Producer's Letter: Expansion 17, Beta and Preorders!

So, this new xpac will have the 3 blue fervor runes in the welcome crate of armor/weapons/jewelry, so we don't have to go back two xpacs and raid old content right?

There are replacements in BoL, so you could raid current content.

I'd love to, but those raids are a bit out of reach for us on Rivervale.

I am really looking forward to the AA revamp. As a Monk, the only ones I use are all the health/fervor/potency boosts, the upgrade for the dragon rage and the damage boost for my hate spells. Other than that, perhaps combat mastery, but out of 350 points regular AA and the prestige, it's sort of almost useless.

Still, I am not looking forward to a reset and having to do all the choices again. That's always a royal pita, along with the hotbars resetting. (I tried saving templates and my hotbar layout, but that never seems to work)

A new race is fun, but I don't alt, so apart from trying it out once, I doubt I'll ever use it. Still fun for other players with tons of alts.

The new zones, I just hope it does not mean that it is going to be identical to the BOL expansion, but I fear it will be. They were nice, but there was nothing in it to do. Run the sig line, and you're done questwise. Crafting was pretty useless, apart from infusers and adorns. All that was left was to run the same instances, over and over and over again. I doubt it will be any different, but I hope it will be.

And I am really curious as to the difficulty jump this time. Based on the panda gear, no more infusing in any way. All items are at max lvl. And that panda gear really focuses on crit chance and bonus. Potency on the panda items is about the same, or even worse, as fully infused fabled gear (non raid, the 170 stuff mostly). It won't obviously be better than raided gear or some of the heroic gear, but still. Quite curious how that will turn out.

As one who had a Vah Shir BL when it was originally released on EQ, I really had fun with it and will be happy to see them back. Not sure about signing up for pre-order as I think I'll be asleep by then (UK time), but I'd like to even though it'll mean buying a new character slot.
As for flying on Luclin, it wasn't an issue for me as I only had 1 character able to do the adv sig line although I needed help with the final dungeon. What I did have was 8 of my 9 crafters able to do the TS sig line. They're now lvl 120(TS) and can all fly plus you get a handy little neck piece to make which makes you non-aggro to the mobs around the zone in and temple. Great for running around harvesting or if you just want to get to the Diakku (sp?) area.
Haven't done all of the dungeons, though I have been run through the solo Diakku Coral which I found really boring and ridiculous although I was proud that my necro managed to keep my companion alive even with power drains. The other zone I won't go do again is the Bazaar unless absolutely necessary. However, fully intend finishing both sig lines with all toons eventually even though one of them is only lvl 89 and I'm not a power leveller, just need to find the time to work with them all. It's my own fault, I guess, as I'm not a raider, I hardly ever group and all my toons have to manage on their own with a merc which for most of them is still Raffik ( the merc you get from the Shipwrecked line ) who is good enough for most of the pre BoL zones as he has dps and can heal. Suppose I'm just a make-do player, as armour/weapon upgrades tend to come from the Luclin missions or the overseer missions as the crafters mastercrafted stuff is just not good enough but that seems to be a common trend nowadays.
Now, have to work out what class I'd like a Vah Shir to be and if it'll be available.

I just hope it has actual playable content and just just new gimmick mechanics. Each xpac has had less and less content since Sentinel's Fate and is now just very grindy bare bones. EQ2 is little more than a dungeon crawler these days.

uhhh...

Erm, stone cold? hostility? bob & weave? brawler's tenacity? mantis leap? The massive massive boosts to dragonfire? the boosts to tsunami? unrivalled focus? inner focus? sneering assault? boneshattering combination? PROVOKING STANCE???

If you don't see the value in these AA's you really have a lot to learn.

Also, you should be choosing crit bonus in the prestige tree, not potency.

We are the last class who should be complaining about rubbish AA's. Ours are actually pretty good. I just hope they don't nerf us too hard in the revamp. Monk is a fun, versatile and powerful class how it is right now.

I'm beginning to wonder if he's even playing the same game we are, haha, after reading his earlier comments about AAs in the monk line and then to go on about the Panda gear. I'd recommend a little time doing actual equipment comparison and a very big deep dive in the AA lines. What's going to happen in the future re: AA spec is hot speculation with everyone. Time will tell us that story.

As an avowed altaholic myself I wholeheartedly agree!!

I should have started that I almost exclusively play solo. As a solo player, the only one that matters of those is the dragonfire boost. The others only matter for grouping, if even then. I've played a monk almost since launch, and for instance tsunami was brilliant and a live saver, back in the day. Nowadays I barely remember I have it. I do use it when grouping, as with some of the others you refer to, it does make the healer's task easier.

I really do agree that monks are fun and versatile, and definitely powerful, I don't want to play any other class, and I've tried them all.

Easy enough to do the equipment comparison, I've done that and I stand by my remark, compared to previous years, it's mostly not worth replacing any gear with the Panda gear.

As for the AA's, see above, I should have added that I play solo mostly. And yes, I do know that there are lots of benefits from the AA's, but several of the main ones have become close to pointless for soloing.

With the mention of increasing guild level to 350, I was curious, is there a consolidated list of benefits by level somewhere? Everything I have seen is somewhat dated.

There really hasn't been an update for a long time. After 170, it's just bragging rights.

https://eq2.fandom.com/wiki/Guild_Buff

That's what I thought, but confirmation is always good especially with the coming cap increase. Thanks,

I do hope it gets more doable to lvl up after 200, without any dropped items, familiars or writs it really becomes a very slow process.

i am curious to see how the Vah Shir are made different from the Kerra

They have a more lithe muscly body and more of a lion/panther feel in the faces. Plus a very cool assortment of tails!

See if Dreamweaver can get permission to show us some Vah'Shir art!

Dave may have to go back and re-texture the old players to bring them up to the Vah Shir level! It's that big a difference in my opinion.