Avoidance didn't work at all on beta. Combat Arts hit 100% of the time. Brawlers (the Monk and Bruiser, off-tanks who wear leather) rely on avoidance most heavily, so you may want to hold off making one your main until avoidance gets patched correctly. There's supposed to be a May 11 launch-day patch; hopefully we get patch notes the day before launch so we can decide from there. Caution: Even if this issue is addressed, it may still be wonky, impact other things, or need to be addressed further later.
Some help with your abilities, as one of hte biggest complains of EQ2 is ability bloat. You can, and probably should, sort your abilities out. I personally split mines up (as a tank) with all my taunts on top left bar, all my survival/tank temp buffs on the top right. Then all my CC (interrupt, stun, etc) in the middle. And all of my dmg abilities split with direct dmg to the right and my AOE abilities to the left. Something that makes all of this a bit easier is the background color of your abilities. If you pay attention, you will notice that the background color of your abilities will change. Red background- is a Single Target ability. It can be a direct dmg, or a dot, or a mix of both (even a snare/root, etc) Blue Background- Is some type of true AOE ability. It will dmg/ snare, taunt, etc anything and everything that is within that abilities radius...even friendly NPC's at time. Green Background- ENCOUNTER ONLY. Not many games have encounter abilities, but it is essentially an AOE that will ONLY affect the mobs that you are already engaged with if they were in their own encounter. EX: If you pull a group of 4 goblins, and then accidentally pull a group of 3 bears...if you use an encounter ability against a goblin, it will ONLY affect the goblins, not the bears. And vice versa if you used it on the bears, it will not affect the goblins. Yellow Background: These are generally your SELF temporary (temp) buffs. You may also have BLUE buffs that buff the entire group/raid. A lot of times I take my red, ST dmg abilities and arrange them in order from the highest dmg to the lowest dmg. That way I don't really even have to memorize what they do, I just know that this ability on the far right is the weakest and the abilities to the left grow stronger and stronger. And once you understand the background coding, its easier to know which ability you want to use at any situation.
After you set the Previous Hostile PvP target keymap and/or the Next Hostile PvP target keymap, you will have to manually /save keymaps charactername-keymaps once (it saves into your EQ2 install's Keyboards folder if you want to back it up) and then every time you log in again, you will have to manually /load keymaps charactername-keymaps as well, or you will be reverted to the default keymaps for that play session. Having to manually load custom keymaps is actually a longstanding bug that dates back to 2004 and PvP didn't even go in til 2006, so I'm assuming it affects random other keymap customizations as well. But this minor annoyance was still happening during the PvP beta, so heads up for launch. And if you'd like to reuse an entire custom UI you've made for a character on another character, you can! Once you get your first character's default UI customized to your liking and have logged off so it will save, you can then log back in with a new character (or later, you can even log back in with another character you've already made if you want to change their UI) and use the in-game command /load_uisettings to import any of your previous UIs to your current character. If you mess up and choose the wrong one, just /load_uisettings again and make a different choice. Make sure you log out to save the new UI to that character the first time you import it. If you get bumped offline before logging out to save the new UI, it won't be there when you return. I'm not even sure the "Log Out Without Camping" choice will save any new settings right; I think I've had problems with that one in the past. I usually choose "Camp to Character Select" or "Camp to Desktop" the first time I import a new UI to make sure everything saves to that character okay. These UIs save right to your main EQ2 install folder and are floating around with the server name, like Tarinax_Charactername_eq2_uisettings.xml if you ever want to back them up somewhere.
Despite what the description says, Glide worked on beta. I'm assuming PvP zone might mean battlegrounds.
I don't think Fae/Arasai Glide-type floats worked at all on Deathtoll. I specifically remember them being intentionally disabled, server-wide. But hey, Fae/Arasai Glides may be getting resurrected for Tarinax, who knows? Aerakyn isn't supposed to be playable, but that was available in beta too, along with the supposedly barred Vah Shir and Freeblood, so we'll see how it all winds up at launch. In only 2 days and counting....tick tick tick.... How much you want to bet everything launches exactly as it was during beta? That's my guess at any rate.
Yeah, I do remember it becoming permanently disabled for PvP years ago. That makes sense. People were really freaking out about title huggers jumping off the sides of mountains etc the minute they'd lose 25% health in a PvP fight, lol. That's actually less of a nerf than its tool tip says, if you can still use it for travel across the zones, but that's a better decision because then it still has some value as a racial trait. You could use it for impromptu landings once you've hit the spacebar to jump off a Griffon before reaching the Griffon tower, because stealthed Scouts frequently camp there. Glide could even be useful at certain respawn points on hills if they're camped by griefers as well. Glide still works mid-fight against mobs even though your run speed is slowed, on live anyway. I just rolled a Fae on Test.
One of my favorite memories on Nagafen is when we (Talisman) were going into Temple of Scale and ran into "Sempiternal". After we cleared them (haha) we continued to Harla Dar. PvP & PvE go hand in hand if you want to gear up in my opinion. Tomb
Everquest II Russian speaking channel that reviews everything that happens on pvp server and definitely would be useful for new PVP players.
Attention faction-locked classes (Shadowknight, Necro, Brigand, Defiler, Pally, Conjuror, Swash, Mystic) that want to change sides: The Priest of Discord from beta is actually in on both sides and he's 100% functional. This Priest of Discord offers instant faction-locked class betrayals where you can choose to keep your class after you change factions.The QH harbor Priest of Discord is in the canal cave underwater. Just jump into the canal water next to the broker, then swim through the hole in the cement wall. The FP one is next to the Ambassador (ask a guard for directions: just type in the word citizenship).
I'm confirming here that Racial Tracking only shows Friendly (same faction) players, but not enemy players, since the launch of Tarinax. To test this, I rolled a Qeynosian Wood Elf (has Racial Tracking) Templar (healer classes don't have tracking-- only Scout classes have Tracking). Then I ran on foot, all the way through Thundering Steppes and Nektulos Forest to get to Darklight Woods where the Freeps are. I ran right up to all kinds of enemy players, and none of them showed on my Racial Tracking. Friendly (same faction) players do still show up as blues, and NPCs still show up like they do on PvE servers, though. Even if they're above or below you in level, ALL enemy players will show up on Scout Tracking, as long as they're within 100 meters of you or so, just with different color cons. (Higher level players that cannot attack you unless you strike them first show as red, and players too low for you to attack are grey, but everybody shows up including greens, blues, yellows, oranges etc).
I get that pvp wins can take plat & a random item from you...but what about harvested rares & general mats? Do I need to keep my harvest bag as empty as possible as well?
Yeah, I've stolen tons of rare harvests from people. It always drops them before other harvests because they are of higher item quality.
I don't know if its been stated yet but the scout's stealth offers to see invis or stealth depending on the class. Assassin's and Ranger's offer See invis while Swash and Brig's offer see stealth. I don't believe Troubs and Dirges offer one? I might be wrong. But its always nice to have the totems to see because once you get out of stealth, you can't see the person. That's if you decide to try scouts.
Sure is a lot of people racking up an impressive number of kills in just 5 days. Gotta wonder how many times / day they are killing their characters on their alt accounts. Must be a literal bloodbath in altville these days, lol.
