Everquest - Live Servers

Grabbit Allworth said:

I talked to Adetia and she said that it has the 'best' raiding guild in the game. I have no idea, but I have an absolute fuckton of catching up to do.

The first time I logged in some random dude started talking to me because I'm unguilded. We bullshit for a bit and I mention I hadn't logged in, in over 20 years and I proudly state "I've got like 650ish AA, how many are there now? 3 or 4000?"

The guy laughs and says -- "That's as good as zero. The average 'good' character has 75,000."

I was absolutely stunned.

I'm just going to be a tourist for awhile and molo the older raid content (that I can) after I out-level it. We'll see if that evolves in to me taking the game seriously after I spend some time smelling roses.

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75,000...to be average? Jesus.

When I left (around Rain of Fear / level 100) I think characters maxed out at like 12,000 AA points. That was tip-top, maxed-out. Or somewhere in that range. I remember reaching 10,000 and being like "yeah, that'll do, that's enough" because I had all the important stuff. On Phinny I played through Claws of Veeshan / level 115 and I think that was more like 30,000-40,000 to max.

The AA numbers get truly ridiculous. EXP goes up so much that by the expansions named above you get an AA from every mob (by now it's probably a few per mob)

Grabbit Allworth said:

I talked to Adetia and she said that it has the 'best' raiding guild in the game. I have no idea, but I have an absolute fuckton of catching up to do.

The first time I logged in some random dude started talking to me because I'm unguilded. We bullshit for a bit and I mention I hadn't logged in, in over 20 years and I proudly state "I've got like 650ish AA, how many are there now? 3 or 4000?"

The guy laughs and says -- "That's as good as zero. The average 'good' character has 75,000."

I was absolutely stunned.

I'm just going to be a tourist for awhile and molo the older raid content (that I can) after I out-level it. We'll see if that evolves in to me taking the game seriously after I spend some time smelling roses.

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Yeah, Xegony has Realm of Insanity, the best raiding guild. What's funny is the content is so easy that details around how the raiding guilds run to each boss and load in the zones determine who kills the raid bosses, since every decent guild kills it the first night. Anyone who really enjoys hard PvE raiding has long moved on from EverQuest.

Like Moonarchia says you get autogranted AAs. A fresh character only really needs to earn a few thousand AAs to be combat ready. The hard part is leveling to the current level cap. It's fairly difficult to get there without a group to power level you, multiboxing or regular leveling partners.

Even if you purchase a heroic character ($35 or something), you only get to level 100, a fair cry from the level 125 or so you'll need to find groups to join that don't outright carry you. I've lobbied for years for a "squire" feature that lets your autolevel to the highest person in the group so you can at least not be a one-shot liability.

Grabbit Allworth said:

Yep, Adetia said the entire racing thing is completely pointless nowadays. And, as you said, the winners are decided by minutes. Not weeks/days like it was in the past.

How far can a Journeyman merc take me, solo? I'm running Bard right now, but plan on doing a Shaman Persona and one more that I haven't decided.

I'm not paying for an auto-leveled character. It just goes against everything I am. I need to re-learn the game and I want to "get gud" so I'm actually an asset to groups when I finally get there. If I ran a level 100 Bard in to a group right now, I'd probably get kicked in less than 10 minutes.

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I'd recommend rolling a second character to box your bard with. Mage, beastlord or Shadowknight are good choices.

Alternatively, you may enjoy playing on the upcoming Frostreaver TLP when it releases in a few months: EQ TLP(s) 2026 Part 1: PvP or go cuddle your mother . The fresh server will have very high activity and easy grouping opportunities. It'll also start in Velious so it'll be a bit nostalgic. You can also play on Live and then play the TLP when it comes out.

Grabbit Allworth said:

Yep, Adetia said the entire racing thing is completely pointless nowadays. And, as you said, the winners are decided by minutes. Not weeks/days like it was in the past.

How far can a Journeyman merc take me, solo? I'm running Bard right now, but plan on doing a Shaman Persona and one more that I haven't decided.

I'm not paying for an auto-leveled character. It just goes against everything I am. I need to re-learn the game and I want to "get gud" so I'm actually an asset to groups when I finally get there. If I ran a level 100 Bard in to a group right now, I'd probably get kicked in less than 10 minutes.

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Yeah, I'm not down with the heroic character thing. It doesn't take long at all to get to 100, and along the way you learn the class. Especially something like bard, which has numerous complexities that, say, zerker doesn't.

An SK is the best thing you can put with a bard and shaman if you're 3-boxing. Sounds like you're just going solo, though? Not sure I'd even bother with personas under that scenario until max level and wanting to try a new class. Bard is probably a good thing to run solo, since groups can benefit more from a lower level bard than a lower level, well, anything else.

Autogrant should pretty much cover all AA needs up until like level 115. Should be basically good to go at max level with that, at least in terms of being half-decent.

Anyone know if they ever fixed the whole thing with level 111-115 (TOV) having completely borked exp rates from mobs, so you have to do Partisan achievements for your levels? That really screws up 111-115 for personas, since Partisans are used up by your first run through.

Actually, maybe with the addition of COV, there are lots of partisans to go around. Or maybe the exp is much better from, say, TOL so people just go there, IDK.

moonarchia said:

Bards go hard solo style once you get to 70. That's when bellow becomes amazeballs damage. That's also when you get your last jonathan's solo buff, which is actually a really good one too.

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Oh yeah, I member Bellow. I played a Bard alt in like the 75-95 range and used it to PL my main back in the day, soloing like 40 mobs at a time in places like Foundation and Erillion: City of Bronze (the best place for it, but higher level mobs).

It was some of the most fun gameplay I ever had in EQ, due to the sky high risk and reward. With the short range of Vainglorious Shout (AOE Bellow), you had to bunch the mobs up in a ball and let them get very close before unleashing it and retreating. Time it wrong by one second and you go splat. Repeat a bunch of times, get like 30 AAs when they all blow up.

Too bad it got nerfed to, what, a max of 6 mobs? Could probably still AOE kite six mob packs in those same zones, which would be decent enough exp, but like one fifth of what it was.

Kithani said:

You people and your bards

Roll up a Troll BST or just delete your account IMO

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Probably gonna see a lot of people trying BST races they never have before on the new server. Since Vah'Shir won't be available, and they're the overwhelming favorite race for BSTs, people will finally have to look at the OTHER races that can be a BST. It's gonna be awesome. Hardly ever see a Wood Elf BST or a Troll BST.

Berserkers are gonna be pretty much butt on the new server, though. They'll probably be like a less-potent rogue, or an SK with no spells or HT. They might not actually be good until GoD, when they would have been out anyway. Depends on the itemization though. They might be decent with a Palladius.

Rajaah said:

Anyone know if they ever fixed the whole thing with level 111-115 (TOV) having completely borked exp rates from mobs, so you have to do Partisan achievements for your levels? That really screws up 111-115 for personas, since Partisans are used up by your first run through.

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Yes. They just quadroupled mob XP after level 110, which corrects the issue more or less. The whole change was stupid.

Grabbit Allworth said:

As I make my way through the levels, can you experienced guys give me a list of items, useful clicks, quests, and zones I should definitely visit?

With as many options as I have, I think it'd be easy to miss some gems without a little guidance.

There's one item (Jann's Veil) I know I definitely want, but it's waaaay out of my reach currently.

Do me a solid, boys. I need a mentor.

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I've leveled several groups of characters from level 1. My recommendation is pretty simple: Take a look at an EQ atlas like: https://i2.wp.com/www.eqmaps.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/World-2019-04-17-GMM.png or expansion list by level, ex: EverQuest expansions - Wikipedia and just go zone by zone and kill everything in it. Don't worry about how fast you're leveling, enjoy seeing the zones and mobs. Some areas will be harder than others, and if it seems too hard for the level just skip it and move on. There is so much content it'll be hard to not outlevel it as you go through.

If you want a leveling guide, Ring of Scale Leveling Guide is as good as any, but if you just camp the same mobs over and over, you'll be missing out on a lot of zones and adventure

Every five levels buy new spells and gear, I can tell you where to get easy gear for any level if you ask.

There is nothing you really need to worry about doing or getting as you level. Things like the bard 2.0 epic are essential once you hit level cap, but easier to farm when you outlevel the content. Feel free to skip it, or get it, up to you.

And again, boxing a shadowknight, beastlord or mage with your bard will be much, much better.