I need advice.

e: Experienced player to 65, was in pop uberguild doing PoTime before anything better was available. Quit playing.

y Char: halfling Druid, 52, 5AA, newbie guild, alt specced

Gear: 150k plat in bank. FT12. Drones of Doom arms. Extend Range IV, Mana Preserve II, Burning Affliction IV, Improved Healing III, 2300hps unbuffed.

What I've done so far: Soloed to 45, 50% grouping since then. Focused on Hot Zone xp. Lately, in Dragon Necropolis(Spiders).

Tradeskills: Smithing 36, Tailoring 66

Possible Goals: Get my tailoring up a bit. Get first 6 AA at 52, then go to 55 and get 12 more for SCM3, then level to 60 and get some healing/crit nuke AA. I thought I'd hit DN after 52.

Question: What should my goals be? How should I evolve my char. Where should I level at, assuming small groups of 1(solo)-3 people. Are there regular quest raids I should try to join? (Always someone asking for people for Dain)

I think the only person who can answer what your goals should be is yourself.

Do you like raiding? soloing? tradeskilling? casual grouping with friends? It all depends on you as to what you want out of your character. It's once you decide on what you want that people can then help you with advice.

i.e I have 2AA - Are you implying you want more AA? Or methods of getting AA in a group situation? or solo situation? or what to train? It's virtually impossible for anyone to help you until you decide on what you want.

I think the only person who can answer what your goals should be is yourself.

Do you like raiding? soloing? tradeskilling? casual grouping with friends? It all depends on you as to what you want out of your character. It's once you decide on what you want that people can then help you with advice.

i.e I have 2AA - Are you implying you want more AA? Or methods of getting AA in a group situation? or solo situation? or what to train? It's virtually impossible for anyone to help you until you decide on what you want.

Its been a while since I played. There is so much new content. My old ideas about what to do next might be outdated, which is why I'm seeking some guidance here. I enjoy raiding, but I'm married now (Thanks to my long break from EQ, I was able to commit to a relationship enough to get married. Let's hope I can maintain it while playing, lol). I like soloing mostly, and getting cool gear.

I do want some AA, but I'm not sure, I hear the aa system has changed, it used to be best to AA at 60, since at 65 you had to fight major hard stuff for good xp, but at 60, it was pretty easy. I don't know when to get my AA, or how much to get when. I have a pretty good idea of which AA's I like first. I'm also not sure what's the best method now, with rest, and the easy availabily of FT gear. Should I be quadding, rotting, single nuke kiting, or charming (am experienced with charm, levelled 45-60 w/charm in the past)

Its been a while since I played. There is so much new content. My old ideas about what to do next might be outdated, which is why I'm seeking some guidance here. I enjoy raiding, but I'm married now (Thanks to my long break from EQ, I was able to commit to a relationship enough to get married. Let's hope I can maintain it while playing, lol). I like soloing mostly, and getting cool gear.

I do want some AA, but I'm not sure, I hear the aa system has changed, it used to be best to AA at 60, since at 65 you had to fight major hard stuff for good xp, but at 60, it was pretty easy. I don't know when to get my AA, or how much to get when. I have a pretty good idea of which AA's I like first. I'm also not sure what's the best method now, with rest, and the easy availabily of FT gear. Should I be quadding, rotting, single nuke kiting, or charming (am experienced with charm, levelled 45-60 w/charm in the past)
Well first of all, congratulations on getting married. As far as raiding is concerned, getting to level 75 will open up a lot more opportunities for you. You should check out the different guilds on your server regarding raiding. Some guilds raid 4-5 times a week with high time commitments, others not so. Again it all depends how much time you want to commit with that though by the tone of which you have mentioned your relationship, you do not want to get into heavy raiding. Many people who do can manage both fine, though it's a lot harder then if you were in a more casual guild.

As far as soloing is concerned, there are many threads on these forums regarding that and even nice soloable gear you can try for.

As far as AA is concerned, I think there were changes to the system making it easier to gain AA at lower levels. Personally I have found getting to level 75 first allows you access to the most powerful druid spells (especially how the TSS spell system is designed how you can just buy all your spells at rk1). It also opens up more opportunities with grouping. And your right, ft is a lot easier to come by these days.

As far as methods of killing is concerned, the quad kite is dead and buried. With the out of combat medding, nuking is a lot more feasable (A lot of people do both dot / nuking). Charming is more of a preference thing, some hate it, others like it. With places like Direwind / Icefall, and newer expansions like TBS, they have added a fair number of flagged animal mobs for which charm works on.

Welcome back! There's a lot more variance in guilds nowadays (in terms of who can do the higher content).

Used to be only the 6-7 day a week guilds were the ones in the end/close to end zones. Nowadays, there are 3 day a week guilds in the end parts of TSS expansion (which is just 1 expansion off the most recent one). There's lots of 3day a week guilds in Demiplane or Deathknell and even more in Anguish. It doesn't take much these days to get to Anguish level at least.

BUT if you like to quest, solo, tradeskill (do it all), you may not want a guild that raids more than 3-4x a week otherwise you'll never have time for it. Guilds that have those requirements may not require you to raid .. but you'll miss out on flagging opportunties if you don't go so it's a catch 22. So might be better to go with a guild that raids a little less often so you have more time to do those extra fun things.

That said, you might have a little bit of work to do before you are up to that level anyway. But check out the guilds on your server (that's always a good start) to see what they look for.

I can't address the AA thing as I'm one of those *gasp* nasty clerics :)

There is also a lot of variance in required raid attendance rates.

For example, on my server there is one guild that raids only 3 days a week, but members are expected (required?) to show up to most of those raids. My guild raids 6 days a week, but on average our active members only make it to about half of them (and we have no minimum attendance levels to remain active). Both are relatively high end guilds.

I thought I'd work up to 55 or so and try and get some planar progression taken care of. Plane of Justice, Plane of Nightmare(b), Plane of Disease....

Should be easy if one or two 75's tag along.

Once you get higher in level a whole range of quite nice groupable gear opens up through both TSS expansion quest armour and TBS expansion mission merchant armour. Until then doing DoN missions and purchasing armour from the merchants for that may be a good goal!