returning Conj questions

Discussion in 'Conjuror' started by ARCHIVED-jrt66, Mar 13, 2011.

  1. ARCHIVED-jrt66 Guest

    Greetings -
    After an extensive layoff, I re-subscribed. My conj was lvl 70 with around 85 AA's. After briefly playing to lvl 71 I read through the forums and decided to lvl lock and work on AA's. I'm now lvl 71 and 131 AA's. People in game have questioned this approach. I realize the posts I read for advice were from before the recent expansion. Would you still advise lvl locking for AA's now, or just go ahead and lvl? If it helps, there are plenty of quests for me to get the AA's (either at my level or by mentoring down) - IE I'm not just grinding mobs.
    Second question: The best gear thread has several things other than the class weapon. Is it worth it to pursue the class Epic/fabled still, or does DoV loot make that not relevant?
    Finally - I installed Profit UI. I didn't have experience with this before. The one issue I have trouble with is the pet window - IE selecting the pet during encounters. When I pull more than one encounter, I have the pet targeted and nuke through him. When the first encounter dies, with the default UI, I just clicked my pet window for the new targets. Now with Profit, clicking the pet window puts me in a field to rename the pet, and I don't get a target. So in other words, can any profit UI users tell me the best way to target my pet? F1 twice? I looked for a macro command and didn't find one. Or do you name your pet something other than yourself when soloing, so you can macro a /target petname?
    Thanks in advance for any advice!
  2. ARCHIVED-Banditman Guest

    There are probably very few people in the game with as much experience leveling completely solo as I have. I assume you are talking about doing this solo since you don't mention a second account or boxing in any fashion. Good for you.
    The two schools of thought on AA are these:

    1. Build AA as you progress
    This school of thought says that you are better off getting your AA as you level. Generally these people are the level lockers. Right now, leveling a character from scratch, you need to earn 3.75 AA per "regular" level to arrive at L90 with your AA capped.
    Pros
    • You really learn your character this way, since you spend a lot of time at each level.
    • You gain a more intimate knowledge of all your abilities.
    • You won't feel overwhelmed or "gimped" when you get to the level cap compared to other players.
    • You will see a LOT of content this way.
    Cons
    • Extremely limited grouping opportunities prior to level cap.
    • Feels very slow at times.
    • Itemization may be an issue at certain places due to the new mechanics introduced with Velious.

    2. Burn and Grind
    This school of thought says that you get to level cap as quickly as possible and then go back and grind AA until you cap out. You can probably get to level cap in about 5 days /played these days, even without all the silly RAF exploits. That's a very conservative estimate. There were people who demonstrated the ability to do this in less than 24 hours with RAF.
    Pros
    • You get to end game quickly.
    • More grouping at end game.
    • Bigger "numbers" for XP to AA conversion.
    • Better itemization available.
    Cons
    • You will be very, very **** compared to the other characters at end game.
    • You won't know your way around Norrath nearly as well.
    • Less knowledge of your class and it's abilities.

    Personally, I've tried it both ways. For me, I come down solidly in the camp of do it while you level.
    Both the characters that I did a burn and grind on (A Guardian and a Ranger) I have since deleted. It simply wasn't "fun" to be level capped and not be as effective as I knew I should be. I have two characters who sort of experienced the content as it was released, a Conjuror and a Mystic. My other five level capped characters were all leveled up long after. I used no RAF, no boxed main to level any of my characters. They either did it alone or did it as the content released.
    One thing that I didn't point out above was reputation. Your reputation. Regardless of what class you choose, once you start grouping, and perhaps even before, you are building a reputation in your community for your ability to do your job. Let me assure you, people don't care "why" you aren't as effective in your role. They do not care that you just got to L90 and have 56 AA. If you can't do it as well as someone else, your reputation suffers. As your reputation suffers, your ability to get groups, to participate, declines. It takes months to build a good reputations, but only a few days of poor performance can ruin it.
    Everyone has an opinion on what is the "best" way to do it. It's only that, an opinion. There is no right answer. It all depends on how comfortable you are with the benefits and pitfalls of each method. Consider, decide and move forward.
  3. ARCHIVED-jrt66 Guest

    Thanks for such a thoughtful answer. You've re-inforced my feeling that gaining the AA now is the way to go. Interestingly, I've joined a guild, and there is a lvl 90 who took the opposite approach and is now grinding for AA. We have about the same number, so it's more or less a contest.
  4. ARCHIVED-Urgol Guest

    For AAs, I'd say find a shadowknight/berserker/warlock. Preferably one with some good gear. Or two-box one. Then mentor your toon and go burn through all the dungeons on your way up. Use your xp pots of course. Level lock some in the lower levels and grind grind grind. This way, you can both level to 90 in some 16-20 hours of gameplay AND get 220-250 aas along the way. Then you just go to the new zones, do the solo quests for some basic gear and finish off your 277 AAs this way. So now you are 90/277 in some 3-5 days and you have some gear to run group instances in. I recently took up leveling an alt and in first 8 hours (8 pots used) got him to 62/165. Going to land at around 220 aa's at 90, but then grinding waves in the hole nets you ~10 aa/hour at cap. However, I wont really recommend grinding if you have long been away and are not really so familiar with the newer content and mechanics.
  5. ARCHIVED-Trensharo Guest

    Just target your pet and assist off of him/her.
    As far as leveling goes... I don't see a reason to lock and grind AAs. You're capped on AA gain at certain levels and that person who's 90 with same AAs is not in a contest with you. He already won because all he has to do is grind AAs. He's getting better gear than you (This game gives you house items as reward from 90% of the quests...).
    Grinding AAs in EQ2 is no different than grinding AAs in EQ. Yes, it makes you feel real nice if you have a lot of then when you get to max level, but at max level it becomes trivial to grind them because you don't have to worry about Adventure XP/Character Levels at all, and all of that goes to AA.
    Also, every AA isn't a straight DPS gain, so him having a bit less than you doesn't mean you will outperform him, especially given his headstart on levels (which gives him a headstart in the itemization department, getting mastered out, etc.).
    For me, personally, I'm not sitting around to get 3.75AA per Level. Quest Grinding isn't fun enough to put myself through that torture. That makes EQ2 feel like RIFT. Boring and purposeless.
  6. ARCHIVED-Lamprey_02 Guest

    I'd like to add another opinion for getting aa as you level. There are several reasons in my mind for getting your aa along the way as opposed to rushing to 90:
    - It's easier when you're little. Mobs at 90 are designed for people with lots of aa, which means that if you hit 90 with 50 or 100, soloing will be slow and difficult for you. Forget velious.
    - Quests are best for aa - and most are targeted at lower levels. In your 70s, you have all the Kunark quest lines to do, then Moors, then the SF quest lines. Why not do them as you go? And if you're rushing to 90 and have all exp going to leveling, you'll outlevel these quests quickly.
    - I think it's more fun to level feeling powerful along the way, so having a lot of aa at all levels makes things more fun.
    If I were in your situation, I'd lock at 71 till I was 71/160, then I would set the slider to 60% towards aa and start doing all the quest lines. You'll be 90/200 before you know it.
  7. ARCHIVED-jrt66 Guest

    I appreciate all the advice. For what it's worth, I'm finding it easy to gain AA's fast just soloing. Just passed 170. I've stayed lvl locked, and I'm just doing quests, chronoing to do old quests, using /claim AA pots and Station cash tracking pots to find named's.
    On the pet target question - I guess it's more of a UI question, and might not be appropriate here since it's Profit. My issue is I can't select my pet with the UI installed. That standard issue pet window that you get with the pet commands (attack, back off, defend me, follow me etc.) - in Profit, if I click anywhere in that window instead of selecting my pet (and showing my pet's target) it takes me to a text field to rename the pet.
  8. ARCHIVED-Urgol Guest

    @ the max lvl/mid lvl grinding dillema

    Since soe added the numerical values for experience gain, it's not even debatable.

    On my 65/195 alt I'm getting ~1500+1800 aa exp for a single yellow to orange con triple arrow heroic mob in PoA. Dual boxing with a 90/250 zerker with no dov (so he is capped on aa and does not leech the exp). I can kill some 20 of these per minute with the zerker, but the zone only has some 50 of these and ~200 of lesser quality mobs (equal to gliding waves in exp gain) per round of spawn (~10 min).

    On my 90/210 illu I'm getting ~350*3+750 aa exp for killing a group of gliding waves in the Hole. I can kill ~3-4 such groups in a minute solo, or ~5-8 with the zerker help. The zone has those in unlimited supply, but all the convenient spots where several groups reside nearby are already occupied by other ppl. And grinding hole is also a major PITA on a pvp server.

    In the end of a day, I'd rather grind my 250+ aas at lvl 65 in an empty zone over lvl 90 in a crowded gank-fest zone.
  9. ARCHIVED-Trensharo Guest

    Lamprey_02 wrote:
    That depends on playtime and personal perspective.
    I have high playtimes and if you seriously think I want to solo quest for 7-10 hours a day 5-7 days a week in an MMORPG then I don't know what to say. I guess it's just a difference of perspective and yea - some of you guys are probably a bit more casual than others.
    But when you spend that much time quest grinding it becomes a bit excessive, especially since so many of the quests in this game are retardedly pedestrian and it has a terrible map/quest helper system compared to some other games.
    Give me a Quest Helper/Map similar to Carbonite and sure... I'll quest all day, but I got tired of jumping to EQ2i every 5 minutes at level 50 or so (that's the experience of someone leveling their first character - you may not feel the burn if you've been playing for years and leveled up a few alt characters).
    Yes, feeling powerful is fun. Playing alone 80% of the time isn't, and Quest Grinding involves not having fun to me, due to that (playing another game isn't the option - they're all pretty much the same, and I've probably played them all, anyways ). It's not like you can quest with other people, since 80% of the people are either locked in the 30s to farm 150+ AAs or PLing straight to 80+ and then farming their AAs there.
    If I wanted a Solo Quest grind I'd play Fable III or Dragon Age II, not this...
    And the 2-4 hour BG queues make them and their quests useless to me, atm.
  10. ARCHIVED-Hoppytehubah Guest

    Due to RL stuff I am often on the forums as a "returning player". I've played since release (on and off) and my main is 87. She's grouped maybe a dozen times in all of those levels - I prefer solo. So my advice in that to you would be that locking is a positive thing. When you are working alone to get gear, etc you need to be stronger than another conjuror at your level who mostly groups. Grouping all the time, you are getting nice loot drops from dungeon crawls, etc while solo you are relying on quest rewards and being able to take down a named mob solo in hopes of a class-specific drop. I just went to Great Divide last week and thought to do the quest line with the otters. I was able to complete it at 87, but the mobs were very difficult for my char. I attributed this to the fact that my AAs are LOW, and I am quest-geared. If my AAs were higher, I would have been able to kill these mobs more easily even with my quest gear. So... AAs are important as you level up when you are soloing. As a side note.. now that I have a nice set of quest gear from the Great Divide - the pre-DoV zones are MUCH easier to me.
    Now that I am "smarter" I have been leveling up a new char and level locking at certain points to build AAs. I was starting to burn myself out this way until I started switching things up. One night I would do the quest lines, the next night I would work on Heritage Quests/Factions, another night I might run around trying to hit all of the named mobs I could with chronoing down, etc. It keeps things interesting and is making me a stronger char overall. I wish I had slowed down with my main, as now trying to go back and grind out the last few levels and build AA is frustrating to say the least.
    As for the questions about Profit UI, if you go to EQ2Interface's website and go to the Profit UI page, you can post questions there that can be answered directly by the guy who creates Profit http://www.eq2interface.com/forums/...isplay.php?f=41
  11. ARCHIVED-eidand Guest

    I'll add my oppinion as well since I came back to the game with a lvl 80 necro with 120 AA and now he is 90 with 260.
    Mostly due to Velious, most pre-Velious gear is pretty much useless. I think you should be aiming for 90 as soon as you can, work on the starter quests in Velious and gear up. Try to group as much as you can. If you are honest about your aa and dps I don't think you'll have issues getting groups. Just tell ppl that until you have better gear your dps won't be that high.
    Keep an eye open and if there is another aa bonus day, that's the day when you should max aa. I think you're better off holding onto any aa bonus potions you have and not use them until there's another double xp day. Of course I am not sure when that will be, but still worth keeping a few in reserve.
    Summoners are in a very good position this expansion. If you like to group and this is your goal then don't spend too much time soloing. Soloing and grouping are very different beasts and you'll get to 90 not having a clue how to perform in a group. That always sucks. So, less accent on soloing and more on grouping. I \suppose you already have elemental Toxicity and probably elemental blast. Those and Planar Shift will probably help you most. I see now conjies pushing crazy dps and that comes with aa and gear ... Velious gear. Also make you sure you get a master mage pet. Nothing means moer for you than that.
    You won't be getting the good SF gear now anyway since no one does that expansion any more. While Velious is fresh , get to 90, do as many public quests as you can as those will take care of any gear issues you have. People won't be doing them for long, I think, so you're better off joining that train while it's still here.
  12. ARCHIVED-Trensharo Guest

    Is there anyone on Antonia Bayle who can help me with some Epic Quest updates in some dungeons?
    Is the extended server more populated, active? I think I may have to move there and if it's not much better then I may have to play another game.
    This game does feel very hostile to new players (Spell upgrades costing an arm and a leg, hard to farm plat at lower levels, quest helper and map system are beyond terrible, etc.).
    I was planning on locking at 80 or 81, getting my epic, and using it to farm AAs for a while, but at the rate that's progressing it may not be next month before I get it and by then I'd probably be 90 and 250+ if I just do it that way.
  13. ARCHIVED-mdell Guest

    hitting f1 once targets yourself hitting it again targets your pet. It might not be the best way, but it works for me.
  14. ARCHIVED-Lamprey_02 Guest

    Trensharo@Antonia Bayle wrote:
    The fastest way to get your epic would be to hit 90 and solo it. At 90, I had zero problems soloing all of Chardok (Queens dropped a mount too, haha!) and Seb. Lots of aa and gear off the named and nice disco aa too, it's worth it. Of course, by the time you're 90 and can solo the epic, the epic will be useless.
    However, if you're set on getting it at 80, why not just ask guildies? Or ask in public chat? The updates would probably take 25-30 minutes and be a nice trip down memory lane for most people.
  15. ARCHIVED-Trensharo Guest

    I got it like a day after making that post. The proc is good and more crit for the pet in those levels where quest gear is pretty badly itemized and you can't get many groups for dungeons an item with that much crit on it is pretty good.
  16. ARCHIVED-gatrm Guest

    Trensharo, a couple times now you have mentioned your dissatisfaction with the quest helper/map available in game. If you are using the default map that comes with EQ2, you may find that you like using EQ2 maps. It has maps to most instances and zones where the default map does not have included maps. Quest updates and POIs are included as well, and if you find something not included, you can submit your own POIs. If you go to www.eq2interface.com you should find a link for EQ2 maps.
    Also, and this is a new feature, if you have the quest selected with a checkmark in your quest journal, then it should show an area on the map highlighted where you can find updates.
    Personally, I like to find my updates by searching and what I know about the game/zones, and the information included in the quest text, but often the developers seem to write quest text with the expectation that people are going to cheat, and therefore not enough or flat out wrong information is given by the questgiver. In these instances, it is useful to have the information readily available on the map.
    For the OP's questions, as far as targetting your pet, if you target his health bars rather than his name, you should be able to target him, or like was mentioned above, just hit f1 twice.
    Some of these replies are making leveling and earning AAs feel/sound like a job. I think you are putting way too much thought into it. My best advice for advancing is to play the game, explore, and have fun. If you feel that you are leveling too quickly or outleveling an area before you are done with it, then put the slider towards AA. If you feel that it is going too slowly or all your quests are yellow or higher, than put your bar towards XP. There's no need for it to ever feel like a task, especially if this is your main or first character.
  17. ARCHIVED-jrt66 Guest

    I'm not trying to overthink things as much as find the best way to re-enter the game. I had multiple lvl capped near AA capped toons when it was KOS (IE 70/100). My profession called, and I wasn't able to play again until now. Since I returned and re-subscribed, I haven't found any of my old mates to lean on in game for advice. (interesting aside - I'm the only person in a guild that nobody logged in to for 3 months). I'm not sure how it is on your server, but ppl have changed in the last three yrs. I see ppl flamed (including myself) in lvl 1-9 chat all the time. I think the overall populaton has dwindled, and those that remain are mostly lvl capped. The reason I bring this up, Gatrm, is that if you even hope to join a group below 90, you need to understand that you're grouping with twinked alts and they have absolutely zero tolerance. Easily 3 out of 4 times that I've asked to join a group I've been asked about my AA's. That's a major difference between now and when I last played....these days everyone wants your 'resume' to even group with you.
    As to progression, I've found it easy to gain AA's and I'm almost to 200, but it's been all solo. I did move the slider to XP for a while to gain 2 lvls for the purpose of getting quests. But as anyone well knows, 72/190 doesn't get you a group.
  18. ARCHIVED-Lamprey_02 Guest

    You raise a valid point jrt66, unfortunately most people nowadays play at the level cap. The game is mature, what can you do? I know, I was in your situation a year ago: SF had just come out, and I started a new conjuror because I realized I'd never be able to afford gear for my old main (guardian).
    You're lucky as a conji because you can solo most things, which makes it easy to play in manageable chunks of time.
    However, don't get discouraged. A lot of people still play, and they play because this is the best game of this type out there. 90 is not that difficult to get to, and there are plenty of groups at 90. There's also tons to do at 90: dungeons, instances, etc. Furthermore, the people you'll end up grouping with will end up being pretty decent folks. Ignore chat spam - the nice folks generally don't spend their time typing drivel in there, so it's easy to see how you'd get the wrong impression by reading it.
    At your level, I would just level to 90 off of quests - set your AA slider to 50% (or you'll outlevel the quests) and do the Kunark, then Moor's, then Sentinel's Fate solo quest lines. They'll get you to 90 with lots of AA.