Shard Runs

[tomdykins]

<p>I was wondering what standard of gear and spells will be needed to start doing shard runs? This is my first 80 toon, I've grouped quite a bit but have heard that shard runs can be particularly difficult to solo heal.</p>

[Kleitos]

<p>Spells: Expert or betterGear: Mastercrafted atleast or gear from RoK, and you want your Mythical weapon at some point atleastDon't expect to solo heal Palace of Ferzhul before you got most of the gear from the other places, so start in the easier zones to get some shards/gear first and you should be fine. There is probably a list somewhere listing what zones are easy and which are more difficult.</p>

[Gamer1965]

<p>Well, <span style="color: #ffff00;"><strong><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=435958" target="_blank">HERE</a></strong></span> is old post with a basic breakdown of the difficulty of the TSO shard zones.  (use this as a GENERAL guildeline)</p><p>I would echo the same as Kleitos.  The standard for STARTING to do shard runs would be all spells @ Expert quality level and at least the lvl 77 Mastercrafted gear, if you have anything higher, than that's better for you... <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Calain80]

For an Inquisitor the level 72 healer gear and some good quest rewards is better then the level 77 gear. But for a healer MC gear should be good enough to start doing the easier TSO instances. It is a lot harder for a tank.

[tomdykins]

<p>Great, thanks for the replies.</p><p>I did my first shard run today in The Deep Forge, and it went ok but we couldnt kill Firelord Kaern. I think we might have been doing something wrong when moving him round, but having never been there before I'm not sure.</p><p>I have another question though regarding the group reactive. I usually cast this before a fight and then dont cast it again until the next fight as it has such a long casting time. But I wanted to ask if I should be maintaing this throughout the fight along with the single target reactive. I'm talking about during longer harder fights such as Firelord Kaern.</p>

[Calain80]

1st if you have particle effects active you can see some "flaming stars" on the ground while fighting Firelord Kaern. Anyone standing near one of these gets fire damage. So try to stack not to much of them, esp. with not so good gear. About group reactive: If you can afford to cast the group reactive without the tank dieing during the cast do so. It helps if you look for gear with beneficial fast cast (or general fast cast). Beside this also use your group heal to heal your tank if your singe target direct heals are down and a single reactive still has charges left.

[Lord Hackenslash]

<p><cite>Tippy@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Great, thanks for the replies.</p><p>I did my first shard run today in The Deep Forge, and it went ok but we couldnt kill Firelord Kaern. I think we might have been doing something wrong when moving him round, but having never been there before I'm not sure.</p><p>I have another question though regarding the group reactive. I usually cast this before a fight and then dont cast it again until the next fight as it has such a long casting time. But I wanted to ask if I should be maintaing this throughout the fight along with the single target reactive. I'm talking about during longer harder fights such as Firelord Kaern.</p></blockquote><p>as far as the group reactive goes you absolutely want it up at all times. Usually I will top off the tank if needed, then cast the single target reactive on them right beforte casting the group reactive. this should keep them stable. whenever possible you want the tank to have the group and single target reactive up together since the mobs hit for more than either can heal alone. Also the group reactive buys your group members time when they might pull aggro or get too close to an AoE. Also keep in mind what reactive you case first as any hits will check the older spell first so if you have the single target reactive and the group reactive up at the same time and the tank takes only a small hit for lets say 500 damage, then if the single target ward was cast first it will take a hit off that spell and still leave the larger slower to cast ward up so usually i try and cast my single target reactive first when possible since it casts faster and can be used more often.</p><p>as for gear you want to focus on Heal Crit above +heal amount. Reactives have a very low cap on + heal amount so you want to make sure you are critting as much as possible. once you start getting shards, try for a 5 piece bonus on the tier 1 shard armor before moving on to tier 2 armor. when it's time to upgrade to tier 2 you want to upgrade only 1 of the 6 pieces of tier 1 at first so that you can maintain the 5 piece bonus as long as possible and I would upgrade the piece that gives the most heal crit. then wait till you can upgrade 2 more pieces so you will loose your t1 5 piece bonus but at least will have the t1 and t2 3 piece bonuses together. then of course try for the full 5 piece bonus. Get a crafter to make you the shard armor as you will save 1 - 3 shards on every piece.</p><p>I also recommend getting a few pieces with Manawell proc on them. you can find then on the broker very cheap and they will help alot in groups where mana regen is less than optimal.</p><p>Some will argue with me but my priority on heal gear is Heal crit > Beneficial Casting speed > Reuse > + heal amount >  Stamina/HP > Wisdom/Mana </p><p>I prefer mana regen over max mana amount and picked that in my character options as I was leveling up I think level 22 and 44 traits if i remember correctly.</p><p>As far as DPS goes you will rarely get invited primarily for your DPS in a group so make sure you focus on healing first and once you are an UBER  healer you can add in some DPS slowly as you feel comfortable.</p>