I've been all out grinding AA's the last couple weeks including last weekend, to fill all of the latest ranks of important AA's on my 95 SK while upgrading a few outdated AC augs where possible.
This is because to my dismay he was smashed by a City Of Bronze trash mob when attempting to duo with my Shammy at 92 a few months ago! (a yellow con - Wild Braxi - they hit hard lol). Though I did not pop a merc, thinking that my well AA'd duo could tank and heal w/out mercs as they had always done with trash mobs in VOA tier one and two zones.
He lasted about 1 minute while burning his mitigation disc, and my then 92 Shammy definitely did not have the burst of direct heals to compensate for the damage this Braxi (trash mob) did to my under prepared SK.
I used everything in my Shammy's healing toolbox...Apathy-pre slow, Growth line, Gotikans Recourse, Freezing Gift (for the twinheal on next direct heal spell), Counterbias, Reckless Direct Heal, Gotikans Direct Heal, got Union of Spirits AA off in desperation ...But he was flattened. Then I went back at 95 without many of the new ranks of AA and popped one merc which made it a very hard fight but the shammy could hardly add to dps as he still had to heal a lot. Almost died numerous times during the fight.
Then added a second healer merc and I finally killed the trash mob in reasonable time but it was harder survival wise than it should be imo.
I Tryed Googles (sp the named rat) in COB but it slapped my SK upside the head then he FD'd after my Shammy gated out lol.
So off to re aug and grind a few crucial AA's left in the hope that I can finally take on a tier 4 named at 95 in VOA - the level the expansion is made for.
This is what I meant re unprepared tanks in the "Interesting Phenomenon" thread by Sippin. I've just been there re my recent experiences..
My SK was unprepared and I am informed of modern EQ like many here on these forums and never left the game to return, so I could imagine a true returnee.
Fun times though and the grind continues....
May 20th 2014 Edit/Update: For the benefit of any in the same boat as I was, I upgraded my 95 SK's gear from the VOA T2 ("Formal" visible gear) that it had before, to the ROF t1 ("Boreal" visible gear) and the SK can now tank COB trash comfortably with my Shammy as main healer w/o a healer merc.
Edited, May 20th 2014 8:50am by hexeez