Questions About Xpac Perks

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Almee, Dec 11, 2019.

  1. Almee Well-Known Member

    I am considering upgrading to either the Collector's or Premium edition. But, before I shell out the extra money, I want to know if all characters, on an account, can actually use things like the mount or merc regardless of their level.

    While the advertisement says that these perks are available to each character that doesn't mean they can actually be used by each character unless they are of an appropriate level. I imagine there are other players who would like to know this information before buying or upgrading to the more expensive xpac.
    Soara2, Momo and Ceyarrecks Wunnfirr like this.
  2. Tangris Well-Known Member

    Mounts can be used at level 30+ but it clearly says the stats will not be on it until 110. Familiars should be from level 1. Mercs may be able to be used at lower level but you may not be able to get to them until later levels like the mercs in Myrist.
    Soara2, Cyrrena and Momo like this.
  3. Momo Well-Known Member

    I fell for that one with the CD Xpac - the Merc's description said he would be useable with lvl 20. It forgot to mention that you are not allowed to enter Myrist below lvl 100 or 110. So putting the merc at lvl 20 was totally... [edited]. The new zones will not be accessible below 110, afaik, so no merc again.

    Ah, and I forgot: Most stuff isnt claimeable/useable at TLE. But thats either written in the TLE FAQ (like "no mercs" and "no familiars") or sometimes in the item description.
    Soara2, Juraiya and Cyrrena like this.
  4. Dude Well-Known Member

    There's no significant difference between mercs, except for class, and mercs at 100+ are just heal bots.
    Soara2, Cyrrena and Breanna like this.
  5. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    It's good to note that none of the mercenaries in Chaos Descending are any better than other mercenaries you can get elsewhere, including via in-game-only methods. Heck, even Marketplace "Ultra Rare" mercs aren't All That necessarily. See the wiki's Mercenary Stats Comparison page.

    Pretty much, all merc stats are very similar (with a couple of outliers). The real difference is in what specific spells they have, and whether those spells are Master or Grandmaster. Oh, and mercs use STR as their primary attribute, regardless of class, pretty much.
    Soara2, Breanna and Cyrrena like this.
  6. Momo Well-Known Member

    Yes, I agree - but the question wasn't if the mercs are of any use, but "can I get/use everything with every toon" and the answer is just no, we can't. And I agree with Almee, thats something I'd like to know before I buy stuff.
  7. Almee Well-Known Member

    I've been slow to purchase the higher-priced xpacs since getting burned on the PoP xpac. The xpacs promised a new merc but the little twit was off at the end of the zone and it turned out she was a total failure anyway.

    The KA and PoM mercs were easy enough to get even with my lowest-level toons. There didn't seem to be any gating once one toon on the account got access to the area. I'm not sure how CA works as I don't like mercs that take up a lot of visual space. Between the pack pony, merc, and the new little pet, I have enough problems trying to see or target a mob. I'm sure the devs had a good laugh at placing them all in front of us to slow down everything we try to do.

    The reason I asked is because I have a new account, with no veteran rewards, so all but one character, on the account, is using the city-bought mercs. I assumed the new merc would be better as it is supposed to be better than the level 20 mercs many have. If they aren't, then shame on DB for making it sound like it is superior.
    Soara2, Cyrrena, Momo and 1 other person like this.
  8. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    New mercs are not often "better". Some are demonstrably worse than easier to obtain mercs elsewhere in the game. Before going to heroic lengths (or big cash purchases to get a certain merc), check the wiki's Mercenary Stat Comparisons page and see if it's even worthwhile.

    Go to your Class Trainer and purchase the Shrink Mercenary ability. I think it costs 150,000 status.

    More likely they're laughing because no one told you that you can right-click a pet and select the Pet Hide option. The pet is still up and doing whatever it is it's supposed to do (the pony harvests, the god pet buffs, a familiar buffs/attacks as per its description), however it is completely invisible, giving you an uncluttered view.

    You also will get a little better display performance if the game's not having to render your troupe of pets and hangers-on.
    Who said that it is "supposed to be better than the level 20 mercs many have"? I'm pretty sure DBG hasn't ever made such a claim. Most mercs are cut-and-pastes of others in the same class, the only difference being the outward appearance.

    The key to evaluating various mercs is to look at what specific spells they have, and whether those spells are Master or (rarely) Grandmaster.

    The Merc Stats page I linked above has all the mercenaries for which we could obtain data, and to make sure that we're comparing apples-to-apples, we took a character, chronomentored to level 5, removed all mounts and buffs, then summoned the mercs and looked at their stats and spells. Across the board, those stats don't vary a whole lot, with a few rare outliers (for instance, the Ninjabread Man or the Golden Inquisitor).

    As for levelling mercs, all that does is allows you to equip them with gear to boost their stats. Mercs don't even require special merc gear, equip them in the best plate armor you can find (they all will wear plate, they all use STR as their primary attribute), and if you want to really min/max you can first infuse their gear, then adorn it. The merc can only wear gear up to your current level.
  9. Kuulei Well-Known Member

    I suspect 110 will be needed, either adventuring level or crafting level, to get to the new expansion since it currently requires the prelude completed to even get to the new zones on beta.

    I never understood why minimum level was 100 adv. / crafter after the account was flagged for access with CD expansion.
    It would be nice if with BoL that they lower the level requirements once access is gained, so that newer characters on the account could get new mercs.
    Soara2, Cyrrena and Momo like this.
  10. Bhayar Well-Known Member

    I seem to recall that when the recent xpac came out a year ago, two devs were quoted as saying how awesome the hawkman was going to be in the usual PR flow of information. As you correctly point out, most of them wind up being pretty much the same except for function in what they do.
    Soara2 and Cyrrena like this.
  11. Momo Well-Known Member

    I've been asking in discord for the reason they started to put level restrictions on the new zones, cuz it makes me sad, too. Someone said the reason was probably because of the extremely high XP rates and that they wouldn't want people to power level others there. But it was no official answer, just someone guessing (though sadly I have to admit that this explanation sounds quite reasonable).
  12. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    Skando is worse in terms of stats than Claz'zakla, who we got in the Crusader's Cave in Kunark Ascending. They are both ranger/druid hybrids, with the same spells. Skando is only a little bit better in stats than Marzapan Seasoningbringer (Frostfell Chocolate Coin merc, also a Ranger/Druid hybrid).
    Soara2, Cyrrena and Breanna like this.
  13. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    That should be simple enough to prevent without blocking them from zone access. Just don't allow low-level toons to get discovery or XP in those zones.

    OTOH, you can be very low level indeed and get your crafting up to 110 and have access to the zone, but really, it should be open to anyone who has one toon with zone access.
    Jaeded, Soara2, Cyrrena and 1 other person like this.
  14. Almee Well-Known Member

    Thank you for the great write up about mercs, Sigrdrifa I solved my merc problem by taking all my new characters through Zek Scourge Lands and getting Zhugrus. He's ugly as can be but he did a pretty fair job of being a merc back in the day.

    I know about making pets invisible but it is a PITA when hotkeys grey out yet no pet is actually up. I'm always having to toggle between making them visible and invisible just to see if they are really up as they aren't much use if they aren't up.

    And I have the shrink merc spell on all my characters but some of the mercs are still pretty large such as Matri Dut or ones with wings. That's why I didn't get Skando even though he was available to all but one of my accounts.

    The merc Wiki page is a big help and I did consult it when trying to decide what to do for mercs. I've gotten a few ultra-rare mercs, from the Marketplace crates, and ended up turning the tokens in for sp rather than using the mercs.

    My hope, with the new mercs, was that they wouldn't be as ugly as the ones I currently use. I haven't seen what they look like but I was hoping they would look better than Zhugrus or Bhoohghar.

    And as Bhayar said, the devs did tout Skando as being a desirable upgrade, if I remember correctly. But when he actually became available I didn't see where he had any stats that made up for his wing spread. And I heard, but I'm not sure from who, that the new merc was supposed to be better then any current lvl 20 merc.

    But the main reason I asked about whether percs would be accessible, to lower level characters, was a desire to shed the Reveal Inner Dragon which is a PITA mount because it doesn't disappear in the cities even though I have "render mounts" turned off as well as "hide my illusion form." The fool dragon form takes up the whole worktable making it hard to share a table with others needing it.

    There was one clown who stood overtop of the trade quest NPC making it seriously hard to target the NPC. I dismount, when in the cities, but many players don't seem to realize their dragon illusion/mount is making it difficult for other players to get things done.

    I also find it hard to see where I'm going when flying in dragon form but it is the only flying mount available to the lower-level characters on my new account. I don't care about flying stats I just want a flying mount that disappears, like it should, when in cities.
  15. Breanna Well-Known Member

    You should not have to keep hitting the buttons to see if they are up or not. In fact you don't even need them on your hotbar once they are cast. You can look at your spell effects or your maintained spells to see if they are there. I've never had my familar die but that's beside the point. You are making things harder than they need to be. Just hide the hoarde and keep an eye on your spell effects or maintained spells to make sure the icons are still there.
    Soara2, Cyrrena, Dude and 1 other person like this.
  16. Juraiya Well-Known Member

    Oh yes, this.^^ :eek:

    Someone told me that the Inner Dragon disappears in cities, showing just wings. That isn't true at all. Most of my characters have some other form of flight, but on one account I don't, and the lowest level character on that account only has Inner Dragon. I absolutely HATED its huge size, so took a pair of tinkered wings off another character on that account (she wasn't using it, it was an extra), and gave it to him for appearance. He can't technically use it, but at least the appearance of it covers up that humongous dragon!

    I don't know what DB was thinking with this. It just gives more people ways to grief others, like all those various enlarging abilities. I don't know how many times I see some big galumpf standing on top of Santa or a quest giver, just preventing anyone else from clicking on it.

    And I HATE that it ignores the fact that I have mounts turned off on my accounts. The whole reason I turn off mounts is to avoid the form of griefing that some players love to do so much. But you can't turn off those illusions on either yourself or others, and are therefore forced to allow people to grief you when they really want to. If they just put that illusion form in as affected by that turn off mounts option, it would fix that issue completely.
    Soara2 and Dude like this.
  17. Almee Well-Known Member

    Breanna, I am sure what you say is technically true but it doesn't seem to work that well for me. I don't know if it is because of Amazon's messing with my computer (and still is I might add) but I have a lot of strange things happen in this game.

    One of my current problems is the game double clicking when I only single click. And when I try to move items from one bag to another chaos ensues. Items get switched around, moved to unintended spaces, and sometimes just plain disappear.

    I would like to blame Amazon but it began happening long before they started storing movies and TV programs on my computer. Now that I've gotten them to stop that I am finding all sorts of music I never ordered or want. I'm not talking promo music, I'm talking full albums. I'm sure Comcast isn't amused by all the bandwidth being used by my account and I'm not amused when my system can't handle all the traffic.
  18. Kilar Active Member


    Strange things do seem to happen in this game sometimes. last week I couldn't stop my characters from running around in circles. I even logged out, did a file check and restarted my Comp but they continued to have their fun. The next day however everything was back to normal.
  19. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    This happens because a button is slightly stuck on your keyboard. Minimize your window, then re-maximize it and it stops the spinning in circles thing.
    Breanna likes this.
  20. Lateana Older than Dirt, Playing EQII since 2004

    I have had that bug waaaay too often. A new bug I have been getting in the last two weeks is that the chat window does not have a line open to type into. I usually have to copy another character's UI to solve this problem.