Aniac's Guide for most classes on Casual Dream

[Aniac]

If I could go back in time, and tell myself some of these pointers...these are a few of the things that would be on the list...some learned from other players on the server..some from my own experience, all from the perspective of a player that played 'live' EQ back from 99 to 04.

I come to the game with an older historic perspective on EQ....played back on live from 99 to 2004 as I said...primarily a warrior main in a raiding guild. I have somewhat of a raiding perspective...and a min/max mentality with respect to EQ....whats the best in slot item...what are the best in slot weapons etc for the class I am playing, and an ocd perspective for each class I play.

I decided to start with a rogue main, in part because I had not played one ever on live, and it was melee class, so not too much of a learning curve. Since starting on the server Apr 18th, I have a rogue main...level 65...nearly all Time geared (second and third tier time...e.g. Quarm loots etc)...with about 416 AA's assigned and 10-15 in the bank. My necro alt, is 65 level with about 100 AA's...and I have a dr00d Alt level 56 with about 20 AA's. I do not add this info with any sort of chest thumping, ....simply throw it out there so that you the reader know the source of the information being provided.

EQ CLIENTS
The game screen and all the windows themselves, the GUI if you will, has changed quite a bit since I had played, almost to the point of learning the game over. All of the changes were beneficial....additional windows available, ...in game email...it simply took a while to get used to the new layout, potion belt, bandoleer for items, the inventory screen etc etc. One of the differences that also took getting used to was the difference in clients for Eqemu. A distinctly different gaming experience depending on whether you are using Titanium (crappy in my experience) or Underfoot (slightly better), or Rof2 (in general the over all best in game and server experience for Casual Dreams). With Rof2 client, you have the ability to click clicky items as well as potions from bags (hello complete heal aka "potion of serious healing'...have certain hotkeys work, like Shift-B to open all bags...and more customization as far as adjusting certain windows etc. I am a fan and have become partial to the Rof2 client, and that is what I would recommend for anyone considering play on Casual Dreams.

LDON OR ADVENTURE AUGMENT STONES
Additionally with Rof2, you can add or remove augment stones from items without the need for the birdbath required with other clients. If you are not familiar with augment stones as I was not, do some reading on Allakhazams (Zams for short), or any other site offering info about these additions to the game. The LDON gear and augment stones are available via 'Adventure Merchants' in the bazaar. While on this topic, augment stones are a world drop...with the better stones dropping from the higher level zones...as you progress in level / zones, ...the stones dropped will be better as well. One note for now, the adventure merchants buy SOME but not all stones from players....they also buy the gear back that you purchase from them. You can build up an adventure stone bank by selling them stones you have looted in any zone, with the caveat that they do not buy all stones...likely in the 40-50 % range...(edit I would now say its a little lower 30% or so) They will buy all the +10 to any stat/save stones for 318pts...and they pay well for a few bard only stones. They also occasionally offer a higher price than what is received when you sell a stone to them, or even some of the LdoN gear you are selling back to them. For example, they might offer you 3k for an item, you click sell, and receive 1k or 1500 plat. This is normal for now.

SHAMAN BUFFS AVAILABLE IN SEVERAL PLACES
No matter the client...when first creating toon on the server, read all the new toon messages closely (they disappear at about 15th level), as well as any of the messages of the day. Re-read them and take them to heart...this information is there to help you the new player! For example , it mentions that there are buffs available in a few locations (plane of knowledge, the bazaar, guild lobby, guild hall, primarily from NPCs called 'A lonley Shaman). From level 1 to 45 the buffs are 1 plat, and from 46 on the buffs are 50 plat. There are one or two other locations as well...Ruins of Lavox (sp) also known as Crypt of Decay is one that comes to mind when you get to the point of raiding the planes of power.

GUILD HALL AND TRAVELING
You do not have to be in a guild to go to Guild Hall (through the Guild lobby zone in Plane of Knowledge) and utilize the bank, shammy buffer, magus, or the extra travel ability of the teleporter there determined by the gnome vendor selling transport stones. You buy a stone based on destination, and immediately give it to the gnome crystal vendor, and teleporter will be set to the zone corresponding to the crystal purchased and given to the gnome. One crystal on the list that was not intuitive was the one for Plane of Sky (had Veeshans in the name, but will take you to plane of sky). Also, the stone for Plane of Hate (Fuligans stone), can be used in the guild hall, or the Dark elf female (hugs) very near the zone in for Plane of Tranquility. She will transport you to a variety of places, but specifically the plane of hate (old and new). Additionally, there is an augment stone vendor that sells the solvents and a 'birdbath' for adding and removing solvents there, like the bazaar. In the bazaar if you open the map and head towards the PoK (plane of knowledge zone) the vendor out cove contains a gnome vendor with "birdbath'.

Back to the character log in screen...there are several choices there....Enter world...Enter Tutorial ...and Enter Home. Some of these might come in handy if you ever get stuck in a zone or under the world etc. Log out, and log back in with one of these choices.

TRADESKILLS AND MAKING PLAT
Trade skills are maxed when you start. You may not have been a trade skills player. I was not. I will simply say once you get to the point of potentially obtaining planar gear...elemental or ornate...trade skills will be your friend. The basic gist is....collect the words and runes when leveling, look into making celestial essences...I cannot say enough about EqTraders and their recipes with respect to planer gear. You can go the other route and save your plats and purchase from the 'armor vendor' in the bazaar a portion of the combine components required for ornate/elemental gear (eg Cured ethreal, rings, sheets for plate, and elemental silks). If you read this guide, and check into the initial sub combines (celestial essences) using words and runes from many many zones you will level in...you will come out ahead....and not have to do 'cash farming' to try and afford the elemental gear.

JUST STARTING-LEVELING-VENDORS-MORE LDON GEAR / STONES
Some basic info as a new player that will help you level on the server:...again check the message of the day, and really read the new player messages that show up until you are level 15 or so. These are here to help you. The starting zone Glooming Mines has a good mix of hack and slash, and some quests to help you get on your way. You can do levels 1-9 or 10 easily in the mines. If you prefer to start leveling in another zone you are more familiar with...no problem...go to Arias (a big shaman in the mines)...and say "leave' or 'ready to leave", and he will transport you to Plane of Knowledge (POK). In PoK, there is a binder, a magus for transports to many zones...all the trade skill guys (but not necessarily all the components). When shopping at a vendor or buying spells in the Plane of Knowledge Library or buying Tomes for disciplines in the Plane of Knowledge library, you can sort the NPC's window like a spreadsheet in Xcel...if you click to sort by quantity...all of the items on the vendors with a dash sign " - " are normally stocked items by them and you can buy however many you want or can afford. One other tid bit on vendor helpfulness the LdoN merchants, in the bazaar have a LOT of stones, and a LOT of equipment...when you click on them to open the vendor window....there should be a checkbox on screen that says "Show only items I can use" or something like that....this will at least make the list a little shorter, and for the armor and weapons they have, it will only show what your class can wear and equip. This checkbox will stay checked so when you come back later, looking for an item for an alt or a friend of a different class, you will need to uncheck the box to see the full list again. The gear and weapons sold by these vendors is actually pretty decent gear, especially if you consider the time and difficulty to obtain compared to dropped gear. Its not "uber" but it will increase your survivor ability, and the gear usually has 2-3 aug stone slots (my first preference is always a Damage shield stone....even if its only the +2 Ds stone sold by the vendors). The server vendors are labeled 'Casual Dreams'....this will be where you can buy potions of serious healing...or get free tinkerers bags, or free Joboots. Most players bind in the bazaar, and this is the hub of player activity.

I read a lot of posts and guides for EQ live...where some of the information was up to date for live....but didnt apply to eqemu...or had been modified because it was an eqemu server. So take any of the online information with a grain of salt, until proven to be accurate with respect to Casual Dreams. In part, this server is eqemu...and currently has open all zones up to PoPower....has not opened LdoN instances, but does have the aforementioned LdoN merchants in the bazaar....called 'Adventure merchants'. The information on the p1999 wiki is accurate but stops at Kunark....so they dont have PoP info.

GAINING EXPERIENCE OR AA POINTS
"Where should I grind experience for X level" is one question often asked in OOC. The answer is the same whether you are leveling or grinding AA's. Go to the zone that you can pull at least 5+ mobs for exp/AA.....up to pulling a third of the zone or more. Your level, gear, resists, and AA's will all figure in to the answer of what is best for you. Some testing is required...and when I say testing...I mean pull a few mobs and see how it goes. If good pull the same or more....up to the point where you pull a Choo Choo and die....the next pull...pull less. In general, go to the same zone on live where it would normally take a group of your level to grind exp. As a solo server, you should be able to handle the same, assuming you have complete cheal potions, haste potions, Damage shield potions etc. For any and every single class on the Casual Dreams Server....I recommend the same...get your DS as high as possible, via aug stones or clickies, max out your melee skills (even for castes 1hb, 1hs, etc).

This is a solo server, but not an easy server. What does that mean....XP bonus is the same no matter where you go....there are still hell levels (carebear players hit exit now!). For those of you still here....basically it will take longer to go through the hell levels...but we are talking ...5 or 6 or 7 hours for level 59....instead of back in the day a month or two or three for level 59....if this sounds outrageous to you (the 1-2-3 month thing...then you didnt play live near the time i did).

VERY BASIC CLASS INFO
There seems to be a preference for melee classes (hello iskar monk who cannot understand common language). Rogues have a poison vendor in the bazaar with both the DD line of posion (bite of shissar, level appropriate)...AND several utility lines of poison slow, snare, etc. I almost always use Myrmidons Sloth aka slow poison as my utility. You can have a DD and utility poison loaded simultaneously, they show in the buff window and are clicky like potion of heal....e.g. you do not have to sit and add a poison like back in the day. I have not seen a lot of Wizards, despite the fact that they have awesome AoE ability. But honestly any class will be playable....so choose a class you will enjoy. Every class will not be as effective in every situation, or against each mob....or have the same DPS....it was never like that in Live....and its not like that here, although the GM has done a good job of class balancing and making the server soloable or 2 box-able.

[EDIT 12-23-16] For you older school melee class players, you track down the guildmaster for your class, either in PoK or home city and spend SKILL points. Some skills kick in at a certain level and wont go up unless you train a point. What about disc's or disciplines? For these, you have to go to the library in PoK and locate the tome vendor for your class. Once there, simply buy a single copy of the discipline tome, and then right click on it to learn the disc. If it is a manual discipline, i.e. one you have to activate yourself it will give you an option to make a hotkey.

One other note on class / level / AA's and ability or effectiveness....I noticed a big difference from when I was 65 with approx 100 AA....to 65+200 AA....to 65 with 300AA etc....During the time I was adding those AA's I was usually upgrading gear as well....and it all matters, especially here on a solo server. If you are trying to take down a mob that is around 5 or 6 or 7 levels higher than you, regardless of your gear, you will not likely succeed (miss, miss, resist, resist...). Go grab a few more levels, and then try again. As a rogue, even though I was a DE, I went after the mask off the Froglok in lower guk...I want to say I was about level 35 or so when I first went up against him...and got owned by him.

Additionally....when I was 65 and had about 100 AA's....doing plane of time B, solo....took me about 6.5 to 7.5 hours to clear(depending on the number of deaths I had...plural....I always had 3 or 4 or 5 against Innoruk alone...and before him is Vallon...omg Vallon). Each run through TimeB, I would get some AA's and an upgrade or two or three and revise my approach since I never raided in Time. At 65, with 400+ AA's I can clear time B in about 2 hours and 50 minutes.....3 hours if I have a death or two. I primarily add this info because there were many a time I was up against a mob, and likely shouldnt have been, and I would die repeatedly and think...wtf...thats impossible!....and then come back later with more AA and better resists or gear....and slowly but surely it would go from impossible to do-able.

I may be back to update this guide periodically...but if you have questions...I will be on a toon in game...either Aniac (my rogue)...or Draniac(my druid)...or Aniacromancer (my necro)....or any other character with Aniac in the name.

[edit july 9] IN GAME COMMANDS
There are a lot of commands in the game that can be helpful. One in particular that everyone should use at some point is:
"/hidecorpse looted" so basically once you loot, the corpse will disappear. If you are camping or pulling to a static spot, the mobs will start piling up fast. If you are like me and clicking through a LOT of them quickly, you will eventually click off one that has something you want, and it just disappeared~! Fear not, type "/hidecorpse none" and all non-expired corpses will re-appear, loot what you missed, then retype "/hidecorpse looted". Another related command is "/hidecorpse all" which will hide any and all corpses currently existing.

Have a command you find invaluable? Feel free to add to the thread.

PLANES OF POWER
Additional info, If you are raiding in the Planes of Power (46th level +), the shaman buffers are expanding out, along with at least one Casual Dreams vendor. In Plane of Tranquility, there is a vendor and buffer in the building with the bank, very handy. There are also shaman buffers now in other locations, inside Crypt of Decay (right at the zone in, next to the Bertox event NPC), outside the hub of zone in stones for Planes of Valor, HOH, Tactics etc), I believe there is one also inside the zone in for Halls of Honor (A). So if raiding in the planes, stock up on DS potions from the bazaar, and these additions can save you from having to zone or travel as far to empty bags, re-buff etc.

Another note while on raiding Planes info. If you have no prior experience raiding in Plane of Time, definitely read a guide or two. However, a couple of basics that may be of value. You can zone into Plane of Time at 65 only. When you first zone in to Time, you will be in Plane of Time-A. This is a fairly generic zone, nothing aggros you unless you attack it, no negative faction hits if you do hunt here, so no worry about becoming KOS etc. The mobs are all level 63 or 64 ish, fairly spread out, and some of them do summon, which by the time you are here is simply a minor inconvenience as you will likely be running around trying to pull a decent group of them. I did not find the AA grind here to be all that great, so I recommend other zones for AA's (and loots for that matter).

The 'real' action is in Plane of Time-B. I say real, because this is where basically the best loots currently in game drop, with very few exceptions. Time-B is an 'instance', so once you zone in, the timer begins. You will be told once you zone in, how much time you currently have. You begin the instance by zoning into any of the 5 zone ins located in PoTime-A (air, fire, earth, water, and undead). At that point, you kill the mobs that spawn, usually in waves, until you have killed them all including a named. Lets say you zone in Air, kill all, then you will need to go to the room next door, by clicking the clocks to get in and out. Once you have cleared all 5 areas behind a clock, You get a message in yellow, in the form of statements from the Gods about how mortals are encroaching etc. At this point you have completed a phase. The first three phases are all inside these individual areas behind the clocks, or just outside them. Not a lot of details here so like I said please read a thorough guide on Zams or wherever. Once you have began a Time-B instance, the magus porters, will now show a 'potimea' option [EDIT-12/23 also the magus will ask you in the main line of text when hailed, if you want to return to the plane of time] when you hail them and click the all zones option so they list them out. This saves you from having to go to PoK, then Tranquility, then run to Time-A.

I see a lot of questions in OOC, and have gotten plenty of tells about "where do I get XYZ stones' or 'where are the best zones for stones?" I really did not keep track of which zone I got XYZ stone from while leveling. I bounced around a lot while leveling and I think this helped me with aug stone gathering because some stones dropped more frequently in certain places and less frequently in others. Primarily I will try to come back here and update where I find a decent stone drop. For example, the +2 DS stone can be purchased from the Adventure Merchants (which some people refer to as LDON merchants). The upper end of the scale....would be a +5DS and +5 Regen stone (Blackfeather Stone of Sufficiency or something like that, lime green icon). I recently obtained one of these in Plane of Earth-A off a yard mob. The combo +5 DS & Regen are the highest DS or Regen stones you will find in game currently (PoP).

Enjoy Casual Dreams ~
As of December 23, 2016:
Aniac-Rogue level 65, 745 AA's
Aniacromancer, Necro level 65, 225 AA's
Drainiac, Druid level 65, 39 AA's
Skaniac, SK level 65, 30 AA's

[Shock]

definitely good advice. well done, Aniac/romancer
trolls, ogres, iksars should certainly train common tongue upon their first trip to PoK.
augs are your friend. i saw some bozo putting them in non-stat, equipable items just for their effects. Improved Damage in a Jade earring? WHAT MADNESS?! But hey, if it works... right?
good write-up. thanks, man.

[Galinet]

There is a ROF2 feature that I just noticed. When buying spells, there is a "Lvl" column, which is the level of the spell. What I like to do is to sort in descending order and buy every spell from that merchant. When you look in your inventory, every spell will be sorted from higher level to lower level, making it much easier to scribe the proper spells when leveling up!

[Aniac]

Good point Galinet,

As you mentioned players can sort the spell vendors by level of spell (at least with Rof2 client, not sure about UF or others).

With my casters I would do this and purchase the current level of spells needed and maybe the next level or two, depending on how many there were. I am always dealing with full bag issues.

You can sort all the vendors, by item quantity, price, or for spells by level etc, just like a spreadsheet.

Another point on spells, you can turn in Ethereal and Spectral Parchments and Glyphed Rune Words in the PoK Library to receive level 61-65 spells. The glyphed return the level 65 spells. These items are not stackable... ;-/ By the time you need these, the cost associated with them should be trivial, but if you want to obtain them for free, turn these items in one at a time into the spell vendor in PoK library labeled for spells level 1-20, to receive a spell back from the vendor.

Many times you get repeats on turn ins, and some people do the turn ins simply to sell the spells for plat to a vendor. If you have the bag space and want to navigate the PoK library, great. If not, just buy them.

As of July 9, 2016:
Aniac-Rogue level 65, 490 AA's
Aniacromancer, Necro level 65, 195 AA's
Drainiac, Druid level 65, 20 AA's

[blurman2000]

Just a quick question, where do we actually get adventure points?
The common way is to do LDON adventures but is that the only way on this server?
I couldn't really find any other information around other than that.

[Galinet]

Aniac's 5th paragraph: sell unwanted LDoN augment/gear to the adventure merchants. Note that they do not buy every item.

[Elspeth]

One thing to point out, regarding the celestial essence process. Rather than take up inventory space dragging runes and words back to town to run thru the mixing bowl, celestial solvent is sold by the DE vendor at the fishing pool in PoK, and a couple of the poison-making supply vendors upstairs from it sell The Scent of Marr. It's cheap to follow this route, albeit not as cheap as farming runes & words. That way you can use the inventory space to collect items that are more profitable vendor bait and not have to worry about which runes & words to save and which to not bother with.

[Aniac]

October 3rd, ...I added some paragraph headers in an attempt to organize the post a bit.

Aniac

[Kontao]

Here are some more specifics:

- For LDoN points, I've noticed that the LDoN augs that add "10" to your basic stats will net you huge gains for points when you sell them back to the LDoN merchants. Augs that add less than this are not sellable to the merchants; sell them for cash instead.

- If you are a melee, make sure your melee and defensive skills are at or near max for your level. An easy way to do this is to train with the training dummies in The Arena (specifically the 1DMG Dummy). For me, I just kept my character on over night, swinging away at the dummy. Make sure you have sufficient innate regen if you do this at lower levels (a fungi tunic or several items with regen augs is a great idea). this will especially help when you fight those red con mobs that are more than 6 levels higher than you and are resistant to all of your procs or spells.

- Can't afford the DS potions in the Bazaar? Create your own shaman, level them to 25, and make your own potions! You can create lower level Distillate of Spikes (up to VI) by buying the components from the Alchemy vendors in PoK. At level 52, Distillate of Spikes VI does over 15 DS damage base (29 with bard song at 52, and this is without DS increasing augs), and costs roughly 10-12pp per potion to make!

If I can find any other things to add to this while on my adventures, I'll try to add them here.

[Aniac]

Good info Kontao.

I know I plan on making a shammy at some point (...Shaniac....Shamaniac...hmm) and it could very well be worth it to spend the time and make your own potions.

On the aug stones, all the +10 to stats/saves sell for 318 points. Its very easy to pick up 3 or 4 of these and obtain a higher end piece of LdoN gear. However, I wouldnt say those are the only ones the adventure merchants buy....I know recently I sold a +1 or +2 regen stone for 600 or 700 points, and there is at least one bard stone that sells for more than that. I will agree that once you get outside of the +10 to stat augs, its a very small % that they buy and at some point you wont need any LDON gear anymore and it becomes easier to just vendor them all.


Enjoy Casual Dreams ~
As of December 23, 2016:
Aniac-Rogue level 65, 745 AA's
Aniacromancer, Necro level 65, 225 AA's
Drainiac, Druid level 65, 39 AA's
Skaniac, SK level 65, 30 AA's