Hello, my name is nikag, and basically, I used to play way back then (note - nikag isnt my ign, its my dads, i just use it for everything.) Me and my dad both played for awhile, and I just rejoined. Sadly my account got wiped, so I had to restart. I'm basically starting as a necro, and I am confused and need help. xD Basically, I'm level 20, and my old route got revamped. So help number one, does anybody have an updated leveling guide for a caster, others would be fine. Second question, how should I get my gear? I die fast to mobs, and I've realized my AC is currently crap. Thanks for the help, -nikag
Did you get a tier IV mercenary? You really shouldn't be dying that often with a merc. Just get a tank merc and your pet spell. At 20 the pet spell is Animate Dead. Necro isn't too hard to run. Mostly you will want to use a slow/snare spells like Engulfing Darkness to pull a mob from a short distance away. As it charges you, the merc and your pet should attack automatically. Just stand back and let them kill the mob. You can drop other spells on the mob from a distance. Never kill faster then your merc or the mob will come after you. A good spell line is the Heat Blood, does a lot of damage over time. There's other stuff you can use, like after hitting something with the Darkness line cast Fear on it. Your pet and merc will follow it around killing it w/o taking damage. Shouldn't be necessary at level 20.
If you're dying, you aren't using a merc. Basic leveling guide for any class: tutorial to 10 (grants full set of Defiant), Crescent Reach/Blightfire to 35. Follow Hero's Journey quests to 80. Do hot zone dailies every day. Specific class paths vary past 60: paladins need undead, necrosis have their favorite kite spots. But up to 60, the tank merc makes everyone the same.
@Fluid - I don't have a tier 4 merc, i'm only a f2p player currently. The merc cannot tank anything like everybody says, I send it to tank and every hit does 10% of his health. He will soon just die and then my pet, with no health, dies, and me, no health, dies. Is silver or gold just necessary to level up?
Mercs up to around lev 20 don't really have any taunt abilities that work that great. Around lev 20 to lev 25 the tank merc should be able to keep stuff off of you, unless you are doing some high argo spells. When I used to argo kite with a necro I think I used the heat, posion and darkness line of spells to keep argo on me cause they tend to generate a good amount of argo. So if you are getting argo off the tank in the lev 20s and up most likely due to not waiting a bit to cast some spells or are sitting right after cast one that could cause some argo to you. Meaning if you sit right after casting some spells that tend to annoy the mob it will come after you or if you sit too close to the fight too, if you are sitting. The lower tier mercs also might have more trouble keeping argo never try one of them I tend to use the appren 5 or journeyman ones. I think the silver is like 5 dollars to upgrade to it ? Otherwise if on bronze and using the mercs they give you , you just need to hold back a bit on casting spells after the merc attacks the mob. When you get the life tap dot spell and the your life transfer to another spell, you might want to take it a bit easy on casting right away. The other thing I could suggest to you is trade the tank merc out for a healer merc and like your pet tank or go "old school" and have no merc and argo kite or fear kite mobs. If you go that direction I would check out necrotalk.com and read some of the posts it has for hunting for necros. The reason I say that most of them posts are for the older stuff and the mobs should be easyer to kill and what not.
Not required, but useful. Specifically for mercenary quality, Silver status is great to have for the price. SOE often has sales on buying the SC points. The last one was 40% off the price, so $5 worth of points was only $3. So for $3 I upgraded a lot of my FTP accounts to Silver. Silver status is a one time purchase. Gold status requires a monthly subscription. If you are FTP, then paying for a month (ie by credit card, using a SOE card from Walmart or other stores, or buying a Krono with in-game plat) gives you Gold status. After the month is up you drop to Silver status rather than FTP. So you have a lot of options. I would also say agree with Zamblas1 about trying a healer merc and letting you pet tank. The merc will buff and heal the pet and they stack with your pet buffs. But you should also check the bazaar for pet toys like Fists of Ixiblat, the Muzzles, and the belts. Some items have a level restriction so be careful what you buy. The fists (weapons) work on pets level 10, many other weapons have level restrictions. You can also put (summoned) plate armor on your pet. That really turns the pet into a monster tank.
Not sure what server your on but getting some buffs can also help a lot. Asking a nice cleric for Temp on pet, merc and you would help. Some mounts add some good stats as well, as a necro fighting on a mount while using a merc is pretty easy.
Me too post after the info given. I found the f2p w/o upgrading to silver mercs tanks weak myself. The big 'but' is try using your pet with one of the healer mercs. They they will drop like a bag of dirt if anything attacks them, but they should still be able to keep up with healing you and your pet. Kind of a hassle making sure you never pull more then one mob. I am impatient though: I kicked in the fin for silver on my second account. Tank + pet damage is ~twice as fast for killing stuff. You mentioned in your first post that you used to play. It is not that big a deal to get your old account info. SOE CS is really helpful, just turn in a request and they will ask you for what info you have. If you can tell them stuff like name on the credit card or old email address, it may be enough. Thing is, even if you didn't have a character above level 10 and it got wiped, it is still silver status! The /claim for an older account is dynamite! Multiple pieces of defiant gear, weapon, potions of speed<SoW in a bottle>, and experience bonus potions. You may even qualify for a horse to ride. If you haven't yet, follow the links on Borek's signature. Lot's of good advice there. There are a few of my favorites like http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=3916 http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=4171 And make sure you do this one, no fighting involved. Just take the lift to the second floor of Crescent Reach. http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=5592 For a weapon, at level 20 this should be a cake walk. http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=3653 If there are any chinks in your gear after those, peruse this list of quests for what you may need. http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/zone.html?zstrat=431#Quests_Starting You will still have to be careful on f2p but you should be tough enough after you get your gear up to speed.
Shoot the (one time only) $5 fee to get a lifetime Silver account. Then get the best Apprentice Merc you can. I just upgraded from A1 to A5 Mercs - and noticed a HUGE difference in their worthiness. -R
