I know there are tons of leveling guides out there, showing exactly where to go, and what to kill at whatever level. But so far, all the ones I've been able to find are either old and outdated, or made specifically for "afk leveling" or for soloing with a merc (moloing). My wife and I after creating out 85's decided we didn't know what in the hell to do, so we decided to create level 1's and level them up. Well, we've been kicking and taking names (or rather our mercs have), and have been bouncing around to old content and sometimes recommended content suggested by the ingame "ding mail" (the mail you get after you level each time, telling you of a new zone that would be suitable for you now). But what we've found so far is if we follow the "recommended zones per our level", the vast majority of the mobs are blue. And from out experience, duo'ing as a chanter and mage with tank and cleric mercs, we can easily take out multiple yellows and sometimes multiple reds without breaking a sweat. What we have been doing is looking at the Map guide (the ingame guide when you bring up the map) and choosing a zone that's in the next tier (usually 5 levels above). And that works great...... Except for when you run into those FABLED mobs. Holy crap they are insanely difficult. Even with the mercs. Marus Seru lol. We had to zone about 5 times before finally deciding to leave because of those huge camel things. Crystal Caverns....Foreman and another named orc, gave us our first deaths. Tower of Frozen Shadow, some dude on the 4th floor - we gated thankfully. So, yeah, any suggestions would be appreciated. We've been grinding pretty much (if you can call nearly 1 level per half hour or sometimes faster, grinding) exclusively. We have done Teek's daily quests. And we first did the quests from the Armor guy by the soul binder in PoK, but grew tired of them because the gear wasn't very good compared to defiant. But we'd like to do some quests more our level, but no idea where to go to find them. So yeah, we'd appreciate advice on this as well. Thanks in advance! Oh, and we've made it to level 36 so far I think. Kindof too easy with the mercs, but still fun. We've learned how to mass pull (like 6 or 7 mobs) and stun and AE. Fun times lol
The Fabled mobs are seasonal. They're only around for several weeks each year during the EQ anniversary season, so they won't be impeding your progress for too much longer. The leveling guides that are linked each day on the forums are quite good; I don't think they're outdated. Most players go for blue cons in older zones because they have a lot less hitpoints and thus your kill rate is much higher than it would be in a newer zone. As for quests, well...at your level, there isn't very much to get excited about. The quest rewards are mostly junk compared to defiant armor. Maybe you can find something worth working toward in the Tome of Hero's Journey, or just by poking around in /ach but I usually just plow through the low levels and don't bother with questing.
In a level or two (well, maybe three) you should be able to do Burning Woods. BW should be excellent XP at that level and take you close to 50 in no time: weak mobs with low HP and a very high hot zone XP modifier. If you want the leveling process to be a bit more challenging, you can try some of the old dungeons, but your chanter/mage doesn't have snare. That leaves you with two options: rely on stuns/roots to control runners or stick to undead dungeons. If you choose the latter, the first wing of Howling Stones (aka Charasis) should be doable starting around 40+. Again, low HP, weak mobs and a pretty good zone XP modifier.
Thanks guys! I just found the Hero's Journey book (well found the AA to summon it) that I had accidentally deleted a while back. Burning Woods sounds great, as well as Charasis. We love doing dungeons. We were loving ToFS until we ran into the fabled mob who kicked our butts. What are the fabled mobs for anyway? Sounds like they are special? Moogs, you make some sense. While we can kill reds (just not high reds), it might be in our interest to kill blues and whites. Sometimes they do take a while to kill. I think we will try that soon.
I'll second Quatr's suggestions. Howling Stones is a really fun dungeon. Watch out for the carpets. I cleared it with my cousin and a guildmate, even the end of the eastern wing which is the hardest, except for the Fabled Drusilla Sathir. Moogs was there to kill that room. We ran into a few Fabled mobs while clearing the whole zone. Sometimes by accident - you're going to turn a corner and die just about instantly. Be prepared for it now...it's going to happen if you want to level in dungeons during anniversary season. You can sometimes avoid this by having a tracker with you. The point of Fabled mobs is just what they seem: they're some of the more famous mobs from the first few expansions of EQ, except they're on steroids. They usually drop their normal loot and a "fabled" version of one of their more famous drops. The fabled version has greatly increased stats, and often has a higher level requirement to equip. Try comparing a blue con in Burning Woods and a blue con in Goru`kar Mesa and you may notice a difference in how hard they hit and how long they take to kill.
If your not guilded, find a family style guild ASAP, there's tons of help out there if you know where to look.
Bring your level 85's with you to the dungeons (park them inside or something convenient). When a fabled gets in your way, just have the big guy stomp them a new one. Only have to deal with them a little bit longer now.
Another thing to consider is the lost dungeons of norrath. I enjoy the dungeon crawl too over setting up camp in an outside zone. After several close calls with the fabled mobs I tried LDoN for the first time last weekend and I gotta say it is a great alternative. Since most dropped items from named mobs don't compare to defiant gear anyway and you are just going for the experience - I'd say give LDoN a shot.
I second Squee's idea of LDoNs Probably one of my favorite ways to run with a duo. Yes the named drops aren't better then defiant but they tribute for an insane amount. No worries about fabled blocking your way and for the newly returned in standard defiant gear (and mercs) thay are very forgiving on overpulls. You do need 2 characters closish in level (I believe the level spread is 7 but not positive) and a merc or a third person to request them though.
I vaguely remember LDoN's from when they were first released. I totally don't know what to do to get them started or how to find them etc. Is there any info on them for complete n00bs like myself?
A bit of a sidetrack - have you considered dropping the tank merc for a dps merc? Mage pet can tank or chanter can charm a mob to tank...
Jimmy -- I have actually thought about that. When we are able to play next (right now we have a lot of work to get finished before we can play again), I plan to practice charming exclusively instead of using a pet. Once I get the hang of it I plan to use it all the time, and I was hoping it would help with DPS, since the enchanter damage spells suck so bad. As for switching the tank out for a dps merc, I might try it, but honestly it worries me a bit. After seeing the regular pets take quite a beating from come red con mobs, then the merc tank step in and totally saves the day, it makes me hesitate to drop him. I'd love some more dps honestly. So I might give it a shot soon, especially since we're leveling up pretty quickly and her pets are getting more and more badass. One issue I've noticed aside from lack of good dps is a puller. I've tried doing this myself, by parking my pet, and changing my merc (tank) to passive, then just run around and grab a few mobs, and run back to camp and having the merc and pet engage.
Prior to 60, tank mercs are overpowered and mage pets are somewhat underpowered. When your Mage gets his level 61 pet, pet tanking will become easier and it only gets better from that point on. You may want to research pets and their care and feeding sometime around 60: what focus items you can camp/buy to summon stronger pets; which pets are summoned with armor and which ones need armor to be given to them; how Air, Earth, Fire and Water pets compare, and so on. The Magician Tower is a great (if occasionally dated) resource. There are guides to LDON here and here (and here). A few things have changed recently, notably level 80+ characters no longer need to use tricks to get a task. However, the basics are still the same: you request a mission from one of the "adventurer" camps, go to an instanced dungeon, do what you were asked to do (kill N mobs, retrieve X artifacts, etc) and receive Y points for completing the task. If it takes you too long to finish the task, you get fewer points. Once you have accumulated enough points form doing these tasks, you can spend them at THAT camp (but not at any of the other 4 LDON camps) to buy items. As the Necro FAQ linked above suggests, the Icy Prism of Avoidance is still a good augment. It is only available from the Everfrost/Miragul camp, so you may want to concentrate your efforts there. No harm in checking the other 4 camps, of course, they all have different mobs and environments. Also, the higher your level, the more points you get for completing tasks, so it's not as time-consuming as it may look at 36. One more thing: Not all instanced dungeons are in the same zone as the related LDON camp. For example, the adventurers in the Butcherblock camp will send you to an instance in Lesser Faydark, which is a bit of a run.
Enchanter is one of the best pulling classes in the game. Highly suggest sticking with him. The idea of a puller is pulling singles, not so much 5-6 at a time. You get some early tools like pacify to help with this. Can root, and then even mez and mem blur as a method of pulling. At higher levels if you're lazy and don't mind slow pulls you can just use the magician's call of the hero ability. That's kind of lame though. Turning your enchanter into a rock star is way better.
Or, if you have the tools, you can pull 5-6 and keep them mezed and debuffed while the Mage pet processes them one at a time
Quatr has some really good advice on where to get started. One thing I'd like to add though is that with another box group of mine just went up to one of the adventure recruiters and was able to accept a quest. This is without doing the quest for the adventurers stone. You can get the quest by right clicking on one of the NPC's with the title "Adventure Recruit" ...or something like that. You just need to make sure you have 3+ in your group (mercs count).
I think the Adventurers' stone is only needed to enable the Guild Lobby Magus to send you directly to one of the LDON camps these days. Without it, the GL Magus can only port you to Nedaria's Landing and then you have to ask the Nedaria's Landing Magus to port you to an LDON camp. A bit inconvenient, but not a big deal. Unfortunately, none of the Magus guys can send you back to the Guild Lobby, so you have to use gate/Origin/POK book/Throne of Heroes/etc.
