Equipment thru the levels ?

Discussion in 'Dirge' started by ARCHIVED-Mirth Dragonfire, Sep 9, 2006.

  1. ARCHIVED-Mirth Dragonfire Guest

    I am new to EQ2 and new to Dirge, but having great fun.

    I have seen the FAQ and T7 stickies that show skills equipment to aim for at higher levels, but...

    Does anyone know a website or thread that shows what weapons/armour to aim for as you come up from low levels pls?
    I want to try and help the grind by updating to the best kit as I go.

    cheers,

    [IMG] Mirth [IMG]
  2. ARCHIVED-Laromor Guest

    I'd suggest that you use whatever you can get hold of through quests and drops until you hit level 22-24'ish (perhaps get Imbued Blackened Iron weapons if possible), then use the AQ gear up until level 32. At 22, you should get Mastercrafted Imbued Steel weapons if possible.
    From 32, you should try and get some Mastercrafted Feysteel (Melodic is good for bards, but cant be imbued though). Dont worry so much about jewelry.. wear what you get through quests and drops. Upgrade your weapons to Imbued Feysteel as well.
    From 42, its time to get some Ebon gear (armor and weapons). You may also want to get some Imbued Rhodium Rings of STR/AGI. Other jewelry you can upgrade to Rhodium as well if you dont already have better. There are some Fabled items worth having (especially weapons), but Ebon / Rhodium will do you fine through this tier.
    From 52, its Cobalt and Vanadium. More Fabled stuff worth having, so if you can get you hands on it, then do so, as some of it will last you well into Tier 7.
    From level 58'ish, you can start wearing some of the legendary drops from KoS. These will be quite nice upgrades from your Cobalt and Vanadium stuff.
    At 62, you get the option of Xegonite armor and weapons (Mastercrafted). These can be ok as temporary upgrades, but you will most likely find better items through drops and quests.
  3. ARCHIVED-jddrogs Guest

    well im only 26 but I upgrade my armor pieces every 10 lvls (usually will get you by for 10 lvls) my weapons I upgrade every 3-5 depending on what I get and always keep your spells/arts at ad1 min ... helps a ton.
  4. ARCHIVED-Whysprr_Wyrd Guest

    I'd take any comments on this topic from old and wrinkly dirges with a grain of salt. They respeced the itemization a couple of updates ago, and what was fab before might not be now -- in particular, crafted stuff has been downgraded a notch.
    That being said, there are a few must-have Heritage Quest items; the three that come immediately to mind are the Dwarven Work Boots, the Pretty Good Tomahawk (OK, OK, Pristine Granite Tomahawk for the purists), and the Fish Bone Earring.
    Whysp
  5. ARCHIVED-Laromor Guest

    Aye... agree that the crafted armor aint as good as it use to be, but its still quite a bit better than most quested or dropped stuff up until around level 50. There are some level 40'ish fabled items worth getting though... and yes... the items you mentioned are all great and a definate must have.
  6. ARCHIVED-Rijacki Guest

    Since I was intentionally flying through the levels with my dirge (because I wanted to raid with her), I only used common crafted (generally an imbued chest), mostly non-heroic quest rewards, or drops. I spent money to get her adept Is or at least app IVs but very little on anything else until level 50 when I knew it would slow down. Then I harvested a cobalt and had it made into a dagger, found a second cobalt and had it made into a chest. I did buy a bit of the rest of my gear, too.

    I -still- haven't finished the granite tomahawk quest. I finished the fishbone in my 60s after my first trip to the forgotten city. I didn't do Splitpaw (and didn't get Bloodlines for that account). I still haven't finished all the level 20ish armor quests, either. In fact, she skipped through a lot of stuff because I wasn't stopping to smell the roses with her, I was pushing nearly as fast as I could.

    I was still able to very successfully solo, group, and start raiding in my low 50s. I had no problems doing what I needed or wanted to do. But, my dirge was by no means my first character and I think I am a relatively proficient player.

    However... if I had been playing her to enjoy the levels, I would have started getting "good stuff" from around level 20 at least.
  7. ARCHIVED-Soldross Guest

    Here is my suggestion. Take it with a grain of salt. For armor, unless you have some stuff cached away for when you level, get the regular melodic at 20, 30 and 40. It takes soooo little harvesting to get and it isn't bad stuff for the level it is at. I took Fulginate Melodic Armor from 40 to 47 and did all right. Ebon isn't worth it. Costs waaaay too much. Those plats can be better spent on M1s. At 47 I simply hit the broker and looked for deals. I don't look cool anymore but my resists are all in the 1000+ now and my mitigation is looking much better.

    Go to the broker. Hit the black market too. On LDL most things are cheaper on the Qeynos broker even with the 40% broker rate. I always comparision shop before I buy. If you've hit the FAQ and read through the forum you already have a good idea of what you want to boost. My personal experience has been that on a PvE server stat increases are the big thing until you start getting into your mid-40s. Then resist gear becomes more useful and you want to really start considering it.

    Weapons. I dual wield exclusively. The thing I look for with my primary weapon is how quick it is. I prefer not to have it above 1.4 seconds so that I have as much opprotunity to proc with it as I can. It is then a tossup between damage and stat boosts. At 47 I'm still using a Pine Dagger because I just haven't found a deal on anything I consider better. Quick, lots of stat increases across the board and fairly good damage for a weapon rated at level 38. I just swapped out my long sword (also rated at level 38) with Adun's Axe last night which I got in PermaFrost. Did a little raid last night and someone was kind enough to parse and explain the output to me. According to the group I was with I did fairly well with that setup.

    When it comes to bows I prefer long bows though I'm using a short bow atm. Why? Because with a long bow I can get three debuffs in and finish Lanet's just as the target comes in on me. With a short bow the timing is off enough that they're up in my face just as I'm starting Lanet's because the bow just fired off. Yeah, I know if I did a little more work with my keystrokes and turned off the bow, blah, blah, blah but I'm lazy. Again, I've updated as needed.

    Belts, earrings, rings, etc. Go for the stats you want to boost and get your resists in. I sooo want to say get the imbued stuff but if you can find something that is cranking out resists and/or stats forget the proc. I still have my imbued ring of agility but honestly I can't tell if the haste proc is doing me any good. Now that's opinion there as I don't parse but when I find a better ring I'm swapping it out.

    So, we've discovered that Soldross will keep kit until it is basically rotting off his toon and is a cheap SOB (But hey, I've been told it's good kit.) Why? Adepts and Masters. When I was in my 20s M1s were dirt cheap, 30s and I considered them affordable. Now I'm in my 40s and wincing. But I'll buy them. Gutteral Shriek M1? Yeah, that I found out is worth a plat. My debuffs? They're my bread and butter. I want them as good as they get. Next big purchase once I can afford it is Hyran's. An M1 will buy me over a tier's worth of benefit. You'll weep at how fast kit becomes vendor trash but your spell upgrades always seem like a good deal.
  8. ARCHIVED-Salmastryon Guest

    I've been helping some lower level people in our guild of late and honestly if your new to the game don't waste your money on mastercrafted armor until you hit your 50s, 40s at the earliest unless it is darn cheap. The leveling speed of the game is ridiculously fast now. As a dirge, you shouldn't have trouble finding groups and if you get in a good guild that will has competant people who will group with you'll fly even faster through those levels just doing the regular HQ quests and exploring the various dungeons. I took some guildies into Solesk Eye the other day and just did the dreadnever quest line. And the people that weren't mentored went up 2-3 levels just doing that quest line and killing blue and white heroics. o_O In one day. And the Swashy (the highest level toon in the group), who was out of vitality for most that trip cause he had already gained 3 levels earlier doing solo quests in SS, went from 45 to 50 in just a day without mentorage. He had been planning to use the money from those quests to buy ebon but pretty much decided it was worthless since he'd be 52 in 2 levels.

    There are also a lot of really nice legendary drops off of names in the revamped dungeons. My brigand has had fabled and legendary weapons(which are better than the master crafted) since she was level 16, just off drops from the named. I've kitted her out in regular crafted armor and replaced it with treasured and legendary drops as I come accross them in dungeons. The troubadour in our guild is kitted out in quested gear HQ items and some dungeon drops along with a few pieces guildies threw at him as they were leveling up tradeskills.

    The real problem with figuring out what you want from drops in EQ2 though is the fact they went through and revamped the lotto tables of most the old world dungeons, so guides like ogaming etc.. have a lot of inaccurate data as a result.

    Things I do remember as far as drops. The Vampire at the bottom of Fallen Gate drops a very nice stiletto. There is also a rapier that drops somewhere in there too. I believe there is a fabled DW axe on Lord Ree's drop table in Waling Cave, but I could of gotten that from Stormhold instead. Nektulos Castle is well worth hitting, as a bard, there is some nice treasured bard stat gear dropped in there along with a very good legendary dagger off of everling himself. From Runnyeye you can get legendary gloves, ring, pants and another dagger. I know there is other stuff , but honestly my memory sorta blurs together on the revamped dungeon drops since they go by so fast

    From quests, the AQ armor will server well for the first few pieces, but i found my self 27, 28 by the time I actually finised all the quest and this was not doing anythng but the AQ quests. So, I might skip the later pieces because the reward is only lvl 20 armor for level 25+ quests. If your up to it when your in your teens you can start the quest line for the legendary bow out of Storm hold. Start your dwarven boots at 20, they'll be better than the master crafted. And once you hit Thundering steppe and Nektulos do the auger quest lines for jewelery and get your self the giant language. When your 30 start your Polished Granite Tomahawk Eveil Eye bag and your Manastone quest lines. When you can't get a group solo the Greenhood quest line in Zek to get the starter for your Ykesha Short Sword. Some of the solo quest lines in both Enchanted Land and Zek also gives some semi-decent armor. If you are sword and boarding it work on your Shiny Brass shield too. After the start working on your serrated bone dirk and if you can get a party the dreadnever quest line and the CT quest line nets nice daggers at the end.(If I remember right the dreadnever one is the better of the two) Everfrost has some nice jewelery from quest dropped quests but they ae a pain in the butt to finish. Once you get to 45 or so you can start in on the DoF solo quest lines which will net you some cash which I would then invest in cobalt equipment, because you'll be going into to shock at how terrible the drops are in DoF compared to the rest of the game.

    Dungeons with revamped loot:
    Blackborrow
    Wailing Caves
    Stormhold
    Fallengate
    Ruins of Varsoon
    Nektulos Castle
    Runnyeye
    The Obelisk of the Lost Souls
    Cazic Thule
    Permafrost
    Solesk Eye

    These are in approximate level of difficulty, but some of these have wider range of difficulty then others.

    I seriously can named over dozens of more quests with good loot rewards and an equal or greater number with bad ones, but unless you turn your adventure experience off or have terrible luck with groups you'll out level them so quickly that by the time you finish them you'll just broker or vender the rewards.

    Edit: switch to levels from tiers in references.
    Message Edited by Salmastryon on 09-11-2006 08:41 AM
  9. ARCHIVED-jarlaxle888 Guest

    POLISHED Granite Tomahawk my dear, Polished... yeah, I'm a purist :smileytongue: But it was one of my favorites with my Ranger.
  10. ARCHIVED-Krescendo Guest

    Learn to use the bazaar search function for equipment your level, that will give you a decent indication.

    Caster bards who group all the time, at lower levels often choose learther or dresses for the stats, forgoing AC. Thats pretty much valid through T5 just looking at the stats available. Some still do it in t6 and t7. Others of us, solo and tank and prefer the AC of chain.

    Also, check http://eq2.ogaming.com/db/search/quests_search.php sorting by recommended level for quested gear.

    I'd say gear is less important for grouping types than solo types. However, you could say you tailor your gear toward your playstyle and get the best you can.

    For some the journey is goal. So experiencing all the quests, and updating gear frequently is part of the deal. For others, maybe trying to rush to raid level, they can save for the big buy and make do with only mediocre gear that will be out of date in a week or two. Certainly, to my mind, player crafted and master crafted and fill many slots for those folks.

    Also, make an alt in the other city and search both brokers. It REALLY pays off both buying and selling.
    Message Edited by Krescendo on 09-15-2006 08:23 AM