Raid gear and raiding vs. group gear and grouping

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

So, I have finished T5 armor on my Shaman and monk with about 2-3 pieces to go on my Mage (is on same account as monk now) and druid. (Druid always gets last pick. Good thing he isn't a merc or he'd ditch me).

My shaman bp is over 1k hps, auged etc. Overall shaman hps in the 32k range. There are a few group gear pieces that can push him a bit higher and his augs aren't spectacular, but pretty solid.

Unless I am out to lunch (which may be the case either way) I think I am just about maxed out on group available stuff on my guys.

I am starting to contemplate the raiding scene but am curious if there is really that big a jump from the grouping game to the raiding game. Enough of a jump to be worth the pain of trialling, getting in to a good raiding guild etc.

What does an end game shaman bp compare to the T5 with group emblem bp?
What advantages do a raiding shaman have over a grouping shaman? Other than the obvious tier 3 of the spells of course.

[Arslayn]

This is one of the T4 Raid BP's and its before the aug

Balanced Fategaze Chain Coat Armor ID: 104833 »CompareAdded...
Magic Lore No Trade Infusible
Slot: Chest
Purity: 75
AC: 197 HP: 1065 + 6/tick MANA: 1085 + 1/tick ATK: 10
STA: 50 + 10 STR: 20 + 4 WIS: 35 + 4 INT: 10 DEX: 30 AGI: 30 CHA: 20 + 10
SV FIRE: 25 SV COLD: 60 SV MAGIC: 45 SV POISON: 70 SV DISEASE: 50
Damage Shield: 1
Damage Shield Mit: 2
Shielding: 2%
Spell Shielding: 5%
DoT Shielding: 3%
Stun Resist: 1%
Avoidance: 3
Combat Effects: 3
Accuracy: 15
Strike Through: 3%
Heal Amount: 1
Spell Dmg: 6
Clairvoyance: 19
Focus Effect: SHM Dannal's Mending Mana Pres
» Decrease Spell Mana Cost by 25%; Limit: Spell Group: [SG:14208]; (Self)
Click Effect: Favor of the Ancestor's Casting Time: 1 Recast Delay: 600
» Increase Hitpoints v2 by 209 per tick; Increase HP when cast by 626; (Group v1)
Slot 1, type 8: empty
Slot 2, type 14: empty
Required level of 85.
Class: SHM
Races: Barbarian, Troll, Ogre, Iksar, Vah_Shir, Froglock

[Brohg]

The advantage is not gear. The advantage is additional content & challenges.

[Whitman]

[Ughbash]

[Unmei]

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

[Kriyn Nutzforcatnip]

To assume that most people raid for story line or bragging rights only is pretty narrow minded. A lot of people raid to get the best gear available to their class. For me it has always been a bit of both. Sure it's fun killing events for the first time, but I've never been about bragging rights. Upgrades are also a goal for raiding, otherwise you're gonna have some bored people doing the same events over and over.

[Brohg]

Sure you want the best gear you can get. The point is, though, that the difference isn't "worth" the time invested, by any stretch of the imagination. How long will someone pound away at the game for +10 hp? The answer is "nearly forever", if they're nuts like the members of raid guilds, but that doesn't mean there's any reasonable rate of return. Get a few guys together, kill FoS animals for an hour, get a couple of you bits of 500hp gear with relevant focus --- versus getting 50 guys together, raiding for that same hour to get the same two guys a bit of 800hp gear, or maybe just die? The rewards are very much out of scale, and can't reasonably be approached from the economical standpoint implied by a question of worth.

[Kriyn Nutzforcatnip]

Yeah, going back to the original question it's kind of hard suggesting that raid gear is "worth" it. There's a lot of time needed to invest in raiding, and you're not guarenteed to ever get the upgrade. What I was mainly talking about is why people raid in the first place. I agree with you on the other parts.

[Whitman]

[Gordulek]

Most people who raid only for the gear will burn out quick. You need to enjoy raiding for the sake of raiding to keep with it. So, to answer the OP, raid if you think you might like it. Don't raid based on a gear comparison of what you have to what you could have (which, especially in today's game for a caster, isn't leaps and bounds above what you have available grouping).

[Retron]

[Unmei]

[Kruzar]

To kinda go back to the original question.. why raid?

I raid because I personally enjoy the challenges that raiding provides. There is a bit of flip side to this because over time you can get burned out. I personally just went back to raiding after almost a year off break from it. This has provided a wide variety of new challenges in just playing catch-up to my fellow guildies, but I have made the effort and obtained upgrades as they have come.

I do like the thrill of figuring out a big encounter for the first time, getting that bright new shiney item that very few have, and enjoy playing with my friends every night at a regularly scheduled time. I do also group a lot, but those groups are a bit more consistent because I am able to pull in my friends from guild and I we all play together so much that it is nice. I do also pick-up group, but that is a bit more selective. If I was to look at my time spent in game the majority of it is with just raiding, but almost every weekend and on nights off I am online grouping and enjoying the other content as well.

The thing that I have always loved about Everquest is that it is a game that you can basically play your own way... If you love to Tradeskill, that is a viable option for playing... If you love to raid, there is a well developed raid game... If you just love to group, plenty of that to do.... If you love to solo, several very viable options there as well and with mercs even more so... If you want to bot an army of players, you have that option as well.... The amount of content and just pure stuff to do is what I love about EQ.... raiding helps in some aspects for me to explore content that others may never see, and add in grouping on the side.. I get to see alot.

From a gear perspective, the gear from raiding is somewhat better than group gear, but it is tuned to be that way. I personally wear a mix of group and raid gear... some of this has to do with modifiers that I am interested in, and some of this has to do with how focuses have moved over the years... and part of this is due to the group gear out there being pretty dang good. At 32k on your shaman you are well in the range of a very well geared shaman... be it raid or group.... your focuses and mods are probably not the best of the best, but your hp and mana are well in-line.

I guess at the end of the day the question really goes back to you.. and what EQ you want to play. If you really like grouping then group... but if you are looking at raiding... the only thing I can say is give it a try..... it is a whole different game.

[Kneesmasher1]

As mentioned above, you really need to raid because you like raiding, like the challenge, like working in a large group setting and working together to overcome obstacles and defeat challenging content. Raiding is very demanding on your time, your patience, your diligence, your tenacity. You can raid for gear, but unless you're ready to put forth a massive amount of time toward it, it's not going to pay off very nicely unless you find a guild that's in heavy farm mode. Plus, when raiding, you are no longer in control of what you do, how you do it, when you do it, who you do it with, or how everything goes down. Sure, if it's a good guild, you get your chances to input into strategy and learning an event and the Officers accept your feedback and make you feel as if your opinion and input matter, but at the end of the day the Guild Leader and his Officers will be the ones guiding the guild and making the final decisions on what's done and when.

Raiding guilds, at least higher-end ones, have very high expectations and make significant demands on you and your time. It's a BIG commitment. You have to really love it for it to be something you can stick with. Otherwise, it can really be a drain and you burn out.

Raiding guilds go through 3 cycles. It's important that you recognize this before you just jump into a guild.

There's the "learning cycle" where the guild is learning new content. There's not a lot of farming going on so the loot flow into the guild slows way down. You may spend the entire night doing nothing but dying over and over again trying to learn this new encounter, and not a single piece of loot will be gained. Nothing will be gained except knowledge about the event. You'll actually lose significant XP just from your deaths and have nothing to show for it. This cycle can go on for weeks or even months while you learn new events in a new expansion. Sure, some farming still takes place, but the majority of your time is spent learning...banging your head against new events trying to master them. It's a very challenging, frustrating and aggravating time for a guild.

The next cycle I like to call the "transition cycle". You're starting to learn some of the newer events in the expansion but you're still banging your head against the later events. So there's some farming loot flowing into the guild but you're still hammering away on other nights trying to learn the next challenge. This can go on for quite some time and usually takes quite a few months to get through.

The last cycle, and the one everyone likes the best, is the "farming cycle". This is where you know most if not all of the events. You're beating them regularly on somewhat of a schedule. They've become relatively easy and you usually only lose if someone really messes up. You can now defeat the events with fewer members as well. Loot is flowing into the guild at a record pace because you're killing raid mobs each and every night. Everyone is gathering 3, 4 or even 5+ drops a month. The raids move much faster now because everyone knows what to do. With repetition comes speed. The armor slots are getting all filled out. The weapons are being distributed around the guild. Your DPS is going way up. Tanks are stronger. Casters are more deadly. Melee DPS is rising. You don't need as much healing to defeat the content. Depending on where you are in the hierarchy of guilds, you may get to farm for months. The SoD expansion was defeated quickly so the top guilds will be in the farming cycle for 9+ months or longer. Every raider in the guild will be fully outfitted in top-end gear by the time the next expansion comes out and their Alts will pick up a lot of rotting pieces as well. If you're lower on the curve you might only get to farm a month or two before the next expansion or maybe you're working on older expansions so you're farming cycle is only dictated by your guild's power to defeat the next content on the list.

Where players get disenchanted or jaded is when they enter a cycle without understanding it. They may be starry eyed over the loot they see raiders getting and jump into a raiding guild wanting that loot too. Unfortunately for them, maybe they enter in a learning cycle and they spend the next 6 weeks doing nothing but dying, getting frustrated, and getting very little loot. Unless they dearly love raiding they quickly come to the conclusion that raiding guilds suck and they quit. However, if they join a guild that's heavily into the farm cycle they may see loot on their very first raid ever. They may be gathering loot so quickly it's insane. If it's their first raiding guild, they quickly come to the conclusion that raiding is easy and the loot is good. What they don't realize is that they missed all the head-banging and frustration that came with making the event look so easy now....and, unless you dearly love raiding, once they hit that learning cycle again, they will wonder what happened to their wonderful guild that was cranking out loot hand over fist just a couple of months ago. They become jaded and quit.

So the bottom line is, if you're just raiding for gear, it's probably not going to work out. It might...for some. But for the true raiders, it's not about the gear as much as it is the challenge. The Gear is a means to an end...to defeat the next challenge.

[Brohg]

Not everyone likes farming. I have trouble maintaining interest in that phase, even. Observably, though, I've been raiding for a LONG time.

[Unmei]

[Kneesmasher1]