Hello all .. just starting a few questions

[dg_w]

Hi everyone...

I found the server, and have created an account, will hopefully start in a day or so ..
I have not been on EQ since 1990s! (misspent uni time) I am thinking of a Druid or Shaman ... leaning towards a Wood elf Druid for getting around and solo play?
I will be mostly soloing as and when I get on. (older player here with wife and kids getting in the way of my game time! ;) Will be on most evenings for an hour or so, so that's a priority, though I guess some usefulness in groups later may be useful .. decided against Necro because if the hassles of not being liked, trading etc? though they look like a good solo chacter

Can I get some advice on that , and maybe race and where to put my points at creation please... and maybe useful trade skills? (just reading the wiki..)

I recall doing a Human "something" all those years ago and found out many (many!) months later it was not such a good idea!

Maybe a different class would prove better for solo play? (Bard perhaps ...I never played one... Shaman, Wizard, Necro or Enc) I am reading up but have been out of EQ for many years now. and forgot most of everything! I do like the utility and buff spells,with a bit of melee, but open to ideas

See you all in Norath soon I hope

[Estu]

Since it sounds like you have a lot of different ideas, I would consult this guide to figure out what class to play: http://wiki.project1999.com/Players:Newbie

Druid is a solid choice. They are excellent at leveling quickly solo because they can charm animals. Charming is the fastest method of soloing outside of bard AoE kiting, so any class that can charm (druid, necro, enchanter) is an extremely efficient solo EXPer.

Once you hit 60, druids are not so good at soloing difficult camps. I don't know if this is a goal of yours. When people talk about wanting to solo on a class, or how good a class is at soloing, they're often talking about just one of two very different skill sets: solo EXPing from 1 to 60, and then soloing challenging cash camps at level 60. Druids are great at the former; not so great at the latter (although they are extremely strong power levelers, and this makes them effective money earners).

Don't count on doing any meleeing on your druid after level 12. If you want to solo, you're probably not going to be doing much meleeing. Meleeing is not an effective means of soloing unless you're a rogue or a monk or something with crazy expensive gear, or if you're a shaman in his lower to mid levels... although shamans are rather poor and slow soloers until later in the game.

[Aztefano]

You could do a Bertoxx Human Necro, he can trade and bank in many places with little or no faction work. Also, bards can charm quite well if you are not into running in circles and ruining your fingers. I leveled my bard from late 30's to almost 50 charming giants on Live back in 2001.

[GreldorEQ]

I have found the druid to be very friendly to an erratic playtime schedule. I am able to solo for EXP and gear effectively and I have found that groups are plentiful enough that I can get one if I need one.

I am level 38 now, and I think the druid fits the play schedule you describe quite well.

If you wont be playing a lot, and often, the Druid gives you opportunities to explore, quest, solo and group at any level I have seen so far.

Good Luck!

[Teneran]

Can one realistically on the server at this point get a prime cash camp at 60 anyway? My impression is they are all pretty muc perma-camped 24/7. I know everytime I take the boat through OOT there are ubers anon camping the various spots ... everytime.

So i wouldn't let that disuade from picking a druid, personally.

[Ando]

Can one realistically on the server at this point get a prime cash camp at 60 anyway? My impression is they are all pretty muc perma-camped 24/7. I know everytime I take the boat through OOT there are ubers anon camping the various spots ... everytime.

So i wouldn't let that disuade from picking a druid, personally.

Come to red - not a problem there. If it is, there's an easy solution.

[Schwing]

Can one realistically on the server at this point get a prime cash camp at 60 anyway? My impression is they are all pretty muc perma-camped 24/7. I know everytime I take the boat through OOT there are ubers anon camping the various spots ... everytime.

So i wouldn't let that disuade from picking a druid, personally.

Your impression is incorrect. While it's true there's somebody usually occupying any lucrative camps, it's not always the case, and even if they're camped you likely won't have to wait in line for long. Also, those 'ubers' are just regular people, like you, that didn't do anything special to acquire X camp.

Anyway, druids can handle the vast majority of cash camps, but you'll make the same or better money powerleveling anyway, and then it's guaranteed.

[dg_w]

Tanks for the advice, I really wanted to go Necro, but was put off with being hated in cities, ease or trading etc.. maybe I will try a Human Necro as Aztenafo sujested above..
guess they are preety well rounded. no night vision,

The WIKi has "It is fairly common for necromancers to begin with 25 Intelligence, 5 Stamina, but it is not unheard of for a necromancer to begin with 25 Stamina, 5 Intelligence"

umm... so which do you think for a human Necro on the 1999 blue server?

[DrKvothe]

Hi DG, welcome to P1999! Keep in mind that Everquest was not meant to be a strictly solo game, and endgame content reflects this. Especially 40+, monsters begin to ramp up in stats much faster than players. The lowest dark blue mobs my 59 shaman can find have more hp than raid geared, full buffed tanks. Certain classes can solo level very well at the end-game, but even just a duo or trio of classes not typically considered strong solo classes can do a lot of content. You'll hear that warriors can't solo, but they can certainly duo well enough with a shaman or enchanter (CC + 70-75% slow + dual bloodpoints > heals), and warrior + any priest class + any 3rd class makes a great trio.

So basically, don't worry about needing a "solo class", because you can always send some tells around and find one or two people to join you. Be proactive! On the blue server, do a "/who all X" search for X = your level or levels around your level to find out where people are hunting.

I also agree that you should try the Red server instead. Leveling is faster, you'll learn how to play your class better, and cash camps are more frequently unoccupied. Druids aren't a sought after grouping class on the blue server, but due to the outrageous exp bonus for larger group size on Red, as well as basically all druid spells being more valuable in a pvp environment than they are on Blue, you'll have more fun with your druid on Red, imho. Yes, if you go to crushbone or unrest or mistmoore, or if you just happen to get unlucky, you'll get slaughtered by a twink who just wants to ruin your day. Just /ooc LNS crushbone, or whatever zone, grab your gear, and get out. He'll leave you alone, and you can find other hunting grounds. This annoyance is entirely offset by the ridiculously fast pace of leveling on Red.

For druid, IMHO, you're going to want to make a halfling or wood elf in order to get the Hide racial ability. I wouldn't rely on it to break charm, although you can click it before you cast invis on yourself if you don't have the Goblin Gazughi Ring (any type of invis breaks charm, read up on charming to understand why and when you'd want to break it), but its fantastic for medding back to full in dangerous locations. Just click it, /con a normally kos enemy, and if they're indifferent then you're effectively invisible and can just sit and med safely. If still scowling or whatever, just move and then try again.

I disagree with Estu's approximation of when you'll stop meleeing solo. At lvl 12, you won't have any +mana/wis gear yet (or not enough to make a difference), so you'll have almost exactly 300 mana if you maxed Wis on a halfling or wood elf. If you're not meleeing, presumably you're kiting the mob around with snare or keeping him rooted. Snare lasts a lot longer and is more reliable, root at that level doesn't last too long and will break as you nuke. Root costs 35 mana, so you don't want it breaking every couple of nukes! Snare is 15 mana, and lets assume you only need to cast it once. So if you harmony and snare, that's 40 mana spent, leaving you with 260. Flame lick will do ~24 damage over 8 ticks, so that's another 10 mana you should spend, you're at 250. That lvl 10 orc centurion has 200 hp, so you'll need to land 6 ignites to kill him. That assumes no resists or partial resists. You can only afford to cast 8 ignites before you're OOM. If you get even 3 resists or partial resists, you're gonna be OOM.

Lets say you just snare kite him to 20% then whack him with your club* until he's dead. That's 1 less full ignite that you have to land. That's a bit more consistently possible. Still, you're gonna be basically completely oom after most fights, and if you've got an add the first one isn't going to run, you'll have mana for one less ignite after you root the add, etc. So you might be able to kill the first one and run, but probably not.

A better tactic is to treeform at max pulling range, med back up. Harmony and snare, and if you get an add root it. Once add is taken care of or if there is no add, cast shield of thistles on yourself. It'll land just before the snared mob gets to you, maximizing the effective duration. Turn on autoattack, and start blasting away with ignite. You want a high dmg weapon without regard for delay, because you'll be casting in between. If you were going to semi-twink, you'd want something like brell's keg popper. The mob might start out of melee range, but he'll move in after a bit, just keep nuking. Your damage shield (6 points from shield of thistles + thistlecoat) will do most of the work, and with treeform you've got twice the hp regen (standing) of a troll/iksar! I typically end fights at ~40-50% hp/mana against even cons, and I can pretty easily handle 1 blue + 1 even on a pull (snare pull, root add, kill snared, then kill add) or at least escape reliably after the first kill.

[loramin]

and maybe useful trade skills? (just reading the wiki..)

To be brutally honest, in this era there is no such thing as a useful tradeskill. Any tradeskill you might do will cost you way more time and platinum than you will be able to earn back.

When Velious comes there will be more use for tradeskills, but even then you'll be better off just buying (for instance) a suit of tailored armor, or two or three, than trying to level up tailoring and make one yourself. There will also be the shawl, but that just requires 130-ish level of skill in all the tradeskills (except Blacksmithing), not any one in particular.

So, I don't mean to discourage you from doing tradeskills, I'm just saying you should do them all (for the Shawl) or do whichever ones will be fun for you; don't try and do one that will benefit you directly, as none will.

[DrKvothe]

If you plan on sitting in EC a lot on your character, bothering with certain tradeskills up until the first useful item is trivial can be great additional cash. For example, it's really not terribly expensive to get high enough alchemy to make SoW, invis vs undead, and shrink pots, and those provide fairly passive profit whenever you've got an item to unload in EC.

Another example would probably be the 10 slot bags and bearskin bags from tailoring. You can hunt the mats yourself at low levels. For a melee, you want to turn all of your loot into new gear like weapons and haste items, but as a caster you just need ~1k pp worth of jewelry, which you'll pick up pretty quickly.

[loramin]

If you plan on sitting in EC a lot on your character, bothering with certain tradeskills up until the first useful item is trivial can be great additional cash. For example, it's really not terribly expensive to get high enough alchemy to make SoW, invis vs undead, and shrink pots, and those provide fairly passive profit whenever you've got an item to unload in EC.

Another example would probably be the 10 slot bags and bearskin bags from tailoring. You can hunt the mats yourself at low levels. For a melee, you want to turn all of your loot into new gear like weapons and haste items, but as a caster you just need ~1k pp worth of jewelry, which you'll pick up pretty quickly.

That's true, but ONLY if you don't value the time you spend in EC at all. If you do then the math works out something like:

time to make a 10-dose potion: 5 min
time to sell a 10-dose potion: 1 hour? 2 hours? more? Let's be generous and say 55 minutes
profit on a 10-dose potion: 30 plat (something like that; they sell for 100 and cost like 70 to make)
profit: 30 plat/hour

... and that's not counting the time to run back to your hometown (to buy alchemy components) and to run to EC. It's not counting the time it will take you to level up your alchemy. And it assumes you will find a buyer in 55 minutes, when in fact you could spend hours in EC and not sell a single potion.

Oh, and you have to spend money to get your alchemy up in the first place. I don't remember how much it takes, but let's say 300 plat. That means that you lose money until you've sold your first 10 potions (ie. wasted 10 hours on top of the time to learn alchemy).

Or you could go adventure, earn some XP, and probably earn at least 30 plat an hour. That's why I say that tradeskills are for fun, not making money.