GU 52: Poison Loss and AAXP Gain

Patch day in any game is a time of wonder and dread and Tuesday’s launch of GU 52 in EverQuest 2 was no exception. I logged into my woodworker and racked up server discoveries by making the new bows until work called. An hour and a half later I was able to return to the game but a quick search of the broker told me someone else had had the same idea I had so I switched to my main character to do a little adventuring.

I decided that with the limited time I had left I would forgo battling the invasion in Kunark and just do the faction crafting quests in the Moors of Ykesha. I discovered two things. The first is that all my poison damage proc’d for 1200 damage. No more, no less. Given what I read on the forums, that worked as expected. I wasn’t pleased, but it was expected. The reason I was not pleased is that during my testing before Tuesday, my average poison damage was 1316 a proc. Why the loss? Was it the change to Toxic Expertise or did intelligence no longer affect poison? I had heard whispers that intelligence would no longer be a valuable stat for rangers, and I was beginning to suspect why.

But I needed to do the crafting quests, so I continued on and completed the Survivor Accord and Tupta quests and picked up the Grobb quest to do Wednesday. I was pleasantly surprised at my AAXP gain. On Monday I received about 2% of an AA point gain (I’m at 183 AA points) for completing each faction crafting quest. With GU 52, I received about 3.5%. I had heard that the conversion rate for combat experience to alternate achievement experience was really boosted, but I didn’t know that the crafting quests would receive such a boost.

Inspired by the amount of AA I received for the crafting quests, I decided to stay up past my bedtime and test the combat xp to achievement xp conversion. My test was doing the four Qeynos city writs in Jarsath Wastes. As I posted Tuesday, before the game update I received 1.5% AA gain by doing the quests as a level 80 character with 183 AA points. On Tuesday night, I received between 4.5% - 5% of AA experience gain. So from my little test, I think I received 3 times the AA experience gain for killing mobs after the game update went live than before. With this change I think gaining the Bellywumper faction to get into Kurn's Tower won't be so painful after all.