Question - I'm TLPtarded

[LurkMcGurk]

Title pretty much sums up my position... I am mostly a live EQer but I also have a box team on the TLPs because I have always wanted to see the content in the early days(Planes of Power). I never got to raid as a kid growing up so I would like to fulfill that goal nowadays.... the only thing though is I suck so bad I dont even know where to start with half of these classes.

So... I have a few questions for those of you who know the game during this era really well.

((ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS ARE BEING ASKED IN A RAID-LIKE SCENARIO. MEANING I DON'T HAVE INTEREST IN KNOWING WHAT'S GOOD FOR GROUP CONTENT - RAID CONTENT ONLY))

Class Questions

1. What songs should I be using on my Bard? He's in a melee group with 3 monks a cleric and a wizard (wizards there cause I need 1 wiz per group to port my whole raid at once)

2. What Abilities should I be using on my Monks? Right now I use Flying Kick and Eagle Strike but I am not sure if that's right or not...

3. What Spells should I be using on my Wizards? I heard someone say Wizzies actually use rains primarily during this era - is that true? Is there any way around using rains? I sincerly hate the mechanics rains use and if at all possible I would like to avoid using rains (I wouldnt mind a 20% dps decrease or something for not using them - I just don't know what other spells to use aside from spamming Sunstrike which I was told is the sign of a bad wizard)

4. For Mages, what spells should I use? I mostly use the Magic nuke since the seeking flame nukes are blocked by terrain and other annoying things. I also use Fire Pets since I was told/heard they are the best DPS.

5. Necros - just use the fire dot and then lifetap for the most DPS? Should they be twitching instead? Would it be useful to stock up on Essence Emeralds for massive burns?

6. **new** - What class parses at the top of a majority of raids and how much dps do they do? Also, what class parses second and how much do they do? You can keep going down the line if you'd like, I am curious of what average parses look like

General Questions

1. What quests are good to do for off slot pieces of gear? Things like Earring of Solstice etc etc? I mostly have ToV gear on my crew right now and I am looking to gear up their non vis slots

2. What classes epics should I get first? I don't have any of them yet sadly but I have most of the items required for them outside of raid drops



I'm sure I will have more questions later but that's all I can think of for now. My biggest issue is I mostly just don't know how to play the classes on TLPs as they are so much different than playing on live. any and all help will be greatly appreciated

 

[nyghteyes]

What TLP server,expac? Planes of Power?

Dont waste your time with too many casters. Unless you really want all the utilities, and want to manage all the scenarios that come with each class. I have dumped all but the necessary utilities. Trash will dies so fast DoT's are useless in most scenarios. Unless your Raid is short on those classes and need the utilities, swap for more melee dps.

1 Cleric and 1 bard per group, have a chanter in 1 of em and fill the rest with Rangers/Monk/Rogues.

Bard Epic is nice for fights with a dispel component for the proc & singing haste to get you to cap.
Resist/haste songs. 1 Regen Chorus, 1 Resist Chorus and 1 Rythm to the proper resists for the fight. Chorus will hit everyone in the raid, guardian is per group, they stack. There is a dual caster DD buff/ melee haste song at 64 for bards.

Cleric Epic is a must in raids.

1 Backup healer to keep on rotation clerics and keep everyone topped off is helpful if you are intending to CHRot the clerics.

Not sure what to tell you on the Wizard. Never replaced mine.

Honestly, DPS,DPS,DPS.

Most Raid bosses dont last long, they hit like trucks but will die in minutes for most raids in full force.

 

[TreeHuginDruid]

What TLP server, expac? Planes of Power?

Aye.. TLP server expansion matters..... determines your best sing/ability/spell to use and casting/ability order.... Just tell us the expansion your raiding in.

 

[playj]

Lurk, Fire Pets were considered best DPS in low levels because of the nice damage shield they put on up to until 50 or so.

After that Fire pets drop down in damage ability.

At 60 (since you are doing ToV so assuming this) for damage you should be using Epic/water/air/pet in that order of preference.

At 61 use the 61 Air Pet (which is better than Epic at that point).

The rule of thumb at 60+ is: Earth for tanking, Air for good balance between DPS and tanking + stunning caster mobs, Water for most damage and Fire for garbage.

Now I have tested this on a regular server up to until 65 when solo leveling a mage, but can't speak for TLP maybe DBG buffed the fire pets there dunno... *shrug*


About Wizards: yeah rains were the most mana efficient but this really assumes you are playing wiz as your primary.

You'd have to code some pretty nice macros to consistently use rains safely. Not worth it when boxing.

So just do Lower Element/Sunstrike/Concussion Pants/Sunstrike on non-fire resistant mobs. As Feynman said, What do you care what other people think?

 

[levox]

I'll try to help with answers for some of the classes I know. My answers are assuming you're in PoP but some more info would be helpful. How many groups are you running and what is the general make up? Melee? Casters?

1. The must haves are rislonas (overhaste and spell dmg) and warsong of zek. The easiest of the other two would be amplification and psalm of veeshan for resists.

2. Monk abilities would be flying kick and dragon punch(human) or tail rake (iksar).

3. Don't play a wizzie in raid but I'm almost sure they don't use rains. But I could easily be mistaken.

4. Not sure about nukes but fire pets are the best dps but can pull aggro believe it or not. The 63 fire pet frenzy nukes for up to 2,700 dmg.

5. Not sure on dots but I'm interested to know the answer as well.

G1. Not sure.

G2. Clerics and monks would be the most obvious choice. Monks epic fists are really good until you can start getting luclin/pop weapons. Mage really isn't needed with new pets. Sure it's still good but not worth the effort.



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[Dretski]

Using the LoS (bolt) spells as a mage will take you from mediocre to kickass up to and including Omens of War at least.

 

[LurkMcGurk]

What TLP server,expac? Planes of Power?

I figured it would be easy to assume that I am talking about Classic - PoP content since I mentioned "the early days" and there's only 1 active TLP that isn't in the 'nostalgia' era - you assumed right though! PoP but I will be doing other raids prior to PoP too... Like I have never done Veeshan's Peak and even if the loot sucks I would still like to see it. I know keying sucks for it too

Dont waste your time with too many casters. Unless you really want all the utilities, and want to manage all the scenarios that come with each class. I have dumped all but the necessary utilities. Trash will dies so fast DoT's are useless in most scenarios. Unless your Raid is short on those classes and need the utilities, swap for more melee dps.

I really dislike how melee is controlled by MQ2 and that you have to depend on MQ2 so heavily for it- I would prefer to avoid melee where at all possible that's why I use casters. Even if they are twice as bad I don't care, I leveled all casters in classic knowing monks were dah bomb because I hate melee so much. I only made the few monks I have because I didn't want my personal feelings of strongly disliking how melee is controlled by MQ2 to mean I couldn't down any raids or do anything at all.

I have one ranger too but he isn't active. I was considering making a beast lord for Paragon/buffs as well but I was unsure if it would be worth the time and effort to level them. If I did level them it would probably be with a few more melee characters that way I could roll raids easier.

Lurk, Fire Pets were considered best DPS in low levels because of the nice damage shield they put on up to until 50 or so.
After that Fire pets drop down in damage ability.
At 60 (since you are doing ToV so assuming this) for damage you should be using Epic/water/air/pet in that order of preference.
At 61 use the 61 Air Pet (which is better than Epic at that point).
The rule of thumb at 60+ is: Earth for tanking, Air for good balance between DPS and tanking + stunning caster mobs, Water for most damage and Fire for garbage.

I'll have to remember that - i see everyone talk about how fire is the best there is now. In the sticky at the top too someone yelled at nyghteyes for not using fire pets =P

About Wizards: yeah rains were the most mana efficient but this really assumes you are playing wiz as your primary.

You'd have to code some pretty nice macros to consistently use rains safely. Not worth it when boxing.

I'm glad someone else feels that way about rains!!! I have been told by boxers that use them to use them and I just can't see that being ok for the majority of circumstances. I don't alwayws wanna be playing at 110% sometimes i may be clearing to my camp spot and answering a forum post (like now) and i cant keep track of mobs running into my raid and then before you know it all the wizards blow themselves up and my clerics are OOM cause they were healing the wizards as they were killing themselves.

Even if I do marginally less DPS by not using them it's preferable since rains require more attention than I am willing to provide in most situations.

So just do Lower Element/Sunstrike/Concussion Pants/Sunstrike on non-fire resistant mobs. As Feynman said, What do you care what other people think?

Ice spear of solist any idea if that gets thrown into the rotation? The same guy who told me about rains told me to use that

 

[playj]

Oh yeah, Ice Spear of Solist is nice to add to rotation for efficiency, it has a recast thats about the only downside.

So probably start with Ice Spear then Sunstrike x2 then again Ice Spear.

 

[nyghteyes]

I went Ranger heavy since 1 hotkey faces and autofires, else Kiss does well assisting once Range is set correctly. My Rangers have no problem reaching upper end of the parses. I dropped all my non-critical casters, even dropping my shaman since the buffs arent critical with other shammies around and the Chanter does a fine job debuffing/CC.

A wizard for Tele is nice ofc, but I like a druid for some spot heals, and mana regen buff. And Arrows dont get resisted heh. but thats just my preference after Velious and Luclin running 3 groups with all the bells and whistles. 2 groups can do quite a bit in pop, 3 didnt feel necessary anymore unless I wanted all those little extra tidbits that didnt make or break my capabilities.

 

[LurkMcGurk]

I went Ranger heavy since 1 hotkey faces and autofires, else Kiss does well assisting once Range is set correctly. My Rangers have no problem reaching upper end of the parses. I dropped all my non-critical casters, even dropping my shaman since the buffs arent critical with other shammies around and the Chanter does a fine job debuffing/CC.

A wizard for Tele is nice ofc, but I like a druid for some spot heals, and mana regen buff. And Arrows dont get resisted heh. but thats just my preference after Velious and Luclin running 3 groups with all the bells and whistles. 2 groups can do quite a bit in pop, 3 didnt feel necessary anymore unless I wanted all those little extra tidbits that didnt make or break my capabilities.

Rangers.... auto fire during this era? They don't actually melee? That's interesting - on live it does like 1/10th the damage of meleeing =P


I think I would need more than 3 groups to do some of the content I am looking to do. I have a raid of 42 right now and I am clearing ToV trash so I can get gear for all of them. They all have planar gear from Plane of Hate/Fear and their off slots aren't filled with focuses or really anything to write home about. Mostly named drops from Kunark/Velious. They are very poorly geared and what's worse is I totally suck at the game during this era. My clerics dont have their epics, im using 16 of my friends characters whom are still using gear with no stats and just some AC in some slots.....

My raid force is pretty much comparable to trailer trash and my skill level aint much better atm. My main goal right now is to ToV gear everyone and then I think I am going to knock out epics all while learning how to play. This raid force is primarily mages/necros and wizards which I am sure will hold me back a little but I am hoping that I can do all the older raids (up to say luclin) without kronoing more characters.

 

[Esquire]

You can always contact me Lurk. I still think you need to make the "move" we had talked about way back when I started 6 boxing FV

 

[nyghteyes]

Ranger Melee is nothing compared to the bow in Pop into Deep OoW

 

[Esquire]

Ranger Melee is nothing compared to the bow in Pop into Deep OoW

This assumes a few things: Best bow, Trueshot up (What's the CD on Trueshot again? Oh yeah, TOO LONG), and sub-par weapons available.

I've run my crew with anywhere from 1 to 4 Rangers and have decided to only keep 1 around, mainly for buffing purposes.

But there goes Esquire startin' drama again!

 

[LurkMcGurk]

What's good dps in a raid? Like how much should I be parsing or what's a good benchmark for comparison for a few different classes? I've never done a raid with other people during this era so I honestly don't even know what's a good dps number

 

[Esquire]

What's good dps in a raid? Like how much should I be parsing or what's a good benchmark for comparison for a few different classes? I've never done a raid with other people during this era so I honestly don't even know what's a good dps number

Well, you have your guild raids and your box raids.

When my friend and I 2 box AoW during Luclin, we were pulling more DPS than (granted just marginally) the "Top" guild on Ragefire could put out on AoW. I believe we were spiking around 3000dps with 60 toons.

With the Innate Innerflame and Innate Duelist AA's staying in game (as they did on Phinny), Monks and Rogues see a 50% flat damage increase at level 65. I'll likely be re-testing some parses here in the next few days with the new spells, levels, and AA's factored in for PoP.

 

[nyghteyes]

Not sure on overall raid DPS, Maybe some raidleaders can pop in here to spew some numbers.

Luclin to PoP with rangers isnt even a comparison, I built mine in Luclin in preparation for PoP because they explode with power in PoP. Without discing or AA activations they are holding a goo 700-1100dps as long as the mobs arent moving, stationinary mobs get double bow damage. You will need Raid Monk weapons to beat this, Epic+Bare fists wont come close.

With Guardian and Trueshot 2k dps is not hard to reach. Stonewood bows are a great investment as you wont find better until PoTime. Trueshot is for final Raid bosses if you need Trueshot for trash...you're doing it wrong. Guardian of the forest has a fair recast. The whole premise here is not comparing to other meleese since Lurk does not want to manage mq2melee so comparison to a duration fight with casters is the deal here. Casters run oom, rangers dont run out of arrows.

 

[LurkMcGurk]

Not so much looking for over all raid dps but rather class by class dps


IE on raid bosses the class that usually parses at the top is X at XXXdps

second best class is X and they usually parse at XXXdps

and things like that are what I am interested in knowing. If I know how well the people who play the classes do it will help me see how I compare to them (and let me know how terrible I am being)