What's the best strategy for playing P99?

[Forsh]

When the Green server opened I started my Ranger on P99 and there was a large player density and I was able to get groups easily but when the server was split I suddenly wasn't able to get any groups. I hung around for a few weeks sitting in the game, logging in for a few hours at a time, and trying to find groups but it became an impossible task so I stopped playing. I went back to WoW for the past few months and tried their Shadowlands expansion but I soon learned how much I loathe that game and I just can't play it anymore.

I always played a Ranger in EQ (my old Magelo last updated in 2007 when I quit https://eq.magelo.com/profile/1361726 ) so I made one on P99. I loved EverCrack and P99 is probably the only place I have a possibility of getting back into that game in some way but what's the best strategy to actually being able to play if you're not logging in with friends? Should I maybe choose a Druid instead and pursue soloing? I literally have all day, everyday, to play forever. My life is just convenient like that now! Wish my life was setup like then when I played EQ from 2000-2007, I probably never would have quit.

By the way, here's a screenshot I took on Green within the first few minutes it opened.

https://i.imgur.com/UuwiZbg.jpg

[Nark_Sinseeker]

In my opinion, the first character on a fresh start should be the non-gear-dependent money maker. Your second character will ultimately be your main, decked out with necessary equipment that will save time and anguish.

In your circumstance, it sounds like ranger will be your main. They are fun, but as I'm sure you're aware, almost all melee classes start off slow and vulnerable. No movement or attack speed enhancements, limited regeneration, and other slow-me-downs that make everquest a massive time sink (yet strangely rewarding!).

Consider starting with a necro, druid, enchanter, or other self-reliant class which does not *really* depend on equipment or groups to level up. When you are high enough level to farm some cash camps, get your needed wealth and start buying equipment for your main.

Not only will you have a better understanding of where to go as you level (popular hot spots for grouping or soloing), but I guarantee you will have more fun in the early levels.

Thats what I did when I started on blue years ago, and thats what I recommend you do as well.

[Twochain]

Rangers stink, ESPECIALLY SO in classic. The exp penalty is terrible, and with people racing to 50, they don't want a ranger in their group.

For a fresh green server, optimally you want to play either one of the main pet classes (Mages are sick in classic, but pretty much stink after that, Necros are very nice, and ENC is the best) OR A cleric/Shaman. With a cleric/shaman, you'll pretty much always be able to find groups. Always. (on a new server). Druids are also a pretty nice mix of it all, however, aren't great at making plat outside of ports.

Starting from scratch today? At this point in green.. and shit even Blue, the answer is going to be either Enchanter or Monk. Enchanters cost almost nothing to gear out, are solo monsters, are the best group class, and the best duo class. You can always find a group, you can always solo.

MY second choice for starting from scratch today is actually iksar monk. Gearing is going to be more expensive, but with a Wu's Quivering Staff you can solo into the 20s pretty easily. Great at making plat at level 60, always needed in groups, third best DPS in groups, great on raids, etc.

Those first couple days of green were magic :)

[cd288]

Rangers stink, ESPECIALLY SO in classic. The exp penalty is terrible, and with people racing to 50, they don't want a ranger in their group.

For a fresh green server, optimally you want to play either one of the main pet classes (Mages are sick in classic, but pretty much stink after that, Necros are very nice, and ENC is the best) OR A cleric/Shaman. With a cleric/shaman, you'll pretty much always be able to find groups. Always. (on a new server). Druids are also a pretty nice mix of it all, however, aren't great at making plat outside of ports.

Starting from scratch today? At this point in green.. and shit even Blue, the answer is going to be either Enchanter or Monk. Enchanters cost almost nothing to gear out, are solo monsters, are the best group class, and the best duo class. You can always find a group, you can always solo.

MY second choice for starting from scratch today is actually iksar monk. Gearing is going to be more expensive, but with a Wu's Quivering Staff you can solo into the 20s pretty easily. Great at making plat at level 60, always needed in groups, third best DPS in groups, great on raids, etc.

Those first couple days of green were magic :)

Only caveat is there are no more EXP penalties on Green (for class penalties) so people won't mind having a hybrid in their group anymore. Just generally tougher to find lower level groups except in certain zones.

[Ravager]

The best strategy is to play what you enjoy and to play it for the enjoyment of it. When the day comes that you don't enjoy it any longer, give it up. If you want a group, just send someone a tell and start a duo, then build from there. Easy peasy.

[Baler]

Okay preface, i'm about to describe a min-max meta that is unhealthy and will leave to burnout excluding the most diehard players.

1. Level any class to 60, the game starts at 60 (preferably a money maker class)
2. Farm plat/ item to sell and EC gear the class you want to main
3. Look to alternative ways to make plat powerleveling, selling no-drops loot rights etc
3.5. Use your resources to gear your future Main as best as possible.
4. Join a raid guild with your 60 and dedicate all your time to serving them in order to gain DKP or leadership favor.
5. Start gaining BiS gear which will expand 2 & 3.
6. Form a farm group, do Gwurms/Emporerer/epic farming, etc

No Tradeskills, tradeskills are a plat and time sink. Unless you know you can complete your rings shawls etc, do not spend any time on tradeskills.

You will fail this if you do not get a class to 60, a lot of people burn out at 55-56.
And remember this is the most non-classic min-max route. Ignoring fun and only focusing on End Game.

[Tewaz]

Rangers are fine. It is a fun class to play, but you really need some specific weapons for the class to pop.

But if you do want to play one, these fine humans (totally real people, not bots) are right and you should level another "farming" class.

Druid to 39 or 44 (easy to push to 44 if you can find groups in CT) can make great money just selling ports.

Necro/mage can make great money in the early 30's killing halfing guards or HHK guards.

Honestly, if you can just power through and push a Ranger to 27/28 you can make fantastic money killing the Brutes in the cave outside the Dalnir entrance in Warslik's Woods.

Downside is no merchant/bank anywhere near you, though there is one greedy merchant in OT for food/water.

[Philistine]

I play a (recently) 60 ranger on blue, so my entire ranger career has been after the hybrid xp penalty was removed, but I can tell you I have no regrets having a ranger as my main from more or less the get-go.

On Blue at least, people seem glad to invite a ranger into a group. Sure I've been passed over for a rogue sometimes, but when those groups later ground to a halt when their tank left, I bet they'd wished they'd picked up a class with more utility.

Rangers may not do the most DPS hut they can keep groups going that would otherwise have to stop and look to fill specific roles. Even in my late 50s in the Hole it wasn't uncommon to go from pulling to DPS to ghetto CC to ghetto tank role all in the same night.

If you build a reputation as an attentive player who knows how to make himself useful you'll get invites and keep groups going long after they would have otherwise had to stop.

Also, raid bumping is super fun :)

Long story long, I love rangering, and vote you ranger too if that's what you want to do :)

[Jibartik]

https://i.imgur.com/UuwiZbg.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/o0HggJf.png

[fortior]

god I miss the start of green

can we please have an accelerated timeline

[Gustoo]

Accelerated?

How about decelerated so level 1-50 good times in vanilla can be drawn out?

[Tunabros]

be unemployed or have friends willing to do dumb shit with you

[Baler]

Q: What's the best strategy for playing P99?
A: Stay off the forums.

[Twochain]

Rangers are fine. It is a fun class to play, but you really need some specific weapons for the class to pop.

But if you do want to play one, these fine humans (totally real people, not bots) are right and you should level another "farming" class.

Druid to 39 or 44 (easy to push to 44 if you can find groups in CT) can make great money just selling ports.

Necro/mage can make great money in the early 30's killing halfing guards or HHK guards.

Honestly, if you can just power through and push a Ranger to 27/28 you can make fantastic money killing the Brutes in the cave outside the Dalnir entrance in Warslik's Woods.

Downside is no merchant/bank anywhere near you, though there is one greedy merchant in OT for food/water.

Is bow kiting viable on a fresh classic server? I don't know for certain but I don't think so. If the answer is no, Rangers are probably the worst/hardest toon to start with. Pretty much every melee is complete crap in classic 1-50 before plane of sky. Rangers are the weakest melee class overall in terms of DPS/Tankability/etc. Add in the exp penalty and you have one very bad combination to start a server with.

Not that starting a ranger is WRONG, play whatever you want. But it's probably the hardest choice out of all of them.

[Keebz]

If you always want to be able to solo and you're not twinked, Ranger isn't the best option. Something like Iksar Necro would be better. But that being said, there are still groups to be had if you stick to the EXP super highway and this game is a _long_ grind to 60. So I'd be 100% certain whatever you choose appeals to you.

As for the Ranger slander in this thread, I'd like to provide some counter points.

Ranger was my first toon on green and I took it straight to 50 then farmed a small fortune with track.

In classic Rangers are actually awesome group tanks due to snap aggro and great pullers as well due to track and harmony. It's not until 51+ is when Rangers start getting the shit kicked out of them, but with a good slower it doesn't matter. Honestly, it is Kunark when Rangers are at their weakest.

I don't main my Ranger anymore, but it's underrated if you know what you're doing.

[gherron]

If you always want to be able to solo and you're not twinked, Ranger isn't the best option. Something like Iksar Necro would be better. But that being said, there are still groups to be had if you stick to the EXP super highway and this game is a _long_ grind to 60. So I'd be 100% certain whatever you choose appeals to you.

As for the Ranger slander in this thread, I'd like to provide some counter points.

Ranger was my first toon on green and I took it straight to 50 then farmed a small fortune with track.

In classic Rangers are actually awesome group tanks due to snap aggro and great pullers as well due to track and harmony. It's not until 51+ is when Rangers start getting the shit kicked out of them, but with a good slower it doesn't matter. Honestly, it is Kunark when Rangers are at their weakest.

I don't main my Ranger anymore, but it's underrated if you know what you're doing.

This guy rangers. I pretty much did the same thing as him and got my ranger to level 50 pre-kunark on green. It was a lot of fun and pretty hard doing it untwinked but still quite rewarding in the end. Some things I want to add

-Rangers are fine for face-tanking classic mobs (have tanked for groups in sol B and HHK nobles before while getting to 50.

-Bow kiting is doable but really should be used as a last resort. Because I was untwinked I decided to solo Karg Icebear (Level 35) by bow kiting. With sow pots and a shit-ton of arrows I did kill him at level 15/16. ...But it took like 30 minutes of pelting him with arrows.

-Harmony and track are great and outdoor zones are your jam. I'm just not sure which outdoor zones are hot spots/high ZEM places right now (back in my day crushbone, unrest/mistmoore, HHK were all the rage and all outdoors).

-While I wasn't unemployed, I was working from home during most of this so I had a ton of time to invest so that might also be a factor.

[Cen]

god I miss the start of green

can we please have an accelerated timeline

We should have a circle that recycles just the first week of green ;) lol

[unsunghero]

Accelerated?

How about decelerated so level 1-50 good times in vanilla can be drawn out?

WISDOM

I purposefully only kill the lowest of the low blue and exp-giving green cons so that I can draw out the leveling process as much as possible. I’m almost a year into P99 on a single char and he’s only level 42

The OP has unlimited time, so maybe end game on P99 wouldn’t suck for him as much as for someone with RL responsibilities. But unless your idea of fun is waking up to a phone call at 3am to go Zerg some raid target that dies in 30 seconds, you probably still aren’t going to enjoy P99 end game (this is just what I’ve heard about it obviously)

Yes Shadowlands in WoW sucks, but WoW still has INSTANCED end game zones meaning you don’t have to compete against turbo-nerds for your raid targets, and it can create challenge with enemy AI and advanced raid macro rather than the challenge of who can accumulate more sweaty nerds to race to a raid target the fastest

Stop and smell the roses along the way to 60

[loramin]

Q: What's the best strategy for playing P99?
A: Stay off the forums.

QFT

[Rader]

Okay preface, i'm about to describe a min-max meta that is unhealthy and will leave to burnout excluding the most diehard players.

1. Level any class to 60, the game starts at 60 (preferably a money maker class)
2. Farm plat/ item to sell and EC gear the class you want to main
3. Look to alternative ways to make plat powerleveling, selling no-drops loot rights etc
3.5. Use your resources to gear your future Main as best as possible.
4. Join a raid guild with your 60 and dedicate all your time to serving them in order to gain DKP or leadership favor.
5. Start gaining BiS gear which will expand 2 & 3.
6. Form a farm group, do Gwurms/Emporerer/epic farming, etc

No Tradeskills, tradeskills are a plat and time sink. Unless you know you can complete your rings shawls etc, do not spend any time on tradeskills.

You will fail this if you do not get a class to 60, a lot of people burn out at 55-56.
And remember this is the most non-classic min-max route. Ignoring fun and only focusing on End Game.

End Game sucks. Why would any one want to focus on that? lol

[Castle2.0]

6 stages of Green

Newbiequest
Raidquest
Lawyerquest
Epicquest
Fashionquest
Forumquest


Here's what I did and I recommend you do the same.

Do something worth forumquesting about, then skip 3-5 right to the true endgame: forumquesting.

See my signature for some inspiration.

[Bardp1999]

1) start playing casually
2) become addicted and start calling into work to play (start doing drugs also)
3) quit job/get fired (keep doing drugs)
4) become a mighty guild leader and server hero (wife divorces you at this point)
5) stop playing P99 altogether and only post on the forums (ultimate victory)

[Tunabros]

-do drugs and be unemployed
-join a zerg guild
-get warder loot and show it off to your neglected family

that's the first option

here's the second one

-join zerg guild
-realize that your a warm body
-quit the game

there's no winning on p99 green
we're all fucked

[cd288]

6 stages of Green

Newbiequest
Raidquest
Lawyerquest
Epicquest
Fashionquest
Forumquest


Here's what I did and I recommend you do the same.

Do something worth forumquesting about, then skip 3-5 right to the true endgame: forumquesting.

See my signature for some inspiration.

Ok you finally made me laugh

[Tunabros]

i can assure you no one cares about your shitty signature castle2.0