A Guide to Chaos Descending

Agree. Just don't see the point of going to all that hassle on gear that you are going to swap out eventually anyway.

Hey guys!

I just wanted to add to this that yesterday I crafted a wrist piece with 4740 potency and 318 Crit Bonus. This kind of gear will carry you a long way. And yes to answer some one else I tried experimenting on pieces before infusing, after infusing and no infusing. Pieces experimenting after full infusion were definitely better to varying degrees.

People have mentioned not seeing the point and such.

The point is that I am constantly seeing people complain that they can't get groups. Then I inspect them and each piece of their gear is 1200 to 1400 potency short. Sorry guys but that is your problem, and there is no reason for it. It's not that people don't group... it is that you are a DPS class who should be doing 1.5 billion minimum and you are doing 350 million. Or you're a healer and you can't keep the tank alive during trash pulls in the easiest T1 in the game.

Last night I was grouped with a healer who had all Visionary Master Crafted jewelry which is great, but each piece was TANK gear, and only had about 3200 potency... We simply could not get past the first boss in the Fire Event Heroic... and I had grouped with the tank frequently in the hardest T2 zones... the group fizzled.

Another guy had been complaining in general chat for hours about not being able to get a group so I looked him up and each of his pieces, (Yes MC Visionary) while around or close to 4k pot, was still short 450 to 600. I sent him a tell and he seemed to abruptly dismiss my inquiries. He proclaimed that his potency was almost 68k... and I explained that 75k (Which you can easily get through experimentation) should be considered the basement plateau... and got crickets...

So the point is that if you are content with standing around in the hub LFG, or wiping over and over in basic heroic zones until your group quits... feel free to ignore every thing I said. Wear your T1 stuff. Struggle through the game, drag groups down and eventually you will hopefully get lucky enough to loot better gear if a guild group takes pity on you.

OR

Take control of your destiny.

A. Complete timeline.
B. Break down weapons to level up your off hand. MC weapons work.
C. Follow any other advice listed above.

THEN

1. Run solos, salvage gear, get Celestial Potency Infusers made. (and new orange adornment drops)
2. Harvest rares, get Master Crafted gear with Ability Mod Made.
3. Sell Rares, get plat, Plat infuse each piece. (Or fast track it and sell a krono, or any other way you can... get plat)
4. Fully plat infuse each piece.
5. Fully Infuser each piece. Looted and Crafted. (Just potency crafted) Planar or Celestial.
6. Experiment it up to Visionary. Put one experimentation into CB and the rest into Potency
7. Reforge each piece, putting all of the AB mod into Potency.

Yes it is an investment of time and resources. But in the end, you will be happier with your toon's results and your experience in the game will be better.

While I agree with the above, and that Visionary MC is the way to go etc, I do think it is utter BS that full T1 gear does not allow you to do well in T2's...or even some T1's tbh.

So many have given up and left game because it takes a LOT of work and plat to get into heroics. Some people simply do not have the time to invest and cannot keep up with their friends, whereas before you could drag your friend through a few zones and throw loot at him. He could be up and running with his friends in only a few hours played time. Not anymore!

I don't see the point - I also don't group (except with a friend) and definitely don't do PUGs.

Many in our guild had taken a break from the game, due to issues such as this. While I generally made time to run for the gear, many in our guild were not able to achieve all these things, due to RL schedule. We took a break in another game for a bit. That said, catching up can be an onerous task. I truly miss the days where there were some Heroics we could drag guildies through, even if their gear was lacking. That way, they could feel like part of the team, even if their work schedule limited them to lesser hours than the others. Real life ( and work hours) do come first, for many.

We've been dumping the MC (experimented on, etc.) when we started getting Heroic T1/T2 gear and jewelry. Primarily, because resolve is huge in this game (among other things) and MC is capped at 60, so the T1 with 65 and T2 at 70 is just too important. I agree with Tajar's point that the old days of bringing someone back into the game and running them through instances just isn't going to do it. I said at the beginning of this xpac that it was going to drive the casual player out of the game and I'm seeing that prediction take hold. The days of logging in on the weekend and jumping into a group are over. This expac is NOT for the casual player. The constant grinding and harvesting for rares to infuse, making crunchies for greater weapon essences, etc. is tedious as hell. I laughingly said in chat the other day that occasionally I wake up and think I'm in a Korean MMO. Then there's the constant grinding for the random illegible scroll drop to get ascensions up. And getting a Master to drop is, well, like winning the lottery. It's work and there's no way around it. I look at people who say they're struggling and when you check their spells or ascensions, 80% are at apprentice. Sorry, but that's just not going to cut it. On a brighter note, with this xpac, the need for those illegible scrolls at all levels is gone. Now, you basically only need a scroll for Adepts and Masters and journeyman takes ordinary mats. Experts use 2 casium roots. The fuel is planar energy and those usually come harvesting. So if you haven't kept up...don't spend valuable plat on the broker buying illegible scrolls for ascension spells that don't use them anymore. Check with someone who can craft them and don't waste valuable plat spending millions on an illegible scroll on the broker that is no longer required in this xpac. That note aside, yes, this xpac is a lot of work to be relevant and if you're not willing or able to log in more often than you used to and work on your toon at a grassroots level, this isn't going to be a fun game. And we're seeing that game design decision have an impact on number of players who have decided to throw in the towel. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is.

Bhayar, I am one of those who barely log in. All I have done in CD is buy some MC gear from the broker... and that's it! Oh, I saw the in-game mail from the Tribunal and read it. That's all! Why put me on trial? I wanted Lanys to win! Put the gods who whined and cried until we helped them to shut them up so they would still have a footstool that didn't have Lanys's name on it, put them on trial! We were just their semi-willing tools!

So, yeah, I haven't don't much in this expansion. I play for fun, not a job.

Believe me, I get it. As I said, not sure what outcome the devs were wanting to achieve with this particular xpac (other than making content last more than one month), but there's trade-offs on that decision. And we're seeing it with the disappearance of casual players or frustration this xpac presents. It's a difficult balance to achieve-how to make content last without making the game seem exactly like work and a lot less fun. I expect at some point, you have to decide where you want to make your money and in my experience over the years, relying on a small slice of the consumer graphic isn't always it. The problem soon becomes, that the top-end is wanting to make plat selling stuff they've made or gotten, but you need players (consumers) to buy all that stuff they can't make or get themselves. If you lose your "buyers," then all you have left is other people like yourself to sell it to and guess what, they likely aren't buying for the price you want to sell it. I'm really curious about what the environment will look like around August-September.

Cool

The planar chest and shoulders are way better than most Chaos Descending gear still. Just infuse the heck out of them.

I don't know I consider myself a casual player, I don't raid, and hardly ever group. I just upgrade stuff as it comes along I don't spend money to do it, or I make my own stuff. I have had absolutely no problems in the new expansion with killing stuff. I make the potency infusers as I get enough stuff to make them and Dr. Arcana gives them sometimes. My Pally and my Swashy makes quick work of all the mobs, my Mystic is ALOT slower killing stuff but she's my third one in and still needs a lot of work to get her up to snuff.

I think there are more casual players than what you may think I know a lot that are just like me, cause we do group up sometimes.

This is a great thread with some really great advice. The response "why bother if you're going to swap it anyway" is the attitude which is keeping people from success in heroics. You must must must infuse infuse infuse. Why bother? Because otherwise you are sandbagging your group into failure. This xpac is balanced around refined INFUSED experimented reforged MC gear. Until people embrace that notion they will fail repeatedly in T1s much less T2s. Previous xpacs have not been balanced this way and so people have a serious attitude adjustment in store for them.

Imagine having a friend that have played this game for a decade and he finally convinced you. He even helped u level ur char to max level and gave you 100k plat. He explained to you that you should not fear the insane stat system and that only a couple of stats actually matters, he told you that everyone use almost the exact AA builds and that many of them do absolutely nothing now, so it doesnt really matter except for very few AAs, especially the prestige tree ones.

Then you realize, holy crap I better get some plat, the prices on everything is insane.

You jump over to a daily quest hub and realise you get 1.5 plat per quest, which means you only have to do a couple hundred of thousands to even catch up. That or you buy two krono over at redguides for the price of one.

You now finally have the requirements for heroic runs, but then you realise, damn where are all the PUGs? I better join an active guild. You apply to 5 different ones, 4 of them decline your app because you are new or you gear is still not sufficient to raid. Okay, you join the 5th that accepted your application, but it turns out, they mostly do crafting and decorating.

Thats when you realise your eq2 adventure lasted 3 weeks and you wont return unless the game gets a rewamp from the bottom up.

Chaos Descending rares sell for very good plat right now. Like, around 5000p each, with some daily variation in the market. Get out and harvest your tuchis off and sell rares.

This is not the first time we have gone through tons of gear swaps. I have been playing since 2005. Some expansion were considered a joke, they were so easy. Others are tough and make us think about what it is going to take to get us to the end. I prefer to work a little harder , then have the game handed to me. If it was boring and to easy ...what would be the point?

Yeah that sounds exactly like a game a new player wants to do for several days for his own experts and then gather another 100 to maybe afford infusing the gear...

Jesus some of ur comments.

I agree with the some of your comments parts, except I do believe you are pointing that at the wrong person.

One can make 1 mil + plat an hour harvesting. Doesn't fix the issue of this game requiring extra transactions, regardless of tier you play in. The higher tier the higher the cost.

If making 1 mill+ an hour harvesting, kronos are way undervalued then...
Only take you about 3 or 4 hours to be able to buy one krono. But you know, I could work for 3 or 4 hours and buy a krono from DBGs... and have as much fun as harvesting. But each to their own.

I got 43 rares in 40 minutes spent in Detroxxulous just now doing the daily crafting/harvesting quests. This wasn't even my main harvesting toon, just an alt with 80% bountiful harvest and a 16% rare harvest chance. There's so much gear that helps boost harvesting that this is pretty easy to do. Do 40-45 minutes of harvesting a day and you can make 1 million plat in a week selling rares, depending on broker pricing.

If there's a server where Chaos Descending rares are selling for 17Mp-20Mp each, then yeah, you could probably make 1Mp in an hour.