I played the game from 2005 to 2012 and recently felt the itch to come back, but after reading up a bit on what's been added over the past seven years it seems like a daunting task to catch up - even if joining the Rivervale server. There are so many new mechanics and things that it seems you have to do to get into the heroics game (even more so with raiding) that I feel like I barely know where to start. Back in the days when I was active there were resources like the eq2flames forums where you could go to pick up an AA spec or gear recommendations, or to read up on game mechanics... Like whether haste is more valuable than DPS, potency is more valuable than multi attack; and what the soft and hard caps are for blue stats, etc. Now I feel like it's mostly guess work, especially after reading that some AA abilities scale so poorly that they are not worth using anymore. Are there any resources like that which are still online and up to date? Or is the best and only bet to join a guild and pester experienced players about it? After reading my own past I realize that I am actually asking for two different things: game mechanics help and an overview of quests and items you "must" do/get to be end game ready...
EQ2u is a good source for AA specs. You can check out gear as well and see which stats characters are focusing on. Unfortunately there isn't a collection of 'mechanics resources' any more. For one thing, they've been changing every expac and, secondly, many of the mechanics are.. not transparent.. to the players any more. Mobs in the last two expacs have some mechanic the works like potency avoidance, though devs have said that's not what it is. CD has a large (and variable) healing debuff in heroic and raid content that definitely isn't a % based reduction (not when some of the wards/heals are reduced to zero in some zones and when different arts are reduced by different % from and to the same healer). Right now for the Kunark Ascending and beyond expacs: Potency, fervor, crit bonus and ability mod are the most important stats for EVERYBODY. 100 reuse 100+ casting speed (extra casting speed converts to double cast which is good) 200 haste (to maximize number of weapon procs) 120 MA (to maximize number of weapon procs) Auto-attack damage is negligible for all class (yes, that means all scouts too).
Thank you for the reply. So when stat priority changes with an expansion or game update it's just a matter of trial and error to figure what's good and not so good?
Unless something dramatic changes, the above is unlikely to change. Which of the stats on the top line is 'best' is mostly a matter of availability. Mechanically/mathematically speaking, ability mod is the least useful of those stats because it's additive followed by potency and lastly crit bonus and fervor are, mathematically, equivalent because they're both multiplier that come last. [(Base damage * potency ) + ability mod ] * crit bonus * fervor crit bonus and fervor both have caps.. but there is also gear to increase those caps. Auto-attack is pretty much permanently dead as a useful form of dps.
Awesome, thanks. I wish there was a good write up of all this somewhere. Like you said it isn't particularly transparent anymore and it gets more convoluted the more stuff they pile on. Have DBG ever talked about a stat wipe to get back to more simple times? They did get rid of critical mitigation didn't they? Good stuff about the auto attack in a way... I was kind of bummed out that my dirge operated at like 80 percent of his DPS capacity by just activating the auto attack, it felt a bit too passive. Anyway regarding my second question of must-do quests... Is it just a matter of following the signature quest timeline on the wiki? Or is there anything else?
