The Spirit Realm

I have not (personally) logged in to EQ in 3-4 years. A friend played my Shaman to 70 and got me 2-3 peices of gear from one of the newer expansions otherwise I am still sporting PoP elemetal armor, that damn mace from Vex Thal and some other seriously crappy stuff. Back when I quit, a shaman with 6K hps was still pretty darn good but now it is ridiculous to me to see shaman with 25K hps! So I am here to ask, am I to far gone to come back and enjoy EQ all over? I am not looking to activate and go insta raid but when I thnk that I have maybe 7.5K hps buffed, can I even solo? Is there a be all end all tome of knowledge that will bring me up to speed on what I have missed? I am talking even the little things, like what is corruption, what is Purity, why do spells say Rk II and RK III? I would use the search feature but I don't even know what I am searching for! I logged on last night for the first time and all I did was configure my UI and try to remember what all those spells do.

I am on Prexus now, used to be Terris Thule. If anyone wants to send me a tell with a pointer or two that would be awesome. I will be on here quite a bit trying to figure it all out.

Thanks for any help offered

Cantiz

Shamans can always solo, because they don't get hit.

Have a look at bazaar. Look for: Elaborate Defiant Chain gear. (Recommended lvl 70).
On AB they are now around 50p per slot.

Purity was introduced in the Era "The Buried Sea". You gained a new slot, where you can stic one of the new powersources. The powersources drains there power and need to be replaced.
The higher the value of the purity, the faster the power will drain and the more stats you gain out of the powersource. Those powersources come in different flavors.
One might increase some of all, another is big in gaining mana ..., a nice starting point for those is: http://www.eqwiki.net/wiki/Combine_Power_Sources
The impact is not very big, nothing you need to spend alot of time to, trying to get back in the swing. Have a look in bazaar. Nowadays you can get some of the playermade powersources there.
From the playermade powersources the Earth Orb may be a good starter.

Corruption is just a new resist, like poison and disease .. nothing you should focus on. The resist mode of this on gear is low and will stay low for a long time. For the Goup-Game it has no big relevance.
When you are going to raid, you will have a cure for it

RK.: From the Expansion TSS Spells are now coming in 3 flavors. RKI are meant to be archieved quiet easily, you are up and going. RK.II can be archieved in the group game, some do drop, others will need faction work. Simply same spells, but some more powerful. The RKIII-Spells can (mostly) only earned via raids. This is a simplification but generally describes the idea. Where and how to get your spells should be able to be found on this board. If not just have a look at allakhazam: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/

How to restart: I think best would be to find a Guild and Friends who will than help alot to get you up to date.

If you want to try a little on your own here some acutal hotzones.
.
.
55 Blackfeather roost
60 Plane of Storms
65 Sunderock Springs
70 Riftseeker's Sanctum

Sunderock Springs is a nice place, and you should be able to find targets for Root-Rotting. As it is a hotzone you maybe can also find a Group there.

As well as the reference desk and wiki in the menu above, a good source of info is

http://home.comcast.net/~mathadon/Guides/index.html

as well as Alla, as already mentioned.


Catching up should be a bit easier as AAs are scaled now. You get more AA xp the less AAs you have, until you reach some plateau where it returns to normal AA xp (I don't know what that plateau is, but folks here will be able to tell you)

Look up recommended AA under search and you will find some good info from folks on order to buy AAs.

One that I would HIGHLY recommend is the new SLOW AA. It will rock your socks, free up a spell slot and works like a hot damn. Also, our Virulent Paralysis is a must have as it will root stuff till the cows come home at top levels (so long as you don't nuke it) and you can root rot it with your dots.

Other things to note: Speed bump is still just a speed bump, but a bit sturdier one.

Get your 1.5 if you don't have it. Should be close to soloable or at least with a small group of friends, and the proc off it is very good. Should be able to get the 2.0 pretty easily later too.

Lots more knowledgeable folks will be adding to this, so I will cut this off here. Welcome back and have fun!

Thanks for the great info.

For reference I included my Magelo profile. Yea, that really is the shrink orb on a level 70 toon.

Shaman are one of the easiest classes to recover from a long time away from EQ.

Elaborate Chain is easy to come by and cheap. There still might be some Gnollish armor floating around in the Bazaar. With the new expansion on the horizon, made pp will be made in the first 2-5 weeks in the Bazaar as people discover the new content and sell tradeable drops.

and stick to them until you get lvl75 (solo or group). Then things will open up for you as far as grouping at lvl75+.

For reference my shaman solo'ed in Sunderock Springs (with very little trouble) from lvl71 til now. He used to make 3 AA's during one Lesson of Devoted burn (30mins of double exp every 20 hours) at lvl71-73. Now at lvl74 with his new magic DoT I can manage 5AA's in the same amount of time (yes, this is the lvl65 hotzone - so exp is still great!). I'd solo in Rift Seekers Sanctum, but I don't have enough hp to tank them "in the face" (they mitigate slow too much/low Hp for me to do that).

At lvl71 I was getting about 48% AA Exp per kill in Sunderock with Lesson running. Now at lvl74 I'm getting about 32%, but I can kill a hell of alot faster.

As far as returning, I highly recommend the Virulent Paralysis AA's - as mentioned, shaman can solo because we don't get hit.
just last week I had a group in Zeka going for docs, the single mob wiped the three melee (he con'd yellow). Once VP hit, I rotted him. I was never hit.

I play most of my hours solo, an I loaded up on items and AA's that would help me as such. I quickly obtained any poison and magic focus item, and maxxed out all DoT crits. That mob I mentioned above..i solo'd him in just over 2 minutes. Look into the Alloy-Linked gear from TSS, they have a decent focus for your poison and magic DoTs. The Elaborate gear is a cheap, but efficient upgrade where you stand. I second the Epic 1.5, it's a must have.

Just be confident that you can return after a few years and still catch up. Grab a group and Slow like we always do. If you can't find a group, hit Sunderrock springs and DoT the crap at the Mesa zone in - none of them summon.

Best of luck!

Thanks for all the help. I got my gear upgraded and gained a level and about 15 AA's. (My bot ranger also got 70!)

I gained the VP 3 years ago, Henora convinced me it was the cat's meow, is it worth going beyond vp 3?

Is there some comprehensive be-all-end-all tome of knowledge on augments? It used to be so simple, type 4 was weapons, type 7 was super common and type 8 was raid augments. The only augments I have picked up are slipgears gem and the hot zone augs.

I haven't bothered trying to join a group yet since I am so far behind the curve, the acromyns alone are a huge obsticle to overcome. People say "go to VHT and head to the RDN camp, it drops the DGH!" (ex.)

Anyways, I thought I would drop in an give an update for those who spared their time to help, thanks again!

VP4 is an... okay investment due to faster cast time. No real point in going higher until you have AAs to burn.

I respectfully disagree with Unmei. VP4 is a huge (for me, anyway) improvement on 3. I solo a lot and the faster cast has saved me from many a pummelling whilst trying to get a mob locked down. Well, I die less often now, anyway.

VP is a huge part of my game, I do admit. It is nice to rely on its duration and strength. i also bot my 70 ranger with endless quiver and Archery Mastery 3. I malos, (and malosini if needed) on the pull, run back to him and have both ensnare and VP macro'd to slot 2 on each keyboard. If VP breaks, it is not going to be on me in a hurry. I do as many DoTs as I can with the number of spell slots available.

The AA's I have earned since returning have gone into affliction, I think I have 3 levels of dot crit AAs now. Probably going to get back to leveling unless there is some burning need for another AA skill.

How good is the cannabilize AA upgrades? I still remember getting Cann in SoL and dying after a res because I did not loot my corpse before I did it

Current Magelo

Top rank Canni AA takes 6000 hp. Buy every rank of canni as soon as you can.

With VP 3 you had about 5 seconds, if that, after the button repopped before the mob became unrooted. With VP 6 I haven't timed the duration, but the button pops up well before the mob becomes unrooted. It definately gives you more breathing room if you get adds into the camp, and with two shaman it's really nice. It's not a must get above the healing aa's, but like the slow/malos aa it helps with utility.