The Spirit Realm

As an old player come back to EQ, I'm pretty confused! I play on the test server and mostly solo on workdays, and do small groups on my days off. I'm pretty casual, and don't anticipate raiding or anything heavy-duty.

I have seen a few people casting cripple spells as well as slow on mobs. Is cripple worth casting now? I thought it used to be pretty worthless. I've just started back and I'm only in the mid-40s so mobs don't really last long enough to tell right now, lol.

I see that stats have changed a lot. Is there still an AC cap?

I have a tank merc, and his behaviour confuses me sometimes, although I know they are supposed to be pretty dumb. I have died twice because he took off when I got 3-4 mobs, even though we could have easily killed them What roles should I set us on? I found that setting myself as puller was bad because I kept forgetting to bring him along when I was dungeon crawling. (Right now I'm doing a lot of LDONs because I never got to do any before, and also because I read the 8% dodge augment is really good.)

This is the most helpful forum. I have been reading the wiki all week This game is a lot more complex than it used to be, when I used to keep equipment lists on 3x5 index cards, and everybody wore the same thing. (My old cleric was wearing a blood-stained tunic, skull-shaped barbute, and a ringmail cloak. Defiant armor nearly made me faint, hehe.)

Hello,

quick answer :

Yes cripple is still good, but mostly on raid mobs, or mobs that last longer than a short fight... For most mobs slow is enough.
Yes merc tank are dumb, especially on multiple mobs.
Yes there is still an AC cap, that's why you should put AC aug on your shield.

Get new armor and enjoy the game !

Doh

A higher tiered Merc is less likely to run. The higher tiers become avail from Void progression.

Yes, as was stated before, cripple is nice. In higher content, mobs have quite a bit of HP and cripple does increase DPS. This pretty much goes back to one of the main utilities of a shaman, and that is boosting the melee DPS of others.

As far as the tank merc goes: Yes, the tank merc is more likely to run away if it is a lower tier. At the same time, setting group roles will often fix this issue to an extent. ALWAYS have merc set as main tank if your intent is to have him tank. It is also good to set a puller in group settings, and main assist will keep the merc focused on the targeted mob when he isn't taunting to keep agro. The reason the tank will take off sometimes is he is set to pull agro off any mob who you have agro with... If a mob runs and socials another mob halfway across the zone, the merc will take off to pull agro from that mob. This is why setting puller will often help