The Glade 4.0

Nothing really special happens when you hit 200, other than the warm fuzzy feeling you get knowing your character has reached its maximum progression (outside of gear, of course).

Rime quests are just a faction grind after you finish the main lines. You get some decent house items along the way, but the AA is very nice. You probably won't have to put up with many jerks anymore, now that so many people have finished the line.

Someone recommended doing all the little grey quests as well as soloing some HQs for quick AA's, and it actually worked.

TBH, tho, Rangers are one of those classes that don't reallly need maxxed AA's. My last few points were pretty much going into abilities with marginal use. So unless you have some kind of deadline to meet like I did, you can honestly just stop with what you have.

If you'd like, you can look up my character on EQ2players.com and get a feel of how I distributed my AA. There's not much difference between the ideal casual raid/solo spec and the hardcore raid spec for our class.

Character Name: Siennah

Server: Blackburrow

I've got a pretty standard AA distribution for the class. The only thing I didn't really do was go all the way to "Nightshade" on the INT line because A) I hate having the full timer for Sniper Shot and B) the blademaster title is just cooler. Color me a rebel. If I ever get around to getting an AA mirror made I'll make a second spec for pure DPS when raiding, but I generally make the parse now so meh. I'm not giving up my runspeed and evac cooldown reduction!

Here's my breakdown

Predator
STR: 6-4-4-8-1(2)
AGI: 4-4-7-8-1(2)
INT: 4-4-4-8

Ranger
Caustic 5
Fettering 4 (don't use fettering; I use turger or deaggro so don't know if this actually does anything)
Ancillary 5
Conservation 1

Survival Instinct 5
Snaring Arrow 5
Focus Aim 5
Killing Instinct 5
Honed Reflexes 3
Extension 1

Pathfinding 5
Escape 5

Searing Shot 5
Triple Shot 5
Natural Selection 5
Storm of Arrows 5
Double Arrow 1

TSO:
Basic
Health 5
Runspeed 5

Scout
Defensive stance 5
stealth runspeed 5
de-aggro 1

Predator health boost 5
strength boost 5
critical mastery 5
poison attack 1

Ranger
mitigation boost 5
focus aim boost 5
ranger's blade boost 5
ranged mastery 1
explosive arrow 1

last 4 will go into boosting the aide-rear attack that gives you stealth since that sees heavy use.

I know some would wonder why I bother with health and mitigation but it's for soloing, and also to let me survive those occasional hits during raids or momentary aggro pulls. I figure nothing hurts DPS more than being dead.

I have the roundshield of the vault too, which I use for raids and groups; dual wield for soloing. It has some ranged stat boosts that are nice and it adds a bit more to survivability. My melee weapons are my weakest area; they aren't bad for melee but I haven't laid hands on any with good ranged stats yet other than that croaking dirk, and that one is inadequate for melee now.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Not sure if you looked at it or not (or even if you have an EQ2 Players subscription, which I think they are giving free to everyone here soon, anyway), but here is a link to my current set-up: http://eq2players.station.sony.com/Blackburrow/Siennah/

The beauty of the Ranger AA trees, is that they are relatively easy to fill effectively (even more-so if you look at it from a pure DPS standpoint) since we are such a one-dimensional class.

Health and Mitigation are of paramount importance as you start getting into the end-game content. If you ever step back up into that sphere of the game, it will help you tremendously. You'll generally get more spells that up your DPS compared to those that up your health and MIT (because those will obviously be going to the tanks/melee DPS classes)

I would recommend against going with a melee-centric weapon set up because our ranged auto-attack just does SO much more damage. The Croaking Dirk will carry you just fine through Kunark content and much of the way through TSO content.

I would reccomend using the Dirk + a shield. From the TSO instance Atrebe's Lab in Fen's of Nathsar there's the Shield of the Assassin. From Kunark there's a Voracious Shield of Striking that drops off the named shark off the coast of Danak in the Overthere. From TSO instanced Guk there's the Buckler of Deadly Chaos, as well (which is a non-raid version of what I wear, the Ethernauts Roundshield of Knowledge).

Beauty of a shield, is that you get a nice boost of mitigation + stats/procs beneficial to DPS.

Definatly going to give it a look after the holidays. Just a bit burnt out on WoW recently. I think would primarily be soloing, as night shift leaves for odder playing hours. In an attempt to skip the ranger debate, I wanted to focus on Necro's or SK's. Which I would believe it to be evil side only? And if yes, who here plays evil side and what server for in game annoying questions.

Both Necro's and SK's are good solo'ers still? And race does not play too much of a factor? I was looking at erudite or Sarnak. Pro's and Con's? What should I be looking for quest wise and gear wise, and how difficult is it to start? For sake of argument assuming I find no sugar higher level to give a hand?

How much can be done solo vs how much as to be grouped? I will admit one of the things I hated about EQ was the grind and needing a group to do anything at all. Dungeons and raids I can accept it, but leveling needing a group was a pain.

What kind of AA's and such should I look for as either a Necro or SK, and can you still get the Specter pet?

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

Both are good soloers, yes. I have an SK but not a Necro (I'm not a fan of pure caster classes).

Like Screeling pointed out earlier, race does not factor in anywhere near as much in EQ2 as it did in EQ1. That said, if you are looking to min/max, I would recommend:

Necro -- Erudite for the casting speed increase racial ability.

SK -- Ogre or Barbarian (for their tanking racial bonuses). My SK is a Dark Elf, but that's more for style reasons.

The only reason I would recommend starting a Sarnak is for their starting area and the gear it offers. The quests in Timorous Deep give the best rewards , but now that I think about it, I believe you can start any evil race there.

As for gear, at first just grab stuff that looks like it lends to your class from the quests you complete. When you get to lvl 22 I would start looking into crafted armor sets. EQ2 does it a bit odd, and starts each new tier of crafted items at lvl X2 (like lvl 22, 32, 42, etc). Go to a broker and use the filters on his/her window to find crafted stuff. Of course, if you see a quested/dropped item that is obviously better, wear that instead. You won't really have to worry about set bonuses until you are in your 60's and 70's. As for starting difficulty, it's not hard at all. Even through some of the higher lvls, solo-friendly classes have an easy time, as long as you always keep in mind that the best rewards come from instance grouping/raiding.

Grouping vs soloing -- Again, the best rewards will come to those who group/raid, but you can (usually) easily solo your way to lvl 80. If you get a friend to lvl with you, or make friends in the game, the EXP and gear will come faster of course. There is even a mentoring system in place where a much higher lvl will take a stat/ability reduction to come down to your lvl and give you a +50% EXP bonus while grouped.

AA's are a whole nother discussion in and of themselves. I can't help you with Necro AA's, but I can give you a brief run down of how I am taking my SK's AA points --

In the Crusader tree, I go:

STR (from top to bottom, in ranks): 6, 8, 8, 0, 1 (this last one will cost 2 AA points)

AGI: 4, 4, 8, 8, 1 (costs 2)

INT: 4, 7, 8

As for the character development tree -- go maximum STA and anything that offers DPS, taunts, or lifetaps. Your other stats will come naturally through gear and buffs.

In the SK skill tree, focus on putting points into the abilities most important to SK's -- again, namely DPS/taunts/taps. I haven't really delved into this tree yet, as I am still trying to lvl him up. And finally on the Shadows skill tree, I can't help you at all yet.

As far as Specter pets, I'm not sure. I want to say no, but there may very well be one out there. There are a blue million pets (both cosmetic and useful) in this game.

Just one point of clarification, the 22/32/42 thing is for master-crafted armor. For normal crafted armor, it is at the even 20/30/40 levels. The lower level tiers it won't be worth the time and investment for master-crafted armor because you'll burn through those levels fairly quickly. Normal will probably serve you just fine.

This game is kinda weird about its armor though. The armor's mitigation and resists decrease as you out-level your armor. Should you play a tank, plan on definitely upgrading most every piece every 10 levels. It's less of an issue for the casters because you're not taking hits. I took a wizard up to 70 (never played him again when the cap was raised) and was using a lot of old pieces for a while.

My best piece of advice though is something I've already said: Use the solo quest timelines at http://eq2.wikia.com. A lot of good rewards are to be had from doing the quests and you'll net yourself a grip of achievement experience.

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The Dude abides.

Me getting into the endgame is pretty much never going to happen, and even if I did I wouldn't screw around with more mitigation AAs than I have for my all-purpose setup, even though I tend to like survivability. There are just too many parse-obsessed morons to deal with getting PUG instance groups, and you can't count on getting DPS buffs either. It's all too easy to get stuck in a group of Rangers, Assassins and Warlocks with one incompetant fury for heals.



I'll never go back to the dirk; in fact I really wonder why I even still have it in the bank. I have a strict rule about melee weapons: they're for when you have to melee, including using your melee CAs fromt he sweet spot. They aren't for boosting ranged DPS; you have all the other slots for that. If they can do that too, great, but I'll always base my melee weapon choices on melee power. The only reason a shield is acceptable is that it still boosts melee ability by making you more able to survive it.



I've got a ranged-DPS shield now for instances and raids, but going back to the dirk is not going to happen. It's not worth the loss of melee power to boost your poison damage by that amount. One of the main reasons I use the shield is to survive when the tank loses aggro, which happens all to frequently. I've for all intents and purposes tanked DF from beginning to end because of that.



That's why I like the one I have now, but if I ever got 2 ranged-boosting melee weapons, the shield will rapidly disappear, even if it's slightly better for ranged stats. As it is, I never use it for soloing.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."