EQ2 - New 6 boxer

[Smokar]

I started a 6 box EQ2 team. Guardian, Wizard, Wizard, Defiler, Inquisitor. Prob gonna betray the inquis and 1 wiz at some point.

Right now I'm level 9 in WC doing single pulls at the zone in. Funny that I have to treat the lowest level dungeon like end game. =p I'm eager to get into it I guess.

My biggest question right now is: Now that I'm almost level 10 how am I going to get AAXP with quests being so hard to do 6 man? It'd suck having to do like collection quests and having to loot on all boxes. Has anyone found a easy solution for questing or is there a boxer friendly way to grind AAXP?

[Frosty]

You're in luck!

I've been posting most of the answers to your questions at:
http://www.dual-boxing.com/mediawiki/index.php/Everquest_II

But I'm not sure what you mean about the quests being hard? I've found them to be very easy so far. Other than the Heroic ones.

[Noxxy]

Hey Smokar - and Welcome to EQ2!

Just a tad confused with your post - few questions:

'...started a 6 box EQ2 team...Guardian, Wizard, Wizard, Defiler, Inquisitor' - what's the 6th class?

'Prob gonna betray the inquis and 1 wiz at some point.' - ok, so the inquis goes to temp but why the wiz? From the EQ2 wikia ('http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Betrayal') 'Neutral classes [which includes wizards and warlocks] are offered the choice to change subclass or stay the same.' - so if you want a 'lock why not just start one and be done with it?

'Right now I'm level 9 in WC doing single pulls at the zone in.' - WC is a level 11-18 dungeon ('http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Zones_By_Level'), and besides the guy at the front door [Cog Burn - Combustible Gnome] and the odd item started quest [The Crimson Paw Cloak, Groaning Bracers, The Abhorrent Ring, et al ('http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Wailing_Caves_Quests')] - I, respectfully, have to ask - why are you even there at your level?

So - a few suggestions if your willing to hear it:

EQ2 is not WoW - multiples of any class in EQ2 does not work very well unless you want an extremely specialised / oddball group - it is far better to get a range of classes to maximise both your buffs, DPS and resists

Buffs - do NOT stack - so a simple example - you grind you way to 80 with your 2 wizards - end game mobs are designed with the expectation you will have some sort of balanced group - therefore, they will fight / DPS as if your tank had a variety of buffs on it - as you doubled up in mages - you are potentially missing a whole line of buff therefore are at a disadvantage
DPS - each class has an ability to exploit a certain area to maximise mob damage - for example, mages can drop masses of heat/cold damage on a mob, rogues can uses heaps of pierce and posions, etc., etc. - therefore, if you had a balanced group, you cover most of the bases when it comes to being able to deliver damage through a variety of different avenues
Resists - most classes offers a variety of buffs which are resist based - therefore, in the end game, mobs are designed such that they anticipate you will have a base level of each resist coming from both your equipment and buffs - so by doubling up you are basically missing out on having a balanced resist buff spread across the group - also remembering, buffs don't stack, therefore neither do resist buffs so it's not like your maximising a resist by doubling up

EQ2 is not EQ1 - Starting WC at your level reminds me of EQ1 where it was all about the grind [as hinted at when you asked '...is there a boxer friendly way to grind AAXP?' - if you want EQ2 AAs, forget the grind, the majority of your AAs will come from questing with the remainder coming from disco, names and arcane items [semi-rare mob drops] - don't worry about leveling as that will take care of itself via questing et al.

Think of it this way - you're just after the AA - forget the drops as you'll probably out-level them too fast anyway - therefore, /lock your exp at 10 - go into WC when your about say 17ish - green it out - grab the disco - whack the odd named if it's up then move onto the next dungeon/zone - rinse/repeat - WC is not the end game so why spend more time there than you have to?

If your level 9 and dungeon crawling - that straight away says to me you skipped TD / Goro / Mok - I would not recommend skipping these zones as the AA is so easy and the quest rewards are so good - looking at your team, they're all 'evil' therefore you have two choices, find a way to the Nek docks - go to the end of the docks and grab the boat to BBM - run along the beach and fly to TD - OR - go back to the commons docks, go to EF, grab the carpet to SS, right click on the carpet in SS and select TD - start there and you'll find the AAs start coming thick'n'fast

'...quests being so hard to do 6 man?' - Nar - not at all, a 6-man pwns the majority of the pre-end game content (epics included) hands down - it's the end game where things get difficult but that's also where a 'balanced' high AA 6-man shines ;)


Don't forget too, Frosty has been putting a lot work into the db wiki ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/mediawiki/index.php/Everquest_II') which may contain extra info if I missed out on any.

Good luck!

[Smokar]

Wow you see right through me lol. My 6th is a coercer. I am a 7 year EQ vet and 3+ year WoW vet and it seems I'm going at this wrong. I avoided melee (other than the tank) because I felt they would be hard to control. I originally wanted to have a full aoe group. AoE friendly Tank, AoE dps, and good heals. So my original group was Pally (amends is getting nerfed I hear), Warlock, Warlock, Coercer (aoe stuns?), Templar, Defiler. Healers really.... I don't know so much about. And obviously the lack of diversity in the dps. Then I decided I'd rather just go for single target to burn stuff down fast and use the coercer for AoE mezes which is how I came to the Wiz Wiz thing. You pointed out that this group won't be well prepared for end game. I definitely need to read up on that before I continue.

I am noticing that multiboxing melee would be a lot easier in EQ2 than WoW.

Mainly I'm replying now just to say thank you for all this information. It will take me a while to go over it all so I'll be back later, better informed, so I can ask the right questions.

Again, Thank you very much!

[Khatovar]

Well let us know if you've any questions. Noxxy has a boatload of information on everything and I know nothing, but am up all hours of the night so I can spew random crap out to answer some easier questions. ;)

[Frosty]

Heya Smokar,

I'm still learning EQ2 myself. If you run across anything you think might be helpful (no matter how small) to multi-boxing, let us know.

I'm hoping with a few more multi-boxers playing EQ2 now, we might be able to put all of our heads together and come up with some new ideas/solutions to make things easier.

[Kromtor]

Let us know how you end up liking the game as compared to the original EQ. Im 6 boxing EQ at the moment but will need a new MMO eventually. Vanguard wasn't "what EQ2 should have been" as far as I'm concerned...

[Frosty]

Let us know how you end up liking the game as compared to the original EQ. Im 6 boxing EQ at the moment but will need a new MMO eventually. Vanguard wasn't "what EQ2 should have been" as far as I'm concerned...
I played EQ1 for a loooong time. Then tried WoW and EQ2 when they first came out.

My PC at the time was pretty crappy and didn’t handle EQ2 well at all, so I ended up playing WoW. I attempted, recently, to dual-box EQ1.. but going from WoW back to EQ1 is not a fun time…and the game seemed really slow.

I’m really enjoying my 6-boxing experience in EQ2 so far.

Here are few specific points I like as compared to EQ1:


I have found MANY places I can get to quickly to go AFK. This is a huge bonus for me with the kids needing me all the time.
Mobs don’t seem to chase you until you run out of a zone or to the guards. Another bonus for going AFK quickly.
Graphics – these simply blow EQ1 away…and WoW for that matter.
Quests! It always killed me to have a game named “Ever Quest” but it was really “Ever Grind”. There are so many quests you can’t help but level. And many people recommend turning off Combat Experience to get extra benefit from them. i.e.: Additional AA’s/AP’s, item drops and quest rewards
The only thing that really bugs me is the lack of mods for EQ2. But this is understandable as WoW has sucked up much of the player base for all games.

[Kromtor]

The only quests I can stand are gauntlet or killem quests. Anything else is a chore. I enjoy EQ1 because when you put together a solid group you can grind so efficiently that the term no longer applies. I guess having quests as an alternative to grinding is no problem... but I can't stand watching people pass me up in experience for delivering notes or gathering mushrooms for NPC's when I'm out there killing reds back to back.

[Frosty]

I haven't gotten too far in levels. But for the most part if you have a delivery quest it leads to more quests.

I go out of my mind if I have to sit and kill the same thing over and over and over. :P

But if that's the type of thing you enjoy, you migh like City of Heros.

[Smokar]

Ok some more questions

1. Why level lock? From what I read you can do grey quests for AAxp.

2. What I ment when I said questing is hard, is that it's a pain to have to click through 6 windows to do them. If you have to do a collection quest (I'm assuming its like WoW here) then you'd have to collect 6 x as many items? So in that regard, questing is a pain and I'd rather grind...but then theres the AA deal so...really if I can make it easy then I'd love to quest. It just seems like a lot of clicking around.

3. I wasn't able to find any slash command to accept a shared quest. I tried q_accept_pending_quest and on or two others from this link ('http://www.eq2interface.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12455') but I couldn't find anything else that looked like it.



The WC thing. Mainly it's for fun. My first time through EQ2 (level 62 necro), I had trouble getting groups so I didn't see a lot of content. I think this is one of the reasons a lot of people box.


I think I'm farily satisfied with the class layout atm. Betraying the wiz to warlock will technically waste a little time but I hear it's not that bad. My ultimate concern right now is AAxp. I'm going to look up a good quest leveling guide and see how it goes with the 6 box.

My macros are still developing. Right now I have: button 2 (single target tank abilites, single target damage), button 3 (tank and dps aoe), button 4 (single target heals auto targeting tank), button 5 (aoe heals when I get them), F12 (invites all my boxes, accepts invites, auto follow, and soon to have accept shared quest if I can find it). I use Innerspace and ISboxer suite.





Oh and here are my computer specs.

Vista 64

Radeon HD 4870 X2

4 gig RAM

Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 2.4ghz

10k RPM Western Digital HDD and a 1 TB for storage

2 moniters with the 5 boxes on the second moniter

edit - bam ('http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Achievement_Experiencbam') and bam ('http://bam/')

[Frosty]

1. Why level lock? From what I read you can do grey quests for AAxp.
The Wiki link at the top of the page still links to the old wiki. I'm not sure when they are going to update it.
But, check out the section on AA's here: http://www.dual-boxing.com/mediawiki/index.php/Everquest_II




2. What I ment when I said questing is hard, is that it's a pain to have to click through 6 windows to do them. If you have to do a collection quest (I'm assuming its like WoW here) then you'd have to collect 6 x as many items? So in that regard, questing is a pain and I'd rather grind...but then theres the AA deal so...really if I can make it easy then I'd love to quest. It just seems like a lot of clicking around.
There are a few collection quest that require each toon to loot a static item..but most of the quests I've done, automatically loot the needed item for all toons when you kill the mob they drop from. This makes it MUCH faster then collection quests in WoW.

There are also "Collections" that are built from items that have the glowie "?" floating on the ground...while these are good for AA's they are going to be VERY hard to do on multiple accounts. Just pick them up if you see them, and pass them through your group as needed when time permits.




3. I wasn't able to find any slash command to accept a shared quest. I tried q_accept_pending_quest and on or two others from this link ('http://www.eq2interface.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12455') but I couldn't find anything else that looked like it.
I have just been using Windowsnapper from Innerspace to swap over and click..it's so fast I hardly notice clicking on things with slave toons.
What software are you using to box with?

[Frosty]

3. I wasn't able to find any slash command to accept a shared quest. I tried q_accept_pending_quest and on or two others from this link but I couldn't find anything else that looked like it. I tried out a bunch of stuff today and had no luck with accepting quests either. There is this command "explicit_confirm_offer_quest" but I had no luck with it. It seems to require a few other things I couldn't seem to get right..but then again, it may not be for accepting quests at all. :P

[Lyonheart]

I can not seem to get innerspace to resize the Windows and 'windowsnap" them.. I have to over lap them and use keyclone for broadcasting. I followed the two videos, but no luck. I am missing something? I think one thing might be not knowing what to call my "virtual files" Like in WoW I named them Shesham.wtf.blablabla and it worked.

[Frosty]

I can not seem to get innerspace to resize the Windows and 'windowsnap" them.. I have to over lap them and use keyclone for broadcasting. I followed the two videos, but no luck. I am missing something? I think one thing might be not knowing what to call my "virtual files" Like in WoW I named them Shesham.wtf.blablabla and it worked.

Just wanted to check before I try to "help"; Are you using ISboxer for Innerspace?

Also, I forget, how many toons are you running with?

[Lyonheart]

I can not seem to get innerspace to resize the Windows and 'windowsnap" them.. I have to over lap them and use keyclone for broadcasting. I followed the two videos, but no luck. I am missing something? I think one thing might be not knowing what to call my "virtual files" Like in WoW I named them Shesham.wtf.blablabla and it worked.

Just wanted to check before I try to "help"; Are you using ISboxer for Innerspace?

Also, I forget, how many toons are you running with?

Yes, I have set up WoW with ISboxer and innerspace before. Just cant seem to get it to work with EQ2 ( or lotr for that matter) as far as window resizing and PiPing. Using 6 acnts

[Frosty]

Have you tried it yet without using Keyclone?

What are you running first, keyclone or Innerspace?

Here's how I set up my Innerspace:

I’m using build #21 (Beta Build) of ISBoxer..just in case there are some differences in what we both see.

Since you are only having problems with windowsnapper I’m going to assume the following in ISBoxer:
1. You have your 6 Characters set up with the Game and Game Profile.
2. You have your Character Set with the Slots filled, hotkey for the window and CPU Cores all set.

This is how I set mine up under the Window Layouts:


Add a new layout and name it:
On the main window (the name you just gave it on the left menu) you should see “Main region switch” as the title.
I leave most of these alone, BUT, you want to make sure you have “Slave” regions Always On Top checked. EQ2 seems to require it.
On the Regions section, this is where you setup the actual layout of the windows to “snap”. I’m only running 1 monitor right now with 6 windows down the right side. To get this, I clicked the AutoLayout button and selected:
I will have 6 sessions
I want inactive windows along the Right
I want session 1 to have its own inactive slot is checked.
Hit ok, and your windows should all be set.
I’m not sure if you have to do this, but I always drag my character set down into this window too.
Once you have the windows setup you might try taking a look at Repeater Profiles. This lets you send the keystrokes to all the windows. I just run with a Whitelist and select the keys I want to allow through..save this and drag it up to your Character Set tab.
Click on the top menu tree item “ISBoxer” then do a Save As for this template..this way you can load it again and make changes whenever you want.
Now – from this same view, in the left hand menu under “ISBoxer ToolKit” you should see “Inner Space”. Click that and hit the Export all to Inner Space button.
Close ISBoxer, and run InnerSpace. Right click the icon in your tray and go to “ISBoxer Character Sets à <name of your Character Set>
Give that a shot and let me know. Good Luck!

[Khatovar]

3. I wasn't able to find any slash command to accept a shared quest. I tried q_accept_pending_quest and on or two others from this link but I couldn't find anything else that looked like it. I tried out a bunch of stuff today and had no luck with accepting quests either. There is this command "explicit_confirm_offer_quest" but I had no luck with it. It seems to require a few other things I couldn't seem to get right..but then again, it may not be for accepting quests at all. :P

I'm pretty sure that "q_accept_pending_quest" is actually for toggling the "So and so has accepted your quest "Questname" chatter in your window. I could get it to accept a true arguement, so near as I can guess, that's just a way to make it less spammy. I just don't think that have a command enabled for it, which sucks.

You can try this mod ('http://www.eq2interface.com/downloads/info4824-AcceptDeclineQuestsusingEnterEscape.html') I guess. But it's not ever been updated and I've not tested it myself, so I have no idea if it works, if it ever worked, or if it will just screw up a bunch of other stuff. I downloaded it to take a look at the code to see if I could dissect it for a command to work with, but I know about as much about code as I do about canine dentistry. Which is to say, nothing.

[Kromtor]

There are also "Collections" that are built from items that have the glowie "?" floating on the ground...while these are good for AA's they are going to be VERY hard to do on multiple accounts. Just pick them up if you see them, and pass them through your group as needed when time permits.
*gun to head*
*brain explosion*

[Frosty]

I just don't think that have a command enabled for it, which sucks.
After accepting several kill X quests last night, I'm starting to think there is a good reason for not having an Accept Quest button.

I had been blindly clicking Accept quickly by swapping through the windows and clicking..but I started to noticed that some quests seem to be giving out random jobs.
So far it looks like it's all of the "We need to clean up/reduce population/get revenge on type quests. One toon was asked to kill Lions, others were giving things like Griffons, gnolls, bears..etc etc.

You can delete the quest and accept it again until you get everyone on the same type of mob..but even then, the number of kills varies.

[Khatovar]

There are also "Collections" that are built from items that have the glowie "?" floating on the ground...while these are good for AA's they are going to be VERY hard to do on multiple accounts. Just pick them up if you see them, and pass them through your group as needed when time permits.
*gun to head*
*brain explosion*

But wait! There's more! There's also Page quests which work like the ? quests, but use ! instead! Some of these pages are not tradable, so to complete them, you will have to pick them up only on the toon that needs said page. And some of those are used for things like A Mysterious Red Tome ('http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Kunark:_A_Mysterious_Red_Tome'), which is required for learning the Di'Zok language, which is required for certain quests {The completed tome ALSO gives you another quest}.

*cackle*

It's not too bad, though. EQ2maps mod + EQ2Wikia make this less painful.

[Noxxy]

But wait! There's more!

Book quests - a quest where everytime time you complete a step, you have to dig through your inventory trying to find the same book again to 'read' through till the next 'page'

Save your sanity - Don't pick up book quests and tbth - leave the ? collections

In the past, it was very helpful to do the 'expert' ? collection quests (either requiring mega-time to find the items or mega pps to buy off ah) especially for the main tank as one of the more choice helms to get was the Sallet of the Reet Knight ('http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Sallet_of_the_Reet_Knight') - which was considered by many to be the 'must have' helm for non-raiders - BUT - now we have TSO and the sallet is pretty tame compared to adv shard helms

TBH I haven't looked at the TSO rare collection rewards - may be worth a look to see if anything jumps out

If you think about it - ? collections are a huge time-sink - either in time or pps - Personally, I tend to only grab a collection if it's straight infront of me and I'm in a dungeon and the only reason I do this is because the more rarer dungeon items sels for a fair few pps - other than that I don't bother

If you really have a burning desire to do the ? collections - then I would honestly limit it to only one character and I personally would buy most of the stuff required off the AH - be prepared though - collection items are now shown to all your characters when on lotto - so you will be in for a lot of clicking before the item is given to your choosen character

Totally agree with Khatovar comments about requiring 'some' page quests to learn languages and complete quests - these page quests are normally required to complete your fabled/epic class weapon and some really tasty fabled jewelry like the Thuuga ('http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/An_Ugly_Bounty') quest series

Off the top of my head, besides the red tome, there's the Mysterious Black Tome ('http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Kunark:_A_Mysterious_Black_Tome') which is used for something important which I have totally forgotten atm - think it was one of the class items