VeeshanVault

Just rolled as Ashimar, a Barbarian Mystic (hey, what can I say, the class still appeals to me...) on Guk.

I just got to Qeynos and started some quests. I'm level 10. Where's the good quests to do and best places to go?

Amazed by how "full" the zones are, maybe it's just because it's the newb zones and there aren't many newbs competing for content. I can't walk 5 virtual feet without finding a MOB to kill, a tree to chop, a rock to mine, a root to pull up or an animal den to trap. It's quite the time killer!

What's important,? Should I actually be doing this stuff or should I just find someplace with blue MOBs and kill kill kill? Lather/Rinse/Repeat. It seems pretty engaging. I did make a few items on the Island, but not sure how much the crafting is important (or whether I should leave it to my betters and just level).

Right on! I'll be on tonight and will look you up. I have been bouncing between characters, and doing some tradeskills as well. Make sure to follow Miir's advice from a few other posts--lots of good stuff there. I'll show you around a bit tonight if ya want. Here is my list:

Ctalis - 37 Wizard - 26 Provisioner
Cohonil - 40 Brigand - 22 Tailor
Slevara - 23 Warlock
Lirnev - 22 Fury - 25 Sage

Let me know if you need any Adept III or armor.

SAVE YOUR RARE HARVESTS! They will come in handy for tradeskills.

SAVE SHINIES!! - ALWAYS check broker for prices as some of your shinies can be $$$.

Vos is supposed to be hooking me up with some armor I think, I'm wearing some original crap and some junk from the island, but I don't seem to be hurting for it.

I've only been beat down once and it's because I wasn't watching my six and I backed into a couple of yellows outside Qeynos while fighting a green. I was cocky from being able to handle large groups before and quickly found that I'm no tank.

I'll look at Miir's solo guide link, but I think I'll also look around for Mystic advice or a web site. I don't want to assume they play exactly like an EQ Shaman (but it appears very similiar so far, I debuff, nuke, and beat down MOBs with a big hammer).

http://www.eq2flames.com for all class information in forum format.

What time will you be on tonight?

Not sooner than 8:30pm in all liklihood. I'm on daddy duty until she falls asleep. So probably sooner than you'll be on since that's 5:30 your time.

Next Question (sigh): Does it make sense to do some of the lower level Qeynos quests, as they look like they tie into the higher level ones (like DWBs, which look pretty sweet for a shaman type), or does player made stuff bridge that gap?

I would say go ahead and do the Qeynos stuff as it will branch you out and quests and zone-discovery will give you achievement points (AA) which is definately a good thing. I have never had Qeynos as a starting city though! GFay and Darklight Woods are better starting zones, imo, since they are newer and not divided into so many zones.

I should be on around 9est or so and will give you a holler. May roll up a character in Q since I am not familiar with it. That or I can mentor-down my wizzie and we can AE blast crap!

Q4LYFE!


I hated the Freeport zones ><

I just can't believe Barbarians cannot start in Everfrost/Halas.

One of my last acts in EQ1 was to raze Halas. Wulfran was very upset.

Strangely enough, I never recreated Canelek as a lizard....inkie SK placeholder atm....SKs in eq2 seemed a bit boring to me, although I have not invested much time into tank class....yet

Canelek wrote:One of my last acts in EQ1 was to raze Halas. Wulfran was very upset.

Strangely enough, I never recreated Canelek as a lizard....inkie SK placeholder atm....SKs in eq2 seemed a bit boring to me, although I have not invested much time into tank class....yet

Your instinct was correct! (except the choice of making a DE!)

Seku would disagree, but I was the PENULTIMATE FUCKING IKSAR SK ":P

Mystic is an awesome class. I'm not sure I would say that they play like an EQ Shaman... they are similar, but mostly different.
Mystics get awesome melee AA skills. You get replacement combat arts for your nukes and dots. Other AA lines give you weapon skill, haste, dps and double attack mods as well as 100% melee crit (you crit on every melee hit including combat arts).
Mystics main heals are wards which are arguably the best heals in EQ2. You can pretty much make a tank out of any class (within reason).

Does it make sense to do some of the lower level Qeynos quests, as they look like they tie into the higher level ones (like DWBs, which look pretty sweet for a shaman type), or does player made stuff bridge that gap?

It makes sense to do any and every quest. It's great XP, AA XP and they take you to areas that you might normally miss.
Until you reach the top levels, player made (mastercrafted) gear does more than bridge the gap. It's comparable to (legendary) gear dropped by named heroic mobs. The only gear that is clearly better is Fabled... which is basically from epic raid mobs (and rare from heroic named).

Amazed by how "full" the zones are, maybe it's just because it's the newb zones and there aren't many newbs competing for content. I can't walk 5 virtual feet without finding a MOB to kill, a tree to chop, a rock to mine, a root to pull up or an animal den to trap. It's quite the time killer!

What's important,? Should I actually be doing this stuff or should I just find someplace with blue MOBs and kill kill kill?

Harvesting is good!
It's a good money maker and will come in handy if you ever decide to take up some tradeskills.

Don't grind!
There is no reason to grind... unless you want to level slower and you don't want achievement experience. Mystics is a class that can be totally transformed from decent to uber with the right AA setup.

If you will be doing soloing at all, you will want to do quests and you will want to take the melee AA skills as you get AA points. I would suggest harvesting everything you can, especially rocks/ores. Keep those harvesting skills maxed out. If you do a tradeskill, I would suggest doing provisioner or alchemist to mess around with and highly recommend tinkering for some super nice utility items. It will be a lot easier to level up in those types of things if you do them as you are actually leveling your character.

So Canelek's Wizard came and mentored me, we did a bit of Qeynos and then he took me to his stomping grounds in the Feydark where he proceeded to blow shit up (even mentoring me down to my level he was regularly blowing the shit out of 3-4 yellows in a pull. I just had to drop a heal once in a while and melee down the remaining fuckers.

I did a slew of anti-Crushbone quests with his help (Help? Who am I kidding, he was death incarnate for those poor Crushbone fuckers... except for that time he missed the Heroic dude in the pull and we both ate shit. Oops. ). I even got to upgrade past a couple of the kickass chainmail items Vos sent me in the mail.

After Canelek passed out, I did a quest line in Qeynos and got to kill a bunch of Gnolls and hit level 15 and work on catching up some of my harvesting skills. At the end I graduated to "The Cave(s)" to apparently to fight more gnolls. Man I love killing gnolls. I guess it's in my Barbarian blood!

I need to go find where to dump my 4 AAs at. I didn't get a chance to do any research.

P.S. Mentoring. What a great concept! I hope it's as much fun for the mentor as it is the mentoree. I look forward to jumping on again tomorrow, or maybe tonight if I don't get home too late.

P.P.S. Thanks Canalek!

No prob bro! That was fun! I'll be on tonight most likely. If you like killing gnolls, once you hit 20, you are in for some fun w/ linked gnoll encounters in BB. Also around 30, there are some pretty slick instances, but will need a couple more peeps.

If I'm on, it probably won't be until after midnight. I have to go get my geek on in my brother's D&D campaign with all my old college buddies from the 80s.

Blackburrow, hell yeah! I'm a Halas-boy, so BB always meant Gnolls to me and not retarded elves dwarves running around killing skeletons. They should have called that zone BM.

Was referring to Butcherblock, but blackburrow sounds good also!

Sent you a couple +9 Wis charm dolls.

I need to go find where to dump my 4 AAs at. I didn't get a chance to do any research.

In the Shaman tree, the Agility line is a winner...
Ancestral Authority: 12.5% melee crit per rank to a max of 100%
Ancestral Spirits: Heal crit (Im not sure on the % per rank). Heal crits also apply to wards.
Tribal Rage: Chance to proc Haste and double attack buff.

The Mystic tree is chock full of good skills..

Enhance: Ursine Elder adds a chance to proc slashing damage with every melee attack
Chilling Strike, Feverish Strike, Glacial Strike, Circle of the Ancients: Melee combat arts to replace your spells. These combat arts scale their damage with level so unlike the spells, you don't have to spend your money upgrading them.
Weapon Mastery gives a nice boost to parry and weapon skills as well as boosting the pitiful melee performance of dogdog.

One of the first skills in the Mystic tree that I maxed out was Enhance: Spirit of the Wolf. To open it up, you have to first put at least 3 points into Enhance: Auspice... which is a pretty nice upgrade anyway. 40% SOW saves you money on not having to buy a mount.

Mmmmm, 40% SOW....

I still remember when I found out Shamans got to run faster in EQ1. I was like "SCORE!"

That said, I need to make it easier for me to solo first I think. Will the Enhance: Auspice help there? If so the extra point for afterburners is a no-brainer.

P.S. Got the +9 wisdom charms - danke!

Enhance Auspice just adds some extra HP to the buff.


Because there's a lot of traveling involved in questing (and in general), the extra runspeed is totally worth it.

AAs are not going to give you any instant payoff when it comes to soloing...
The spell/combat art skills combined with 100% crit is the key for soloing (and doing decent DPS in groups).

To get 100% crit, you have to invest 17 points in the Shaman tree.
To convert all your spells into combat arts requires a (i think) a minimum 9 AA point investment.

Thanks Miir, I already bought dogdog (hey, have to have my little buddy!), and I guess I'll drop the points for SOW afterburners when I next log on.

Does SOW still have the "Outside Only" rule it had for casting in EQ?

Ashur wrote:Thanks Miir, I already bought dogdog (hey, have to have my little buddy!), and I guess I'll drop the points for SOW afterburners when I next log on.

Does SOW still have the "Outside Only" rule it had for casting in EQ?

I don't think so, at least it doesn't seem that my song has that restriction on my dirge. And to be honest it's not as nice as I thought it would be, when you move as fast as I do and are in small spaces, particularly things that have edges you can fall off of (like staircases) it is really annoying to run fast.

Can you elaborate on the "Spells as Melee Combat Arts" thing? Are you saying the spells become just another attack mode that doesn't burn mana and scales with level?

I get to be like the Emperor in Return of the Jedi and fry people with cold nukes?

Ash - Post the spells you want Adept III's for, and mail me the rare mats if you can find 'em. I may have some floating around as well, but not likely!

LVL 11-19 - Rough Coral
LVL 20-29 - Rough Jasper

Silver cluster, palladium cluster are for int-based spells, so you can sell or hold onto those for an alt, or send them to me.

Of course as levels go up, so do material and spell costs, so it is good to hold onto those rares if you may need them down the line!

Also, try not to break your bank getting Adept III, master in the early levels as you end up upgrading the spells fairly quickly for a while--I can also make App4 for ya if you want to save $$--those require no rare mats.

Take a look at the broker and compare the different power-levels of your spells to determine upgrade worthiness--some things like minor debuffs, etc aren't worth the added cost, whereas big damage DD, AOE and heals are worth the best possible upgrade.

Can you elaborate on the "Spells as Melee Combat Arts" thing? Are you saying the spells become just another attack mode that doesn't burn mana and scales with level?

Mystics have 4 damage dealing abilities.
1 Cold nuke/snare
1 Disease DOT that deals double damage to shadowed creatures
1 Cold DOT
1 Encounter (AE) Disease nuke

The mystic tree has AA skills that give you melee equivalents (combat arts) to these spells. They are on the same refresh timer.

They cost a bit more power and have longer reuse timers but they are near instant cast (0.5 sec), cannot be interrupted and can be used on the move. The biggest advantge is that they benefit from the 100% crit from the Shaman tree. Another less obvious benefit is that a mystic's melee-centric buffs (specifically STR) increase the damage of the combat arts. Spell damage is increased by INT (a stat that mystics dont buff).

That combat art shit rules. I took the first level of the Cold Nuke/Snare one and started wrecking gnolls in The Caves in Qeynos. I want more levels in this.

I also want to put more points in the SOW enhancement thing (I didn't realize it had multiple levels, I thought it was a one-trick pony).

Is there a Temple of Cazic-Thule in EQ2? The only thing better than killing Gnolls is killing Lizards!

yeah, I think it is in the 40's, but I could be wrong.

Ashur wrote:Is there a Temple of Cazic-Thule in EQ2? The only thing better than killing Gnolls is killing Lizards!

Hehe, you're gonna enjoy the Feerrot.

So Miir, I made a Warden to play with my son's Paladin since we are playing the Fury / Dirge combo most of the time but needed something to do during 0% Vitality days.

From what I have seen so far, Wardens get their spells - damage spells that is, resisted a LOT... my fury NEVER gets resisted or almost never but the Warden (with similar equipment - Mastercrafted) gets resisted all the time. Looking at the combat arts you have to put a good number of points to get them to the equilvant Adept 1 level, and almost max it to get to Adept III / Master.

The cool thing is that if you put all thsoe points it you can get to the 75% crit, that with the double attack from the Druid tree should be pretty nice. However that's a LOT of AAs and it will be a while before she gets there.

Thus at this point I have gone both STR and INT. Now that I have a lot of points in the INT tree, the spells (extra crit chance and extra spell power) are resisted less.

What are your thoughts, any experience with Wardens being resisted more than Furies? So far she is a blast though... not as powerful as the Fury but I like her much better than the Inquisitor. My Inq also has excellent gear but seems to run out of mana constantly. I NEVER run out, even in long fights with either druid so far... and that's soloing and teaming with a Pally or a Dirge (dirge / fury combo just freakin' rocks though - we are doing yellow ^^^ at 34)

Marb

Did you roll your warden to be shitty version of a fury?
Why are you wasting points in the INT tree?

Looking at the combat arts you have to put a good number of points to get them to the equilvant Adept 1 level, and almost max it to get to Adept III / Master.

21 points and you're done with that line.

• 4 each in the single target attacks
  3 in the AE
  5 in Enhance: Protector of the Forest
  1 in Force of Nature.

I was done that line by the time I was level 25.
Ferocity and Boon work perfectly with the Wardens AA tree.


As for getting resisted a lot... I have no fucking idea.... I haven't used spells since before level 20.
If you started out in gayfay, you might notice that the mobs are generally more resistant than those in the FP/Q and darklight noob zones. That has nothing to do with the class.



So if you wanna play the warden like a worthless, gimped fury, I have no advice for you.
If you want to play a melee spec warden, I can offer you some tips.

Or you can roll a swash and forget about gimp classes!

I'll check out that possibility, and not I'm not tyring to play a gimped fury... just trying to figure out how best to play this and looking for advice, you didn't have to be an ass about it.

Marb

you didn't have to be an ass about it.

Last time I checked, this is stll VV.

Marbus wrote:I'll check out that possibility, and not I'm not tyring to play a gimped fury... just trying to figure out how best to play this and looking for advice, you didn't have to be an ass about it.

Marb

miir wrote:I only yell at the people I love

What level ya at now Ash? I'll be back from Cali tomorrow night so should be able to log in--my brig up to 43 now, weeee....

miir wrote:

you didn't have to be an ass about it.

Last time I checked, this is stll VV.

Ok you are right... man things had gotten so calm over the years I almost forgot! Thanks for being an asshat and reminding me

Now if I can just find the respec person in Kelethin I'll be GTG.

Marb

(odd, thought I replied already...)

I'm 21 now, almost 22. Servers came down just as I was settling in to kill some crap in some instance in Antonica.

Furies are cool, but I my warden. There's just something about 65% runspeed I can't let go. I do miss the group invis but have evac, so I guess that's a fair tradeoff. That said, as much as I love my warden, the assassin is the best class I've played yet. Gimme a dirge, an inquisitor, and a solid tank and I'm GTG.

One rather surprising note about the RoK expansion is that I'm having no trouble soloing the 70+ content with my conjurer. Spec'd for soloing, my tank pet just chews crap up and spits it out.

Post vacation update:

Ashimar is a level 38 (almost 39) Mystic now w/ mostly Master spells (for the ones that matter for leveling up) and several plat in the bank (probably several more when I next log in thanks to Miir's "Get Rich Quick" guide!), SoW and Combat Arts upgrades almost exclusively since I mostly solo.

Thanks to Vaemas for coss-server advice helpline, and to Sylvos, Canelek and Kilmoll for groups with both mentoring and providing material assistance (spells/gear/coin/provisions). You guys all rock and made me glad I got this game. Solo leveling can be a chore.

My experiences with grouping match most of my other MMO experiences (90% asshats including one jackass who didn't talk (at ALL) and scooped up a fabled item that I wanted from an exquisite chest while I was asking for a lotto and then ignored me. I dropped that group (it was just him and I) as soon as I grabbed his class book from the next chest. Take that fuckface, it's for sale on my broker!

The one guild group I had in Runneyeye were overperformers of course. All I did was heal and chain-ward while they played MOB cuisinart/explosion.

We should try the wizard/mystic combo again now that you have leveled up! Of course, the wizzie is still 37 as I have been grinding the brig (53 now, but stuck on PITA peacock quests). Also, I cannot seem to find a group to complete carpet quest (I did manage to kill a 3-up giant solo though!)

Need to take a few days off from brig until I figure out a way to make it over those humps.

Carpet looks neat. I have DWBS!

Curiosity got the best of me... I picked up the Rise of Kunark all-in-one digital download last night.

Start on Permafrost fash!

Will do, as soon as I get it to run. I thought it was just this other game I tried to play but apparently I have a bigger problem. Running a 3D game gives me a black screen and all the fans power up to max. I'm trying the newest nvidia driver first. (SLI 2x7900GS)

edit: well that didn't work, neither did reseating the cards, sli selector, and bridge. power is suspect, so im trying without 2 drives hooked up. if that fails i'll go to 1 card.

Canelek wrote:We should try the wizard/mystic combo again now that you have leveled up!

Amen! My damage prevention wards and stuff are TIGHT at this level! I can usually prevent all damage to both me and dogdog except on 30+ ^^^ fights (and mobs of blue+ ^^ asslings... those rape me).

Fash - I did the digital download as well, except for some reason my machine couldn't access the patcher file. I had to have some kind soul (cough Faerin) grab it and send it my way. I'm still miffed I couldn't find it in the stores since we paid the retail rate anyway.

Right on man, I will drop you a line tonight if I get a chance to play.

BTW, WTF has Faerin been? Haven't seen him online in ages.

Getting worn out on WoW so probably be reactivating tonight. Not sure if my guys are still on guk so may be starting afresh.

Melee Mystic? Sounds interesting, I would like to subscribe to your newsletter miir (give me a run down on the setup/benefits if you could).

Hell yeah Janx! Look us up and we will get ya situated if you have to start fresh. Otherwise, lets kill shit.

Now I can look forward to finding ways to kill Janx! I have Ashur, Sylvos, and Faerin all dead at the hands of my pulls so far. I may have to bust out the dirge I have in the mid-30's to play with you guys. The swash is just too powah.