Weekend Update for Sept. 30/13Follow

I played very little EQ... was a hectic real life weekend.

In EQ... I logged on Banner (my troll sk level 17) and had a great chat with Yeng... I was trying to decide what to do next with Banner so I peeked into Upper Guk, killed some frogs... harmtouched my ding-18 kill and had to zone aggro (lol... that's been guk for me so far, many zonings and some deaths).

I took the magus to butcherblock and used the Gfay nexus spire (haven't done that... since like 2003?), but I had second thoughts on taking Banner's story to Luclin. So I camped and am pondering what is next. I'm trying to decide if using (or heavily using) wayfarer magi is part of my "personal ruleset" or not. The Antonica Luclin spire is probably a good hour of travel & zoning if I don't die... to do that legit. But I am not sure about Luclin (as mentioned).

I'll probably login tonight and make some sort of decision.

I took my DE SK from 42-49 and it was a terrible weekend for some reason. I was hunting snakes and spiders in the Mesa. At 42 he was sailing along. Turn 43 and the resists started. Many more than at 42. Turn 44 and it gets worse, much worse. Same through 45 and 46. Then it turns really ugly. I spent most of 47 and 48 resisted, stunned, fizzling etc. I was using a Blade of Disruption through all of this and while it's stats kept getting better, my DPS was dropping. It dropped 31% between 42 and 49 on the same mobs although they are now light and dark blue compared to white and yellow when I started. My armor is better, but I'm taking more damage, 17% more..... I have taken 4 chars through here and thought I was imagining this, so on this char I paid more attention and parsed the levels. I wonder what's going on. This is really strange. At 42 I could clear the Mesa spiders near the giants and still have mana to go after the Mesa snakes. Now at 49, I can't clear all the spiders before going OOM.

Because of the frustration, I started a baby Druid. My higher level chars need a lot of AA, but I'm really burnt out getting them. I didn't have time to spend on my Troll War as that's another story in frustration trying to level the old way.

However, having said all that, next weekend just has to be better!

I wouldn't be adverse to starting a new fresh character for some old school shenanigans. But I was out of slots on Povar and it's probably for the best... I'd be cheating SO hard if I was capable. No telling how many times I've thought "I should get a tracker out here" or "I should just clear this spot with..." and then realized that I was all alone on the server.

Joph;
We should talk to Snailish and see if he is down to find a server and start a old school trio...not sure how are play time schedules would coincide, but we could even have it as a " hey, we are all on, lets roll the new guys!" kind of thing...just a thought.

Is it possible that you're using higher level spells that are of the wrong type and are thus getting resisted more often while costing more mana? I know next to nothing about SK spells though, so I could be totally off. Can't think of any other reason why you'd have a harder time fighting the same mobs as you gain levels though. I do know for a fact that sometimes using the latest/newest spell is not the best way to go though. With hybrids especially, it's a balance between mana use and melee capability. If you're running out of mana and having to stop to med, that's going to reduce your melee damage over time (cause you're not fighting when you're medding, right?). So if you're parsing damage by just counting it up over an entire hunting period, it's not that you're doing less damage per swing or hitting less often, but that you're not fighting as much of the time.

Try adjusting your tactics a bit and you should be able to do better.

I camped 4 Ore of stone strength! Woot

Also leveled my team up to 72, was running out of AA to buy. I dont want to level any higher so im going to keep spending them on things.
Trouble is, being on Test server and the double XP im really quickly getting AA. almost too-quickly.

I'm getting overwhelmed by all the new content, so i am doing my own semi-progression thing. Sticking to pre-TSS for now.
Mostly DoD and PoP Stuff.

I got a group with another player boxing 2 chars, we made a small 2 group force. We went after PoP progression, it was really fun.
We did the Plane of Disease thing , killed the spider queen, killed Grummus. Went really easy, My Paladin was Main tanking(at 72) and it was a cakewalk. Lots of awesome huge 5-6K slay undead on grummus. She probably did the most DPS the whole fight.

Next, Terris thule Hedge event. Almost had a problem when i accidentally aggroed the guy. Had to log off chars a few times. Finally manged to finish it.
Really easy end fight, but a bit long. It would have been extra long without the other group too.

I did lost gnomes twice. I'd never done a dod mission before, I did both hard and normal versions. I liked the 2% shielding cape i got from hard, also did it on normal and got another 20 AC aug easy.

Now for more aug hunting!!

I'm enjoying Banner at the moment, but could probably give something else a whirl.

I have a lot of charcter slots on Cazic open... ...otherwise Trakanon provides a very low-temptation to sway from a concept environment (theres' almost no one playing there). I have slots there too.

Jophiel seems to have the most steam, as Shisu is getting closer to AA territory. So I guess the first thing I'm wondering is what does Jophiel think? (Still want company on Cazic? Playing Shisu long enough that we could catch up if a few people started there?)

I may have had access to Trakanon and Vox due to having started characters there while gold? not sure. Cazic works... let's do that.

roaming the old world could be fun, but without a localized goal we probably spend more time travelling to each other than actually accomplishing anything?

Luclin has appeal... here's what I am thinking:

-play whatever a person wants (no racial tension on Luclin, playing what you want is usually more lasting fun than "let's all be gnomes"). Storyline-wise those that want to tell it in a thread will have fun coming up with a reason for a "baby" troll, human, etc. to be in Shar Val.
-Home base is Shar Val (to start anyways... Luclin offers some funny possibilities such as Katta Castellum if a group/person was to pursue it) --and using PoK to get there to soulbind is fine, even if a person is not using PoK otherwise (some classes will at least need home city for spells as I don't think Shar Val is full service). I have done part of the Shar Val newb chain once upon a time... anyone can gear up there, but it isn't necessarily as good as the PoP era newb armor (unless you are Vah shir). Shar Val has a lot of quests too (for those that like that).
-By the time you are up to Twilight Sea quest armor... you are looking at quest chains almost no one has ever done (dungeon/raid gear that was tradable from Velious was better so baz killed player incentive)
-30+ Luclin is hard, especially in Luclin era gear. There is some really cool oddball stuff to mess with such as the Hollowshade War.
-I won't use defiant gear except as vendor/tribute (I'm really liking that aspect of Banner), but don't care about modern augs or hotzone drops, and wouldn't care if someone used defiant (just don't complain about my bad gear lol).

Thoughts?... and what might people play? alt-loving me is already thinking of a bard (named Terribard or something If I am playing it rofl), or maybe a druid or monk...

Ok tonight I will start a alt on Cazic...I have never played a cleric...is that spot open?
I may have missed it in the thread, but I am getting the feeling that I want to bypass the tutorial and go straight to the old world newbie path. My first character was a barb war...last one I followed that path with.

Edited, Oct 5th 2013 9:02am by alwayslost

If this party is open to anyone I'm game. Always wanted to play an Enchanter in a group situation...

I made a Vah Shir berserker named Holkyn. Which was a randomly generated name but now I intend on using the phrase "HOLKYN OUT!" whenever possible.

I handed in my newbie note and have been plunged into an amazing fantastical adventure of lunar feline bureaucracy.

Edited, Oct 5th 2013 1:04pm by Jophiel

Oh, and it's "Shar Vahl". With an "h". You can tell how much I've played around the Luclin starting zones before.

And I'm fairly certain that my cat king is actually Kurt Russell.

Vah Shir Bard, Mystro. WARNING: Never played a Bard before

EDIT: Started the Vah Shir quests and had forgotten how frustrating the drops are. Last time I did these was back in 2001 on my Beasty. Had to remember that to spawn what you want in the moat, you have to kill everything else..... Weird thing when I was entering names in my friends list. Aenuuven went in fine with the first letter capitalized, but Holkyn and Denth refused to allow the first letter to be capitalized. Just as I was logging out, saw Aenuuven was in Shadeweaver. /wave

Edited, Oct 5th 2013 4:59pm by KC13