Zone and Gear Progression.

[Dmack]

So what you're saying here is to be successful in Solo zones you need at minimum Potent/Fabled gear form previous expansions?<br /> <br />How about a test at 95 with basic gear from ToV?<br /> <br />Suppose a new player just starting or a returning player that wanted to skip out of ToV and just jump into AoM with minimal efforts spent?<br /> <br />Your testing shows a bit of discouragement in store for these players and may cause some serious draw backs to even buying this expansion.

[Kalika]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Dmack"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Dmack said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6126504#post-6126504" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">So what you're saying here is to be successful in Solo zones you need at minimum Potent/Fabled gear form previous expansions?<br /> <br />How about a test at 95 with basic gear from ToV?<br /> <br />Suppose a new player just starting or a returning player that wanted to skip out of ToV and just jump into AoM with minimal efforts spent?<br /> <br />Your testing shows a bit of discouragement in store for these players and may cause some serious draw backs to even buying this expansion.</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>I don't see how one can test with TOV quested gear, Oliver do not offer buffing to 95 and he does not sell 95 gear (like he did at some point). So i can either test with my live toon (I have enough patterns to test with potent 0/3 but it's too tedious) or with toons in potent 3/3 or HKC armor.<br /> <br />This being said, i could complete the timeline with potent before they tuned down almost every mob (and some tuning decreased mob dps by a factor close to 10) , so time line should be now be quite doable for healer in cryptic, may harder for dps but when arriving at the BrokenSkull bay they will have already quite some quested items and they will be able to use them since level requirment is now 95.<br /> <br />I'm more sceptical for heroic zones, due to mitigation and resistance we may have to throw away potent 4/3 and may be even better gear. I have not seen the gear you get from Solo and Asolo zones, assuming that we get there armor boxes. It seems that many group of good players struggled to complete them with free gear and beta zone buf while probably having on top Devs clues/advices about the scripts. So it may be ugly at launch, we will see.

[Cleaner]

I have been testing LVL vs Zone vs Gear Progression. I tested on the my 2 most squishy classes in the game to give Viable data on ability to do these zones.<br /> Finally able to to some real testing with the different Tiers of Gear. Would have been SOO much Easier if they had 3-4 merchants for each tier instead of having to spend ENDless hours trying to sort throught it all.<br /> So what i did was get a full of SOLO zone drops in one bag , Advanced solo stuff in another, so on and so forth. ran through and tested each Tier with items you would most likely have going into each Tier zone.<br /><br />Rated each with how well gear helps against the mobs in each tier 1-10 anything below 7 is not balanced against difficulty vs gear available.<br /><br />1)Solo Instances- Very doable with old gear going in able to do all the zones with Potent/ Fabled gear. Rating=10 (perfect)<br /><br />2)Advanced Solo-after the revamp of some zones with new T1 lvl 96+Heroic gear, Very difficult but doable Very Time Consuming and lots of deaths if your a squishy class. (Dps Needs to Scale down a little bit on mobs in Phantom sea instances. Rating (8)<br /><br />3)Heroic Group Zones-you will more than likely enter wearing gear from the previous zones so i put on the middle ranged gear for this test.<br /> Doable with well formed group / lots of deaths, Non-script related, mostly overcharged dps from mobs. Not all mobs dps is out of range for the gear maybe 1-2 per zone. Ran with full top end heroic gear with no problems. (Mobs DPS rating over gear that will be for zone) Rated=4<br /><br />4)Heroic events-Doable with Top End Heroic Gear, the T2 is more difficult even with a full suit, But can be done, again with alot of time and deaths. (this was a little better than the Heroic group zones) Rated=6<br /><br />5)raid zones- No attempts made here.

[Dmack]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Kalika"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Kalika said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6126632#post-6126632" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">I don't see how one can test with TOV quested gear, Oliver do not offer buffing to 95 and he does not sell 95 gear (like he did at some point). So i can either test with my live toon (I have enough patterns to test with potent 0/3 but it's too tedious) or with toons in potent 3/3 or HKC armor.<br /> <br />This being said, i could complete the timeline with potent before they tuned down almost every mob (and some tuning decreased mob dps by a factor close to 10) , so time line should be now be quite doable for healer in cryptic, may harder for dps but when arriving at the BrokenSkull bay they will have already quite some quested items and they will be able to use them since level requirment is now 95.<br /> <br />I'm more sceptical for heroic zones, due to mitigation and resistance we may have to throw away potent 4/3 and may be even better gear. I have not seen the gear you get from Solo and Asolo zones, assuming that we get there armor boxes. It seems that many group of good players struggled to complete them with free gear and beta zone buf while probably having on top Devs clues/advices about the scripts. So it may be ugly at launch, we will see.</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div><br />I see they did remove the 95 gear now. Maybe due to it not being very effective. I have a char that only has ToV quested since I gave up after Nexus Core due to the horrid video card and frame rate. I deleted the char and recopied her since I had buffed up and gave overland another whirl a week ago. Haven't been on beta for a couple days so maybe it is better now but even the overland is just tedious with the ToV quested gear. Yes, it is doable but the fights are just near death experiences due to the shear number of spawns and characters low hitpoints.<br /><br />I rebuffed and put on a deathwatch set and the overland became a dull bore of long fights but survivability was much easier. Not going to even try the instances again at 95. If overland trash is taking 25 to 45 seconds to beat down the mobs in these instances will take 2 to 3 minutes each.<br /><br />As for drops, it is my understanding solo zones will not drop anything so doing them to get better gear is not an option. I do think Asolo will drop stuff but again it is going to be crap most likely. To get anything good is going to require you to do heroic or up zones.

[Feldon]

The AoM solo quests should have been tested with Cryptic gear with 4 yellow gems and a mixture of the jewelry available from running Adv Solo zones.

[Jrel]

If the AOM progression/testing was done properly, the overland quests should have been started/tested with a complete set of overland gear from the last expac. Any gear that was not last expac's overland quest gear should have been rendered unwearable in the overland zones, but allowed to be worn in heroic/raid zones. This sets the initial bar and allows testing for the content in a progressive manner as the overland quests progress. This also enables a smooth transition for new/old players wanting to do the entire game's content in a progressive manner when the expac goes live.<br /> <br />While doing the overland quests, the AOM solo zones are also tested and can be tweaked in increasingly difficulty as more gear is gained. (This is a FAIL for the Devs because they put in overland quest rewards late.) This allows for a gradual buildup new gear and fulfills the caveat where the devs do not want players playing old content (so the players should not be in any old casual gear by the time the overland questline is completed).<br /> <br />Then the advanced solos started with the full set of AOM overland quest gear and completed in a progressive fashion with gear from the adv solos in order of adv solo gear acquisition and adv solo instance difficulty.<br /> <br />And so forth.

[Dmack]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Feldon"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Feldon said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6126781#post-6126781" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">The AoM solo quests should have been tested with Cryptic gear with 4 yellow gems and a mixture of the jewelry available from running Adv Solo zones.</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>That was what I have been doing. It is not going to end well.

[Purrako]

I don't agree with 4 gem cryptic being the benchmark. <br />It was not necessary to farm CoE or do the sig to do overland ToV. <br />90 crafted was enough to do the ToV sig quest (up until needing to enter Nexus anyway which on coercer I hit that point at level 94 so still couldn't equip the previous quest drops).<br />95 crafted "should" be enough to start the AoM overland and sig.

[Dmack]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Purrako"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Purrako said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6126908#post-6126908" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">I don't agree with 4 gem cryptic being the benchmark. <br />It was not necessary to farm CoE or do the sig to do overland ToV. <br />90 crafted was enough to do the ToV sig quest (up until needing to enter Nexus anyway which on coercer I hit that point at level 94 so still couldn't equip the previous quest drops).<br />95 crafted "should" be enough to start the AoM overland and sig.</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>If you go to AoM in 95 MC gear the mobs will steamroll you

[Purrako]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Dmack"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Dmack said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6126933#post-6126933" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">If you go to AoM in 95 MC gear the mobs will steamroll you</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>You could be correct. <br />I just don't believe that is the way it should be to gain progress in AoM. <br />Being forced to run ToV AS over and over to just start the new expac seems a bad way to get folks into the new AoM content.

[Kham]

or you could get to level 100 by leveling anywhere then use level 100 mc gear. just pointing it out

[Dmack]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Kham"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Kham said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6126983#post-6126983" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">or you could get to level 100 by leveling anywhere then use level 100 mc gear. just pointing it out</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>I have no doubt you’ll do good on the overland but this is totally bad.These instances are not worth trying unless they’re heroic which requires better than what you’re wearing to be useful. besides..<br /><br />1. – You’re already 100 and probably maxed AA so doing content that gives gear subpar to the gear you’re wearing is basically a waste of time. The level 95 fabled gear is still superior to level 100 MC gear with gems which is about the same as level 96 heroic gear. Look at the stats on this stuff and you’ll see this. (Of course this may have been changed in the last week.)<br /><br />2. – If you read the OP number 2 and 3 entries you’ll see that 96 heroic gear is barely useable in Asolo which is useless since these instances don’t drop anything better in fact solo zones don’t drop anything. Also, since again you’re already at the cap in Adv and AA it’s just a waste of time.<br /><br />The only thing to do is find someone willing to carry you through the new content if you intend to start prior to running instances in ToV.<br /><br />This is one factor that needs attention or it may be a big loss to the current game. I have witnessed a lot of returning players coming back. Many are behind this curve by a country mile so I don’t think they’ll hang around long if they are forced into old content to be able to play new content.

[Purrako]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Kham"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Kham said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6126983#post-6126983" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">or you could get to level 100 by leveling anywhere then use level 100 mc gear. just pointing it out</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>Actually your options are rather limited. At 96+ zones like SS will not work if what I have been reading in another thread is true.

[Cleaner]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Kalika"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Kalika said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6126632#post-6126632" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">I don't see how one can test with TOV quested gear, Oliver do not offer buffing to 95 and he does not sell 95 gear (like he did at some point). So i can either test with my live toon (I have enough patterns to test with potent 0/3 but it's too tedious) or with toons in potent 3/3 or HKC armor.<br /> <br />This being said, i could complete the timeline with potent before they tuned down almost every mob (and some tuning decreased mob dps by a factor close to 10) , so time line should be now be quite doable for healer in cryptic, may harder for dps but when arriving at the BrokenSkull bay they will have already quite some quested items and they will be able to use them since level requirment is now 95.</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>Going off in left field here, Healer can heal and some can even self rez, i tested this with wizard, warlock, and coercer to see if "Highly Squishy" Classes could do this, like i said before with my other toons (Sk, Defiler, Assassin) the zones where no where near as difficult.