Hi, I just got my old account back. I have many questions since I am a bit confused on the state of the game now. My Knight is 65, has 370 AA (which was a fuckload back in PoP) but of course absolutely none of post PoP skills or spells. My gear is high end PoP stuff, server-first Quarm and blahblah. I have no idea what to keep and what to throw. I have the feeling Defiant will be widely superior but maybe I am wrong. About the detail : Code: Hoop of the Enlighted Helm of Flowing Time Great Mask of Flame Pulsing Emerald Hoop Breastplate of the Void Armguards of the Brute Girdle of Intense Durability Grimror's Bracers Amulet of Crystal Dreams Shield of Mental Fortitude Shroud of Provocation Wristband of Echoed Thoughts Grimror's Boots Gauntlets of Disruption Intricate Wooden Figurine Ring of Force Ring of Algae Greatblade of Chaos with Radiant Fragment of Dread Symbol of the Planmasters What to keep? What to safely destroy? Same questions about clickies and uses: Code: - Pre Nerf CoS - Overthere TP hammer thingy - Jboots - Dain ring - Ring of the Crimson Bull - Bracer of the Hidden - Bracer of Hammerfall - Bobbing Corpse click earing - Avantar proc weapon from sleeper's tomb - Eyepatch of Plunder - Pauldron of Ferocity - full Blood Ember - Helm of Deep Sea Any insight of how you should play SK nowdays would also be great.
Very broad and general answer: Time gear is very roughly equivalent to Elaborate Defiant, but Time has higher AC - so make individual checks, but I'd keep anythign from Time (and junk most of the pre-Time PoP stuff). Maxed out Intricate Wooden Figurine is still a good charm slot until much higher. Symbol of the Planesmasters is a keeper - the proc buff isn't replaced for most classes. Most of the clickies should be kept, but may be obsoleted by AAs at some point. Go to evilgamer.net for specific SK advice, there are some great threads there for returnees. But I will say that general play style changes with AAs/spells around 70/71 - Mortal Coil, Decrepit Skin, epic 1.5/2.0 click. Therefore, you will want to: see about cash and specific updates (check the Bazaar for weapons from T1 SoF, required level 65); read evilgamer threads on augs for AC; visit the library to fill out your spell book (it has all spells before 71 apart from ancients), plus rank 1 spells from 71-80. Check out the hot zone NPC (Franklin Teek) for quest that reward large exp (you might want to skip the Plane of Air ones, though), and possibly Fenden Helter in Dragonscale Hills for other daily quests, some of which are no kill. There are also the 'farm' quests in DSH that are worth looking into. Otherwise, the Hero's Journey (see /achievements) is a good pointer to quests to try out, with decent modern rewards. See what the Loyalty vendor has to offer, and the Bazaar and marketplace quests from Secalna Galnor (next to her in the Plane of Knowledge). Also see what you have in /claim. If you don't have a Gold subscription, be careful of Prestige flags on items - should only affect you with augments, though.
Background is bad. IIRC (and I probably don't), yellow means you are below the required level, red means you can't use the item - probably due to having a Prestige augment. These items will give you ZERO stats. The reason this happens is because you now respawn when dead with your gear, and you might have delevelled (or returned as Silver with a load of Prestige gear). The fix is to remove the augs that are affected; to the best of my knowledge, no Time gear is classes as Prestige. However, old trash augments are classed as Prestige, even though they add something like +3 AGI. The good news is that the much newer hot zone augs aren't Prestige, so you can fix the problem and upgrade at the same time. Tip: you don't need a bird bath to switch augs now, just the distiller, so it is much more convenient.
Purple means the gear is fine, but it has prestige augs. With this background, you are gaining stats from the gear, but not the aug.
All the way to level 90 now and perhaps to 95 when VoA (the 90-95 expansion) becomes F2P in September. Yes, some level 65-80 Hero's Journey quest arcs have rewards that are better than level 70-80 Defiant. If you don't do them, then consider checking the Bazaar around 70-71 when the next tier of Defiant gear (Elegant) and certain other types of armor (Archaic, Othni -- see http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=4847) become available. Also, at 65 or 66 you should be able to see the non-visible Elaborate Defiant armor that Iason Yureska (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=33231) has for sale. It's almost 4k pp per piece and may not be much of an upgrade for you, but the focus effects work on spells up to level 75, which is more than can be said about PoT gear. The vendor is in PoK, so it's trivial to check. P.S. You may want to review Borek's guides linked in his signature. There may be some easy upgrades that we are not thinking of, e.g. weight reducing bags.
