Starting up a 3 box + mercenaries

[pox67]

I am looking to try out EQ2 again. I have been reading up on the changes and they sound great. I haven't played in about 5 years but did play for about 3 years in the beginning. I have been boxing SWTOR for about a year but want a break before doing another team.


Really interested in checking out the Beast Lord class as well as that was my favourite from EQ1. Also the idea of mercenaries in Everquest sounds intriguing and keen to try out the new Freeblood race.


I have a smattering of character from 30 to 74 but will start a new team. I prefer smaller teams as I like to be able to see what they are all doing, also I find the management of larger teams to be a drag - specifically the selling and housekeeping needed.


So my requirements are basically a 3 man team and utilising three mercenaries.
Other than the BL I am not that set on the other spots although I much prefer melee.
It is highly unlikely I will hit the level cap so planning for end game doesn't matter, fun and the journey is what I am looking for.


I am having trouble filling the other two spots in the team and looking for advice.
I still think I would be best off with a tank, BL and healer but that would mean giving up the group run speed buffs (bard) or group invis (Swashbuckler). Are those utility type things still a great help in the game?


What would be the feasibility of Mercenary healers?
That way I could go tank, BL, utility char (bard).


I have had a look at my accounts and seem to have a total of about 37 Platinum - is that still rich or am I poor due to inflation?

[Khatovar]

Totems can give you buffs like run speed and invis {single and group}.

I'm not multiboxing at the moment, but I do play with my husband +2mercs. He plays a Shadowknight with a Templar Merc, I play Fury with a Warlock merc. The Templar is pretty decent for heals and great for cures, but I do still need to throw out healing on the party at times.

I think that if you're not concerned with end game, just about anything will work. I probably wouldn't stack up on healer mercs, and I certainly wouldn't stack the same types of mercs. Something like a Warden + Templar + some sort of support DPS for mercs would work, but I'd pick your main classes first and then see what you're lacking. I can't really offer class advice at this point, though, since a lot has changed since I last boxed EQ2.

As far as money goes, it should be pretty easy to get. I've doubled my plat in the month that I've been back, and I've pretty much done nothing but tradeskill and dump stuff on the broker.

[Criels]

I started playing again a couple months ago and did exactly what you intend to do as far as seeing the content without being concerned about the end game.

As Khat said any class combination will work. The mercs give you a great deal of flexibility.

I have several teams from the 40's to the 80's and everything I've tried has worked. My highest is a Pally, Dirge, Wiz and in many cases I can get by with a single healer merc but have a dps and tank merc available depending on the situation.

I've found that I prefer running with a healer merc rather than having one on my team. The Inq merc does an excellent job ( best healer merc in my opinion at least as far as the regular mercs ) and about the only time my pally will need to throw a heal is on a very bad pull or I'm in over my head level wise.

I've used both the SK and Pally mercs for my dps teams and they actually hold aggro better than my played tanks which I would like to believe is due to better gear rather than my lack of skill.

The dps mercs are both a blessing and a curse. They extra dps makes kills much faster but at times you'll feel like you're in a pug full of idiots. I've lost count of the number of times they have pulled groups of mobs without any input from me.

The only utility spell I couldn't live without is "evac". Saves lots of running around when turning in quest and picking up quest.

About the only thing I would have done differently is started a guild at the start rather than waiting. I waited until a couple weeks ago to start my guild and will have it to lvl 30 this week sometime (guild hall available at 30) . If you plan on tradeskilling with multiple toons then the harvest depot will save lots of time with transferring of mats between toons.

[pox67]

Cool, thanks for the replies.

Do you notice much exp drop when using mercs?

I logged in some old characters to take a look around. There is a ton of new stuff in the UI, speaking of that what custom UI's are people using?
I noticed there is a slider for exp-AA. I figure I want to set it to the AA side to start gaining as much as possible - do people have a recommendation for this?

It is encouraging to hear that healer mercs are viable. Sounds like they might be the best fit as they are unlikely to pull mobs on you. That allows me to have a tank, dps and bard.
I'll probably try a team of just support/DPS as well, I can have the fun of crazy pulls while the mercs deal with tanking and healing

Not sure if I should wait for Age of Discovery to go on sale or jump straight in. I picked up some Station Cash codes from Ebay so my accounts are charged up - it would be great if we could buy the expansions with Station Cash.

[Criels]

Leveling is extremely fast so I haven't noticed the mercs slowing me down but according to what I've read they do take a percentage of exp and coin drops.

I'm using the default UI and have EQ2 maps which is extremely helpful.

I had the same question about AA and the recommendation was setting it to 80 to not miss any content. On my newer teams I decided to set it to 100 every 5 levels and finish all the content I wanted to do and then set it back to 0 for 5 more levels. I followed the zone, dungeon and quest guide here http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/EverQuest_2_Wiki:Main_Page to be sure I hadn't missed anything.

You need 280 AA to level past 90. You get two "baubles" to level two characters on each account to 280 when you purchase the CoE expansion so depending on the number of teams you'll be making AA grinding at 90 may not be an issue so AA locking will only be necessary to avoid leveling past content.

AoD is required for the mercs so you'll need that at the start if you want to use mercs. CoE content doesn't start until 86 (DoV expansion included with CoE) so you can wait on that.

Looking at your signature we appear to be running a very similar setup and as of this weekend I've run into a FPS problem. I'm running Nvidia Surround 5760x1080 (680 GTX), three clients 1920x1080 windowed on three 27 inch monitors. I'm using ISBoxer and it has worked flawlessly for 2 months rarely dropping below 40 fps ( most cases I'm running 60 to 80 ). Some of the higher level zones from the more recent expansions are giving me huge FPS drops and I can't find a solution. EQ2 is known to be poorly optimized but what I'm experiencing is unacceptable for my rig so I'm hoping I don't have to do something drastic and turn off Surround, drop resolution and stack clients. The problem is only occurring in certain zones but I have no idea how widespread the problem will be as I continue to level.

[pox67]

So you locked Exp to AA and then did all the zones for that level?
All the starting zones, then all the next level of zones...that must take a long time!

Doing that are you on track to have the 280 AA by 90? Very hypothetical for me but you never know.
Is AA capped per level?

Good to know I can hold off on CoE for the time being.

Actually the Sig needs updating...I know have two 2560x1400 27" screens powered by two 7970 3GB cards.
I was finding the 2GB on the GTX 670 was holding me back (SWToR). 3GB cards seem pretty good. I basically set each card to run one monitor so should be able to run three instances of EQ2 pretty high. I could have two instances of SWToR at max with this setup.

Not sure of the performance increase by dropping surround and stacking clients. It might not be so bad though as then you can create full screen VideoFX (think the name changed) in ISboxer and assign to the other two windows.

[Criels]

I'm locking the AA so I can run all the dungeons for those levels more so than the quest zones especially at the lower levels. You get AA the first time you kill a boss and the gear upgrades make the dungeons worthwhile. As I get those teams higher I'll probably run multiple questing zones to avoid a lengthy AA grind at 90 but at this point I have no idea how close I'll be to 280 at 90 going this route.

My current team at 83 only has about 150 AA and that was without locking AA at any point and moving on as soon as I out leveled the current content. There isn't a cap to how much AA you can gain at a level only how much you can spend. According to the threads in EQ official forums it's apparently easier to grind AA at 90 rather than worry about locking but I could see that being extremely boring so I figure I'll lock from time to time until I'm tired of seeing the lower level content.

I'll be able to boost two teams to 280 at 90 using the CoE expansion item and I'm not sure I'll ever get a third team to 90 so all my planning may be for nothing but if the past has taught me anything it's that I'll need a class that I didn't level in the beginning so having decent AA numbers on alts probably isn't a bad thing.

[Khatovar]

I use EQ2 Maps and DrumsUI for my interface.

Since I'm mostly just wasting time, I have my AA slider set to 99% {to AAs}. I also spend a lot of time hitting the chronomage and dropping my level down so I can obliterate lower level dungeons with just my merc. AAs just drop from the sky like that, so I probably won't even need to bother claiming the AA baubles.

As far as the XP/cash loss from mercs, I don't even notice. Things just go soooo much faster killing with them that it's really a waste of time not to use them. As long as you remember to suspend them when you aren't killing - it gets pretty expensive to stand around the guild hall looking like Beavis and Butthead.

[pox67]

Thanks for all the advice Khatovar and Criels.

Getting to do all the dungeons is a good idea. That is something I skipped when I played before and mostly did outdoor zones solo. Other than that I'll just follow the normal level progression from New Halas as I haven't seen that area yet.

To hit 280 by level 90 is about 3.5AA per level (after level 10) I'll aim for that and lock as needed.

I probably have about 2 weeks of SWToR to go to finish off the class stories and then I'll be in Norrath. Starting to do some house cleaning stuff with my old chars though.
I have chars on two accounts and they were all moved to Unrest (from Najena) at some point. Watching the server status it seems Unrest has a fairly low population. I am thinking of moving one character (with lots of money and loot) over to Antonia Bayle where the pop seems good. Not worried about groups but do want a decent economy.

[pox67]

Update on my adventures so far.

I started out with a 4 team of Bezerker, Warden, Dirge and Beastlord in New Halas. Dropped the Warden as I didn't have fun with 4 chars. Got to level 20 refining the ISBoxer set up but just wasn't feeling the team.

So I went back to my day one level 75 Swashbuckler and a level 30 Warden I had on another account. Made a Bruiser to eventually take over tanking duties although the mentored Swash is an unstoppable force at this point. I created a guild called Starfall Buccaneers and some pirate outfits for the team and I am having a blast.

The Bruiser is now 28 ish and I have just been doing content I haven't done before - Condemned Catacombs, Firemyst Gully and cleared Crushbone Keep. Everyone is getting lots of AA which is helping play as a 3 box.

As for Mercs I am using the Dirge full time for run speed and buffs. The Inquisitor was great but I ended up getting CE version of CoE for my main account and using the werewolf Templar. Krivox is awesome and heals/cures/rezzes really well.
The Dirge rezzes very quickly as well when needed.

For the third Merc I settled on the Ranger. Does some great damage and generally stays out of the way. He can pull agro pretty quickly though but Krivox looks after him.

I tried the Mystic Merc for a bit but he was terrible, no healing and no rezzing and looked to be just auto attacking.

Unrest server has a good community and there is always lots of stuff on the Broker and things sell ok. Stuff on the broker isn't as overpriced as I thought so money hasn't been an issue.

Even for someone who has played this game on and off for years there are so many systems and things to keep track of it is daunting. Having lots of fun though.