a few questionsFollow

For sake of info, I run a solo elf wizard and am at 60th level. Mainly I use the draught spells because I find the big damage spells draw too much attention to me, and waste too much time being disrupted toward the end of the spell; so I figure the draughts are the best line of offense- quick to cast, and disruption isn't as much of a timewaster as the bigger spells. I also have a cleric merc who stands around healing me which I find to be incredibly invaluable. I started off and went to 50th level with a brownie rogue merc before I realized what an incredible asset the healer is to me. Anyway any advice here is appreciated, and my questions (I have many but these are the ones that stand out to me):

1. /consider - The past two days I have encountered three light blue conned creatures that went like this:

Natimbi - everything here conned light blue and was not too much trouble at all. I roasted the natives with impunity. But not the restless souls or the animal life, just the warmongers and the nocs. I hate killing the animals isn't that odd?

Firiona Vie - everything in the city (dragoons and cliff golems) also con light blue. However, it would take me a full bar of mana and about 20 draughts to take down one golem. This is with a merc healing me constantly. Otherwise I would've been a red stain by the third or fourth draught. I started wondering why these were conning light blue to me and not, you know, red. Because without the merc I would be dead really fast by these.

Mines of Nurga - about the same as Natimbi UNTIL I tried to free a slave named Punjab. Then the cave filled with goblins (one a goblin sergeant) which all conned again light blue. Only this time, it would take me no less than 20 draughts to kill one goblin reaver, and no less than 40 draughts to kill the sergeant. I actually had to spend all my mana on nukes (at one point I just gave up and starting using the 2k superior sundering spell) then stand there for half an hour with him wailing on me and my merc healing me to go through the second bar of mana. Finally I just gave up and left.

My question here is, what is /con really telling me? Anything? Just an indication of level? These three creature groups all con the same to me, but are all radically different opponents in strength. Is there any way to know what creatures you can actually fight, and which you can't? Were the goblins really that powerful? That is almost 30k hps and somewhere like 40k for the sergeant; or are they all just super-resistant to spells? It just seems to me that con isn't really telling me anything important and usually tells me the opposite of what is true. (Cliff golems should say "This will wipe the floor with you!" Goblins in Punjab cave should say "These are nearly impossible for you to kill! Your spells are useless!"

2. Familar - Is there any way to just completely dismiss the familiar (hate the flap, flap, flap I flap and do nothing else but get in the way) permanently, without it respawning ever zone jump?

3. I carry in my main hand a dagger, in my other hand a recipe book from the Natimbi cook, and in my range, an Ornate Adept's Sphere. I always want the Orb to be displayed (I like the way it looks, plus don't like standing around with a book in my hand) but every time I zone I appear with the dagger and book in display, then have to remove/restore the Sphere to take away the dagger and book and just display the glowing Orb. This also causes my health to drop a bit as the additional health gained from the Sphere is lost, then restored; this causes the cleric merc to always begin casting full heal on me. So then I have to wait for her to cast her spell, then meditate to restore mana. It's a nuisance. Is there any way just to continually display the Orb and stop the dagger/book from being displayed after zoning?

Thanks for your input (and any other advice for a solo 60 wizard would be appreciated).

Ah so that is what that means, I kept seeing "this creature looks dangerous" and under it "this creature looks relatively weak" and wondered at the paradox but now it makes more sense. There's just so much information about the game it's difficult to correlate it all.

Ordering the familiar to leave makes it go away until I zone, then it will respawn, and I have to make it go away again. Being the wizard class I make a lot of use of gates and so I am zoning a lot and so he keeps respawning every time. It's not that it's a major problem or anything, just would rather not have the pet at all and wondered if a setting existed commonly used to cause the pet part of the spell to stop spawning altogether.

What happens with the cleric isn't that she is using a lot of mana and I have to wait a long time for her to get it back, she is casting full heal on me oncce, using just a little mana (maybe 5% of her bar? maybe not even that much) and we are only waiting maybe 5-10 seconds for her to meditate and get the mana back. But this is happening every time I gate because I switch the Orb out-in which makes my health drop maybe 2-4% which I couldn't care less about (I usually have regenerated my health back to 100% before merc even finishes Full Heal). However this small drop causes the cleric to immediately begin casting Full Heal on me. So then I have to wait for her spell to finish, and her to meditate the mana back. Only about 10 second or so wait, but every time I gate (which is frequently often).

So basically everytime I gate, as soon as I zone in I have to dismiss the pet, remove/restore the Orb, wait for merc to finish Full Heal, wait for merc to meditate back to 100%, now we can move out. Again, no big deal, just wondered if there were a common command or setting to make things more permanent in the display. Doesn't seem so much like a bug or anything, but a restore of some default setting every time a player is spawned in a new zone.

Thanks for the help.

p.s. I know it can be like "just don't switch the Orb in-out" or "just start moving without the cleric she will catch up" but I tend to be a role-player and so things don't always work in the easiest mechanical fashion, as it were.

Edited, Jul 21st 2013 8:16pm by broonsbane

Sunderock Springs ports are availabe at lvl 60.

lvl 60 I leveled in Roost doing the quests to go higher on the ledges and Sunderock Springs wiz port has places to kite.

Pull mobs with Snar, root adds. the AA-Hastened Root will help any root to limit some breaks with DD.

keeping snar on is what is the win for soloing with out a merc.

Oh and zones to check out for leveling around 60.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/zones.html?zstrat=129 - The Maiden's Eye

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/zones.html?zstrat=129 - The Hole

@Larth

I did get that gate for SS, gated in, did a couple of /cons, and gated out. Looked to be a bit much for me right now. I'm still not able to do Corathus Creep. I mean, maybe technically I am, but everything in those places /cons dark blue to me (or worse) and whatever happens I end up getting swarmed, and it just triggers a gate-out. I am currently in a quest involving the Roost but have sidetracked over to Firiona Vie areas to build faction with Firiona Vie and Chardok (though I'm now "kindly looked upon" by FV, the Sarnaks are still looking threateningly.

Some of your jargon I'm not sure what it technically means. I've looked and tried to Google things but the info just doesn't seem to be there in a plain form. This site seems to be about the only place I find with information in a findable format. What is "Snar"? "DD?" I'm not sure how Root is used effectively for a solo Wizard. Or how kiting is successfully pulled off by the solo Wizard. Actually I'm not 100% on what kiting technically is. In Firiona Vie, I will go and pull a golem out of the city and into the forest; as he attacks me, pilgrims will swarm on him. Sometimes there will be two golems come maybe even with a Dragoon. These times I'll have to sometimes backpedal while I regain mana, and they will chase after me, meanwhile the pilgrims just swarm behind them hitting them as they go, eventually they drop from pilgrim power, or I regain enough mana to end it. I've heard the word "kiting" before, and as I did this action I thought to myself "this must be what the term "kiting" means because it certainly matches the idea of running along with a kite on a string. But the only place I've ever been able to do this with any success is outside Firiona Vie because of all the pilgrims helping me out. Anywhere else I've done this (maybe one or two other times before I said, this certainly isn't going to do anything but kill me) I just end up being the one getting swarmed

- right now I'm putting my AA into "make spells cost less mana" and "regain mana faster" as those seem to be crtical to me. Well, that and the "quick gate" hot key which was the first AA I got because gate is my life blood.

Snar was suppose to be Snare which is a type of spell that decreases movement and stops them at very low health where their speed is naturally reduced. DD is direct damage or nuke is another term used for not instant cast, but instant duration spells that usually do alot of damage.

This post at https://everquest.allakhazam.com/fcluster/gotopost.pl?mid=123655651167915606 gives links to definitions and other EQ terminology.

For some more info on mercs, might try reading the threads at https://everquest.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=1&mid=133219935614211828#6 and https://everquest.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=1&mid=1312609276177414664

Specifically, Balanced means balancing between fast, maximum whatever (heal, damage, aggro, etc.) and maintaining resources (Endurance or Mana). Journeymen mercs have more options, so you can set the DPS to burn (to maximize damage at the cost of Mana or Endurance), warriors to aggressive (get aggro on everything) and whatever the cleric is called to heal no matter what, 'cause your expecting the mob (Movable Object also, generally called a monster, animal, etc.) to do alot of damage.

Non-cleric mercs will only attack when you have generated some aggro. You can cast non-damage spells and still get the mercs to attack, if the spell generates hate. An example spell is cancel magic, causes no damage, but angers the mob, because you dispelled a buff. Clerics never attack, as there only job as a merc is to buff and heal. This is also the primary job of a real player cleric, but they can do alot more. Mercs only stick to their primary job.

They have an AI that controlls them rather than having the owner control them like the better pets in the game. (Enc summoned pets tend to be stupid without AAs to give them some control over them).

I don't really have any advice on looks, as I never really cared. Didn't use dyes until 2005 I think. Being able to survive and win fights was more important. Although I do enjoy the immersion of the game, and used to love to role play, but it's not very popular any more, even on FV server I hear. There are ornaments to change the look of weapons, but nothing for armor yet, that I know of, in a manner you're talking about. There is the Hero's Forge ornaments but they're unique looking to themselves and nothing else looks like them. You also have to purchase the ability to use them with Station Cash. The weapon ornaments sometimes look like other things, sometimes not, it depends on the ornament and design. Some are player made designs.

Yther Ore.

Bear in mind I'm not technically sure what you mean by "kiting" and "pulling" so I'm having to presume the metaphor, as it were. So I imagine that kiting means I am running with something following me, and that by pulling I am causing a creature to move toward me from his location. I don't understand how the snare/root spells help in these cases. I've never really found a solid use for either of those spell types. When I try to search for these terms and things I come up with nothing substantial



Yeah these seem to be the places I'm looking toward.



Thanks.

Snaring & Rooting

Find a mob, preferably one kinda isolated (so you can single pull) and best in an outdoor zone with wide open spaces. Get to an extreme range and cast your Atol's snare spell upon said mob. If he's out of range, keep creeping forward until it lands. He will get angry and start "chasing" you, albeit at slow speed. Commence nuking. Retreat between nukes to keep enough distance so you can get off the next nuke spell before mob reaches you.

You can use root for this too but unless you've bought the AAs which "improve" your root spells, each nuke is going to break the root so may not be worth the trouble. Of course, root is useful as an emergency spell if something goes wrong and the mob's about to whack you.

This is the single-target form of kiting.

Quad-kiting is one of the class-defining abilities of druids and wizards. In quad-kiting you snare 4 mobs and then "round them up" by running around them in progressively tighter circles. Once they're all following you elbow-to-elbow start casting your aoe DD range spells. For nukes look up your Targeted AE spells that do so much damage to the mobs around your target. The limit is 4 total, hence "quad-kiting." You don't want to use RAIN AE spells for this since those work differently and with moving mobs two of the 3 "waves" won't hit anything. I think Pillar of Flame would be your top spell of the right kind at level 60. Don't use the ones with a stun component since stunned mobs will stop moving and you don't want your quad splitting up.

Druids do NOT get an aoe-snare, at least not by 60, but their single-target ENSNARE can last as long as 14 minutes so this is the best spell for druid quad-kiting, Since wizzy aoe snare Atol's only lasts a couple of minutes, you'll have to recast it probably before end of your quad. Don't forget! It can be REAL hard to re-snare 4 angry mobs chasing you at full speed.

At 60 one fine place to practice quad-kiting, depending on your RP attitude (I don't know your race) would be Butcherblock Mountains quadding guards. Most are level 50 and they all drop some plat and fine steel items. Works best if you're a dark elf or an evil-tending gnome!

Edited, Jul 24th 2013 4:54pm by Sippin

Let me also add that if you're going to use a merc to fight (ie: You are *not* kiting), at your level you'll probably be vastly better off using a tank merc to fight the mobs, while you nuke. Trying to tank mobs as a wizard is rapidly going to become inefficient (actually, arguably is already quite inefficient, you just haven't realized just how much so). While a healer merc can keep even a wizard alive, the only damage you can do is from your spells, and a lot of those will get interrupted while you're being beat on by the mob. So that's a lot of time and mana wasted. At level 60, the tank merc can fight and defeat pretty much any blue or lt blue mob all by itself. You nuking just shortens the time it takes to kill each one. You'll have to wait for your merc to regenerate his hps, but I suspect that's a lot less time than you're spending waiting for your healer merc to regen its mana the way you're doing things currently (and ironically, you're spending more mana as well, since the healer merc doesn't do any damage).

Ideally, you want to find the best balance, so that the amount of time it takes for you to recover mana is about the same amount of time it takes for your merc to recover. That will vary from mob to mob and zone to zone, of course. You also want to be aware that when using a merc, you're only getting about 60% of the experience per kill that you'd get not using one (it takes a share of the group exp). So using snare and root to defeat mobs without using a merc will net you more exp per kill, but may actually take enough additional time that it's not worth it (gathering a quad and kitting them sounds great until you realize how much time you can spend finding the right group of mobs in the right area, then gathering them up, all before you can even start doing damage to them). This will also vary from mob to mob and zone to zone. Pick the best strategy for where you are, and what you're fighting.

Edited, Jul 24th 2013 6:48pm by gbaji

You misspelled ranger-gate.

Edited, Jul 25th 2013 7:46pm by Bijou

A couple of things I'd like to add if thats okay (even if its not, I'll post anyways :))

A gold account allows access to journey 1 mercs.... and I'm not gonna lie J1 mercs beat A5 mercs easily, you'd be amazed by J5 mercs in comparison, just something to think about.

oh and


Welcome back.

Okay I hear you about the "nuking too fast" and understand the aggro-drawing. It's a lot like playing D&D with a computerized DM, they make the same calls and sick the same NPCs on the same character types. I note the mobs will generally follow the steps of :

1. attack what is causing the most damage
2. attack what is healing what is causing the most damage

My problem with the tank scenario you mention is two-fold:

1. he's the one having all the fun and now I'm kind of helping the computer play the game- now I'm the sidekick.
2. things inevitably go wrong and the tank doesn't(can't) help stabilize the situation. It's all good until some wandering creature shows up (or, two) or something spawns, or something just happens and CHAOS! This happens frequently enough for me (not that it is always the case, but it happens enough to me to cause the merc choice to favor healer) to desire a healer around instead of a killer.



Okay but how are we determining effectiveness in this game? This is something elusive to me because I have such a small frame of reference. I only know what a Wizard can do- I have no idea what other classes can even do in order to determine anything (other than I know the basics, fighters do damage over time with weapons/healers heal hit points, wizard do damage instantaneously), so I can't tell exactly what effectiveness means: it's a lot like D&D when you ask "which class combo is most effective?" there's really no way to determine the answer since there are so many unknowns and so many variables. I know that I don't die very often at all, and I kill up to dark blue mob without a sweat. Two dark blue mobs and I sweat. Three dark blue mobs and I am frantically clicking yonder->gateAA->abscondAA; I do have to rest for my mana to regen, but I presume I will always be in that scenario fo waiting for X to regen.



Yeah but something always pops up (not always, but frequently enough for me not to want the merc to go away, even if she's just otherwise standing there doing nothing but waiting for the unexpected to arise); for instance I was practicing the kite on some harpies on the "noble harpy" level of the Blackfeather roost a few nights ago. It was like shooting fish in a barrel so I dismissed the merc to save on XP, I mean, why not, right? Situation under control, right? That is, until *a harpy patroller cries for help!* *a griffon enforcer has been summoned!* SCREEEEEEEE! THWACK! 83% THWACK! 77% *you cannot cast spells while stunned!* THWACK! 70% THWACK! 58% THWACK! 49% *your gate is too unstable and collapses!* *what's this, a tasty morsel perhaps! a harpy partoller rushes to attack!* THWACK! 40% THWACK! 31% *your spell is interrupted!* THWACK! 22% *you are stunned!* *you cannot cast spells while stunned!* THWACK! 17% THWACK! 9% *your spell is interrupted!* THWACK! 5% *you regain your concentration and continue casting* THWACK! 1% ... ENTERING FIRIONA VIE... undismiss merc ... *You're no match for the Indigo Brotherhood!* *Dragoon M'Nyl rushes to attack!* *You cast mana burn* *Dragoon M'Nyl takes 12000 damage* *You have slain Dragoon M'Nyl!*



Yeah but then the tank is really using me, out there doing the work and getting the glory while I shout from the sidelines, "It is within the scope of my abilities to put 12000 fire down upon the enemy right now; yet I will refrain myself for fear of their recompense upon me!" I like, "Here's 12000 fire in your face! Have a drink of lighnting to chase that down! Here's some torrent of jagged ice you like that? Come get some! Everyone invited!" *You have been fully healed!*



I did go all they way to about 50th with a brownie rogue merc. I tried the tank and everything would come at me as soon as I hit it with a draught (I rarely actually use "nukes"), so I figured, hey if everything is going to come at me, then I'm going to have a merc that enjoys attacking a back. The problem was that the damage the wizard does is so fast and much that the merc never really added much in the way of damage. Probably saved me a draught or maybe two, but that's it. So the damage she did just wasn't worth it.

But bear in mind that I'm coming from a frame of reference that is super limited, and so my "conclusions" will also be limited until I establish some form of robust frame of reference through which to substantially judge these matters of "what is effective?" but for right now, the cleric I have found to be the hands-down best merc for a wizard - if the player of the wizard desires to be the "active component" of the group. I've no doubt that the tank is best for just, barebones gaming toward xp for levels, etc. but again bear in mind that most of my enjoyment from the game is being derived through the roleplaying aspect. So I can't really look at the game as just a collection of mechanics then take the proverbial path of least mechanical resistance; I'm a roleplayer at heart and this is affecting my play- sometimes to the point that I'm taking the path of most resistance because that path is the one that my style of play leads me down.

Also just to say that (even though no one probably does, you know how you have to be careful to elaborate on your words sometimes because on the internet it's difficult to determine intent sometimes) I'm not in any way saying that role-playing is better than not, or any such thing- I know that everyone plays for their own reasons, there own way, with their own enjoymentyt, etc. and I'm all for everyone just having a good time, however that comes about. But this roleplaying aspect will cause me to go directions and make choices that a person who is coming from a non-role-playing perspective would find absurd.

But I really do appreciate what you've said, and there may come a time when I will absolutely have to go the route of the tank merc; but I know that day I will be sweating and missing the cleric.