Returning paladin needing some advice

[Barar]

Hey everyone. I'm currently sitting at lvl 65 with 266 AA, and I quit before i got much loot from POP, so my gear is mainly velious/luclin level. I was wondering what I could do to improve my character at this point? I'm going to be casually gaming, so anything that is doable solo is a big plus, while grouping is also OK. All this new stuff is completely alien to me, so any help you guys can give is greatly appreciated

Here is my magelo : http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1403876

[Normy]

Well, depending on your plat situation, you could pick up some great bazaar gear that would be a benefit to you right now. Mostly 150ish HP range stuff, better than what you are sitting on.

If you don't have the plat for it though, you might be able to go camp it, although the zone is crazy camped right now and I'm not sure you could tank it at the moment. You might be in a tough spot unless you know some folks that can get you some more current gear. In the mean time, look into some of the hot zones, even if they are designed for level 60-65, they would be good xp right now.

[Barar]

With the inflation that happened while i was gone the plat i had is worth basically nothing now

Do i need more levels/AA before i can start getting good upgrades?

[Normy]

71 is kinda the level to be for the 300+ hp gear that has been traded lately

[Natems]

I was in a similar situation with only 2 Jaylia's bracers and full Scaled Knight when I returned a couple months ago. I was Lvl 66 with 115 AAs so probably worse off than you are now. What I would recommend is grinding in BoT on full exp unless you're missing some key AAs from the changes made while you were gone (I certainly was). You should be able to get lucky with some Elaborate Defiant Plate gear, or be able to get some other armor types to drop for you which you can then either sell/trade for plate.

I would pick up a Dreadfall Pike in the bazaar (good stats/dmg, cheap), along with as much Elaborate Defiant as you can get. A good cheap earring upgrade is the Sharp Fang Earring. Beyond that, you'll just have to try and make some plat which comes easily these days, and buy upgrades as needed. You probably won't be able to group anywhere yet to get upgrades beyond the elaborate defiant. At least on Quellious, BoT tends to be FFA, and a lot of people don't care about picking up any loot. I've found that just trying to keep the camps cleaned from mobs to help with targetting, I'll pick up a few random diamonds to vendor and get 400-1kpp in a grind session.

[knytul]

Group up, Ding 71, get stocked up on the LGuk armor that should be in mass supply in bazaar. 8 pieces of that, stock up on plat for Dwerium Trio (8 pieces there). Thats 16 pieces already covering u back up on Gear. Find a weapon in bazaar. Then start making friends to help u catch up

[dindaur]

you just missed guk but if you can get ahold of some BB armor you might be able to barter your way to a partial / full set of guk plate.

[Cromagnon]

Here's my suggestion:

Firstly, try and upgrade with as much of the Intricate / Elaborate defiant armor as you can, it will be dropping in zones that you will be hunting in, and can often be traded for (like if you have a leather item, sometimes people will swap if they have plate they can't use). Intricate isn't so great, but at least will give you gains in mods, and melee focus, as well as some decent armor class. Main thing here is cheap, the Chest / Legs tend to be expensive pieces no matter the level range for defiant, but the others are cheap more often than not.

Dwerium for your non visibles is a route many take, this is tradeskill jewelry and is great IMO for filling holes, but you lose out on a real type 7/8 aug slot and on all the purty mods that are out there. Get some, replace it when you can.

Most importantly, as has been mentioned, you have a decent base AA count, might want to update some of your defensive AAs on your trek to 71, but gaining at leave level 71 should be your immediate goal, then you can work on regearing/AAing some more.

Lastly, at the times that you can't find a group, or don't have a big chunk of time to play, pick out some of the old hotzones, and collect the augs from there, aiming for the AC ones preferably, but there are plenty of other decent ones that can be found as well that include hp/mana/end, stats, or resists that are better than empty aug slots (though they do cost plat to remove if you are going to upgrade that slot). There is a page on Allakhazam with the current and past hot zones included, with the aug for each zone, and the archetype loot drops. Will link it later if i have time to.

Goodluck,
Dan

[Cromagnon]

Hot Zone Aug / Item Listing for past few sets can be found at the following:

[Daldaen]

[Gorblimey]

As a returning player myself I can say I was overwhelmed by some of the gear on offer in the Baz.

For me it made sense to get form 70 to 71 asap in order to take advantage of some quite nicely priced upgrades - do hunt around, don't jump at the first thing you see and you can find some real bargains!

Make sure you double check what's in the bank for ALL of your toons - I found a shedload of stuff that I was able to sell on the baz or turn in for tribute and I found piles of cash dotted around all over the place, even when I thought I'd found it all I'd ovelooked one toon that had 85k stashed on his person!

Hunting in BOT was great for finding new peeps to play with and xp not too bad plus was also soloable if I had/wanted to. Numerous defiant drops also helped raise some cash.

Hunting in CoD to play with SU was also good for the cash raised from Diamonds etc, the tribute items gathered and the defiant drops that raised yet more cash.

I've now sucessfully upgraded every piece of gear (lots of guk and bb stuff) except my 1hs and 1hb and have gone from 12k hps buffed to 13k hps unbuffed (also gaining 5 levels and 250 aas in the process).

Gorby

[Dore]

I'm not sure what expansions you have, just assuming you have all until SoF.

I'd go and do the quests in Arcstone, the reward has nice HoT clicky and is a solid upgrade over your current bp. Even if you eventually replace it with a better bp, it can be clicked from inventory, making it very handy at times. You can't use the bp until you're 68 though, so definitely level up to 70 or 71 at least. It's not as good as the Elaborate Defiant bp, but the click alone makes it well worth doing. Maybe some day you can try getting the , same clicky as the Redeemer bp but half the recast time, making it even more useful, but ToB mobs can be rough and have insane regen from what I remember, haven't been in ToB for a while.

Also once you have better gear and leveled up and have a good group to help you, hit the good old Riftseeker's Sanctum and farm those AC25 augments, . They will help a lot.

Later, you can try farming . Also do the hard setting if you can for the .

When you hit 75, try getting a (SoF expansion required) and do the quest to get the reward(TSS expansion required).