The Hidden Forest

Hey all, just joined the server about a month ago and have a bunch of questions. Sometimes /ooc works but 9 times out of 10 for me it's just silence.

Little about me and my situation... started a druid and realized solo options would be limited so made a 3-box war/shm/clr combo that worked decent for me, I hit 70 and revised my orig plan and added mage & enchanter to the mix... realized an enchanter is of little actual use in the active group and mixed in a necro & shadowknight.

My 6-box crew consists of:
1) Warrior
2) Shadow Knight
3) Mage
4) Necro
5) Shaman
6) Cleric
* Enchanter retired to buff-bot, swap in if crowd control needed

All toons are 70 with all important Rk I T8 spells & kael geared.

On to the questions...

1) I'm a bit at a loss as to where to go next. Epic 1.5 weapons seem not worth it compared to things much easier to aquire and where do I go once I've mastered kael? SSRA seems a waste of time, the mobs aren't really more difficult than kael but the loot is non-existent... I think I'd rather buy tokens and bypass flagging. I started farming T4 PoF gear but it looks like it's really not much different from kael gear. What is the next logical step post-kael to continue gearing up my toons?

2) Augments... A lot of frustration on this one. I overheard an /ooc chat yesterday about removing augments. Conversation essentially led towards being able to remove any augments at any time with dissolver, but you need the doner dissolver to save the augment. I recall trying to remove outdated augments a couple weeks ago and it would not allow me to. How is this done? I have big gaping holes in my armor sets for fear of socketing something then finding something better 2 days later...

3) LDON's... A few days ago I hopped into a normal "spider den" ldon with my necro/sk who weren't quite 70 yet and on zone-in was prompted to accept a mission... I accepted and the 4 70's were ported to the imperial bazaar or something like that, off the map and nothing I could do would allow me to get to the map. I could see the "zone" from where I was off in the distance, I zoned, relogged, etc but nothing worked. I had to abort the mission on all 6 toons, 2 to non-70's were teleported to the arena and appeared pvp-flagged with red names. Very confusing and I have been trying to not bugger up my record anymore than I have to with learning. What happened?

4) LDON points... If I understand correctly they go for 50pp/point current market value? What is the most efficient way to acquire them? Running the missions is really only efficient for the halas ones where it's close/convenient/drop rates are decent. The desert ldons are a long trudge for 6-boxing, mobs are highly prone to mass-agro in groups of 3-5 and drops are poor on a good day, some desert ldons I do slaughter and clear more than the quest demands and don't get a single augment drop. I understand world bosses drop tokens but I have also read about static timers and a select few locking them down for farming. I also question whether or not my group is adequate to take them down.

5) Finding Augments... where do I find worthwhile augments? I use the site and sift through loot tables of the zones I know I can handle and after seb there's pretty much zone after zone of no augments or ones hardly worth the hassle.

6) Pet focus items... I'm a little confused by the site description info. Kael boots say they affect up to level 80, the ldon augment says 75 and something I saw in the bazaar yesterday said 70... What is the deal? My pet spell is level 70 and my summoned pets are 78/79 so will all 3 work or only the kael one? I don't want to waste money/points on something completely useless.

7) AC... 2 of my boxers are AC guys, how do I start the journey to 10k, 15k, 20k AC... most of the gear I see listed in tiers 1-4 wouldn't allow me to break 5k

8) Raw pet damage... often while adventuring I have run into people soloing the areas I'm in, recently I was doing icewell keep and someone was killing the dane... their pet was non-stop hitting for 5-figure damage (10k+) and after acquiring the T8 Rk I pets I'm curious what I need to do for my pets to hit like that. Is there "THAT" big of a difference between rk I & rk III?




Sorry so long, any answers would be appreciated.

keogh wrote:1) I'm a bit at a loss as to where to go next. Epic 1.5 weapons seem not worth it compared to things much easier to aquire and where do I go once I've mastered kael? SSRA seems a waste of time, the mobs aren't really more difficult than kael but the loot is non-existent... I think I'd rather buy tokens and bypass flagging. I started farming T4 PoF gear but it looks like it's really not much different from kael gear. What is the next logical step post-kael to continue gearing up my toons?

1.5 will lead to other flags for advancement, it is about progression

keogh wrote:2) Augments... A lot of frustration on this one. I overheard an /ooc chat yesterday about removing augments. Conversation essentially led towards being able to remove any augments at any time with dissolver, but you need the doner dissolver to save the augment. I recall trying to remove outdated augments a couple weeks ago and it would not allow me to. How is this done? I have big gaping holes in my armor sets for fear of socketing something then finding something better 2 days later...

Donate for http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools/items.php?id=3885

keogh wrote:3) LDON's... A few days ago I hopped into a normal "spider den" ldon with my necro/sk who weren't quite 70 yet and on zone-in was prompted to accept a mission... I accepted and the 4 70's were ported to the imperial bazaar or something like that, off the map and nothing I could do would allow me to get to the map. I could see the "zone" from where I was off in the distance, I zoned, relogged, etc but nothing worked. I had to abort the mission on all 6 toons, 2 to non-70's were teleported to the arena and appeared pvp-flagged with red names. Very confusing and I have been trying to not bugger up my record anymore than I have to with learning. What happened?

likely some freak accident

keogh wrote:4) LDON points... If I understand correctly they go for 50pp/point current market value? What is the most efficient way to acquire them? Running the missions is really only efficient for the halas ones where it's close/convenient/drop rates are decent. The desert ldons are a long trudge for 6-boxing, mobs are highly prone to mass-agro in groups of 3-5 and drops are poor on a good day, some desert ldons I do slaughter and clear more than the quest demands and don't get a single augment drop. I understand world bosses drop tokens but I have also read about static timers and a select few locking them down for farming. I also question whether or not my group is adequate to take them down.

kill world bosses, buy from bazaar or donate for them

keogh wrote:5) Finding Augments... where do I find worthwhile augments? I use the site and sift through loot tables of the zones I know I can handle and after seb there's pretty much zone after zone of no augments or ones hardly worth the hassle.

kill mobs in higher end of the game

keogh wrote:6) Pet focus items... I'm a little confused by the site description info. Kael boots say they affect up to level 80, the ldon augment says 75 and something I saw in the bazaar yesterday said 70... What is the deal? My pet spell is level 70 and my summoned pets are 78/79 so will all 3 work or only the kael one? I don't want to waste money/points on something completely useless.

that is likely has to do with client being used, but not certain

keogh wrote:7) AC... 2 of my boxers are AC guys, how do I start the journey to 10k, 15k, 20k AC... most of the gear I see listed in tiers 1-4 wouldn't allow me to break 5k

If you want 10k AC without progressing thru the game you will need to donate for items but progressing in the game and gradually getting the items is nice

keogh wrote:8) Raw pet damage... often while adventuring I have run into people soloing the areas I'm in, recently I was doing icewell keep and someone was killing the dane... their pet was non-stop hitting for 5-figure damage (10k+) and after acquiring the T8 Rk I pets I'm curious what I need to do for my pets to hit like that. Is there "THAT" big of a difference between rk I & rk III?

No clue on this one /scratch head

Thanks for the feedback. I'm certainly not opposed to progression and earning better and better gear over time, it just seems like the gear progression isn't always clear. I heard repeatedly while leveling about lowbie gear then chaotic and kael... after that I haven't heard anything and haven't found wiki info. I would assume T4 armor would be vastly superior to kael & t1-t3 but it really isn't.

Concerning augments... Does the vendor purchased dissolver not work at all? is donor the only way to remove old augments? most are no drop and would be outdated anyways so I don't really care about saving them. If I'm trying to maintain 7 toons currently it would be an extremely expensive habit to continuously upgrade as I go. Availability is also a concern. Leveling up, augments were readily available with seb (55-70 zone) having an excellent selection and the entire selection of 70+ exp and 70+ group zones having almost nothing.

1) I wouldn't advise you to skip progression so fast. It is really part of the fun here, especially if you are running a full group that can, in the end, handle a lot of things. After Kael ? Well, clean Ssra, even if not so interesting drop wise (or skip it if you are really bored there...) then go to ntov and you will find there stuff that will replace slot by slot a lot of your equipement (weapons and armor). Then follow the progression. You can indeed use the /ooc for rotting pofire armor.
The nice augments start in Sleeper's tomb with the quest that will make you clean numerous of times this zone. In the meantime, you will be able to kill named there that will give you very interesting loots (defensive clicky for your SK/warrior for example). The augments there are pretty nice but slightly less good than Plane of Air ones which will work the same way (big named for very nice loot, mini for nice loot, trash for augments and epic).
As mentionned, you can't SAFELY remove an augment without a Lillu's distiller which you can get through donations OR special events like last 4th july or Xmas. Nevertheless, you can destroy the augments you don't want anymore by buying Augment solvent in your favorite merchant.
About LDONS, well, they are nice for xp and cash and you can indeed get some points there that will allow you to buy very nice items when you have done many many of those adventures. Fastest way is, as previously said, to hunt World Boss (but you don't have the gear for it yet), buy it in Bazaar or donate.
I don't remember what is the pet focus, but if it's said that it works up to 70, it will work on your pet, since it's a level 70 spell. It will just make your pet more efficient.
About AC, well, we all started at the bottom of the ladder buddy Get to 5k, then aim at something higher. Without donating, you will need a lot of time and insight to go beyond 14k unbuffed hehe, but it doesn't make you less good and less able to do a lot of things. Think that the ac you get is in range with the tiers you are hitting. If you want to solo group tiers 3, you will need good stuff for all your toons from tiers2 and of tiers 3...and skills.
About pets, I don't know about the rk3, but my monk pet rk2 (I'm running a necro) doesn't hit for 10k. Maybe it was a rk3 pet full buffed with donor, shrug...there is a difference between rk1 and rk2 so maybe there is a gap with rk3, I don't know.

1) The 1.5 epic weapons are more about the clicky buff or debuff they provide, same with the epic 2.0. You will want to complete these quest and get these weapons. Without the power of epic clicks you will be missing out on a lot of goodness.

2) Farming for augs is a big part of the server. starting in T3, and again in T5 and T8, you can create augs for every slot using farmable quest items that drop in those zones. There are also tons of other augs that drop. While you do need to destroy an aug to remove it (Unless you donate for distillers) almost every aug can be acquired again after you have removed it via repeating the quest for farming for it again.

3) not sure, sounds like odd bug.
4) You can get ldon tokens via buying from other players, killing world bosses, or gambling. You can complete the easy ldons with just a tank/heal/dps or even just dps/heal, tank/heal, or even just dps as your gear and AAs get better. You just need to have all guys grouped to accept the mission. You can leave the others behind in the vale to get points while you go clear the ldon with 1-3 toons.

5) next augments after 55-70 zones would be the ones from NtoV bosses in T2, then the quest augs from T3, quest augs from T5, zone drop augs from both T6 zones, zone drop augs from T7, zone drop and quested augs from T8.

6) the best focus item always takes effect over the lesser ones when you have more than 1 of the same type focus equipped. Your kael boots are one of the 1st and weakest pet focus you will find, that LDON aug is one of the more stronger ones.

7) you will likley be under 10k until T7 or T8 unless you donate. iirc a non doner tank with VP gear, VP augs, and T5 augs will have 7700-8000ac.

8) the massive pet dmg comes from T8 pets, strong pet focus like Dark or Ancient, T6 or T8 pet toys, and pet buffs via spells and epic and/or donor clickies.

keogh wrote:6) Pet focus items... I'm a little confused by the site description info. Kael boots say they affect up to level 80, the ldon augment says 75 and something I saw in the bazaar yesterday said 70... What is the deal? My pet spell is level 70 and my summoned pets are 78/79 so will all 3 work or only the kael one? I don't want to waste money/points on something completely useless.

8) Raw pet damage... often while adventuring I have run into people soloing the areas I'm in, recently I was doing icewell keep and someone was killing the dane... their pet was non-stop hitting for 5-figure damage (10k+) and after acquiring the T8 Rk I pets I'm curious what I need to do for my pets to hit like that. Is there "THAT" big of a difference between rk I & rk III?

The question about the levels listed in pet focus, the levels are in reference to the level of the spell, not the pet itself. The important feature is what the description/clone list as increase pet power by (xx) where xx is the increase they get. the bigger the number (from the higher focus) the more powerful the pet.

The high damage is due to buffs that increase damage (mage elemental fury, donor clicks) or chance to crit is raised so high they crit often (shaman buff line and others). Speaking from what I can see in the clone, there is a difference between each rank pet from t8, but can't say for certain how big it is.

I will just add one thing to what Stickybuds and I said : augment is really the key in the game, even more than armor. It's a vital part of the game, especially for tanks of course, that will make you gain more and more ac/stats.
If you have more questions, ask them here or in ooc or send me a tell (on my warrior Sianette the sexy ogre preferably).

I wouldn't worry about auging all of your toons, honestly. Focus on your main tank and make sure he/she is the best they can be for the tier you're on. Up until T7 you really don't need more than one tank for most fights and they should really be the only ones taking damage - outside of AE's.

This is the way I did it and it worked out great. Later on you can focus on your other toons in whatever priority you feel works best for your play style.

/fitz

Augs power for tank classes are uneven at the lower tiers.

The best aug for most slots is stone of sturdiness for 35AC. This drops in seb/solb/valor sadly and is no drop so you're going to have to do a lot of aoe farming to get these. For a progression tank with no donors/twinking you're going to have one of these augs in every slot of gear until tier5 for most slots and you'll still use it for a few slots in tier6. Never waste a stone of sturdiness!

ToV dragons drop 10 ac 125+hp/mana augs that are okay for filler.

For progression I would do the following things:

-Get keyed for ToV(temple of veeshan) and Stillmoon Temple. You can do this by buying tokens from players(search bazaar for "token") or from killing Emp Ssra. The emp is a very difficult kill imo but worth it since you wont have to farm tokens for all of your characters.
-Kill trash in stillmoon temple for the tier2 armor. This is a huge upgrade over Kael armor and is a clone of the quested ToV armor but without clickies.
-Look up the stats and clickies of the ToV quested armor and quest the ones that are useful
-Start progressing through the northern section of ToV(usually called ntov). Also kill bosses in stillmoon temple. They share loot tables for the most part.
-Farm Lady M for a coh clicky orb
-Make sure you have the 2.0 quest at a certain point because there is a kill quest in it for killing dragons in ntov.
-Once you have ntov on farm, try killing dragons in western wastes. There are 3 sets of bosses in ww, all with the same loot table, on this server. 1 set of ~3 that drop some good clickies but are harder than the 2.0 quest dragons. Another set of dragons drop quest items for the 2.0 and some nice 140 mana caster augs. Finally there are 2 dragons that are for the Tier3 raid dungeon key quest. They are even harder than the clicky droppers and harder than Vulak in ntov imo. There are another 2 dragons for the tier3 raid key quest in other zones.
-Once you're keyed for tier3(sleepers tomb), kill stuff in there and finish your 2.0. As soon as you enter tier3 you should be able to finish the 2.0. Get the 2.5 upgrade aug.
-Try killing froggernought in plane of storms(he is in the end of the tunnel near the zone in). He drops some amazing augs for this level including a slot 4 lifetapping aug you won't replace until you finish the tier5 raid zone.

Links:
ToV quested armor- http://www.thehiddenforest.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=679
epic 2.0 quest walkthrough- http://www.thehiddenforest.org/wiki/index.php/Epic_2.0
Key quests walkthroughs- http://www.thehiddenforest.org/wiki/index.php/Keys_%26_Flags
Tier3 Augs- http://www.thehiddenforest.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=1245
Tier5 Augs- http://www.thehiddenforest.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=4489

Don't forget T4 armour (POF) has 2 sets of armour. When you zone in the mobs there drop ornate (T1/2?) armour. IF you go through the hut/under lava by castle you pop in on the real T4 side, they drop elemental (T4). I very much doubt 1 group of T1 could defeat a T4 mini boss though, they are rough when not over-geared. LDON armour fully augged is on-par with Elemental, just requires a lot of work augging them up.

Really the best option is to progress the way the server is designed, that means clearing T1, T2, T3...... or you will find yourself at a loss/stuck. Unless you are allready end-game or have some powerful guild friends, you have to follow progression to get the better armour augs equipment etc etc

Don't skip 1.5. It should be the best weapon avilable to you for your level, and you need the 1.5 to do the 2.0. Even if you dont use the weapon (I dual-wield donor) the weapon clicky is still useful, and the sword can be used in more than pri/sec slots. Augged up the 2.0 is probably going to stay equipped in one slot or another until T7/T8, and the 2.5 aug from T5 is type 30 which is epic/donor only! The warrior 2.5 aug is something like 50ac 13dmg. Pop in a type 4 from Froggy in POS, and a T5/Ldon type 8 aug and your 2.0 suddenly has 200 more ac and 25+ more dmg. Until your hit T6+ your not going to get anything else to touch that weapon (Except donor!)

Don't skip content is the basic tule of thumb. The developers spent a loooong time making it a progression, and really why skip it just to get to the 'end-game'? It's like playing Super Mario World and using the 'secret' tunnels to finish the game in about 10 levels. Wonderful but your only cheating yourself out of fun content.

Oh and welcome to THF