Best Practices for Obtaining lvl 100 gear

[7h3C47]

This kind of crosses forum topics but I think is most appropriate here. I'm a casual player that only recently got my first age level 100 LIs, and also somehow convinced myself to not do anything else until all of my virtues hit 19 on both of my two capped toons (beer may have been involved to ease the pain). I just have a couple quick questions about level 100 gear, and the best way to go about obtaining it for those who already have done so.

Merit Badge Jewelry in Dol Amroth:

So I'm seeing the two barter vendors for teal and gold jewelry in Dol Amroth. Regarding merit badges, how did those of you who have this jewelry go about amassing your badges? Do you get more badges for grouped Epic Battles, or single? Is there a 'lock' on battle rewards in terms of the badges--i.e. only get badges from one run of any given EB per day? Are there some EBs that give more badges than others by default, or is it linked to bronze/silver/gold/platinum completion level? Should I just run through as many EBs as I can each day, time permitting?

Class Specific Token Armor in Dol Amroth

So I have the ability to run the library instance in Dol Amroth. My understanding is that in order to barter for the class armor, you just have to have the proper coinage, as well as completed the deed which basically specifies each quest for any given section of Dol Amroth needs to have been completed--both the quests you get in the actual instance, as well as the landscape quests (dailies?) that are available directly in the same area as the guy who starts the training exercise. Is that right?

Also, since I only have access to the Library instance by default, is the fastest way to unlock the others just doing the landscape dailies for each of the other sections of the city just to get my reputation from neutral to acquaintance. Is that right? So I should just stock up on reputation acceleration tomes and quest away?

Level armor 100 in general

Is there a community consensus on essence gear versus the aforementioned Dol Amroth class gear? My assumption is that most people would mix and match. As in, if you like the set bonuses and find them useful for your play-style and trait line, obtain as many Dol Amroth armor pieces as it takes for you to get the set bonuses you want. If you don't like the set bonuses or don't need all 6 pieces, you fill in the remaining with essence gear. Just a guess--I'm curious for feedback here.

Pelargir & Central Gondor

I have this central Gondor zone, but have yet to start the quest lines. I've been to Pelargir, though, and am curious if the essence barter vendors are the only level 100 gear type vendors in this city--meaning there's no jewelry or armor to be had from this city that is discretely different from the level 100 gear Dol Amroth offers. What about the other factions/cities in this map--and the landscape elites too--do they offer any level 100 gear, or is it mainly just the usual stuff...LI support, runes and so on?

Thanks so much for filling me in--I hate to be so out of the loop but this will be immensely helpful in determining how I spend my time in-game.

[Castorix]

Best lvl 100 gear are BB jewels (can be got in < 1 week by doing 5-6 solo BBs/day if you're R5+) + socketed armours (DA daily quests (reps are tradable, AH) giving gold tokens, or by buying these tokens at AH, or random drops from mobs or skraids chests, but rare)
Class DA armours are < socketed armours and new class essences are useless for most of classes (the OP ones with huge healing should be fixed in U15.1)

[DeadlyGazebo]

Stars of merit:

You get a box with stars for each sidequest, and for completing the main battle, so you do better on epic battles with 3 sidequests than you do on epic battles with two sidequests.

Epic battle main quests and sidequests are "dailies" -- you can run the same epic battle twice in one day, but you won't get the box of stars for the main quest the second time through, and if you get the same sidequest, you won't get the box the second time (though I think you still get the skirmish marks for them?). It can be somewhat worthwhile if you get different sidequests on the second run, but since you can't control that, you will get a far better return on your time in general by running a different epic battle the second time.

Stars of merit are account-bound; you can run your alts through epic battles to farm them (all you need is level 10, and you can run in duo mode partnering your low level with someone else's experienced person...). I've found that my low level alts appear to get more jewelery and fewer stars out of their epic battle boxes; I'm not 100% sure if this is a general rule or just luck, since I haven't run all that many times with low level characters so far. Low level people will get level appropriate items, so don't use them to farm epic battles for lvl 100 first age symbols!

DA class specific armor:

To get a piece, you need to do a set of landscape quests (which you get from a guy in the plaza in DA[1]), and a set of six quests within the training instance. You will learn to hate the training instance, because it is a daily, and each day you pick one faction and are given two randomly selected quests from the six possibilities of that faction. So, if the random number generator hates you, you will spend day after day on a faction getting quests you've already run -- this will give you a nice pile of gold tokens and the tokens you need to hand in for the armor, so the time isn't totally wasted, but after the tenth time trying to get that one last quest, you will want to throw your computer out the window. Also, check the factions; one of them unlocks second age symbols rather than armor piece, which may or may not be useful to you (as those are getting pretty cheap these days), so you may be able to skip that faction. Since the tokens are transferrable, if you have more than you need from one faction, trade them with people to get the initial favor with factions or enough to trade in for armor if necessary One of the faction's landscape quests takes you into Tarlang's Crown, which is nominally a "group" area; I was able to do the faction quests running duo with someone and being careful... you may be able to solo them if you are sufficiently good and/or careful.

[1]: one of the guys gives you a single quest to go to Tol Aduial and kill drakes, and you'll get the rest of his set of quests once you get there, so be ready to get more quests on the island.

If you want to do slotted armor, you can skip the whole grind here, and do an entirely different grind! With the best essences and some thinking about what works for your class, slotted armor can be better than the DA armorset (or a combination can be better; for some classes you may want two pieces of the DA set for a 2-piece set bonus and then go slotted). But... Getting supreme essences is a royal pain! Grind grind grind for random drops, then try to craft them and hope they crit. There are guides elsewhere on the forum for getting the most out of slotted armor

[Frappy]

When it comes to jewellery, there's no doubting really that Buggy battles are the way we are being forced to go. The yellow pieces are best-in-slot.

People seem to be forgetting the third, fourth and fifth ways of getting decent armour.

Yes you could, as discussed already

1) Barter for it at DA. .. but... the set bonuses are generally awful and the base stats are nothing to get excited about.
2) Build an essence armour set. but.. you have to grind the tokens, grind the essences, buy the solvents, and have all craftings to get it how you want.

But it doesn't take much to say let's look at the other choices, that are particularly useful when gearing up alts or for newly-at-cap players:

3.
Finish off quests in Gondor and all epic quests. There is equivalent teal gear available as you go, yes that would leave you with a few gaps... but the stuff you do get, if you choose carefully, is good. The final Jajax quest from DA gave me the gloves I still wear now. Many players wear the bracelet of the prince.

4.
a) Make do with instance-drop teal 192 gear. This isn't really 'making-do' since it is equivalent to 22 compared to 24 slots. A visit to the AH then a run around the various 3 and 6 mans would get you a pretty impressive full set of BoE teal gear and give you swap-out choices. Don't just do Sambrog! There are so many other instances out there.
b) Try to do some 12 man skraids and Helegrod runs for the rare bind on acquire gear.
c) Don't forget to find a good off-hand weapon/shield, and/or something for your ranged weapon slot (unless you're a Beorning). The best in-slot shield for wardens comes from HV (Annuminas).

5.
Stick to crafted stuff. The 182 teal crafted via guild recipes is still good-enough for most players, and is better than the purple 192 I see many players still wearing. And if you were going to do a grind, the yellow 182 head and shoulders are also impressive.

As a final note, sorting out virtues, LI relics and stat tomes on your character will have a major bonus to your effectiveness, I consider those more important than upgrading from instance drop teals to full essence.

[CRUSHUC]

This question gets asked quite frequently in the Kin I'm in.

I typically answer:

Armor - it's easier to amass the tokens required to obtain the 6 essence pieces than to complete all of the faction rep requirements (some quests can be a real pain to get, sometimes up to a week or two). As what others said, the class gear set bonuses really are not that great for some classes.

Essence grind - yes, at first, it seems the grind is horrible. Farm the instance "Shadow of Morthond" in group mode, run it till you hit max 10 instances and hour - each run the chest rewards major and sometimes greater essences. Also, Epic Battles will now also drop greater and supreme essences in the rewards boxes. Unlocking and doing DA dailies will give tokens to barter to the essence NPC, those will either give out major or greater essences. Buy them on AH, should be a bunch there. Depending on playstyle and what the OP wants in his armor - Purple essences basically equate to purple armor stats, Teal essences to teal stats, and Gold essences to gold stats. Word about crafting essences - not only do you need to have the solvent (most likely buying from store), also needed is the recipe itself which presents another grind in obtaining the DA silver coins, also the journals to boost the crit chance. Crafting essences can be a royal pain and costly. Considering the difference between a greater and supreme is a minor secondary stat increase, the main stat is the same value. My general advice is run with teals, and update when enough supremes are acquired to make the essence reclamation scroll worth it's value.

Jewelry - Epic Battles all the way. By doing these, not only are you working towards the best in slot stuff, the chance to pick up other things is very good (essences, 1st and 2nd age symbols, starlight crystals, stat tomes, etc.). Gold jewelry is 750 stars of merit each, Teal is 600 or so - completing one battle full platinum will net you somewhere around 100 stars of merit. Also gear will continue to drop for the bronze/silver/gold rewards regardless of the boxes rewarded for the side/overall quests. As for the Epic Battle grind for stars of merit and the reward boxes - I've found that the following Epic Battles give the most bang for the buck time-wise: Duo Dike, Fellowship Dike, Duo Caves, Trio Caves, and Pelargir. Most of the other battles have only 2 side quests, so the rewards will be less there initially.

Contrary to a previous post, you can dictate some of the side quests in some of the Epic Battles by which side the battle starts (you can leave instance, disband and reform until you get the side you want to start the battle with). This is true for Dike, Comb, and Caves - mind that it's possible that the last side quest can be a repeat on Dike and Caves. Honestly, rerunning these is not worth the effort when the possibility of getting two boxes is very likely - while doing some of the other battles will get you 3 boxes upon completion.

The Rest - basically what's left are cloaks, shields, off-hand weapons. Best in slot comes down to teal instance gear, with occasional crafted items. Most can be found in AH, some at inflated prices.

[Bucataru]

I am intrigued by the very rare drop armors, the ones with special names. They seem better than DA class armor and instance drops. Since I have yet to see a full set, I don't know how they are compared to an essennce build.

[Castorix]

I am intrigued by the very rare drop armors, the ones with special names. They seem better than DA class armor and instance drops. Since I have yet to see a full set, I don't know how they are compared to an essennce build.

They are < essences (base stats too low) but easier/cheaper to get.
I got 2 sets for a DPS build, sufficient for PVE (for example, I used them to do the Defence of the Prancing Pony skraid where a good (but not great) DPS is needed for the last fight)

[7h3C47]

Best lvl 100 gear are BB jewels (can be got in < 1 week by doing 5-6 solo BBs/day if you're R5+) + socketed armours (DA daily quests (reps are tradable, AH) giving gold tokens, or by buying these tokens at AH, or random drops from mobs or skraids chests, but rare)
Class DA armours are < socketed armours and new class essences are useless for most of classes (the OP ones with huge healing should be fixed in U15.1)

Off the top of my head, I'm not sure what BB rank my main is, but it's low--which is why I'm not particularly looking forward to this haha. And yes, this means my alt is even lower

I'm running with teal instance gear on both toons now, so I'm not waay far behind, but it'd still be nice to have something a little better.

Stars of merit:

You get a box with stars for each sidequest, and for completing the main battle, so you do better on epic battles with 3 sidequests than you do on epic battles with two sidequests.

Epic battle main quests and sidequests are "dailies" -- you can run the same epic battle twice in one day, but you won't get the box of stars for the main quest the second time through, and if you get the same sidequest, you won't get the box the second time (though I think you still get the skirmish marks for them?). It can be somewhat worthwhile if you get different sidequests on the second run, but since you can't control that, you will get a far better return on your time in general by running a different epic battle the second time.

Stars of merit are account-bound; you can run your alts through epic battles to farm them (all you need is level 10, and you can run in duo mode partnering your low level with someone else's experienced person...). I've found that my low level alts appear to get more jewelery and fewer stars out of their epic battle boxes; I'm not 100% sure if this is a general rule or just luck, since I haven't run all that many times with low level characters so far. Low level people will get level appropriate items, so don't use them to farm epic battles for lvl 100 first age symbols!

DA class specific armor:

To get a piece, you need to do a set of landscape quests (which you get from a guy in the plaza in DA[1]), and a set of six quests within the training instance. You will learn to hate the training instance, because it is a daily, and each day you pick one faction and are given two randomly selected quests from the six possibilities of that faction. So, if the random number generator hates you, you will spend day after day on a faction getting quests you've already run -- this will give you a nice pile of gold tokens and the tokens you need to hand in for the armor, so the time isn't totally wasted, but after the tenth time trying to get that one last quest, you will want to throw your computer out the window. Also, check the factions; one of them unlocks second age symbols rather than armor piece, which may or may not be useful to you (as those are getting pretty cheap these days), so you may be able to skip that faction. Since the tokens are transferrable, if you have more than you need from one faction, trade them with people to get the initial favor with factions or enough to trade in for armor if necessary One of the faction's landscape quests takes you into Tarlang's Crown, which is nominally a "group" area; I was able to do the faction quests running duo with someone and being careful... you may be able to solo them if you are sufficiently good and/or careful.

[1]: one of the guys gives you a single quest to go to Tol Aduial and kill drakes, and you'll get the rest of his set of quests once you get there, so be ready to get more quests on the island.

If you want to do slotted armor, you can skip the whole grind here, and do an entirely different grind! With the best essences and some thinking about what works for your class, slotted armor can be better than the DA armorset (or a combination can be better; for some classes you may want two pieces of the DA set for a 2-piece set bonus and then go slotted). But... Getting supreme essences is a royal pain! Grind grind grind for random drops, then try to craft them and hope they crit. There are guides elsewhere on the forum for getting the most out of slotted armor

Both of my toons are low rank in BB so here's to hoping you're right haha. Thanks for the info about the BB dynamic and quests.

The training instance nightmare you described already happened on my main in trying to get the Library piece, which took forever--and contributed to my saying "Hey, I better stop doing this and ask someone what I ought to be doing just in case" haha

People's talk about supreme essences is starting to scare me. When I log I'll have to research the DA and essence armor more to see what makes more sense in terms of stats and set bonuses.

VERY useful, thanks!

When it comes to jewellery, there's no doubting really that Buggy battles are the way we are being forced to go. The yellow pieces are best-in-slot.

People seem to be forgetting the third, fourth and fifth ways of getting decent armour.

Yes you could, as discussed already

1) Barter for it at DA. .. but... the set bonuses are generally awful and the base stats are nothing to get excited about.
2) Build an essence armour set. but.. you have to grind the tokens, grind the essences, buy the solvents, and have all craftings to get it how you want.

But it doesn't take much to say let's look at the other choices, that are particularly useful when gearing up alts or for newly-at-cap players:

3.
Finish off quests in Gondor and all epic quests. There is equivalent teal gear available as you go, yes that would leave you with a few gaps... but the stuff you do get, if you choose carefully, is good. The final Jajax quest from DA gave me the gloves I still wear now. Many players wear the bracelet of the prince.

4.
a) Make do with instance-drop teal 192 gear. This isn't really 'making-do' since it is equivalent to 22 compared to 24 slots. A visit to the AH then a run around the various 3 and 6 mans would get you a pretty impressive full set of BoE teal gear and give you swap-out choices. Don't just do Sambrog! There are so many other instances out there.
b) Try to do some 12 man skraids and Helegrod runs for the rare bind on acquire gear.
c) Don't forget to find a good off-hand weapon/shield, and/or something for your ranged weapon slot (unless you're a Beorning). The best in-slot shield for wardens comes from HV (Annuminas).

5.
Stick to crafted stuff. The 182 teal crafted via guild recipes is still good-enough for most players, and is better than the purple 192 I see many players still wearing. And if you were going to do a grind, the yellow 182 head and shoulders are also impressive.

As a final note, sorting out virtues, LI relics and stat tomes on your character will have a major bonus to your effectiveness, I consider those more important than upgrading from instance drop teals to full essence.

I'm at 4a on both toons now...so it's mostly the BB and jewelry that's the chronic problem. As I replied to someone else, I think for both of my toons it'll come down to mixing and matching essence versus DA armor depending on if things are useful.

I hope to get really active with 4b...I just ordered a headset and starting making some quick reference guides for raids so I can begin to lead them on my own terms.

Luckily I have virtues and relics on lockdown. Stat tomes, I haven't really gotten into...but plan to. Along this line of thinking, my LM is currently grinding rep in Derindingle(sp) with the Ents so I can run with the + vit + [stat] trail food, which I find really awesome and am surprised I don't see more people using.

This question gets asked quite frequently in the Kin I'm in.

I typically answer:

Armor - it's easier to amass the tokens required to obtain the 6 essence pieces than to complete all of the faction rep requirements (some quests can be a real pain to get, sometimes up to a week or two). As what others said, the class gear set bonuses really are not that great for some classes.

Essence grind - yes, at first, it seems the grind is horrible. Farm the instance "Shadow of Morthond" in group mode, run it till you hit max 10 instances and hour - each run the chest rewards major and sometimes greater essences. Also, Epic Battles will now also drop greater and supreme essences in the rewards boxes. Unlocking and doing DA dailies will give tokens to barter to the essence NPC, those will either give out major or greater essences. Buy them on AH, should be a bunch there. Depending on playstyle and what the OP wants in his armor - Purple essences basically equate to purple armor stats, Teal essences to teal stats, and Gold essences to gold stats. Word about crafting essences - not only do you need to have the solvent (most likely buying from store), also needed is the recipe itself which presents another grind in obtaining the DA silver coins, also the journals to boost the crit chance. Crafting essences can be a royal pain and costly. Considering the difference between a greater and supreme is a minor secondary stat increase, the main stat is the same value. My general advice is run with teals, and update when enough supremes are acquired to make the essence reclamation scroll worth it's value.

Jewelry - Epic Battles all the way. By doing these, not only are you working towards the best in slot stuff, the chance to pick up other things is very good (essences, 1st and 2nd age symbols, starlight crystals, stat tomes, etc.). Gold jewelry is 750 stars of merit each, Teal is 600 or so - completing one battle full platinum will net you somewhere around 100 stars of merit. Also gear will continue to drop for the bronze/silver/gold rewards regardless of the boxes rewarded for the side/overall quests. As for the Epic Battle grind for stars of merit and the reward boxes - I've found that the following Epic Battles give the most bang for the buck time-wise: Duo Dike, Fellowship Dike, Duo Caves, Trio Caves, and Pelargir. Most of the other battles have only 2 side quests, so the rewards will be less there initially.

Contrary to a previous post, you can dictate some of the side quests in some of the Epic Battles by which side the battle starts (you can leave instance, disband and reform until you get the side you want to start the battle with). This is true for Dike, Comb, and Caves - mind that it's possible that the last side quest can be a repeat on Dike and Caves. Honestly, rerunning these is not worth the effort when the possibility of getting two boxes is very likely - while doing some of the other battles will get you 3 boxes upon completion.

The Rest - basically what's left are cloaks, shields, off-hand weapons. Best in slot comes down to teal instance gear, with occasional crafted items. Most can be found in AH, some at inflated prices.

"Shadow of Morthond"...why does that not ring a bell? Is that something in the instance finder or do I need to talk to an NPC/part of a daily/quest line?

MANY thanks for listing the specific BBs to run through. As I mentioned above, both of my toons are terribly low BB ranked, but I guess there's always room to solo if no one wants to run with me.


--------------

Awesome responses all around. I feel MUCH more confident to log in and take care of business. +rep to all!

[Troutdude]

"Shadow of Morthond" is a quest you ran as part of the Epic in Western Gondor. There is a solo version and a Fellowship version. You can re-run it by visiting the Reflecting Pool outside of Morlad, not from the Instance Finder window. If you run the Fellowship version a chest will spawn at the end of the instance that drops purple and an occasional teal essence. Solo version is a waste of time. People farm this incessantly as it's a very fast run (1 trash mob fight and 1 easymode boss fight). A decent group can bang it out in just a few minutes - more time is spent listening to the stupid Nazgul blather on than in actual fighting. Exit the instance and repeat - sometimes you hit the 10-instance-per-hour limit... it's that fast. And with a decent shot at essences. Epic Battles drop better essences, but not as frequently when you consider the time investment. I got purple essences for my characters from Morthond and then quit running it. I've gradually upgraded to teals & golds as BB essences have filled my bags while I pursue stars of merit for Gold BB jewelry

[7h3C47]

"Shadow of Morthond" is a quest you ran as part of the Epic in Western Gondor. There is a solo version and a Fellowship version. You can re-run it by visiting the Reflecting Pool outside of Morlad, not from the Instance Finder window. If you run the Fellowship version a chest will spawn at the end of the instance that drops purple and an occasional teal essence. Solo version is a waste of time. People farm this incessantly as it's a very fast run (1 trash mob fight and 1 easymode boss fight). A decent group can bang it out in just a few minutes - more time is spent listening to the stupid Nazgul blather on than in actual fighting. Exit the instance and repeat - sometimes you hit the 10-instance-per-hour limit... it's that fast. And with a decent shot at essences. Epic Battles drop better essences, but not as frequently when you consider the time investment. I got purple essences for my characters from Morthond and then quit running it. I've gradually upgraded to teals & golds as BB essences have filled my bags while I pursue stars of merit for Gold BB jewelry

Ah yes, I know the one. Didn't recognize the name. Thanks for that!

[DeadlyGazebo]

Both of my toons are low rank in BB so here's to hoping you're right haha. Thanks for the info about the BB dynamic and quests.

With the new big pelargir battle, it is a lot easier to raise your BB rank -- running pelargir solo even at low rank you should be able to pick up some points quickly, since it isn't hard to do well on the sidequests -- they amount to "DPS down a single big enemy", or "DPS down a series of small enemies before they get somewhere". You certainly can do them via a ballista/catapult, but I've done quite well just having my minstrel go all-out-offense on the targets It is easier in duo, since then you have two people for twice the damage, of course. Then once you've gotten some points from that, hopefully you have enough points in engineer to use the ballistas-and-barricades easy mode on some of the helm's deep sidequests, which will rank you up the rest of the way pretty quickly.

[Warmutkan]

As much as some people really can't stand them, Big Battles seem to be the fastest way to get heavy-hitting gear, especially if you're not deep into Dol Amroth's daily quests.

If at all possible, find a friend/kinmate/person in GLFF who is willing to duo you through the 6 solo Big Battles. A R6 player should be able to platinum most of the quests you get and explain the mechanics to you as you go (e.g., why this catty goes here, what each side quest does, etc). They get more SoMs and loot (probably a stat tome or two), and you get to rank up very quickly. The Battles are disorienting and frustrating when you don't know what you're doing, but once you know your way around the place, it's a lot more manageable. You might still hate them, in which case, stop running them after you've got your 8 gold jewelry pieces! :P

[7h3C47]

With the new big pelargir battle, it is a lot easier to raise your BB rank -- running pelargir solo even at low rank you should be able to pick up some points quickly, since it isn't hard to do well on the sidequests -- they amount to "DPS down a single big enemy", or "DPS down a series of small enemies before they get somewhere". You certainly can do them via a ballista/catapult, but I've done quite well just having my minstrel go all-out-offense on the targets It is easier in duo, since then you have two people for twice the damage, of course. Then once you've gotten some points from that, hopefully you have enough points in engineer to use the ballistas-and-barricades easy mode on some of the helm's deep sidequests, which will rank you up the rest of the way pretty quickly.

So I ran my first pelargir last night, just solo on my main (hunt). It was interesting to say the least. For whatever reason, the friendly NPCs didn't want to come up the stairs to the winch area with me, so the enemy mobs poured in one by one, but then just stopped and stood there on either side of the winch in a nice line. All of them. At once. Even more interesting is that no matter if I attacked one or all, they just continued to stand there, un-aggro'd--but would take damage as if engaged in a fight with me. After I started attacking the first one, I was expecting either to have the whole group run at me and get slaughtered, or see the anti-exploit !?!?!?!? symbol since he wasn't moving...but neither happened. I have the trait equipped where if rain of arrows (AoE arrows from the sky) crits, there's no CD. And with like 30 mobs all standing in one spot (even if the max targets is like 5 or something for that skill), I just spammed it and ended up doing something stupidly high like fourteen thousand DPS until they were all gone. The rest of the battle went fine, until the very end at which point I guess the last side quest popped up which was to kill some elite, but the battle completed and I got my rewards and THEN after the battle was over, the elite spawned even though all of the quests were cleared (it said I failed that last side quest). *Shrugs*

As much as some people really can't stand them, Big Battles seem to be the fastest way to get heavy-hitting gear, especially if you're not deep into Dol Amroth's daily quests.

If at all possible, find a friend/kinmate/person in GLFF who is willing to duo you through the 6 solo Big Battles. A R6 player should be able to platinum most of the quests you get and explain the mechanics to you as you go (e.g., why this catty goes here, what each side quest does, etc). They get more SoMs and loot (probably a stat tome or two), and you get to rank up very quickly. The Battles are disorienting and frustrating when you don't know what you're doing, but once you know your way around the place, it's a lot more manageable. You might still hate them, in which case, stop running them after you've got your 8 gold jewelry pieces! :P

I totally feel this way. As above, I ran my first Pelargir last night, solo, and was torn between feelings of wanting to try and shoot for the medals, vs. trying to get a good understanding of the layout of the battle, from where enemies were coming, where I might place my caltrops (I'm using low rank engie at this point), taking notes on the side quests etc. I'm on Landy, so I'm hoping that a simple advert in /world chat will find me a partner to really hone this stuff. I just transferred there from Ridder and everyone seems very nice, so I think I will have some luck.

[Frappy]

Persist with Pele.... it's Buggy. like ALL the buggy battles.

I've seen the friendlies fail to wake-up a few times, usually when the server load is high. I just leave instance and start over.