serious question about EQ and playtimes (long)

[Goranothos]

First, a brief bit of background: I've been playing EQ, off and on, (same character) since 2001. Raided old world, kunark, velious, some luclin, and PoP. I've been what you would call a "casual player" since the expansion that followed PoP (GoD?). In the last year, I've taken to boxing a shammy. When I play, I mostly box, and occasionally group. During my years of playing EQ, I've taken several long breaks, some as long as a year.

Yesterday I was attempting nameds in MC, and having bad luck, died four times in a row trying to kill puppetmaster and aether. Zone was empty except me. Then a group comes along and kills the named (with no problem whatsoever). They gave me the loot, but it was kinda humilating and pretty much killed my fun. Then, a bard from a high end raiding guild offers to group with me, which I agree to. He/she was very nice and helpful, but it soon became apparant to me that he/she was so far ahead of me in play skills, gear, and aa that he/she didn't really need me at all, and was just "slumming", for lack of a better term.

All this kinda made me ask myself why I even bother. On a typical week, I'm lucky to be able to play two hours in a row Mon-Fri, and I can usually get three uninterrupted hours of playtime on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, for a grand total of eight hours of playtime a week. This pretty much seals my doom as far as raiding goes. Unless I join the ranks of the unemployed and/or give up bodybuilding or my wife leaves me, I am never going to raid again. So the best I can hope for is boxing, or occasionally grouping my way through group content. With my limited playtime, I do not wish to spend any time LFG, so I basically start boxing and if someone wants to join me I let them.

I'm just not sure it's worth the $32 a month I'm paying to keep two accounts going, as well as the desk space my 2nd (box account) computer takes up, as well as the eight hours a week I'm putting into this game, with no hope of ever seeing any of the raid game. In other words, being a perma-gimp. If I were to spend that eight hours a week on something else (golf/learning guitar/playing a different game/etc., etc.), I could probably get really good at it, but with EQ I will forever be mediocre and will only be seeing, at best, half of the game content.

I realize none of you can answer this for me personally, but I was wondering.....of the regulars here, is anyone else a "casual" player, or do you all raid? How many hours a week do you typically spend playing EQ? For you raiders, if you were forced to go "casual", would you keep playing, or quit and find something else to do?

[Sillaen]

I'm a raider, but consider myself a casual player. If you want to raid, you can do it, but you just need to find a suitable guild. For me, unless I have a vacation day or feel like getting up early on a Saturday morning, I play between 6 - 10 hours a week, mostly raiding so I really don't have much time for regualr grouping/xp'ing.

I'm in a guild that only raids 3 times per week (tue/thur/sun), about 9 - 10 hours total at 45% attendance requirement for loot. My wife is in dance class on tues and thurs which allows me to attend full raids those days. Sundays are iffy and I do get to attend sometimes, but I don't count on it. The downside of that is, I've only clicked my lesson twice in the last 6 months. That's how much I hunt outside of raids, but I like raiding so it's no biggie to me. I just gain AA's a whole heck of a lot slower than most.

As for solo hunting nameds in HoT T4, I've never tried. I have molo'd a few and in lower zones I just box my cleric (not T4 flagged). You gear doesn't at all look bad as I see you are closing in on 50K mana if you pop in a suitable orb. It seems you just need to grind out a few more AA's to finish out your pet and personal dps stuff and maybe refine your solo skills a little, if you insist on soloing. It's not that far off. Another 500 or so AA's and you'll be rocking.

[Danille]

The most important thing when ti comes to soloing or moloing is your pet focus. Send me a cross server tell tonite and we can chat about gear, pet focus, aa's etc. anything you want.

[Goranothos]

Thank you both. After rereading my post, it strikes me as being a bit whiny and sissy now. I got pwnd by some nameds, and then a group comes along and kills them np and gives me the loot, which pissed me off more than if I had just wiped a couple more times.

Well being on FV, I might get lucky and find a better pet focus in the baz, and I certainly do need to refine my boxing skills more. I'll keep plugging along.

[Tweelis]

.....of the regulars here, is anyone else a "casual" player, or do you all raid? How many hours a week do you typically spend playing EQ? For you raiders, if you were forced to go "casual", would you keep playing, or quit and find something else to do?

I'm as casual as they come. Playing for me is a way to relax and decompress after a typically very eventful day. On average I get 60-90 minutes a day of computer time to myself which includes boards, e-mail and EQ.

I use to raid, was in a high end raiding guild during Luclin/PoP/GoD but had to scale back due to RL family commitments.

Per week in EQ; probably 5-9 is average. Most of the time I port straight from the lobby to Beza/Zeka, burn lesson then a little extra time messing around. Once in awhile I get a group. While I hold my own in a group situation it's pretty infrequent for me to get a group for a few reasons; primarily because of my short group time but also because most people that group are social and talkative......and I don't talk much so come across as either too stuck up or boring.

I could quit and do something else but for me EQ is doing exactly what I want and need it to do so I keep playing. Maybe one day I'll go back to raiding but for now that isn't in the cards. My box account has expired so for now it's either solo/molo or group; no shaman/chanter/cleric for me.

[Conjurous]

Make sure u use earth pet to tank, 2x cleric mercs and shammy helps with lethargy and tiger and AE heals when needed, also puppeteer isn't a good one to try due to his fear, it can easily fear u into other mobs and kill u, best thing to do for him is to turn on walk when u fight him and keep a garg on him at all times.

[Goranothos]

Yea, I think when trying the nameds in MC, I better go with earth pet for tank and two cleric mercs. The T5 tank merc was doing great right up to now, but he seems to be a bit too squishy against the nameds, especially with only one cleric merc keeping him alive. I hate to switch back to pet tanking, cause then I have to worry about positioning myself and shammy so we are out of melee range, but that's just the way I'm gonna have to roll. I'm fairly certain my earth pet can take more abuse than the T5 merc tank.

I think I read something about the next expansion allowing us to switch merc types without going back to PoK. That will be very nice if true.

[Calebe]

You should never be in melee range as a mage. That is the one issue I never have. I pull with AA sinia and pull it back to my waiting pet, and send it in as I back up even more. If the mob is close enough I will send in a RS pet and with the slight delay by the time the RS pet is out the mob is in camp. If the mob comes to fast I send in my pet then the RS grabs it's attention and I use the pet relocate to put the pet on the back of the mob. Now RS in front and pet behind the mob. This works great because the next RS that goes out will be on the back of the mob, as the main pet has grabbed aggro as the RS pet poofed.

Also if your boxing a Shaman with slow, just grab 2 cleric mercs one for the Shaman and one your Mage. Be sure one merc is on reactive and the other on balanced so they don't cancel each other out on heals. I doubt with that combination, mage, Shaman and 2 merc clerics you will have much trouble with most named and trash should be a lot easier. If in MC be sure to get the EM8 earring, and you should be good for almost any mob (any mob that fears, just not a good match for a mage, stick to summoning mobs, for now).

As for gear group gear in HoT it is very good stuff. I raid and we are farming SS, and I still wear some of the group gear. I see little point in upgrading some of them as the group gear is good enough for those slots. If you have Tier 4 arms, and get a tier 3/4 mana pres item you should be good to go on most mobs. Don't get discouraged, and push yourself as you have. Try that fearing mob, and knowing you may lose, but try it for fun. A good friend plays a necro and there was one mob that kicked his butt many times, but he kept going back for revenge till he learned it and can beat it easily now. It didn't matter to him if he died, it was his test bed mob. Beat this and the rest are history. he has gone on and beat every named mob in the expansion for the reward. So it paid off. He didn't look at it as losing, but a challenge and a fun one. Losing just made him more determined, I hope you start to look at it that same way. Make it your test bed named, the one you gear up to beat eventually.

Calebe

[dorfillya]

You should never be in melee range as a mage.......Calebe

I sometimes intentionally take the first melee round before sending in my pet on trash. It allows me to very precisely place the mob, if in close quarters. As soon as I get hit, send in pet, take a couple steps back out of melee range, but still keeping pets in the aura.

[Goranothos]

Well, I changed my tactics up and am having much better results. First got rid of tank merc and went with two cleric mercs. Tried earth pet for tank, and he tanked well, but couldn't generate enough agro to keep my gargs from grabbing agro and dieing before their timer ran out. Even the shammy pet sometimes got killed. So I went with air pet for tank, and everything went well. Two cleric mercs were able to keep him healed even against T4 nameds, and air pet is great at generating agro. I also got a better pet focus, which helped tremendously. The only downside to not having the tank merc is keeping my toons out of melee range. Oh well.

I sometimes intentionally take the first melee round before sending in my pet on trash. It allows me to very precisely place the mob, if in close quarters. As soon as I get hit, send in pet, take a couple steps back out of melee range, but still keeping pets in the aura.

Yes, I do the same thing. Often taking the 1st melee round in order to position mob right where I want it. Doesn't work too well on mobs that can one round me however. =)

Anyway, thanks for the advice, all of you.