I love the expansion! I hate that its not accessible to most! (reqs & zones too hard)

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Altho, Nov 27, 2018.

  1. Tommara Active Member

    However, I must say, I'm having a blast, and now approaching one month since I've returned, I'm considering upping my subscription from month to month to 3 months. More importantly, my extremely MMO critical husband (works in IT, and hence low tolerance for bugs, early Lum the Mad follower and his diaspora, etc.) is having fun too.

    But you really do have to do a lot of research outside of game to figure out why your level 110 pretty much sucks in Chaos Descending, and one of the best places to start is this forum.
    Pixistik and Dude like this.
  2. Majestic Member

    Been talking to my friends in game and we all agree that chat channel says it all. This one is not your usual xpac. Seems to me people are struggling and busy getting the basic only to find out even the basic is not doing them any good. My guess is; it will be few weeks before DB loosens up on this xpac so people can start enjoying the game a bit..
  3. Magmag Active Member

    There is no way people should be struggling so much to complete T1 heroics. The scripts are not difficult and you can do the zones in mastercrafted gear. This game has already been watered down enough over the last decade because people want the developers to nerf everything into loot piñatas so they can get a false sense of accomplishment. Learn how to play it or go play something else; the choice is simple. This has been one of the best expansions since TSO and the heroic zones are great and provide a challenge you can complete with 1 group. You think good players should only have raid content because all the selfish casuals want anything that can be completed with 6 people to be nerfed into oblivion? If you don't raid, you DO NOT NEED HEROIC GEAR FOR ANY OTHER CONTENT SO TRY ENJOYING THE HEROIC CONTENT INSTEAD OF COMPLAINING THAT YOU CAN'T GET FREE GEAR. It's a pretty basic concept.
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  4. Tommara Active Member

    Absolutely.

    But that's DBG's problem, not ours.
    CoLD MeTaL likes this.
  5. Dead Alt Account Well-Known Member


    Actually, you can't complete heroics with MC gear because you won't have enough potency to complete the zones. Also, nobody said anything about gear. You really need to work on your reading comprehension before trolling on the boards.
    Kheldar, Seefar and CoLD MeTaL like this.
  6. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    One simple thing you can do to vastly improve your current gear is to infuse it.

    Deity Modifier Layer lets you spend plat to do deity infusion. EQ2 button, Deity, Infusion tab. Drag an item to the box, then start clicking until either the item is completely infused, or your budget has been reached. Which starts are boosted is a crap shoot: it will be STA, ABMod, POT, or Crit Bonus.

    Physical Modifier Layer is something you completely control. The infusers that drop in instances and raids apply to this layer, as do crafted infusers. The stats that can be modified are STA, ABMod, POT and Crit Bonus, and you can choose what stats to boost simply by deciding what infuser you will use. You can use the same Deity Infusion tab described above, just drag and drop your infusers to the box with the green emerald.

    After a while, you get a message saying something like, "This infuser can't infuse this item". How do you know what CAN be used to infuse it? Look yourself up on Dragon's Armory.

    Click an item you have equipped, click the Infusers tab (below the paperdoll/gear piccies), then expand Physical Modifier Layer. Expand a stat, and you will get a list of which exact infusers can be used on that item. Repeat for all four infusable stats.
    [IMG]

    Start by using any crafted infusers that stat will take. To get the pieces to make crafted infusers, you need to salvage junk loot, but you can also craft a bunch of handcrafted 110 common attuneable items (say, swords, or helmets etc.) and then salvage those.

    For example, on my helmet, I've boosted a lot of Potency, and now only Planar Ancient Potency Infusers will work on it. If you can't infuse that stat anymore at all, you will see "There are no more infuser items that can upgrade this stat on this layer."

    But if I open Stamina on this item, there's a whole grocery list of infusers I can use:
    • Standard Stamina Infuser
    • Reconstructed Standard Stamina Infuser
    • Deepforge Handcrafted Stamina Infuser
    • Freethinker's Stamina Infuser
    • Dissenter's Stamina Infuser
    • Deepforge Mastercrafted Stamina Infuser
    • Advanced Stamina Infuser
    • Heroic Stamina Infuser
    • Reconstructed Heroic Stamina Infuser
    • Exceptional Stamina Infuser
    • Reconstructed Epic Stamina Infuser
    • Epic Stamina Infuser
    • Ancient Stamina Infuser
    • Reconstructed Standard Stamina Warforged Infuser
    • Standard Stamina Warforged Infuser
    • Standard Stamina Warforged Infuser
    • Skyfire Standard Stamina Infuser
    • Reconstructed Skyfire Standard Stamina Infuser
    • Twark Handcrafted Stamina Infuser
    • Bloody Tooth Mastercrafted Stamina Infuser
    • Advanced Stamina Warforged Infuser
    • Reconstructed Advanced Stamina Warforged Infuser
    • Advanced Stamina Warforged Infuser
    • Skyfire Advanced Stamina Infuser
    • Reconstructed Skyfire Advanced Stamina Infuser
    • Reconstructed Heroic Stamina Warforged Infuser
    • Heroic Stamina Warforged Infuser
    • Heroic Stamina Warforged Infuser
    • Planar Standard Stamina Infuser
    • Reconstructed Exceptional Stamina Warforged Infuser
    • Exceptional Stamina Warforged Infuser
    • Reconstructed Epic Stamina Warforged Infuser
    • Skyfire Epic Stamina Infuser
    • Reconstructed Skyfire Epic Stamina Infuser
    • Planar Advanced Stamina Infuser
    • Reconstructed Planar Stamina Infuser
    • Planar Ancient Stamina Infuser
    The Deepforge Handcrafted infusers don't need salvaged pieces or rares: they use common harvests. Once I've used as many of those as it will take, I use the junk that drops doing solos and heroics to salvage, then make Reconstructed Planar Infusers with them.

    Here's what it takes to craft infusers, and they're listed in order of increasing efficacy. I usually start with the low-level handcrafted, then work up, because it's cheapest.

    Deepforge Handcrafted Infusers (Provisioner)
    Recipe Book: Deepforge Provisioner Essentials (Purchased in Maldura)
    • 1 umbral trout or abyssal angler (depending on which infuser)
    • 1 thaumic material
    • 3 umbrite
    • 3 bornite nodule
    • 5 Thaumic Kindling
    Deepforge Mastercrafted Infusers (Provisioner)
    Recipe Book: Deepforge Advanced Provisioner (Purchased in Maldura)
    • 1 umbral pelt
    • 1 umbral trout or abyssal angler (depending on which infuser)
    • 1 thaumic material
    • 3 umbrite
    • 3 bornite nodule
    • 5 Thaumic Kindling
    Reconstructed Heroic Infusers (Artisan)
    Recipe Book: Infuser Reconstruction of the Deepforge Founders (Purchased in Maldura?)
    • 20 Salvaged Heroic Infuser Fragments
    • 3 umbrite
    • 3 bornite nodule
    • 3 abyssal pelt
    • 5 Thaumic Coal
    Twark Handcrafted Infusers (Provisioner)
    Recipe Book: Bloody Tooth Provisioning Essentials (Purchased from goblins in Twark)

    Bloody Tooth Mastercrafted Infusers (Provisioner)
    • 1 Leathery Shadeleaf
    • 1 thaumic material
    • 3 umbrite
    • 3 bornite nodule
    • 5 Thaumic Kindling
    Reconstructed Skyfire Standard Infusers (Artisan)
    Recipe Book: Clan Bloody Tooth Scribblings on Reconstructing Infusers (Purchased from goblins in Twark)
    • 10 Salvaged Standard Skyfire Infuser Fragment
    • 3 thalumbral root
    • 3 bornite nodule
    • 3 malduran lumber
    • 5 Thaumic Coal
    Reconstructed Skyfire Advanced Infusers (Artisan)
    Recipe Book: Clan Bloody Tooth Scribblings on Reconstructing Infusers (Purchased from goblins in Twark)
    • 10 Salvaged Heroic Skyfire Infuser Fragment
    • 3 thalumbral root
    • 3 bornite nodule
    • 3 malduran lumber
    • 5 Thaumic Coal
    Reconstructed Planar Infusers (Artisan)
    Recipe Book: Reconstructed Planar Infusers (Dropped in PoP Heroic instances)
    Note: No crit bonus infusers in this tier
    • 5 Salvaged Planar Infuser Fragment
    • 10 storm stalk
    • 8 golden ember
    • 8 gnarled entwood
    • 30 Celestial Candle
    I haven't seen the Chaos Descending recipe book for infusers yet.
    Tommara, Breanna, GrunEQ and 6 others like this.
  7. Febrith Well-Known Member

    Call me old-fashioned but I like that putting together an effective group and not just 6 random (or 4 or whatever) people that "requires" a tank and even 2 healers - going back to the basic group set up of my EQ2 youth doesn't bother me in the slightest, in fact I welcome it. Group set up used to be important and I'm glad that it is again.
    I guess this just shows that you can't please all of the people all of the time!
  8. Magmag Active Member

    You have no idea what you're talking about. Everybody I know from Vigilance, AD, and my guild was able to complete T1 heroics with fully mastercrafted except maybe wearing their myth/tome instead, which is a potency downgrade. I don't care if people mentioned gear. I'm saying all you need is mastercrafted gear and 30% of a brain to complete T1s, yet people are here trying to get heroic zones nerfed because they are "too hard"... I know because I, along with everybody I know in game, have completed them WITH mastercrafted gear. Whatever, I don't know why I expect people on these forums to understand after seeing this same stuff since flames shut down. You guys go on whining about how everything is too hard until it gets nerfed into being glorified training dummies with loot. Don't bother learning how to complete it instead. Cheers.
    Breanna likes this.
  9. Cyrrena Well-Known Member

    Fine, all of us that do not raid but do like to group with friends and run heroics with the mindset of if we complete it hooray for us, if not, we will try again, will leave. I can guarantee you that if the day comes when this happens, you will have no EQ2 to raid in.

    There has always been this "its them against us" mentality between raiders and non-raiders and whether you like it or not, there are far more non-raiders than there are raiders. It has been this way since the first MMORPGs' went live back in the 1990's, but then it was PKrs against non-PKrs or Reds against Blues.

    I have seen a lot of people saying they would like to raid, but they have never done so, therefore the raiding guilds do not want them. The raiding guilds want people that have raided before, they are not looking for someone that wants to learn the ropes and progress. How do players that have never raided before learn the ropes? How do they learn the scripts and gain gear so that a raiding guild will take them? The answer to these questions is they run groups with friends or guildmates, they do heroic zones with filthy casuals, or the do PUGS.
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  10. Magmag Active Member

    I know my guild has no problems recruiting people with little to no raiding experience. Most mid-range semi-casual guilds are that way. The willingness to learn and put in effort are plenty to make up for a lack of experience. I don't like the us against them mentality any more than anybody else, but when players prefer to just have the content ruined instead of learning how to improve and defeat the content then of course that's what it will devolve into. If people want training dummies they are available in the guild hall.
    Breanna likes this.
  11. Leed Active Member


    Listen, I get where you are coming from, but you need to realize you might either have more resources available to you, or you might just know some tricks that a lot of people don't. I didn't know to look for refined mastercrafted and have somebody experiment on it for example - that right there is thousands of potency when dealing with multiple slots where I had regular mastercrafted that was just diety infused. Now, you are right that the scripts aren't that difficult, but either you didn't try to go through the dungeons with basic mastercrafted, or for some other reason you had a very different experience from me.

    The first heroics I went in I got beat down - named don't need scripts when their basic AoEs are enough to kill a 100 million HP player in seconds. Now, I have been progressing, as has my guild mates. I've seen the zones becoming more and more doable as we unlock armor gear, and fill in every slot with 60/65 resolve gear. Our defiler's wards don't instantly melt away, people have 50% to even double the health they did, DPS are over 60k potency so finally actually doing damage, etc. Those early zones though - there's no denying they were harder than the early zones were in PoP or KA for me.

    Would it have been different if I tried those early zones with refined mastercrafted that had been experimented and then infused? Probably. I might have an entirely different first impression of the difficulty of the zones. Catch is - I don't think most people know to do all that. This is the first time where it's required in order to get to the required potency. Resolve meanwhile just confuses people - they think 'That's the stat I need', then they go in there with 1060 resolve, 55k potency and just get stomped to death.

    I understand it's more fun to beat a challenge than have it handed to you, BUT you need to give people a starting cliff hold. Make T2 heroics that difficulty jump, T1 should be to 'ease' people into the heroics. You don't want to have somebody go into their first heroics and go into shock - 'This is impossible, I'll stick to the solo." You don't want to strangle the pick up groups. Let the T1 zones not be 'easy' but certainly make them doable in mastercrafted (which gets you to about 50-55k potency) and sigline gear. Then leave the T2 zones as the big challenge to climb up.
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  12. Kari Well-Known Member

    I find it disappointing that players are pretty much required to buy mastercrafted gear to run the entry level heroics. And its not really enough to just get the mastercrafted if they actually want to contribute anything, they also need to infuse, which can get pricier than some people can afford.

    This is the first expansion that I remember that it wasn't enough to run the signature line and the solo zones to gear up enough to set foot in the first heroic. I am concerned at the lack of players LFG in the general channel. So far we haven't had any problems filling our group, but it doesn't bode well to have so many people stuck in solos.
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  13. Magmag Active Member

    I am sure the average player doesn't have access to a lot of things I do, but plenty of players both on these forums and I'm general chat are willing to help. If anybody asks and I'm not busy I'll go out of my way to explain to them how to better gear and prepare for heroics. But so many people don't ask and instead just want the content nerfed to their level. We all started somewhere but the game isn't impossible to learn and the people have a hard time could definitely get the information they need.
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  14. Kari Well-Known Member

    I don't think that the content needs to be nerfed, but that the gear dropped in the sig line and solos needs to be buffed enough to meet the basic entry level heroic requirements for resolve and potency.
  15. CoLD MeTaL Well-Known Member

    Never had any gear worth infusing.

    Seems dumb to infuse something, unless it is BiS.
  16. Bhayar Well-Known Member

    I can remember back to the start of PoM and needing two healers in every group, etc. I think the biggest problem this xpac is having is that the devs made some major changes to game design and structure and the struggle is trying to figure it out. When we started this xpac, potency was literally cut in half and resolve became the big thing. Crit bonus is certainly in the calculation, but there used to be a cap outlined in blue on stats. Everyone is saying "you need potency up around 60K and resolve at 1200, and MC gear," which is all well and good, but I used to have 120K potency before this xpac. So, if I had a "wish list," it would go in this order: Devs: how about a little basic communication about what you're trying to accomplish with stat changes or where you see the game design going? It's usually helpful to let people know what the goal is and let them work towards it. I'll deal with the changes, but I shouldn't have to "guess." Secondly, I love that MC gear is actually valuable, but try getting some recipe books to drop so you can make the stuff. Right now, I've run a number of PQs and daily TS quests: my rewards: crit bonus infusers, horse patterns galore, and merc equipment. So what we see is a Catch-22: you need MC gear, but good luck getting the recipe books to make it. Outside of that, I've been enjoying most of the xpac--at least what I've been able to see of it at this point.
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  17. Sikkun Member

    IMO I love solid gear progression and allowing solo players to experience the story of all content (we all pay the same), but not the rewards of defeating harder content. But that’s the path the other 2004 game took, this game didn’t and after 14 years I don’t expect things to change massively.

    I do wish it was easier to know WTF I should be doing though, I try to digest the forums and you have so many systems. Adorns, ascensions, infusions, spell upgrades, PG’s, etc. honestly have no idea what I should be grinding to put in the work to do anything outside of solo. Epic 2.0 still required? (Honestly that’s all I’ve been working on).
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  18. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    No, no you are not. You can get out and harvest your own rares and craft it yourself. Or ask for a crafter, whereupon you pay some tip for their service. But when you get right down to it, adventure games like EQ2 really aren't about monster slaying, they're about power shopping. The best part is getting cool improved gear.

    The devs gave us a lot of soloable stuff this time to let you get gear... Doctor Arcana's key quests in the overland zones can and does reward up to Mythical Gear. I've gotten a mythical bracelet, fabled chest and gloves, etc. the really good stuff in the mystery chests is RELIC, which means you have to pick two. Solo collections also give some decent gear. You can use a combo of this stuff to meet the resolve requirements.
    Breanna likes this.
  19. Ashandra Well-Known Member

    I hope the infusing thing isn’t the theme this expac as you go up the tiers .

    I found with master crafted gear uninfused I was well down on dps due to the pot mit level seeming to be set at a gear infused potency level once you spent around a million plat or so infusing it you could actually pump out dps.

    I just thought damn that’s a lot of plat for each time you try to get to the next tier.
    Sogapa likes this.
  20. Twisty Well-Known Member

    There is certainly no denying that the early zones are harder than they were in PoP or KA. This is good, as they were trivial and not fun (to speak in terms that are prized around here) in those xpacs.

    When I say 'you' below, i really mean everyone who finds themselves scratching their heads at the newly found bite that EQ2 has this xpac. You are correct, there is most certainly more bite on them ol' dentures this xpac. While I agree that mob mitigation in T1s should've been targetted a bit closer to 55k to ease the deer-in-the-headlights effect on the "im just here for the beer" crowd, you also have to acknowledge that there is a big upside to the current situation. In fact you've said it all yourself, without just stating the conclusion: it forced you to learn new things that you had no idea about before in the crafted gear realm, forced your hand to get comfortable with the concept and details of unfusing, forced you to come to the forums to ask questions. Ultimately forced you to become better at playing Everquest2 as a result. Next xpac will introduce some new carrot you need to chase and learn some details about, but next xpac you'll be wiser at least about crafted gear.

    Thing is, like with everything else in life, without stressors there is no impetus to improve; when everything is faceroll, it doesn't matter if you faceroll it better or worse. To get better at anything you need to be able to a) unmistakingly distinguish between bad and good and b) investigate and take the steps needed to transition from constantly 'bad' to constantly 'good'.

    When you hit t2s, you'll be in for another jump in challenge and pot requirement. You'll fail and start asking what else can I improve. At that point you'll probably be forced to learn some new things, like planar levels on weapons or where to get higher cap infusers, or nuances of infusing to get to higher values than caps listed on infusers. But if you went into them and succeeded on first try with sloppy-joe play, what reason would there be for you investigate any of those things. Or continue to run solos or PQs to get the 50 resolve mount. Or continue to run t1s to buy Offhand upgrade, green adorn and heroic mount. Failing at something first and then incrementally getting closer to succeeding is the properly incentivised way to getting 'better'.
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