New Player here got some questions.

I would get a tank mercenary to tank for you. It reduces the need to root-and0nuke, although on really tough fights you will probably have to for a while. When you are in a regular group, you can just nuke and deaggro!

A tank's job in EQ2 is to hold the creature's hate. Tanks have "taunts" which raise hate, and also "snaps" which jump your hate one or more positions on the hate list (more on the hate list in a minute). Also, 1 point of damage = 1 point of hate, so the more damage your tank does, the better you hold the mob.

In a group, you want to get to the mob, hit it and taunt it before anyone else in your group hits it. This can be a challenge: on my paladin, I constantly see arrows flying over my head before I even get to the monster! Luckily, tanks can use a bow, so you have a chance to get some hate on it before the group. (If you lose hate, the mob will try to eat either the person with the biggest damage, or the healer with the biggest heals, because 1 point healing also equals 1 point of hate).

You can also count on people in groups blaming you if the group is killed, even when it was the wizard or assassin who went all-out hitting the monster before you had aggro. You can generally "snap" a monster to get hate back, but sometimes it eats the face off the person who over-nuked. So, you will have to cultivate a little patience with people and be ready to remind them repeatedly not to take aggro from you, not to hit the mob before you do, etc. I set up little macros with these reminders. Also, a macro that says, "/gsay Don't run away from me when you have aggro, RUN TO THE TANK!"

My "Tanking 101" is probably similar to the one on the wiki, I'll have to go check later. the linked thread also has other hints for tanks.

I forgot to come back to the Threat List. It's an incredibly helpful tool for everybody, but particularly tanks. To show the Threat list, use /ToggleThreatlistwindow (all one word) This gives you a list of everything that is currently hating you, and it allows you to easily click the threat list on a specific foes (rather than trying to tab target whatever it is when you can't see anything but the mob on top of you).

Sigrdrifa thank you so much for your effort and high quality/informative postings and links to all my noobish questions. You and all the other poster in this thread already helped me greatly.

I read trough a few other wiki things and want to ask here just to clarify of those ideas i have are good.

Like Sage for the Wizard Alchemist for my Paladin would be a good Tradeskill to craft Upgrades for my Abilitys? Or would you suggest going into Armorer or Weaponsmith?

The wiki says a paladin can use two handed wepaons. Are they better for dps in solo oriented gameplay? Or is sword and board always the best choice?

I'm thinking about getting a healer merc but i'm not sure if a dps woul more benefical? I first thought healer would be better to deal with more nasty stuff later on. I don't know how much bad stuff wich need to be dispelled/cleansed will be throwed at me at higher levels.

You are very welcome. I think as a community we need to help new folks and make them welcome if we want the game to survive.

The Alchemist would be able to make all the Paldin's spells/combat arts, and also it's helpful to have a stack of the various cure potions, so that if you get a detriment, you can cure it off yourself. Paladins also have abilities that let them cure themselves, but you can never have too many extra ways to cure. Alchemists also make power regen potions and health potions, which are handy.

No matter which trade you choose, you will also want to level Tinkering, because Tinkers make some really helpful items, from Overclocked Manastones to portable crafting tables to baubles that help crafters, etc.

I started my Paladin as an Armorer. You have seven or eight slots that an Armorer can craft for, your armor and your shield. I suspect that if I were making the choice NOW, I would have made my Paladin an Alchemist.

I would not choose Weaponsmith, because at most you are going to have two weapons (a one-hand weapon to use with a shield, and a zweihänder.

There's not a simple answer. If you are getting crushed in a hard fight, having a shield helps you. Most tanks do use a two-handed weapon for soloing and DPS (except those who can wield two swords).

Get a healer. It is the only choice, really. All the mercs will do big damage in the low levels, but as you get up there mercenary damage dwindles compared to your damage. And the ability to have the mercenary heal and cure you lets you spend less time self-healing, self-curing, and so forth and more time doing DPS.

I would go with Alchemist to make the spells for the same reason I stated for the wizard: you'll get armor and weapon drops from questing as rewards, but spells only drop sometimes from monsters you kill.

Of course, you can roll a crafter army as well, like the majority of us who have one (or two or three) of every crafting class!

I wish I'd seen this post a week ago! You seem to have run through a lot of stuff already!

My first question for anyone who says they want to take their time and quest is, "Just how patient are you?" If you don't care how fast you level up and you are willing to pay attention to the story, the advice is pretty easy:

1. As Sigrdrifa said, press 'L' and bring up your Alternate Advancement window. If there are several quests you want to try and they are already green, slide that bar all the way up to 100%. Slide it back down to 0% when you are ready to level up. Leveling up from 1-10 is lightning fast. Leveling up from 11-90 is very fast.

2. Take your time on the Island of Refuge when you start out. Try all the quests so you can learn all the basics of the game. Do the basic tradeskill quests. Harvest. Click on "shines" and complete your first collection. You will build on all these fundamentals as you level up. Master these because things get more and more complicated at the higher levels.

3. When you leave the island, there are more fundamentals. The first Non-Player Characters (NPCs) you encounter will give you quests to get you started with housing, amenities, and the basics of your home city. Get to learn the city. Not only will you have a good understanding of your "home base," but there are characters and buildings that you will come back to time and time again at the higher levels.

My main character is a Paladin. He has characteristics that make him good for soloing. He doesn't do the most damage, but he can hold out well in a fight and heal himself. You will do a lot less dying in the lower levels. He also has some decent Area of Effect (AOE) damage abilities that are useful as long as you pay attention to just how much you can take on at once.

One thing I don't see people bring up about Paladins and building up hate is their healing abilities. I've found them very useful for building and holding hate. Taunts and knockdowns should come first, but throw in some heals also, even if you don't need any healing. As far as mercenaries, I agree about the healers, but I really like the Bard classes at the higher levels (100+.) Once you start getting into the more challenging fights, the wards and mana generation abilities become very useful. It seems like the favorite developer strategy for making boss fights tough is to give them power drain abilities.

I also love the Scout classes for soloing. I like the ability to track and go invisible. I have a Ranger and a Dirge (the evil version of a Troubador.) They are both fun to play, but the Dirge was more challenging at the lower levels because she just didn't deal out that much damage.

Let us know how you're doing lately. There are so many choices that can be made in this game, and our advice is only as good as the path you decide to go down.

Greetings,

again thank you all for your advices and insights towards the game.

This is exactly the way i like to play. I'm at no rush at all to get up to maxlevel. I enjoy the way. Stumbling around the maps looking into every corner just exploring. I love collecting all the shinys for the different collection. I also discovered yesterday there are sometimes books on tables or shelfs wich can be read to give also some quests for collections from mob drops.

And while randomly talking to npcs in Qyenos i got a quest to catch some animals and getting a familiar from it. Thats so cool. I like collecting pets/familiars and stuff like this the pokemon vibes are real!

I quested trough every starter area with different toons to get a better understanding of the basic game and also to get a little bit of a feeling for the world. I really love the greater Feydark and Kelethin. It fits so well in my personal taste and imagination of a magical fantasy world wood/nature landscape.

With all those impressions and experiences i got till now i decided to start over with my new and final toon today in the Faydark area. It will be a wizard not complete sure if i go for Wood or Highelf i will take the race wich looks better for me in the toon creation screen. Qyenos is also a great city if i would play a paladin as main i would defenetly quest there. Also the mages Concrodium Tower there with all it's teleporters is awesome.

I will keep you updated on my journey trough Norrath.

I spoke with Firus, and he's very disappointed with this take. Wizard mercenaries have families to feed too, you know. All that magical research doesn't come cheap either, yet here you are casting aspersions on their abilities.

Hello Wanderer86
First of all you can not simply go out and hire a mercenary if you don't own that , you will have to buy that from the cash shop .
The biggest question is do you subscribe or play for free ?

I think the best place to go if you are a totally new player is Kaladim .
Kaladim is a TLE server , that means Time Locked Expansion Server and we are locked to level 80 right now.
On Kaladim you can still find some people in the lower level areas and the mechanics are a lot less overwhelming. Kaladim has players from around the world and every time zone .
For Kaladim you do have to be a member though .

Leider hast Du ja schon auf einen anderen Server angefangen , aber Du kannst noch immer einen Karakter auch auf Kaladim machen , und Du kannst dein Froeschlein behalten .
Du kannst auf einem Acount merere

Thurgadin ist der beste Server fuer Dich , da sind auch Deutsche Gilden hier , so dass Du andere Leute has um Dich zu unterhalten
Su kannst mehrere Acounts machen fals Du ein Spieler bist der umsonst spielt .
Das heist Du kannst auch mehrere Jobs haben .
Auf einen freien Account kannst Du Ich glaube 2 Toons haben .
Dieses Spiel hat so viele Dinge zu tun
Du kannst Craften
Du kannst Erkunden , und Du krigst XP dafuer
Du kannst ein Haus decorieren , und die Haeser hier sind wirklich schoen
Du kannst Sammeln , Leute nennen das Shinies oder Glowies , da dind auch Seiten fuer Buecher die Du sammmeln kannst .
Du kannst einen Familiar einfangen und Ihn aufziehen .
Es giebt einige Aufgaben Die Dier ein Reit tier geben als Belohnung
EQ2 hat viele Feste mit spezialen Gebieten und Aufgaben .
In einer Woche bekommen Wir Frostfell .
Da gibt es so viele Dinge die Du machen kannst , Ich bin sicher Wir alle haben noch viel vergessen .
Ich glaube Du solltest wirklich eine Gilde finden
DON"t power level
Stecke deine Frosch nase in jede Ecke und Du hast genug zu tun fuer viele Jahre.
Entschuldige meine Rechtschreibung ist schlecht , Ich lebe in den Vereinigten Staten und mein Keyboard
hat keine Umlaute

Give us the server your on and I am sure people will be more than happy to give you some bags .

Schmetterling, you can use the ALT key plus numeric combinations on the keypad of your keyboard to get diacriticals and high-ASCII characters:

ALT + 0196 = Ä
ALT + 0203 = Ë
ALT + 0207 = Ï
ALT + 0220 = Ü
ALT + 0223 = ß
ALT + 0228 = ä
ALT + 0234 = ê
ALT + 0243 = ö
ALT + 0252 = ü

You are the greatest Sigrifa ty , or I can go back to Germany and bring back a souvenir keyboard .
And it will still not fix my bad spelling , even in my native language , German .