Disclaimer:
I have not ever been an eqleader.
No, seriously, a few easy monsters do not count, and neither do vice-lead-turned-leader flees from battle after the real leader dies count.
Learn what each guild does. Learn what the monster in question can do.Sun Tzu wrote:If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle
Most members will be lazy as fuck and you will have to tell them to do stuff that is not immediately in their party role description. Some abilities will not even be used, unless specifically requested!Sun Tzu wrote:Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?
Because the monsters are not going to kill themselves, eh?Sun Tzu wrote:You have to believe in yourself.
General stuff to think about when running eq:
There are two main ways to run.
1) The short style
Enter, each blaster gets in one attack, flee, heal, repeat.
This style is doable with parties that do not have that much exp, but it does not work with all blasting guilds.
This is doable with Mages, psions, archers and some coven builds. Especially good for mages who want to make rite of power after each run. Fire priests might not be able to utilize volcanic fallout with this tactic, and shadowdancer might not be able to backstab with each run if the tempo is too fast.
If the leader is not a blaster, he/she can start fleeing one or two rounds before the spells/attacks take off, and they will
land before the fleeing is completed. Otherwise the leader fleeing will cancel the activity he would otherwise be
performing.
2) The long style
Enter, stay until fleeing becomes a good idea, flee, heal, repeat.
This is recommended on some mobs, but some are too nasty to allow it. This style allows sorcerers and scion flankers to do their impressive damage. Mages will not be able to benefit from their rites that much with this style.
To manage long styles, you either need to have a healer with you during the runs, or have defs that perform adequately. Long style allows/is allowed by use of debuffs, such as coven curses, combat block inducing effects and overall survivability of the entire party.
Some things to think about:
Camp healer is a good idea. This can mean that if you do not have a healer during the runs, you can replace the healer in party formation with an extra blaster. Since camp healer will not be in the battle, he/she will be able to regen sp constantly, benefit from incense and other usable regen boosters. Camp healer duties can be also performed by a healer with less than ideal totals, although life boosting the entire party is still very spellpoint consuming and if possible, powers of earth might be a more sp-efficient idea.
Contributing. Army defs defend well, but if that is all they do, they can be replaced with almost-as-good defs that contribute more in other ways, such as water priests with their support abilities, and limited offensive blasts, or templars with their own abilities. Some monsters are not dangerous enough to warrant a heavy infantry def (granted, you should be nice to army defs, else they will reinc away and you will not be running any of the really good monsters), sometimes light infantry with wp_sec performs sufficiently with a two-handed weapon, in addition being able to score those juicy chaos strikes and dances-of-deaths.
Monsters that do not have dangerous melee abilities. Some monsters hit fairly softly or not at all in melee, relying on specials and spells to deal their punishment. Maybe it is for only a phase of the monster, until its abilities change, maybe not. However, during those times you do not need impressive parries in the front row, and can replace defs with offs, or ask the defoffs to off. A few good crits can speed up the running time with hours, and a few offs will make more attacks than the monster has combat pool points in defence to defend with against them all.
What use is it to have a great dps set, if you do not get to use it? Some eqmob specials are very damaging, and if you get hit by one, you can get stunned or die. Have fun trying to deal damage from beyond the grave, asshole. Replacing one or two items from your uber dps set with corresponding resistance items can actually improve your real dps, as you get the opportunity to blast longer and spend less time waiting from death recovery. But if you are a shortsighted lazy asshole, you are not really going to bother coming up with specific sets against specific monsters, are you? Storage space can also be a problem, admittedly.
Guild synergy. There is a difference between having one uber dps member, or a member that helps other members in the formation. If performance is otherwise guaranteed, then you want all the dps you can get, but if the monster is tricky, you will want debuffs/buffs that the other member can offer. 5 ranger archers are nice, but one ranger already gives the guild buffs to the run (barkskins for the party, faerie fire for the mob). One member with wp_sec can give the entire party more survivability through absolute grace, if full wps are not available, or they are using vessel of divinity instead.
Figuring out the best damagetype to use. Sorcerers, covens and mages have a good resistance checking ability. Templars have the test, too, but it is less useful. Mages with mirrors in combat can discover which magetype is least resisted by the prestigious monster through mirrorblade army, monk's hand of god maneuver deals the type available that is least resisted by the prestigious monster. Fire priests using stigmata seem to treat the fire resistance of the monster as if it were as good as a better type. Psions have their own aggressive probing and deal good damage if they can just get the probe in. Some monsters get healed by some damage types, too, so attacks with multiple damagetypes can end up healing the monster more than hurting it. Just because 'combat analysis' message says that the monster is ignoring the type, does not mean that it actually ignores it. It might get healed by it, it might get penalized by it in some way other than get damaged by it.
Flankers. A good flanker will deal more damage than a good blaster. Right now, scions, shadowdancers, monks and shapeshifters (and wilders maybe, or do I remember wrong?) are the flanker guilds. Monks can reach 100% sonic damage with their kicks, and some undead monsters will be
more protected from some abilities of the flanker guilds. I think shapeshifters can reach 100% fire damage too with their normal melee, so those two are the choices for hurting a monster that gets healed by physical damage, or clever use of weapons that deal no physical damage
(brand, grief, the fallen, and that fourth one). Shapeshifters and scions seem to do really well against monsters that get bleeding wounds.
Spellbreaking. There are abilities in the game that break spells of monsters, such as coven(_sec) dementia, water priest spellbreaking/anti-magic aura, beholder racial anti-magic ray, mindless status from psionic damage / ruinous touch, stuns, uncon. Keeping the monster from completing devastating area spells can mean the difference between running short style, or long style. Even abilities that slow down casting (faerie fire, slow) through casting assigns, or by lowering relevant casting skills (though lash from psions) can help a lot.
There are several prestigious monsters in the game, and finding them can require exploration, tackling quest syntaxes, divine inspiration, right timing etc, but mostly exploration. You cannot lead what you do not know exists, or how to summon.
Split party. Some monsters have abilities that might require independent action to counteract, such as having a member that keeps on killing summoned aid independently, so that the main party does not have to. Just be careful that you do not have more than 9 targets for the prestigious mob in the room at the same time, as that will activate the counter-abuse features of the monster and people will die.
Less obvious / Secret stuff you need to figure out yourself. They exist. Some can be monster-specific tactics, creative use of abilities or equipment that combine well, reported-but-accepted exploits / whatnot.
A good exping reinc != a good eqmaking reinc. Planning together for running eq can be worthwhile investment, so that you will have maximized synergy/performance. This might make it harder to solo, though, when not running eq.