How much of Classic, Kunark, Velious and Luclin becomes obsolete? Epics? Cleric obviously always gold. Gear? Just curious about how much PoP changes the landscape of the server. What type of high end content will trios be capable of with PoP AA and gear? Trio AoW? Trio Emp?
Unless your guild has broken into the EPs, not much becomes obsolete aside from what already is in Luclin. Once you're in the EPs, high end Luclin gear starts being replaced quickly. Emperor will always require a raid force, even if a guild is fully time geared.
A lot of AA spots go obsolete in PoP. While crawling around Seb, HS or DN is solid AA at level 60, at level 65 these spots will suck. Particularly when compared to PoP zones, which have high level mobs and very high ZEMs. PBAE may go obsolete, at least for AA purposes, for the same reason. (PBAE stuns cap at level 55.) But this will depend on how the devs code levels, resists and stun immunities in Tier 1 planes. It will also depend on TAKP's custom experience code, which handles low blues and light blues in unique ways. Skyshrine armor will finally go obsolete for toons without raid gear. Ornate armor will replace it. Lots of other stuff. PoP adds so much new content.
As far as gear goes I’d agree with Link. As far as what becomes trioable, don’t quote me but I believe all of Kunark (which almost already is), and a lot of velious like Doze, statue, ST, Dain probably, the slowable NtoV mobs I’m guessing and some of Luclin like Rhags, RC i think and maybe even XTC if you have A LOT of time and FT to last that long heh. AoW and Emp definitely are not trioable though.
Doubt you'd ever be able to trio anything in TOV (doze, ntov), statue, dain, or any named in ssra maybe you could one group rhags, doze and ST dragons
On ak in vt gear buffem duo'd doze and trak. You can trio anything in kael with 2 pets and a cleric. Just gotta choose the r ight pets. (hey big yellow fellas)
Rhag 1 becomes soloable. Dozekar duoable. Not sure on rhag 2, may need a trio. ST may be trio or group depending?
Many spells go obsolete in PoP as they are replaced by upgrades ones 61-65. Check by class to see what gets obsoleted here. Some spells retain value, primarily RGC, CotH, Divine Intervention. Quests... Cleric epic retains value forever. Bard epic has value until you get Elemental Planes drops. Ranger Swiftwind has value for 40% Haste and 40 ATK in offhand as you use a bow. However most other epics are long since replaced with their clickies having minimal value going forward. Foremost among them being the magician epic as they finally get good pets at 61-65. But they had a good 3 expansion run with the epic pet. Skyshrine armor as mentioned above does slightly get obsoleted. But ornate doesn’t exactly fall from the sky and it will take awhile for those pieces to become affordable (depends on guild progress and AKuracy of Tower of Sol Ro). Most other quests aren’t really worth doing for the raw gear they reward. A few notable exceptions being the Loyalist Shield and Rallic Pack from Luclin. Coldain Ring, Coldain Shawl, Eyepatch of Plunder (clicky) and the Naginata Blade Earring Quest from Velious. As for gear, most PoP gear obsoletes the tradeable alternatives, however there are some caveats to this. Most PoP gear has level 50+ level rec and some have 46+ level req. So for a twink, you won’t find anything better than a BoC or Swiftblade in the bazaar. Also worth noting, some things are going to be exceptionally rare because the people with the flags and the means to farm the content probably won’t just for plat (I’m looking at you Elemental tradeskill armor). Things like Ornate and tradeskilled pieces from Valor, BoT and Tactics should see frequent sales though. But don’t hold your breath for Farwater Greaves or Cloudy Pneumatic Rings. Also as mentioned above the EXP spots for 55+ mostly go obsolete with PoP. The ZEMs are so much better in planar zones there isn’t much need to level in Sebilis or Ssra once PoP drops. However the 1-50 game won’t change much at all from the point we are at now.
Pop mage pets only are better than epic if the mob is over 62, that's the level the procs are resisted
PoP has large ZEMs, but the real reason it's better is because of the high level exp bonus. The two combined makes it way better. Also lack of mob summoning and some mobs had individual experience multipliers on top of everything else. (e.g. storms frogs, pofire flameheads) AK actually had higher ZEMs than Live does since around June 2003. This is because when Sony implemented the new group exp bonus, they reduced PoP ZEMs at the same time. AK had the older ZEMs along with the updated group bonus. (which they implemented incorrectly, resulting in much larger gains at 4+ members) This made leveling on AK (and here) super fast. It's only 'custom' in that there are unknowns. There is no intent to be custom. This is a very difficult problem to solve, as the clients did not get actual exp values. If you're aware of inaccuracies, I'm all ears.
That's the sense in which I meant 'custom', yeah. I know you folks have done your best to make TAKP experience AKurate, sometimes even at the cost of implementing imbalanced/ezmode stuff. It just seems like a tough nut to crack, with AK shut down and Live experience having gone through various revisions. I don't have anything to add to your recent research on experience mechanics, just pointing out that these things may influence whether PBAE AAs remain viable at 65.
At level 65, much of everything before Ssra/VT is more or less obsolete. Most gear for non-raiders will be easy to acquire, if expensive – ornate in your visible slots, PoP jewelry for your ears and fingers, and ceramic items for any missing foci. Some niche pieces will exist, but you can fill most everything adequately from PoP zones. Old raid content will still have some niche pieces––Vindi/Statue BP's remain nice (though not much superior to ornate), SoD/BoC remain the best non-raid aggro weapons, Dozekar loot still has stupidly strong itemization, Shei's back clicky is the best forever, etc.––but you're mostly grabbing low-handing fruit that replaces non-raid pieces with old raid pieces. EXP in old zones won't compare to the EXP you get from PoP. PoP mobs have lower HP than Luclin mobs plus are higher level in higher ZEM areas. Older-world EXP zones like Sebilis or Velks will be too low level at level 65.
I enjoyed farming skyshrine armor in PoP as a great way to gear up my first chars and alts, I preferred it over ornate even (it was free, and ornate was good to sell)
After you get the level 61 air pet, the epic is only worth taking out to farm much lower level trash. It does kill trash quicker with the strong damage shield, its procs, and its natural run speed. 61 air pet out tanks it even in kunark lvl 50+ dungeons.
I disagree about the Bard Epic - it still has value as an off hand weapon through PoP, at least until you get the Time Weapon. Its saving grace is the song mods though.
Neither of which are the challenging ones that require more Hydrotha mask. And yea until EPs the bard epic still has value and I doubt every bard will replace it speedily or at all.
