The Shadow Odyssey

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Well we've got several shards apiece now so we're in bidness. Some of the missions are just way too much hassle to do grey for no experience so we're going to stick mostly to the easy "kill 10 mobs boom here's your shard" missions. My friend is getting the new expansion tonight so we might do some of the harder ones green and actually get some loot and experience.

Yeah, we're having a problem too with the defiler's DPS. Her level 57 assassin dungeon buddy has great DPS but he pulls agro just by sneezing and so he's taken quite a few deaths for the team so far. So far there's only been one boss that we can't burn down. The amalgam something in mirigul's. After about 20 minutes of his health bar out regenning our DPS, we just hit evac and tried a new one.

The SK with his Fury buddy is doing much better since I have all the taunts and good AoE damage. She does decent DPS but I burn those greys down so fast her job is mostly just to look pretty in the dungeon. He's DPS spec'd because until the TSO patch his DPS was pitiful. But they gave some love to the SK's and now he's very respectable. They took away my skeleton pet though. They replaced him with something much better which is cool. I used to call him "boner" so now we get some good laughs about my missing boner.

Overall the new expansion is very fun and it's well designed. I wasn't sure it would keep our interest but so far it's been a blast, and we've had some great laughs and it's been some good "us time". We joke about everything like her skirt flying up when she gets shot out of the cannon and last night I see this NPC chick booking through the commonlands and my wife who almost never curses, said "she's scared of your bear mount, and she's on the phone with 911 saying 'OMG it's a fucking bear'". You had to be there.

We're pretty convinced that we can duo some of the easier missions, and looking forward to doing a few of them green and levelling my friend up so he can start getting shards. He does so much nuking damage that I have to be a real tank and hammer the taunt keys as fast as they pop or he goes splat.

And Ari, nope we're not going to get sucked back into it like we were with EQ1. I'd like to think we're sociable and friendly so meeting people and being invited to groups and guilds wouldn't be a problem. But that's the issue; in EQ1 we knew so many people and there was so much going on that we never got much "us time", and it chewed up more of our days than we wanted to spend. Now it's so much more fun knowing we can camp in, do a few quests and go out to dinner, come back and do some mining. So it's not some flaw in our game play or some hurdle we can't overcome - most of the time we like that it's just us two. Still, if a few of the right people come along we might add to our guild eventually.

Woo hoo it's Friday before a three day weekend and I've been busting ass to finish a huge project so I'm going to slack off and do shards all weekend! I've got a triple-shot espresso, a vicodin and a bowl to smoke so I'm off the clock and baby needs new shards. Life is good.

[Kulaf]

The main issue I have with TSO is the fact that 60 AA's were added but less than 120 quests where added in Moors. So those of us who were at the AA cap as of last expansion really have no "good" way of getting AA other than repeatedly gridning shard runs or by using artificial means like mentoring and reclearing content from original release back before there were AA points.

I am hoping that the new content being released with the next LU will help to address some of the problem, but I doubt it will solve it.

[Taxious]

Woo hoo it's Friday before a three day weekend and I've been busting ass to finish a huge project so I'm going to slack off and do shards all weekend! I've got a triple-shot espresso, a vicodin and a bowl to smoke so I'm off the clock and baby needs new shards. Life is good.

I'm so jel...

Everyone always told me the last semester of college is the easiest - but it's definitely not been the case for me so far.

[Ddrak]

Yeah, we're having a problem too with the defiler's DPS.

Defilers are the lowest DPS class in the game. Best bet is hit the broker for DPS gear (like I told Ari). +spell damage, +int, etc. Spec for the dog dps. Get a mirror so you can switch specs for free - they're crazy cheap now anyway.

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

We had a long play session and dingged me level 80 (she's still 70% into 79) and we each got a piece of T1 shard gear. We figured a few things out getting the shards, and we went back into some unfinished instances and finished them. The SK was even having DPS problems against the grey named in Mirugul's but we figured out a way around having to kill them.

We can do the shard missions green mentored down to my friend's 71 warlock but the green nameds kicked our asses. But the yard trash was dropping ornate chests and my friend got a couple nice upgrades.

We were going a month at a time without playing but looks like we're interested again, since we need about a billion more shards, and it looks like casual players might be able to get good gear after all. Now our biggest problem looks like getting the master spells. Plat isn't really a problem (since we harvest a lot) so we're decked out in Adept III's but I really want to drop those masters. I imagine there's not a lot of players that can afford 200 plat for a single spell. Maybe when we're rolling in a full set of T2 shard armor (and jewlery) then those RoK dungeons will be cake, or at least trio-able.

The gift dire bear mount that came with the boxed expansion hits 52% run speed when you ding 80, which is nice because our guild is level 15 I think. And with the 5 mount speed AA's it's 62%. Still, I want that 65% mount (total 75% wooo) for 50 shards. We run around a lot and I've already noticed a big difference between 45% and 62%.

So far this is been a fun expansion. I'd almost go get in a shard group now (since the wife burned out and went to bed) but these instances look HARD. Do you guys think I could even tank the named in a group setting with legendary non-raid gear? The yard trash at 74 was hitting me for 4k. They gotta hit pretty hard at 83 or so. Seems like even a full group would have to be geared good to take down some of those level 85 named. You almost have to have the shard gear to get the shards to buy the shard gear - or cheat like us.

This is the most fun I've had since I got 10,000 headshots as a sniper on team fortress 2

[Ddrak]

Do you guys think I could even tank the named in a group setting with legendary non-raid gear?

Depends on which instance you're talking about. Should have no problem with the lower tier ones, but the middle or high tier ones we can sometimes have issues with even having a 20k tank and shaman+cleric heals.

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Yeah, someone said the one we were in - ever-something abbey - was tier 3. That was the one where the greens kicked our asses. How do you tell what tier a mission is or does everyone just know?

With defiler buffs I'm 12k hitpoints, 56% mitigation, 48% avoidance, 34% critical hit, 26% double attack, 40% AoE attack and 57% haste and about 800-1000 damage per swing non-crit. I'm not sure how lame that is.

We're going to get the defiler a set of DPS gear and mirrors for both of us, as you suggested (thanks!). What's the name of the mirror?

Any suggestions on easy named mobs that drop 70-80 master chests? We farted around in Sebilis and City of Mist but we were in over our heads and just wanted to check out the zones. And I've been scoping out which blue shinies I can solo.

[Ddrak]

There's a pretty good rundown on tiers here: http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:The_Shadow_Odyssey. but the quest givers give out the missions in tier order so the first is the easiest etc.

Evernight Abbey shouldn't be much harder at 80 as compared to the one you did. If I recall correctly it's scaling is pretty limited.

The mirror is Mirror_of_Reflected_Achievements, but look for "Reflective smoldering shard" on the broker because the mirror itself is no-trade so has to be made on consignment. Shards are pretty common now, so shouldn't really cost you much if you can find the tradeskiller to do it for you.

Don't forget to use adornments either, and scan your class board on eq2flames for tips. They can often mention things you missed for one reason or another.

Dd

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

We've had the discussions but a lot of the tanking has to do with the healers as well as the mobs. I'm in non raid gear but i am wearing 3 peices of shard gear and all legandary, and i have no mythical (which i'm not sure is a killer for the temp like with other classes) but i can solo heal almost any instance now, when i couldn't heal veksar not that long ago.

honestly, i'm loving eq2.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Yeah, it's a team effort for sure. In EQ1 I played the healing classes and she played the tank/dps classes and for EQ2 we've switched roles. So I know how important the healer is, but from being a healer I know how important it is to have a decently geared tank that isn't shy about mashing the taunt buttons and has some good skill as a puller.

So it's the same old story as EQ1. If you're good players than your limiting factor is the gear. At least with EQ2 the tank has a few more duties to make it interesting. I'm in charge of the evac (instead of some twitchy druid like EQ) and my feign death works on anyone in the group.

We love the defiler but we're thinking in the long run the fury might be a better dungeon buddy. The fury/assassin make a wicked duo but the assassin can't hold multiple agro and even if he could he wouldn't want to because of his backstabs so even the lower level dungeons are like some crazy game of ping pong.

So yeah, the driver is more important than the car, but having a nice car doesn't hurt either.

[Embar Angylwrath]

So yeah, the driver is more important than the car, but having a nice car doesn't hurt either.

And getting a blowjob from the passenger while driving a nice car at 110 mph aint half bad either.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

So yeah, the driver is more important than the car, but having a nice car doesn't hurt either.

And getting a blowjob from the passenger while driving a nice car at 110 mph aint half bad either.

Depends on what the payments are and how high maintenance the blonde in the passenger seat is

Ok, I'm seriously liking this new expansion. I'm wearing 3 pieces of the shard gear already and I just got 7 "insomnia shards" after the wife went to bed. They could make it so you couldn't do the instances greyed-out but that doesn't seem to be their intent. Only some of the daily doubles can be done grey and the bonus shards can only be done with level 80 instances, though I might have a way around that. All the missions favor a full group of level 80's and I'm fine with that - I just want my shards. Also, the mentored-down toons can't go to all the instances, although the alts are both 59 and we'll be doing the loping plains missions soon. But some of the instances are level 80 only.

I have most of the missions down to 5 or 10 minutes total - some of the dungeons I have to camp out and wait an hour for the thingies to re-pop - and we can both grab a handful of shards in a sitting casually. There's also an interesting anomaly between when the instances reset and when the quests reset, so sometimes I can time it right and get a new mission on a cleared instance, which means a shard with about 10 seconds worth of work.

EDIT: It's also great experience for the mentored down toons if you do it right. Some of the dungeons my assassin can get 10-15% of a level just by doing a suicide run though the dungeon getting the exploring experience. At first the wife was convinced I was a retard shouting "SUICIDE RUN" until she saw all the experience I was getting - now she does it too.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

OMG i didn't even think of the DD shard runs ! WTF ! I've been grouping for them tho at 80, i've done all the DD's that way, GOD you're smart ! lol

I was afk for about a month after TSO came out, so i'm still piecing together which runs are in which zones and which ones i have and haven't been to lol

[Freecare Spiritwise]

We've got a pretty good bag of tricks so far for the shards.

For the bonus shards my idea is to clear the dungeon when it's grey of all mobs except the key mob. Then we come back in both at level 80 and then duo the key mob. A single heroic white con trash mob shouldn't be a problem, though stuff hits really hard in those dungeons, and they've probably given the key mobs some extra mojo. But we'll find out. And so far the quest turnins are really good AA. I think we're up to 115 AA.

[Ddrak]

Key mobs are usually complete gimps. Yes, there's an interesting anomaly between reset times, isn't there? You can do the DD twice a day too if you're clever about it.

Dd

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

I was with a dirge and his 52 whatever, and ic an't kill a 52^^^. It's regens faster then i can do dmg =/ Maybe if i actually bothered to get an AA mirror i could do it, but since i never solo it seems pointless to have to get a mirror, go home, respec, go solo, call to GH, back to my house, respec, go to group, rinse repeat.

[Ddrak]

For clerics, the big difference is the gear you're wearing - especially your int. You'll do much better finding some int gear that has +dmg on it than you will messing with specs. The fact you can hotkey equipment changes now makes it trivially easy to switch your sets around too.

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

It's also interesting how they do the persistent instances. Looks like the server only keeps the instance in memory for an hour, after which time the instance is re-created. The mobs are re-created faithfully, but the other objects in the dungeon will reset. So anything you need to collect, click on or interact with will reset if you're out of the dungeon for about an hour.

And yeah, there's grey mobs we can't kill with an 80 SK and 59 Fury (nuking her little heart out). Not sure we ever will be able to kill them, but as I'm collecting new shard armor I'm watching my SK's DPS go way up. The crusader armor is good not only because it has the tank stats I want, but it loads up on INT and spell damage crits. I didn't think I cared about those stats until I started seeing my Death Touch crit for 21k damage.

So we're sticking mostly with the "low hanging fruit" which is good for about 5-6 shards a day a piece with minimal effort. We'll start 6 dungeons, go watch a movie, finish a couple missions, go eat, etc... Also, I've been randomly inspecting level 80's and pretty much everyone is equal now because everyone is wearing the shard armor.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

Erm... wis for power ?

[Freecare Spiritwise]

int is for DPS?

My SK isn't really a DPS class - I'm a tank - but having all the int and +spell damage crit stats on my shard armor makes my DPS almost respectable. My shard set also has + melee crit and + heal crit on it. Didn't think the heal crits would matter much since I have a healer but getting a crit aoe-lifetap has already saved my ass a couple times. So at least for the crusader armor I'm getting tank stats and dps stats which is sweet.

But it looks like the defiler and fury are hosed with the shard armor for any DPS. Looks all heal-spec'd which is probably what most players want though. At least the defiler can wear some of the assassin gear - the leather seems spec'd for monks which isn't what her fury wants.