Classes

[Deviant]

I am not real familiar with the classes in eq2 yet, their pluses, minuses and advantages. It would be great if you all could post what you play and have seen about them.

The only class i have played so far is a monk. Am able to kill the lowest *group mob greens (not greyed out yet) for chests/exp but am wondering if there are better classes to do this with ( IE a caster that can snare/root and kill at a distance without gettin beat on or heavier tanks that take less damage killin for instance a blue or even group mob)

The group mobs definetly have the best chest drops and would like to find the best class to solo them with.

[Catweazel]

Level 18 Druid, 2 main nukes (chill and smite) and a crap load of heals, including a bunch of group ones which don't impress me as a soloer. Crappy dot at the moment (lasts 5 seconds?).

At level 6, I was taking on 3 mobs that only 1 of which would kill my rogue. At level 12 I was soloing blue ^ group mobs, however now at Level 18 I am having a hard time beating green ^^ group mobs. I would guess most group mobs will become impossible by level 20 unless I get a snare and a decent dot.

My rogue is now level 12 and doing a little better, but he is severly hampered with his heroic opportunities as ideally you need to outflank the mob after a stun, and I am having a major hard time rapidly positioning, especially now they have changed the HO timer to 10 seconds.

Have not played a fighter or mage (mage gets snare/root early), but I would guess a fighter would do no better than my rogue and certainly not as well as the druid.

Key to soloing appears to be taking on orange solo mobs for best experience, and using HO's as fast as you can.

Apparently SOE has just changed the chest drop rates so that solo mobs now have a chance to drop group chests.

Can compare some other notes if you like. Have done about 50 quests and at level 17 most of my armor was yellow (now blue). Have saved about 2g so far, and am about to start on leather armor tradeskilling.

[Deviant]

When you hit lvl 20/class out your character will become alot stronger and you should be able to solo group mobs again. (at lvl 18 and 19 i couldnt solo any group mobs at all...it wasnt even a close fight they destroyed me. at lvl 20 soloing scarecrows was a joke) Take advantage of the balance swing in your favor while at lvl 20/21, it starts evening out again as you go up untill you hit lvl 30ish and there i hear it swings in your favor again all the way to 50.

Even though they "upped the drop rate" for solo mobs they still do not drop the same stuff as group mobs. For instance you will never get an Adept skill/spell upgrade or an advanced tradeskill page out of a solo mob chest(if you can its super rare, like 1 in 500), and the chests only pop 1 in 25mobs or so.

Group mobs will pop a chest every 5ish mobs and about a 50/50 chance of droppin a rarer item (ie somethin you can sell for 1GP+).

Whatever you are hunting Food and Water are the key to success, especially in soloing, but also in groups unless you want your group to be waiting on you all the time to regen.
With High saturation food/drink you will regen about 11 percent health(food) & power(water), this doesnt change as you go up in level as long as you are using substinance of your level. Whether you are lvl 3 or lvl 50 your hps and power/mana will regen from empty to full in like 10 ticks or less!! I can give you stacks and stacks of lvl 20/30 food and water... I got tons!!!

You prolly know this already - Get em while they are green, a greyed out mob will NEVER drop a chest or give experience so dont waste your time.
If you find mobs that are dropping good stuff for you, but you are about to level and grey them all out, go in to your character view screen and turn OFF experience. you will still get experience for quests but not kills. Dont get hung up for too long though...hands down the higher level you are the easier it will be to make cash
The designers went to great extent to make great solo and group mob matches for every single level from 3 to 50.]
I am more and more impressed as I am start to see the vast effort the designers put into fixing every complaint I had ever heard about or had with eq1.

Experience seems to go faster for me as well soloing green group mobs as opposed to yellow/orange solo mobs (like at 24 i hunt lvl 20 group mobs as opposed to lvl 27 solo mobs) plus ill get 5 or 6 gold in stuff in a couple hours as opposed to a few silver. (my vendor is at about 120GP(1.2PP) in the "total sales" Log from the two weeks ive played... that doesn't include the tons of coin trash sold to vendors)

The level of the group mob is the only important factor when selecting your victim, unless it is a special/named mob, herd, swarm etc.
^^group mobs will be alone,
^group mobs will be linked in pairs of 2 and
(no ^) group mobs will be linked in groups of 3 and 4.

sometimes you will see other combos like a ^group and 5 vv group linked together... (an example of this is the 'Overseer' and 6 or 7 undead workers linked to him in TS, I attacked them thinking it was sure death but to my suprise it was exactly the same difficulty as any other group mob of that level. I was easily able to kill the overseer first and then pick off the workers one at a time that were beatin on me with no problem... then took the fat loots in the chest =p)

For my character it doesnt seem to matter the combo i will finish the encounter with the same hps and power left regardless...Just look at their level.(if 2 levels of mobs are green be carefull, you may be able to kill one and not the other. physicaly check the level of each mob in the target box before engaging.)
If you are doing kill #'s of X quests obviously it will be wiser to go for the 'more targets' mobs.

The outfitter i started has skills maxed in tailoring. I have all the stuff to make a set of stuff for you if u want.
I stalled him out at lvl 19 trying to decide if i want to make him a plate or a leather crafter in able to ding to 20.(once you choose there is no going back and can only make that one type of armor)

I think I got a few AdeptI books for a druid on my vendor ill pull em off and hold em for you if you want em.

Skills/spell upgrades were another area I didnt understand until recently, when i figured out what the deal was and upgraded it made a world of difference. I upgraded from apprentice1 to adept2 and fiegn dead changed from "Flop on your back and die" to "Fiegn Dead", yes it actually works now!!

As you upgrade a spell skill it will not go up in power use, so you have nothing but sheer gain from uprading whether its a defensive ability, heal spell, damage, whatever.
(Apprentice I II III IV, ADEPT I II III IV, MASTER I II? III? IV? is the ladder as I see it for a spells progression, I believe only the I's will drop and the 2-4's are player made from rare harvested items. Their number will be determined by how many 'tradeskill bars' are attained in the crafting process... I think)

Ooo damn this post got long let me stop --- im sure nobody will read this far anyway =p

[Catweazel]

Excellent info Devi....thanks.
I will look out for you in game.

I was holding off levelling my rogue - Catweazel - (waiting on Amichi to come along and start a guild I suppose), but was planning to twink him out ready to go. In the meantime he is levelling up as a Scholar and to supply my Druid with alchemy supplies.

I can definitely see starting out a few characters to experience the grouping side compared to the soloing side. I think I grouped once, and definitely saw that chests drop more frequently. Will probably make a Mage (wiz or necro) for grouping and to look for a guild.

Druid's name is Weazel and I have a play schedule that is probably as weird as yours as I am on GMT for 2 weeks of the month and then EST for the other 2 weeks. I am just heading back to the US this week so I might not see you around too much, but will add Bucko to friends and try and catch up with you.

[Deviant]

Very nice groupin with you bro, first time I talked to someone in game from EQ1. I will prolly get ahead of you to be able to group but by all means let me know what I can help you with. Make a list of things you want and PM it to me and ill get it for you if I can.

[Catweazel]

Thanks Devi!!

One of the things I noticed (if others read this thread) is that there is a huge chunk of the game I have missed already by deciding to solo / duo. I am equallly certain that there is a huge chunk of the game that you miss by doing groups only.

I would suspect that I will be starting many characters each with a different focus, and as a result, will see Devi / Bucko or yet another alt many times through the game.

You are right that you will almost certainly level faster than I can.....especially with my travel schedule and recent computer problems, but it was a blast the other night, and i so appreciate the help to get me started. With some luck I will see one of your alts on the way up, and I am looking forward to having an Outfitter that might be able to supply you with something.

Cat / Weazel