The cronology.

1) OoW is released.. the following week I get three groups in WoS and get lv 66. 4 rune drops went to Monk, Bard, Enc, Enc. 5 Item drops went to Cle, War, Enc, Pal, Enc. no NBG and everyone wants the items for their twinks.
2) At lv 66, my exp per kill drops almost in half everywhere besides WoS.
3) I have sat LFG for hours since then in WoS and not gotten any groups for over a week.
4) Every time I put up my LFG I can go away and read a book and wait for some BoT invite since that is the only groups inviting. (BTW last 3 leather tunics in BoT went to Enc, War, Rog. No more NBG.)
5) Have formed and join over a dozen expeditions and seen 3 runes drop which went to Enc, Cle, War. Admitted they need them but 7 PH in a row or no rune drop gets old. And now Murk is "Fixed" to where you can't farm there.
6) Shut regular exp down to 10% since AA exp dropped to half and need to bank my AA's while I still get exp for kills.
7) Tried other zones but just sit in new location LFG with no luck.
8) Most of guild didn't buy OoW or is busy working on their epic so no time for expeditions or WoS groups.
9) Spend most of time soloing mobs that can kill a druid very fast, are snare/root proof or summon. Get tired of running from light blues and greens and can't solo anything that drops something I can use.
10) When I was in WoS, was puller and got tired of bards stealling my pulls or people grabing them the second they spawn even when they were camped.
11) Animals... Rats, Bats and Chimera (uncharmable).
12) Blue, LB and Green summoners with fast and nasty DoT/DD and snare.
13) Trash mobs outrun or keep up with SoE.
14) Average two deaths per night and some without rezes. Went from 2 yellow into 67 to one in the past week.
14) No need to get levels since I cannot get runes for spells. Is a lv 70 Druid with no OoW spells or gear really that much more uber than a lv 65?

/agree

When SoE gets off its' collective arse and does somehting about the rotten peeps who make a REAL LIFE living from EQ by selling plat/items for RL cash...then and ONLY then will EQ return to its' former glory.

It's these RL farmers spoiling it for everyone. The EULA needs to be re-written with a penalty of lawsuit for anyone selling anything game related.

Sony needs to put stealth GM's in busy zones just to record what goes on there. Bards KillStealing/HiSuning mobs is about the lowest of the low. (good job bards...you'll be nerfed soon and ruin in for everyone!)

As for the time-sinks of the new epic quests...I thought SoE said 'no more time sinks'...and then launches the druid epic 1.5 with foraging a rare..../flush the statement of no more time sinks.

SoE is actually GLAD it has enticed back the retired players....who havn't got a care about REALLY playing the game. The retired peeps are the ones who speed thru the content wothout really *enjoying* it. SoE seems to design the new expansions for these peeps who return for a couple months, screw up everyone else's fun, then 'retire' till the next expansion. The zones are death traps without ryme or reason for the very hardf hitting mobs...no reason untill you remember that the 'retired' peeps are so far beyond the rest of the player base that in order to give them a challenge you need to kill off the rest of the server to green summoning, snaring, unstunnable/chamrable mobs.

absolutely not OoW is my favorite expansion to date, i no longer go to BoT or do any Ldon.. Sure i have to wait up to 30mins for a grp but believe me it is worth it, i have received many items and at least 6-7 runes so far.

So far, I have found OoW to be one of the better expansions. There are many new, creative fights. Like last night, we did a trial where the enemy was a guild of epic weilding NPCs that had just killed a named and wiped. They ask you to leave, and when you don't a war breaks out between them and your own guild. You get waves of people from this other 'guild' as they 'rez' and 'call for reinforcements'. Now that is an original fight. We also fought Zun'Zuram, who you just have to try to understand why he's something new.

There are also lots of small group named, it's not too hard to travel, and the epics and aa's were (for most) actually useful. The epic quests really aren't that bad. Our guild already finished 30 of them, with several more close to being done. In Kunark, people were just now figuring out how to even finish the epics. They put in chests with droppable gear as incentive for people to help with epics. Other than a few steps, I have not since nearly as many huge time sinks for the epics as the old epics. I didn't have to sit in line in Karnors for 2 weeks (using friends to help) or sit on the spires in the middle of the ocean for 48 hours straight.


I haven't found the spells to be overly rare. Between soloing in NC and groups in MPG and RCoD, I have gotten all of my 66-68's. I STILL don't have SI from GoD, and my guild has spent the majority of our time in GoD since about 1 month after its release. The spells seem more attainable than PoP and way more attainable than GoD.

Most of the problems I have with the game since OoW's release have little to do with OoW's design and more to do with other factors:

The lack of animals is a problem, and I hope would be fixed. This is nothing new to this expansion sadly.

A lot of problems were created by Level 70, but not because of OoW's design, but due to side effects. There just simply aren't that many places in the game that are good exp at level 70. At 65, you had 2 expansions worth of spots with near-even-con mobs. Many old exp spots are now poor exp. Not making LDoNs scale up was a mistake. They were a great place for people to find quick pickup groups. So, the few spots that do have exp and drops (WoS, RCoD, MPG) are fairly heavily camped. Because there are less places to exp, there seem to be less groups looking for more people. EQ2 and WoW betas and an awful GoD release also hurt numbers looking for casual groups a lot.

Another problem is that even AA exp is slower at 70 than it was at 65. 65-70 is the only time where AA exp / hour actually goes down. Part of this is due to being 70 and having less high-con exp areas. Probably a bigger factor is that the con system and exp system have never really reflected mob difficulty and it became more obvious with GoD and OoW. If exp was based on the HP a mob has (high in OoW compared to same level mobs in pop), their abilities (ramp, selos run, aes, unmezzable, unsnareable, etc), and damage output (early GoD mobs would have been so much more exp), exp in at 70 in OoW would be better than PoP was at 65. But it's based purely on level, so...

Anyway, there are some bad things related to finding groups and getting exp, but those are more side effects. The expansion itself was actually way better than most of what they've released lately in my opinion.

Hmmm.... some really long posts here. I'll keep mine pretty short.

I think OoW is a very good expansion -- much better than GoD when it came out. I raced to level 70, although I admit doing it mainly in Vxed. So far I've only gotten 2 runes, but that's no problem. I'll get the rest eventually. Epic 1.5 has gotten lots of attention in my guild. We have several people that have completed theirs, and others are well on their way. They seem to have fixed the chest spawns on Epic 1.5 raid encounters.

I think people overstate the issue of the Murkglider 'nerf'. Sure, it's almost impossible to solo in since the patch. Nevertheless a good group can make it to the Silentpaw/named Murkglider spawn camp in fifteen minutes give or take depending on the number of see invisibility mobs.

I find the AAs pretty desirable. I'll finish almost all the OoW AAs before returning to complete the GoD AAs.

The key reason I like OoW is that I'm having fun playing it. GoD was a pain in the patootie when it came out.

Thicket

OOW is my favorite expansion to date. Others have posted why.

The worst thing about oow is that it lets every idiot into the zone rather than requiring flags or keys. Other than that (and the contined disposition of asstastically high runspeed mobs) it's pretty good.

Sony needs to put stealth GM's in busy zones just to record what goes on there

Shame all their Gm's are located in India now and have problems conveying something simple like " How can I help you?"

Doubt they have the language skills to understand what the heck is going on in a actual "zone." Infact I don't think these new India support people even know what the heck a zone is.

Try talking to one lately?

Toprem has!! Lozzle

I'm not personally a big fan of OoW.

It's undoubtedly a good expansion for bazaar traders, for multiboxers, and for pickup-groupers. I'm none of the above, so I've been playing twinks since it launched.

In a few months' time I plan to gear up some twinks using the WoS attunable loots, once the price of those has gone through the floor. I see little incentive to play my main, though.

I enjoy OOW.
It's easy to form groups there, in most places i can be main healer.
It's open up new group make up, necro is your best group mate as druid, you will almost never run OOM when a necro pumping MW on every mob.
And be active don't sit LFG,

/who all lfg paladin
/who all lfg War

/who all lfg Shaman
/who all lfg Ench
/who all lfg Beastlord

/who all lfg Necro

Pick one from Group A
Pick one from Group B
Pick one from Group C

And yes sometime it take 30+ min to make a group.

And the buety of it all is that when you make the group you make the loot rules.
normal loot rules for me
Runes and Items are diffrent items
You win Items you no longer rand for Items untill everyone got an Item
You win Runes you no longer rand for Runes untill everyone got a A rune
Once three member left the group the loot pool is reset.

Be fair play druid to the max and you will get good reputation and get group invite from ex group members.

As for runes
You want runes you can get them in 3 ways
1) get from groups
2) Farm PP and buy them a druid can make TON of PP in OOW (DC charm in darnik is at least 5k per hour)
3) team up with one of those slower/pet class/tank and farm NC Named or do expodition

My biggest worry is not what will happen with level 70 runes but i will wait 6-7 weeks when my friends and me will be level 70 with most of our OOW spells and if by then we wont be able to kill mobs that drop level 70 runes then i will be worried.

OoW for me is one of the better expansions, of course those stuck on WoS for the most part do not enjoy this expansion fully... but it seems like a good way for casuals to gear up not to mention that farming spells is way faster than other expansions. I love MPG expeditions, they are challenging and fun..

To those people in WoS they need to explore other zones like RCoD and BF... anyways, im happy for the casuals, since they get cool stuff easier and faster, and we raiders get good and challenging raid events.

The expansion itself is good but a bit small and crowded. But overall for someone not in an uber guild it is booring me silly. Especially when you get trained 3+ times a night no matter where you try to hide in a zone. If you are in Time/EP gear you can solo the mobs and get runes eventually. I am more of a grouping druid and although I can get a rat and spend all night in DS soloing that doesnt make it worth my time.

The good news is druids are so rare on my server any more that raids actual look for them.
The bad news is the old guilds are disbanding and the best of the best are being recruited for the new uber guilds and only need druids for older content or Kiting adds.

The good news is EXP in OoW is good.
The bad news is, so what? If I get trained and die 3 times it kills that hour I spent soloing. If I pull a named and a bard comes and takes it then what? What can a lv 70 do that a lv 65 cannot? Previous expansions 5 levels changed a lot. I see lv 56 Clerics and lv 70 tanks in the same groups now.

The good news is the mobs are separated by levels.
The bad news is that a green mob can kill you, out run you, summon you and snare you. Although usually it is blue mobs that kill me, green can still hit for 300+.

The good news is that you can travel most of the zones invis.
The bad news is some see invis mobs have huge agro ranges and agro through walls.

The good news is that there are very nice drops.
The bad news is that there is no more NBG so you have to compete with 30+ people on a raid or 6 people in a group for one drop.

The good news is there are fewer people.
The bad news is they won't form groups unless you already have cle/enc/bard etc.

The good news is most of the AAs are useful.
The bad news is some should be lower levels and less costly.

The good news is you can get lv 70
So what?

The good news is there are new zones.
The bad news is you can explore them all in one day except for the keyed one.

The good news is that some people like OoW.
The bad news is many will never be able to solo there due to mobs being overpowered for level and cannot find productive groups there due to crowding.

No, I did not say OoW was Buggy or horrible. I asked if anyone else saw it as a waste of time. How many will still be thrilled by it next month or the following months till the next expansion/EQ II or WoW come out. They delayed the release but I do not see where this expansion fixed any druid problems or mad the game FUN for casual players. The raid players can raid more but how long will that be new and exciting.

The good news is I have had 5 PoP Raids and One OoW Raid actually looking for Druids since OoW came out. The bad news is on Three of those raids I was the only druid and on the OoW one there were 3 druids and one bard among 6 groups. The two other druids on the OoW raid had their epic 1.5's but didn't use them since our only job was kiting non-snareable/rootable/mezzable adds.

No, I did not say OoW was Buggy or horrible. I asked if anyone else saw it as a waste of time

To which a lot have people have answer no, they dont think its a waste of time.

As for the time-sinks of the new epic quests...I thought SoE said 'no more time sinks'...and then launches the druid epic 1.5 with foraging a rare..../flush the statement of no more time sinks

I can only assume you didnt do the epic v1 if you think the 1.5 epics are time sinks. You can solo the druid epic up to the part in natimbi in 1 session. Epic 1's you could spend 12hrs just waiting for a named seahorse in kedge and you would need a group with you at the time. VSR, Fay etc were all on weekly timers, a whole week, not 2 hours like the new epic. The longest camp was foraging the moss in EJ, I guess that took maybe 2hrs. If I wasnt so cheap I could have bought Natures Bounty and 1/2ed that time.

I spent 10 times longer getting the tunare warden symbol quest series from lesser faydark than I have on epic 1.5 and im upto the final mob.

One thing I think Sony got right with oow is the fact named mobs spawn a lot. Everyone likes killing named it makes for a brief 5 minutes of excitement in what would otherwise be a boring xp grind. Named mobs poping every 20 minutes was a good idea, and made the spells obtainable to all.

You can take 2/3 players into NC and far runes. It takes a while, but if I remember rightly 4 weeks into PoP I certainly didnt have any 63+ spells and only a few of the 61-62's.

I am really enjoying this expansion. The equipment upgrades alone are worth it. Duoing with my BST, I have gotten all his 66-68 spells and have enough runes for most of mine. Everyone concentrates on WoS / PG, but there are plenty of other zones to look in for xp and runes. I am loving this expansion.

i'm curious what you dont like about the exspantion on your main shadowfrost, i'd agree that a lot of zones dont really push well geared clerics with tanks but with a good grouup riftseekers can still be pretty fun as a cleric imo, even north MPG can get hairy if you dont have a real puller

Yep I love OOW to.. now clerics can nuke almost as well as most of us! (until we get a few 69/70 runes which for most druids will be a long way off) And my P3200 with 1.5 GB RAM and a radeon 9600 runs like a dream in BF and RCoD!

/sarcasm off

no NBG and everyone wants the items for their twinks

Your point? NBG sucks anyway, if you want gear learn to farm money and buy it. People that farmed runes in Murkglider cave exped suck, grow some testicles and go get a manly expedition in RCoD. Also, WoS is not the only place to get exp in OoW, infact its the worst place. WoS is neo BoT, everyone left BoT and went to WoS, literally. And exp in the EPs is still decent, especially at PoFire.

Alua, diafb kplzthxbye~

I love the OoW expansion. The bugs have been fewer than any previously released expansion I can think of so far.

If you are only basing this on your experiencing in WoS, then you are very short sighted. I have to agree with the above poster, WoS sucks for exp. About all it's good for is loot and then there is even better in other places. WoS is just the place where most people stopped and dropped.

Right in Dranik Scar you can get easy expeditions that have named rune droppers. I spent a few hours in there one night and our group got something like 7 runes. Sure, we could have done better in WoS as far as loot maybe, but the exp was nicer and we didn't have to worry about being trained.

If you want real experience and a challenge, head to RiftSeekers. Just make sure your chanter has Euphoria, or at least be a fast rooter :whistle: With a good group the aa exp was flying in this zone at lvl 70. Granted you have to be lvl 69 to enter the zone. The groupable named drop decent loot (mostly elemental lvl) that is no drop so no sense in looting unless you can and will equip.

If I had it my way, I'd trash the GoD expansion and never finish it :) OoW just has so much to offer.

I agree with most of the posters here. OOW is a great expansion so far. It has issue but those have been worked around and fixed in most parts. The expansion offers content to the casual player and as well to the hardcore player. It also offers content for lower tier guilds as well as the high end guilds.

It offers valuable AA, upgrades are easy to get for most, and also offers valuable spells. I do not find this expansion to be a waste of time at all and I am enjoying it very much so far.

Ok, guess after having played for so many years I was hopeing for SoE to finally come out with an expansion where druid issues were fixed. When GoD came out my son and wife canceled their accts and I never installed it on my acct due to druid issue as I perceived them. People got mad at me because I didn't cancel my acct and keep my wifes cleric acct which didn't make me feel like even buying GoD. With the summit and the the forums I had hopes that OoW would be better. They fixed a lot of problems with GoD and held off OoW which looked promising so I hung in there.

OoW is a good expansion in that there are fewer bugs. There are some good AA's. Personally I don't see where the spells are much of an upgrade but then I don't have any of the GoD or OoW spells or gear. It does add some new zones which are unique and well designed. It does have instanced zones for private hunting.

I personnal give up though. EQ will never be the same game and I will not pay the 65 - 100kp each for runes to get my spells. All of the people that I played with have either quit or guilds have disbanded. The few friends I have known for years have moved onto uber guilds that either raid the planes privately or raid late and I have to leave mid raid. If I had gotten a rune or an equipment upgrade by now maybe I would have been more enthusiatic.

Topren blasted NBG as a bad thing but although I am not a major supporter of No Drop this expansion has shown where it would be better than the greed that many people are showing. If every time something that he wanted dropped and he had to lotto against 6 to 60 people and lose something that nobody else in the group/raid can use he might reconsider. But obviously he is a farmer and feels that raising the 2.5 million pp to buy spell runes is easy for casual players.

When EQ came out it took me two weeks to get to the boat in Butcherblock and another month or so to work accross to Quenos. It took less than 2 weeks to see all of OoW except the locked zones. The idiots training even out of the way areas and see invis mobs that agro through wall making random death common is becoming normal and accepted. We had an epic raid wipe 7 times the other night because of one bard that kept training the MPG zoneline where they were trying to take down a named and then repeately training the CR. When they finally gave up and started summoning corpses to the other side of the zone the CR was trained there twice. Fortunately I only died 3 times because of inate camo.

Everyone seems to agree that OoW is wonderful. Personally I must be missing something and think it is time for me to just hang up the tunic. Was fun at first but the fun meter but for the last 5 years it just kept going down till it is hard to see it register any more. On Mith Marr finding a raiding druid has gotten extremely hard to find and I guess I should take myself out of the pool also. Instead of being the only druid on a PoP/OoW raids I guess they can go druidless.

But obviously he is a farmer and feels that raising the 2.5 million pp to buy spell runes is easy for casual players.

I only have 560k (i think, i cant log in and i cant remember :O/), but unlike the base of retards paying 60k+ for an ethereal/spectra.... i mean Minor,lesser, and normal runes, I am saving my money~

The major negative with OoW was the return of the trinity. When people were grinding for AA's it seemed so casual but now that levelling is at premium it's all about optimal groups again, coupled with no where to solo... :boohoo:

coupled with no where to solo... :boohoo:

Len, you obviously missed all the post by these people explaining how great it was soloing named for runes and equipment upgrades...

I shouldn't be able to solo runes or even gear for that matter, but damn, if you're going to relegate us to third class citizens again at least give us something along the lines of ravens,frogs,hoh basement,tables progression so we can at least get some xp.

Third class citizens? Hardly. While the lack of things for druids to charm is disappointing of course, there's lots of stuff to solo or duo, and I'm still in high demand for groups. Almost all mobs are snareable again; that is a very positive change for us.

i'm curious what you dont like about the exspantion on your main shadowfrost, i'd agree that a lot of zones dont really push well geared clerics with tanks but with a good grouup riftseekers can still be pretty fun as a cleric imo, even north MPG can get hairy if you dont have a real puller

The answer's there in the question, really, Madrone.

If you make a heavily optimized group, then there are a very limited range of places which challenge the abilities of those characters. Unless you've found somewhere I haven't, RS is the only place that really fits the bill, and RS is inferior to Ikkinz really... it's lacking in the variety of interest and strategy development that you used to get in the GoD single-group stuff. There's also very limited progression, which means that there's nothing that matches the buzz I felt when I took down (for example) Kyv Heartstriker Jhiru or the DD for the first time.

Apart from RS, which gets old, where else in OoW do you need a cleric with 500+ aa? The only other way I can challenge the abilities of my character is intentionally to make a suboptimal group, and I'm not the kind of person who can do that and enjoy it. I did try MPG with no CC and/or no puller, and also MPG with a 9k tank... but I just get frustrated.

When I was young, I met a rock climber who'd beaten all the climbs in his local area (Cumbria.) The guy still wanted to stretch his rock climbing abilities, so he was going back and re-trying all the old climbs he'd done before, but wearing boxing gloves and roller skates for the climb to make it interesting. I'm simply not the sort of person who'd find that fun.

Don't get me wrong - I applaud the fact that OoW is accessible to people with lesser gear and lower AA counts. I agree that it's nice to have an expansion which can be completed with suboptimal groups, and I think it's good to have a place like WoS that helps to close the "gear gap" between advanced players and the less advanced ones.

But personally I don't feel the motivation to progress my main through it.

What is hardest to me about zones, is the ambiguity of following FFA (free for all) on pulls, and the regarding camps. Truth is, I dont really care which way the zone runs, but the fact that it runs both ways makes for Arguements/Bitching/Etc that is totally unnecessary.

WOS is probably the worst in this respect. The worst of the worst is the Kyv Assassin spot. Its 3 static mobs in middle of field around a building. Problem is often that there are at least 4-5 spots people set up around the building. No one sets up in the middle of the field near it. It's surrounded by people to west on hill, SW on wall, SE on wall, north on wal, and even at port in cubby.
Some days, its a "camp" people try and call and claim and pull. Other days its FFA. You could be camping it for hours, and someone else comes in and takes a name. So next time, you do it. Then maybe next time itsa camp.

Worst still, is the hypocrisy of people. I've had groups highsun/train when I pulled it, WITHOUT a single tell to try polite discourse, all the while claiming "Its camped" in screams in OOC. Fine. Camps today. Got it. So pull the east mobs, discordings, etc. And boom name pops. And wouldnt you know it. The very same group screaming about sanctity of camps, willing to KS, willing to train, willing to highsun because to them Camps are ironbound rules of game.... the very same group... runs over and agros the name from an area they werent pulling. Hypocrit city. Oh your mobs are "camped" but mobs spawning elsewhere are "FFA"

I've gotten pretty bitter about that. Camps aren't part of Sony's Rule Set. FFA is. I can live with Camps. But I can't stand sometimes camps, and I really cant stand hypocrits and camps.

Yea I guess thats true, although I still find riftseekers and north MPG or t rials decently fun, but i rarely group with encs/bards so I always rely on ghetto CC(go go druids) which makes things more fun

I'm happy every time a new expansion comes out because it means that I can go back and explore indepth a spot on the old expansion that I thought would be good for soloing. New expansion has some great drops, and I love the fact that so many items are no drop to avoid people who loot-hog, but its laggy as heck. I'm just happy to see some zones empty out so I can enjoy my solo playtime again. :lol:

No no no no....dont listen to Nimchip. If you are in WoS please stay there....hehe

Just kidding he is right. I love love love RCoD. MPG and RS are great as well. Dont just set there LFG and hope that someone is going to pick you for a group get proactive and form your groups. You do that enough and you will soon find that you have a pretty steady set of people that will invite you to groups.

EQ is what you make it.

Shadowfrost, ever try group MPG trials?

I like it - nuff said!

I don't have any problems with OOW just have to deal with some " minor " things such as:

Trains - Now come on just die in place please.
Camp Stealing- Just use some common courtesy here.

IMO I dont mess with WoS very much and I almost always try to group with my guild or I just solo. I don't like getting into heated discusstions of the sort I posted for this game is to be enjoyable and not always something to be negative about.

The only real complaint I have so far is it is wayyy to small. Of course the last couple of expansions have been this way. What happened to content the size of Luclin, Kunark, even Velious was larger than OOW. I havent been to GoD much, but the realistic accessible zones are pretty low in number there too. Other than that I always like the expansions just because it is something new to do.

I would feel the same way if they re-did the old zones too. Anything gets boring after a while.

1) OoW is released.. the following week I get three groups in WoS and get lv 66. 4 rune drops went to Monk, Bard, Enc, Enc. 5 Item drops went to Cle, War, Enc, Pal, Enc. no NBG and everyone wants the items for their twinks.
2) At lv 66, my exp per kill drops almost in half everywhere besides WoS.
3) I have sat LFG for hours since then in WoS and not gotten any groups for over a week.
4) Every time I put up my LFG I can go away and read a book and wait for some BoT invite since that is the only groups inviting. (BTW last 3 leather tunics in BoT went to Enc, War, Rog. No more NBG.)
5) Have formed and join over a dozen expeditions and seen 3 runes drop which went to Enc, Cle, War. Admitted they need them but 7 PH in a row or no rune drop gets old. And now Murk is "Fixed" to where you can't farm there.
6) Shut regular exp down to 10% since AA exp dropped to half and need to bank my AA's while I still get exp for kills.
7) Tried other zones but just sit in new location LFG with no luck.
8) Most of guild didn't buy OoW or is busy working on their epic so no time for expeditions or WoS groups.
9) Spend most of time soloing mobs that can kill a druid very fast, are snare/root proof or summon. Get tired of running from light blues and greens and can't solo anything that drops something I can use.
10) When I was in WoS, was puller and got tired of bards stealling my pulls or people grabing them the second they spawn even when they were camped.
11) Animals... Rats, Bats and Chimera (uncharmable).
12) Blue, LB and Green summoners with fast and nasty DoT/DD and snare.
13) Trash mobs outrun or keep up with SoE.
14) Average two deaths per night and some without rezes. Went from 2 yellow into 67 to one in the past week.
14) No need to get levels since I cannot get runes for spells. Is a lv 70 Druid with no OoW spells or gear really that much more uber than a lv 65?1 - get over it, people can be very greedy, im sure we all experiance those things
2 - 66-70 is slow yes, but it isnt that hard, try to find a place to solo if you cant get groups, pofire(tables) is an excellent place to solo if you cant get groups if your flaged for it, i made 65-70 there in afew days, and i even pled a sk from 65-70 there and it only took me 3 days, if not pofire flaged, vxed is allso a not bad place to solo, avoid stonemites however they summon and get new expedition if they get in the way.
3 - what i do if i cant get a group is i try to find a good tank or cleric, and ask them if they want to start a group ask friends around etc, and form something up , otherwise id go solo with my lfg tag on.
4 - its a good idea to link what you are using and saying it is a upgrade for you, otherwise people will just take advantage of silence.
5 - just be patient youll get some eventually it just takes time sometimes.
6 - levels are much much better then AA's and allso give acess to better AA's
7 - solo with your lfg tag on, and put info in the lfg window, on where you want groups
10 - that happens alot in wos yeah, even in mpg allso, not much you can do about it.
11 - nc, maybe you need the new charm?. i dont see charming as much of an issue i never really charm anything much, and never really have much at all.
14 - yes, same druid lvl 70 vs same druid lvl 65, level 70 is MUCH better. even without spells


well theres some stuff, hope it helps you out some.<!-- / message -->

The worst thing about oow is that it lets every idiot into the zone rather than requiring flags or keys.
This is my favorite quote ever.



FOR THE COMPLETE FAWKING IRONY!

1 - get over it, people can be very greedy, im sure we all experiance those things
2 - 66-70 is slow yes, but it isnt that hard, try to find a place to solo if you cant get groups, pofire(tables) is an excellent place to solo if you cant get groups if your flaged for it, i made 65-70 there in afew days, and i even pled a sk from 65-70 there and it only took me 3 days, if not pofire flaged, vxed is allso a not bad place to solo, avoid stonemites however they summon and get new expedition if they get in the way.
3 - what i do if i cant get a group is i try to find a good tank or cleric, and ask them if they want to start a group ask friends around etc, and form something up , otherwise id go solo with my lfg tag on.
4 - its a good idea to link what you are using and saying it is a upgrade for you, otherwise people will just take advantage of silence.
5 - just be patient youll get some eventually it just takes time sometimes.
6 - levels are much much better then AA's and allso give acess to better AA's
7 - solo with your lfg tag on, and put info in the lfg window, on where you want groups
10 - that happens alot in wos yeah, even in mpg allso, not much you can do about it.
11 - nc, maybe you need the new charm?. i dont see charming as much of an issue i never really charm anything much, and never really have much at all.
14 - yes, same druid lvl 70 vs same druid lvl 65, level 70 is MUCH better. even without spells

well theres some stuff, hope it helps you out some.<!-- / message -->

Yes it helps me fine. This was a very old post and since then have decided to quit playing.

1) People are still greedier than previously but that may just be because of all the Ubers that are grouping with the rest of us.
2) played up until last week and was still lv 66, since it takes one unrezzed death to lose a weeks worth of exp since it is still impossible to find a group as a non-EP druid with no Raid lv gear and no GoD or OoW spells. Not EP flagged means I cannot solo in PoF. Best I can do is HoH or BoT where the exp is half what it was prior to 66.
3) Tried that, tonight there was no WoW beta so spent 6 hrs lfg. There were NO clerics available so when I died I lost last weeks exp. When I died the second time lost the previous weeks exp... decided not to try for a month. Only friends left were in PoF, PoA and in OoW groups already. Only other friend needed help with Druid epic in EK. I died to a new OoW gnome mob there that is light blue, summons, hits for 400 and is KOS to WE Druids. He agro'd unprovoked just as the other druid did turn in to spawn reavers and kill both myself and the other WE Druid but left all the other group members alone so they had to kill the reavers. I lost a half yellow there due to no clerics available , at all, either in guild, friends or globally not in groups. ( I couldn't even find a pally or necro to come do a rez).
4) I have linked my items. They don't care. Tonight a guildmate that is also a lv 66 druid got into a group doing named and won a ring and a stone. They disbanded the group and never gave either to him.
5) I am very patient, How many months should I wait?
6) I can average one AA a night solo but have to keep regaining the exp lost to unrezed deaths which takes 5 nights solo.
7) I have soloed over 20 hours this past week, 6 of it tonight. All with LFG flag on. I log on, I ask if anyting is going on in Guild and flags, I cover 5 zones /ooc lfg and each time I zone I /ooc. Then I log off after not having had a group. Other than guild Ssra raids last week, my last group was two weeks ago.
10) WoS is calming down now that most of the ones originally causing problems have moved on.
11) OoW = No new charm.
14) I agree a lv 70 is better and has better AA's but since I have to depend on solo exp, it gets worse with each level. If I had EP/Time/GoD gear maybe I could solo better mobs. Unfortunately anything that summons or hits for over 300 can chew through my gear and mana.

don't get me wrong, I do not mean this as a whine since I do not expect to change anything since so many can enjoy EQ in its current state. For those with the gear, guild and friends this is a very good expansion. Unfortuantely my friends were with me 5 years ago and not any more. As it is this acct only is open since I had prepaid till January. Eventually the gear and runes will come down.. probably after the next expansion or two. As for me? I am doing what the rest of my guild and friends did and moving to a game I can enjoy more. I have held out hope for druids since SoV and it is time to quit being patient and let those that enjoy the game have my space.

11) OoW = No new charm

Nature's Beckon (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5359&source=Live)


4) I have linked my items. They don't care. Tonight a guildmate that is also a lv 66 druid got into a group doing named and won a ring and a stone. They disbanded the group and never gave either to him.

Wow you need to move servers... actually no, these things do happen. But man most of us have learned the hard way since other expansions. I remember Sol B, LGuK and Sebilis and eventually Velks were like this too. Of course, you didn't have as many named... but jesus people were greedy. So I learned the bad way to ask about loot when I get invited.

Lately these days I group mostly with guildies. But if you're really doing bad for exp... just don't worry about loot.

14) I agree a lv 70 is better and has better AA's but since I have to depend on solo exp, it gets worse with each level. If I had EP/Time/GoD gear maybe I could solo better mobs. Unfortunately anything that summons or hits for over 300 can chew through my gear and mana.

Most elemental soloers solo in fire, and the only mobs that are worth it hit for 500-700 mostly and almost always the safest spot that you can solo there is at tables which is perma-camped on most servers. If and only if there are groups clearing the castle 2 then you can solo right in the middle avoiding repops.

Vxed is still awesome exp. If you're KT flagged, just do Yxtta. I havent really soloed much of OoW but ive tried some soloing in MPG. The thing is that stuff is easily resisted there and there's not a lot of room to kite.

For those with the gear, guild and friends this is a very good expansion.

Well man there are easier zones you can group in, like Nobles Causeway. There is easier stuff than WoS, and some other zones like RCoD are almost the same thing. People just stick to where everyone is.

Nature's Beckon is laughable. It's only use beyond CoT is on chimerae, all of whom summon.

It's more than laughable, it's a slap in the face.....

You are right.. I overlooked Natures beckon. I don't have any OoW spells and didn't remember seeing a charm. remind me again.. what can you charm with it? The summoning chimera?

/quote:
Most elemental soloers solo in fire, and the only mobs that are worth it hit for 500-700 mostly and almost always the safest spot that you can solo there is at tables which is perma-camped on most servers. If and only if there are groups clearing the castle 2 then you can solo right in the middle avoiding repops.

Vxed is still awesome exp. If you're KT flagged, just do Yxtta. I havent really soloed much of OoW but ive tried some soloing in MPG. The thing is that stuff is easily resisted there and there's not a lot of room to kite.
/quote:

yes, that is true, but almost all of us from non-raiding guilds are not elemental flagged (I have stated before I wasn't). Just another way that SoE caters to those in raiding guilds is to make exp easier for them even solo. I personally do not own GoD because of the way they treated druids and my wife quit her cleric over GoD. As for soloing in OoW, the mobs are resistant but that can be worked around. The ones that drop runes and items are summoners or their PH's are.

Fire exp is not easier... if you solo fire mobs it's because you have the gear to do it, a newly elemental flagged druid has no chance on soloing tables, unless he/she has been very careful with his gear. The mobs that most druids solo in fire have lots of HP, so you better have lots of focus and mana to deal with them.

Nature's Beckon is laughable. It's only use beyond CoT is on chimerae, all of whom summon.

It's more than laughable, it's a slap in the face.....

Yea i know but i needed to mention it :P

Fire is worthless, seriously, the time and mana it takes me to kill 1 mob at tables for 14-15% aa exp (going off 65 because I haven't been back since), I can kill 3 mobs in vxed or 2 in yxtta for 8-10% aa each, and have a chance at the rare zone drop (I already got the vxed mask, wtb attuned discord earring).

It might be different if I had an orb of clinging death, but I doubt it.

While I have found OoW to be very nice when able to group, there is very little to solo. Frankly, with whammies all over the place (EQ2, WoW, Halo2, HL2) very little grouping is taking place now, and I don't expect it to for a few months.
I can heal some in MPG, but my mana pool is not quite large enough for chain pulls. Mix in druid stigma and even the worst of the clerics (those seem to be the only ones left now, other than bots) will get the group before I will.

I'm a bit upset that sony has decided to take such an anti-solo stance smack in the middle of the convergence of all these events. Truly, I really do not have a lot of confidence in the current designers. Yeah sure, often the designers do indeed know better than the players what is good for the game, but I just don't believe it of the current pack. No, I am not flagged for fire yet, soloing there is not an option. A few have mentioned Tipt/Vxed. Have you been there since hitting 70? AAXP used to be 8-9% for a solo kill. It is now 4%. Less even than HoH was at 65. Yxtta was 8-10%. Now it's 4-6%.

Main Issues:
* Healing disparity between clerics/druids. Clerics now have a nuke that damn near matches mine. I really have nothing over a cleric now. My ability to solo for anywhere near decent XP has been shot to hell. What now is the reason for the mismatch? At least give me a *real* blast heal. 2 sec cast, 1500hp, 750 mana. Make it inefficient as ya want but make it viable for me to keep a group up in a bad situation. That means don't give it a 5 sec recast.
* Nukes. OMG I can't believe more druids have not seen the disparity between us and mages now. Some of our guild mages are critting for well over 5k now! I'm gonna be stuck with my GoD fire nuke for some time before I see our 69 nuke, and even then the mages are beyond us. Don't take this to mean I think we should heal as good as a cleric and nuke like a wizard. I am not saying that. But 1926 for a 69 nuke?! come on. 2200-2400, somewhere in there would be about right. This is *not* about nerfing clerics or mages.
* Itemization. It sucks. From epic on down. The more I look at that shammy effect on the epic, the more I think someone really messed up and that was supposed to be the druid effect. Maybe it's envy, but I don't think so. OoW armor? OMG come on! Extended Enhancement?!?!?! Maybe tier 2 will be better, but I know my chances of getting a riftseekers group anytime soon approaches nil.
* AA. OMG double forage?!?! 'nuff said.
* Soloability. As mentioned above. If there was something remotely defining about a druid, it was our ability to solo. We are nowhere near a jack-of-all-trades as some would like to say. But we can operate decent in a group, or solo when one is not available. Maybe not quite the xp/min as a group would be, but decent. At level 70, this is not true anymore.
* Misc: bunch of these and prolly miss some off the top of my head. Harmony upgrade is a joke. Inside/outside restriction is a joke now; make necros able only to cast at night and clerics only during the day, see how that goes. Focus effects: wow, is this really melee oriented now or what? I quasi-agree with what they are trying to do, but think it's way too sweeping at the moment. I really believe a lot of the GoD focus effects should work up to 70. My guild was fairly uninterested in GoD before this, and probably even more so now. Odds of me working toward Gaelin gear? Bout the same as me attempting the current 1.5 epic. Make a Haste IV item only good to 65 and see what the melee think of that. Druid Issue List: sorry, an absolute joke. See my thoughts on the current designers. I am thinking these current coders were way too busy making a tutorial with NPC's that match their names for an ego boost rather than making some fixes.

Ack. This has rambled on way too much. And it sounds like I am more pissed than I am. I am frustrated with the current direction, but not enough to quit just yet. Maybe in a few more months, when I hear how WoW and EQ2 are playing out. And I realize that my view may change as my druid grows. These opions are based on where I am in EQ with the gear I have. Magelo (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=989406)

PS: Please put me on the list for Attuned Discord Earring, too =) Got the Glowing Bone Ring, but hundres of mobs later still no earring.

Its true the direction of EQ has gone toward a raiding player. This has been the case for some time and its just a simple fact that if you strive to get high end armor you need to be able to kill the mobs that drop it. I think some aspects of OOW are great and some are bad. The new raid expeditions are fun, creative, and a step in the right direction in that area. However, I do agree that the lack of solo content has bothered me because Ive always loved soloing to fill time. Sure I can always go to fire or HoH so soloing is still an option, but PoP zones got old to me long ago. Its just another fact that for us druids our Ice nukes are higher damage then our fire nukes. So why compare our fire nuke to mage's UNEFFICIENT fire nuke? Hell let the mages have the eye candy for higher nukes, im getting close to 5k crits with my 69 fire nuke and i dont even have the new crit AAs from oow. Also, Mages are basically just a DPS class, I dont mind them nuking for more damage or have a strong pet because that is their role. Our role is not DPS, we are a unique utility class(not unique abilities or spells but unique in the sense that our strengths in all departments isnt matched by any other class) and long before i attained Gaelins armor I was able to fill my role and adapt to situations. I usually group with my guild and our other public raiders on Eci. And our server is proof that it does not take some huge closed raiding guild to progress in eq. We are a public raiding system from the ground up for many years now and are focussing on beating Txevu.

The Focus effects in Qvic and beyond in GoD are still great, 45% up to 68 and then only losing 5% per level down still works well for our spells. Sure it would be nice for them to work 100% up to 70 but I do understand that the devs were faced with a balancing issue in terms of spell damage and over all focus effect power.

I dont use Chlorotrope even with a 8k unbufffed mana pool. I prefer Sylvans Infusion because its low mana cost and i enjoy the 25% mana pres focus that works with the gaelins gloves ;) . I highly encourage you to obtain that spell. I will be using it untill i eventually get the Ancient. That will be worth the extra mana cost.

Cheer up, remember there is more then just the druid class that needs fixing. We asked for a defensive spell we got one. We asked for a rez, we got one kinda 8p. They are slowly helping us all lets just hope that the epic effect gets solved asap.

I also think skipping GoD progression is a mistake if thats the direction your guild has gone. Even the Ikkiniz trials net good loot and all you need for that is KodTaz flag and a raid leader.

Natureguard Gusinator Spiritwood
Member of Infinit on Eci'
http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=399575

Thanks, Gus, for the response and cheer. Just feeling cynical. I hear ya, I am sure all the classes need help, but that doesn't do a lot for my trust in the designers. Not really saying I think we should be par with mages on DPS, but my opinion is that the nukes should be a bit more equal. They do have pets to add to their DPS. Just as we can flex and heal. Those extra abilities are the balance, not the nuke itself. Inefficient as that nuke is, it's still very usable, frequently, in groups.

I recently got the 68 Chloro, been playing with it. Mathematically, I agree, it is better to use SI. If I MH, that is what I normally use. If I backup heal to a cleric tho, I've found 68 to be usefull.

And I guess I'll try some more to get my guild to look at GoD again. Is it really only 5%? I was under the impression it was 10%.

Just everything together has me a bit frustrated. The impact of new games would not be a big deal to me if I still had the option to XP for a decent amount solo. I don't really want to move on to a new game yet, still some things I want to do in EQ and I really enjoy my guild. Unfortunately, EQ has just lost a lot of the fun factor now, I may throw in the towel and just move on.

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spellhistory.html?id=6478&source=Test

Look at the histroy page there. it confirms the 5% loss over cap .

I too wouldnt be a happy druid if it were 10%. would just be plain wrong.

Maybe it's envy, but I don't think so. OoW armor? OMG come on! Extended Enhancement?!?!?! Maybe tier 2 will be better, but I know my chances of getting a riftseekers group anytime soon approaches nil.

Replace riftseekers with Anguish and replace group with raid.

There are plenty of places to solo in OoW. Ruined City of Dranik (most of the zone), Nobles' Causeway (almost the entire zone), and Wall of Slaughter (murkglider cave--I know most other things summon but I haven't bothered to fully explore the zone) are decent. Dranik's Hollows and the Dranik Sewers expeditions work too if you can get a couple other people initially to request the expedition. I haven't tried the Catacombs yet but I assume it's more of the same. And if you're not yet 70, Bloodfields and possibly Dranik's Scar have some decent spots to solo as well. Exp in a group will be much better of course, as it should be, but we do have plenty of solo options. I do wish we had more places to use charm even with the 1/2 to 3/4 or so reduction in damage output though.

Palarran, please look deeper into my post. What I am saying is soloing for even decent XP. NC is *not* decent XP. I am comparing to say level 65 in HoH. I could solo there for 22.5% AA per quad. My mana pool was less than, but I could normally manage an AA in about 90 mins. Have you tried slaughter at 70? the XP is horrid. As is NC and BF. RCoD may be a possibility. In full group I still manage 3%/kill there. I shall look into RCoD. However, if I can't quad there, I doubt I'll be interested in eeking along at root/rot speed, unless they are 8-10%AA.

I have not tried expeditions. DS may be possible, I doubt RCoD expeditions are feasible. CC is major important there. Crazy amount of adds and mobs stacked on top of each other.

Best chance I think is checking out RCoD more. Or maybe checking out WoW.

I highly disliked WoW. The generic feel to it really bugged me and I stopped even logging into my friends beta to just mess around. The graphics are ok, but not my particular taste. Character Customization is not there whatsoever. Tradeskilling blows worse than in EQLive. The community isnt anything like what ive seen in past MMORPGs. They like to spend there time bashing other MMOs instead of critiquing the game to make it better. I LOVE Blizzard games, Im a big fan of their RTS games. WoW just isnt for me and my friend with beta said the same thing. If i start all over on a MMO it will take alot and not even EQ2 does it for me.

I thought it was pretty funny when blizzard gives away free beta accounts like halloween candy towards the end of their beta. It lagged the systems down worse than you could immagine, then WoW has a press release saying "Haw- Haw we got 500,000 subcribers".

WoW claimed their game wouldnt have bugs, which any person with common sense wouldve known that was straight BS right there. They have MANY bugs just like ANY mmorpg that starts off.

Well ill stop bashing WoW, I just didnt like it at all and no way in hell was i gonna give up EQ for that crap. I havnt gotten to put ash much time into EQ2 but just the fact they dont allow any kind of pvp turned me off. Just takes away the immersion to me. I dont pvp alot but the simple fact that im able to adds spice to the game.

My point is, there is alot of great aspects about EQ. There are also negative things but the fact that sony wants you to go out and find a group instead of soloing all of your time in eq doesnt really bother me. They probably said to themselves "Hey they can go solo in fire for decent exp" so why would they add an onslaught of solo content? Sure 1 zone woulda been nice but it just would have been horrificly camped if it was good exp soloing it would be better exp grouping.

Im not 100% happy with OOW but it gets a A- from me. I think GoD they had the right idea and all with the expeditions but they really screwed the expansion up at launch and it cost them bigtime. Atleast OOW has alot of choices for a group to make on where to level.

I don't remember exactly how much exp the mobs give, but I'm fairly certain I could get an AA in 90 minutes or less by root rotting in any of the zones I mentioned. I'm not at an everquest-capable computer right now, but I can approximate based on what I remember:
Let's see...with KEI I average about 1 mob every 5 minutes including the little bit of mana recovery time. With two additional characters leeching exp (but not contributing to the fight), 80% going to AA exp, and leadership exp on, I think I get somewhere around 2% AA per kill from a level 65+ mob. Leadership exp uses up 20%, so that's actually 2.5% if I have leadership exp off; switching to 100% AA exp instead of 80% brings that to just over 3.1%. Take away the 40% bonus for being in a group of 3, then multiply by 3 for solo exp, and you get about 6.7% per mob. At that rate I'd need to kill 15 mobs per AA, which takes about 75 minutes.

As far as Nobles' Causeway goes, make sure you fight level 65 mobs, such as the red dragorns near the zone to the Wall of Slaughter. (Assuming you're level 70, level 64 mobs give about half as much exp as level 65 ones, since the 95% bonus starts at 5 levels below your current level.) The blue dragorns in that area are level 64.

(On second thought, there's an easier way to determine RCoD exp...you said you get 3% per kill in a full group? A full group gets a 116% bonus. So dividing by 2.16 then multiplying by 6 we get 8.3% per kill. Hmm, my original estimate of 2% per kill in my group of 3 must have been low...)

yes, since i just started playing WOW and its AWSOME!

BRING ON THE EQ BASHERS!!!

This way please!!!

:curse:

Not you guspimp.

Character Customization is not there whatsoever. Tradeskilling blows worse than in EQLive. The community isnt anything like what ive seen in past MMORPGs. They like to spend there time bashing other MMOs instead of critiquing the game to make it better.

The customization come in the trait points you get past lv 14. As a druid I can modify any of my 3 specialties, Dmg spells, Healing spells or Animal Form.

I like the fact that tradeskills produce usable items and it takes much less to level them up. If you do a yellow or orange recipe you get a skill up almost every time. If you do green it takes several to get a skill up but the items are sellable. Getting the items for the combines is also easier.

The Post-Beta community is much nicer, I guess from fewer freeloaders and I noticed not so many Europeans bashing americans and vice versa. Never did understand why the Europeans (and Asian/Australian) people would bitch about the americans logging onto a PST server and causing lag. Once release came out they had their own servers and Lag in the PST servers is rare.


WoW claimed their game wouldnt have bugs, which any person with common sense wouldve known that was straight BS right there. They have MANY bugs just like ANY mmorpg that starts off.

I know they have to have bugs but after a week, I haven't found any.

My point is, there is alot of great aspects about EQ. There are also negative things but the fact that sony wants you to go out and find a group instead of soloing all of your time in eq doesnt really bother me. They probably said to themselves "Hey they can go solo in fire for decent exp" so why would they add an onslaught of solo content? Sure 1 zone woulda been nice but it just would have been horrificly camped if it was good exp soloing it would be better exp grouping.

Problem is the people not elemental flagged don't even have that zone. Even if BoT flagged, exp drops in half once you get lv 66. When I quit I still needed RV and LMM for elemental and nobody in my guild was Elemental flagged. The few that had been went to raiding guilds to backfill the people they had lost. The powerful guilds don't do open raids for backflagging non-guild members and pickup raids have a very high failure rate.

At least OOW has alot of choices for a group to make on where to level.

Usually if people still have a guild they have choices, otherwise most that I have seen don't. The mobs make soloing not much of an option for non-planar equipped players and if you level up most that can be soloed give half the exp they did before. But even if you do level up, unless you can get a good group or solo the named you will never get your spells. GoD and OoW just made the gap between casual players and raiders larger by expanding it to groups and solo besides raids.

GoD and OoW just made the gap between casual players and raiders larger by expanding it to groups and solo besides raids.

I think what you're saying is that OoW introduced new group and solo content, but primarily for people who are already in raiding guilds (or were in raiding guilds and have better gear). If that's what you mean, I'd have to agree.

OoW content seems to have been designed around the assumption that toons playing in those zones are equipped with elemental gear or above. Problem is, once you've leveled past 65, exp takes a huge hit in all pre-elemental zones. Nice catch-22 for those who thought leveling would help make up for their lack of raid gear...

~Firemynd

The Elemental equiped are doing well in OoW and the Pre-elemental are not. The division is getting larger since the non-elemental flagged are having a harder time finding raids to get flagged with the flagged people in OoW. OoW is a good expansion, I admit that. My discontent was because like most the people I know, the guilds broke up and not having a good guild group makes it hard to take advantage of OoW. If you are Time/EP equiped you can solo but in my gear the named from DS chew me up, even with the pet rat.

I tried NC, MPG and WoS but my gear/hp/mana were not enough and I could not compete with the lv 70 druids LFG at the same time that were properly equiped and had their spells/AA's. Almost all of my group offers came from PoP zones where people that were not EP flagged needed healers since all the clerics were obsorbed by raid guilds. When I was lucky enough to get an OoW group or expedition the exp was good but unfortunately I never got any gear or runes that I could use due to lack of drops and greed. Once I hit lv 66, my exp dropped in half and it got harder to find mobs I could solo that gave enough exp to get an AA per night and each level after that got worse. It is a paradox that gaining levels penalizes you since you get less exp, can't get your spells and fewer mobs give exp.

The elite players that say OoW is great are correct. For them it is. It is the rest of us that are getting further behind until we quit.

You hit the nail on the head Kulothar.

I'm in the same position, being in a guild that is not elemental flagged and trying to find someplace I can get xp at 67 is nearly impossible. I am finding myself pretty well reduced to root rotting murkgliders - which is HORRIBLE xp at that level. I can't go to WoS and MPG because I lack the gear to allow me a decent enough mana pool to heal - sometimes I get lucky with a WoS group that already has a cleric - but only if the other druids (who are level 70 in raid guilds and having thier spells) already have a group.

Basically I am really no longer even playing my druid with the exception of guild groups and during raids because soloing for XP is impossible and getting groups for xp is even worse - my alt 65 cleric gets more groups than I do for WoS (and her gear sucks more than mine)

Which murkgliders are you killing? They should be decent exp, unless you've chosen murkgliders that are more than 5 levels below you...

Koldriana,

Try the level 64-66 Murkgliders in RCoD. They don't summon and you should be able to easily Paci pull singles. There is a bridge before the Murks that has no mobs at all and no wanderers, so you can root/rot till your hearts content. If you want to know right where I am talking about, shoot me a tell tonight on Mezrin and I'll run over to RCoD and show ya. There's lots of room for boo boo's too.

cheers!

At 66 and 67, I highly recommend Tipt expeditions. I know most recommend Vxed, but I always liked Tipt better... the pulls are almost always single. At 66/67, they are still 8-10% AAXP. When pulling, do NOT run up on the wall, they warp.

The trick is not to get impatient. Personally, I really dislike having to find a rez. If a hynid resists snare, zone. If it gets a bit dangerous, zone. If a stonemite spawns, I just leave and get a new one. You can try to harmony past if ya want. It would be nice if Sony would be kind enough to put a little logic in there that when someone grabs the expedition solo, no stonemites spawn... but that is prolly asking waaay too much =)

Every so often you will get a good streak where hynids and crags just spawn and respawn. AA flies when this happens. I've only managed one quad in here. That was for like 42%AA. Other than that, it's been pure root/rot.

Unfortunately, at 70, these have now dropped to 4-6% AA.

It would be nice if Sony would be kind enough to put a little logic in there that when someone grabs the expedition solo, no stonemites spawn... but that is prolly asking waaay too much =)

Yes it is, given that sony hates soloing.

Also worth trying are the murkgliders in the cave in WoS. If I remember right they're all level 65. Just make sure you have invis to undead potions banked in case you die inside the cave, since those murkgliders are all undead.

I don't even know where RCoD is..The only ones I know are the ones in NC - which would be where I was :( i can do maybe 2 of those on a full mana bar before I have to med - so if the ones in RCoD are much harder it may be a bit too tough for me - but Im willing to try it =) I thought Paci only works to 65?

I'm raiding tonight, but will for sure try to get in touch with you in the next couple of days! Thanks!

Koldriana,

Try the level 64-66 Murkgliders in RCoD. They don't summon and you should be able to easily Paci pull singles. There is a bridge before the Murks that has no mobs at all and no wanderers, so you can root/rot till your hearts content. If you want to know right where I am talking about, shoot me a tell tonight on Mezrin and I'll run over to RCoD and show ya. There's lots of room for boo boo's too.

cheers!

Well come to think about it, Im pretty sure the murks where I am talking about in RCoD are actually 64-65 - but I could be wrong. Most AREN'T 66 thats for sure. I am sure it will be easy to PACI the ones you can and pull any stray level 66's out and kill them first.

I don't know about how tough they would be to kill, but its solo and they don't summon and the ZEM is RCoD is as good or better than WoS, so it should be good EXP even if you have to blow your mana to kill a single.

Fire is worthless, seriously, the time and mana it takes me to kill 1 mob at tables for 14-15% aa exp (going off 65 because I haven't been back since), I can kill 3 mobs in vxed or 2 in yxtta for 8-10% aa each, and have a chance at the rare zone drop (I already got the vxed mask, wtb attuned discord earring).

It might be different if I had an orb of clinging death, but I doubt it.maybe youre not using your mana in an efficent way in fire, but the way i use my mana is different from your way, cause i have alot more mana enouth to solo a quad on my lonesome. in fact that is what i do and it takes me no more then 30mins to get a AA, 1 quad average is about 45percent exp, id just stick to singles if i had your equp, debuff throw on afew magic based dots and keep them going, and nuke down when your not casting dots, the casters have much less hps then the melee's cept they can despell, so its good to junk buff ya self before you get C's and buffs etc, i find that using dots with nukes is much more efficent on mana then just using plan nukes, dots are more mana efficent damage, and they allso help you spread your time out on nuking a mob rather then just nuking the hell out of it and going oom in a solo situation that is, you could allways root/dot but that isnt efficent in fire due to the high mr , they dont stay rooted long so better off kiting them. my equip was not to different from yours when i started soloing in fire and i did singles, with omens out you can probly use alot more better spells then i used at that time.and yes orb of klingon death is pretty nice.

I haven't played everquest since it first came out, so i don't have anecdotes about how it was "in the old days". I started playing right when luclin came out (though i didn't buy it for another 5 months or so). when i first started playing, i was in high school and playing sports, so i was a casual player. I played maybe an hour or so here and there, and that was ok. Over the course the rest of my high school days, my druid (my only character) got to lvl40 or so, i don't exactly remember. I got out of school and started to play hardcore. Even into my first year of college, i played all the time. I got my druid to lvl57 and stopped playing her to make a cleric (i liked grouping, and there is always a need for clerics) and i got her to 65 in about 3 months. anyway, i now attend school and work, so my playtime has again been cut to that of a "casual" player.

To get to the point, i've noticed a trend. all those who have posted here on the greatness of OoW and have links to magelo pages have something in common: they have nice stuff. Having restarted my druid, which has no nice pop+ drops on her, my outlook on OoW are slim. i'm up to lvl61 now, and stuck at about 4200mana with kei. seriously, the true casual gamer doesn't have pp to twink nor the time/inclination to farm (i play to have fun, how is mindless farming fun?) nor the ability to raid for those high end items that so many of you have in your slots. yet seeing what the high end gamer has open to them thru my cleric, i can't simply go thru the "same old, same old". basically, i'm saying that unless these mobs are easy to you with your uber armor, how are casual gamers supposed to utilize this expansion? sure, if you get groups, you might get lucky, but i hate to group these days, as i never really have time to stick around long. I've always seen the druid as masters of soloing, and that's why i've decided to go back to them in my newfound casualness.

sorry, i guess that rant doesn't mean much. i'll shut up. its late here, and i'm tired. to summarize: can a casual player actually use OoW to solo? evidence presented to me says no

Aside from ornate legs, I don't understand what gear has to do with the ability to solo in OoW. Gear doesn't do a whole lot to make root rotting easier in many places. (There are some dangerous places where it's nice to have a lot of hp, but that's about it...)

If you're having trouble, stick to murkgliders initially. They tend to move slowly even before snare.

Pal, I respect your input, but I think this time that last was a bit misleading. Gear means a *lot*. I'm just now breaching 6k mana pool and 15FT gear-wise and I can suddenly MH in MPG and RS. I can take down the Yxtta solo-able mobs and still be 50% on mana in 7 minutes... boring waiting for the respawns. Buffed, I am just now breaking 7k HP, I can actually take a hit or two now in GoD and OoW. Going back to PoP, I can actually quad in HoH with no med time, too bad the XP sucks so badly. With my tipt crit bracer, VT haste cloak, and MPG proc aug, I can actually melee fairly decent... well... better than an int caster anyway =) I can now almost melee the heroes in HoH if I play it right.
I am considering attempting the KT hynids and crags now that I may be able to survive a round if i miss a snare or get summoned.
In OoW, I've noticed a marked increase in groupage as backup healer/DPS. Learn this role well. Patch on inc and then again if the tank drop below 40% or so or at least until slow lands. The rest of the time nuke or dot and snare if needed. Becoming good at this role has increased my fun factor quite a bit. I dislike being the MH overall, back-up can be fun.
In the same vein, I have noticed a marked increase in power over the course of my last 50AA or so. Getting to FOMM1, HAM1, and LR3 has been a long road but is having some satisfactory results.

I agree gear is significant when grouping, particularly when assuming the role of healer (whether primary or backup)--but this is about soloing, isn't it? At least that's what I thought people were commenting on at this point, the ability to solo in OoW.

Sorry I muddied the waters so much Palarran. But yes, I did mean for soloing, too. The size of the mana pool and HP affects what mob I may try to solo.

I still have not tried much soloing in OoW. I may try the really nice NC guide at some point to try and get some runes, but not for XP. RCoD looks promising, I just have not tried it. Been having a lot of fun in MPG and RS.

Compair a lv 70 druid with pre-elemental gear 50 AA and no GoD or OoW spells to a lv 65 Full Time/GoD equipped Druid with 200+ AA and his GoD spells.

Which can solo or group better?
Which one will do better in OoW?
Which one will catch up to and pass the other faster?

Gear and AA make a big difference both solo and grouped.

just my 2 cents on the original question, is oow worth it. in my opinion..no, it's not. for those of us who aren't and probably never will be level 65-70, it's pointless. can't get a group..well dur. on Drinal all the "uber" guilds have all merged with Futura. there are no more open raids, of PoP or Gates. i truely believe that it's against their rules to talk to anyone non guild (joke, but it's stupid some of them do act like that) I spend 4 1/2 hours LFG for ANYTHING but a ldon (don't have the expansion..well, do, but i pretend i don't) nothing..not a single response, on a saturday...at 6pm Eastern..NOTHING. everyone is all locked up in OoW or playing EQ2. and i "could" go to Oow..but no one wants a 46 druid. pfft i get told everyday that i'm NEVER going to get a group until at LEAST level 60 because druids are SUPPOSED to solo until high levels..bull***t. i tend to like Gates much better, even with the Gates flags i'll never get, because i'm a tradeskill nut. only good thing in my eyes about Omens is that it moved the high level jerks to other zones, so now we can take back some of the good zones where we get exp from the high level farmers (maybe they'll start leaving the hill giants alone so new druids can actually work on their epic), SoE just made a new tower for them to lock themselves up in..HUZZAH.

i'm up to lvl61 now, and stuck at about 4200mana with kei. seriously, the true casual gamer doesn't have pp to twink nor the time/inclination to farm (i play to have fun, how is mindless farming fun?) nor the ability to raid for those high end items that so many of you have in your slots. yet seeing what the high end gamer has open to them thru my cleric, i can't simply go thru the "same old, same old". basically, i'm saying that unless these mobs are easy to you with your uber armor, how are casual gamers supposed to utilize this expansion? sure, if you get groups, you might get lucky, but i hate to group these days, as i never really have time to stick around long. I've always seen the druid as masters of soloing, and that's why i've decided to go back to them in my newfound casualness.

sorry, i guess that rant doesn't mean much. i'll shut up. its late here, and i'm tired. to summarize: can a casual player actually use OoW to solo? evidence presented to me says no

Hrmm, well I don't have nice stuff..Im 67 and I 'think' If I have ALL the buffs I MAY be close to 5k mana - so Im right around where you are (only 6 levels later - how sad is that) I do OK soloing in OoW, WAYYYYY better than GoD. At last I can do Murkgliders and not get summoned and beat to death.

Can you solo for runes? NO - not by a long shot. But you can solo for xp or aa. If your curious - heres my stuff (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=653397) - I have ONE OoW atunable thing..thats it, couple pieces of ornate and the rest is your basic baazar stuff.

Question: has your guild considered following a progression route? Looking at some of the gear displayed by those commenting on mana/hp, I'd have to say you haven't really followed any path. LDoNs could help some. Luclin could help a lot. If your guild is 40-60s, luclin is good stuff. Lots of good guides on SSRA. Perhaps consider breaking your teeth on some of the rhags? If that works well, work towards vt?

I am not in an uber guild by any means. I am in a good guild on the 7th, mostly with others like myself who have jobs and a RL. We just work towards progression goals with strategy vs zerg force. VT helped us immensely. We have recently entered the elementals.

I guess I am not sure what you can expect from an expansion if you have not consumed that which is available in a previous one. I don't try to read multi-volume series out of sequence. This analogy breaks down some if you factor level into the mix. That is, at level 70, elementals doesn't seem worth much other than maybe trying to farm elemental patterns/molds and simply getting past the flags so we can get to Time. But this does not seem to be an issue with some of you, based on level ranges of 40s to low 60s.

I like OOW . I have had to buy most of my spells but that hasnt been a problem with the loot droping out of all zones including just augs I have made the 100k+ to purchase my 66-68 spells that I was missing and dont think I play all day . I raid 4 nights a week and play only evenings the rest . Best thing if you are a grouping type druid is get on is go find a camp that your happy with then fill the group . It can be a pain but you get something go lots faster . Go in bloodfields while waiting if you prefer since the zone is filled with non summoning mobs it is great plus augs and TS stuff drops and makes for good cash solo only thing I havent been able to solo is the named but those can be duoed with a tank or if slowed just burn it down and get summoned . I think due to some server shrinkage on Vaz that I have been in much more diverse groups then you would have seen when server was packed but at the same time they have worked so well I am glad to see it.

Overall I think the expansion was good and really exploring the zones pays off cause really Wos isnt then best zone to be in unless you miss BoT . Thx for listening to the early morning ramble~

Like some guys said in this thread, If you aren't EP/Time/GoD Geared, you can't solo in OoW. Even if you can, what did it take for you to kill a mob ?? 5, 10, 15 minutes to have what ??? 1% AA XP ???? WOOOOTTTT !!!!!! Outstanding.

I am tired to read some people say how it is easy to take X named, or how it is easy to do 1AAXP in 20minute, aye it is easy for YOU, who have 8K+ manapool, 6 to 7K hp, decent gear to prevent being piled in bonedust, and FT 20.
With that kind of character, sure it is not surprising to see those people with 500+ AA, saying how easy it is, and how wonderfull OoW is with all this Attuneable gear that they can sell for Kpp.
I know that i will never have any chance to have 500 AAXP, because i think i will have to play 1500 hours to have this amount of AA (1% AA per mob where i hunt, because i am not EP flagged, i can't stand against OoW mobs because of how hard they are if you aren't well geared, even if i duo with a 61 ranger with EQ/AM3)........

Casual playing is dead because you can't do anything interesting solo, and Sony take the road for uber guild that need you to raid 7 days/week with 8 hours of playing per day, and left us casual player who like to log in for 1 or 2 hours, just to have fun alone because we know that we aren't online enough to spent 30 minutes or more to try to have a group and then play 1hour in this group and have to quit this group because you have TO DO REAL LIFE THINGS (aye, i have a daughter, a job and a wife, sorry SONY, i am not DEDICATED to YOU).

Mana pool is COMPLETELY irrelevant to root dotting in OoW, since mana usage is slow and steady. Mana regen helps but most of that comes from buffs. Mobs give 6 to 10% AA each.

wru fame and fortune??

Do any of your servers have an "open raid channel"? We have/had one on Fennin Ro and it was very very helpful for the "casual gamer" to take advantage of some progression/loot... It has its up and down periods as far as successes, but none theless you have the oppurtunity to progress without "uber guilds" .... just my 2cp

I love OOW!

Do any of your servers have an "open raid channel"? We have/had one on Fennin Ro and it was very very helpful for the "casual gamer" to take advantage of some progression/loot... It has its up and down periods as far as successes, but none theless you have the oppurtunity to progress without "uber guilds" .... just my 2cp

I am on the Eci server and we have always been one of the most populated servers for quite some time. Yes we have plenty of guilds on there, but for about 4 years or more a public raid system has been set up and ran by a well known gnome named Ashorty. He started a guild called Infinit but left raiding open to the public. This allowed people who could progress on their own time an avenue to raid and have fun but it still required work. Progression just doesnt happen overnight atleast for most people. Our public system has been ahead of all the closed raiding guilds back since GoD. We have now beaten all of the raid trials in MPG and are finishing up signet quests/backflagging for CoA. Also are up to Zun in Txevu so 1 kill from Tacvi. Im not bragging, ,just stating that even though they may seem like a myth, public raid systems do exist. It just requires active leadership and raiding base that enjoy raiding. Group farming in OOW far surpasses any expansion, period.




Oh and I suppose the people that complain about Sony catering to the "UBERS" or whatever, what would you expect them to do? go backwards? there is plenty of ways to gear up now without being elemental flagged. Nobody is given anything.

On Mith Marr there are two Open raiding channels.. great places to find BoT groups and maybe a RD, RZ or even a LMM raid...

I know that i will never have any chance to have 500 AAXP, because i think i will have to play 1500 hours to have this amount of AA (1% AA per mob where i hunt, because i am not EP flagged, i can't stand against OoW mobs because of how hard they are if you aren't well geared, even if i duo with a 61 ranger with EQ/AM3)........

You don't have to be EP flagged to get good aa exp.

Pre-65, Frogs in PoStorms give around 4% aa. You can charm, root dot, or even quad them if you're careful. Also, I started quadding basements in HoH at 63, with only a 3k mana pool, FT3, stalker, 9 and VoQ, and mostly NToV/Ssra Geared. Takes some practice, and some patience to get it down, but it isn't that hard. Then it took me around 20-25 minutes per quad, but it was around 22% aa per quad. Once you get it down, you can get an aa every hour and a half or so, completely solo.

It's not quite Fire or higher experience, but don't say that you can't get the aa's, you just have to be willing to put in the time and effort.