AA and gear advice

[Rgrog]

Evening all...

I have been reading through posts on AA, the different leveling guides here, as well as a few old ones littered off Google.

My wife and I came back to EQ with My Warr, her Bst, My wiz and My Cleric.

Im three boxing them.. its a challenge, abut working well sofar. Were fighting in Direwind and basically gradding in 6-10 light blues per pull, and slaughtering them for AA.

Our strategy.. after getting slaughtered in the new ferrot when some see invis Tae Ews jumped our group... is to hang at 85. Rack up 1K AA to 1500AA, and then continue leveling once we are more capable of withstanding fights in harder hitting zones.

Gear wise.. Having just Dinged 85, we are planing to try to do a full set of Glowing Reis.. options and suggestions welcome.

AA wise.. Im on my way. I am currently doing General Sturdiness to bump my hitpoints up so I can withstand longer rounds of hits if the cleric delays a heal.. (I dont alt-tab fast enough, or a merc cleric gets scared)

After that I was planning to go back to finish up Combat Agility, as far as I can, as Stability is maxxed for level 85.

I also have Aggro augs in my weapons, I just replaced my primary.. I had my 1.5 in there before.

Suggestions and criticism welcome!

Thanks
RG

[elric]

Welcome back!

[Mendler]

Welcome back!

You're 3 boxing and if you're feeling its a challenge then you might consider going to two boxing. The cleric and wizzy can be replaced with the mercs. Personally I would get a bard to replace both of them so you would have war/bard, your wifes Bst then round out your group with mercs. Since you might be taking more dmg try and grab two cleric mercs and one wizzy. Place the clerics on different stances (Reactive and one on Balanced) to have some really improved healing. The wizzy I would just leave on Balanced and swtich to Burn on named.

Bards can significantly improve your groups dps, can pull for you extremely well and if you like simple just let them sing songs in the back ground and improve your groups dps by roughly 30%.

This should improve your game play considerably and let you have fun with them rather than "working" at a game. Some people enjoy the stress, work and are extremely coordinated with switching screens or pcs but these days I don't like to do "work" at my game play.

If you have questions on how to use mercs, bard, other bots I'm sure someone here will step up and help you.

Far as aa's go? Try to get any aa that will help avoid and mitigate dmg to help your tanking. I will review your magelo later for suggestions.

Gear wise....look at raidloot.com > Search> put your search criteria in there to help with suggestions. You can search for group gear as well so dont let the name fool you.

[waza]

Welcome back

[Rgrog]

Thanks for the welcomes all.

Thanks for the suggestions Mendler.
Currently the last week or so, my wife and I have been doing the group with Her Beast, My warr, and my wiz and cleric. Accentuated with a Mele DPS Merc, and Cleric Merc.
With my wiz doing at least one nuke most rounds for over 30K, and the rest in the 15-25K range..It makes for some fun. And some pretty fast DPS.

THe merc cleric at times will die if it does something like cast a damn heal on me when I pull, and am arriving at the camp before the mobs do.. that I shot with arrows while running around. Then it croaks if I canget off a malestrom blade soon enough.

But yes.. perusal of the magelo is appreciated. I am a ogre warr.. I have thick skin

[Mendler]

You need to switch out the Hanvars Hood ASAP!!! Augs I would get check out the Aug thread some place and plan accordingly. Lots of augs you can camp and crank out a BUNCH of aa's while doing it. OR you can go to the raidloot.com and search for group augs with....27+ AC plus important heroics hAgi, hDex, hStr and Sta (Agi and Dex are more important bc they improve your survivability).

You need to try and get on a raid in SoF to get the ability to use Power Sources to improve your armor considerably. With that once you have the PS you can add purity augs to help boost your armor stats further.

Use a shield ASAP and get aa's Shield Block, Shield Specialist (dps) and Improved Shield Specialist. This will really help your dps and survivability. Get the highest AC shield you can and put your highest AC aug in it. You get a shield bonus on AC so use it!


The way I see it though Rgrog is that you are in need of a puller. I still say drop either your cleric or wizzy and get a bard. This will reallllly help your fun level imo.

AA list listed from most important to least (granted they are all important on this list):

Keep/get CS/CA maxed to your level
Shield Block
Ferocity
Flurry
Weapon Infinity
Shield Specialist
Improved Shield Specialist
Gut Punch
Blast of Anger
Infusion of Rage
Flurry


If you are having an issue holding agro, get the agro related aa's first (weapon infinity, gut punch, Blast of Anger, Infusion of Rage)

[Rgrog]

Many thanks Mendler for the advice.

Hanvars hoop.. yeah.. I need to replace that thing asap.. however on our server damn hearrings in my luck in the Baz are staying in the 50K plus range.. more like 60K usually. Which is annoying.

Im gonna continue on the AA farming.... will have to do some research on aug drops for AC.

I am kinda puzzled.. I went with two 1hs weapons for DPS VS a shield.. because I was thinking two faster 1hs would out DPS a shield and 1HS... ..
Am I mistaken? And that a good strong shield would be a better choice for DPS?? Im not sure how.. my wife was saying that I am doing DPS with Bash when using a shield... but I didnt think it would do that much dps.

The bard thing... well I decided to make one yesterday actually.. just to see how it goes and how it helps. SO he finished the tutorial last night level 10. So I will go ahead and PL him on up and see how things go with him. Interested in seeing what results I can get with him in the group.

[Thraxnor]

Originally Posted by Rgrog

I am kinda puzzled.. I went with two 1hs weapons for DPS VS a shield.. because I was thinking two faster 1hs would out DPS a shield and 1HS... ..
Am I mistaken? And that a good strong shield would be a better choice for DPS?? Im not sure how.. my wife was saying that I am doing DPS with Bash when using a shield... but I didnt think it would do that much dps.

While you do do DPS with bash its negligible really in the greater scheme of things. The main boost from Sword and Board comes from the Shield Specialist and Improved Shield Specialist AAs.

Until you get those the DPS is better from 2*1H as I remember. So I'd invest in the shield specialist AAs prior to swapping to shield.

[Yoda]

completing the shield specialist AA line double your DPS from mainhand when using a shield... should be clear what makes better dps at this point.

Improved shield specialist boost your aggro so that a moss snake doesn't generate more aggro than you. the aggro from DW is still superior, but it's bearable in sorwd+board now.

[Battleblade]

Originally Posted by Rgrog

I am kinda puzzled.. I went with two 1hs weapons for DPS VS a shield.. because I was thinking two faster 1hs would out DPS a shield and 1HS... ..
Am I mistaken? And that a good strong shield would be a better choice for DPS?? Im not sure how.. my wife was saying that I am doing DPS with Bash when using a shield... but I didnt think it would do that much dps.

Knights received the higher ratio 1Handers than are normal which are needed when using a shield early on. Warriors sadly were saddled with 1Handers built to be used two at a time when they employed a shield.

Which was fine when shields amounted to decorative items. But it was not fine when shield AC was not subject to the softcap and the Shield Block ability made shields a significant contribution to the tank archetype's survival repertoire.

Shield Specialist allowed Warriors to use acquired skills to transform their 1Handers to the kind of higher ratio 1Hander that's appropriate for use with a shield.

Would I have preferred being on the higher ratio Knight 1Handers? You bet. Had Warriors, Paladins, and SK's always shared the same primary hand appropriate for use with a shield 1Handers Shield Specialist would not have been necessary (Warriors would however have still required faster at-will aggro).

Yoda answered your what should I be using question. I've endeavored to answer the why question - we're tanks and tanks should be using a shield vs. all non-trivial mobs and doing fairly typical for them DPS when performing their usual role - tanking.

(I hope that in EQ Next Warriors, Paladins, and SK's share primary 1Handers and Warriors get wimpy parrying daggers shared with casters for their offhand should we opt not to use a shield. It's the most sensible solution.)

You're likely to be using an aggro augged aggro weapon when tanking and might well be using defensive disciplines. It's very likely a DMG augged 1H or 2H especially when using offensive disciplines will outperform it. You in fact ought to have a seperate tanking and DPS setup (assuming that sometimes you in fact aren't tanking or that you sometimes tank trivial mobs) - any setup intended to do both is a doesn't do maximum in either compromise.

[drenath]

Overall:

Replacing the Wiz or Cleric with a Bard is a good idea. Your group is missing two very important things - pulling and crowd control. These are essential in higher content. Bard will also add a bunch of DPS and can assist with wipe recovery by dropping agro and popping a healer merc. You get track and Selos too!

You have your J5 mercs? If not, that's something to work on. You might even want to think about dinging 86 - the 86 J5 merc tank is a big step up and it's pretty fierce. It will probably out-tank you for quite some time yet.

Gear:

Instead of Reis armor, look at the Rustic armor set. This can be upgraded in VoA. * of Havoc is the Warrior line. You're really weak on augs too, while you're grinding EXP you might as well do aug camps to grab all the easy stuff that's at 25+ac. Your range and earring are super easy to upgrade with Mote gear: http://lucy.allakhazam.com/itemlist....earful+reverie

Shield use:

The advantage of a shield for a TANK is shield AC is worth approximately 3x the displayed value due to the way overcap AC works. So a 150ac shield is like a 450ac BP. You also get extra avoidance with a shield with the Shield Specialist AA line. Even before you get SS/ISS you should keep a current shield on you just in case you need that extra edge to survive.

Your agro when using a shield will suffer quite a bit. Even when you max out ISS (req90) dual wield is still more agro and more importantly more granular agro (little bites vs big chomps)

At 85 you can max out Shield Specialist. SS13 is a 1.65 damage mod to primary attacks. Primary swings more than secondary, so this will make 1h+shield your best DPS.

[Rgrog]

Wow.. thank you all so much for the valuable info and theory. Its enlightening and re-kindles the things I learned years ago when Time was relevant and still in heavy rotation.

Back when I was a secondary tank in our guild that was doing the time progression, with SSRA, VT and then the planes.. I was a backup tank for the guild. We had two primaries who were pretty damn badass.. and I was a offtank for non named, and later epic mobs. When we did Anguish... after the first few times through I was bumped into a main tank role on everything. I was fully anguish geared and augged at the time. 90/90/90 stuff that doesnt work anymore. Also I was two boxing my Wiz and Warr. (Wiz was my first toon I started, Warr a week later, back when Kunark was new)
When I was offtanking I was doing the 2 1HS weaps.. but had a bandolier with a 2Hs, that was slow but hit heavy if I was a secondary tank on a main mob.. and then I had a bandolier with my epic and a nice shield for the time. But I was low AA and aug wise.

Currently I have the 2x 1hs, a 2HS, and tanking bandolier.
I have the new shield you will see in my magelo. Guard of the Emissary
I will start working hard on my AA for the shield, soon as the CS and CA are re-capped.

I had a friend who used to live near. He came into town to visit, and we were talking. He is farming the higher zones and gets drops like the shield I just spent 60K on.. all the time and they are rot loot most of the time. <cringe>

He will be taking me up where he is farming Exp, and letting me bum exp and or rot loot. Looks like he was getting T1 armor drops regularly and letting them rot. SO he will get us up there to collect it.

The damn earring is still there.. but I have a new neck and face item. Face has aggro on it!!!! Grated Steel Faceguard.

And as far as the discussion on Proccing of weapons.. I now remember clearly sitting in EQ wayy back watching my big slowww 2 hander, and scrolling back watching myself stand there doing nothing.. and seeing myself Proc my weapon.. when I wasnt swinging.. then suddenly after I would swing. And the proc rate was faster than the swing rate. So I would sometimes proc twice for a single swing.

I am gonna start the research on AC augs now. Raidloot etc.. and try to find out where they are. Cause this 10 AC aug crap sucks. If I am gonna work for days to get a drop It better be more than 20 HPs and 10 AC. LOL

[Beneden]

Originally Posted by Rgrog

I am gonna start the research on AC augs now. Raidloot etc.. and try to find out where they are. Cause this 10 AC aug crap sucks. If I am gonna work for days to get a drop It better be more than 20 HPs and 10 AC. LOL

Sounds like a good time to put Desthin's Aug Parser to use. Download the file and launch the program. Put in your Level in the box provided and click on the Warrior button. Then click on Generate Results and all the augs will be displayed for you with links to show their stats.

The link to the actual thread can be found here: http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum...ad.php?t=21115

[drenath]

Originally Posted by Rgrog

I will start working hard on my AA for the shield, soon as the CS and CA are re-capped.

I think you're in a good enough place defensively to start on DPS AA's. More DPS = faster AA's. I'd focus on swing AA's (Ferocity, Burst of Power, Double Riposte, Flurry) because they provide DPS and agro.

Originally Posted by Rgrog

watching myself stand there doing nothing.. and seeing myself Proc my weapon.. when I wasnt swinging.. then suddenly after I would swing. And the proc rate was faster than the swing rate. So I would sometimes proc twice for a single swing.

Combat animations are misleading as they are way too slow for modern everquest. The combat spam itself (text) is what actually happens.

Originally Posted by Rgrog

I am gonna start the research on AC augs now. Raidloot etc.. and try to find out where they are. Cause this 10 AC aug crap sucks. If I am gonna work for days to get a drop It better be more than 20 HPs and 10 AC. LOL

http://www.evilgamer.net/forums/showthread.php?t=4870

I'd say these are the easiest, doable just by you+merc. You should get EXP in these all these camps, too. I camped almost all of these between 70-85. Start with Illsalin Enforcer Medal because it is Shield slot (~triple value) and a guaranteed drop (pops on cursor when you win mission) Need 3 in group (mercs count) to request mission.

30AC / 50 HP - Warleader's Pearl Lore Type:7,8 - Minotar Warleader, Gyrospire Beza
30AC - Colepotera Mechanical Beetle Eye Lore Type:7,8 - Coleoptera Assault Sweeper, Mech Guardian tasks (Note, must kill 20 mobs to spawn names/PH)
30AC/75HP - Fragment of Heavy Steamwork Plating Lore Type: 7,8 - Zonewide rare in Mechamatic Guardian tasks
30AC/60HP - Crest of the Scarlet Legions - Lore Type: 7,8 -[/color] Argil Oppressor, Ashengate
30AC/30HP - Illsalin Enforcer Medal - Lore Type:7,8 - Last Migration (hard) <- Shield slot, guaranteed drop
30AC/30HP - Forged Froststeel Ingot - Lore Type: 7,8 - Reported (with map): Rallosian Acolyte Aemon
30 - Jewel of the Stalwart - Lore Type: 7,8 - Reported Royal Cryptguard Zerakt in Valdehom
25AC/40 HP - Polished Caracite Lore Type:7,8 - Dungore,Dragonscale Hills
25AC/25HP - Shard of the Guardian Type: 7,8 - Shadowy Student Dreadspire Keep <-non-lore, you can get 5 of these (expensive to remove)
25 - Flameshield Stone Type:7,8 - Pyrilen Riftseeker Riftseekers' Sanctum <- non-lore, you can get 4 of these (cheap to remove)
25 (15 sv all) - Starlight Crystal Lore Type:7,8 - Reported: Random Valdehom
25 - Gemstone of Scale Lore Type:7 - Mirrormask, Sunderock Springs
25 - Crystalline Webbing of Absorbing Lore Type:7,8 - Lost Gnomes Mission (Hard) (chest loot)

I know you already have a couple of those, but leaving the list up for other Warriors-to-be.

[Rgrog]

Once again thanks guys,
Fero and Double Riposte done.. and working Flurry.. my aggro control has gone up significantly.
I also have added some into CS and CA as well.

Interestingly enough.. when pulling 6-8 in anguish previously.. I would be working on one of the mobs during the pull after hitting about half with an arrow to pull em. And when I was back to camp.. doing a malestrom blade.
Previously I had to keep hitting malestrom blade, and then occationally a cleric or merc cleric would get aggro.
Now I only need the initial maelstrom blade.. and the mobs are working themselves down a good 3 or 10percent by the time I swap over to them from my ripostes.

Something like 663AA now, so getting to our 1K mark before heading 100 percent Exp grind to 90.