The SOF Tradeskill Quest!

[thestormes]

If people can point out **GROUP** content in ring, earring, neck that have better stats (not JUST AC, though you can point to AC) I will have something I can give to Merloc to help convince him to up it.

I am sorry, but like people mentioned, I cannot base this on raid content.

Here's my opinion on this. Is it really that game breaking to boost the AC on this one item? This isn't your typical group item (raid items aren't relevant). This is an item maybe 1 person in the group doing it will see, it's not a drop people will go camp. It's a rather long quest and has some high trivials. Expansion after expansion I have to deal with lackluster AC on group items while hp/mana go up and up. As a group centric tank, for ONCE I'd like to have an item have decent AC, even above average AC as this is a unique item to get. Something I could wear for a long time.

[Zolina]

My thoughts on the AC: I think the AC should be good enough that at least 50% of the melee classes in the 2100 club would wear the item in some slot. I figure most of them have been through Anguish a lot, and the best melee Anguish ears are 42 AC http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=47286 and 35 AC http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=47287. The reward AC should be on par with those drops, in my opinion, since AC is so important in SoF.

I understand the group vs. raid balance issue, but the useable vs. unuseable is more important. I think progressive quest rewards like this should be about halfway between group drop and raid drop quality, so 40 AC would be reasonable.

[Pootle]

As a more casual player I would use it, but I would like to point out that comparing this to a 'group' drop is a little unfair. My feeling would be that its should be better than most 'group' drops as its a long quest that requires a lot of 'group' camps... We arnt just setting up a group at a specific area in one zone and fighting trash till the named mob pops!!!

Saying that, as Ngreth said, he needs to make a strong case to Merloc, to persuade him to change the item.

WE, need to help find evidence for him to do this.

Now if I could just find some people to help me on stage two... maybe I could start doing the group content of this darn thing.

[Acefbm]

Fletching - Gem covered box

I have been looking for the gem covered boxes..I Have the box from the birds in hills of shade..and off brownies in dragonscale hills. I noticed it was mentioned that a bloodmoon warlock dropped one, but went and killed them for a few hours, and did not find one. Is there a specific camp it drops from, or is it a named mob maybe? or is it just extremely rare and I have had bad luck?

[Zolina]

Pootle - Just tell any exp grind group that inside the robot has the dungeon experience bonus, they'll probably go along. The dungeon isn't too bad to pull, mostly single and double pulls, so even a ranger with root can pull for it.

[Ratblaster]

Here's my opinion on this. Is it really that game breaking to boost the AC on this one item? This isn't your typical group item (raid items aren't relevant). This is an item maybe 1 person in the group doing it will see, it's not a drop people will go camp. It's a rather long quest and has some high trivials. Expansion after expansion I have to deal with lackluster AC on group items while hp/mana go up and up. As a group centric tank, for ONCE I'd like to have an item have decent AC, even above average AC as this is a unique item to get. Something I could wear for a long time.

I guess I'll weigh in on this also. I would not mind seeing the stats on this (including AC) increased, possibly even significant increases. This is not a tradeable item, nobody can win it on raids, and it is LORE, so we are talking about just one single item that can only be attained by a master tradeskiller. One excellent item will not break the game. One item that hardcore tradeskillers can say I EARNED this, through many hundreds (or even thousands) of hours of tradeskilling, possibly spread over years. Hardcore raiders will be getting 800-1000 hp items in many slots as expansion rolls on, so I think a hardcore tradeskiller (regardless of whether or not they raid) should be able to attain at least one very significant item.

[quorthon]

I'm still at a loss as to why they couldn't have made the reward an augment.

Something at or above the Jonas' Hand level would have been appropriate.

Raiders (bar the top elite) and groupers alone could have had longterm use from it.

As a raiding caster i'll never equip this, and from looks of the clicky I doubt i'll ever click it as I have better.

I'm still doing the quest though, more from a Hilary "because it's there" reason.

A quick thing, any chance you could remove the "must equip" from the clicky? as depite being a silk caster, i'd quite like the AC clicky while solo'ing

[Leonis]

When I first started this quest, I had gotten the impression (mistaken, had obviously misread something somewhere) that this was a CHARM item quest. If the quest reward was a CHARM item, I'd class it as VERY desireable. It compares NICELY to Timmyn's Oil Can. Perhaps the best (and easiest) solution to making this a "desirable" item would be to add CHARM slot to it? It is DEFINITELY not overpowered for a Charm slot item, being the SAME AC and a whopping 20 more HPs than the Oil Can single-group quest item.


"must equip" on a clicky doesn't matter - you put it on long enough to click, then take it back off and the clicky buff keeps on running.

[KyrosKrane]

If I may suggest, guys, comparing SoF items to pre-SoF items, especially at the group level, is futile at best. The gear in SoF is so radically better that it's very hard to create a fair comparison. Instead, I would suggest that you look for comparable jewlery from SOF and see how the stats compare there. That might provide more meat for your argument to convince the devs to change the reward.

[Pootle]

"must equip" on a clicky doesn't matter - you put it on long enough to click, then take it back off and the clicky buff keeps on running.

Quorthon means that he wants to be able to cast the Melee version Clicky but he is a caster. The 'must equip' prevents this.

[Ratblaster]

Quorthon means that he wants to be able to cast the Melee version Clicky but he is a caster. The 'must equip' prevents this.

Perhaps that is to prevent someone from using buffs from both rings....i.e. inventory click melee ring for AC buff, toss it into jc bag, combine, then click again for mana regen buff. The must equip ensures you can only use one focus (even if it's not the preferred focus) due to class restrictions on the 2 rings.

[quorthon]

melee clicky is a "screech" clicky, simply make the caster one screech as well

thus we can only ever have 1

[Ratblaster]

melee clicky is a "screech" clicky, simply make the caster one screech as well

thus we can only ever have 1

But then that would punish every user of the caster version of ring who already has a screech buff from other gear because then they would have to give up that buff (forum of endurance , form of defense etc) in order to use the mana regen effect on ring.

[Poohjure]

If I may suggest, guys, comparing SoF items to pre-SoF items, especially at the group level, is futile at best. The gear in SoF is so radically better that it's very hard to create a fair comparison. Instead, I would suggest that you look for comparable jewlery from SOF and see how the stats compare there. That might provide more meat for your argument to convince the devs to change the reward.

The problem isnt that it is better then Pre-SoF gear. We allready know that SoF is massively better then anything we've seen in the game, It's just that in comparison's sake...Every major tradeskills quest I can think of the reward has been leaps and bounds greater then the other groupable loot.

PoP
Signet of Might 25ac/145hp (Melee PoP tradeskill reward)
vs
Gleaming Hoop of the Silverwing 24ac/90hp (BEST Groupable PoP Ear I could find)

SoF
Eron's Jewelry 30ac/470hp (Melee SoF tradeskill reward)
vs
Jagged Icy Loop 28ac/480hp (BEST Groupable SoF Ear I could find)

So from the best groupable PoP ear to tradeskill reward we saw a 61% increase in hp and a 4% increase in ac.

So based on this...Eron's Jewelry should be...775hp and 30ac.

Throughout EQ I'd be willing to say that only about 15% of the population would put force the effort for this quest. Currently, I know of 6 members of the 2100 club, that are not going to bother with this "Waste of time".

Hands down, the risk vs. reward on this is out of whack.

Suggestions:

Since the ac is never going to be what we want it to be, give us a click that is worthwhile enough to make people jealous enough to perhaps explore a part of the game they have said no to since day one. It worked with LoN. As soon as people saw items that they wanted, they began to dump hundreds and hundreds of dollars into it.

--Poohjure

[greebmushroome]

for the first task, when you complete it, he says:

Eron Nurwistle says 'This is a fine piece of work. You truly are skilled. For the next task you must be a highly skilled [potter].'

also, does anyone know where in the mechamatic guardian the twitching soots drop? or the name of the mob that drops them?