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#1 Sep 21 2013 at 4:33 PM Rating: Good
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Anyone have any experience with shrouds? Any good references? I'm using one and it's kind of weird. Can you equip these with better items and stuff? Or you just can't use anything but what you get from the shroud itself?
#2 Sep 21 2013 at 6:44 PM Rating: Good
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You can give your shroud any equipment that he can use at his class/level. When you unshroud you can recover it, either automatically with your unshrouded toon or from the parcel vendor (I forget exactly how that works.)

Shrouding had its benefits years ago when first introduced. Nowadays most people use it only to be PL'd. For some reason if your toon is above 70 and you shroud down to 70 and group with a high-level PLer, you acquire more regular XP so when you unshroud you get a big boost to whatever level you were unshrouded. This doesn't work for AAXP since shrouds can't earn AAs.

Aside from being PL'd, personally I don't think shrouds are worth the trouble unless you really enjoy doing monster missions. It's a bit of a pain to spend your shroud AA points and reconfigure your UI for the shroud's abilities and spells. That isn't to say some people don't enjoy doing all that but I find it tedious.

Shrouding down to Goblin rogue form gets you access to a form of SoS, the powerful rogue invis ability. This could be of use if you want to explore a dangerous zone or access something otherwise hard to get to, like the vendor in SolB who sells the aoe damage potions.
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#3 Sep 21 2013 at 8:36 PM Rating: Good
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I don't think you can put any equipment on yourself while shrouded. They are generally pretty underpowered. They are good for plvling and thats about it now adays.
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#4 Sep 22 2013 at 6:41 AM Rating: Decent
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Equipment would have to come from an alt or another player. People often pass a potion to a shroud for Pling purposes.
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#5 Sep 22 2013 at 8:01 AM Rating: Good
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(unless this has been changed)

The evil eye shroud let's you be an enchanter... with a some stuff chanters don't get like a version of Spirit of the wolf (sigh --my chanter would love that). Not particularly good for group play. But, at a certain point (50+ iirc) you get a very good charm spell. This lets you do any quest where faction is an issue* (in older content). Anytime you read a quest like OT gate hammer and there is posts telling you to use puppet strings you could use the chanter shroud instead.

*The devs changed philosphy on the chanter class and quests around Omens of War (might of been Gates of Discord... my memory says oow). At this time they broke (on all new content... still works in old stuff) the line of spells (alliance) that temporarily makes npc like chanters more (granted not much PoP and later stuff had faction npc anyways for the quests --a sad break from game-lore) and removed the ability to multi-quest (you could do all but the final turn-in on a quest with other characters as long as the character you wanted to get the final reward did the last turn in. This was really good for giving low levels stuff they wouldn't be able to solo).

As a chanter main at the time, this was a serious gut-punch as it was one of the huge fun benefits of the class (being able to impersonate races, improve faction and do questing roleplay-deviously)... further compounded later when shrouds came along.
#6 Sep 22 2013 at 8:11 AM Rating: Decent
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Shrouds were a good idea which required some serious development time to implement which was allowed to become obsolete and mostly irrelevant to the game due to failure to upgrade and maintain. EQ has a number of elements like this, for example LDoN missions, which were hugely popular in their time and encouraged real grouping, often with strangers, like nothing else since the first couple years of the game. It's unfortunate that instead of doing the relatively minor work needed to upgrade such concepts (i.e. keep them consistent with current levels, gear requirements, etc.) the devs invest probably MORE time, skill and effort in unneeded work like overhauling zones like Misty, Freeport, Ro, Nektulos, the Bazaar, etc. That isn't to say that all-new content isn't a good thing but keeping successful older content updated makes a lot of sense.
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#7 Sep 22 2013 at 8:23 AM Rating: Good
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Sippin wrote:
Shrouds were a good idea which required some serious development time to implement which was allowed to become obsolete and mostly irrelevant to the game due to failure to upgrade and maintain. EQ has a number of elements like this, for example LDoN missions, which were hugely popular in their time and encouraged real grouping, often with strangers, like nothing else since the first couple years of the game. It's unfortunate that instead of doing the relatively minor work needed to upgrade such concepts (i.e. keep them consistent with current levels, gear requirements, etc.) the devs invest probably MORE time, skill and effort in unneeded work like overhauling zones like Misty, Freeport, Ro, Nektulos, the Bazaar, etc. That isn't to say that all-new content isn't a good thing but keeping successful older content updated makes a lot of sense.



I much prefer new Innothule. Nektulos 2.0 was terrible, 3.0 is reasonable, Lavastorm was superbly reborn --but it was tied into purposeful additions to the game. Stall bazaar was a crashing lagfest on some servers. When they stick to the classic zone layout and just polish up the graphics... I see no harm in revamps done thoughtfully to lore, or necessary to improve gameplay.

Shrouds... if they hadn't been the sly way to save a pet kit, would they have ever been seen? I can't recall ever seeing anyone play one outside of the first 2 weeks of that expac except to cheat a quest. If the "shroud to 70" trick was nerfed I think they would be the most coding/least used feature in the game... to me shrouds are one of the best examples of expac sell hype candy.

LDoN is sad because it was sooo popular.
#8 Sep 22 2013 at 10:09 AM Rating: Excellent
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Shrouds, for their intended purpose, went largely obsolete with the introduction of mercenaries. The original concept was that if you were with your friends and had a group but no healer, someone could shroud into a healer (or crowd control, tank, etc) and fill that role. The issue was that they didn't want to make PC healers (etc) worthless so the shroud was a gimped version of the real thing and needed extensive leveling to become more capable. But few people wanted to effectively level a second class that would never be as good as the real thing. So aside from a few novelty purposes: Rogue sneaking through the DoDH charm aug missions, Chanter quest 'cheating', pet storage, they never really took off.

These days, if you need a healer, someone just pops a cleric merc and you don't invite that sixth PC character if he's not going to fill a role you could have filled with a merc instead.
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#9 Sep 22 2013 at 2:01 PM Rating: Good
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Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm shrouding to a level 5 enchanter and it's kind of fun and an interesting way of playing different classes without actually having to make a new class- maybe I'll try a melee shroud because I have no idea what a melee pc is like. I notice the enchanter uses the yellow bar sometimes; I've always wondered what that was for- it's got no purpose for the wizard pc as far as I've ever been able to notice. Also sometimes there is a grey bar that pops up- what is this bar for, anyone?

But I played the pixie prankster for about 8 hours and got up to 21% unlock for fairy wizard so the xp is slow coming for me. Remember now how much I hate the low levels. Died several times to yellow orc centurions. Despise not being able to gate and actually having to run away and keep running with something on your tail. But it would be a lot more fun to shroud if you could use equipment on your shroud. Half the fun of the game is the equip aspect. But I see what they were going for with the group play thing. But they've got a pretty good foundation they could expand on to open up some really cool things here.

I'd like to see if the shroud changes form as you get more ability; anyone know?

edit: oh and just for info sake, I'm pretty sure that you lose xp for your real character if the shroud gets killed. I'm not positive though, but I started worrying about it after I died twice, and once I deshrouded, I swear it looked like the blue xp bar had gone down. By the way, what is the purpose of the blue xp bar ? meaning, in the yellow xp bar there's another bar

Edited, Sep 22nd 2013 4:04pm by broonsbane
#10 Sep 22 2013 at 2:59 PM Rating: Good
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http://thedruidsgrove.org/archive/eq/t-17045.html

Originally, you could twink them out, but that was soon fixed. And only a very few items that match the shroud race will work. With the changes to equipping stuff, it's highly likely you can equip most anything, but it still should give any benefits without matching class and race, race being a shroud race (See https://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Lucy_Item_Definitions#Bit_Flags_Sub-Table bit 16, shroud Race). Race has to equal the 65536 such as the following: http://eqitems.13th-floor.org/itemsearch.php?searchtype=advanced&field_0=items.races&compare_0=%3D&text_0=65536&next_0=1&field_1=items.bagslots&compare_1=%3D&text_1=0&next_1=0&field_2=&compare_2=&text_2=&next_2=0&field_3=&compare_3=&text_3=&next_3=0&field_4=&compare_4=&text_4=&next_4=0

Is how I remember it working last time I tested it out. You used to be able for a short time use All/All items that had added the Shroud bit in the All. I don't think those work any more (See http://eqitems.13th-floor.org/itemsearch.php?searchtype=advanced&field_0=items.races&compare_0=%26&text_0=65536&next_0=1&field_1=items.bagslots&compare_1=%3D&text_1=0&next_1=0&field_2=&compare_2=&text_2=&next_2=0&field_3=&compare_3=&text_3=&next_3=0&field_4=&compare_4=&text_4=&next_4=0 ).

Yther Ore.
#11 Sep 22 2013 at 7:38 PM Rating: Excellent
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Bottom line, its a defunct aspect of the game, like Monster Missions or Shadowrest.
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#12 Sep 23 2013 at 8:24 AM Rating: Good
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I still shroud occasionally, especially to go to the lower level hot zones to kill mobs for the quest drops. It was also a good way to farm items like spiderling silks. Get ts items, exp and rarely die.
#13 Sep 23 2013 at 9:11 AM Rating: Good
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Rogue Sneak / Hide and Cleric Divine Barrier line of stuff is nice every once in a while too.
#14 Sep 23 2013 at 9:16 AM Rating: Excellent
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broonsbane wrote:
By the way, what is the purpose of the blue xp bar ? meaning, in the yellow xp bar there's another bar

Five blues = One yellow. It's just an indicator to help let you know how much xp you're getting. If you had to eyeball it based on the yellow filling pixel by pixel, it's be considerably more difficult.

Once upon a time there was only the yellow bar. I don't think it was dimpled into five bubbles either but was a fairly solid bar with diagonal stripes. So you could be playing for several hours and see no notable progress. The change into five bubbles and the blue bar further indicating progress makes it a little less depressing since you can usually track some sort of movement.

Edited, Sep 23rd 2013 10:17am by Jophiel
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#15 Sep 23 2013 at 12:12 PM Rating: Good
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Yther wrote:
http://thedruidsgrove.org/archive/eq/t-17045.html


Excellent resource. Minotaur berserker? Awesome.

Quote:
Originally, you could twink them out, but that was soon fixed. And only a very few items that match the shroud race will work. With the changes to equipping stuff, it's highly likely you can equip most anything, but it still should give any benefits without matching class and race, race being a shroud race (See https://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Lucy_Item_Definitions#Bit_Flags_Sub-Table bit 16, shroud Race). Race has to equal the 65536 such as the following: http://eqitems.13th-floor.org/itemsearch.php?searchtype=advanced&field_0=items.races&compare_0=%3D&text_0=65536&next_0=1&field_1=items.bagslots&compare_1=%3D&text_1=0&next_1=0&field_2=&compare_2=&text_2=&next_2=0&field_3=&compare_3=&text_3=&next_3=0&field_4=&compare_4=&text_4=&next_4=0


Oh okay so there is shroud equipment. The trickster has a staff which I looked and saw had "race: shroud" and wondered if it was just a way to let the shroud have it's starting equipment, or if this meant there was more equip out there to get. So this is really cool news. Not as cool as being able to equip race:all but equipment is equipment. Thanks for the info this makes it better. This is cool, I think I really dig the idea of shroud- especially as free2play, this let's me get around only having 2 pcs

Yther is that list of shroud equip results the entire known catalogue of shroud items (at least as far as that site database you refereence? meaning, did you just do a basic search for "all shroud equip" and this is the returned info?

Quote:
Is how I remember it working last time I tested it out. You used to be able for a short time use All/All items that had added the Shroud bit in the All. I don't think those work any more (See http://eqitems.13th-floor.org/itemsearch.php?searchtype=advanced&field_0=items.races&compare_0=%26&text_0=65536&next_0=1&field_1=items.bagslots&compare_1=%3D&text_1=0&next_1=0&field_2=&compare_2=&text_2=&next_2=0&field_3=&compare_3=&text_3=&next_3=0&field_4=&compare_4=&text_4=&next_4=0 ).

Yther Ore.


I'll see if I can't find one to try out and add the info.
#16 Sep 23 2013 at 12:31 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
broonsbane wrote:
By the way, what is the purpose of the blue xp bar ? meaning, in the yellow xp bar there's another bar

Five blues = One yellow. It's just an indicator to help let you know how much xp you're getting. If you had to eyeball it based on the yellow filling pixel by pixel, it's be considerably more difficult.

Once upon a time there was only the yellow bar. I don't think it was dimpled into five bubbles either but was a fairly solid bar with diagonal stripes. So you could be playing for several hours and see no notable progress. The change into five bubbles and the blue bar further indicating progress makes it a little less depressing since you can usually track some sort of movement.


Okay got it so it's like a magnifying glass bar for the main yellow xp bar. What about the other bars? They're with the health and mana bars. One is yellow and I've always just guessed it's what fighter classes use, and is like a fighter "mana" bar? And now I've seen another one that appears, and it is grey- the class is enchanter and I've seen the yellow bar drop when a spell is cast: I think maybe haste spell? But I've no idea what makes the grey bar appear. It seems to only hang around a few seconds before it's back to 100% and disappears.

The real question being: what happens when the yellow and grey bars drop to 0%? Anything? Death?


Edited, Sep 23rd 2013 2:32pm by broonsbane
#17 Sep 23 2013 at 1:42 PM Rating: Good
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Quick question: this shroud has different skills like it has singing skill, wind instrument skill, stringed instrument, etc. How do these increase? I'm looking for musical instruments to buy somewhere, or some quest? The only items I find by searching are for bards, but this is an enchanter shroud. Anyone know how the skills llike singing and music instruments work?
#18 Sep 23 2013 at 1:58 PM Rating: Excellent
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Singing, Brass, Wind, etc are only used by bards. They are the bard equivalent of Evocation, Alteration and other magic spell types. Bards are required to have an instrument equipped to "cast" a song of that type but some equipment may also have a modifier for them (in the linked example, it means the helm functions as a brass instrument for a 30% bonus).

I'm not familiar enough with enchanter shrouds to guess why they'd show song skills or modifiers. But those skills don't have any bearing on standard enchanter spells or abilities, only for bards. There IS some overlap in bardic and enchanter effects (both cast mez & charm type spells, for instance) but I'd find it strange that the enchanter shroud would use the bard versions of those spell effects.

Edited, Sep 23rd 2013 3:00pm by Jophiel
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#19 Sep 23 2013 at 2:37 PM Rating: Good
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I'm not sure on all of them, but I've tried increasing the rogues skills, and they're at there level cap when you pick the shroud level. Like you can't pick lock a 300 skill lock at level 35, since pick lock doesn't go that high that soon for a Rogue. Some of the cross class skills, you'd probably have to test out to be sure, but I'd imagine they're capped for the level also. A few shrouds (like your mention of Enc with Bard skills) have unique for the class skills.

Yea, I left out all / all bags on the 2nd link, and maybe the all / shroud bags on the 1st link, don't remember. But bags would be the only equipment missing from either of them, and containers don't really need a race or even a class to equip in the inventory slot, anyway.

Yther Ore.
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