The Basics of Alternate Advancements


 


You're gaining achievement points, but you aren't sure how and you don't
quite know what to do with them! Believe me, I know how that goes, I was just
about afraid to spend mine when they first were added in game via the Kingdom of
Sky expansion, so they piled up and went ignored for a long while.




I can't tell you exactly how to spend your points without some major
research, something that is on the horizons as part of the individual class
guides, but I can give you the basics of what they are and how they work! This
will make things a lot easier for those of you that are new to the whole
achievements thing.


Click here to skip right to the
Alternate Advancements for each class


Looking for AA Spec Recommendations? We have those too!


First Things First


Class achievement points were first added with the Kingdom of sky expansion,
the sub-class tree was later added with Echoes of Faydwer, and the Shadows tree
was added with The Shadow Odyssey. For those that are
new to the game, EQ2 used to work on a archetype system which was mostly done
away with, but each sub-class still has a class. An example of this is the
sub-classes of Monk and Bruiser both belong to the Brawler class, the
Shadowknight and Paladin both belong to the Crusader class. If you own both
expansions, you will see both the class and sub-class trees of achievement
abilities in your achievements window.


These abilities are there for you to further customize your character. The
points will essentially boost various stats and abilities that will be useful in
your everyday play, so it is important for good end-game play to have these!
There are many top end guilds that won't recruit players than don't have all 250
of their APs earned and assigned.


There are caps on how many APs you can earn. You can have 160 until level 70,
200 points until level 80, and 250 total at the level cap of 90.


You will find your achievement trees on your main menu under "Alternate
Advancements" once your character
has dinged level 10 (assuming you have the expansions). You may spend your point
as you earn them, or save them up and spend them all at once. Either way, I
strongly suggest that you do your research and find out which lines would most
benefit your sub-class, class, and playing style. The best way of doing this is
asking around the href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=22">Ten Ton Hammer
forum or the SOE
official forums
. People are always happy to share experiences!


 


Getting APs and Spending Them


Now that you know where they came from, how does one earn them?


Once you hit top level, adventuring experience is converted into achievement
experience, which still give those of us at level cap something to strive for.
Before that though you will have to work a bit harder for them. Non-repeated
quests, item and location discoveries, heroic named mob kills, and gaining an
adventure level are all some of the ways that you will gain achievement
experience. As a soloer, questing is your best course of earning the APs. For
groupers, hitting those named mobs as often as possible, anytime you go dungeon
crawling, will help you earn them faster. You can also scale how much adventure
experience versus achievement experience you gain. To do this go to your main
EQ2 menu, choose Alternate Advancements then use the slider to determine how
much of your adventure experience to convert into achievement experience. This
is particularly helpful for those who wish to build their achievement experience
and are less concerned about gaining adventure levels.

Alternate Advancement Shadows Tree

Once you have them, you need to spend them. How you spend them is, I believe,
highly personal. There is great advice out there for the raider, the grouper,
and the soloer, and everyone will have an opinion. Study the abilities, know
what your stats do for your class, and note what abilities you use the most
often. Knowing your class and sub-class is the best way to know what you would
benefit from!


To actually spend the points, open up the achievement tree window and click
on the starting abilities. Spending in your class and sub-class trees are a bit different. Your sub-class tree (monk, illusionist, assassin, etc) is fairly straight forward. You will see various abilities that you have and adding points to those abilities will enhance the entire spell/CA line. You may hover over the ability to see how a point will enhance it. More points in any ability gives more benefits to that line! Each ability can take a maximum of 5 points, and you must spend points in the previous ability (noted by the lines going from one ability to the next, it turns green when the following ability is unlocked) in order to progress down the tree.


The class (brawler, enchanter, predator, etc) achievements are a bit more complicated and up for far more debate on how to spend points. The trees are arranged by skill; Strength, Agility, Stamina, Wisdom, and Intelligence. In order to spend any points in any give tree, you first need to gain your starter ability. Click on it to place one point and this will make all the trees available for point spending. To progress down the tree, you must spend 4 points in the previous ability, however, to gain the
first final ability you need to have spent a total of 22 points in the entire line,
to get the 2nd final ability you will need 70 points in each line.


If you have enough points, you may work on more than one line, and you may
not need to complete a line to get the benefits that you want.


 


Regrets


After you have spent your points, there occasionally comes a time when you
may rethink your choices and want to change them. Everyone gets a free respec,
which you will find on your achievements window. After that, you might have to
pay for them! It gets more costly the more times you respec, so choose wisely.
The following NPCs can handle your respec'ing needs:


South Qeynos Mage Tower. Through the red portal, speak with the Achievement
Counselor, Wynia Vethe.


North Freeport Academy of Arcane Science. Elevator to the lower level, speak
with the Achievement Counselor, Nexa L'Dur.


Western Neriak, in the building next to the horse merchant. Speak with the
Achievement Counselor, Tria L'Belk.


Order of Arcane in Kelethin. Speak with the Achievement Counselor, Aelia
Naeni.


You don't have to be stuck with just one spec of achievements though. If you
are a level 75 crafter or know one, you can create an house item called "Mirror
of Reflected Achievements" which will store one achievement spec. This allows
you to switch between 2 sets of achievements to suit however you happen to play.


I feel as though research is always important, and even when you cannot
always get in game to check out your achievement ability choices, we still have
available the AP trees with in game descriptions. We now have all of the class and sub-class trees, so please check 'em
out.


 


Alternate Advancements by class and sub class:

Fighters
(updated 4.7.10)

Brawler:

Crusader:

Warrior:

Scouts

Bard:

Rogue:

Predator:

Mages

Enchanter:

Sorcerer:

Summoner:

Priests

Cleric:

Druid:

Shaman:


AA Spec Recommendations:

Finding the perfect spec is an art form, but we have done a little (or a lot)
of research to find great specs for you to make your own or to tweak as needed.
Want to play with various specs or share your own? Check out
my favorite AA calculator!


 

Good luck and enjoy!


If you have any questions, comments, or corrections for this guide,
please contact Savanja.


 


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our EverQuest II Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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