Editing How to get into eq parties

=Introduction=

In icesus, there is sort of an "inner circle" when it comes to eq parties: people who have played together for a long time, and some who are newer, but were recommended by existing players in the circle. This can mean that for 
completely new players, who do not have these kind of connections, it can be hard to get in. This tutorial is to help new players, or even older players who havent gotten into EQ partying due to the reasons mentioned before, 
or just because it seemed to be "too hard" to even try.

These are not publicly accepted "requirements", but might give you a clue. Every leader has their own requirements. You can be lvl 100 with 5g+ totals, max masteries, and not get invited, if you dont carry your weight and/or idle
all the time.
Every eq party leader is free to invite whoever they wish regardless of what they can bring to the party, so one will only take top tier dudes for everything, other will take friends, third will take anyone available.
Tho this might mean some people will not join, or leave, it is the choice of the leader.

Also, different guilds require different things to be useful. For example, a lvl 30-ish Air priest can fill a camp healer slot for low tier stuff. A lvl 100 sorcerer without masteries/gear is not very useful at high tier stuff,
and so on. Masteries are very impactful in some guilds, and useful in all.


= What kind of behaviour and attitude is expected from you.=

As a person who has yet to "be estabilished" as an "worthy" player, you might need to try a lot harded to get in. Ask around for parties, get friendly with players, and obviously act like an upstanding member of the community:
dont trash talk, dont kill steal, dont steal loots, dont abuse bugs, dont bot and so on.

If and when you are accepted in, be diligent! Do not idle, pay attention and be polite even if you might get some lip (tho in general, the players are polite even if the language might be rough). You might notice other people
to idle in the party, and while this is not nice behaviour, they have already estabihished themselves and this can be tolerated to a degree, but as a new face you might not have this priviledge yet.

Knowing your class is a requirement, and if you can buff other people, do so (unless for some reason said buff is not required at the run, in which case dont. You will be told if this is the case). 
Keep any possible required self buffs on anticipating the end of regen. You will learn in time, but usually leader might say "spell up" a bit before "GOING IN!", which means you gotta buff yourself and others.
Have regening gear, switch to that set when you are at camp being healed/regening, pay attention to leader because often enough, they will just yell something along the lines of "GOING IN!" and maybe wait 2 seconds for people to
switch their gears and then the party goes in.

Asking for any relevant mechanics/triggers (and setting them up) before the party is a big plus, and shows you are willing to learn. In time it is expected that you have relevant triggers to alert yourself/others of debuffs/bombs/
whatevers about, so you/someone else can act accordingly and not get everyone killed.

Sometimes, the kill is not smooth and can take much longer than usual. Leaving mid-kill is frowned upon, unless you mentioned it in the beginning and the leader was ok with it or can get a suitable replacement for yourself. 
Most "basic" eq runs take between 30mins and 2 hours. Some of the top tier stuff can take up to 12hours or so if the party composition is not favourable. Be reasonably prepared timewise for any eq party.
These killtimes are naturally not accurate if the entire party (or most of it) are not geared/experienced.



= What is required of your character. =

Now, this depends a lot on what role you wish to fulfill, and on what "tier" of eq monster you want to join on. 

Entry level eq monsters, such as Lich, Kraken, Solaris etc, do not require you to be lvl 100 and have all skills/spells maxed. Exact numbers are hard to say and vary vastly between guilds, but I would wager that one could join for this 
type at somewhere around lvl 60, having most of mainguild skills and spells at 70% or more (relevant to your build, of course). Naturally having some hpmax gear with resists helps a lot.

Mid tier, like Red Dragon or Serpent would be more for people with decent hpmax and relevant resists (fire/asphyxiation). Hpmax should be somewhat easy to get to 1500+ with buffs and hpmax gear, the more you got, the better.
Levels 75/80 and up would be my recommendation.

"High end", most often killed bosses like Count Yirica, Frost Beast, Chaos Worm, Green Dragon and so on are preferred to be max level with max resists (extremely) and 1800-2000+ hp, and having some masteries (preferably 50/60%++)
in your guild, along with maxed skills/spells and _sec guilds. It is preferred to have as much of Defiance as possible.

Top tier eq bosses like Weloq, Lord, Saint, Mother of darkness etc are killed quite rarely, and require pretty much maxed masteries, to be very confortable with your own guild and having good gears.

Bringing potions and such for yourself (ep/sp pots) is highly appreciated. Sharing them with others even more so, some leaders might even give a tiny + to dice for that. And by potions, we mean 400+ potency potions, which are
made by recanting lower potency potions (alchemists).
 


= Know thyself, know your enemy. =

Now, every guild has their own possible damagetypes they can make. Some have more variety, some less. Know what your guild has, and what type you might specify in, if possible. Keep an eye on "eqparty" channel, there are people looking
for members from time to time, some may paste the monster resistances there before party is even gathered, so you can already tell if you will be effective at killing it or not. If you only do damagetypes the monster is invulnerable to, 
do not expect to be getting a spot, unless you can be useful otherwise. Some eq monster might have mechanics that will prevent or make a guild undesirable for joining, so keep those in mind. 
And some guilds can be extremely useful at certain encounters, almost required.


= Leading your own parties. =

Easiest way to get a spot on a eq party is to lead one. Paradoxically this requires you to have some knowledge of the monster in question, and tactics it might require, so it is probably best to try this after you have seen the
monster killed personally couple times, but lower tier stuff doesnt require that much and can be done with just someone explaining it quickly to you. Just make sure your party members know that it might not be smooth sailing, if its 
your first time. Knowing where the eq monsters reside.. well, you just have to explore and find them. Or join parties and discover them that way, tho any relevant secrets they might ha could be behind "help sharing information", depending
on who you ask. If you ask around persistently enough, you might find a person willing to teach you some of the basics about leading parties, or just learn by doing!

There are not that many people around who like to deal with gathering members, and leading in general, so if you feel you could do this and are lucky enough to have enough active and interested people around, you just might be the wind 
blowing onto the sails of Icesus eq-scene. Naturally this will require you to learn the encounters and people, but will possibly reward you with new friends, gear and adventures!


= Writer's thoughts. =

These "requirements" and everything else mentioned here are not written in stone, but should give you some clue as what to aim for, roughly. 
Join the public channel "eqparty" and keep an eye out for parties and general chatter. Listen, learn. 
Loot is divided upon participants with party dice, and leader usually gets a bonus of +15 or so.
If you are idling in parties, getting -x to your dice is not uncommon, tho it is more likely you will just not be invited so readily in the future.

Easiest way to get your foot between the door, might be to play an Air priest and be vocal about being interested in EQ partys. You could get in as a "camp healer" (not much gear required, just some spr and skill/spell % as 
not to fail every cast). Naturally, if there is a fully geared, pro Air priest around, you might not get the spot, but one is always not available and often might not be interested in "lower/mid tier" eq monsters. A newbie air priest
can fill this camp healer role easily for low/mid tier bosses like: Red Dragon, Serpent, Lich. Probably can join "Box runs" as well (a party that runs and decimates lower/mid tier eq monsters and hope for box drops (shards/charms)).
Camp healing consists of you sitting at the camp, and healing when rest of the party comes to camp.

Box runs might be another way to learn about stuff and partying, and getting yourself known, as they usually dont require as much as "normal" eq parties, since in these runs you only kill the low/mid tier stuff and there usually are few
higbies involved. Box runs should fall into the low/mid tier requirement category.
Some easy and "cheap" gear to help you with eq is easy to make: Buy some +3 or +4 haleness shards and resist shards and slap them onto some armours (only use +5 shards on good items). If you are a caster, you could try and get a fine steel 
full plate gear set for this, it will also help with soloing, if you are a tank you should have that kind of gear anyway, and if you are an off (offensive melee, flanker) you probably want light armours.


TL;DR: Dont idle. Be early. Know your class. Be polite and patient. Pay attention and learn. Carry your weight. Have relevant triggers for boss mechanics set up on your client (some of these can be found in the zip file [[Mudlet|here]], 
others you can get from other players ingame).

[[category:Player's_Handbook]]