EQ2 - Got Keyclone/Innerspace working (few questions)

[Frosty]

This may be a silly question, but can you do anything in EQ2 without a full group..I have old memories of EQ1 grinding?

I played EQ2 a looong time ago solo, but didn't get to far into it.
I'm sure I could run a full group, but right now I'm not sure I want too. :P

But I have been thinking about taking a look at it again.

[d0z3rr]

I found that melee attacks and abilities do not break follow in this game! So that is pretty awesome, and would seem to make a melee team pretty viable too.

[Noxxy]

Hey Frosty,

Play with less than a FG? For sure.

I would highly recommend 3 chars for the best success. Typically you'd want a MT, Healer (chain or better) and a DPS. Following this suggestion, I highly recommend a pally, swashy and a mystic (or similar classes to these). The pally combination used to be my old setup quite a few years ago.

These 3 chars give you a good handful of the 'best' buffs to have, ie.,
- Pally
- Amends, AOEs, lots of taunts, the 10s shield (end of wis line), 100% fear resist (extremely handy when boxing), cures, heals, LoH
- Swashy
- Aggro transfer, major AAtk dmg plus major CAtk dmg, SMUGGLE!, EVAC!, some nice mob debuffs through AAs
- Mystic
- Wards, dog dog has a few nice buffs, some pretty nice healing especially when equipped with lots of overflow items

As these classes are all good too you can gate back to the same town (as opposed to a mixed group which would involve lots of running around to get back together)

You should expect to clear up to Karnors, COA, upper Chardok, etc. Dungeons with bosses of even con (lvl 80) or higher in the major heroic dungeons are 'mostly' out of the question though as 3 just isn't enough. What was happening to me a lot was I'd basically run out of mana as I couldn't put enough hurt on the bosses but you could have better success. I also found with some bosses that 1.5 healers (i.e., mystic = 1, pally = 0.5) just wasn't enough, especially if the bosses dropped major AOEs. To explain this better, the mystic is unreal at preventing damage - NOT - restoring HPs so if the boss basically one shotted your 3 stacked wards (pally ward + mystic group ward (pre-warded) + mystic solo target ward) then your going to be in a world of pain as the pally + mystic heals just won't be able to keep up. But, in saying this, I would also suggest that any other combination of 3 classes would also have similair if not the same problems with even con+ bosses.

Unfortunately, a group of 3 chars, no matter how well equipped, will find TSO dungeons incredibly brutal.

Using only 2 chars would mean that you'd go a MT and a healer - straight away we can see that some of the end-game dungeons are just ruled out and totally forget TSO dungeons. The classes I would go here would be again a pally and probably a warden (melee spec). This gives you a bit of everything with some 'ok to decent' DPS. I definately would NOT go something like guardian and templar as, shoot me now, the DPS will be so low that it would be a very long and sloooowww painful death.

Just thinking about it a bit more - 'most' of the successful FGs tend to have classes which specialise in an area, i.e., (MT = Guard, OH = Templar, DPS1 = rouge or mage, etc). The smaller the group, the more 'hybrid' classes become viable as the classes choosen have to double up and do the job of the classes you will be lacking. This is probably why I prefer going the paladin over a guardian for a less than FG as I am trying to get extra DPS and a little extra healing into the group. Something to think about anyway.

Hey d0z3rr,

For sure, think you will find that nothing really breaks /follow except a command such as /stop or hitting a movement key such as the up or down arrows (have mapped these as the slaves movement keys). Jumping doesn't break /follow either.

If you want to see some really funny stuff, map your slaves to the arrow keys, pull a mob and start 'strafing' your slaves. This also won't break the /follow and, if you have put the slaves on different strafes (i.e., half on strafe left when you hit left arrow and other on strafe right on left arrow), they will start racing around you and the mob in circles - bit of a larf. BUT, this is also extremely useful if you go a heavy rogue team (like myself) as CAs such a poke (def debuff) require the rogue to be in front of the mob whereas all the backstabs naturally require the rogue to be behind - so I tend to spin the rogues around a bit (if I have the room). It also is very handy to get your slaves out of the mobs ripostes (i.e., just hit the left/right arrows till they are safely behind the mob).

Be aware though, moving your slaves whilst attacking WILL interupt them so your DPS will drop till they stop again. Also be warned that moving between aggro'd mobs can give some incredibly funky pathing sometimes. What I think is happening is that the slaves are trying to face the person being /followed as well as autoface the mob they are trying to attack - this means that they start running all over the place (it's as if you were holding the left/right arrows keys whilst trying to run a straight line). To settle this down I tend to throw in a /stop, move the tank to the next mob, hit follow, all salves race in a straight line to the tank.

[Khatovar]

As these classes are all good too you can gate back to the same town (as opposed to a mixed group which would involve lots of running around to get back together)

Actually, if he's signed up with the RAF thing they have, there's a "GoTo" Option in the menu that will allow him to automatically port his secondary accounts to his main accounts once an hour. SOOOOOO handy. Of course, you wouldn't want to port say an Iksar to your High Elf in Qeynos, but I find it incredibly handy to send all my guys home and then just run to where I need to go on my main and have them all call to me.

Oh, and Frosty...EQ2 is insane with the number of quests you'll have. My husband and I duoed up to 70 a few years ago. A few groups here and there, but mostly just the Shadow Knight and Fury. We very often went in and duoed stuff in dungeons. We especially liked when we had someone to mentor, so we could go through older stuff and get AAs for it.

Your memories of EQ grinding...put them to rest. There's WAY too many quests to do to spend time grinding. It puts any game I've played to shame, really. This time around we are level-locking so we can complete more quests. There are just so many zones and so many quests in each zone that it's near impossible to complete a zone without stuff going grey.

I'd probably suggest you do the same for one simple reason...gear. The gear from the newest starting zones is very, very nice and you'll want to collect a good set of gear before you start trying dungeons. Once you do start hitting dungeons, you'll want to stay there until replace a good amount of the gear you came in with. You'll start seeing very early off that you need to upgrade when your healers are running out of power and your tank is getting some nasty damage. Handcrafted gear just doesn't stack up and Mastercrafted will cost you a lot. We locked xp at 10 and quested that way until about 13 I think {you get xp from quest turnins, just not kills with xp turned off}. Then we hit the dungeons. Since they all increase in difficulty as you progress deeper into them, we just turn on xp every so often and gain a level or two then shut it off once the easier stuff goes green. We also have been bouncing back and forth, doing the first half of this dungeon, then the first half of a slightly harder one, then going back to the second half of the first dungeon and back again.

XP off also allows more time to gain AAs, since mobs stay green {no AA from Grey nameds}. Having more AAs early off makes things a lot more forgiving since you've more tools to play with.


*babble babble babble*

Edit :

d0z3rr, the EQ2 mod community is really slim compared to WoW. The mods you need will be EQ2Map and you can go to eq2interface.com for other mods, but they will not be like WoW. They are mostly mods to change the way the interface looks {smaller windows, some different party bars, different skin colors...almost all of it is about removing the "deadspace" in the default interface}.

Also, there are a ton of new changes on test for follow, which seem to be made directly for us boxers.

http://patch.everquest2.com:7010/pat...ates_test.html

"Auto-follow:

- Your character will now swim up and down to follow the target underwater.

- Characters on auto-follow will always turn to face their target when auto-attacking.

- Players on auto-follow now follow up and down climbable walls.

- You may now /camp (and, incidentally, sit) while on auto-follow. If the person you're following moves (causing you to follow) your camp will be interrupted.

- The camera will now re-center on the person you're following only when you're moving."

That should make things even nicer for you as a melee-boxer.

[Frosty]

Thanks for all the awesome information!

Just knowing that things can be done with less than a full group is great.
I may try out 3 to see how I like it, then go up from there.

And I'll deffinately be going the RAF route.

[Lyonheart]

i am having hard time deciding what type of team to do/ i LOVE AE and Casters. IS a caster heavy group viable? I mean like say a tank/healer and 4 of the same caster? Also If i do less AE, Necros sound like they would rock to box! Pets and such. I hate melee classes, so want to try and do most my dps from casts if possible.

Classes i am thinking about. Some tank ( paly for ae? ) Or Shadownight if I go necros? Rangers? warlocks ( the ae kings right? ) Just thinking of classes I have played a tad ( nothing over 25) that i know I like.

[d0z3rr]

Thanks for the additional info Noxxy and Khatovar!

I'm really excited to get started, and the abundance of quests Khatovar described sounds awesome. I think it's great that you actually have to wind up turning experience off.

But what the heck are AA's? I see them mentioned alot and have no idea what they do, or why you want them.....

Also, for those of you who box 6 characters, how do you arrange the EQ2 windows across your monitors? Do you use a special program?

[Khatovar]

Lyonheart -

The thing about EQ2 is that every class provides different buffs. All of the same classes will actually really gimp you since you've got a ton of wasted buffs that don't stack. But, there's a lot of classes compared to WoW. And if you're going to run a full group, you will probably want 2 healers. 1 just simply isn't enough in many cases. So, yes, you could probably do ok with 3 of the same DPS class, but you would do worlds better with 3 different DPS classes and 2 different healers that all provide different buffs and strengths.

http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Class

d0z3rr -

AAs are kind of like Talent Points in WoW, but you earn them through things like turning in quests, killing named mobs, exploring new areas, completing collctions. So you can easily get several AAs in one level. Notice I say "kind of". They are in that they are points you spend for alternate forms of character advancement. They are, however, a lot more flexible than the ones in WoW. And a lot more powerfull, IMO. In WoW its like "you are not a healer unless you have these talent points". In EQ2, you're a healer without any AAs. You're a much more powerful healer{or nuker, or buffer, or whatever else you want to be as a healing class} with AAs.

And I use ISBoxer for boxing EQ. 2 monitors, 1 computer. They have a maximizer type dealio for setting up displays with Windowsnapper.

[Lyonheart]

"And I use ISBoxer for boxing EQ. 2 monitors, 1 computer. They have a maximizer type dealio for setting up displays with Windowsnapper"

no keyclone at all?

[Frosty]

"And I use ISBoxer for boxing EQ. 2 monitors, 1 computer. They have a maximizer type dealio for setting up displays with Windowsnapper"

no keyclone at all?

If you use ISBoxer (Innerspace) you shouldn't need Keyclone (I love Keyclone but I FRIGGEN LOVE WindowSnapper).

I paid the $10 bucks for a 90 day full version of Innerspace to toy around with.
Only thing to be careful is, if you think your setup might be doing something bad (ie pressing one button and sending 27 combos) then it probably is.

Innerspace is pretty powerful and can be used for "evil". But using it for "good" is acceptable.
Please note these "evil" features that Innerspace can do, are very useful in many other applications where it is acceptable. :thumbup:

Just use the ISBoxer addon/plugin and you'll be fine.

Edit - I love Keyclone the software...not Keyclone the owner...errr..ummm.. He's a great guy and all.. but I'm not that kind of snowman. :whistling: