Running EQ - The Nutshell Edition

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solar
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Running EQ - The Nutshell Edition

Post by solar »

The main reason why we are not running eq is the lack of leaders. The second reason is the lack of defs, or lack of a good healer. Third reason is the lack of unidle players.

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.




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
Learn what each guild does. Learn what the monster in question can do.
Sun Tzu wrote:Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?
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:You have to believe in yourself.
Because the monsters are not going to kill themselves, eh?





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.
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solar
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Location: Kalajoki/Oulu, Finland

leader bonus

Post by solar »

Forgot about leaderbonus.

In the parties we have had in the recent years, it has been a custom to give the party leader an extra +15 on top of his/her normal party dice roll.

And usually green dragon's money has been picked up by the leader as well.

Lootboxes have been opened (because for some reason, you cannot move them from the room where they drop), and their contents added to the loot pot.

---

On actual EQTRAINS pick order is handled depending on the overall situation. People who miss appointed runs get worse priority to get their first pick wish come true, and leader(s) of the train usually take(s) the first pick.

Sometimes some bonus / priority in pick order is given to otherwise valuable members, who for example run the quests that can make a monster spawn/killable, or whoever organizes and find the members for the train (if not the leader himself/herself).

These are by no means stone-carved rules. You are free to implement your own framework. But being a dick is a great way to alienate yourself from other players.
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ezenya
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Post by ezenya »

this is my miniguide to Earth Priest at EQ:

Earth priest: probably the best support guild for EQing; they can resurrect players to the camp (no need to run from temple, tho this has it's own spots where it is more useful, and where its only a waste of EPs sp, to which i will come to later)

Gift of elements (earth): massive regen boost to all of the party: gives around 40 epr spr pspr hpr and lasts a good while.

Power of earth: gives max hp, and gives str boost (bigger your base str is, bigger boost it gives unless im wrong, havent tested this too much)

Replenish stamina: name says it all. archers and offs love this in most scenarios.

Essence of the Nether: less used buff currently, mostly because it gives quite large cold resist penalty to the recipient (idk if that is supposed to happen or bug), but usefull if the eq mob doesnt deal cold damage, since when this procs, it restores players ep or hp.

Protection against nether: this would be really good if it worked, which to my knowledge it doesnt, since it would reduce the nethers players get when they die repeatedly.

Purify Soul: this one can remove debuffs, such as Bitten by werewolf,Soul Phithisis(?), erosion etc.. (from Teaching of elements)

and in addition to this, currently EP's can deal decent damage aswell, and only required gear is the Vestment of Earth you can get (allows casting of earth coffin indoors),other than that you can go with smith gears or plain spr gear, IF you know how to play efficiently, and can somehow manage your SP since you use a lot of it for buffing, and a ridiculous amounts of it when you deal damage (super fast casts,low damage per cast (not counting soulburn, but you can use that only after monster is below 30% to get anything out of it), and most spells cost 100+ ish sp per cast and one cast is like 1-2 rounds or so).

self buffs EP's got are Aspect of Elements (this and Gift you get from Teaching of the elements open guild, a must have for earth priest, 2 lvls) which gives you resistances and hpmax, and the other one is Haunt, which gives you resistances and hpmax + specials, depending on what miniontype you haunt.
a side note: always haunt a max lvl (5) minion to get most from haunt.

relevant masteries you will want maxed or high as possible are Nether Flux, Secrets of Earth and Sacred Rituals of Earth. (for EQing)

Now, I'm not sure if this post goes against the principle of "help sharing information" in spirit,if so, im sure I will be prompted to edit the post.
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