Coming Back, What Server? And a couple Questions.Follow

Hey peeps, I've been kinda itchin to get back in the mix.
played a Monk/Necro/Beast in the past, I was gonna start up a zerker this round.

First, What Server should I roll on?

I was thinking Xegony or Firiona Fie

hows the bazaar on these two? Low level twink stuff, those kinda things
whats the status like on these two?
the 50% xp bonus on FV is that all the time? even when farming AA's?

and then a gear question, I kind of made of a Template for this Berserker, nothing super high end, but some really nice peices, Im wondering how long this gear will last, before I need to look into some other upgrades.

Ear: Pear Cut Prestidigitase Gold Earring
Neck: Zlandicar's Talisman
Face: Mask of the Dragon Slayer
Head: White Dragon Helm
Ear: Vah Shir Claw Earring
Ring: Palladium Fire Opal Ring
Wrist: Silver Chitin Wristband
Arms: Hardened Grey Flesh Sleeves
Hands: Velium Encrusted Gauntlets
Wrist: Silver Chitin Wristband
Ring: Palladium Fire Opal Ring
Shoulder: Barbed Dragonscale Pauldrons
Chest: Tunic of Wrath
Back: Cloak of Flames
Waist: Belt of the Great Turtle
Legs: Leggings of Wrath
Boots: Mithril Boots
Range: Festive Doll
Primary:
Blackened Acrylia Greatsword
Two Tined Corpse Pitchfork
Gorewood Staff


And Lastly, Whats the lowest level I can do my Epic 1.0? I heard 35 on FV, and 46 on the normal servers?

defiant changes alot hehe.. i just dont want it to be like last time.. ok so heres a rusty ulak.. see you later..

the FV bazaar I heard was different, they have alot of no-no-drop gear which is really nice.

the template I put together was pretty much everytime i inspected someone back in the day and they had alot of those items on.

I put a number on all the gear I listed, came to about 388k including food, pots, clickies ect.
I also put that together for the chance that I would make a ranger and he would have gear.

I guess it would be effecient if I rolled on FV due to its XP bonus, but I hear there progression on raids is lack luster, thats why I was also pushing on Xeg, or maybe even Povar I heard was bangin.

and again based on population I made that gear set so I could Molo as long as possible, with that gear setup i was lookin at:
1500 hp
250 str
200 sta
200 dex..
I never really played the twink game on everquest.. but nearly maxxed stats at level 1.. sounds really fun honestly lol.

Let's put it like this. Last time I twinked out a toon (way before defiant), I made a War and made full sets of cultural armor upto the 60s with augs. This was the best stuff at the time other than a few twink pieces at lower levels and upto 65 when you could get Qvic raid armor, which I did on that toon. It took 1 day back then to get to 51 and start AAing, and a few weeks to get to the 60s and 100s of AAs. This was way before the AA bonus, but after the AA change that made it easier at lower levels.

With a tank merc and whatever defiant level gear you can find, you can do 50 in 4hrs or less if you know what you're doing and don't obsess about getting every spell and discipline (although, if you have platinum, it's easy now, since everything rank 1 or no rank upto level 90 is available in pok and whole level ranges on single NPCs to take out all of the searching).

Get to 59, and buy the Elaborate Defiant gear (will cost you < 10Kp if you shop around and don't pay extraordinary amounts for each piece. Only the rare chest should cost over 1Kp, the rest you should be able to buy for 1-300p each (legs might be closer to 1K or slightly over, depending on how many are availabl; they're pretty rare too). Get Palladium Trio jewelry and Round Cut Opals and Peridots for the slot 10s, and Square Cut Taaffeites or better (Underfoot Diamonds are the best) for the slot 11s. May want to mix in some other cuts to balance the stats out. With just the Taaffeites for all jewelry pieces (2x Wrist, 2x Finger, 2x Ear, Neck, and Face) at level 59 (doesn't max out till 60), you'll have +312 AC, +152 Str, Sta, Agi, and Cha and +312 to all Resists but Corruption, +2488 HPs (more if you have bought some AAs, like Natural Durability rank 3), +1560 Endurance. This is not to mention the defiant stuff. See https://everquest.allakhazam.com/search.html?q=elaborate+defiant+chain . The jewelry may cost some, but probably around 20K for a full set, unless you can find Taaffeites or Underfoot Diamonds cheap (seems like close to 2K for those normally, and need 8 of each stone. The Opals and Peridots are cheap (like 20-40p)).

With all that, you'll be maxed on most stats, if not all, and close, if not maxed on the others like Int and Wis and Dex. And +1155 Hps from just the defiant without wrists (Use the trio wrists), plus tons of mod2s from the defiant gear. Do the Franklin Teak (in PoK near Guild Lobby) hotzone tasks for a hasted waist, defiant back and shoulders pieces, as well as some cash.

Just the defiant and jewelry, and assuming you bought ND3 AA, you'll be around 9.5K unbuffed. Get to 61+ for some of the best in-game buffs and you'll be well over 14K when fully buffed. You can get the jewelry pieces earlier, like gold at 20, as the settings are cheap to replace, and the gold will last till you get the Palladium ones at 55+.

If you wait till 59 to buy all this stuff, you'll only take about 1-2hrs to get it all (probably less without having to go to an aug bath to aug the gear / jewelry), unless you have to shop several times for the defiant gear (sometimes, or most of the time, not every slot of elaborate defiant is available).

The point of all this, if you spend a ton of time and money twinking out now-a-days, you're just throwing your time and money away. Because, twinked out, you'll level out of range of the stuff in a day, and even without being twinked, if you get a tank merc, they'll basically power level (if you don't want to do any work or try to keep your skill ups, other than pulling mobs) to the 60s and with lots of AAs, if you want. I generally help out, and try to get beat on by mobs a little bit to keep defensive skills up while leveling, along with weapons and offensive skills.

So you can spend 300+K, and days trying to get all that stuff, or about <2K on a merc while leveling up and do it in a day, and have all that money to spend a fraction of it on stuff that's going to last weeks (longer as you get higher levels and AAs).

I haven't really twinked out a toon since 2008 (when I did the aforementioned Warrior), other than buying melee and/or hybrids good starter weapons, as defiant ratio isn't very good at any level.

EDIT: Got so wrapped in why traditional twinking isn't worth it any more, that I forgot to answer the other questions. Yes, on FV you can trade alot of normally no trade stuff, but not everything. Look it up on http://eqitems.13th-floor.org and on the Raw data page, and look at the fvnodrop entry. If it's non-zero, then it's no trade on FV as well. I recommend that site, because Lucy / Alla isn't correctly parsing that entry at the moment. Epics are the most commonly notable items on FV that can't be traded. Yes their end game is not up to par with other servers. Xegony has a good end game, and used to have open raids when it was Druzzil, but I'm not sure if any guilds are hosting open raids there any more or not. I'm not real active in the in-game community any more, and usually only log on to test stuff out, do some in-game research or just to waste some time.

Someone reported being mostly maxed at level 20 in a recent thread (might have been on Sony EQ forums) with just defiant, and probably gold trio jewelry. (This was just defiant gear and probably the Gold trio jewelry, it wasn't twinked out).

EDIT 2: Magelo character, 59 Clr no AAs, only palladium trio with square and marquise cut underfoot diamonds and defiant plate / adept's gear. No weapons, ranged, or charm, and no augs other than the trio stuff. http://eq.magelo.com/profile/2390040 - 8950 HPs, add another 10% with Natural Durability 3 AAs.

Yther Ore.

Edited, Feb 28th 2013 12:20pm by Yther

Edited, Feb 28th 2013 12:41pm by Yther
Fixed some typos and grammatical errors, and added some clarifying statments

Edited, Mar 1st 2013 8:22am by Yther

Just a heads-up on this. The buffs have the same limit as grouping, 30 levels. So, yes, at 61, you can get buffs from much higher players, but only for buffs up to level 91. So if you hit 61, and then wonder why you're not catching any MGBs in the GL, that's why. The top players will now be MGBing buffs that are 96+.

You can still get really good buffs (level 87-91 buffs), but you'll probably have to ask in zone chat for someone to buff you.

Tat

Trying out different servers is a good idea, as fast as it is to level. You're not likely to find many groups on most server below 65, other than the progression servers or Vox. But alot of that depends on you, and the server. Some servers have descent guilds that are helpful to new, low-level toons. But even in those kinds of servers, you probably not going to see much grouping other than with mercs until 65+. There's lots of grouping 80+ on most servers though, and the progression servers are mostly around level 60, but leveling is slower there and max level is only 70 atm.

Some people really like FV, especially for the ability to buy no trade raid stuff, but like I said, from what I hear there end game isn't going on as well as other servers. Did I mention test server, some people like it, because it's free for gold membership there, plus some other benefits (all expansions included, as an example), but it's a very small community any more, and the end game sounds like it's hurting there too due to the low population.

I like Xegony. I like Tunare. I like Antonius Bayle, but it's Euro-centric based and I don't play prime time Euro time much any more, and I'm not fluent in any language other than English, and they speak of alot different stuff over there. Heck I don't play much any more. :( I know alot of people from these forums on Povar and there community seems ok from looking at the general chat there. I tried Trakanon when it first came out and got several toons to the 60s there, but it's pretty dead. I did see a progression guild recruiting there recently though. It's been years since I played on FV, but I always liked the role playing aspect of that server. It's been years since I played on any other servers, like Stromm, but it seemed descent and used to be designated the newbie server.

Anyway, as fast as it is to level up, trying out multiple servers, and even multiple classes if you need to, is a good idea, as it doesn't take long to get up there and get a good feel for the class, server, whatever.

Yther Ore.

Very sure. At 61 (my necro this past fall), I was not getting the MGBs, and found out that this was the reason.

Tat

dem there MGB's still going down at pok bank? whats the new hot spot now?

One other quick, semi-unrelated note:

I found out also that group buffs won't land on pets, even when they are the target! (until you get the AA that allows it). I was buffing the necro's pet with the chanter, and cast group haste >on the pet<, and it would not land. I can understand the group buffs not landing without the AA, when the target is someone else in the group, but I was shocked to see it would never land even when targeted.

Tat