All posts by Sisca

Hints & Tips, Site Updates

Guides and other info

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You might notice that there is a new menu item in the upper right of this page that says Guides.

With all of the changes to how stats work over the last several expansions I’ve been spending some time going through the various forums and trolling through EQ2U to try and figure out just what stats are important for each class. I’ve got a list for most of my main classes and I’m working on the list for other classes now. I’m in the process of creating pages for each class and what stats are important for them which I intend to put in this Guide section.

To start it off I’ve also added a guide with some useful settings for the various game options that might make your lives easier.

While I’ve been digging for all of this info I’ve come across a couple of sites that are useful for everyone so I thought I’d put the links here as well as add them to the Links section.

First up a couple of places to go and look at your character as well as those of other players:

  • EQ2U @ EQ2 Wire: This should be your first stop and I highly recommend creating an account and adding your characters to the My Characters group. Then you can create a new group – I called it Role Models – and put in other players that seem to know what they’re talking about so you see how they’re tweaking their characters. Most of these will be raiders but you can still get some ideas. Also you can go to the AA tab of one of these players and actually download their AA build to a file then load that build on your character with the new AA window.
  • Dragon Armory: I just found this one and I wish I’d found it sooner. It’s another site that uses the census data from SoE to pull down character info so you can see not only your characters but others as well. The difference here is it will analyze your character/spells/gear and allow you to search for possible upgrades. It also shows you your stats, what gear is adding to those stats and if you’re over the soft/hard cap as well as a good description of what each stat does for you. Again, I’d strongly recommend creating an account so you can at least tag your characters.

    • If you’re trying to understand all of the gear changes there are a couple of useful threads over on the official forums that you should probably read through:

    Itemization Magna CartaThis is from one of the devs and explains the thinking behind the gear/stat changes.

    Combat Mechanics and Player Progression: This is old and some of the info is a bit outdated but it’s still a useful reference to have around.

    DPS and Multi-Attack Adjustments: A short post that explains how the DPS and Multi-Attack changes work and what impact they have.

    Some of the Current Systems Formulas: While it’s not an exhaustive list it does give you an idea of what some of the stats do and how increasing them will impact your character.

    Hints & Tips

    Soldiers of Fortune

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    If you have the new Age of Discovery expansion you can now hire mercenaries to help you out if you have to solo or to fill in a needed spot in a group. Lore and I have been using them since the launch and I have to say they are game changing for a small guild like us. Now when we only have 2 or 3 players on we can still field a full group and do some of the harder instance content that has been denied to us. On the solo side they made getting Sisca, Acsis and Casis from 85 to 90 much easier than it had been getting them from 80 to 85.

    I know that on first glance the price for hiring and their upkeep cost seems prohibitive – 5P to hire and 50G an hour upkeep at level 80+ though it does scale with level – but it’s really not. In the month+ that they’ve been out I’ve pretty much had one up on all of my characters and I’ve still banked well over 200p just from selling loot to the merchant – not even trying to broker spells and such anymore. You’re much more likely to get a chest drop with a Merc since you’re technically in a group so you tend to get a lot more high value loot to sell.

    So if you’re interested here’s a list of the various classes and where to find them:

    Qeynos Harbor : Wizard, Paladin, Troubador, Swashbuckler, Templar, Monk
    Freeport: Warlock, Assassin, Brigand, Dirge, Inquisitor, Guardian
    Neriak: Shadowknight, Necromancer
    Gorowyn: Berserker, Defiler (no cure on abilities)
    Kelethin: Ranger, Warden
    Halas: Conjurer, Mystic
    Classes no merc available: Beastlord, Bruiser, Fury, Coercer, Illusionist

    In Qeynos they’re in Fish’s in Qeynos Harbor, easy enough to sneak in the backdoor if you’re evil. The only one that might prove a problem to hire is the Pally since he’s standing outside.

    In Freeport they’re at the tavern in – I believe it’s East FP – it’s right on the water and there is a bell that drops you on the back porch. Again, easy enough to get into if you’re good and want to try one of those classes.

    In Gorowyn they’re right up the first ramp from the lower level and of course the Sarnak don’t care about alignment as much.

    In Halas they’re in one of the wooden roofed buildings – not the stone ones – that look like great halls and, much like Gorowyn, the guards will ignore you.

    In Kelethin they’re in Josalyns Pub and, again, the guards here ignore you.

    In Neriak they’re just past the first gate at the entrance from Darklight Woods. These are the two that will be toughest to get if you’re not evil since that gate is guarded by 2 level 85 epic x 2 raid mobs. It can be done if you have an evil friend that’s either a Conjurer with call of hero or has the call of veteran vet reward token. They just need to summon you to the area over by the forge and you should be able to hail them. Be careful though there is another x2 guard inside the tower that they’re standing outside of. If you need help getting to one of these try to hook up with Lore or myself and we’ll get someone over there to summon you.

    The good news is that if you replace the merc with a different one for whatever reason they’ll be available in either Qeynos or Freeport depending on your alignment should you want to hire them back. This means you only have to do the whole sneak around thing once. If you do it at low enough level they’re even relatively cheap at 5s per hire at level 20. You could take a new character around and hire them all so that they’ll all be available as you level if you wanted. At higher levels this could be costly at 5p per hire but, as I said, you tend to make up the cash pretty quick (I know this probably won’t work for Reyder since he tends to squeeze every copper so hard that the guards have a warrant out for him for assault on Antonia’s likeness).