I'm getting pretty bitter over GOD.
I'm having fun sort of with the challenge of GOD, but the design frustrates me to no end.

1) I hate the duration of the trials. They are too long unless you have insane amounts of DPS in a group. To kill 100 mobs in a Vexx trial, or even the crawl in the Tipt trial, simply put takes too long in one sitting to "proove" that you are capable of the next level. Vexx especially 50 mobs would have been sufficient. This isn't ldon hard+ but workable in 60-90 minute time span. This is often 3-4 hour time span.

2) I hate how much time you can "waste" to fail and not get the flag. You can spend the 3-4 hours clearing in tipt only to wipe at the boss. Or even in Vexx if you have a bad gate/pull at the end. Your talking a significant time chunk wasted.

3) I hate how much these trials push the holy trinity concept. War/Clr/Chanter(Though a slower will do "okay") are all nearly must haves in these. Granted groups have suceeded with Pally MA but the named are very close to too much for knights. I even know one group that suceeded with 2 druids (War/Pal/Necro/Dru/Dru/Chanter) And yeah shaman do sometimes replace the chanter. But I have yet to see anyone not want the trinity classes. Each group looks for a War, Clr, Chanter.

4) I hate how much having a Rezzer is required. I have yet to know a group that didnt have a single death. And it's not as simple as CRing after or eating the XP loss. Repops/etc make it impossible to do without Rez. And it is far far better to have 2 rezzers. because if your going with just a clr and the clr bites it. You have to completely start over. At this point I really really want Rez Wands 50% on merchants, or more classes to get XPless rezzes. After all, all of the vaunted utility clrs lack are buyable in shrink/invis/lev. (Wiz/Mage/Dru/Shaman all could have some variation of "summon"/"porting"/spirit calling explanation))

5) I hate how long a run you have to do for CR or just to get to these trials.
Give me a break. I don't want to spend 15 minutes just getting there.
ake the area by the sewers in Barindu Bindable for All.

I am enjoying the pulling and crawling and the challenge of this. But God is definately the most extreme love/hate expansion for me yet. I hate so much about it, it's not even funny.

Heh, we had to summon corpse the entire raid on our first Smith Rondo run (we killed him but got wiped by the fast respawn after). I must say it was nostaglic, but not in a nice way.

While I really like Gates overall, I think there could have been some compromises here. Part of the thing I don't like about pop and ldon is how there is no real "crawling". Respawn is either slow of nonexistent. I am enjoying Gates tremendously in that regard. I don't even mind the complexity of running to the zone. I don't think GY's were a bad thing though. Its not like anyone's corpse is going to rot in the depth of some dungeon these days. The only meaningful thing about summoning a raid full of corpses is the frustration it causes everyone. They could put that feature in if they wanted to make me happy.

Other than that and typical bugginess (and HORRIBLE lag in Barindu), I really don't find a lot to complain about right now.

Wait till you get to the Kodtaz first trial that basically needs warrior, enc, 2 clerics and 2 dps... lots of room there for a druid :)

Being able to bind in barindu sure would take a slight edge off the fustration of Cr's no doubt about it.

I find it pretty crappy that it boils down to having the specific class's to pass the trial. I hear there's a big stink on the paladin boards/sneak hide.

I myself have passed trial 1-5 so far, trial 6 however, my final trial for this tier,well I would rather not talk about this one right now, it seems to bring out my dirty words but I won't give up, hell no.

All in all I am having a blast in GoD. it makes you work, respawns are quick and you have to be on the ball , I love the challenge, I love being on my toes moving quick and thinking quicker.

I guess my only issue with these trials are finding the folks willing to stay in it for the long run, of course I play everyday all day, Would raid everyday all day if I had the opportunity but thats me and I understand not everyone is like me.

If you don't mind me saying corlathist ,don't let it fustrate you too much, try and find a different angle about the trials.exp isnt bad, if you fail you still have that, Heck , when I fail it only makes me a touch better with insight as to what went wrong and possibly how to fix it. I try to pull something positive out of it all :)

I'm pretty tired right now and going to stop my rambling but I agree with alot you posted.

I generally agree with Corlathist. Having taken a groups down into the sewers twice for an explore, with me as main healer, I could see the problems.

I've no issue with the expeditions taking 4 hours particularly, although it's not ideal. There are plenty of other long raids in EQ, and I expect doing one expedition for backflagging is still better than a full Saryrn raid say.

My first Vexd trial group had 0 deaths, and that's killing 2 namers, and a hasted enchanter pet breaking charm every other minute.

Trials are tough, but really not *that* hard. Not too mention if you have a chanter, you can cut your time in about half for trial 5...

This reminds me alot of the PoJ trials and how everyone complained for like the first two months of PoP about how tough they were and how you couldn't beat them without a cleric/chanter/warrior/roguesx3... The trials are tough, but guess what? They're supposed to be. If you wipe, pick yourself up, CR and go again. My first Tipt group wiped twice (thx Riddler), and had to restart once... but we pulled our **** together and after almost 6 hours in Tipt pulled out the big W.

All it takes is a bit of perseverance...

Trials are tough, but really not *that* hard. Not too mention if you have a chanter, you can cut your time in about half for trial 5...

Druids work just as well for this, if not better. The "a Hynid Ravisher" in trials 5/6 make great druid pets if you can find one thats level 60. They are snareable, mezzable, dont summon, and hit like a truck. :)

-Dragons, Nameless

Druids work just as well for this, if not better. The "a Hynid Ravisher" in trials 5/6 make great druid pets if you can find one thats level 60. They are snareable, mezzable, dont summon, and hit like a truck. :)

-Dragons, Nameless

And break charm every 2 minutes lol.

Its not that I can't do these trials. Having beat 1-6. But the requirements angle bug me.

Rez Wands even 0% wands plz.

And yeah, our guild is already looking at Ikkny Trials as Clr Clr War Chanter DPS DPS.

Holy Trinity batman.

I'd rather do a saryrn raid without warriors paladins and SK's than listen to people going about the ikkinz trials.

<3 Iegil :)

Wait till you get to the Kodtaz first trial that basically needs warrior, enc, 2 clerics and 2 dps... lots of room there for a druid :)

Not true, you don't NEED that. It might make it easier to have two clerics (though I honestly think that's debatable), but cleric + druid is very possible. In fact, I went through these with a group of warrior paladin enc cleric druid rogue and we won all 3 in 3 nights. :)

The two cleric thing isn't true. Kod'Taz trials are all about dps. Ideally, you would have a warrior, cleric, slower, dps, dps and dps. A druid in dps mode works nicely. Not to mention the "oh crap" bonus of having a nice heal.

Druids work fine for the 2ndary healer spot in KT trials, while two clerics is definatly nice for backup res, or the sheer amount of healing they can pump out is definaly nice, but 1 cleric + having a druid for DS, SoTW, ATK/AC/FR debuffs and BoTN is definatly a very very good alternative

Trials are tough, but really not *that* hard. Not too mention if you have a chanter, you can cut your time in about half for trial 5...

Wait till Ikkinz before you make that determination.

Also, all of you folks saying that 2 clerics aren't necessary for Ikkinz, I'm curious.. are you in guilds that have cleared Time more times than you can remember? That could be the issue I suppose, but with our warriors current gear set, tho good for Time, isn't cutting it for Ikkinz. I have every possible bonus to my healing to include max FT, max AA (AHA, AHG), Marr's Gift, 30% bene haste, Sylvan's Infusion.. etc and it still seems like our trials group have alot better time of 2 clerics than a druid/cleric. Also, have you been there since they nerfed charm in the zone, because I hear it was much more doable before charm nerf.

We've cleared time (killed Quarm) 5-6 Times, our MT had around 8300 HP when we beat DD....

We've cleared time (killed Quarm) 5-6 Times, our MT had around 8300 HP when we beat DD....

So I suppose we just aren't as skilled /tease

We just got to Quarm our first time last rotation, got him to 15% on the first try. We've got a "dream team" that has been trying Ikkinz a bit for the last week. They got DD to 33% on the first try with her, so I'm thinking we'll beat it soon. That group btw is CLR, CLR, WAR, ROG, NEC, ENC. I was on the first trip in, and it took us a few tries at the first Pixxt near ZI. The difference in size of heals just seems to make alot of difference.

I'm a druid that is equipt completely for healing. I have 6400 mana, 30% bene haste, FT15, 5 mana regen clicky, AHA3, AHG3, Sylvan Infusion, Marr's Gift.. the whole nine. I couldn't argue with the raw numbers though when our warrior parsed it. Basically, you have to be able to heal 1000 dps between the 2 healers. I can *just* do it with some luck with crits, but it went even worse with Nature's Infusion instead of Sylvan Infusion (I'm the only guild druid with SI atm). Two clerics is just a safer bet unfortunately, and I'll look at anyone that says otherwise with a smirk and a nod.

Recap: Can it be done with a druid/cleric? Yes, with luck on the RNG. Is it better to bring 2 clerics? Yes, very much so, to the point where many guilds don't even bother with druid as a backup healer as it's just too risky with the smaller heals.

I'm not lobbying for bigger heals, I'm simply telling it straight from my experience.

I know I have previous post on this but I would like to ask at what point a druid ( me ) is allowed to breakdown and cry like a little baby , like a broken man, huddled in a corner somewhere in the fetal position offering every peice of gear , pp and tradables on all his toons to get past his last and final trial 6 ? :evil:

LOL . I have made it to the end named on 6 a couple times now but still can't step foot into Kod' and hold my head up high, not sure how many more loses I can take before I'm standing in the middle of the street screaming and jumping up and down on top my GoD disk. :P

I'm sure though, after my breakdown I will pick up the peices and keep trying some more. oh and yes I hate trial 6

Thats not even the last one 8(

Recap: Can it be done with a druid/cleric? Yes, with luck on the RNG. Is it better to bring 2 clerics? Yes, very much so, to the point where many guilds don't even bother with druid as a backup healer as it's just too risky with the smaller heals.

And again, as stated above, I'll mention that out of 3 groups going at these trials, the one I was in, which was the only one with druid+cleric instead of 2 clerics, was also the only one to beat all 3 trials :D

DD took us 2 days to figure out, and the next 2 were won in a single night; all 3 of these were post charm nerf, too.

Second bad experience was tonight when my group did the Purifying Plant trial. We get to the end and lo and behold there's only 8 aged stonemites up. We kill all 8 but since there's supposed to be 9 the boss never spawns.

aybe you didnt do some part of the Trial. Ever thought of that ? :D It seems God is not only Fricking hard, its also puzzles !!!!

Some are fun. Some are anoying. But don't blame dev's before you're 100% sure you know you did the event like you suppost to. I know the event you aim at you have to hail someone and then the 9th spawns :)

- Mol

KoDTaZ/Ikkinz Singular Might down... Whew, a sigh of relief!

I can honestly say, I've yet to fail any of these challenges with groups I've been in.
Vxed / Tipt / KoDTaZ. Some have taken way longer than we expected, turned out to actually be challenges.

As someone who doesn't mind scraping his fingernails down the chalkboard just to feel his spine shiver I'd do it again.

GoD has been the most challenging expansion yet, with all the thrills of the old world.

Just out of curiousity (I'm not asking for specifics, but just a general nod if I'm in the right direction)...we've been working on Kod'Taz and the DD trial. No issues taking the DD down (well, nothing we couldn't solve), but then the Cruel Illusion popped out in the entrance hallway. We cleared wanderers, and then attacked her...she was popping all over the hall, hitting people, but could not be hit by any of us. Weird.

We thought we'd clear the room the DD was in and see if the Illusion would come there, but she wouldn't leave the hall.

So, the question...are we not doing something right, or is this a bug?

Sounds like a bug. When we did this (about a week back), the Cruel Illusion poped in DD's room and behaved normally, we killed it and got our quest pieces.

Only way to sort the bug when Cruel Illusion is doing that is to have a bard and try to highsun it back into the room.

How can you say GOD expansion its bad lol? Sure the farming key parts, trials etc.. can be a bit boring and get's really annoyingand and I have whined about it before. You have to see the raids though ! Sure a few are bugged here and there but there are one of the most fun raids I had in years. Bosses in raids had some really fun aes and it isn't just about CH chain on MT, druids heal ramp, MT tank mob, cc all adds type of thingie. It requires you skil and reaction time. Act 1 sec slower and you might wipe the raid!

How can you say GOD expansion its bad lol? Sure the farming key parts, trials etc.. can be a bit boring and get's really annoyingand and I have whined about it before. You have to see the raids though ! Sure a few are bugged here and there but there are one of the most fun raids I had in years. Bosses in raids had some really fun aes and it isn't just about CH chain on MT, druids heal ramp, MT tank mob, cc all adds type of thingie. It requires you skil and reaction time. Act 1 sec slower and you might wipe the raid!

You must get different raids to us then. Our raids consist of running into the room like headless chickens, wondering quite what to do, spamming heals on anyone who looks like they are being hit and either (a) winning, or (b) discovering the event is bugged, or (c) discovering that the mob can only be killed by a halfling ranger on an overcast Sunday morning in June. The possibility of actually managing to wipe on these raids due to not playing well enough is so remote that hardly anyone bothers exercising any skill at all.

Rofl Amonraset... that sounds oddly familiar....

Watching this debate from a distance (no longer playing EQ) it sounds funny. In previous expansions there was usually a 2-3 month period where everyone complained in very similar ways before it faded away. Examples include PoP's PoJ trials and LDoN's "hard" raids. Impossible! Usually two things change. First, people get better at them and have better spells/gear to approach them. Second, SOE might tone down the encounters just enough and fix the bugs.

Come back to this discussion in 2 months and see if you all agree with yourselves.

We have used some pretty mixed up groups for trials, you just have to learn to adjust. One thing for sure, 2 healers is basically a must for trial 6.

I have done trial 6 so much my head spins :crazeye:

But is a great feeling to get people through this and after doing it so much you get to go through everything that can possibly go wrong! :lmao:

Worst Expansion Ever!

I'm not one of those people who bitches about every expansion that comes out. In fact, I've loved every expansion (with exception to LoY which shouldn't count as one), but I absolutely HATE GoD. They took all the complaints that people had about PoP and re-used them but made them worse! Let's see, flags for starters (which I actually liked about PoP), but made a lot of them only getable in one group encounters that are extremely time consuming and pretty difficult and easy to fail. I remember lots of people hating the PoJ trials when PoP came out basically until they opened up pos/pov to everyone. So they make 5 hour versions of this that are 10x harder? That sounds smart to me :P.

Then there's the raid limits. I mean 72 raid limit is a good number in my opinion, but 54 is pushing it. Lots of guilds just naturally have more than 54 active members. It's difficult to have a high level successful guild without having lots of some classes cus let's face it, people are flakey and you can't rely on a lot of people to be there every day. I know there are elite guilds out there that have around 54 active members that play every day, but most guilds are not that lucky to have such participation and end up having 60-70 people on raids due to having many with lower raid percents.

Then the spell drop rate is ****. The new spells are ****ty, especially for druids. The new aa is pretty disappointing and the costs are ridiculous. I get the whole thing is about time sinking the players, but this expansion has gone way too far with that concept.

Almost forgot to mention the demands of specific classes that you MUST have. /Sigh, thought we were finally getting past that, at least in one group encounters. Why is it that every cleric/bard/ench ends up quitting or taking breaks all the time? Probably because they get overused to death!

I hate this expansion and for the first time I am actually considering quitting this game after 4 and a half years of playing it.

I'm calling them and asking for my money back.

I don't like how the trials take 4-5hrs to complete.
How the whole expansion is based around ele and time equiped guilds. I don't think ti's fair and I'm in a time guild. It's a worthless expansion, and I'm preparied to leave EQ if I don't get my money back, plain and simple.

I like GoD...

Our guild farmed time for about 8 months, so we were pretty well geared.

Sure its buggy, but all new expansions are, so nothing different here.

The raids are amusing, require thought sometimes, the trials are hard, the loot is decent for effort, even too good.

Spell drops and the insane cost of semi useless AA are the only real issues I have.

Quests are good, long and need tradeskills, and have stories and effects.

Hmm seems like its everything raiders asked for after LDON came out for casuals.

I dont recall asking to have to split my guild up into 6-person groups to dance through these trial hoops, telling some people that they'll have to do these things 10, 20 or 30 times just to get the others through, and to tell many of them that they will wind up having to sit out on the attendance-limited instanced raids... combine with the whack-job that has become class balance, with even more pressure on critical classes to show up than before... the time consuming bs of travel through multiple kos zones, especially for clerics who lack self invis and wind up dying on the way (it's inevitable, really) further slowing things down and frustrating everyone involved (cmon, even NToV was essentially one kos zone away, and that was easy to navigate even without invis...)

Sorta seems like exactly what we were *not* asking for.

And dont get me started on the masochists who somehow equate lengthy CR and corpse summoning with skill... it's not. Plus, I've been there, done that more times than pretty much anyone still playing this game, and hated it.

There's a lot of mistakes in GoD. Someone referred to it as the flip-side of LoY, and I think they're right. I expect that the zones will be mostly deserted except for a few diehard masochists in a few weeks, unless SOE does something to address these issues.

GoD was not meant to be a cake walk. GoD was meant for those guilds that have farmed Time for months to have somewhat of a new challenge.

There is a natural progression that guilds *tend* to follow. Luclin, (SSRA/VT), PoP content, moving up into the elemental planes, and then using the ele's to gear for Time. Now, once they have farmed Time gear, they can have something else to do.

If they made it another Kunark what would you do? Farm some mob over and over for an item you could sell in bazaar for a few plat? They have to keep the game moving, they have to keep people interested and show them new content, give them challenges, ITS A GAME, meant for winning and losing.

There are some people who expect everything to just be handed over to them, or have it so easy they can't lose ever, where is the challenge in that? Where is the busting your ass to beat X mob and when you finally do the great feeling of WE DID IT!!

On another note, Storm, if you are so geared to be a main healer, you are forgetting that you are still a druid, not the main healing class of the game, perhaps you would benefit yourself and your peers if you geared yourself to DPS as well as healing. You seem to be completely one track minded, when your class actually should think in a few different ways, not just healing. Have you even considered improved damage and AA that benefits your DPS??? Twice in this thread you have stated the same thing about all your healing AA and your healing gear and how you are completely centered around that, but in all honesty there is more that you can do is there not?

Perhaps your GoD groups do not work as well as other CLR/DRU healer groups because you refuse to do any other part of your class besides heal? Just a thought, continue whining now =)

Perhaps your GoD groups do not work as well as other CLR/DRU healer groups because you refuse to do any other part of your class besides heal? Just a thought, continue whining now =)

You are kidding right? Mobs in KoD hit so fast and hard healing is about the most important thing we should be doing.

sidney: Best change for winning a trial is a group with 2 clerics. A cleric/druid groups does not have enough healing power. Does that not sound a little wee bit weird. That 1/3 of a group are full blown healers and do not have enough healing power.

You think a normal group should contain 2 clerics ? and druids should not be able to backup heal in GoD ? What in your opinion should we do in GoD ?

CLR/DRU groups have worked in GoD. Its been proven, its worked. Of course its going to be harder, its suppose to be harder, that is the point.

Sydney, just out of curiousity what guild/server are you on?

Sidney: Pretty sure if you are a bit lucky and things go well you can win with a cleric + druid as well. Fact however is that most people rather wait an hour for a second cleric then take a druid and a cleric.

So it is safe to say that druids are not even wanted as backuphealers in GoD trials anymore. If a group needs 2 clerics to be able to do a normal part of progression. Not to mention the fact that spells drop there do you consider this normal balance and a good thing ?

You think clerics in time guilds are very happy doing the same 4 hour trial 15 times or more to flag the rest of the guild ?

Pretty sure if you are a bit lucky and things go well you can win with a cleric + druid as well. Fact however is that most people rather wait an hour for a second cleric then take a druid and a cleric.


This is just not true at all. A cleric and a druid can get through all of the trials without needing to rely on any luck at all. I find they work better in fact because 2 clerics is overkill whereas the druid can provide better DPS on the zone trash, plus the DS on the bosses actually contributes significant damage. Also the druids I know have the clicky from PoTime which is another bit of damage on the bosses (plenty of time to cast it while the tank is furious). More DPS to shorten the fights is actually important to ensure that the fight is over before the healers are oom.

Ive done trials with a cleric and shaman also without needing to be lucky.

I've actually done a couple as the only healer, but that did rely on some luck (and a couple of attempts) to complete them.

Amonraset, you are talking about Ikki trials? I'm sorry, I refuse to believe that you were sole healer in one of those (post nerf.)

Perhaps your GoD groups do not work as well as other CLR/DRU healer groups because you refuse to do any other part of your class besides heal?
When exactly are you not healing in the ikkinz trial named fights(ie the parts that matter since a bunch of monkeys flinging poo can manage the rest). Barring some really nifty weaponshield/furious combination i doubt you can do anything significant besides hand of ro and an orb click before you have to start healing. Sorry, but that doesn't exactly close the gap between cleric and druid heals.

I have done cle + dru groups for all trails and it has many times been better than the cle + cle as Amonra said.

I have solo healed first named in Ikkinz Trial 1(post nerf), and yes it was very depending on luck and it took 3 tries and it was a high DPS group (mag + rog + rog + brd + me + war).

Cle + dru is superior to cle + cle imo. Cle + Cle allows for low dps settings but that's about the only thing it does provide.

Amonraset, you are talking about Ikki trials? I'm sorry, I refuse to believe that you were sole healer in one of those (post nerf.)

I’ve been through Ikkinz trials 1(singular might) and 2(twin struggles) (both post nerf) as sole healer in a group consisting of cleric, warrior, bard, monk, ranger, mage, all among the best equipped on the server.

DI and Darb can help to cover the slack where the healing speed can’t quite keep up. SE (just before the start) and CR during the fight also help provide that bit extra healing. To be honest we had more trouble with the named in the zone than on the bosses themselves. Sometimes the tank just died because I couldn’t heal fast enough which is why a bit of luck is required.

In a “normal” group with a warrior, 2 healers, mezzer and 2 dps there are effectively 2.5 (counting the tanking warrior as a half) classes doing damage. Drop a healer for another dps class and there are now 3.5 classes doing damage, a significant increase which shortens the fights a lot and helps to reduce the luck factor.

If there is a cleric in your group, you arent the sole healer? I am confused ...

anyway cleric/druid own in trials IMO, two clerics is a waste...

and no way can ONE healer, either cleric or druid alone heal on the first named in any of the three Ikkynits trials.

If there is a cleric in your group, you arent the sole healer? I am confused ...

I'm a cleric.

and no way can ONE healer, either cleric or druid alone heal on the first named in any of the three Ikkynits trials.

I don't think a druid could do it. A cleric can manage it with some luck. I know because I have done it.

Some people are never prepared to take any risks, and so don't realise what can be achieved if you do. I'm not saying its safe or reliable, but if you are willing to risk a few deaths it can be done.

Not a Surprise, because with all the fixings in AA a cleric can hit upper 971 HPS.
Druid's max out at 622 HPS.

I've seen parsed of the mobs doing a little over 1000 dps to a high AC tank.
Given some luck on Crits, yeah a solo cleric might pull it off.

The problem is the base amounts of new HL is 545 and Druid is 340. Do the math together this is not enough. With the right focus effects, AAs, this becomes doable.
However, notice 545+545=Doable.

Simply put, you need spell haste to exist in this expansion. You NEED spell haste in this expansion. And Spell Haste for Priests is way way too rare. It's part of the basic Int Caster package.

You NEED spell haste in this expansion. And Spell Haste for Priests is way way too rare.

It's worse for druids. Druids only have 2 heal haste items available in PoP (FR belt and CT ear ... top end haste in PoP which equates to barely adequate haste in GoD). There is a haste aug in LDoN if I remember correctly as well.

Some people are never prepared to take any risks, and so don't realise what can be achieved if you do. I'm not saying its safe or reliable, but if you are willing to risk a few deaths it can be done.

Heh ... I'm a druid. Every group I'm in is sub-optimal. Our trinity folks are all flagged and we are working on getting the support classes flagged as well. This means groups with knights, druids, shaman, beastlords, etc. My ikkinz groups are generally very low in the dps department so I burn through a lot of heal mana with the cleric just to keep a defensive warrior up. If you have a druid in group, you are taking a lot of risks.

Ah, I thought you played a druid, AmonRa.

Ah, I thought you played a druid, AmonRa.

I guess I never got around to updating my signature after the move to these new boards.

hmm what was the buffed HP of your tank?

cleric, bard, warrior, monk, ranger, mage vs the first named in K1 and K2...

well grats for winning that with that group = )

hmm what was the buffed HP of your tank?


Im not certain exactly, but somewhere around 12k. Hes one of the top equipped tanks on the server.