EQ2 - Cheddar Update

[Cheddar]

So, got 2 characters to 20+.  First was a Brigand, which was fun but lacking in AOE.  So I decided to mess around with a Shadow Knight.  Extremely fun - currently I spec'd the Stamina line, will probably start working on spending my achievement points on lifetap skills.  Also spent some time crafting - got to level 20, but not really seeing the point in continuing with it; I probably spent a plat levelling it, and can now make level 10 equipment  .

Went romping around WC as well - was a hoot.  Will probably work on grey quests for a bit, then head over to Nektolus (sp?) forest in a few days.

[Sky]

Really enjoyed SK, hopefully I can get back to him at some point (trying to max out my wizard first). Spent the last couple nights running through the lavastorm tradeskill + sootfoot stuff, got all into the mood of it, I love the lavastorm vibe, got my wizard's fire aura going. Made the sootfoot magma armor and it looks so nice with the fire aura. Not quite big enough to do void stuff, so probably back to Fens after that (currently 74).

Ched, you should lock so you get AA for the nameds while doing quests, instead of doing them grey. Evils are the best since you can alternate between TD and DW for a decent AA bump to get you going, and you almost need the TD gear, it's so much better.

[Cheddar]

Ched, you should lock so you get AA for the nameds while doing quests, instead of doing them grey. Evils are the best since you can alternate between TD and DW for a decent AA bump to get you going, and you almost need the TD gear, it's so much better.

Whats TD?  I thought about locking my XP from kills; I cannot seem to stop levelling!

[Sky]

Timorous Deep. Running through the timeline will net you some good gear and AA.

I usually run TD to 14 or 15 (I forget), lock and go back to darklight woods to kill the nameds and catch up on quests (10+ only, for AA). Then I go back to TD, unlock and go to twenty. Lock, finish TD, go back to DW and finish those lines.

That's my basic startup for new characters, just ran through it with a bunch of newbies. When I say lock, I do both quest and combat xp with lowbies, otherwise you level too fast.

[Hawkbit]

As a strong recommendation for your SK, go 448 in Int before you do anything else.  It increases your spell crit by drastic amounts, which in turn increases your dps by the same. 

I solo only when I play EQ2, but SK has been my favorite class.

[Sky]

Seconded on crits, though I went for adding lifetaps first. That one spell that adds a damage shield/tap effect is scary awesome for soloing (and tanking). My only complaints about SK are lack of invis (totems are a pita) and the long refresh on FD (nullifying a lot of its usefulness that brawlers see). I lean slightly toward a caster build, Int-heavy with my SK.

Also, SK crits = crit heals via lifetap. Don't put any points in Int branch 4 (heal crits), because that's for Paladin heals. Lifetap heal component crits when the damage component crits.

[Cheddar]

oooh, I was wondering why people were recommending the int line.  Makes sense now.  So far I have focused on stam tree.  Would you recommend doing Stam/Int tree THEN lifetap stuff?

[Sky]

I'd stop putting anything into Sta before getting 448 Int and at least the shield lifetap thingy maxed out. Then finish Sta if you want and expand more lifetap effects, especially Coil line.

[Cheddar]

Any suggestions on what to focus on for a dirge?  Taking a break from the SK for a few.

What attributes and AA's would you recommend?

[RhyssaFireheart]

I focused on Int and Agility for my dirge, and took the Wisdom AA line first in the general Bard tree.  I'd have to check my points, but I think it was something like 4-4-8-8-1 for the whole line.  Next line I took there when I had the points was the Strength line IIRC, and took that all the way down as well for the AOE abilities.  But that's for higher level stuff mostly.  The Dirge tree.. I hate that tree.  It seems so random to me, and gave me little that I liked.  I pretty much stuck to the right side IIRC, but I'd have to double check to be certain.

Int helps your spells to land and agility for better defense when soloing.  I did a lot of soloing leveling up and I still do actually.  Gear is important, it helps you be able to fight something closer to your own level.  I tended to do greens low blues most of the time, so it was slow going.  If you're in a group, make sure to have your power regen (Bria's) and your dps (Riana's?) songs at the highest level you can afford; other players will love you for it. 

I personally love my dirge, to the point where my other alts (monk, fury and coercer) all languish because I tend to not play them much.

[Numtini]

The dirge boards on the official forums have an excellent FAQ. About the only advice I would give would be cut and pasted from there. Between speed, stealth, and tracking with a decent if not exciting DPS, I found the dirge to be about the easiest class I've ever tried to solo level.

[Sky]

3 days with the SK? 

[Cheddar]

3 days with the SK? 

Spent a week or so with him.  I decided to take a break after turning in a ton of collections and accidently jumping 5 levels.   

Figured I would try your plan out on achievements - when looking at classes I wanted something well rounded with plenty of utility.  Dirge gets uber travel powers, tracking, stealth, and 2 handed fighting.  I plan on locking XP around 13 and completing the quests in the city, then shunting over to Darklight and tooling around there for a bit. 

[Sky]

Oh god Freeport quests suck. The amount of travel kills me, and normally I don't complain about zoning, but running around freeport and the newbie zones therein... With my newbies I was trying to get as many lowbie quests done as possible, mentored my 45 SK down to my Inquisitor. Did TD and DW, started Freeport and just gave up because there was so much time spent running back and forth. And you actually get less AA doing them because they changed the way quests update. The old way only gave AA when you finish the quest, the new way gives you AA every time you update it, and they broke them up more so you get more updates.

Protip: only do the TD sub-10 quests, since you don't get AA for sub-10 quests and TD has the best rewards. Only do the sub-10 DW stuff that leads up to 10+ quest lines.

I had a Dirge to 15 or so before I rerolled it as a new class. Wanted to have a class with feather fall, even though I did like my female troll dirge. They rock, though I'm not sure it would be my main class.

Just bit the bullet and dropped 45p on one of my max level Wiz spells, by far the most I've ever spent on anything, now I have 5p to my name. Only reason I even had enough to do that was selling the next-to-last root AdIIIs for 5pp every couple weeks. And most wiz end spells are going for 80pp or so, ffs.

[Sky]

And the account has lapsed for the summer. Was a good run this winter, lots of Kunark adventuring. Did the Sootfoot stuff in LS, the magma armor looks pretty cool (hot?) on a wizard when combined with a fiery aura. Definitely a nice Sol Ro wizard look.

See ya in October or so!

[Daspied]

My main was a dirge on Nagafen while I still played. If any one is starting on that server and needs some help, i don't mind spoting you a few plat.

As for a RoK raiding dirge, the best lines in the bard tree are Int: 4-1 Agi 4-4-4-8 sta: 4-4-4-8 wis: 4-4-4-6-8-2, Never for the love of god get the group Aoe blocker its a waste of aa and others should already have it, like the druids. There is maybe one fight where it is useful, and that is trackanon. As for the Dirge tree Make sure to get Dregitations, and luck of the dirge. From here you have a choice, the two lines Magnetic note (nice if your tank sucks) and confront death, or what ever its called (removes rez sickness). Note, that dose not remove the Death rez sickness, it only removes the player given rez. I've heard that the new AA lines are bad ass, I just can't recommend how to spec, as i have no new experience with the latest expansion.

For dpsing, try to time your auto-attacks between your ca's, this alone will improve your dps quite a bit. Also You can macro your Ho starter to your spells that chain into your solo ho line, I know there are at least two. Off the top of my head I think they are the snare + debuff, and the defense reducer. The third thing you can do is try to form a chain with your spells, so you never have to wait on for one to be up. Please note, we are a very gear dependent class.

Buff wise, there has never been any reason for me to run my power buff, with exception on venril'sathir. It sucks in comparison to the coercer's or illusionist, and your members of your group should never need it while grinding if they are drinking. I typically ran Dktm (aa), Fort (aa), luck of the dirge (aa), percussion of stone (52), selo's, dps mod, the +slashing combat modifier, Dead calm (your damage trigger buff), and the agi+str buff.

[Sky]

Sometimes I forget what an impact good food and drink has, my provisioner is only like 63 or so, but it's still waay better than most of the non-crafted stuff you can get (some quested stuff is nice).

[Murgos]

I've come uncomfortably close to plonking down the CC to DL a copy of the latest expansion several times over the last week.   

I'm a sick, dirty, depraved individual. 

[Sky]

Eh, easy for me to ignore, I don't have any level 80s :)

[Daspied]

I have no regrets about not buying it, the game has just been digging its self further and further into the grave the past few years. 

I have a level 46 locked bruiser on Nagafen, Its kind of nice being able to run around killing people all day. Not to mention, there is no need to buy the newest expansion packs. The worst part about pvp, is there is no real balance, Its pretty much just a cluster fuck of 24 classes. Point to all this being, if you do resub to eq2, and want to try pvp on nagafen hit me up on msn, i'll get you squared away so you don't start out with nothing. I can also give you some tips on making plat, so your never dry.

Edit: My account is only active till the 20th of may or so.

[Nebu]

I played the pvp in beta.  My thought then was "Why add pvp to a pve game?  It's only begging to be laughed at."

I was right. 

EQ2 is a solid pve game.  Housing, crafting, and appearance tab alone make it worth a month.  I think it's competitive with LotRO and offers a different enough experience to share a place in the market.

[Murgos]

I have no regrets about not buying it, the game has just been digging its self further and further into the grave the past few years. 

I have a level 46 locked bruiser on Nagafen, Its kind of nice being able to run around killing people all day. Not to mention, there is no need to buy the newest expansion packs. The worst part about pvp, is there is no real balance, Its pretty much just a cluster fuck of 24 classes. Point to all this being, if you do resub to eq2, and want to try pvp on nagafen hit me up on msn, i'll get you squared away so you don't start out with nothing. I can also give you some tips on making plat, so your never dry.

Edit: My account is only active till the 20th of may or so.

Thanks for the offer but I have a couple of lvl 60ish characters on a different server.  For PvP I play Eve or TF2, I learned not to try and PvP in a PvE game on Vallon Zek in EQ1.

I've found I'm usually happier not trying to put square pegs into round holes.

[Sky]

I'm torn whether the pvp servers are a total waste of dev time and resources or a good repository for the kind of opportunistic douchebags who lower the bar of mmo.

[Daspied]

EQ2 is a solid pve game.  Housing, crafting, and appearance tab alone make it worth a month. 

I guess its just me. The housing was fun at the start until they removed a half of the unique/cool looking items, I understand why they did it though. Crafting i always found too dull, but the one time I did think about doing it after getting to about level 25 (crafter), I pretty much said why don't I just make a macro for this garbage. Even then I decided it wouldn't be worth the 5 minutes to make.

When i was with Ardent Legion in t5 PvE was fun, but at the same time bland. Raid mobs were always cake, having 100% avoidance, and 11k hp on our tank. It really just came down to how long did you want to push your buttons over and over. Typically while waiting for a gm to get back to you because you lost a shard or two that was unrecoverable in the world. The real clinger to the game, at least for me was the community. I always thought wow was much better for PvE, at least duing the nax/aq40 era, when I played. The community there on the other hand was something to be desired.

I'm torn whether the PvP servers are a total waste of dev time and resources or a good repository for the kind of opportunistic douchebags who lower the bar of mmo.

It was a total waste of dev time and resources. In the time they could have spent trying to fix pvp, maybe they could have gotten a better lead dev then Aralik (lead dev for the most recent expansion's). He hasn't done any thing to better the game (in my mind) but then again, I didn't play an assassin. They also could have made the raid mobs more unique, I don't think you should cater the raid instances to those that aren't willing to put the time in to learn the mob. I can't speak for them, but do they get any satisfaction out of killing a mob that just stands there and auto attacks? It also messed up the itemization  with the game trying to go in two directions, which didn't further the game any, epically in one that is very item based.

I suppose, I'm just a disgruntled customer, kind of pissed at the games lack of direction. Like Murgos said, Square pegs don't belong in round holes.

[Sky]

Hey, look. You have an opinion, too.

[ghost]

Anyone got any recs for a decent class for someone checking this out?  Having a hard time distinguishing much difference at this point. 

[Nebu]

If you're solo, I'd recommend monk, SK, necro, or conjuror.  If you are going to play with friends, you can never go wrong with the tank/healer/dps trio. 

[Hawkbit]

If you're solo, I'd recommend monk, SK, necro, or conjuror.  If you are going to play with friends, you can never go wrong with the tank/healer/dps trio. 

Ditto on the solo options.  My personal opinion is that the monk is the best solo class in the game. 

As far as groupage goes, if you're gearing for raid, then you'll likely want to min/max to make it easier on yourself (meaning guardian tank, templar healer and so forth).  If you're small grouping, honestly, it doesn't matter.  All the six tanks can tank.  All the six healers can heal.  And so forth. 

[Sky]

Another option might be wizard, great dps but you have to learn the ol' root/nuke trick. But wizards are much less demanding on gear, the SK is one of the more gear-demandy classes. Wizards have some utility with invis and ports that comes in handy when questing.

[Nebu]

I love wizards and warlocks, but when the root fails.... ugh.  Mobs repeatedly resisting root is a rare instance that makes me yell at my monitor. 

[Sky]

Some 70something wizard was complaining on the class forums about that. Even in Kunark, I haven't found it to be a huge deal. Of course, I'm not fighting raid mobs, but than, I don't have the benefit of raid group buffs/debuffs, either (or gear).

Always Master your root, it's more important than /anything/. My main moneymaker is selling the next-to-the-last AdIII root, because there are basically never Master roots for the last couple tiers.

You can also double-root, though I never do (root then group root). I have AA for spell range (Spell Reach), so I have a bit more play.

Use Freehand Sorcery (Sorcerer wis aa, +24% dam on next spell)
Ice Comet at max range (stun component)
Flames of Velious (slow component)
Root
Nuke - lightning, fireball, lightning; repeat

Watch for the root icon under the target to break, re-root immediately. If you have time, you can use Magma Chamber to get some dmg+stun and time to re-root.

That's about it. I don't use DoTs. I have Magi's Shielding AA maxed out, have a racial dmg shield, and will also cast the ice dmg shield if they're almost dead and root breaks, sometimes that can kill them while I'm casting the last nuke. When the Glacial Shield ice graphic drops, instantly hit Portal key and get out of dodge.

I rarely die anymore, usually if it's hectic like in goddamned Nurga.

[ghost]

Is the bruiser pretty similar to the monk if you want to be evil?

[Hawkbit]

Fairly.  It's better with one on one fights whereas the monk is better in aoe.  But that's like a margin of maybe 10% either way. 

The reason most go monk is because they heal themselves better than bruiser.  But I wouldn't let that stop me from trying one. 

[Murgos]

Monks heal themselves better and eventually get a limited invis ability which helps for getting around a little bit.

Bruisers get some fear abilities which lets them, 'reverse kite' in some situations which can be very useful.

[Sky]

Humans also get tend wounds which can help. My human monk is a little monster, by far the best heroic named farmer I've got. I test in WC when they hit 21 or 22 (I forget, just enough so Soulspike isn't greyed out). Good testing ground, mix of different mob types and resists. I ran a sarnak bruiser through, who had the better gear from the TD newbie quests, and he wasn't quite as good as the human monk. Still second best, but was more likely to die breaking up groups. Usually the only way the monk would die is if I failed three or four feigns after running through the dungeon and I had several heroic encounters beating on me.