I am a soloist have been since EQ and my Guild changed leadership and went raider forcing casual players out. EQ2 I started grouping as a healer who's jog I believed to be keeping the tank alive. After being thrown out of 5 different groups for not running around killing everything in sight, I turned to soloing and figuring thing out for my self. the came the merc's and soloing was easy...kill everything up to a low lvl red. Then came zones with entrance quests and thing got interesting lot of times how to information was lacking or it was next to impossible for a soloist to do/or not. As each expansion arrive new requirement appeared again and once again information was not clear or lacking Wiki was helpful but some things left you scratching your head. Why ? can't one sell/trade with alts/break down all the loot I throw away couple back packs of legendary/ heroic junk every month. Why do I pick up stuff I can't use ? Because EQ1 you had to to make money old habits die hard. now we have BoL and I can't complete the pre quest because I need to group...At 74 yrs old I have a hard time asking for help... so why play ? well I enjoy the game interaction with other players, grabbin a group in zone..... No more do people talk to others, never see anyone in zone....sooo ya I feel like an unwanted step child Daybreak doesn't want around...............Tough Daybreak I still have fun and I hope everyone else do to
The Prelude Quest doesn't require a group. It did have a bug where folks who did not have the Fount of Power buff from Chaos Descending were having problems, but the January 9 Update Notes say: "Entering "Deep Chelsith: Vault of Omens [Solo]" now grants the "Fount of Power" buff, no matter if you have the buff spell in your spell book or not." I got through this on my healers and on my paladin, all of which I just got to 110, solo. A mercenary made it better for the healers especially... depending on which one, it was either the Gathering Goblin or Lady Liae Croae as the merc. And as for soloing in general, I like the wiki's Soloing Timeline. It hasn't been updated for BoL yet, but you can get the BoL questlines on the BoL Timeline page. And, in Blood of Luclin, doing easily soloed Achievements gets you some very nice gear. The only ones that take a group are the PQ Achivements and the Achivements for killing the Heroic overland names, and for those it's still possible to get pick-up groups: A Bridge To The Moon (rewards 165 Resolve charm) Is There Anybody Up There (rewards 165 Resolve charm) Triumph: Blinding Destroyer (rewards 165 Resolve charm) Another Runner in the Night (rewards 165 Resolve ear) Wrack Em Up (rewards 165 Resolve neck) Great Space Coaster (rewards 165 Resolve ring) Tree? I Am No Tree! (rewards 165 Resolve ring) Blood of My Blood (rewards 165 Resolve ring) Triumph: Aurelian Coaster (rewards choice of 165 Resolve 1H or 330 Resolve 2H) Triumph: Brutally Wracked! (rewards choice of 165 Resolve ranged or buckler) Triumph: All Together Now (rewards 170 Resolve cloak) Triumph: Moonage Daydream! (rewards 170 Resolve cloak) Triumph: Lightside Explorer (rewards a Familiar Crate) Triumph: Blindingly Killing (rewards 772.2% Potency Barding) Triumph: Brutal Coaster (rewards Brutal Barding!, a selection of Sanctum barding) Triumph: The Blood Seeker (rewards Chronochamber Spark green adorn) Triumph: Wracked! (rewards Wracking my brains. containing red weapon runes)
Biggest issue with the 165 gear 'required' to get to effective potency levels for heroics. It is a case of 'you need t1 heroic gear to do t1 heroics'... and that is messed up. Even if the heroic gear is gotten via solo means.
I don't understand that statement. If it is a reward that can be achieved solo, it isn't 'Heroic' gear. It is very nice solo gear. I thought that the pathway to heroics was easier this year than last year. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the requirement to plat infuse everything to be effective. I always felt that should give you an edge if you chose to do it, not be required as a bare minimum. But that was required last year as well. So comparing CD to BoL, I'd say there was an improvement to heroic accessibility. But even that is off-topic. I think the OP was really talking about solo content.
It is gear with exactly the same stats as heroic gear. If you need gear that has the same stats as the gear a heroic zone rewards, then you, effectively, need heroic gear to do heroic content. It ALSO means that almost none of the gear that drops in those heroic zones will actually be upgrades... begging the question of how one is supposed to break into challenge heroic zones... If we need 165 resolve gear to break into zones that award 165 resolve gear....
Sigrdrifa oh source of knowledge and wisdom - you mention mercenaries. When I returned my best mercenary was the one from the ToT expansion. My plan was to use her and train her up until I got to BoL and then see if the ones from the BoL packages are better. You mention different mercenaries - are they enough better that I should be out there looking to find and hire replacements?
Well, to start with, all mercenaries pretty much have the same stats (with a couple of notable outliers like the Ninjabread Man). They all use STR as their primary stat, regardless of class. The big difference is what exact spells they have, and whether those spells are Master (most mercs) or Grandmaster (very few mercs). Newer mercenaries are not only not better than older ones, sometimes they're demonstrably worse. Similarly, purchased mercenaries are not All That, even some of the very rare ones. A while back a bunch of folks helped us to pull together a Mercenary Stats Comparison page for the wiki, so you can compare them more or less apples to apples. I haven't added BoL mercs to the page yet, though I need to. But I didn't see anything extra special about them, either. Look at their spells, and compare those spells to other mercs of the same class. Then nab whatever merc suits you.
I guess I'm going to agree to disagree. What does it matter where the upgrades required for the Heroic instances come from. I'd see the objection if it required defeating Heroic content to acquire it, then you'd have a catch-22. Since it doesn't there is a smooth path into Heroics. Would it have been better if crafted gear came in at 160 resolve and slightly lesser stats than 165? OK, I'll buy that. But the path they chose seems workable to me. As for upgrades, you still have a substantial number of pieces that you can upgrade in heroics. You did not need *ALL* 165 gear to break into heroics, you needed *SOME*. I suspect for challenge you will need all 165 gear and maybe a boost from the occasional 170 you can get out there. The real barrier to Challenge heroic will probably be getting up to date runes and adorns. Those should significantly boost CB/Potency/Fervor levels. If you want to talk about the low drop rate on *THOSE* items, I'm completely on board.
It's not where the come from, it's that they have the SAME STATS as the gear you get IN the heroics. Which means if you get the gear you 'need' to be effective IN heroics.. very few of the drops in those zones are upgrades. So how are people supposed to gear up to get into the challenge zones? Find some secret spot that gives 170 gear that is easier than challenge zones? Any time you need gear of the same quality that drops in a zone, to RUN the zone, there is an itemization problem.
Which issue would you like to focus on? Itemization or ease of access for casual play? Since you seem to agree, from your post, that gear for heroics is easy to get, I recommend starting a thread about itemization.
Itemization was brought up waaay back in beta and ignored. I doubt there is any point in continuing to point it out. The lack of responses or changes make the writing on the wall pretty clear.
Hmm. Maybe I am missing something, or taking a different approach. I count 9 slots that can be upgraded to 165 prior to doing heroic zones. I could be missing some, but I checked it against Sig's list earlier in the thread. There are 21 gear slots. So if you get all 9 (which you don't have to) prior to attempting a heroic, you still have 12 to upgrade. That is not 'very few' in my judgement. Are you counting upgrades differently?
How many armor patterns are you seeing drop? -3 slots for those that have ethereal armor And weapons are a downgrade in every stat except resolve for people with leveled weapons from last expac. The first zone my group ran this expac NOTHING that dropped was an upgade for anybody. It was all charms and crummy weapons. There is something exceptionally demotivating to crush gear out of the first heroic run of an expac.
More so than casuals being the red headed step child are, ... alt-aholics. (IMO of course) I've plat infused every bit of gear on one toon but that's it. Once I get sick of playing her I'm outta here. Every expansion to date, having all crafts has made me the plat to buy krono's and look after my girls, but with the lack of books and the rubbish MC armor and jewelry etc, this time around it's harder to make the plat to be relevant.
But the other items *DO* drop. Patterns are less common without a doubt. But they *ARE* there. You need to run heroics many times to get upgrades. This is not new. And you need a lot of weapons to drop to be able to level the one you want to the point it is an upgrade. It isn't surprising that a level 10 raid weapon from last year is not as good as a level 0 weapon drop. I'm working on leveling one, and when it get to the point its better, I'll switch it. This is part of the problem with having items that upgrade. They may start off lower in power, but end up better. Same for charms or other items that aren't needed. The number of manas needed to craft new Adorns is very high. That means a lot of grinding and melting of 'non-upgrade' drops. What I think I'm hearing though is that you believe the upgrade path should be more straight forward. Less crushing mediocre items to make other items stronger, and more upgraded items. No doubt that is more satisfying as a player. It certainly would be my preference as well. But that is not the same thing as stating you can't get upgrades out of the heroics. Or that there isn't a way to get to Challenge heroics from running heroics. You need to stick with it and get those upgrades. They come in time. If you aren't trying to rapidly gear up for raiding (ie a casual player) while maybe not the preferred approach, it is far from unachievable.
Full upgrades, yes. I have never had the first heroic run result in no upgrades for ANYBODY in the group. Later in the expac that is normal. But not the first zone of the expac. When 50% or more of the loot isn't a upgrade from the first run of the zones, things are messed up.
There's some overlap, if you look at the Achievement rewards. Three charms, three rings, two cloaks. Then some adorns and tack.
Thanks for the additional mercenary information. Not a surprise but always good to see things confirmed.
