Gear Check!

[Furro]

 

Gear Check!

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For anyone serious about their character and performance, peer critiquing is extremely helpful.

This thread is dedicated to posting character profiles and requesting feedback/suggestions for upgrades.

The best way to do this is to setup a magelo profile, and use raidloot.com as a resource for reviewing gear.  I've outlined both below briefly to help.


Magelo

Site: eq.magelo.com

This is basically an EQ Character profile service.  Whereby you can view your gear out of game and do all sorts of gear swaps/projections etc. 

You can Register for free, but limited use, or Subscribe with a minor fee.

Non-subscription is limited to syncing AA only I believe.  For gear/augs, you have to manually insert all the pieces via their lookup by item name etc. 

Subscription allows for syncing of Gear/AA/Augs the works.  It's by far the easiest, and fastest method to get up and going on what matters and that's getting your gear path sorted out.

The nice thing about Magelo is, you can create alternate profiles for your character.  So for example, you can makeup a "Short Term" goal profile, with gear swaps for content we're currently farming, or coming up on the radar.  Magelo automatically shows you the +/- differences from current/profile.  Makes it easier to plan ahead.



Raidloot.com

Site: raidloot.com

This is the defacto standard at the moment for looking up gear, and doing quick comparsions etc.  Highly recommend using this site for checking out the loot tables of raids we're currently farming and what's coming up on the radar.



The Process

So basically, register/sub to magelo in some form.  Then sync/setup your character via magelo.

Once done, goto raidloot.com, and lookup gear related to what we're currently raiding and next tier.

For each choice from raidloot.com, slot it into your magelo "alternate profile" you setup for say maybe "Short Term" goals.

Continue this process until you're satisfied with the virtual upgrades.

Post in this thread your magelo link.  From there, others will be able to review and offer advice/suggestions.

The important thing about this process is to not be subconscious about your gear.  All that matters is that you're making the effort to improve your character, and that you take the advice offered into consideration.

[Ssark]

Ssark:
http://eq.magelo.com/profile/10592

Eristie:
http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1950828

Ketu:
http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1950829

Does it not sync gear unless you are a premium member?  Or just take a while?  My level synced fast, but my gear is still pretty old.

- Ssark

[nubatamax]

To update (semi) automatically, you need to be a premium member. If you don't want that, you can update each of your slot manually. Possible, but yeah pita. That's how they are trying to make you feel you want to pay them.

[Ssark]

You also cannot have alternate profiles unless premium.  I guess one could just create another profile, but it wouldn't be linked.

[Charliugly]

Here is my magelo if anyone want help me, gives suggestions...

Charliugly : http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1952557

[Furro]

 

Here is my magelo if anyone want help me, gives suggestions...

Charliugly : http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1952557

 
Ok, I'm just going to cover your AUGs first, and Mod2/3's at a glance.  I havn't looked too closely at the other gear (visibles/non-visibles).

As a tank, in the heroic stats area, I'd focus on the following: AGI, DEX, STR.  But first read the link below if you havn't done so aleady:

Recommended reading: A Different Approach To Warrior Itemization by Quillium of Cazic Thule server.



Aug Review

I put all your augs into a table below and replaced the ones with appropriate tank heroic/AC oriented.  Some augs are lower AC then what's out there, but their heroics are what counts.  Sometimes you have to sacrifice a degree of AC for heroic gains.  It's all about culmulative heroic gains in those three key areas.



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                spacer                                                                

SLOT		QC		CURRENT		REPLACE WITH		REASON
Ear-L		GOOD		Golden Ore
Neck		NFG		Fragment of Heavy Steamwork Plating		Blood of the Fallen		Missing Key Heroics
Face		NFG		Forged Froststeel Ingot		Glowing Lena Fete Rune		Missing Key Heroics
Head		GOOD		Petrified Skull of the Unworthy
Ear-R		NFG		Creast of the Scarlet Legions		Black Dragon Scale		Missing Key Heroics
Finger-L		NFG		Drop of Dread		Mooto's Stone		Missing Key Heroics
Wrist-L		NFG		Emascianite Firegem		Blood-Soaked Spellstone		Missing Key Heroics
Arms		SOSO		Crushed Bone Sliver
Hands		NFG		Bonegrinder's Bauble		Curator's Treasure		Missing Key Heroics
Wrist-R		NFG		Patches' Gnarled Bone		Stone of Insanity		Missing Key Heroics
Finger-R		NFG		Jewel of the Stalwart		Silver Dragon Scale		Missing Key Heroics
Shoulders		GOOD		Polished Rockomancy Diamond
Breastplate		SOSO		Timeworn Bone Shard
Back		NFG		Feral Eye		Incarnadine Gemstone		Missing Key Heroics
Waist		NFG		Warleader's Pearl		Crystallized Cliknar Eye		Missing Key Heroics
Legs		GOOD		Ksathrax's Amber
Feet		SOSO		Glowing Lena Fete Rune		Lifeweaver's Symbol		MOVE SLOTS - Move Glowing Lena* to Face
								(other augs conflicted, had to shuffle somewhere)
Secondary		GOOD		Nesalie's Spell Gem
Range		NFG		Illsalin Enforcer Medal		Gem of Unwavering Tenacity		Missing Key Heroics
Charm		MISSING!		--		--		Ref. Below

Aug Notes:

There are several seasonal events that result in extremely powerful AUG rewards.   Unfortunately, you missed them this year, so I'm just going to reference them here until they pop up again around April or so. 

Sacrifice as many kittens as you have to in order to get these when the events are live again:

Polished Stone of the Eleventh Hour
Golden Nugget of the Eleventh Hour

Beveled Mithril Gear Set
Mana Laminated Gear Set

Iron Plated Timing Pendulum Model XL
Platinum Plated Worm Pinion Gear Model XX



Charm Aug

Best Charm aug is tied to a seasonal EQ Raid basically.  It comes around every April or so yearly.  The raid is called: Dragons, Dragons, Dragons.  There's a group version also.  But basically, when this comes around again in April, get it done with Freelance.

In the interim, unless you've done LDONs WAY back and you have that aug banked or something, there's only one other AUG I can think of, but it's a tedius quest arc from the SoF expansion.  Basically, unless you're done gear/aug wise, this would be the last resort imo though.  However, I'll list it here for reference anyway in case: Valthon's Memory Shard.


Mod2/3's

At a quick glance, you appear to be set on these modes.  Most importantly, you're at 35+ shielding, and maxed on avoidance.



AC & Softcap

AC in your shield (secondary slot), directly contributes to raising your soft-cap.  This helps mitigation, and why you see everyone putting their highest AC aug in their shield.

What you have currently in your shield is basically the best you're going to get until those "seasonal" events come live again.  When that does, then slot in the 38 AC Beveled Mithril Gear Set aug imo.

[Charliugly]

Thanks a lot Furro for that very nice and complete suggestion.  It will give me lots of work to replace all of those but time is something we have in this game... I will focus on one by one as I have some freetime .

Thanks again,

[Ssark]

Mooto's Stone is a pain to camp -- after hours upon hours of the single-placeholder camp in Al'Kabor's, I instead starting doing as many "Catastrophic Power" missions as I could.  CP is not very hard at all -- I boxed it with Monk/Druid/2 cleric mercs a few times -- and after about six tries, the stone was in the chest.

Keep this in mind for some of the other drops and augs.  The Incardadine Gemstone drops in the Bonfire of the Adherents mission (Lichen Creep), and can also be purchased at UF vendors IF you have the Convorteum 12-man raid done.  The Stone of Insanity drops often in the Well mission "What Lies Below" -- like 10% of the time (another mission I often box with druid/monk).

Furro makes an excellent point about seasonal rewards.  The 11th Hour run you can probably solo.   Only hard part about this is waiting until next spring when they're active again.

For non-augs, I suggest the following: in any slots you have purchased HoT gear (Eidolon), please check out the following link:

http://home.comcast.net/~mathadon/Guides/HoT/GroupGear_t4.html

This has an excellent list of the group gear that falls in HoT T4 (SS and MC), and where to get it, and who should be getting it.  For example, in the top section ("Ear") you should probably get Warden's Hoop and Beast King's Claw, or browse for others that make sense.

While I'm not an AC king like Mten or the famous Manual, HoT T4 group gear is an excellent place to start if you don't have a lot of raid gear.

Oh, and for comparing, I use 1 AC = 10 HP.  This seems to be accepted by a lot of folks.  So if you see gear that's the same in heroics and other ways, but it has 10 more AC at the expense of 50HP, you take it.    That's just my opinion, I'm not an official tank.

[Furro]

Thanks a lot Furro for that very nice and complete suggestion.  It will give me lots of work to replace all of those but time is something we have in this game... I will focus on one by one as I have some freetime .

Thanks again,

 
No problem.  Hopefully others that frequent our raids post here also.

One more thing I forgot on the aug front.  Change your BP to Emblem of Rallying Dreams.  Your current Emblem doesn't give you any Hagi or Hdex.


Off-Topic Comment:

Off topic, but related to tanking.  If able, start parsing yourself using GamParse. 

Why Parse as a Tank?

Tank perspective:  GamParse parses both offensive and defensive damage, among a other things.  The defensive information is very detailed, but summarized etc, and you can combine multiple mobs etc for an overall picture for bosses that go active/inactive (ie, Queen, Brath etc).  Why is this interesting?  Because as you gear up, you can store this information and see how your tanking evolves as you gain heroics/AC/etc.  Anyway, call me a geek, but the nice thing about EQ is it's complexity, and this is just another avenue to really get nitty gritty  and min/max your potential.  I admit, it's not for everyone though.

Heal perspective:  Everquest doesn't echo heals from others, only heals that land on YOU, and only YOUR heals that land on others.  That means, I have no means of parsing collective heals from others, towards tanks without those tanks actually parsing.  What I'm interested in is heals towards the Main Tank for miniboss/boss sections of our raids.  GamParse provides all of this in a nice summary area, and with an option to copy to clipboard which you can then use to paste into EQ channel(s).  Anyway, the information is useful to me, and if it can be provided by all our MT's, it'd be greatly appreciated and helpful to the team.

DPS: Warriors do great DPS in addition to tanking, and by monitoring your DPS, as you tweak things you'll be able to see the improvements.



* EDIT:  AA wise, when you're done Discordant Defiance, can you polish off Hastened Fortitude Discipline.  That should bring your fort from 40 min refresh to 28 mins.  Often times between wipes on hard hitters we're waiting on warrior discs like fort.

[Zaaqen]

Charm Aug - Wanderlust Guild Loadstone
It's far from the best, but all it requires is a bunch of running around in the Serpent Spine in a quest arc. Basically, it's better than nothing, and you can work on it a little at a time and see immediate results (however minor they may be).

General Gearing - T4 Gear Overview (Re-linked from Ssark's post because I feel it's important)
Obviously any group gear that is lower than T4 should be replaced with an appropriate T4 piece over T3 or lower. The exception being the purchased gear, because it has lower heroics, which you also want to replace with any appropriate piece of dropped T4 as well.

Parse - GamParse Download Page
As Furro mentioned, parsing is for more than just DPS. The DPS parse is great for those with an inferiority complex  , but healing parses are not uncommon in high end raiding guilds. It allows them to see who wasn't pulling their weight. The problem is, the person being healed or the person doing the healing has to report it. Personal tanking parses let you see what the aa's and gear is really doing for you.

[Furro]

 
Charliugly,

Edited my post regarding the emblem.  The Emblem of Rallying Dreams is slightly better and still covers the key heroics.  An oversight on my part, brought about by a conversation on emblems earlier this morning.

From your magelo it doesn't appear like you switched yet anyway, so I didn't cost ya anything!  Yet.. :P

[Elnoche]

Now that I am raiding more with FL, I am ready to start upgrading.  In the content that we are in, what would be the best strat for me to upgrade my gear.  Here is my Magelo,
http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1977625 For the most part, I am fully t4 group geared.  Just looking for suggestions on what should be upgraded first.

[Zaaqen]

Elnoche, I see you have a 38 ac aug that can go in your shield in your back and range slots. Beveled Mithril Gear Set or Hardened Steel Spur. Shield ac is uncapped ac, including that of any augs in the shield. You should always have the highest ac aug available in your shield.

Beyond that you're in pretty good shape as far as group gear is concerned. I would try to replace that vendor back slot with something else.

For raid gear upgrades, ac, h-agi, and h-dex should be main priority (not necessarily in that order) and any upgrades to things like Improved Dodge - Parry/Block and such. I'm sure some of the tanks can be a little more specific.

[Furro]

Now that I am raiding more with FL, I am ready to start upgrading.  In the content that we are in, what would be the best strat for me to upgrade my gear.  Here is my Magelo,
http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1977625 For the most part, I am fully t4 group geared.  Just looking for suggestions on what should be upgraded first.

 
I havn't forgot about your post here Elnoche. Just been busy with other FL stuff.  I'll try and take a look at your profile more closely this week.

[Meatloaf]

I know you checked my gear before Furro, but here's my Magelo again:

http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1966404