Survivability in TSO

[Arogati]

So I recently hit 80 on my main (Inquisitor), and started doing TSO instances.  I'm in a relatively small guild, so it's been me and a guildie or two with pick-ups to fill the group.  No matter what, we die.  A lot.

The groups have consisted entirely of lvl 80 characters.  We're not being stupid, or absentminded, or lazy.  We're functioning exactly as we should, yet over the course of today in two separate groups in two separate TSO zones, I've been in a total of 10-12 wipes.

I personally am wearing T8 MC with a couple pieces slightly better.  I don't have a single piece of Treasured gear.  + Heal Amt at 400, Heal Crit at 22%.  All of my commonly used spells (Buffs, heals, debuffs) are Expert, with my group heal at Master.  I can't speak for the rest of the group members, unfortunately.  Regardless, my heals simply cannot keep up, especially against named mobs.  I just got out of an attempt of Deep Forge, and we did fine until we got to a named and he slaughtered us 5 or 6 times before we called it.  And that group had a Defiler, too.

So my question is pretty much this: [Removed for Content] are we doing wrong?  Are we even doing anything wrong, or is this most likely the rest of the group being under-equipped or with insufficient spell/CA levels?  And if it's the latter...I just don't see how this makes any sense.  The first set of shard armor isn't much of an upgrade over what I've currently got, so I can't imagine players are expected to be decked out in raid gear to be able to take group instances, but so far the groups I've tried it with have been prime examples of how not to win at EQ.  =(

[Jrral]

It may not be you, it may be the tank. Some tanks run in offensive stance all the time, and if the tank's in 72 MC (which'll be 8 levels or more below the level of the nameds) the hit he takes to his defense will insure he gets torn to shreds. Yes, although the stats on the 77 MC or the T1 shard gear may not be a huge improvement over the 72 MC, the difference in level makes a huge difference in mitigation vs. high-level mobs. Get your tank into some armor that's level 77 or higher, and have him run in defensive stance and use his defensive abilities. You'll be amazed at how much of a difference it makes.

Oh, and note that at level 80 stats and the like aren't the focus of armor. Any armor set you've got will probably put you well into diminishing returns as far as your important stats go. On the shard armor it's the effects and set bonuses that're what you need to look at, and they'll make even T1 shard armor noticeably better than mastercrafted gear.

If you need to farm shards, there's the solo quests in Lavastorm. There's also instances (Scion, Anathema, Crucible, Deep Forge) where you can get the bonus chest and usually complete the mission quest without having to kill the toughest mobs. The three EF instances come up in sequence as the daily double, so if you can run the DD and one other each night that's 18 shards in 3 days for each of you. Fill in with the solo shard quests and you can have a full set of T1 shard armor for everyone in a week or so.

[Arogati]

Ok, thanks much for the input.  Our tank for the last group is a guild SK, recently dinged 80 as well and no TSO experience.  I seem to recall him mentioning wearing 77 mc, so from what you've said it sounds like he's just slightly undergeared for this.  I plan to stick it out, in any case, and we'll eventually get there.  Good to hear the set bonuses become that useful, I'm looking forward to seeing them in action.

[Davngr1]

yea just keep farming the easy instances till you can get shard gear.  

   not to tell you how to play since im sure that isin't the issue but when i solo heal i try to keep all the heals in rotation even if everyone is green and only leave my quick casting and big single target heals for patching up tank or who ever has agro.    it's imperative to not only heal dmg but to also predict dmg and thus pre-heal/ward in TSO instances.    hope that helps. 

 ps. also don't forget to throw in debuffs when ever possible they do indeed help. 

[Tehom]

I didn't see you mention shield ally or what your avoidance might be. Shield Ally is incredibly overpowered as an ability for when you're covering a tank, so you should definitely get it if you're having survivability problems. Once you have it, you can boost your avoidance by getting the +parry% adornments on wrists (give a flat chance to parry all by themselves, not a bonus to a skill you don't have), as well as use avoidance food and drink (reductions and infusions) when the going gets tough, and grab a pretty big shield (shield of rainbow hues from Shard of Fear works great for this, or a Guard of Drelikus from the broker). You can also get the mastercrafted necklace that gives a chance to riposte as well. All that stuff works with shield ally, and will make a pretty noticeable difference in tank survivability.

It also stacks with a tank avoidance lend, so if you have a second tank from pickup group people remember to have them toss on their avoidance lend also.

[Rahatmattata]

Get your tank better gear (stuff drops in RoK too), betray to Templar, find a dirge, get an enchanter, get second healer.

All things you can do to beef up your group.

[Aule]

What they said. It's almost certainly that your tank is under geared. Tanks are the one class that can't get away with being outfitted in sub-par equipment.

[ke'la]

Also remember the Bottom Tier of TSO assumes you spent atleast some time gearing up in the RoK Group zones, if you don't have some equipment from those zones you will have some issues too.

[Jrral]

Fons@Mistmoore wrote:

Ok, thanks much for the input.  Our tank for the last group is a guild SK, recently dinged 80 as well and no TSO experience.  I seem to recall him mentioning wearing 77 mc, so from what you've said it sounds like he's just slightly undergeared for this.  I plan to stick it out, in any case, and we'll eventually get there.  Good to hear the set bonuses become that useful, I'm looking forward to seeing them in action.

OK, the 77 MC is probably OK as far as mitigation goes, but if he's an SK he may be specced and running heavily offensive. That's great for a well-geared tank, the DPS an SK in offensive mode can put out is good for holding aggro, but it hurts survivability which is problematic if you're not well-geared. Have him tank in defensive stance, and look for jewelry that gives +defense, +parry and +shield effectiveness. Also, if he's equiping a buckler, have him get a tower shield.

Then either check the broker and farm the ROK instances for ROK class-set armor, or farm the solo shard quest and the easier TSO instances (the 4 I mentioned are probably good) for shards to get you T1 sets. The TSO instances get easier to do after you've done them a few times and get used to how the mobs work. Don't be afraid to bypass stuff you don't need to get your shards, it'll be there when you're better-geared.

NB: I tanked Scion in 77 MC in beta. It can be done, it's just not easy.

[Besual]

Yup, defnitly do the solo shard mission each day. After 4-5 days you can get either T1 boots, gloves or helm. After about 2 weeks you can have these 3 pieces and so you have the 2-item and 3-item set-bonus. Even it's called solo mission you can do it with your guildmates. Each kill will pling for every group member beeing close enough. And having 2-3 people beating on the same mob will bring him down faster and you can do the mission in 10-15min (including travel time). BTW find a crafter to make the shard armor for you. It will save you one shard per T1 item and 2-3 shard per T2 item.

[Xalmat]

Mastercrafted is pretty crappy at level 80 to be tanking in, to be honest. The mitigation value is not only very low, but because it's level 72 gear it's barely effective against level 80+ monsters. And if you're in mastercrafted your overall avoidance as a tank is pretty bad as well.

Best thing you can do, like the above posters said, run some RoK zones to get some armor upgrades (and even Runnyeye 2 if you can) until you have the void shards to upgrade to void shard gear. Then once you have a few pieces of void shard gear you'll be set for some of the easier TSO zones.

Actually a good zone to try and farm void shards is Obelisk of Ahkzul. Not only are the mobs there relatively easy, and you get an easy void shard each day, but there's also plenty of cash to be had (which will help if you want to buy upgrades off the Broker). Deep Forge, Scion of Ice, and Evernight Abbey are supposed to be the easiest zones, but they're actually pretty darn hard if your gear isn't at least top-end RoK Legendary.

Also keep in mind that TSO zones were mostly targeted for people with 100+ AAs. The Class TSO AAs (the 3rd line in the TSO tree) usually make a pretty huge difference as well, especially for tanks.

[Guy De Alsace]

TSO is hard even with decent geared toons. You wont stand a cat in hells chance in lvl 72 MC. 77 you may in the easiest instances (Deep Forge and Scion) but expect to die a lot.

I'd try and wangle my way into pickups to gear up before attempting to try an instance with less than 6. Its possible (did AoB with 5 yesterday with no deaths) so keep at it.

If you dont have 6 in your regular groups you might try 2 boxing with a buff toon like a dirge or troub on follow. There's still some decent gear in RoK so dont ignore that either.

[Illine]

Fons@Mistmoore wrote:

So I recently hit 80 on my main (Inquisitor), and started doing TSO instances.  I'm in a relatively small guild, so it's been me and a guildie or two with pick-ups to fill the group.  No matter what, we die.  A lot.

The groups have consisted entirely of lvl 80 characters.  We're not being stupid, or absentminded, or lazy.  We're functioning exactly as we should, yet over the course of today in two separate groups in two separate TSO zones, I've been in a total of 10-12 wipes.

I personally am wearing T8 MC with a couple pieces slightly better.  I don't have a single piece of Treasured gear.  + Heal Amt at 400, Heal Crit at 22%.  All of my commonly used spells (Buffs, heals, debuffs) are Expert, with my group heal at Master.  I can't speak for the rest of the group members, unfortunately.  Regardless, my heals simply cannot keep up, especially against named mobs.  I just got out of an attempt of Deep Forge, and we did fine until we got to a named and he slaughtered us 5 or 6 times before we called it.  And that group had a Defiler, too.

So my question is pretty much this: [Removed for Content] are we doing wrong?  Are we even doing anything wrong, or is this most likely the rest of the group being under-equipped or with insufficient spell/CA levels?  And if it's the latter...I just don't see how this makes any sense.  The first set of shard armor isn't much of an upgrade over what I've currently got, so I can't imagine players are expected to be decked out in raid gear to be able to take group instances, but so far the groups I've tried it with have been prime examples of how not to win at EQ.  =(

I remember once in deep forge, with my bruiser (80, 180+ AA at that time, fabled mythical, full set 2).

The group was me, 1 inquisitor, 1 assassin, 2 wizards and a fury

And they couldn't keep me alive, the dps was so low that they were quickly oom. And I know I was able to tank since I had alread tanked some named in Guk 2.

In tso, the big problem is that you need dps, heal, regen mana and a good tank. if not you have troubles

MC gear is not good enough. Have you done some quests to get some legendary gear? in moors or in kunark? have you done all the instances in RoK before? how many AAs do you have?

[YeldarbSpiritbla]

I honestly don't get it either. 2 healers in DF should be able to keep a scout tank up. Especially a cleric and a shaman. Are you running out of mana? Are the hits too hard? Is the tank moving the last mob, and not standing there blasting everyone with ae's? You really need to look at combat logs and see WHAT exactly is killing you. That would give you a huge idea of what is wrong. It could be something as simple as getting a collection belt for mana regen, or something more like regearing and making the tank update his/her AA's and gear.

If it's a problem with mana, it could be mana regen or dps. If the dps is under 7k for the group, then find better dpsers. If better dpsers are pulling agro, get better transfer. If he's hitting too hard, upgrade your healing spells to at least expert and make sure the tank is spec'd defensive OR even set up defensive groups until the rest catches up.

Unless you actually look and see that the tank is being da'd for 10k, or everyone in the group is getting hit by ae's, or the tank is losing agro, it'll be hard to pinpoint the exact problem and you'll be guessing like the previous posters. They're only going to be able to give you answers to common problems they've experienced or little clues from your post, like the tank in MC, and etc.

My fury was able to solo heal DF and the tank didn't move the Firelord at all. I just healed through it, and we burned him down. I used about half of my mana pool. There really isn't a logical explanation except for mana problems or the shaman was asleep.

EDIT: I reread your post and (and we did fine until we got to a named ) are you talking about the named with the hammers? Are you guys killing the hammers and curing? If you're not destroying those hammers and curing, you'll fail.

[feldon30]

Fons@Mistmoore wrote:

I personally am wearing T8 MC with a couple pieces slightly better.

So my question is pretty much this: [Removed for Content] are we doing wrong?

This is the issue.

First, there is some level 77 mastercrafted you might look at. I would run the Kunark dungeons a few times to get some of that Legendary. Plus there is some quested Legendary that's worth having.

If you have 22% heal crit and just mastercrafted T8 gear, I would really stick with not trying to clear TSO dungeons, but instead do shard runs. Most of the shard runs in Deep Forge, Najena's Hollow, and Scion of Ice do not require killing the boss of the zone. Plus, there are bonus shards to be had in The Crucible for about 15 minutes effort.

So I hate to say it, but you really need to farm the easier zones and complete shard *quests* rather than trying to clear *zones*, in order to gear up to survive.

If you really are hell-bent on clearing TSO instances and gearing up, Obelisk of Ahkzul is really a cake zone, plus you get a little bit of plat out of it (7-10 plat chest, used to be 20p), and a shard at the end. I would run OOA daily.

In just a couple of weeks, you should have gotten enough shards to get some key armor upgrades and have better survivability.

[Yimway]

Fons@Mistmoore wrote:

I personally am wearing T8 MC with a couple pieces slightly better.  I don't have a single piece of Treasured gear.  + Heal Amt at 400, Heal Crit at 22%.  All of my commonly used spells (Buffs, heals, debuffs) are Expert, with my group heal at Master.  I can't speak for the rest of the group members, unfortunately.  Regardless, my heals simply cannot keep up, especially against named mobs.  I just got out of an attempt of Deep Forge, and we did fine until we got to a named and he slaughtered us 5 or 6 times before we called it.  And that group had a Defiler, too.

I'll focus on that you can control.

You have shield ally and heal crit spec?

You've added the shield effectiveness selection in the TSO cleric line?

You're wearing dizok neck and parry adorned wrist pieces to increase shield ally?

Your pre healing with both reactives and using inquisition after debuffs on pull?

Your using a high protection factor shield, like rainbow hues from SoF?

You've tried equiping all that overflow, runic barrier, and other useful heal proc items you gained doing RoK soloquests?

What you can't control but can inspect:

Does your tanks have the proper avoidance adornments on weapon and wrists?

Is your tank using a shield?

Is your tank dieing in offensive stance?  If he doesn't have the gear, he may need the deffensive bonuses (providing he has the hate setup to still tank that way)

[urgthock]

I can only suggest better gear, better aa specs for everyone and better strats. As far as gear, definitely get at least the T1 void shard gear. The set bonuses are very helpful. Here is a list of all the difference effects you will get from equipping the full t1 set for an inquisitor. +65 Spell damage amount, +180 heal amount, +10 heal crit chance, reduce casting speed of beneficial spells by 9%, reduce power cost of beneficial spells by 5%, Increase base heal amount by 5%, +15 power per tick in combat, +8 ministration, +8 defense, +2 focus and burst of healing (proc that triggers 2.0 times per minute, lasts for 15 seconds and increases heal crit chance by 10%). You won't get that from T8 mastercrafted and those effects are HUGE. Considering your tank and dps all get equivalent effects on their T1 void shard gear, I'm sure you can see just how much it can help. T2 is a slight step up that is very expensive for the slight upgrade to effects. But if you plan on raiding the critical mitigation available on the T2 gear is really helpful.

For aa specs, I would suggest checking out eq2 flames. There are a tremendous amount of whiners and OMGIWTFPWNU&USUCK people, but every now and then you can find a gem on strats, tips and suggestions.

As for strats, TSO is a big difference from previous expansions zone bosses. Instead of all being pretty much tank and spank, many of them require you to follow a set script or (probably) fail. If you are decked out in end game raid gear you can usually ignore many scripts, but since you are not, I would suggest doing some research to figure out what these strats are so you can follow them.

For example, in Deep Forge, the Doomsmith has a bunch of down arrow adds (hammers) that show up periodically. They place a trauma detrimental on you that you do not want to cure. If you do, then the detrimental the Doomsmith puts on you will kill you super quick. I have heard mixed suggestions on these adds. Some say to kill them and some say to just fight through them. Personally, since I play a swash, I usually will tab out and kill them real quick knowing that at least about half of my autoattack damage will still be hitting the Doomsmith (and the other hammers) thanks to hurricane. If you don't have a lot of AE dps, I would suggest seeing how hard it is to just burn the named down ignoring the hammers. If that doesn't work, then go ahead and try to kill the hammers (after they put the trauma detrimental on everyone) and then switch back to the named. It may take a few pulls to get the strat just right and determine what works best for that particular group, but once you do it once, you will find it easier each time. Cruhm just has a lot of HPs but for the most part is a tank and spank. Firelord Kearn is mostly tank and spank but with a twist. He will periodically start dropping "magma bombs" that do big AE damage. Have your tank move him about 10 meters or so every 15 seconds or so to avoid this. Just slowly work your way around the circular area you are in DPSing him down slow and steady. Just some suggestions. You can find tons more on EQ2i.com.

[RafaelSmith]

I can only speak from my own experience when TSO launched.  I was already 80.....had gotten alot of RoK instance gear as well as a few RoK T1-T2 raid gear......and TSO was rough at first.

I can only imagine what going into TSO just after making 80 would be like.

As many others have said.......you gotta gear out your tank......if this is a guildmate that is going to be tanking alot for guild groups than I would encourage everyone focus on getting him geared up....run RoK.  

Make sure he specs Battle Hardening from the TSO AAs.......I found that one AA made a world of difference in doing the older RoK instances.

Find a TSO instance that is easiest for your group.......everyone always says DF....well for me I found Anathema to be much easier than DF.  Whichever it  is.....run it...run it alot.....get that Shard gear.

T2 Shard gear + RoK fabled for switched old  Rok instances like CoA and Vaults from being 6man to something I could duo with a Fury.

Also while at the top end SKs are ubah strong..........an SK just dinging 80 is going to be in much worse shape tankwise than say a Guard just dinging 80.

[Bloodfa]

Run some RoK instances and get some better gear.  Then do the void shard missions.  Also, when waiting for the groups to get together, run the solo quests in Moors.  The rewards, both cash and loot, not to mention AP XP are well worth it.  Mastercrafted gear is great for all of the lower tiers, but once you're in T8, that gear is meant to get you through RoK, not TSO.  The TSO mobs are tougher, and hit harder, than their counterparts over in Kunark.  Essentially, you're trying to fight a modern mechanized military with cavalry and sabres.  I don't care how good your morale is, or your tactics, or your training, you're still going to get whupped.  And that will only demoralize you.  Hit up CoA.  That's a zone you can get several pieces of gear and clear in less than an hour.  Running TSO zones and getting wiped will only serve to make those that group with you remember that you guys wiped.  People rarely remember a good instance run.  They rarely forget a bad one. 

[Thunndar316]

A bad tank can cause a ton of hurt in TSO.  I have done a lot of pickups and usually if the tank is bad because of their gear or has problems keepin aggro then the whole zone is an epic fail.

[RafaelSmith]

Bloodfang@Nagafen wrote:

Hit up CoA. That's a zone you can get several pieces of gear and clear in less than an hour. 

And to date, at least for me its still one of the best "bangs-for-buck" as far as farming Masters.

Another plus is....even in average gear you don't even need a full group to clear CoA.

[Thunndar316]

Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:

Bloodfang@Nagafen wrote:

Hit up CoA. That's a zone you can get several pieces of gear and clear in less than an hour. 

And to date, at least for me its still one of the best "bangs-for-buck" as far as farming Masters.

Another plus is....even in average gear you don't even need a full group to clear CoA.

Don't even need a healer except for maybe the last guy.  I tank it all the time.

[Coho1]

How many AA's?   Manipulating resist gear may help. Example: heat resist is low.

[Arogati]

Thanks for all the input!

A few notes:

I've respecced since last night, but didn't change too much from what I already had.  I was already specced for as much healing power as I could be for the number of AA I have (134), but I wound up picking up some of the defensive AAs. 

In Cleric I now have Shield Ally, heal crit, and casting speed at max.  I haven't selected a final ability for any of the Cleric lines.  I used to have Steadfast and loved it, but don't have any points in Str now so it's not an option.  Any suggestions?

In the Inquisitor tree I beelined for Battle Cleric, with a couple points tossed toward Enhance Res.  Most of the skills here don't seem especially useful to me, tbh, and I pretty much went for that for the 10% mitigation bonus.  Again, suggestions for this tree are more than welcome because I'm at something of a loss for what else to do here.

In the TSO tree I've maxxed all the healing bonus skills, and Shield effectiveness.  I don't have access to the Inquisitor branch here yet.

So basically I went for heal crit and any scrap of physical mitigation I could get, in adittion to Shield Ally.  Why I didn't have that one already is beyond me, actually.

I need to upgrade my shield, it would appear.  I'll try to get some people together for SoF.  I've been there once, saw the rainbow shield drop but lost the roll.  Someone earlier mentioned Guard of Drelikus, but there isn't one on the broker on my server atm.

I'm just gonna have to live without the parry adornments for a while; they're well out of my price range.

The guildie tank I was playing with isn't his main, so I'm not sure how much time and/or energy he wants to put into that character.  We have a couple other tanks that could most likely do much better, so I'll see how future runs go.

Not sure what else to say.  Thanks again, you've all been a great help.

[Arogati]

Oh yeah.  Um, what's CoA?

[RafaelSmith]

Fons@Mistmoore wrote:

Oh yeah. Um, what's CoA?

Crypt of Agony.  Instance inside Seb......same door as Protectors Realm.

[Yimway]

Fons@Mistmoore wrote:

In Cleric I now have Shield Ally, heal crit, and casting speed at max.  I haven't selected a final ability for any of the Cleric lines.  I used to have Steadfast and loved it, but don't have any points in Str now so it's not an option.  Any suggestions?

You've not chosen a bad path here, but let me say that I run steadfast, shield ally, and heal crit and I chose to drop spell haste.

The non-interupts I find very useful and make up for the casting speed loss with gear. I'll even wear the adrenaline robe from SoF (10% cast speed) if needed.

Not saying you need to respec again right away, but when you get confortable, try going back and forth and see if you can live without the spell casting speed and keep the non-interupts.

[Bloodfa]

Fons@Mistmoore wrote:

Oh yeah.  Um, what's CoA?

Oh boy.  Crypt of Agony.  It's in Sebilis, in Kunzar Jungle.  Several named mobs in it, 7 plus the final boss.  Some pretty good gear drops from there.  Check it out in eq2.wikia.com, you'll see what we mean.  Best place for him to practice on tanking, and there are very few repops.  Even easier to get to, since you just need one person to make it to the zone in.  Be aware, it's also the zone-in for Protector's Realm, so clicking on the right thing is important.

[Yimway]

Fons@Mistmoore wrote:

The guildie tank I was playing with isn't his main, so I'm not sure how much time and/or energy he wants to put into that character.  We have a couple other tanks that could most likely do much better, so I'll see how future runs go.

Not sure what else to say.  Thanks again, you've all been a great help.

Also sounds like you might be able to use 2 items from SoH, the shield and the robe, perhaps others in your guild need the choker.

Anyway, my point is, if anyone in your guild or friends list is a transmuter, get him in with these farm runs for these items.  There are lots of other legendary/fabled items for your transmuter to break down to get the needed components for the adornments you guys can't readily afford currently.

[Arogati]

Excellent, thanks again.  I've been to CoA (A few days ago actually, just before I dinged 80), I'm just terrible at remembering abbreviations.