EQ2 Producer's Letter

This is their forte!

 

What exactly are you disgusted with?

 

To start with, the amount of work you have to do to get your gear to be even tolerable to help your guild group, let alone a LFG group. Not pleased with the storyline but that's nothing new. Played on FG and seeing treasured loot with the same stats as legendary... or even better than legendary and you have to pay to play on FG. I don't use Facebook but I have an account there but I only use it because of some sites use that rather than logging in with an email address, but DBG does almost all of their information there and NOT on the official forums. Is that enough to start to satisfy your curiousity? There are many more, but I just don't care enough to bother beyond this. When I left WoW I deleted my toons so I would not be tempted to play retail again, having had problems with their choices of how WoW was being run. I have not done that for EQ2/EQ1, but don't hold your breathe on me returning for serious playing.

 

First pass completed for class balancing.

Anyone want to guess what kinds of complaints are starting to surface on the OF?

Edit:
I am increasingly finding myself at a loss for words at complaints and suggestions being made on the OF. Essentially, "Just give us the original Nagafen, and everything will be fine!"

Meanwhile, the types of complaints that existed on the original servers are, once again, making their appearances.

It was even just asserted that it wasn't design decisions that killed Nagafen, it was BGs.

 

I personally blame the players 1st and the design 2nd.
Even if you have bad design, players can come together and set an accord with each other, making their own community rules and ways of dissuading bad behaviour.

The design of course made it possible for bad behaviour and shaped the way that people need to progress, however, the player community itself is most at fault for the downfall of PVP servers from my personal opinion.

 

Accords don't mean jack if someone decides to ignore it.

Think of it as the Rule of What Are You Gonna Do About It.

 

How do you know it's so hard to gear up? You've stated repeatedly that you haven't even started the CD expansion. Honestly, gearing for heroics is pretty simple … get fully experimented MC gear. That's it. You can improve on that by using refined mats and plat infusion, but those are just extras.

As for LFG you've stated repeatedly that you don't group with "randumb players." Of course you seem to make very bad choices regarding game play. If you want to role play an SK as some spell casting plate wearer, that's great. If you want to be a part of a group and don't want to tank, then you need to play something other than a tank.

You're upset with DBG because they use Facebook? lol ok.

 

I'm "Just Curious", but why do you seem to post here with the clear intent of trolling others? Are you a DBG employee or a corporate shill? Either way, it doesn't matter what someone's reasons are for being dissatisfied as they don't need to justify it to you or gain your approval.

 

lol looks like you need to adjust the tinfoil hat. I can't imagine that any DBG employee bothers to come here and read these posts.

 

You must be really bored or just miserable in general.

 

Not really.

 

True, but well good luck getting groups with that attitude. Such people quickly get blacklisted and rolled in chat.

 

Nah. PvP experiences in multiple MMOs over the years tells me otherwise.

The problem is that the whole community has to have the same rules and guidelines to follow, but the whole community will never agree on what those should be. This is the same reason why RP is often a mess in most MMOs. The communities are always fractious when it comes to other players telling them how to play. So some people are more ruthless or doing it for the lulz or whatever than others. Maybe some people are bucking the system simply because f-you for trying to put a system in place and expecting them to follow it. The next thing you know there are dead bodies everywhere and lots of people whining while a lot of people causing the mayhem have guilds and groups and people cheering them on behind the scenes. Only the truly and exceptionally bad actors tend to get shunned, and even then probably not by the whole community or indefinitely.

Blacklists are like locks. They only exist to keep the honest people honest most of the time and get ignored by many as soon as it's convenient or deemed necessary.

 

From Sigrdrifa:
The TL;DR version is "get your Resolve to 1060 and Potency to 60K and the rest of the stats will come as you do more advanced instances".

To begin, if you are level 110, you'll get in-game mail that will summon your to Myrist, the Great Library. Once you have worked through the introductory info you get when you are summoned by the Tribunal, you will be delivered to the Myrist Foyer. In the Foyer, next to the Registration Desk, is Tishan's Lockbox, which has upgraded armor. Even if the gear you have on is better, the Lockbox gear is pretty completely adorned, so you will want to grab a set and use Adornment Reclamation to strip all the adorns. Now you have a pile of adorns, adorn every possible slot. You probably should also grab six extra Potency adorns (from the helmet is good) and use those for your mercenary's armor.

If you want to see caps and info about what each stat does, look yourself up on DragonsArmory.com and hover over a stat... the popup will show you soft cap, hard cap, and some info about that stat. If no caps are listed, there is no cap.

The first thing you need to consider is Resolve:

• Solo encounters have no resolve requirements
• Heroic Tier 1: 1060
• Heroic Tier 2: 1334
• Raid Tier 1: 1512

Mastercrafted gear comes with 60 resolve. If you have 21 pieces of MC gear, that's a Resolve of 1260, which is more than enough to get you into heroics.

I encourage you to go to the Vegarlson overland zone, and harvest there until you get a bunch of rares. It's pretty easy to harvest there without catching a lot of aggro. You need two rares for each new mastercrafted item (the names of these items all have "Academic" in the title). So, if you wear chain or plate, you need 14 Golden Fleck for armor, 2 for a weapon, you'll get a nice secondary doing the sig line. Leather wearers need 14 Needlescale Hide, cloth wearers need 14 Casiun Root. Everyone will want 18 Azure Sapphires for jewelry. Cloaks either need two Casiun Root or two Needlescale Hide, and I'm pretty sure belts also need two Needlescale Hide (I'm not on my tailor ATM). You also will want to upgrade all your Apprentice or Journeyman spells/combat arts to Expert (made by Sages, Jewelers, and Alchemists, depending on class). The scholars also make a bunch of the Ascension spells, and any that you can upgrade should be upgraded.

You will get the best results with your Academic armor if you make (or have it made for you) out of refined rares, so you will want to harvest about double as many as you think you need, then use the Tradeskill Prestige Tree Salvage spec and refine them. Once you have the crafted Academic gear, switch that tradeskill spec to Experimentation, and experiment everything to Visionary. The wiki has a guide on Experimentation.

The solo overland collections rewards have 40 Resolve. The solo instance collections have 50 Resolve.

The problem is that as you were getting all this Resolve, chances are very good that your other stats, Potency in particular, dropped like a rock. Try to get your Potency back up to 60,000 or better. As you're trying to raise your Resolve, typically the new gear has less Potency. Ways to achieve this goal:

• AA lines and Ascension Forms were changed with this xpac to replace Potency buffs with Fervor, so carefully reevaluate your AA.
• White Potency Adorns (crafted, or harvested from helmets in Tishan's Lockbox)
• Potency Infusers (you can use infusers from from Thalumbra forward, many can be crafted)
• Deity Infusing (aka plat infusing)
• Better gear that has both the Resolve and Potency values you need (which we probably won't see until we're getting heroic loot)

Other stats to consider. (Note, I'm using cap values that were accurate during PoP, and I won't swear they haven't changed):

• Ability Mod should ideally be half of your biggest hit. Reforging, adorns, and infusing can boost ABMod.
  
• Crit Chance 2,500 or better. Crit Chance is how often you will critically hit with spells, CAs, and/or physical attacks. This value is often heavily debuffed based on the specific monster or zone. You need 100%, plus however much is being debuffed, so if the mob is debuffing 2000% crit chance, you need 2100% to get a crit hit every time.
  
• Crit Bonus 4,500 or better. Crit Bonus is a multiplier to the damage done on a critical hit or healing on a critical heal. The hard cap, as far as I know, is ~4266.
  
• Fervor multiplies the total spell/CA values after all other formulas have been applied. The hard cap is 230.
  
• Reuse and Recover Speeds both hard cap at 100.
  
• Casting Speed is how fast you can cast spells/CAs. The soft cap is 100, anything over that adds to Spell Doublecast.
  
• Doublecast caps at 100%, however if you look at the buffs on Named mobs, they often have a buff that increases their Doublecast Avoidance, which means you need 100+that avoidance number vs. that mob. For PoP T1 raid mobs, their Doublecast Avoidance was typically 80, so you'd have needed 180% Doublecast to actually doublecast every time.
  
• DPS Mod affects the damage of physical attacks. It has a soft cap of 600.
  
• Haste affects the speed of physical attacks. The soft cap is 200, anything over that value adds to Flurry.
  
• Flurry affects the chance of hitting multiple times on a physical attack.
  
• Accuracy adds to the contested formula (weapon skills and level vs. defense skills and level) to hit a monster. This is not used against the target's parry, dodge, shield block, or deflection. There is no cap.
  
• Strikethrough is the chance to prevent a monster from parrying or dodging an attack.
  
• Multi Attack affects the number of weapon swings per physical attack. It has a soft cap of 200.AE Autoattack (AE Auto) is the chance for physical attacks to hit multiple monsters. It has a hard cap of 100.
  
• Weapon Damage Bonus is bonus damage applied to all weapon autoattacks including melee, ranged, and spell weapons. It has a hard cap of 300.

As well as Hurtsbad:

This is a guide intended for beginning or returning players trying to get caught up in the Chaos Descending Expansion. The goal for this guide is to make you at least competitive enough to not hold your group back in T1 and T2 heroic zones, and get you ready to raid if that is your desire. If you are a Roleplayer, carry on! And move along. There is nothing to see here. (I joke of course)

If you don't agree with the things I say, feel free to write your own guide! Surely no one has to do any thing they don't want to do.

Before we start there are two simple truths to the game now.

First:

I hate to say it but you need plat and you wont make any, probably ever. Later when you are all geared up you may make some selling loot rights, and you can always have a trickle from selling crafting materials and such. But don't expect to ever have enough.

If I am wrong, prove me wrong, and tell me how you did it. I will happily stand corrected.

This means you pretty much have to sell a Krono to get going. Or consult some one else on how to get plat. Either way, you need plat to get going. About a million. Get some. If you can't/won't do this, feel free to ignore this whole post.

Second:

Learn and accept this fact, almost all jewelry in all T1 and T2 heroic zones, except for end boss T2 loot is inferior to Master Crafted. This is truth. Once you are on your way from following this guide, do not upgrade a piece from a Heroic zone loot drop unless it is an increase in potency after you infuse it. Of course this rule can bend a tad. But it is a great rule of thumb in almost all cases.

There. Now that you have come to terms with those two truths lets get going.

You will need INFUSERS. You probably have tons in your bank. Use those first. All of them. Start with the smallest bonus you have, for every color, and use it until you can't any more, and work your way up to the top. Get Celestial Potency infusers. These are damn expensive. If you have a TON of plat, feel free to buy em. Otherwise, spam solo zones and Salvage all the loot. Frankly, salvage any loot that is below 60 resolve. Transmute the rest. If you don't have these skills, get them. Just do it. You can get a Celestial Infuser per solo zone. Do this.

FIRST ADVICE:

Once you are on your way into the Timeline you will zone into the Library. Directly ahead of you is a desk with a quest starter and a chest on the floor. Open the chest and take ALL of the loot. Then Unadorn every piece. You are going to end up with a lot of great adornments, including Glory, Championship, Juxt and Witness V and a new Blue Rune.. The gear itself is equal or inferior to Expert or Raid gear from PoP. Equip if it you want, it wont be on long. Now feel free to engage the Timeline and have some fun learning the new spread! PoP gear is certainly good enough to get you through the Timeline. I did the whole thing without equipping a single piece of gear.

Open up your Merc and start him leveling. Open up your mount and start him leveling. /Claim the new mount and familiar if you got one.

Do NOT use your bonus infusers yet or the leveling potions or any thing really until you have a plan.

Finally before we get going a word on Stats. The only things you need to worry about work themselves out in this order:

Potency: Assume there is a heroic zone"Tier" of potency of 75k where you are ineffective until you reach it. You simply cannot get this high enough.
Fervor: As much as you can possibly get. Always.
Resolve: Not incredibly important yet. HERE is a link to a thread about resolve requirements. I will address this topic in a few.
Crit Bonus: You will be starved for CB and once you got your resolve and Potency it actually moves up the list of priority. Aim for 5k, or as high as possible.

Nothing else really matters. It all comes with gear.

Finally finally, hold onto your Mythical Epic and Tome as long as you can. Only take em off if you are desperate to hit a resolve tier for raiding. I am raiding T2 and still have my Tome equipped.


Step One:

Remake your PoP tome. Get two imbued stones and craft it again. Then infuse it. From this point on lets assume that you are using ALL available infusers and plat when I say "infuse". Once it is made go reforge it and put all of the AB mod into Potency. This should push it up to 4700+ potency.

Step Two:

Master Crafted gear is better than almost ALL T1 and T2 heroic gear. I know I already said it but a lot of people have a very hard time accepting this and are happy to settle for a piece with 3200 potency. This is bad.

Find a crafter and get a whole set of PURIFIED MC gear. Armor, Cloak/belt, weapons and jewelry. Go for Hit Points on the armor for now, and Ability Mod on every piece of jewelery. Find out what the required rares are and go harvest and refine them. You can google how to refine. Do it.

Here is the secret. You MUST MUST experiment on your gear. Not just once, experiment it to max. This will take literal hours. But you MUST do it.

BEFORE you experiment, infuse each piece fully. The experiments will apply themselves to the Infused stats, thus yielding higher final stats.

Then start experimenting.

Armor: You don't need to go crazy Experimenting on the armor. One or two rounds if you want. You will upgrade it almost instantly once you get into T1 zones. T1 armor is just about even to MC armor and you need it to get T2, so focus on that.

Every thing else you MUST experiment to max. The title is Visionary. Experiment until it is there. Put your first experimentation into CB then the rest into Potency. Again, AFTER you infuse it all. If you are lucky when you are done experimenting each piece will be 3850+ potency or so.

Now Reforge the gear:

Here is where the magic happens. Reforge all of your Jewelry, turning all of the AB mod into Potency. This will push the gear up to 4500+.

That is where you will stay with your gear until you get Heroic armor drops, and T2 final boss drops. Don't believe me? Try fully infusing and reforging any piece of loot you get before that. If you can't beat the potency, don't equip it. I had a Mastercrafted wrist piece that I did not upgrade until I finally looted a piece off a T1 raid boss.

But what about Resolve??

Once you finish your timeline you will get a sweet off hand. Level it, and level your epic, to max. To do so, put on your harvesting gear and get to work. Harvest Golden Flecks, Needlescale Hides and Arborian Wedge. Then have a crafter mass produce it all into Master Crafted weapons. Then break them down into Greater Weapon Essences. It takes 500 GWE to fully level a CD weapon. Start with your new Off Hand. This will get you well past T2 resolve. (Along with your MC gear) While you are in zones, get a Ranged. Go for a T2 ranged and fully level that. This, T2 armor and Boss Loot will get you to Raid resolve if you have not gotten there already. .

Voila!

You are well on your way. The rest you will figure out as you go.

To summarize:

1. Do not settle for T1 heroic gear, or even T2 heroic unless it's from the last boss.
2. Get purified Master Crafted gear and fully infuse and experiment on it then reforge the AB mod into Potency.
3. Harvest or buy rares and have them made into MC weapons to break down into GWE to level your weapons.
4. Do not replace a piece of MC gear unless it is a potency upgrade.

Do all this, and you will at least be competent in Heroic groups and be able to finish zones and weeklies and get even better gear.

Oh and do all of the Achievements that you can. Open your journal and hit the Achievement tab and browse. Some of them give nice rewards.

Hope you find that helpful!

Hurts
Hurtsbad, Jan 17, 2019 Report

That is a lot of work, most of it not fun for me... so why bother? If DBG can not bother to post stuff on their official forums, leaving it to players to share the information to others, I can NOT use the forums or play the game. My choice. If you don't like it, then you pay for my account and pay me per hour to work at the game and perhaps I WILL play. But I wont play a game that isn't fun for me unless I get compensated in some way. So if you wish me to play, pay!

 

This is where you went wrong. Everything she posted is about how to be uber competitive. If you want to be uber competitive and be in a top raiding guild, do all that. The free, fully adorned gear in the chest will get you through the signature line. Fully experimented MC gear, using the free adorns from the chest, will get you through the signature line faster and give you everything you need to be successful in T1 heroics.

 

And the other person I copied from? What about his advice?

And still none of that sounds like fun. Where is the fun in all of that?

 

Precisely why I stopped adventuring not long after Velious. Too much micro management and grinding and no more fun.

 

I'll say it again. All you need to complete the signature line is the free gear from the crate. To make it faster and be successful at heroics, you will need fully experimented MC gear. Everything else in both of those posts will make things easier, but are not necessary. There's actually more you can do to be if you want to be an uber competitive raider.

All that being said, if you're not having fun, then not playing makes sense, but don't let people posting on how to min/max be the reason you move on.

 

Imo how it should be;

• Last expacs heroic gear gets you into solos
• Full Solo gear gets you into T1 heroics [Or last expacs Raid Gear].
• 80% T1 Heroic gear gets you into T2 heroics or 50% T1 heroic + 50% MC'ed gear.
• 60% T2 heroics 40% T1/MC Heroic gets you into T1 Raids
• 50% T1 Raids + 50% T2 Heroic gets you into T2 raids.

Infusion should be a bonus, not a requirement.
Experimentation should be a bonus, not a requirement.
Resolve should be the ONLY gating stat. Potency mitigation is dumb and just plain stupid.

It may well be this IS the case, but the player expectations are set far far higher than this. My suspicion is players struggling to get into heroics fail because;

1. They don't want to make an effort.
2. They make the effort to get items/gear, but not to learn what their buttons do.
3. They don't/won't craft, and can't take the MC gear shortcuts.
4. They are in a dead/dying guild, and refuse to PUG/Form groups.
5. They have a reputation for being bad. [And most likely are, due to points 1&2]