Hello all. Ive been online gaming over 16 years and EQ1 was my first MMORPG. Ever since that Ive ran about every major MMORPG that has came out. For EQ though, I remember it being fun with tons of zones to explore. I would find a zone around my level, and go hunt mobs. No forced questing, I could just go kill stuff it was great. I would get decent loot and exp, and it felt satisfying to make progress. I recently decided to reinstall EQ and come back for some old school fun. But this time I decided to boost some characters and try things at a bit higher level. I have boosted a druid, warrior, cleric, shaman, and just recently a wizard, all level 85 heroic boosts from the store. The problem is, no matter what I seem to try and do to level, it usually ends up in me getting killed and losing more exp than gaining it...its like Im leveling in reverse. Keep in mind I have played and still play some very hard, very brutal, games. I would invite anyone to come with me into ME3 or ME4 CO-OP and run extractions any time. So Im not new to very hard and intense games...but this, is crazy. I run 5 accounts and can literally have my own party of my heroic boosted level 85 characters in full heroic gear, or just run a group of my lowbies. I just alt tab between accounts. Sometimes I use mercs, sometimes I dont, but its the same thing either way. I pull with my warrior, hit some AA's, then get him auto-attacking. But I have to quickly swap to one of my healers and literally spam heal him JUST to try and keep him alive...on just blue and white mobs...why does it feel like my recently boosted heroic warrior is wearing paper armor? Is this what I paid 35 dollars for, a "heroic" character that cant even tank whites and blues? Ive read warriors are still the top tanks with the most HP/AC in game(correct me if Im wrong), yet my warrior is so squishy its ridiculous. This happens regardless of where I go, and the exp "gains" are so horrible, its ridiculous as well. Maybe 1% per kill, IF that...and thats WITH the exp potions... TLDR: Im sorry for the long post, but I wanted to fully describe the situation. Whites and blues hitting this hard on a brand new "heroic" tank doesnt seem even close to right. So what am I doing wrong? I really wanted to give EQ another shot for some 'old school' MMORPG action, but at this point its not fun its just frustrating. Im thinking Im either doing something very wrong, or have made a huge mistake reinstalling EQ and especially spending all of the real world money in the Daybreak store. Any help/advice would be great, thanks in advance.
Where you are playing as a heroic 85 is important. You don't really have the power right away to play much above the House of Thule zones. Some gear and AAs will help that (along with a few levels, of course). As a fresh 85, do many of the Feerrott the Dream quests. Then do at least House of Thule Lower Floors at least through the Welcome to My Nightmare quest. For each of these quests, heroic characters get very nice augments to boost class-specific needs. You also get Dream Delvers faction, which you need indifferent to get the 87-90 spell merchant "quests". My advice is to continue on through upper floors of House and try the Library quests. When you can survive the Grounds, move there. Alternately, with the basic set of augments, you can start the Gribbles missions in Dead Hills. That will open a rapid advancement (in either AAs or levels), and accumulate tokens for gear upgrades. Stay away from the end of mission named, though. As heroic toons in basic gear at 85 to 87, those named will eat you up. Starting at 86, you can get into Rustic gear from Veil of Alaris. The Rustic wraps are available in the bazaar (right now, some prices are pretty good from the July 4 weekend). Or stay in Gribbles, get enough tokens to buy fear-touched starting at 100. At 100, though, there are a lot of other options.
One major problem is trying to box that many accounts. Yes some people can do it but usually when they have real good knowledge of the classes and their abilities. And at 85 and on, there is a ton of spells, disciplines, AA abilities etc. Every role requires a lot of hands-on. Boxers usually buch up abilities into social macros so a specific sequence can be fired off in one click. At 85, on-level mobs hit hard, and even a well geared tank easily gets pounded without a dedicated healer. You will find that many boxers run healer mercs. I personally box druid and chanter with tank and healer mercs. I initially thought to have druid do heals and run caster dps merc, but with tougher content, that just didn't work. Exp gain from plain kills at this level is just horrid, unless you are in a hot zone. With most content at lvl 95, I usually get 1% per 3-4 kills. The real xp is in HAs. Gribbles are supposedly simplest but I prefer to check with Teek and do his HA selections - keeps things more varied.
Stay with it, I think your biggest problem is in thinking that EQ is quick to pick up EQ has more to master than most games, but once you do, it is just as easy as any other video game. (BTW, when you say ME3/ME4, do you Mass Effect?) If you are boxing, use IS Boxer or else you are handicapping yourself (compared to the majority of boxers). And you should enjoy internet research, because that is 95% of the "work" in EQ. Free time is literally the most important indicator of success in EQ.
Heroic characters are starter characters, not developed and robust. For tanks in particular, this means not yet having 20 appropriate (meaning "with AC") augments in their 20 pieces of armor. Not yet having appropriate (meaning "with AC") food/drink. Not yet having appropriate (meaning "with AC") tribute/trophy benefits. Not yet having Weapon Stances AA enabled. I think heroic tanks start with Metal (the highest AC for that level) power source, at least. Heroic characters are ready to begin adventuring, they're not already done for you to just roll around in roflstomping things You absolutely do get to that point, though, if you stick with it One more thing I note from your specific story is that you may be experiencing battles much longer than intended, with an 85 warrior and 3 priests, with sometimes also a healer mercenary? The shm & dru can deal decent damage with their dots, but I suspect a warrior at that level would be challenged to keep up with those agro-wise. Consider simplifying and attending a bit more deliberately to party balance. Like, going to three characters, tank and ... two not three, of the priests? maybe, and running a dps merc with all three. On the priest front, gear is far less important than on the tank, but since the tank isn't ridiculously over-geared for the content, using their full spread of abilities to support him is key. Not just trying to keep his hp topped up. Blanched Frost & Blessing of Ro AA from the druid. Shaman Counterbias spell to slow instead of plain Turgurs, and Crippling Spasm if your fights are long enough to justify it. Listlessness(shm) and Carapace of the Reptile(dru) and Erud's Retort(cle) cast on the tank, and if you get a couple levels Shining Rampart(cle). Shm should be keeping up either group Heal Over Time or single on the tank. The cleric is, perhaps remarkably given the very plain précis of the class, pretty difficult to play powerfully (correctly). The basic job, like folks expect a healer mercenary to fulfill, is accomplished by chain casting Devout Light. Devout Light is reasonably efficient, and it's easy to use since there's no cooldown or conditions, but that … mode can leave you scrambling to catch up with no tools. "Doing it right" is with sequencing faster & fancier spells. Promised heal, the two single target stuns (which add up to quite a lot of damage mitigation, between them immobilizing the mob for 13s every 30s), the fast-casting Intervention and Contravention lines, Glorious nuke to get double healing out of the next couple spells - having heavy rotation on all those leads to barely having to use the very slow & plain Devout Light. The cleric's epic2, which functionally doubles how many Divine Arbitrations you get to use, is a hell of a thing also. There's a lot to EQ besides the output of /who, basically.
you got 3 healers , I would drop one and get a mage instead , so you would have another tank ( pet ), who might be better at tanking than your war at 1st until you learn and equip your warrior more . mage need a decent earring with pet focus ( enhancement minion ), VS warrior who need a lot of good gear / aa's / augments .. I box 4 now ( same comp / screen ) and don't use is-boxer. shaman lv 105 ( max xp ) my main toon mage lv 105 ( got a lv 105 warrior as well on that account with 15k or so aa's ) chanter lv 105 ( so usefull specially at higher zones ( EOK chardok and droga ), druid lv 105 ( track $$$ ) and ports.( got another mage lv 105 that I can play as well on that account )
As someone else above stated, I think that you are jumping in a bit too deep before you are ready. If you just came back and made all your characters Heroic, when you have not played one, let alone all, of those characters to that level or higher before is really going to handicap you. You are not aware of what to do or what to go after. If 5 boxing is your chosen path as is that set of classes, then I would suggest starting in SoF or SoD era doing the appropriate Heroic Journey and other Achievements for those expansions while you get a handle on how to best play the classes you're using for the best results, then move onto HoT and eventually UF, VoA, and later expansions as you level up. Also, you can grind all the way up, but generally there are basic kill tasks you can get in HoT and later expansions which give ok xp as a supplement to your killing.
Wow thanks alot for all of the excellent information everyone. This old game might be a pain in the butt, but this forum community(as well as a few nice in game players) is outstanding. I will try to give it another shot and use this advice as best I can, thanks again and good hunting.
I was getting owned in Ferrott the Dream when I started a heroic team a few months ago. The team was Warrior, Bard, Cleric, Necromancer. At lvl 85 I stayed long enough in Ferrott to get the J5 mercs then went to Gribbles. Google Gribbles or Call of the Forsaken and you will find out how to get to him. I used a healer and tank merc in Gribbles to lvl 90, ( had to use my box cleric to spot heal the tank merc a lot ) then bought lucid gear at lvl 90 using Marks of Valor currency that you earn from Gribbs missions. Then went back to Ferrott to do the House of Thule questlines for the heroic character ac augs. There are ac augs you can buy with marks of valor as well starting at lvl 80. Good luck, I know having your tank 2 shotted is no fun. Lastly, Bards and Enchanters get an aoe mez somewhere around lvl 70 that is a life saver while boxing. Never played a Bard before but wow they are handy. A Bard takes care of your pull, mez, lock pick, and tracking needs all in one plate wearing package.
I was getting owned in Ferrott the Dream when I started a heroic team a few months ago. The team was Warrior, Bard, Cleric, Necromancer. At lvl 85 I stayed long enough in Ferrott to get the J5 mercs then went to Gribbles. Google Gribbles or Call of the Forsaken and you will find out how to get to him. I used a healer and tank merc in Gribbles to lvl 90, ( had to use my box cleric to spot heal the tank merc a lot ) then bought lucid gear at lvl 90 using Marks of Valor currency that you earn from Gribbs missions. Then went back to Ferrott to do the House of Thule questlines for the heroic character ac augs. There are ac augs you can buy with marks of valor as well starting at lvl 80. Good luck, I know having your tank 2 shotted is no fun. Lastly, Bards and Enchanters get an aoe mez somewhere around lvl 70 that is a life saver while boxing. Never played a Bard before but wow they are handy. A Bard takes care of your pull, mez, lock pick, and tracking needs all in one plate wearing package.
Chanters get the same. AoE mezz/stun, memblur, knock back, can pull, do decent dps. Although they don't get plate armor, they do get shield block and can stack runes, so it takes them awhile before they start taking damage. And some of those runes stun once they get used up and other nifty side effects
Thanks 22wplkj and Treiln as well as all the rest of you helpful folks too. Ya Ive always heard "tales of old" about how amazing EQ1 bards were(as well as other EQ1 classes), all that stuff bards can do wrapped up in one class...but I forgot those bards can even wear plate on top of that haha nice. My memory isnt as good as it used to be, but dont bards also have some of the fastest run speed buffs in game? And those chanters seem fantastic too with their mezzes etc, but they also have some awesome buff that kicks up mana regen as well right?
Bards have the fastest run speed in game. I've never played a bard, but I've heard that once you get used to it, it's so hard to go back to anything else haha. And Enchanters have the best mana regen buffs around as well. They also get a haste that improves double attack, crit, and all that fun jazz. Can't believe it took me this long to make an Enchanter haha. I had one back in the early days of my EQ adventures (LoY/PoP) but that was strictly for enchanting metals for jewelcrafting >.<
So many awesome classes in this old game haha. Maybe that is the way to go since some of these "normal" mobs are actually crazy mean, is to snare/kite/DoT them, or attack ranged with bow or spells. Do you guys know if bards have any type of DoTs or other ways of attacking from range? You know, use the fast run speed, maybe a snare or root, and just kite the mob around while you blast it some way from range.
I've found that there are some nice places to solo at 85, but you are not going to be in the highest level zones or newest zones. There are even some places in the old world where you can get a smidge of exp, but for the most part, stick to middling new zones or go for exp groups. I don't box more than one character ever, but if you box two, try using a damage caster or melee damage character with a healer. Magicians, Necromancers, and Beastlords make good solo characters pared with the right mercenary. In any event, without a group, don't expect to tackle any really hard zones.
The problem I see these days with Heroics stems from Heroics being an older concept and not many being created - or at least not many at the same times, resulting in groups. EQ, especially at higher levels, is a group oriented game. Which is great, but when Heroics are marketed in a way that most people expect to pay, jump in, and play, it can result in frustrated and unhappy players. With the exception of a few classes, it's extremely challenging to even complete the first quest as a brand new Heroic, solo. I recently started a Heroic Shaman and attempted to complete the first quest. I could have done it, but it would have taken far more work and time than I wished to expend. If I were a new player, I'd have quit and not looked back. Is it perhaps time to bump Heroics up to maybe level 95? To make it easier for them to find groups? Something to think about.
Enchanters also get some interesting caster damage amplification abilities at higher levels. I would say, most insane xp is looking up Clayton Teek in PoK, getting his daily and then doing it. I often get 30-35% of level from a single adventure that way. But of course, you need at least 2 people + 2 mercs for that.
Well regardless of if I try new zones like The Dream in Ferrott, or hotzones, the exp is so bad its ridiculous. So at this point, I just want ANY place I can go, and the white and blue con mobs actually act like white and blue con mobs should and not act like elite super insanely mean mobs. I would love to know these lvl 85 zones you speak of that are nice places to level, and old school zones are fine with me!
I would have loved to seen your freshly heroic boosted shaman try to take on white and blue con spiders and lizardman in The Dream, since even my warrior cant seem to barely survive tanking them even with constant spam healing from my other healer classes...I have a heroic ogre shaman and it would be a nightmare to try and tank one of those stupidly underconned mobs by himself. The only way would be to try and keep it rooted, and DoT/nuke it down, then keep recasting root constantly. But tanking it?... I would have to cast a heal every other spell, and even then the damage output on the spiders and lizardmen is so insane he normally cant outheal it. I think Daybreak needs to fix the heroic gear so that when you boost a character, and it puts you in The Dream, you can actually....you know...kill things. Right now, Im sad to say its basically a huge rip off taking 35 dollars for a character that cant even play against blues and whites in the zone heroic boosted characters start in.
Well I tried those teek NPCs for the hot zone quests a few times, and it ended up both times with me getting my entire group of heroics wiped and losing more exp than gaining...total frustration. I got fed up getting wiped from those hot zones quests, went back to The Dream in Ferrott...only to find its got "easy con" mobs that are even worse than the hot zone quest mobs lol. Its really sad you can spend 35 bucks real money in the Daybreak store to boost a toon in EQ1, and it cant even handle whites or even blues in the zone it puts you in right after boost....or other mobs in other zones basically for that matter. But you can boost a toon in EQ2 and it can do nicely vs mobs your level and it feels very satisfying because you are making progress. Here, the boosts are more ripoffs Ive found out as far as the extremely underpowered gear you get from the boost.
