Progressing roughly in order

[Ditri]

So I am trying to progress "roughly" in order so that I can see all the content and be challenged, more or less. I couldn't help but notice the higher end items are simply uber. They demolish the lower tier stuff, despite being raid loot on both ends.

Now, i know at one point people had to progress for the first time and they had no help of uber geared players, but what about today? I'm just curious what kind of raid force I should aim to have for the different tiers? I started by boxing 5 and my spouse Healla playing 1, but after doing SSra it really felt like the named mobs needed, well, an actual "raid" force . Go figure, right?

And so I got a new computer recently, and decided it's time to see if it can box some more toons. And at this point I think i'm going to try my hand at boxing 2 groups for these raid zones. But I'm left wondering, can we still do it?

When it comes to the challenge, that's what I dont want to lose -- but at the same token I want to be able to win and progress. Basically I suppose I'm just trying to learn about what makes the server raid zones "tick."

[Noren]

Your difficulty, from my observation, stems not from your gear or lack of players so much as a lack of AAs. With ample AA's (nearly all passive completed), you will find progression through the tiers feasible with one group all the way to the end of T6. If you decide to donate for gear and/or grow your raid force, you can go further. It's pretty difficult to do T7 with one group of toons wearing T6 or less gear, but everything before it is manageable (speaking as someone who did it).

[Ditri]

Your difficulty, from my observation, stems not from your gear or lack of players so much as a lack of AAs. With ample AA's (nearly all passive completed), you will find progression through the tiers feasible with one group all the way to the end of T6. If you decide to donate for gear and/or grow your raid force, you can go further. It's pretty difficult to do T7 with one group of toons wearing T6 or less gear, but everything before it is manageable (speaking as someone who did it).

great advice... it's tempting to over look aa's on this server because you just see so much elite gear. but the stark reality is that my tank has crap aa's (80-some). my monk has maxed out his defense aa's but still only has 200. i am sure that a raid, even tier one, probably expects players to have 50+ aa.

thank you for the useful personal anecdote. appreciated.

[Slaybackaskani]

I am only in Tier 4, but I found once I was boxing 12 that life got much easier. I have a war, 2 clerics, shaman, druid, beast, 2 necros, mage, 2 bards and a wizard. I find having a bard in each group is essential. I had one before and the group with the bard never died to AEs while the group without was always dead. I agree with the other post that AAs make a huge difference. Once i finished my defensive aa on the warrior, it wasn't as big of a deal. healing aa help a ton on the clerics and the instrument aa help the bards. I've done all through tier 4 though with just those 2 groups and have been fine. continuing on to the next tier soon.

edit: BTW, the only donor gear i have is the shaman staff for word of the alchemist. Not because it is required but because it helps. I'll donate more eventually but I really enjoy trying to progress with the gear of my tier rather than being overly powerful. That being said, I do have the tier 8 pets which help tremendously .

[Thumped]

I think the talk about AAs really hit the spot. As a new player on this server I noticed a great change once I started getting most of the core AAs for survivability. I'm pretty well geared since I splurged on a couple donor items after liking the server alot but things like combat stability and combat agility and the advanced versions as well are a must.

[Rude]

Yup. Defensives are the *first* AAs every single class should buy, including clerics, mages, wizards, monks, etc. You can't heal/cast/dps if you're DEAD

[Slaybackaskani]

I disagree about doing defensive first for all classes. Yes for your tank but I did pet first for mage and heals for my shaman druid and clerics. If the Mt stays alive, your other classes won't be hit unless you suck with aggro. My clerics are just now getting defensive aas in tier 4 and not having any problems. My pet classes do way more dmg because their pets are maxed. They would be worthless if I had done defensive first

[Thumped]

Not sure how it is with a group of boxed chars but with my bard and a shaman bot I got roughly 30-60 AAs a day (4-6hrs) and some decent plat grinding bastion of thunder, fungus grove, or shadowhaven.

[Rude]

I disagree about doing defensive first for all classes. Yes for your tank but I did pet first for mage and heals for my shaman druid and clerics. If the Mt stays alive, your other classes won't be hit unless you suck with aggro. My clerics are just now getting defensive aas in tier 4 and not having any problems. My pet classes do way more dmg because their pets are maxed. They would be worthless if I had done defensive first

Just my philosophy, and there are people who agree with me. No matter how good you are at AE aggro, there's going to be that odd occasion where a mob slips past you unexpectedly (pathers, for example). Last think you want is it to one-shot your cleric/dps. But AAs flow quickly for most people, so it's partially moot as for what to take first.

[jsre]

Just my philosophy, and there are people who agree with me.

There's a bunch of people who think the world is flat too (note this is not a serious comparison!) From an efficiency perspective, you only need enough defensive capability to keep everyone alive. My healers don't have defensive AA's after nearing 1000aa's.. they just don't get hit unless the tank dies and I'd rather not prolong the agony. You can make an argument for defensive aa's keeping someone alive in the 5% of cases sheets hit the fan, but there's a counter argument as to how often sheets hit the fan. On THF, the only classes that can tank for more than a lucky heal in tier appropriate gear are War, SK, Pal, no matter their aa's.

A single group with one of the more useful donors can make it a long way. Personally I'd highly recommend for either the shaman donor v.1 weapon, or the SK v.1 weapon if you use an SK to tank. Both provide a 1500 per tick group regen which will give you enough of a boost to still find the majority of tiered content quite challenging, whilst making it possible to proceed all the way to T6 if you get tactics right. You could instead get Pet class BP donor items (Nec or Mage), but the pet donors are vastly more powerful, and you can use them to effectively 2 or 3box your way to T6, which is a bit cheesy IMO and you miss the fun of exploring well designed and interesting content which took a couple of years to develop (it's a case of traditional tank/heal/dps group dynamics vs heal-the-pet).

One of the downsides of an EMU server is that you don't have a large dev team pumping out content. To any new players here who want to experience the server for what it is, I strongly recommend not racing to the top as you will quickly get bored having missed all the fun along the way.