45 Shaman, Preparing for Endgame
 

Hi EQ Family,

I'm looking for a little guidance on where to aim my efforts as I start to prepare for endgame content. Currently, I am leveling and farming plat, nearly enough for my JBB now. I've completed a few steps towards my epic, and will be looking to get a child's tear hopefully sooner than later, as I ding to hit the planes.

Short of that, I am uncertain about what to do beyond grinding and farming. Is there Faction I should be working on? Or other things I can do to be efficient with my time?

Thanks in advance.

Level.

Ok, maybe I should elaborate. In general, for any class in EQ, you will get more bang for your buck by leveling than you will by doing ... well, just about anything else.

Now, there are exceptions to that rule, and more of them for melee types than caster types. For Shaman you have correctly identified two important exceptions: the JBB and the epic. I'm not saying you should get both, but they both greatly increase your leveling speed, so unlike ... again, just about anything else you can do ... farming plat for them and then leveling with them, is potentially faster than leveling without them.

For Shaman a regen BP (ie. Iksar Breastplate or a Fungi) is the only other real exception IMHO. Nothing else you can farm will save you enough XPing time to make up for all the farming time.

So again, I think you're doing it right with the JBB. The child's tear, IF you can get it by joining a guild that raids Fear, will also be worth taking time off from XPing. But if you can't, it costs something like 90k plat now? It is going to take you so much longer to farm that plat than your epic will save you in leveling time. But you'll be able to farm the plat for it so much faster at 60 than you will at 45.

My advice is to get your JBB, then focus entirely on leveling until you hit 60. Save your pennies (buy nothing but food/water/spells), and maybe pick up an Ikky BP with the plat you get by leveling. Once you hit 60 it's time to start working on either Torpor or your epic, both of which are close to 100k plat (so again, if you can get either through guild DKP or any way except purchasing them, do it that way).

Best of luck.

Ok let me be more specific.

Coldain Prayer Shawl, for example, is something I'll want.. no? Seems I'll have to go a lot of difference places for that.

Aren't there faction related things? Or, similarly, keys I'll want to have?

Are there other key pieces to Shaman? Or do I simply start hitting planes/raids to farm all the shaman BiS?

I think it depends on what type of player you are.

I know many players who reached 60 and never completed a lot of the goals they had. For some psychologically hitting 60 felt like the end and filling in the items and spells the class needed at 60 or that they never did along the way became less of a reason to carry on.

I would make a list of goals you want to achieve and see when you can do them and do them along the way. An epic at 60 is no bad thing but using it to level to 60 will probably feel much nicer. It's a lot more fun using a JBB to level from 45 than it would be to get it later.

If you are in it to raid a lot at 60 and play through a lot of the end game stuff then getting to 60 first might be the way to go.

As a tradeskiller, I consider the Shawl to be my second epic quest ... but mathematically it takes many, many, many hours to get both the tradeskills necessary and to actually do the quest for the shawl. Many hours.

In return, you get ... 10 mana a minute. 600 mana an hour is what, two extra DoTs an hour? That won't even give you a single extra kill per hour, which means it will take many, many, many hours more than it took you just to get the shawl before it ever comes anywhere close to making up for all the hours you spent getting it.

Assuming you raid HoT (ie. the place where you get Dragon armor), you'll want Dragon faction. Heck, even if you raid the other parts of ToV (for Giant armor) Dragon faction is still handy for getting in the door without needing someone to Harmony Sontalak for you. So you can't go wrong getting your Dragon faction up (although if you do join a guild that's on Giant faction you'll have to choose between keeping the Dragon faction and keeping Dwarf faction, and Dwarf faction has Thurgadin gate potion and Coldain Prayer Shawl/Ring).

Otherwise it's hard to say about faction without knowing your guild. They might do Giant faction or (if small enough) they might mainly do Kael and care about Dwarf faction. But the odds are fairly high that they will do Dragon armor, or Giant armor where Dragon faction is handy, so the odds are high that faction will help whatever guild you join ...

... but of course faction will be easier to farm at 60 than at 45, so the most efficient thing to do is level first.

Sebilis key should take you maybe an hour (less with help), and it's a great place to level. Same goes for Howling Stones/Charasis key, although it's more like half a day worth of effort to get (worth it though: my Shaman did pretty much all of 57-59 in Charasis basement).

But as far as raiding goes ... aside from a few very circumstantial items (eg. Plane of Sky Shaman FD ring) and a few clickies (some of the Velious armor pieces, eg. the BP gives mana-free Riotous Health) all you'll get from raiding is stat gear. And neither the stat gear nor the clickies will really make a meaningful difference in your leveling.

So, join a guild sooner if you want the social aspect, and a distraction from leveling when you get to go raid. But don't do it to level faster: you'll be better off (more efficient) if you just level to 60 and then start raiding.

Hope that helps.