I also got those Explorer's Bracers, & immediately vendor'd them. IMO they're little-to-no better than the gear you could get from Fabled dungeons in TOV. I'm mostly unimpressed by the quest rewards. Granted, I don't expect Fabled rewards from solo quests, but ... I do expect to see some sort of upgrade from last expac, & other than the resists -- which, NB, are not on either of the pieces Purrako linked -- those upgrades have been pretty sidewise, to my eye. Beyond that, I think that chopping DPS stats to increase Resists is akin to "robbing Peter to pay Paul."
The AoM quest rewards provide upgrades from the ToV quest rewards. In ToV, even the worst quest gear was better than previous Tier's raid loot and that was not particularly well received. It was a result of a systems change though and I'm kinda happy i can use SOME of my nice ToV gear still.
having been a hard core raider in eq1-I beta'd for soe ALOT..either by my guild trying to make server firsts and finding oopsies or by being asked to actually beta. I have my experience with beta. This beta for AoM was the first beta I never finished-and the only one I can recall that offered in game rewards. That says something right there. As of mid-end October only loot I saw dropped in beta was advanced woodworker so Im guessing loot is being put in on the fly. Bilgewater wasn't adjusted when I gave up close to the end of October capt was insane and on steroids. Try to make casuals happy-put stuff in they would view as reward for questing or trying the instances-try to make raiders happy who get upset if rewards from quests/easy zones are better than raid gear from last expansion its a very hard balance. Now up until the last day or so loot from the regular solo zone was worse or same as quested. I did finish the entire sig line. I was 100 the day after release and began trying to upgrade by doing solo / adv that day to be ready to do heroics this expansion since I have recently returned to norrath and was not geared from the last expansion. Yesterday was the first items that dropped out of adv solo that were better than quested and not 212 to all stats. Now we are seeing some items that are going to help get to the harder adv / heroics. As a former raider and now a casual? and a coercer these instances are NOT easy for all classes. Beta was the same deal. My opinion on adv solo-bilgewater is to easy make it 1 notch or two harder and its there its an introduction to AoM so don't make it to hard to discourage but don't make it so easy people think they can do all instances on instawin and become angry when they die 50x trying to do the others..pter trainer is still a mean sucker at least for my coercer & merc after dying 5x I gave up last night. zavatha loa mobs have way to many hp's fighting for 20 minutes on 1 mob is not fun its boring, ossuary isn't to bad except the bugs (oh I aoe'd and had mobs from below and 2 rooms behind come running yes I have a screenie) the range on aoe isn't that huge elsewhere it should not be there, Ive not ventured to adv ssra or highhold yet only the solo reg for sig line Im afraid of those 2 until I get enough drops to try and the devs are done tweaking things..which might be a long ways off. I did try 2 heroic groups-Im sorry for those folks that got stuck with me. My dps was horrid...the first heroic group were raid geared and they had a hard time..but that was a few days ago so maybe its been tweaked more now. as a raider Id laugh at the adv zones as a casual Im getting my norrathian buttox handed to me...
I guess it depends on what you started with. The character I am focusing on for AoM got to 95 maybe 2 weeks prior to AoM launch. The gear she had was fully gemmed cryptic which was about the highest level one could get solo in ToV (barring the buying of loot rights or a better toon feeding her gear etc). Every single piece of quest gear was an upgrade pretty much. All stats and all resists. Comparing previous group gear to current solo gear is not really a fair comparison. So yes if you were in gemmed potent then the quest gear may be a down grade on dps related stats. But comparing previous solo gear to current solo gear AoM is a nice upgrade. Not counting the odd loot tables in the regular solo zones of course. Now hopefully I can start doing the AoM advanced solos and start getting gear I can gem up and then maybe run some heroics this expansion.
The quest rewards should be unimpressive for players that are comming in with gemed potent gear from ToV. However, the challenge of some of these heroic instances is based around the resists and mitigation levels that AoM is tuned for. For example, the mitigation difference between using fully gemed ToV potent and a set of yellow even ungemed AoM gear is nearly 3k mit and significantly more HP. While the rest of the stats don't compare all that well or don't appear to be significant upgrades, the mit and HP is significant. Also, the jewelry doesn't look as good in terms of procs and some stats, but the doubling of the resists on them is very significant. If you take a group into these zones with no one under 9k physical mit, and over 140k resists, the content in most cases is scaled correctly. Now that the mission boxes are rewarding gear correctly, the rewards for doing the zones isn't out of whack. If you don't have the mit and resists, then you are limited to a small subset of zones to get some gearing. If your gear isn't in the ranges I listed, I would recommend looking at: 1) Master crafted gear - Huge improvements here in terms of mit, hp, and resists 2) Do the 2 heroic Zat zones and the event mission. All can be run in last expansion gear. 3) Do the Hoist Bay zone. This is slightly harder than the Zat zones, but has one of the most entertaining heroic boss fights I've seen. Had no issues doing this zone with 2 healers and last expansion gear. 4) Farm the solo and advanced solo zones with a partner and get some of the higher mit/resist gear There are a few zones that even with all this I think are tuned slightly out of whack based upon where they stated them to be from a progression stand point, but all in all, you really can't gauge the difficulty of these zones while not equiping the gear from this expansion to raise resists and mitigation.
somehow, I do agree with you. With my warden I constantly get one hits from the first two Encounters in the Pirate Instance. I have not found out why. No warning nothing to cure. I just drop dead. And the gear, you are right, is not exactly what it should be. It somehow does not exactly fit the dificulty.
Sorry, but the instances are way too hard for someone in the overland quest gear. Lost caverns is the only one my regular group has been able to clear so far. Caldera is impossible, Pterotrainer is impossible to beat with quest gear dps. Bilgewater is impossible. Bitterman is doable with good play, but there is no way for a healer to survive/outheal Navigator's uncurable aoe dot in that gear. Heck even the trash in many zones can 1 shot a tank in AoM quest gear. We have been trying, but so far been completely unable to find a way to even get started in these zones. We are seriously thinking about going back and farming ToV for potent gear so we can move on...
You're right. Overland quest gear isn't intended to allow you to complete heroics. It's intended to allow you to complete advanced solo which gives you yellow gem gear that allows you to beat heroics.
Well, as the saying goes: If at first you don't succeed, complain on the forums! Wait, I think I got that wrong...
Don't know why you think the overland gear sucks. I did all the overland quests that I could and am using the gear with the adornments that I got. I did all the instances was not a cake walk but completely doable. Only real problem I had was the last sisshar zone, those bad boys hit like trucks. Did advanced bilgwater solo got one shotted a few times then learned to backup a little bit because im squishy. So far not seeing why you have complaints. I will state once again im lvl 98 in overland quest gear and under 250AA so I don't qualify as an elite player.
Naychan mind if i ask how you beat the first boss in Caldera? 100 SK with 500k hp and 95k resists using the monk merc (Daeron). I had no trouble completing the advanced solo in Bilgewater but this guy is nasty.
Actually the Advance and Solo zones are EM with the right gear you can run though the zone without getting hit. On my Mystical geared lock single gemmed its a walk in the park. With the purple pattern stone skin and a neck I got from sirons grotto. its just a matter of pulling as much as u can as fast as u can.
Honestly I don't remember the first boss in that zone, when I get home tonight I will run it "adv solo" and let you know if I live or if I need to run in as just a solo zone.
I know exactly what you are refering to. What you need to look at is the mit on leather pieces from ToV to AoM. The amounts on them have literally doubled. If you get the new gear, put the mit chest rune on, and if needed get the mit crafted necklace, then go into the same zone, you get a 25% hit instead of a one shot. The same is true for cloth. I put AoM crafted on my illusionist last night and muted his ToV potent/energized gear. He no longer goes splat in the AoM dungeons I take him to. He also now has 1 mil HP as well as more than double the mit he had previously. Now, he also lost some dps as a result, but I'm confident as I replace that crafted gear with some AoM heroic gear, I'll more than get the dps back.
I can tell you why you can't beat him. You're a tank running with a dps merc. Try it again with a healer merc (or better yet a friend/guildy).
Ok ran the solo and breezed though it, ran the advanced and was just getting one shotted constantly. So going to try to level up a bit and then give it another go. Was able to kill the first boss in candelra and another zone but could not kill the 2nd
