Former WOW, New EQ2 Love my brigand, have a few questions

[Faswojo]

<p>I have really enjoyed playing my brigand(Level22) now. One thing that of course confused me right off was the AA points which I think I am beginning to understand a little better now. It almost seems to make more sense putting your first AA points under the rogue tree as it offers more sensible benefits up front I think. But my ears are open for any advice there. I was gonna try to be an alchemist for the poisons but unsure on what my second professions should be? Weapon maker? Anyways the brigand tree seems to be a lot more confusing to me. I would really like my brigand to do a lot of burst damage with good stuns so I guess I would be looking for advice on how to achieve that with my AA points. </p><p>Thanks, FasWojo</p>

[TheFitz]

<cite>Faswojo wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I have really enjoyed playing my brigand(Level22) now. One thing that of course confused me right off was the AA points which I think I am beginning to understand a little better now. It almost seems to make more sense putting your first AA points under the rogue tree as it offers more sensible benefits up front I think. But my ears are open for any advice there. I was gonna try to be an alchemist for the poisons but unsure on what my second professions should be? Weapon maker? Anyways the brigand tree seems to be a lot more confusing to me. I would really like my brigand to do a lot of burst damage with good stuns so I guess I would be looking for advice on how to achieve that with my AA points. </p><p>Thanks, FasWojo</p></blockquote><p>Welcome to EQ2. For a tradeskill I suggest you try Jeweler, you will be able to make your own spell upgrades. You also get many new recipes each level, which will make leveling ypur tradeskill much easier. </p><p>The secondary professions are limited to Transmuting and Tinkering. Not very familiar with transmuting but tinkering resembles engineering from WOW, which you may be familiar with. As for AA's I suggest going Agility first. </p><p>Walk the plank really makes using your positional attacks easier and can sometimes be used as an emergency stun. The speed buffs in the line make traveling much easier and the endline ability speeds up your CA's.</p><p> After that I would go Strength for the extra defense and improved crit chance, not to mention the 2 extra attacks you will receive.</p><p>Whatever you choose welcome to Norrath and enjoy your Brigand. You've chosen a wonderful class.</p><p>*Edit-I cant spell.</p>

[Faswojo]

<p>I appreciate the reply and the advice.  Is there a way to look at other peoples talent trees to see what they chose at different levels perhaps? Jeweler sounds interesting and I was also still curious about the poisons. Will making poisons benefit me that much or can you buy them cheap enough that it makes it a non issue? Upgrading my spells sounds really cool and I have to admit I am still trying to learn how to level up the professions. Is two the most i can pick as professions I guess? Anyway I appreciate all the advice!</p><p>Thanks, Faswojo</p>

[Edith]

Poisons are vital to your dps and will cost you far more, over time, than CA upgrades.  You are on the right track with alchemist.  Crappy poisons are cheap but mastercrafted add up.  In addition, if you are so inclined you can sell poisons and potions for a tidy side income.

[Gestalt79]

<p>Welcome to EQ2!</p><p> In regards to tradeskills, you can only have 1 tradeskill from the main group.  Tinkering and Transmuting can be selected after you get the first tradeskill high enough, I believe lvl 30 minimum, but I honestly haven't tried either yet.  As to which TS to take first, I would second jeweler.  Being able to upgrade your combat arts before, or as soon as you get them is great.  Also, when you harvest rare loams, and have the correct Advanced book for the level, you can make Adept3 CA.  Especially since you are new to the game, you probably don't have a lot of cash.  Harvesting is a great way to save/make money.  Rares usually sell well, and even some commons sell at very respectable prices.  </p><p>Poisons, in my experiences, are fairly cheap to buy, even the mastercrafted ones which you should be looking for.  I have an Alchemist to make my fighter's CAs, and my Brigand is a JCer, so I have both at my disposal.  If I were to pick based on my Brigand only, I would take JCing.</p><p> I also second doing the Rogue AA trees first.  Agi line for Walk the Plank is a great ability and my young Brig is looking forward to Sailwind (end ability).  Strength will probably be next for me as well.</p><p> Don't forget to Harvest a lot.  And check the broker for all items, unless you've previously checked and they don't sell any better than at the vendors.  Many items are worth much more on the broker these days than at the NPC merchants.  Anything treasured and up can be used by transmuters of the appropriate levels, so even the stuff that looks like junk can get a few gold typically, sometimes much more.</p><p>Good luck out there, hope this helps some.</p>

[Kaldrin]

<cite>Ykiphia1 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Poisons are vital to your dps and will cost you far more, over time, than CA upgrades.  You are on the right track with alchemist.  Crappy poisons are cheap but mastercrafted add up.  In addition, if you are so inclined you can sell poisons and potions for a tidy side income.</blockquote>If he only had one character, it would be an issue. The brig does need both classes if you really want to be self-sufficient. My advice would be just that. Make a second character who is a straight artisan of whichever you didn't pick on your main and don't even bother adventuring with him. That way as your main collects stuff you can just mail what he needs to him and he never has to leave town. That way you'll have your poisons and CAs coverred.

[yzyh]

<p>Making a second character just for the purpose of beeing able to craft your own spell and poison is really not efficient.</p><p>Actualy beeing able to craft your own adept is not even that good. If you have harvested the rare it cost what ? 5-10g max to get someone to craft the adept 3 ?</p><p>If you take the time to level a whole other crafter from lvl 1 to 80 jsut to save the very tiny gold you would end to a dude, who spend so much hours to lvl its JC. You will loose in the end. You could had farmed thousands of plat in less hours spend.</p><p> Well if you want to do it bcuz you enjoy tradeskilling and you do njoy to make your own stuff (like I do in vangaurd), sure do it. But otherwise as a lvl 21bridgand I can farm  1plat in 15min max.</p><p>Assuming I have the harvested the rare with this 15min farming I can get a [I cannot control my vocabulary] load of adept 3 spell made. If I don't have the rare ? well it is not cheaper for JC to get the rare. as a JC you only save the donation you would gave to a guildy to another player to craft you the adept3.</p><p>follow the tradeskil you enjoy. Bcuz in the end. You loose money doing tradeskill. It take years (literaly) to get back the money you spend into a tradeskill. it take over 100hours to get lvl 80traderskiller. If you spend 100hours farming you will be hella rich. So you need to sell a [I cannot control my vocabulary] load of stuff to get back 1) what you paid and 2) the time lost.</p><p> So to make it short. Choose a tradeskill bcuz you enjoy it. Bcuz its a bad money maker (and it istrue  in almost every MMO). </p>

[Mushimo]

<p>If I had to choose 1 profession to support my brigand (based on exp. of having jeweler, alchemist, and woodworker), I would recommend a jeweler.  You get to make your own combat arts, make your own jewelry which can be sold to all classes, and the byproduct of the making your adept 3 combat arts yeilds the rare that alchemists use to make your poisons.  Just find an alchy, provide them your rare dust from making your CA's and you'll have a stack of poisons.  </p><p>I recommend putting your first 50 aa into the rogue tree, with the first 6 aa into agi for walk the plank.  If you like to solo, I highly recommend the sta. tree.  The extra hp and mitigation boost your survivability.  If you group alot and prefer dps, most go with Agi/Str.  I personally like Agi/Sta.  I get the extra mit and hp to tank and get sailwind to  speed up my CA reuse.  </p>

[TerminalDogmaCS]

I would pick a profession that can make you money at the broker.The reasoning is simple:  unless you plan to spend alot of time grinding your profession so that its at least as high or higher than your class level (which means w/o vitality, yuck...this will get nasty later on, trust me), its a fallacy to think you can save yourself money by making your own stuff, be it armor, jewelry, combat arts, etc.  Its pretty much the same in many other games, to benefit like that you have to be waay ahead in your tradeskill than you would be by playing normally).  So, if you are like most players, being a jeweler will make you your combat arts, just too late for them to be useful.  Its also a fallacy that harvesting your own components and rares saves you money--it costs you time plus whatever you can sell those components and rares for.Exactly WHICH profession profits well at the broker depends on your server.  Sages can make alot of money on high-level adept IIIs, alchemists can do the same and make poisons, jewelers can too and make jewelry instead, woodworkers make alot of consumables but are difficult to level, armorers are always in demand for high-priced plate and chain mastercrafted gear, etc...all those can make you a good amount of money, but it will be several tiers below your adventuring level.I just made a brigand, he will be an alchemist.

[Kaldrin]

<cite>yzyh wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Making a second character just for the purpose of beeing able to craft your own spell and poison is really not efficient.</p><p>Actualy beeing able to craft your own adept is not even that good. If you have harvested the rare it cost what ? 5-10g max to get someone to craft the adept 3 ?</p></blockquote>You're contradicting yourself. My method of collecting your own ingredients and making your own stuff ensures you never pay anyone for anything. Also, I think you're underestimating the cost. 5-10g per tier seems more accurate. 5-10 gold might not even cover my fuel in t7... I would walk across the street to pick up a dollar though, so you might not be as frugal. Time is a commodity that I have to spend. The plat I keep.

[Greyfawn]

Three cheers for crafting!  My brig is an armorer, and I'm happy to say that to date, I have made all my own armor and I'm sitting with a pretty wad of plat in the bank for masters etc.  I also have alts that are crafters, so I can make my own throwing daggers (probably the least useful of my crafting alts), make my own bags and cloaks (somewhat useful, but the real benefit has been in selling extra stuff made with rares), make my own poisons and potions (true, these are cheap, but because of this I go through a bunch and never have to wait on healers to cure arcane, elemental, etc.  This has saved me on a few raids), and make my own food and drink.  My only regret is that I didn't make a jeweler, but my RL nephew is one, so I pass on all the rares and loams and he keeps me supplied in jewelry and spells.  Yes, i spend a lot of time harvesting, but then I sell the items I've made on the broker.  No rare goes unused.  Rush order writs are your friend; doing writs really cuts down the cost of crafting and your guild will love the status.  <div></div><div>So, I'd definitely take the advice of those who said make a jeweler (scholars ARE the easiest), but I'd also think about making a second crafter for when vitality runs out, or you're just bored.  </div><div></div><div>Oh, and where can a level 21 brig make over a plat in 15 minutes farming?  </div>

[yzyh]

<cite>Kaldrin@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>yzyh wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Making a second character just for the purpose of beeing able to craft your own spell and poison is really not efficient.</p><p>Actualy beeing able to craft your own adept is not even that good. If you have harvested the rare it cost what ? 5-10g max to get someone to craft the adept 3 ?</p></blockquote>You're contradicting yourself. My method of collecting your own ingredients and making your own stuff ensures you never pay anyone for anything. Also, I think you're underestimating the cost. 5-10g per tier seems more accurate. 5-10 gold might not even cover my fuel in t7... I would walk across the street to pick up a dollar though, so you might not be as frugal. Time is a commodity that I have to spend. The plat I keep. </blockquote><p>Dude if you make no sense. You speak like if a none Jc couldn't just sell the rare harvested.</p><p>1) If you make your own spell you just save the tips (as an alchymist I can still can harvest everything a JC would harvest to craft the spell)</p><p>The only difference is that I will have to paya  tips to someone to craft me the spell.</p><p>But If I use my time to farm items to sell to braker over leveling another tradeskiller. I will end by having a way more plat. Especialy since lveling a tradeskill is a huge money/time sink.</p><p>Do a tradeskill bcuz you enjoy it. Or bcuz you simply hate to farm.</p><p>But the efficient and easy way is to farm items and sell these. Then tips poeple to craft you the items/ spell you want.</p>

[yzyh]

<cite>Cherrii@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>Three cheers for crafting!  My brig is an armorer, and I'm happy to say that to date, I have made all my own armor and I'm sitting with a pretty wad of plat in the bank for masters etc.  I also have alts that are crafters, so I can make my own throwing daggers (probably the least useful of my crafting alts), make my own bags and cloaks (somewhat useful, but the real benefit has been in selling extra stuff made with rares), make my own poisons and potions (true, these are cheap, but because of this I go through a bunch and never have to wait on healers to cure arcane, elemental, etc.  This has saved me on a few raids), and make my own food and drink.  My only regret is that I didn't make a jeweler, but my RL nephew is one, so I pass on all the rares and loams and he keeps me supplied in jewelry and spells.  Yes, i spend a lot of time harvesting, but then I sell the items I've made on the broker.  No rare goes unused.  Rush order writs are your friend; doing writs really cuts down the cost of crafting and your guild will love the status.   <div></div><div>So, I'd definitely take the advice of those who said make a jeweler (scholars ARE the easiest), but I'd also think about making a second crafter for when vitality runs out, or you're just bored.  </div><div></div><div>Oh, and where can a level 21 brig make over a plat in 15 minutes farming?  </div></blockquote><p>In wailing cavern. a trip in the first few room take me lets say 5min and I can harvest 3-4 collectable item that sell from 25g to 1plat. (well on everfrost).</p><p>Sure I can,t farm me for hours bcuz the re-spawn times is somewhat long. but b4 going to sleep I just run their use /stealth then gater 3-4 of these items.</p><p>Thy usualy sell in 2-3days.</p><p>its about 10min to run their from Neriak, 5min to gather then I just gate.</p>

[Edith]

<p>The amount of plat you can make off selling items on the broker varies from server to server.  On my server (LDL) a trip to WC might yield me a few gold. Nowhere close to a plat.  The only real value would be for the transmuter I am leveling.</p><p>Regarding Jeweler vs. Alchemist:  Keep the end game in mind. When you are level 80, you will not need any more adept3s or crafted jewelry. You WILL need poisons, and lots of them.  That is why I would reccomend alchemist over jeweler for any of the dps scouts.  </p><p>Really making money off of crafting requires a bit of dedication.  You have to follow your local market to invest your time and resources into what yields the most profit and then consistently craft your little heart out.  To me that is no fun.  I have three t8 crafters, one t7, and one t5.  I like the convenience of being able to make my own things and the sense of accomplishment I get when I have fully leveled a crafter.  People have different motivating factors. /shrug</p>

[TheSpin]

<p>Here's my math for end game.  My server charges 3.5 to 5 platinum per rare harvest.  You need something like 20-25 of these rares to get all of your combat arts upgraded.  I aquired the rares by either harvesting them myself or buying them and then paid a jeweler an average of 30 to 50 gold per combine to make me the combat arts I need.</p><p>So if you take out the price of the rare, which is no easier to obtain regardless of your tradeskill class, it costs up to 10 plat as a one time cost to pay someone to make all your combat arts into adept 3s.</p><p>Poison on the other hand, costs about 22 to 25 gold for me to make, per stack.  If I buy off the broker it's 10 to 30 gold more.  I can go through a stack of poisons in 2 or 3 days of heavy gameplay.  There are 3 different kinds of poisons you can use at once.  That means it costs me, as an alchemist, over a plat a week to supply myself with poisons.  The 10 plat one time cost isn't nearly as much as the weekly platinum cost of keeping the good poisons up.</p><p>So here's my break down:</p><p>Hire a Jeweler:  1 time cost of 10 plat</p><p>Hire an Alchemist:  Recurring cost of 30 to 50 gold stacks of poisons, estimated at 1 plat a week.</p><p>There are additional benefits to each class...Jewelry versus potions.  Once again the potions are recurring costs while jewelry is a one time deal.  I am glad I took alchemy myself.</p>

[Kaldrin]

<cite>TheSpin wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>There are additional benefits to each class...Jewelry versus potions.  Once again the potions are recurring costs while jewelry is a one time deal.  I am glad I took alchemy myself.</p></blockquote>I have both. I haven't paid for anything yet... other than fuel.