I imagine your problem is your "brand new toon". I understand you have used the lvl 110 boost. As far as I know these toons have not one single AA-point. All spells are on lowest lvl, no epic 1 and/or epic 2 spells, no ascension ect. All what you have is the gear from panda and tishan. Of course this is a kind of worst case situation, but I believe even under theses circumstances CD solo is possible. Ok, you are right concerning the time of a fight, but with every named you kill you drop a legendary chest. With sig-line you get around 10 pieces of good at the end very good gear.By doing quests you can develope your ascension. In addition you fill your AA-trees quickly. The fights will become faster with every finished quest. Within the questline I reached already more than 50.000 pot. With doing missions, infusion of the gear and so on, you can reach 60.000.Till today I was not in one single heroic dungeon. Nevertheless I have a proper equipment. Sorry, but you want it too easy. You want to jump from zero to endgame. That is always difficult and it has to be difficult. Of course a lvl 110 booster is helpful, but before you try endgame you should go back to older content and improve your stats and spells to a certain minimum.
This isn’t about level 110 boosters. My toons are all 10 years old, have done epic 1.0 & 2.0 and epic spells levelled up. Have all Ascensions, L&L, languages etc and spells to at least Master. The gate to CD heroics has nothing to do with the above but resolve and potency. These can ONLY be obtained from mastercrafted gear which, in my opinion, is a ridiculous barrier to entry. In EVERY other EQ2 expansion the signature line gear had been sufficient to start doing heroics. I really don’t understand why there’s this additional requirement for CD heroics!
@ Jabbso We are talking here about solo- content and only solo! Almee and Uwkete are pure solo gamer and I answered their questions. ...but to answer to your concerns, minimum values for heroic dungeons are: T1 >50.000 pot, >1060 resolve; T2 >60.000 pot, >1260 resolve. Well I made nothing else than solo gaming and I have around 60.000 pot and 1300 resolve. That would be enough for T1 and nearly enough for T2. You cannot start immediately with heroic content. You have to gear up first, but that is not unusual. Kunark ascending for example was much more difficult especially for casual gamer. Most of them died 5 m behind the front door of the overland zone. The very first mob blow them away. People with solo gear had to build groups just to survive the very first quest and many casuals gave up. I changed at that time my guild 2 times, because all my guildies stopped to play. With PoP it became better and in CD I cannot see any unusual problem.
I actually tested this directly in Beta using my paladin, and all Lockbox gear. She's not 110 yet, so she had no PoP gear. I did collect several helmets and strip the POT adorns and rearrange adornments on the gear some. It's completely doable. On other toons in Beta, I came in with just what I was wearing from PoP, which had plenty of POT, and blew through the sig line easily.
Killing named mobs doesn't really get you anywhere if the gear dropped can't be used by your class. What is worse, if you are grouped, it always seems to go to the toon that can't use the gear and it can't be traded. What a farce. You shouldn't have to stop, and ungroup, before looting a chest, to make sure the person needing gear gets it. Any dropped reward should be sharable among members of the group. So far, I don't think I have gotten one piece of gear I could use in CD, off a named mob, so now I just skirt around them. They require way too much effort to kill for a reward that sells for around 50pp. I can kill lots of named mobs, in lower-level areas, and sell it for about the same amount of plat. But the thing I hate the most, about CD, is the constant ganking by mobs. Harvesting is a nightmare. The nodes are put under multiple mobs, and as soon as you kill those mobs, new ones appear. I was so exhausted, from harvesting in Myrst, last night, that I logged out and watched movies. Not only were there multiple, upon multiple mobs aggroing my toons, they would often fall into the graphics so I couldn't hit them. I would just have to wait for my mercs to do the job which was really slow going. The alternative was to put the merc on passive and run to more level ground. That often meant running into a new set of mobs. At one point there were so many mobs around me I just resorted to no-specified-target AOEs as I had no idea which mobs were linked and which were solo. And while this type of ganking is great for those classes with tons of AOEs, it isn't so good for those with limited AOEs, which was the case last night. While I was able to handle all the mobs, the constant barrage of them was exhausting and the fights seem to go on forever.
Since there are no harvest nodes in Myrist, I bet it did wear you out! (evil grin). You CAN harvest with little to no aggro. First, get rid of the merc and any pets. All they do is blunder into mobs and draw aggro. DO have your harvest pony up. Next, get a stack of tinkered Defibrillating Heart Stoppers and put it on a hotkey. You shouldn't catch aggro often, but if you do, run a few steps away from the thing and use the Heart Stopper to feign death. Press X to stand back up. You can't do this often, but you shouldn't need to. Warlocks can use Null Caress to port accidental aggro away from them, and other classes may have similar tricks. Vegarlson Harvesting Go to Vegarlson, and first go left from the entrance skirting the Rim of Erosion coast SE to the little island, which has three nodes. Follow the coastline around clockwise and there's another tree, which can have a log under it and behind it next to a boulder an ore node. There's often also reef and ore nodes right around that area, and no aggro basilisks. Next, continue the way you've been going a little further around the coast to where it hits the cliffs, there's fish and usually reef there. Now fly up midway along the cliffs and head inland towards the temple. There are reef nodes on the walls of the Swathe of Stone and in among the arborians in the Collapsed Mesa. If you did the CD tradeskill sig line, the arborians are not aggro, so harvest reef and roots and the lone bush. Then fly high over the walls to the Terrak Temple and carefully descend upon its reef nodes until you've picked it clean. Now, fly high enough to avoid aggro from anything on the walls and go to the Shade Arbour coast just south of the Stone of Thudos. Here you want to stay at the edges or under tree roots. Don't fly high enough to aggro the vekerchickis. Watch the wandering wood elementals, and skip to the next rock or tree avoiding them. You want to work your way along the rocks/cliffs on the east side of Shade Arbour headed south towards the Muddy Lagoon. The Shade Arbour has logs, roots, and bushes, mostly. There's a little "neck" area between the Shade Arbour and The Muddy Lagoon, and this area will have nodes in the bushes near the entrance, on the rock that sticks out into the water across from the bushes. Circle the Lagoon on top of the hills. There are a couple of places where you may want to come down and harvest (around the rocks especially), just watch for the frogs. There will be reef, ore, fish, celestial gardens, and the occasional log. When you have circled around and are back at the "neck" area between the Lagoon and the Shady Arbour, head towards that rock that's sticking into the water, then around and to the right along the cliff. There's an inlet there with some rocks with reef, then follow the dirt hill that edges the Shady Arbour on this side. When you get to the trees on the end of that ridge, there is the chance for more nodes there, and just inside the Arbour there's a rock with ore nodes. Next, look back towards the temple. Up on the corner cliff across from you there's a tree. Fly to its roots, there can be up to three logs there. You're going to be skirting the north edge of the Forest Barrens headed west. Down from that tree you'll find a hollow tree that usually has a log in it, and some rocks below that with ore and reef. Continue heading west past the wall footings, then there's another hollow tree, before the cliffs that border the inland side of the temple steps; around there you'll find logs, ore, and celestial gardens. Go north towards the temple wall at that hollow tree, then back south along the top of the rocks for more gardens and logs. Now you want to go to the flat area in front of the steps that lead up to the temple. In the rocks near the foot of the stairs will be two or three nodes, then across the open space by the big tree there's more nodes. Look down from there, and there's a boulder below you that usually has some ore nodes around it. From there, stay on the edge of the Forest Barrens area headed south, but don't get up on the cliffs because there are vekerchickis there. You will find roots, dens, and ore, with maybe some celestial gardens. When I get to the SW cornerof the Forest Barrens, I usually work my way over the cliff edge and down, then back north along the shore-side of the cliffs to get basilisk dens. There are vekerchiki up high, and mud glob elementals. You can usually watch the pathing and dodge the elementals. Harvest up and down along the cliffs northwards, then when you get to the temple, you want to fly at the base of the temple walls to the next corner. From there, cut out over the water to Solum Island (the place with snails) and harvest it. There are vekerchiki up high there, so stay low. Fly or port back to the entrance, and start over from the top. Doomfire Harvesting If you want to harvest in Doomfire, that's actually fairly easy also. Again, no pets or merc, just your harvest pony and Defibrillating Heart Stoppers. First, harvest anything in the Cemetery area, that's aggro-free. Then you want to head towards the wasp area (the path nearest the Myrist Portal). Just across the bridge to that area, harvest nodes on the cliffs below the djinn guy. You want to stay on the ground when harvesting around the Cinder Fields and Cinder Nests, then back away from the trees, fly real high, and you can swoop into the hollowed areas on the top of most of the trees to harvest logs and dens. There is one tree where the top is infested with baby wasps, avoid that one! Go back down to the area by the bridge to the Cemetery, then harvest on the path through the Cinder Fields and towards Scorch Steppes, staying on the ground and following the path. When you get to the area where Scorch Steppes meets the Cinder Courts cliffs, this is your richest harvesting ground. There are nodes for reef, ores, dens, gardens, and roots all up and down the lava-edge cliffs of Scorch Steppes and all the way around Cinder Courts. Don't pop your head up above the tops of the cliffs and you won't catch aggro. When you get all the way around Cinder Courts to Elemental Mesa, you can harvest on the path there but don't go up on the mesa itself. There will be root and bush nodes all along this path, which should lead you back to the djinn guy. Stay on the ground mostly... you may spot a node halfway up some of the cliffs, which you can usually harvest with caution. If you need fish, you will find them in the lava around the edges of the Molten Span (the area with all the basilisks and djinn). There is aggro-free harvesting in the Molten Crossroads and Basalt Fields, just watch the fire elementals up in the air.
I'm glad you can remember all this. I can't remember your first sentence lol. I know where to harvest, if I'm just out harvesting. But the daily tradeskill quests require me to go to certain areas to harvest, such as Doomfire, which is where I was last night, plus they tell you what to harvest and they hide most of those nodes until you are done. I rarely have problems if I am just out harvesting without a harvesting quest. It is the same way with the Harvesting Obsession quests. There are tons of harvest nodes till you need them. But thanks for the information. I'm sure it will come in handy when I need to level up my crafters.
If you're talking about only solo content then why did you act like I was talking about end game when I clearly stated the Sig Line? Read. Also - not a brand new toon in the way you're thinking. Brand new to CD, not to the game, PoP line finished. I've been playing since beta, off and on - I know this game. I hate boosters, I don't really need them. I am telling you that entry level to playable is dumb. You may like your 400 dollar pay wall, no one else does. Anyway, just because you can't see a problem doesn't mean it's not there.
Has something changed in like 2 months then? Because my Fury was having issues killing stuff in a decent timeframe. Of course now she's got better gear and all that, however I'll take another character in there again later that's closer to where she was and try it out again. I just remember it taking an inordinate amount of time to kill something. Thanks
Kunark Ascending was fine. Xalgozian Stronghold and Wizards Den were great starter instances which had the chance to drop the mythical legs and chest which really really helped with gear requirements. I don't remember KA being problematic at all in terms of heroic progression and it certainly didn't require harvesting, refining, crafting, experimenting and infusing just to meet the minimum requirements.
@Almee I just do not understand why you cannot get the right loot in a group? Maybe you have to change the group options. Normally it should be no problem at all to select the loot for each different player. If someone made a mistake and looted the wrong gear, you can trade everything as long as the group exist, even when it is flagged as "no trade"?
@Synistra When I wrote "end game" of course I mean the last expansion CD. It is a well known problem. People start a new toon boost them to endlevel and are surprised because it does not work properly. I wrote only I can imagine boosting is the problem. Of course I cold not know it. Concerning boosters I can agree with you. They have more disadvantage than advantage. Please explain me, what do you mean with my 400 $ pay wall? I paid something around 100 $ for the new x-pac like most of us and thats it? A Krono cost around 15 $ and with 400 $ I can play more than 2 years?
@ Jabbso Concerning Xalgozian and wizard den you are right. I am mainly a solo player, but at that time I run heroics too, because of Epic 2, but again you are mixing two different things. We are talking now about problems of casual solo players, with rather bad gear and not heroic instances. In KA many people without fabled gear had difficulties just to reach the first quest-NPC. Many guilds disappeared at that time. I lost 2 guilds within less than a year. Concerning harvesting, refining, crafting and experimenting I cannot say anything, because I am not a crafter. I even do not know how refining and experimenting works. I can only say obviously I do not need it. Well, some weeks after CD started I bought 2 or 3 mastercrafted items from broker, but I think this is something normal. I bought them because I cannot make them by myself.
Just to remember, in KA people who hate to craft started crafting, because the final reward of crafter sig-line was an important mystical cloak. They had to complete the old pudding quest first and that was really, really endless. A lot of people here in forum cried loud about it.
Nobody "hides" harvest nodes. They pop semi-randomly (fish only happen in water, hard and soft ore are more likely around mountains and cliffs, etc.) If other people are doing the same harvest quest, you may be competing for nodes. But honestly, just clear-cut harvest every type of node, which increases the likelihood of your next pass around the zone having the nodes you want. If you cherry pick only a couple of types of harvest nodes, you quickly end up with a landscape full of nothing but bushes. If you follow the edges of the zones, you won't get aggro. Even in Eryslai, which I consider to be the least friendly zone for harvesting, you can harvest aggro-free around the banks of the two ponds in the front, then go to the Bixel Hive and fly around the edges use vertical movement to avoid aggro mobs, you won't catch aggro and there's everything in there except wood. The outer hive openings tend to have basilisk lairs, and you will find reef and gardens here and there in places you can carefully fly to and harvest. There's flecked ore around the edges of the central honey pool. I suspect 90% of your aggro problems are having your merc and possibly pets up. Get rid of them, use Defibrillating Heart Stoppers to FD if you do catch aggro. Not having the merc makes you actually think about being more sneaky.
Even with Need versus Greed Looting if everybody is at a consensus that player A needs this item and only player A needs on it, player A is going to get it, you do not have to break your group.
I still think your maps are beautiful Sig. I printed them from Beta and still use them, the nerd that I am laminated them.
I didn't do Vegarlson or Eryslai, but the Detroxxulous, Doomfire, and Myrist maps were mine. I do them for myself so I can get alts through Exploration quests, in part.
Milchbart wrote: "I just do not understand why you cannot get the right loot in a group? Maybe you have to change the group options. Normally it should be no problem at all to select the loot for each different player. If someone made a mistake and looted the wrong gear, you can trade everything as long as the group exist, even when it is flagged as "no trade"?" [Sorry, I have long forgotten how to do copies in forums] I tried to trade a No-Trade drop, with my partner, and it wouldn't work. My group option is set to Free for All/Greed or Accept. The character that needed gear is the one who looted but the gear went to the character who didn't remotely need it. This happens to me all the time which I find really irritating. Sigrdrifa The game certainly does "hide" [masks] harvest nodes all the time. In the Harvesting Obsession quest, you can tell when you have all the mats you need when their nodes suddenly appear everywhere you look. I've done the quest about 75 times, now, and as soon as I have my lumber, the previously scarce nodes suddenly appear all over the place. Same with all the other node types. If you think this game doesn't cheat like mad, you are kidding yourself.
In the 14 years I have been playing I have never seen this behavior you are describing. Periodically, nodes do respawn, and I think you must have just seen a respawn. Nothing is "hiding" anything.
