What Now After Signature Line

[Solenoid]

Merry Christmas All,

Quick question. I just ran all my toons through the signature line and am equipped with the crafted/quest gear. I just tried my first instance and the trash took FOREVER to kill. All of my toons are slightly under the recommended resolve and was curious what most people did to get over the hump to be able to do the heroic instances? My only thought is to either run more solo instances or buy some auctioned gear.

Just curious what others did at this point.

Thanks

 

[otistaylor]

well make sure all have the right side of the prestige line which helps CB. I changed mine on advice from Kannkor and it made a huge difference. Also try to run Kaesora Xalgozian stronghold heroic. I have literally geared out most of my toons in that zone and it drops all fabled items. Basically the payoff is much higher in that zone than most of the other tier 1 zones. Was literally taking me about 25-40 minutes to kill one named when I first started. After getting the jewelry and a few armor pieces I am down to about 15 minutes per named. It takes so long to kill anything in this xpac its easy to lose interest. I also bought the new three set adornments for my tank and it made a huge difference on the dps. If you can afford it you should definately do that on your toons. Once I can afford it I plan on doing it. Common drops of armor are helm, legs, gloves all have 11 resolve as well as the jewelry. Damn nice ring drops that has 1000 potency too. FYI I run a two healer group with INQY and defiler so dps is low but having Verdict has made it a lot more tollerable.


good luck

 

[Solenoid]

Awesome! Thank you very much for the info. I'll give that a try.

 

[bjcasey]

I'm in a similar position to you. I meet the resolve requirement for Kaesora Xalogozian Stronghold, but can't kill the first named. When the 2nd set of adds spawn he 4 shots my group before my healers can heal up the group.

I finished the KA sig line. I am now working on the crafting timeline for the cloak and will double back to finish the additional 30 quests in KA for the off-hand item. Hoping that when all of it is finished, I can do better in the heroics.

I do fantastic in the solo zones, so I don't understand why there's such a big problem for me with the lowest heroics.

I skipped the summer events because I was busy with other things. I don't have the reset runes or the large potency jewelry, which I think is the problem. Each time I increase my potency by a chunk, I see some really nice DPS returns. Just gotta get lucky in the solo zones and finish those 2 questlines.

 

[Solenoid]

I'm in a similar position to you. I meet the resolve requirement for Kaesora Xalogozian Stronghold, but can't kill the first named. When the 2nd set of adds spawn he 4 shots my group before my healers can heal up the group.

I finished the KA sig line. I am now working on the crafting timeline for the cloak and will double back to finish the additional 30 quests in KA for the off-hand item. Hoping that when all of it is finished, I can do better in the heroics.

I do fantastic in the solo zones, so I don't understand why there's such a big problem for me with the lowest heroics.

I skipped the summer events because I was busy with other things. I don't have the reset runes or the large potency jewelry, which I think is the problem. Each time I increase my potency by a chunk, I see some really nice DPS returns. Just gotta get lucky in the solo zones and finish those 2 questlines.

Yes, exactly the same thing i am seeing. I am also working on the craft line etc just sucks to have to do the long adventure/crafting signature lines to start running dungeons.

Side bar, I believe the ethereal runes are still dropping in Kp. I see them auctioned. Does anyone know if it is just a random change off of any of the named? I was thinking with the stat bump, might be able to molo some of the named in Kp.

 

[otistaylor]

I have an auto target for the first named adds. (a croc) is what I used. Basically its a long fight but I kill all the adds then get back on the named. Have done it with both the warden/mystic healers but its much easier with Inqy/Defiler. Verdict helps a lot. On a side note that is the only zone I dont have a real dps problem for those dps check fights. First named still takes me about 20 minutes to kill. Having Immaculate revival from the Inqy also is a life saver when I sometimes get the one shots. I will still get that from the first named adds from time to time but its usually not the entire group. Need to make sure you keep everyone in your group behind the named except the tank. Seems to help with the one shot. I basically have to kill all adds that spawn on every fight in that zone except the last named. The last named adds will just respawn if you kill them so you just stay on the named. At this point I can clear the zone in 2 hours using Monk,Inqy,Defiler,Ranger,Dirge,Coercer.

On a side note that is the only Heroic zone I can clear in this expansion so far

 

[Cryic]

I had the exact same problem and here's how I got past it.
- Completed KA 30 quest achivement on entire team
- Made high potency master crafted jewelry for the team (replacing anything that was resolve 5 or 7)
- Keep the etheral jewelry form the previous expansion
- Made master crafted armor for the team (replacing anything that was resolve 5 or 7)
- Farmed Tier 1 Stronghold - mission crate drops a resolve 20 chest
- Second zone I got on farm status was Tier 2 Event Heroic Wizard's Den - mission crate drops resolve 20 leg
- Historically I ran a 2 healer team, but for this expansion I dropped 1 healer due to the dps checks.
- Entire team is ascension 5+ - Again very annoying to do but worth it.

Yes, that was a lot of work and it was beyond annoying. However I can now farm 8 zones.
pally/defiler/troub/conj/lock/illy

- Currently working on the KA Crafting timeline for Cloak on entire team.
- Note: 2nd named in Baron's Workshop can drop a 1k potency cloak.

 

[pelly]

Good suggestions so far. A couple things to add.

- make sure you get the KA triumph achievement for the secondary weapon, not just the Sig quest. and the ToT signature to make sure it is upgraded to Ethereal. The ToT is pretty fast now. I did it on an alt in about 2 hours last night.
- Resolve has no benefit after you meet minimum requirements for the zone, so do not swap out an 800 potency item with 7 resolve for an 100 potency with 11 resolve.
- If you are using an alt that used the book for minimum requirements for the Signature, make sure you go back and do Triumph of Fear quests. The proc on the Greenmist weapon is not active unless you actually did the quest.
- Key, keys, keys - buy them, farm them, etc. Use them to get two Mythical relic armor items. Note: They will eventually drop from missions, but if you are having trouble doing zones, getting them from keys is a boost to get started. You also may get some raid gear. The Tynom keys have a few items to get started as well. Crackling Ring and Vortex Bracelet both have 780-800ish potency if you do not already have better from last xpac.
- PQ's - they are easy. Farm them until you have your sword and charm from JW and Fens. Careful if you bot them - the bot scouts all stand in the same place if you set them to move to melee and attack from behind so use common sense. I only do them with 1-2 toons at a time to be safe.
- Upgrade adorns if not already. Wantia for white adorns, the new purple ones (e.g Foundation of Earth, et al.) and the new green ones.
- New food/drinks/potions and poisons will help. Remember that Bards can now use some poisons. Get them especially the ones that help debuff combat mitigation. Also, check out the AA's for debuff toons (there is also a post in EQ2 forums i think) that list the upgraded AA debuffs. Some were altered this xpac to provide the final rank the ability to debuff combat mitigation (e.g. Coe's Asylum). Other abilities were also modified to debuff even without upgrading them with AA's. You may want to adjust cast order as a result. This is probably more necessary on raids then heroics as I have not noticed much difference so far, but it is hard to test because so many spells that are part of your standard cast order can debuff combat mitigation now.

A toon with the above, MC gear where you do not have mythicals and the 700-800+ pot gear for jewelry/belts, etc. will do just fine in most of the tier 1 and 2 zones.

I'm currently running Zerker, Defiler, Dirge, Coercer, Ranger and Brigand.

Have fun!

 

[Cryic]

The patch notes for the KA expac listed out the abilities that now debuff combat mitigation.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...day-november-15-2016-kunark-ascending.573942/

New poisons that debuff combat mitigation that are usable by bards.
http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/1642361272
http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/1382272819
http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/116067502

New Purple Adornments - Taken from eq2 forums post https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...day-november-15-2016-kunark-ascending.573942/

Aspect of Paixao
(1) 26% pot
(2) 28% mit
(3) 4 Fervor
-Ascension of Love (Alch)
-Firmament of Passion (Jewel)
-Foundation of Excitement (Sage)

Aspect of Zou Kunnen
(1) 26% pot
(2) +25,000 power
(3) Applies Ascension of Magic: Increases damage of Frozen Heavens (Elem lvl9), Implosion (Eth lvl8), Terrestrial Coffin (Geo lvl4), Virulent Outbreak (Thau lvl6) by 4%
-Ascension of Magic (Sage/Alch/Jewel)
-Firmament of Power (Arm/Tail/Weap)
-Foundation of Thought (Carp/Prov/Wood)

Aspect of Aniquilacion
(1) 26% pot
(2) +100,000 ability modifier
(3) Applies Ascension of Destruction: Adds fire damage to Tainted Mutation (Thau 9), Granite Protector (Geo 10) and Ethermancy (Eth 10)
-Ascension of Destruction (Arm)
-Firmament of Fire (Tail)
-Foundation of Ruin (Weap)

Aspect of Pingyuan Daiqu
(1) 26% pot
(2) applies Firmament of Growth: Increases the window of opportunity for another to trigger a combo effect from your ascension abilities
(3) 25% max health, +250k health
-Ascension of Life (Carp)
-Firmament of Growth (Prov)
-Foundation of Earth (Wood)

Wantia White Adornments
http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/3594873848
http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/3383657183
http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/538567879

 

[otistaylor]

Lot of useful information here thanks for sharing!

 

[Solenoid]

Agreed. Really awesome guys!

 

[pelly]

For those of you running Coercers, charms work in some of the instances with very nice results. Check out "a greater knight skeleton" in the Lost City zones.

 

[Midnyte_ride]

Something else that will help that I haven't seen mentioned here. In the Prestige AA tab, Class tree, the first ability on the left: Enhanced Vigor adds a ton of hp for everyone. My group gained ~2mil hp each from putting 6 points into it. 6 allows me to keep 5 each in the cb/pot boosts, get the temp cb/pot boosts, and both final abilities.

Scouts/Mages/Priests should also take the regenerating ward in the second Dragon line. It looks weak in the tooltip, but after potency applies you end up with a serious ward.

 

[otistaylor]

Wow Midnyte nice find there gonna try them out!

Thanks!

 

[r0rb3rt]

Something else that will help that I haven't seen mentioned here. In the Prestige AA tab, Class tree, the first ability on the left: Enhanced Vigor adds a ton of hp for everyone. My group gained ~2mil hp each from putting 6 points into it. 6 allows me to keep 5 each in the cb/pot boosts, get the temp cb/pot boosts, and both final abilities.

Scouts/Mages/Priests should also take the regenerating ward in the second Dragon line. It looks weak in the tooltip, but after potency applies you end up with a serious ward.

Just seconding this as excellent advice, this let me drop to 1 healer and keep doing zones that I was doing before. (I'm looking at you, Captain Vhankmin and your stupid 1-shot crocs!) He was giving my solo defiler hell until I did these AAs.

 

[mattb]

I have not been playing much since this xpac started but I've now managed to get about 20 hours played under my belt.

I did the Greenmist HQ timeline and the solo timeline up to the Greenmist weapon part, but then I started to get bored and itching to get into dungeons.

I got my resolve up to 189 in group by replacing the few 3-4 resolve pieces with 5 resolve HC items, and then I hit Stronghold for the myth bps.

My setup was Zerk, Ranger, Dirge, Coercer, Mystic and Warden. At the time I hadn't upgraded my runes, but I do have the ethereal runes.

It was slow going, but I managed to complete the zone a few times. The first named just required concentrating on the crocs first and have all behind the mobs bar tank. My mystic could clearly handle the healing as my warden did hardly anything, so when the warden got his myth bp I switched him out for my assassin for extra dps.

My assassin hasn't even got the Greenmist weapon but it was a better choice than my warden. I've now done the zone another 3- 4 times and got a few more their BPs, and I bought all of the group new purples and green finger adorns. That almost doubled my parse by adding 4 fervor plus 140 AB mod per toon.

I'm still planning to do the solo and TS timelines and trying to get the 15 resolve mount soon also, while continuing to farm Stronghold until I get everyone BPs. I really nees to prioritise the solo timeline to start getting ascension experience but it's so boring.

Thanks for all the useful tips here.

 

[r0rb3rt]

Another thing that I didn't know as I had taken a break for awhile... get your heartbound buff! It's a free +15 fervor for all your characters, +30 for 30 minutes if you go click it in your guild hall. All you need to do is run Shard of Love and loot the house item off the last boss. I mentored down to 90 and finished in a few minutes. Set it in your guild hall and have each of your characters choose another one to become heartbound with.

 

[spunk1278]

Hello, a couple things i did early on that made a big difference. My party is SK, BL, RNG, Illy, Inq, Def. What i did early on in addition to many of the things suggested in this thread that helped me alot is as follows:

1: Strikethrough to 100% on all toons that you expect to do damage.
2: Devastation of War will really help you with dps/survival check type bosses. A quick daily in the ToT zones will get you 10 points if you run out. Remember use them one at a time. They do not stack even tho the icon does.
3: Do not discount legendary items, some of them are quite nice when gearing up. Arcanna' se Spire zones drop alot of tank stuff with high potency and they aren't too hard.
4: Daily quests give some good stuff. Daily heroic can give mythical BP, Daily Event can give mythical Legs.
5: Autoattack and its associated stats suck complete ass, reforge into ability mod or something.
6: Push Spell Double Cast on all toons that can utilize it. Most abilties on the Spell catagory, and Dots that are combat arts will double cast. DoW and most ascension abilities will benefit (I am told poisons are modified by it too, haven't tested).
7: Once you can reach the Resolve for T2, Wizards Den is pretty easy and drops BPs and other decent stuff

Once you get eveyone over 10k potency, 100% strikethrough you'll see a really nice jump in dps. All of mine are over 15K (tank offensive stance) and those bosses that were taking 3 beers to kill on november 20, are taking 2 minutes now.

And im rambling but as a closing note, positional attacks while targetting through another toon are currently bugged. target directly or setup for nonpositional attacks until they fix this. Also some ascension abilities aren't catagorized in Ogre properly (scorched Earth), set it up to ignore encounter nukes or it wont cast

 

[spunk1278]

And I thought of a few more tidbits. As soon as you are capable of clearing all 3 Arcanna' se zones, do this quest for a mount. http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Amenophas_Livingspirit_(Mount).
Spend some deity points on Sta, CB, Pot ..its really good now and easy to farm the first 10 ranks or so with thalumbra zones/dailies/timed quests.
As soon as you can (3.5m HP?) spec out of the HP in the prestige>class page and go 8 potency/8 CB until CB is capped in combat at least.
Heroic dailies can drop green adornments that are restricted to the ring slot. they are very good.

 

[otistaylor]

Did notice that getting strikethrough as high as possible on everyone made a very noticeable difference in damage output!

Thanks for the info!

 

[pelly]

Another add is that it is worth doing the TS signature to get the cloak (and don't forget to upgrade it at Twark). Best in slot at the moment. You also get 2 of the purple adornment recipes.

 

[Solenoid]

So I have been farming Stronghold and am about to try Wizard Den (Event Heroic) but have not had any luck getting good jewelry to drop. Did everyone find it equally as frustrating to get the 1000+ potency jewelry? Any good tips? I am rolling with the MC stuff right now but need the extra potency to speed up the kills.

 

[mattb]

So I have been farming Stronghold and am about to try Wizard Den (Event Heroic) but have not had any luck getting good jewelry to drop. Did everyone find it equally as frustrating to get the 1000+ potency jewelry? Any good tips? I am rolling with the MC stuff right now but need the extra potency to speed up the kills.

Just patience and repetition. Ive got 3 or 4 rings from second name in Stronghold. Otherwise nothing outside armor pieces.

Once you have resolve for T2s, I'd recommend doing Temple Event too in Kunzar Jungle. Several 1k potency items drop there, and the mit 1k ring is more common imo.

 

[Solenoid]

Thanks. I have to resolve for all three tiers but not the DPS. Does the Temple Event have any DPS checks. My group is running about 10k pot right now

 

[Cheesy]

Thanks. I have to resolve for all three tiers but not the DPS. Does the Temple Event have any DPS checks. My group is running about 10k pot right now

No real dps checks no.

I'd recommend just running as many zones as you can, even T1. The missions always have a chance to give you decent items too.

 

[Loppy]

Just really wanted to thank everyone for this thread, there's some great advice in here!

I'm very late to the KA party having decided not to bother with it, unfortunately curiosity got the better of me. I put the game down last summer and didn't benefit from ethereals/purple adorns from then so was basically running with 2k potency each when embarking on KA. So after running everyone through the questline, grinding 5 toons to 100 tradeskill and doing the KA questline for mantle, getting eth weapon, I finally managed to get everyone up to 10k potency.

I tried Stronghold last night, I was tired and it didn't go well! I got spanked around by croc guy and his adds felt about quitting and then found this thread.

Whacking 6 points in Enhanced Vigor has literally been a game changer, it doubled my toons health and survivability wasn't a problem. I also sorted out new purple adorns and new poisons for all who could use.

I went back to Kaesora and took my time, things I took for granted in ToT I did properly like clearing trash and killing adds then returning to named. I cleared the zone in about 2 hours. Yep a long time but the relief of making progress was worth it. The drops weren't too bad at all!

I'm dreading the Epic questlines and I'm sure that the reason DBG implemented it as such was to make it a PITA for us folk. I imagine getting all 6 through it won't be pleasant. I'm all enthused though and beginning to enjoy eq2 again.

Thanks again all.

 

[Loppy]

Also just wanted to say, my coercer has turned into beastmode topping the parse almost continuously over the brigand and assassin.

I don't know what the difference is between KA and TOT but I like it a lot in this regard!

 

[newboi]

Hi guys, is there an equivalent thread like this for entry level PoP stuff? I've had a look and can find strats etc, but not quite so many basics. Having been gone for about 4 years, and rerolling on new accounts I feel a bit like I've been shot in the head with an impossible game of catch up!

Thanks!

 

[Amadeus]

It's been about 4 years for me too, and even then I think I was doing the TLE server. This is one of the worst MMOs for feeling completely lost if you're new to the game or left for a long time.

Someone recently posted this - it might be helpful: https://www.everquest2.com/news/eq2-are-you-returning-new-players-2018

 

[newboi]

Awesome thanks very much, yeah it is really quite different now, there's a ton of extra ways to customise/boost gear. I went into a pop heroic zone and my attacks were bouncing off mainly, so now I've invested in a couple of CE on 2 of the 6 so 2 members have skewer, and working on the shrunken earring, i think this combat miti must be a big thing.