I for one - will be adding that ignorant F*CK to my ignore list.

I got one life lesson for you man - its not always right to be right.

Do the right thing and be quiet from here on out.

The secret I didn't want to share that works as well:

Give the chest your LDON key.

The method I use for handing in the key:

1. Approach chest from an angle
2. Give it 1 key and the chest will turn and face you
3. If you get book - scream with delight
4. If you don't get book - wait till the chest turns away from you
5. Repeat at #2

The only reason I don't turn them in as I get them is that I know the chances of getting a book on the 1st or 2nd key are super slim. I would rather collect a bunch of keys and just sit there doing turn ins - feels easier.

My method for 2.5 is work my way to the back boss room collecting keys as I go and just doing the turn ins on 1 chest. I've only 2.5'd 7 toons (3 of which required 2 runs) and with this method, 6 of the 7 toons got their book(s) within 8 or fewer keys all collected on the way back. One of the toons took 38 keys.

So, if I'm reading everything properly:

1hs w/ shield and you take less damage and do more damage - by 11% (ish)

2hs and you heal better by about 8%

So, if you run a 2 PAL group - your tank should 1hs and your backup should 2hs?

Thank you for this analysis!

Oh thank goodness someone posted this - for the most part, I've been using my PAL to tank but soon my SK will have 100k hps and able to tank HoH and T3. Never played an SK before so this is perfect - thank you!

Shadow is a great encounter and a way to beat the damn LDoN farming and the UC is just that Ultimate! It should require an Ultimate amount of work or dedication to get BUT RNG absolutely feels a little broken in this regard.

To add a quick aside to this (read derail) - RNG gave me 9x Okeanos, 9x Thur, and 2x Imsety the other day in PoD. That just feels broken especially when ICE gave me ALL the Okeanos and EARTH gave me ALL the Thurs... The chances of that happening are friggin ridiculous. Also, considering that I've cleared LDoNs 2, 3, and 4 (entire zones) at least 10 times over and haven't seen a single charm upgrade - thats 10 times over for EACH - so 30 zone clears - just feels like something is off.

Back to Shadow - max jumps would be really nice but I really like STUNNABLE more, it could actually require skill to make the encounter manageable instead of tank & spank up to X amount of jumps.

Honestly, I see a lot of questionable names and conversations in ooc that were I a GM, I would be banning more people. I like to play EverQuest and not have to listen to stupid banter about relationship conquests and whatnot. Sure, I'm an old schooler and some would say more mature (not that I know) but lots of young folks like to shake their thing, act macho, etc forcing me to ignore OOC windows for some spells.

First - I love reading Ponzi's posts - thanks Ponzi - and I do take great advantage of your T3/T4 rot sells - this is Bane, btw and thank you.

Wolf has a great idea! You can knock off 100k-1 mil on the price of the augs by making the ore drop off mobs. It would be nice to have another LARGE zone to play in as well. Of course, that probably takes the most amount of work to accomplish AND I wouldn't make them nearly as rare at v1 augs - holy shizza UC farming sucks!

BTW - I agree with Xiggie as well - I don't think this economy is broken. I am fairly new - have a couple months under my belts but having grown up in this economy I think its hard but fair.

I farm the crap out of FG/CG stuff (during the day hours) and try to sell 1 each night - thats 300k pp a day that can be made. If I spent an hour farming wisps, I could sell an SLS for 50k. You can trade an SLS for a Tacvi essence (since those seem the hardest for me to get) and I can start augging my army - which is going to suck.

One thing I love about the state of the current economy is that you all ARE very generous to me and the Bane Army and I wouldn't be moving up without your t3/t4 gifts and cheap buys. I try to do the same and I won't sell t1/t2 rots - its a simple FFA.

How is giving up 2hs also giving up hps?

I would figure you have more hps with weapon AND shield - you can aug the shield and the stats are the same on weapon - (assuming things stay the same after 4.0 for PAL).

I say don't cap his step but make him susceptible to stuns

Also - survive-ability is also amount of hps so that when you do have a shield in your offhand - you do have 5k+ more hps - although - at T1 - thats half a hit

BTW - Xiggie's post WAS on dps taken (hit taken) - on average over time would be the same thing. The one thing to consider then  would be DPS dealt at that same time.

How much more damage from each variety weapons for each class?

Warrior dual wielding vs with a shield vs 2hs.

Pal / SK sword and board vs 2hs.

I can image dps taken for a dual wielding is going to be higher than anything else - making it not as efficient to tank. I can then imagine that War / Pal / SK dps dealt with 2hs would be higher than sword and board considering we all get that triple attack, right?

Xiggie: thank you for that parse.

BTW - my make it a shield suggestion WAS based on the ability to tweak the AC soft cap and/or at a minimum add a significant amount of HPs to boost the survive-ability.

I can tell you this - my buddy and I have matching PALs right now (4.0 & t3/t4 gear) - I sword and board, he 2hs. I honestly believe we have the exact same survive-ability.

Part of the bene a warrior would realize though with a shield is no off-hand riposte eating and shield blocks - but that basically puts them on par with PAL/SK that don't dual wield.

Give them the HATE MEAT SHIELD. Give it 20k+ hps, every time it takes a hit, increase hate, and absorb 1-10% of the damage dealt or something. Make them the anger magnet ALthough, the leach effect could make them invulnerably - you know, like a UC Pal with Kaldars

Totally what Brokyn said - I'm also a fan of not having to do things all over again (now) and not worrying about leveling up two different groups.

My setup:

Starter toon - the PAL - with RoA 50 and Kaldars - I can 1 group (solo heal) Shadow.

Add on toons - beast, monk, rogue, zerker, wiz

Melee dps with a nuker - yeah they are expensive to aug but they do easy set and forget dps.

I've now dropped with wiz and added a real main tank - SK.

That is effectively two healers for the tank as the SK's taps and procs work nicely as does the PAL's. The SK is much better DPS than the PAL. its only 2 plate wearing classes to gear - which is sweet. Once I start dropping T3 bosses (or I buy it) - the T3 spells for the SK will make charm farming and PL a breeze (AoE taps/nukes - whatever that darn thing is).

So basically, 2x plate, 2x chain, 2x leather.

IF I were to make a change, I may drop the zerker for a mage but I love BIG AXES

FEELINGS... nothing more than... FEELINGS!

I didn't know server admins were allowed to have them