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On January 22, 2004 the Tribute system was introduced to Everquest. This system was designed to enhance gameplay with beneficial attributes, skills, or effects.
What is tribute? Lucy has them listed as benefit items - but they are essentially stats, buffs, effects, skill enhancements or even spell focus effects that can be purchased from a Tribute Master. When active, these benefits are provided to you behind-the-scenes as hidden buffs or invisible effects on invisible worn items. These buffs do not count towards other buff limits, nor are they displayed. Some players do not feel they can afford tribute due to their play style; but if you play smart & shop smart - everybody can take advantage of this opportunity.
Tribute provides benefits to virtually all classes. For melee, it can provide anything from AC to haste to +attack. As a necromancer, you will primarily seek Tribute to fill certain focus effects your gear does not provide, or to get better effects than what your gear provides. Even end-game raid gear cannot match tribute benefits in some areas, so it's not just for the under-geared.
A couple examples of focus tribute that currently exceed gear provisions are:
- Affliction Haste @ 33%
- Affliction Efficiency @ 25%
Or, you might just want an extra 250 mana and +10 heroic INT to buff up your eq players profile rankings. It could be useful getting extra heroic charisma bonus to lessen the headache of a faction grind. But outside of the DoT spellhaste and efficiency tribute, most spell focus effects available in tribute are now vastly inferior to what you are wearing on your gear.
How does it work?
Tribute works just like a hidden buff or a worn effect. In-game the keystroke combination of alt + U brings up the UI window. There are two tabs, one for personal tribute and another for guild tribute (if you are in a guild). This UI will show the current tribute benefits you have selected previously from a Tribute Master.
On the bottom of the UI is four points of interest:
- Timer (continually counts down from 10:00 minutes when tribute is ACTIVE)
- Total Cost per 10:00 of selected tributes
- Total amount of tribute points, or favor
- Activate / Deactivate icon
First, you must provide "tribute" to the Tribute Master in your home city. From in the game, you can open your EQ icon, select Navigation
and then Find -
and select the Tribute Master and a golden path should appear leading you.
Tribute can be purchased at a rate of 1 platinum for 1 tribute. This is the least-used method as the exchange rate is very poor. You can also donate items to the Tribute Master in return for tribute credit. Typically, the amount of tribute offered for an item is identical to the amount of platinum a normal vendor would offer should you sell it. But there are quite a few cases where the tribute value far exceeds current player-assigned worth, or what a NPC vendor would buy it for.
To offer tribute, you must right-click on the Tribute Master and a tribute UI interface appears. On the far left is a list of all available tribute effects you can purchase.
When you select an item, the offered tribute value appears in the bottom right of the window. At this time you can choose to "donate" for the offered tribute, or select another item.
Farming for Tribute items is commonplace for those that take advantage of the benefit. There are two generally accepted methods - hunting in zones known to drop items with a high tribute value, or hunting the bazaar for cheap items with a high tribute value. There are multiple guides on what & where to hunt for tribute such as here.
If you want to bazaar shop for tribute items, using lucy is a valuable tool. Each item in the database shows the tribute value! Also, if you are a premium member of alla's, advanced search options exist and allow you search for all items with specific tribute values. A popular example of a good tribute item is Compass of Khati Sha which has no real player value, so typically can be found for a few hundred to a couple thousand plat - yet it tributes for 15,000 points. If you'd like a massive list of tribute value for items, try this link.
Lucy & Alla's will show the tribute value for items you look up; this can save you time if you know items you have, or can get - instead of making a run to the tribute master to check what the donation value is.
Here is a Lucy view of an item, with the Tribute value circled in red.
And an Alla's view...
If you have a premium membership (paid) to Alla's, you can do advanced item searches in lucy (part of Alla's) to include specified tribute amounts..
Alla's advanced item search no longer includes a field for tribute.
Now that you have donated some items (or cash) and been rewarded with tribute points, it's time to determine what you want and what you'll get for the cost.
On the left side of the Tribute UI screen you see the long list of benefits offered. Click on one and a description appears. Once selected & description is present, you now have the ability to purchase this rank. Once purchased, the top-right window (current effects) populates. At this point you can increase (or decrease) the level of the effect to suit your personal needs based on your character level.
The ranks of tribute are much like the standard focus effects level requirements. They have maximum level limitations for spells they effect, as well as having minimum player level requirements for higher ranks of tribute. If you are level 70 and want Affliction Efficiency for spell up to 70, you will need: Benefit: Affliction Efficiency 05 which is the 5th rank of affliction efficiency. The cost increases (of course) with the increase in benefit rank. For melee (or generic stat) benefits, there is no degredation of the benefit in relation to the player level - just like real gear in the game v. focus effects.
Here are some general rules:
****Only Donate & Adjust Tribute from the Tribute Master in your Home City****
- You can only have a maximum of 5 personal tribute effects running
- Tribute spell focus effects do not stack with other worn effects. The higher effect will win, whichever it is. Consider tribute as a hidden item you wear.
- Tribute credit is charged to you in 10:00 minute increments, 9:59 in advance.
- Tribute can be activated and/or deactivated using the UI, default is depressing the Shift key and "U" at same time i.e. shift+u. Take advantage of this if you are going to be afk for a long time, or bazaar shopping or whatever. If the cost of tribute is of any importance to you, remembering to turn it off when you don't need it running is something you need to learn. It's better to forget to turn it on (which you'll notice very soon) than to leave it on and burn through 6000 tribute overnight in the guild lobby.
- The maximum amount of personal tribute you can be credited with is 200,000. After you reach the cap (or if an item would put you over the max) donations are no longer accepted.
- To change tribute effects and/or levels, you must visit the Tribute Master in your home city and make changes there. Anytime you donate to tribute or modify benefits, your tribute is automatically turned OFF. Remember to enable it after you are done.
- To donate tribute, you must visit the Tribute Master in your home city. Anytime you donate or modify tribute, it is turned OFF. Remember to enable it after you are done.
- Lastly, only the Tribute Master in your home city will deal with you. This makes good use of the "return home" option at character select screen, or the origin Alternate Ability.
*WARNING*
There is a tribute master in the guild hall. This is only for guild tribute and has no impact at all on your personal tribute. Guild tribute is similar in practice, but offers some combination benefits (such as spiritual alacrity) and the cost is pretty high depending on how many players have it activated. If you are interested in guild tribute effecs, speak to an officer in your guild about it - and it'd be a decent thing if you had some donations ready for it.
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