With the expansion, I have a lot of work ahead. I’ve done a lot of exploring and played some classes I don’t normally play (e.g. Fury and Conjurer), done many new quests and seen a lot of new places. I just have to figure out how to best do all I would like to do without having to level too many new chaarcters.
Account 1: Dina (70 troubador/45 tailor), Dera (58 inquisitor/26 armorer), Tipa (38 monk in exile)
Account 2: Dorah (46 necromancer/67 jeweler), Nashuya (45 shadow knight), Verd (36 warden in exile), Etha (22 defiler/38 alchemist)
Plus other random characters I tried out on each account. These are the main characters on the accounts.
My goals:
Dina – she has 46 bard AAs, she needs the next four to give her double attack when wielding a shield; she speced for 1h/shield when she switched to the raid AA line. I topped out her AAs in beta and they do make a difference. Troubador AAs were switched around some in beta and there are several she needs. Unfortunately, the only way to really get AAs is to raid, as killing boss mobs nets a good deal of experience, and a great deal more if this is your first time killing it. I find AAs come slowly in experience groups. Since Dina is the best geared of all my characters, it will likely be her given the task of leveling my Fae. Troubs take a lot of flack from people in general, but I really like my little spell-slinger. I feel my debuffs make a difference and love how I can put caster DPS into the heavens.
Dera – at 58, she is just at the beginning of an experience curve that will bring her to raiding (and already raids T5 and T6 content). Being on the same account as Dina means it’s an either/or thing. In beta, she was buffed to 70 with raid gear so I could get a chance to see Inqs at the top of their game. I was not that impressed. I have very little time to cast the long string of debuffs I need to cast; managing debuffs takes a fair amount of time all by itself. Without time to cast them, inquisitors are just cut-rate templars without the cool group heal after every mob dies. I like Dera; I play healers in most games because I love the challenge of keeping people alive.
Tipa – I last played her as MA in a Runnyeye group. Her lack of real hate-generating techniques meant getting and keeping aggro was frustrating. Nashuya, the SK, does this so much better. Despite bearing the name of one of my most beloved EQ1 characters (there, my rogue), I can’t see a real reason to continue with her. My only foray in beta was to buff her to 70 and take some pictures of her in raid gear. I felt no desire to bring her out into the world and do anything with her.
So for my main account, I gotta go with Dina. I love her so much. She is my favorite character. She is the spiritual sister of my EQ1 rogue. Many would say I would love her more as a dirge, but I can’t believe that. Part of my love for anything has always been rooting for the underdog and the unloved. Plus with relic armor, changing would cost me too much.
So for my main account, it’s Dina. That means my new Fae goes on my other account, which is fine.
I don’t particularly enjoy two-boxing, so most of the characters on my second account got their levels by being played without any characters from my first. They are also generally a lot lower level.
Dorah – my jeweler, and the character who is finally exploring the Desert of Flames expansion. Her top expansion priorities are getting her Staff of the Observers and the Brell worship line. Her continuing priorities are becoming kindly to the Courts of Coin, becoming a level 70 jeweler, and reaching the next level within the Coalition of Tradesfolk.
Being my number one crafter, she needs Brell’s crafter buffs. AND she needs to become either a transmuter or tinkerer — tinkerer is my bet, since it is Dina, with her greater access to mystical items, who would best transmute. Plus adornment crafting. Dorah is going to be a busy bee. Unfortunately, I can’t level a Fae and do all the things that need doing on Dorah at the same time, if the Fae is on this account. Obvious answer for the rich is to transfer Dorah to Dina’s account. And Dera to Dorah’s account. And since Nashuya was Dera’s partner, her to Dina’s account. Cost for this: $150. Yikes. This would, though, get all the healers on one account, and all the characters who need healing on the other, allowing for all sorts of combinations. Dera would be a fantastic partner for Dina, who is often hampered by not being able to heal. Dera and Dorah are within xp range of each other, so very often Dera tanks while Dorah kills. This reached its real test in the heart of the Temple of Cazic Thule, which I two boxed in just this way.
Nashuya tanks. She is very good at it. But she can’t tank for my Fae because they would be on the same account. I enjoy playing her solo or two-boxing. Tanking in groups is very stressful. I can and have done it, but I prefer support roles. SKs are support tanks but I rarely am asked to fill that particular role. Half the tanks I do group with are crappy to begin with and I usually unilaterally decide to take over main tank duties anyway. I love Nashuya, and I loved her predecessor in EQ1. But she doesn’t fit any in-game character need I have. Fighters are among the most common classes, and the least well-played. I don’t need to add to the bad reputation.
Verd – created for the sole purpose of healing Tipa. I have largely been using him to heal Dina simply because he’s all the healer I can give to Dina. He gets no experience and dies a lot, but such is my need for someone to heal Dina. Druids get ports in EoF; I think I would like someone to port me everywhere. I would like Verd to heal Dorah and her pet and port her around but — same account. After playing my fury, Derissa, in beta, my respect for druids has never been higher. Furies in particular! I had no trouble healing in high level zones with her, even before they added the raid gear beta buff at the end. I believe Verd would have been even better, but I only got in beta on my main account so couldn’t test how my other classes would have done. I like Verd, he would make a great two-box combo with Dina in another twenty levels or so, but… Plan is, since he is in exile, to go ahead and have him become a citizen of Kelethin, along with Tipa, and change class to Fury if that is an option. But otherwise leave him on the back burner.
Etha – I created Etha when I got my second account to help Dina catch up to the rest of her guild when I restarted on the Faydark server. Having a healer along let me do betrayal without requiring as much help as Dera had needed back on Antonia Bayle. I intended to keep Etha in xp range, but it just didn’t work out. She was left as a tradeskill character, making the alchemical ingredients to support Dina’s tailoring. The tradeskill changes made even that unnecessary. So she’s been doing nothing. I did resurrect her on beta as a conjurer. By all rights, I should drop everything and start leveling Etha up if I want a defiler for the guild, and I do. But I want a Fae. And I want that Fae to be a defiler. It makes no sense to level two defilers so… Etha stays at home.
Fae – Name unknown. My beta Fae (a monk) was named Flutterbie after a character in Avatar, but there’s someone named that on Befallen already. And it’s kind of a stupid name. I pride myself on unique and fitting names. She is going to be a defiler, but Fae betrayal isn’t in yet so she will start as a Mystic. This gives me a chance to do the Fae-oriented quests I didn’t get to in beta (though I did do most of them). Shaman are harder to two-box than druids or clerics. Druids are dead-easy — their heals over time mean healing is happening even when you’re focusing on another character. I’ll level her solo to start, then two box with Dina, mentoring, unless Dina is nerfed too much by the mentoring process, in which case Tipa will handle it. Dina will be too high a level to enter any instances with the Fae for quite awhile anyway. If Dorah was on my main account, I’d two box with her. With some better heals on the pet, there’s very little they couldn’t do. Issue there being, no point to leveling Dorah in her adventure class — there are too many necros already. No need for monks, either.
There is a need for Troubs and Defilers. So that, in the end, is The Plan. Dina and Etha some bug as my “mains”, Dorah as my main tradeskiller.
