This is just dumb...Follow

I'm sure I'll get flamed, shot down, whatever. But I gotta say something that just really ticked me off.

I created a shaman because I heard they were fun, and my wife wanted to pl up a cleric as well. So, I pick an iksar shaman and go at it.

Having a blast, until in my 30s, I notice over and over again that I gotta spend extra afternoons out trying to get some exp just to keep up with her! After 2 nights in LDoNs, she is 2 orange ahead of me, AGAIN.

Ok, I'm thinking maybe it is my pet. (Never played a char with a pet, and I heard there were some exp issues or something, so I ask).

My jaw about hit the floor when I was told Iksar have a 25% exp penalty, just for being an iksar???

Um, ok.... so I get swimming, regen, vision, maybe a few other things, but my one question to Sony is...

HOW in the heck does that help my group??? I hunt with my wife and friends, 100% of the time! (Asside from the time I gotta spend now to CATCH up to them). My wife's char is a full orange ahead of me at times. She often won't play at night just to allow me to catch up.

In all honesty, I really believe that if you put in a penalty, you need to make it less of a hinderance on exp. Take away something else. Mana, ac, whatever.....

But the minute you make it so that I can't keep up with my friends, it becomes more of a hinderance then anything else. 25%? Geez

Sure, folks will argue that it is great once you hit 65. BUT... for those of us that do not enjoy the level 60+ game, that is no argument. (Both wife and I have 60+ chars, multiple).

Ok, lets work on some new code. Something simple.

If pc ungrouped and exp awared, then exp = exp * .75
IF pc grouped and exp awared, then exp is no penalty.

Ah well. In my honest opinion... any exp penalty on someone in a group of friends 100% of the time, is a lame code.

Iksar are not the only one that have an experience pentaly.

Troll/Iksar - 20% penalty
Ogre - 15% penalty
Barbarian - 5% penalty
Halflings - 5% bonus
All other races - normal exp.

But in regards to Iksar
Bonuses
1. They get an AC bonus (+12 AC if I'm not mistaken)
2. They have an higher innate regeneration (the main reason for the penalty IMHO)
3. Racial Foraging
4. Higher Swimming skill
5. Infravision

Penalties
1. Cannot wear plate mail armor (actually they can wear some plate now, such as LDON, and this only affects the plate wearing classes)
2. Horrid faction (not as much of a penalty anymore due to POK)

Now first off, as an Iksar Shaman, you have the ability to regen faster than most other races. Believe it or not this is incredibly useful for shamans when they get their canni spell. You heal faster, which means you can convert it to mana faster, meaning less downtime between slows/heals/ect.

The higher AC means that you will take less damage overall than a equaly equiped shaman of another race.

Foraging gives you the ability to turn a profit from things like LDONs by selling the temper components.

Does this help you in groups, yes, all of this does. Does in necessarily help if your always grouping with the same people. Perhaps not as much, but you are going to be a more effective shaman overall than those of other races, so it makes sense you have to pay in some way. Iksar's pay in XP.

A simple fix would be for the group to adventure at places where you as the iksar can pick up items that you can turn in for XP, then you can make up for some fo the xp loss. Or you can spend a little more time soloing maybe here or there, 1 orange is not a lot for a solo shaman to get - I have solo'd a good portion of my shaman's existance from 44 - 51 and did this in the span of a few weeks, and my shaman is Barbarian and does have a penalty.

But you also stated to make it have some penalties such as less mana. The penalty really has to affect all the classes the race can choose, otherwise people won't play that race/class combo except for the intrest factor. Look at Gnome Warriors - they have really bad stats for a warrior, do you see a ton of them around? Not really. Now compare that to the number of Ogre warriors, who get naturally high stats, innate slam, not able to be stunned from the front, and infravision. Obviously the ogre seems like a better choice, so to compensate for it they gave them an XP penalty.

But really alot of it boils down to making sure you research your class/race combination before you commit yourself to it.
You could have easily known about this just by coming to this site and reading the board

Here at this threadfrom June

Here On this thread from July

Or here on this thread from may.

This topic was posted many times before that I'm sure, this is just three that came up when I did a search for "penalty".

I can understand your frustration, however, in that they don't clearly announce XP penalties on the character select screen, or even mark it as a more difficult or time consuming race to play - and this is a fault of Sony's but to be fair to those playing the various races, the penalty itself is not something that should or would be modified - as it would be something that would miff many players who have played through the penalty and came out ahead.


Edited, Tue Aug 10 18:07:24 2004 by Devilwind

I appreciate the input.

I guess, bottom line, these do not help me when I really only group for exp:

1. They get an AC bonus (+12 AC if I'm not mistaken)
2. They have an higher innate regeneration (the main reason for the penalty IMHO)
3. Racial Foraging
4. Higher Swimming skill
5. Infravision


I mean that in the sense that: Sure, AC helps, but I am never the main tank. If I am, my pet tanks.
Regen helps the group overall. I canni to get mana, else I sit with C on and don't canni.
Foraging. ok, usefull for me maybe, never use it though. Will look into that one.
Swimming. Ok, been in a few lakes since I was born, no more then that though.
Infravision. Ok, again, not really a must have skill. There are simple items to get to get around that. My Barb War uses some ring when he is in dark places. Easy to get.

So, I will agree that there is a benefit to have these, they seem more apt in a solo sense. Less then in group efforts.

I have already rolled up another shaman, and going to try like mad with the help of friends to get back up to my wife.

I am not saying we are right or wrong. For me... the bottom line is..

After a night of playing in LDoNs with my wife and friends, and hope to play again the next time, I leave with less exp, and constantly having to play catch up.

If we are all doing LDoNs (That is all we do, every night, same group of folks and friends, and we love it), then why should I be penalized for just having fun with my friends?

I agree, I could have researched it. But they don't always make this stuff easy.

Anyways, char is being deleted, weeks down the tube in my opinion.

New char on the way.

Ding! Level 2!

Im sorry didnt mean to flame just kinda figured you woulda heard somewhere, and yes, being a shaman i would recommend a Ogre, or Barbarian, maybe Vah shir... Due to the fact no stun on Ogre, and Ogre/Barb/Vah can use the Jaundice Bracer free Winters Roar spell... no mana cost 250-300 dmg or something like that (dont remember)

It's just preferance but i play a Ikky Monk and it's fun.. (55)

Just takes time that most people dont want to invest in their character to get that extra 25% =)

Actually this is very true - if the mobs are DB to the rest of them, but are white or higher, you'll get more XP, which will hopefully equal out.

It may very well be too late now, but I wish I had thought to add this in at the time.

You go Dragon!

it has been proven that White, and DB mobs give no different EXP values.

You're kidding! Is that true? Could you point me to some threads on it, I am interested! Really! I am not being sarcastic.

I enjoy stuff like this because over time I have personally experienced exceptions to so-called common knowledge. The one that leaps to mind is "You cant skill up fighting greens." This is not true, it happens once in a blue moon, but it does happen. Don't bother to argue with me about it, I have experienced it.

what has this got to do with blue and white experience? Well up to now I thought your experience reward was based on monster hit-points or something like that and not only the conning color (=level). I noticed early on that not all DB give the same amount of exp. If there is evidence that what you say is true, then I would very much like to check it out for my own enlightenment.

Please forgive grammar and spelling errors, I want to get this posted before I get caught :)

Karlowin Fennon Ro

Again, thanks for the input.

True, ldons can be done with 7 levels difference. Maybe I can let her get ahead a bit, then spend a weekend now and then hunting if she gets too far ahead. It's just we don't have a ton of time to play, and having to play extra to keep in range wasn't in our plans.

Thanks for the input so far gang. Much appreciated.

Let me encourage you that by the simple process of picking a Shaman, you have bought yourself a whole HEAP of fun, challenge and interest. Your XP penalty is a challenge. Shaman can overcoem it. Remember at the start when you were rolling your character, the suggestion that this was not an easy combo? (I assume it still says that). My respect to you for accepting and overcoming a challenge the rest of us were not prepared to take.

Here are some things to look foward to.

1) Best slows in the game virtually from the word go. Very high end shamans are complaining slow don't count for much (GoD sewers and so on). Mebe so.. but it counts BIG TIME everywhere else up until that level. You will get groups. By the way, you get haste as well, AND attack buffs.

2) You can buff every class, every level, every stat, every resist. You can sell buffs (SoW at level 9!) give buffs away, buff your group (group buffs start fairly young too). You can usefully buff higher level players. You will be appreciated. Oh yeah, you can buff yourself. My rogoue runs around buff-nekid more often than not. You will ALWAYS be fully buffed. Bring on the additional buff slots sony.. we shaman can EASILY fill all slots now.

3) You can play with a nice range of weapons... admitedly not all. You can use 1hb, 2hb, and piercing. There are a lot of fun shammy proc weapons out there. There is even a charm just for you (and clerics) that stats-up if all your weapon skills are maxed. By the way, as others have said you can solo.. pretty well anywhere you want, adn you have capacity to solo yellow and red mobs.

4) You have a range of fight styles open to you... kiting (you have sow remember at all times).. others snare and dot adn run, you sow yourself dot and run. You can root'n'rot (with a little difficult as dots break root.. oh well). You get charm and a nice pet. You can go toe to toe in some situations (along with dots, heals, and pet). You can nuke, you can debuff, and generally enjoy the biggest set of options in game. No, your not "best" at any, but then your the most flexible character. Shaman armour may only be chain, but most shaman expect and prepare to take a few hits while they set up the warrior. When you slow, for instance, you should be standing next to the warrior or tank. Yup, front line stuff.. and now you know you have both AC and regen benefits for your race!

5) Gate. Enough said. And bind. Others pay big bucks for gate potions, spam for ports and get into trouble in remote zones. You just gate out when that is the best and most honorable option. Dont bother dying too much. (hey thats gonna save you some xp).

6) Your a healer. This may not seem much of an issue when grouping with your cleric wife.. but lets consider. You get a cure for EVERY problem known to everquest... magic, disease, poison and curse. You can debuff (cancel magic) on your group to clear deleterious spells. You can cast regen, and you get both direct heal and heal over time spells. Are you the best? No. Are you good and useful? yes.

7) Manna. Your a caster... and its all about manna. Guess what: you do it better than almost any class. Get your wis/manna as high as possible, but go for regen items as you can plus your racial bonus. Result? full manna bars when others are screaming oom.

So... grats on taking the big challenge, and woot for the fun your going to have.

As to why DB's might be giving you different amounts of experience, it just be because they're different levels. DB is a level range, not a specific level, and that range increases as you get higher in level. A DB to a level 10 is 7 at a minimum I believe, but at 65 it's 48 (or 47 or something... always forget). So, yeah, you're gonna get more experience killing a level 56 mob then a 48 one. And as far as killing way above you, there is a experience per kill "cap". For instance, at level 51, my bard was killing nightstalkers in PoN for 2 percent per kill, then soloed Grimror Plaguebringer (level 60) in PoD at the same level and got... 2 pct. They just don't want certain classes to overly take advantage of some of their abilities. In this case, Grimror is pure melee and doesn't summon, so my bard had no problem with him. It took 20 minutes to chant him down and I had about 10 rats chasing me by the time it was all over, but he died. In the end it wasn't worth it though, as I got the same amount of experience as if I had killed a nightstalker, which would of taken me a whole minute and a half swarming. Just my thoughts on the issue...

Since you and your wife have multiple +60 chars then once in a while PL your iksar so you catch up. That way you can play together all the time.. Catching up a level or 2 takes no more then an hour until you reach ~50 if PLed right.

After reading this thread I think I wanna play Iksar next char! The bonus is much more worth the peneltys imo.

I have always felt that the penalty to Iksar is stiff, and that the fact that they can go nowhere in the whole damn world without getting trouced, or first running hours and hours of faction quests was a more than appropriate penalty.

As for the white and dark blue issue...BS. White does reward higher than dark blue. I would love to see what constitutes as proof on this matter.

I hope you figure out eventually that canni dancing is FAR better mana regen than C.

Currently I wear a fungi (+15 regen, you could pick up a +5 ikky BP if you can't get a fungi), use tribute for +10 regen, +1 regen ring, +4 from augs, +3 from AA's, +40 from buff for a total of +73.

Canni IV does 148 damage for 82 mana. Cast canni get 82 mana, sit. System tick, regen 80 hp + 25 mana from meditate (Think it's skill/10, could be wrong), stand and repeat. Net of 107 mana for 68 damage per tick. Once you hit 65, assuming simlar gear you'll be at 107 for 57 damage per tick canni dancing due to innate regen. Once OoW comes out, assuming the regen spell is accesable to non-ubers, it'll be 105/37 damage with canni 4 and the 60/tick health regen. Do the dance 2 out of 3 ticks and you'll come out even healthwise for 80 mana/tick. I normally team with a bard, so I come out even anyway with her mana/hp song. Hopefully the new canni's will also be accesable, but the current one in GoD sure isn't.

Voice of Quellious: +18 mana/tick. Sitting get 44 mana/tick.

Once you get your AA canni & Quiessence you'll never run out of mana again, mana regen varies between 200/tick and 100 depending on whether cannibilize has refreshed (60 seconds).

If you group with a shaman who is 24+ who has full health, he sucks :) (Joke for all you touchy people) But unles I'm outside smoking, I'm casting something. Mob slowed? Heal someone. Nobody hurt? DoT/Nuke. Mob almost dead? Refresh a buff or 3 so no downtime for rebuffing. Insert canni dancing in all that and it's alot more interesting that sitting there staring at a mana bar like those poor clerics :)