. You still end up with a full spell book, just that you didn't spend as much time grinding out loot. There are essential spells to buy for example at least one level appropriate pet for Magicians along with damage shield, burnout, pet heal, but that is about it. The other thing you need on a Magician, particularly if you are boxing, is Call of the Hero. You just position the Magician where you want to hunt in the zone, zone in the other characters in the group and summon them to the right spot. A lot of spells for an Enchanter in a group or box are near useless. I've actually been kicked from groups for summoning an Enchanter pet. My excuse was poor aggro management on the part of the group was getting my Enchanter thumped hard while no one was doing anything to pull the MOBs off my character or otherwise prevent them from dying. Didn't make a difference, some people are that about what you do in a group.
