Adding a 6th

[Twiz]

Up until now, I've been running teams of 5. I've decided to try out a 6th before my main team gets too much higher (only 26, but still). I'm torn between the added utility of the Coercer and the dps of the Warlock. I love what they add to the mix. I've played both classes on existing accounts up to 22 and my brain is freezing over the possible combinations now and could use some veteran advice.

So I've decided to create a new account and add either a Warlock or a Coercer.

As it stands now: SK/Inq/Defiler/Dirge/Swash

For those of you who have run teams of 80, which adds the most bang for the buck? The dps of the Warlock or the utility/buffs of the Coercer? Or perhaps, a different class that I'm not seeing? :eek:

Thanks in advance! :D

[Noxxy]

Easy choice - CC (crowd control)

The buffs + the ability to mez/stun single targets/encounters make a CCr a must for any group - and I think you wil be pleasantly surprised with how much DPS a good CCr can pump out

Placing a lock in your group would change its dynamics totally:
- swap swash for lock
- swap dirge for troub
- maybe swap inq for temp (debatable)
- in effect, changing your team from a mostly melee based to a caster based team

[Twiz]

Thanks for the response!

I figured the Coercer would be the optimal choice, but it's hard to turn down more dps. I'm really looking forward to the Coercive Healing AA, though.

Cheers!

[Twiz]

So I got the coercer up to 24 and I'm starting to notice a lot of lag going from 5 to 6 toons. I'll be running around in an empty zone like Stormhold or Fallen Gate and my toons will be ghosting all around me.

I use 2 machines to box:

Main PC
Core2Duo E6600 - 2.4ghz
4gb DDR2-800
8800GTS 640Mb
WD 7200rpm

Laptop
Gateway P7805
Core2Duo P8400 - 2.2ghz
4gb
9800m GTS 1Gb

Both comps are running Vista 64-bit with the latest updates. I run 3 instances on each and use HotKeyNet to send broadcasts. I'm on a cable connection that consistently gets 18-22k over a wireless G network.

What typically happens is the latop will "finish" the fight about 10 secs ahead of the main pc. The main pc will show all the toons ghosting off into never never land and pulling aggro, etc.

Has anyone experienced this? My thought is that it's hardware related and that the main PC is having a hard time keeping up with the laptop. I figured the main PC would have the horsepower with all settings turned down (and they are) but is 3 instances + Hotkeynet too much for it?

Thanks in advance! :)

[Lokked]

It may be a data transfer issue. You may be experiencing too many collisions. If possible, the simplest way to cross networking issues off the list is to haul your tower over to the router and use 2 cables to connect the machines to the router.

If your router has not been turned off then on in a long time, the lookip table may be a jumbled mishmash, although this would not account for one node functioning properly.

[Noxxy]

Have to agree with Lokked - try and see if running a wire direct to the modem works

Personally, don't use any wireless at all as I find the cable method both faster and more secure

The only time I have ever seen ghosting is when I blow my monthly usage (12 gig) and the provider throttles my download speed back to some pitiful amount

Can't really help with any software as I am hardware and have 1 instance per machine

[victor]

^ damn Noxxy where do you live where they put caps on your monthly use?

as for the topic at hand, the only 2 times i have noticed anything similar to this was when my isp was having problems in my area and my connection was extremely poor and the other was when my router was playing up and i had to reset it to facotry defaults and re-add all the security etc. You might want to call your ISP and see if there is any problem in your area and then do the router thing.

just curious as to how well eq2 plays on those systems Twiz. Honestly those specs don't look like they can play that many instances on either box. I have the eq2 dual core support turned off on each instance and as a rule of thumb keep each instance to 1 core so 4 core = 4 instances. I also try to keep 2 gigs of ram per too. GPU doesn't seem to matter that much as eq2 is heavily CPUdependent.

i agree with other who have said that the wired way is more reliable. I have wireless but i have it locked off tight (i'm a sys admin) and don't use it for gaming. the only time i use wireless is when i use the net in the living room on the tv or on my laptop in bed or something.

anyway, good luck with your delay and ghosting twiz.

[Twiz]

Thanks for the advice Noxxy and Lokked. I haven't had a chance to try anything out yet since weekends are off limits. Family takes priority. :)

I'll give these suggestions a shot this week. Thanks again!

Edit:

Victor, while it's not ideal, the systems handle 3 instances pretty well. I've even had 4 instances on the main PC when I forgot my laptop battery at work (doh!). There are some slow downs on the main PC but the laptop is screaming. I've manually turned everything off/set to minimum including lighting, texturing, shadows and animations. I've made some Windows tweaks including turning off translucency and minimizing background processes.

[Noxxy]

It's an honest shame you can't have the textures, et. al. turned up higher on the main box Twiz - the graphics do certainly make the game more interesting

I do admit - I run the slave boxes on the lowest setting as I'm just basically making sure they are still there (plus, I don't have to slurge on the $xxx hardware to keep those boxes running) - but the main box is where the money is and I have it cranked up till smoke starts to pour out of it

Not sure if it will help you much Twiz - but this tweak guide (http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html) is what I personally use and has some good advice in it to speed things up a bit

Victor - in Aust all the inet plans are basically capped - more money you spend, the higher the cap and/or the connection speeds - some caps just throttle the speeds back when they are blown, others charge a massive premium for each meg over so it pays to shop around a bit

[Twiz]

Thanks Noxxy, will take a look at that guide when I get home!

I've run the game before with everything close to maxed on the necro, so I know how good the game can look. I really didn't miss the high res textures though. I guess having my eyes glaze over while looking over 3-4 screens, I really don't register all the details as much. :)

I'm currently looking at upgrading soonish, though; I do a lot of 3D work and the desktop is starting to get a bit slow with a lot of geo flying around.

[Twiz]

As fate would have it, Frys is running an awesome sale right now:

Intel Core i5 @ 2.6GHZ (Newegg price = $200)
Gigabyte P55 UD3R (Newegg price = $140)

= $220ish for both!

I picked up this bundle + ram for $330ish.

Just a heads up for anyone who might be in the market for an upgrade. They had signs posted saying they were sold out. Find the ad in store and grab the item #; I believe it was on the top of the 2nd or 3rd page. Hand the # to a salesmen to check stock. They had plenty at the Renton store here near Seattle.

[Lokked]

If you don't mind ordering from EBay Corporations, The Ram Man (I think, some variation of this) sells Mushkin low-latency modules and is VERY cheap. At the time, I purchased 2GB x2 for approx 60% of market retail value in my area.

Also, I'm curious to hear how your networking issues have turned out.

[victor]

sorry to hear about your isp's in Aust Noxxy. in this day and age they should remove caps or make them a bit more realistic because downloading 2 video games, a couple of albums and a movie or two would completely knock you over the 16gbite cap. Sounds like gauging to me!

yeah Twiz hardware is getting cheaper no doubt. Some good deal around leading up to christmas. I'm going to update my main system but not until around february next year as Christmas is coming up and i don't want to over spend (haha). been looking at getting an i7 hyper threaded chip, an evga x58 board, 12 gigs of ddr3 ram and... i will review graphic cards closer to the time of purchase. maybe sli a couple of 275's or something. Best purchase i made recently was an intel SSD. Without a doubt the best upgrade i ever made in my life. I use that as my boot partition and run eq2 off it too. Everything else goes to the raided 1t drives for capacity not performance.

anyway, i hope that ghosting problem has gone for you.

[Twiz]

I finallly had a chance to run the team though CK and the lag was non-existent. I rebooted the router/modem and it seemed to fix whatever issue it was having.

So, everything is back to normal for the time being, just with an upgraded computer. Thanks for all the help and suggestions. :D