Top researchers

[Zacatac]

Well with the new EQplayers website, I was able to pull this list.

1. Animaetrix Fennin Ro 300
2. Akephalos <Voidrunners> Tunare 300
3. Dargari Saryrn 300
4. Drakkano <Pactus Aquilus> Druzzil Ro 270
5. Ysall <Crimson Eternity> Erollisi Marr 267
6. Aaryanna <Township Rebellion> Luclin 264
7. Gnekroe <Legacy of the Heroes> Drinal 261
8. Baramoz <Sanctus Solum> Saryrn 260
9. Artaint Cazic Thule 258
10. Gudlizy <Unity> Prexus 257

Ok, now the website is full of bugs, so who knows if this is right.

[Ngreth Thergn]

2 and I suspect (but am not sure) 3 are Characters that were used for some testing. (yes from time to time it must be on live servers)

The platform group is supposedly working on getting it so characters set to not be shown also do not show on the leader boards.

I do not know about 1... but it could also be a test character. (And no, neither the one I know about, nor the ones I suspect are mine)

[KyrosKrane]

As for wacky characters, I was sorting toons by HP yesterday, and I saw a toon named "Prathun" with either 50Khp or 500Khp. I just laughed my head off. =)

[Sklak]

Searching on top researchers also exposes the massive bug that went through assigning 254 research to thousands of toons.

Not sure for certain of reason, but I'd guess is it was combination of the new method of auto-learning skills, combined with characters that were above min level to learn research but had never practiced research (had 0 skill).

But that's just a guess as to reason, fact is there are TONS of toons that were given free 254 research for no effort or ability points (most in level 20 range or so...).

[Bobaten]

I assumed that was just a display error, I don't think they really have that skill in game. Poison making shows up that way as well, but alchemy does not.

[mithridate]

Actually, I looked at the 300 researchers the day eqplayers came out and posted about it. If it's still the same issue, it's because they have two scores for each skill, and the sum of those two scores is listed but is also capped at the max that skill can legally have.

[Zacatac]

Yeah, I noticed the pages and pages of 254 skill researchers. I assumed it was a bug in the EQplayers website. Are you telling me all those people actually ARE 254 skill??

I'd be a bit upset with that, as I'm spending 200k+ skilling up to 243. . .

[Ngreth Thergn]

As for wacky characters, I was sorting toons by HP yesterday, and I saw a toon named "Prathun" with either 50Khp or 500Khp. I just laughed my head off. =)

Woops. That one should not be showing either.

There is a buff that is used by Developers to do some testing that gives a huge amount of health and health regen. For example, they may need to be hit by raid mobs, and not die to evaluate damage... and invulnerable will not let them evaluate damage. They may want to see the damage parsed over 5 minutes where any normal amount of health, without a healer would = dead.

And the dev that that character belongs to works on much of the raid content curently.

[Sklak]

Yes, at least one of my alts has 254 spell research showing on their skill tab (baby level 19 chanter that never practiced/learned research, created a few years back)

[GnekroeGnomicon]

I can verify that I have 261 Soon to be higher, but I doubt my next run will take me above 275 (200ish parchments ready to go now, just need to make all the subcombines, ick!).

It would take a massive effort to reach 300... a *lot* of pp and a lot of people supplying you with parchments.

The amount of pp I have spent alone to get to 261 is mind numbing (and I am sure many are in the same boat), it will all eventually be recouped as spells are all slowly selling, but really the demand for 61-65 spells doesn't support many researchers on the same server.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

I think you're gonna lose money in the long run getting to 300 that way. I'm not even gonna try. My success rate on 65's is more than acceptable at 247 + mastery 3 and I am raking in the pp at an alarming rate.

I'd rather make pp than skill... YMMV.

[Bobaten]

Yes, at least one of my alts has 254 spell research showing on their skill tab (baby level 19 chanter that never practiced/learned research, created a few years back)

Sheesh, no wonder the Devs never wanted to give us a trophy for research.

[GnekroeGnomicon]

I think you're gonna lose money in the long run getting to 300 that way. I'm not even gonna try. My success rate on 65's is more than acceptable at 247 + mastery 3 and I am raking in the pp at an alarming rate.

The only way you can lose money going to 300 is if you make spells that absolutely no one wants or buy overpriced parchments. Otherwise you just have a very, very large inventory of spells that will all sell over time. Not sure how many 61-62 spells can be made for any real profit (ie. EP's still enter the game enough to keep most of them happy and prices <1000pp).

But 63-64 spells are still in high demand and many can fetch a price of 4-6k. My average spell combine is in the 2-3k cost range with very few failures so it isn't a matter of lost cost (rather profit even), but rather how long can a cash supply continuing to buy up parchments when spells only sell a few here and there (they sell, just slowly). The demand for these spells will always be there, it just isn't as high as those GoD spells were at the beginning of the "Era of Research".

The only real cost is the opportunity cost of having the cash tied up in spells waiting to be sold rather than being able to invest the cash elsewhere.

I'd rather make pp than skill... YMMV.

Every skillup you fail less and less, making your profits grow as the market gets tighter and tighter.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

On the flip side, all the time you spend skilling up and not making GoD spells is lost opportunity when the market is wide open and profit margins are huge.

I'm hitting close to 75% success on 65 spells now... and based on my failure rate at parchment cleansing (which should be 95% success) I wouldn't be surprised at all if we are hard success rate capped again. If thats the case... skilling up won't help.

[GnekroeGnomicon]

On the flip side, all the time you spend skilling up and not making GoD spells is lost opportunity when the market is wide open and profit margins are huge.

That is only true if you are saving all those runics for a certain skill level to begin the combines. I waited to 243 before I started truly making 65 spells just because of the improved success rate.

I'm hitting close to 75% success on 65 spells now... and based on my failure rate at parchment cleansing (which should be 95% success) I wouldn't be surprised at all if we are hard success rate capped again. If thats the case... skilling up won't help.

This is true, though I don't see any reason that they would cap these spells, it isn't over powering or really all that special - all research has done is fill in the gaps that have been made by people no longer doing the content that used to make the spells available. Where as the things that have success capped like GM cultural smith/tailoring that is some incredible gear with the right augs can make a player incredibly powerful even in todays' standards (which makes a good case for having a capped success rate).