Phinigel - You're closing in on lvl 20 if you did Crushbone, I assume, doing the shoulderpad and other associated turn-ins. Being on Phinigel the zones to level on "these days" don't apply (yet?). The zones to level on over a decade ago when you played last do. The Caiman quest on the beach of South Ro is great if it's available at this point. The Ro desert area (including the Oasis) in general can be diverse and lucrative if you have a speed buff and some friends. You never have to leave the Ro deserts to go from lvl 12 to lvl 30 if you know what to hunt and where to hunt it. Befallen - Connected to the Commonlands - is a good choice for a lot of classes, especially paladins and necros. When you get in the 20-30 range there are the orcs and gnolls in Highpass and Goblins in Highkeep. Estate of Unrest is great. There's Mistmoore of course. I don't recommend the Karanas unless you just want to work on faction (bandit sashes and such). About the only thing there that will take you from under 20 to mid 20s would be the scarecrows. Everything is so stretched out and then there's the chance of running into a random cyclops or something... Stick to East Antonica or Faydwer. Lesser Faydwer can take you from mid to late teens to mid to high 20s fairly quick, but it can also end up killing you over and over if you struggle to avoid the roaming red-cons. Give feedback on your progress here if you're willing. I'm curious (and I'm sure others are) as to where you pick and how things go. Good hunting!
Feedback from my soloing mage... upon request... From earlier in the thread, I was struggling at level 19 to find mobs for my soloing mage. I don't have time that is consistent or quality enough to group. So, I was looking for soloing mobs. Someone mentioned South Karana. I went to South Karana as a level 19. There were plenty of mobs in the northern section that pathed thru the area. The mobs ranged in level from grays to deep reds. And yes, there is the occasional Cyclops, Undead Cyclops, Sir Mr. Deep Red, evil necromancer Red DOT-Me-Now, and potentially a couple other random appearing mean buggers I forgot about. I learned where and how to avoid them and only died once to them all. I climbed the chain of centaurs, aviaks, and elephants as I leveled. Centaurs and Aviaks dropped bronze weapons, gems and some cash. Being a mage, I was able to origin back to town, sell, and gate back to hunt in short order. This made cash generation possible. Elephants were mostly XP, although they consistently dropped 2 to 5 gold per via selling tusks. Lions were a pretty nice Tailoring crop to harvest. They were all gray, but they dropped a high percentage of and/or HQ pelts. I'm actually level 29 now. I clear a LOT of gray mobs, harvesting cash crops, to spawn XP mobs. XP has slowed down, but I generate enough cash to purchase some upgrades. I also funded Tailoring to an 83 skill level. Level 29 XP there has slowed enough that I'm probably going to need to hunt someplace else soon. If there are other parts of the zone to hunt, that will be great. For level 30 and up, I've researched other zones to hunt. Stonebrunt Mountains looks like the best potential for my soloing mage. I never went there when I first played classic EverQuest back in '99. Is Stonebrunt Mountains a good place, or is there a better recommendation for my mage?
There are also vendors in centaur town and on top of aviak city. You may want to consider working through Najena for the pet focus drops - relatively little exp, but should be better than SK. Otherwise, Unrest can be good, and you're coming up to level for Mistmoore and Lower Guk (which can carry you through to 50). There's a few places that are more grouping: SolA, High Keep basement, etc. Stonebrunt is certainly possible, but as there's a wide range of mobs all milling about, I kept on being sandbagged by multiple low levels while trying to kill decent exp mobs - but you may enjoy that more than I did!
I already have the water pet focus on my mage. I see zero difference between a level 26 water pet and a focused level 26 water pet. Is the focus supposed to glow or do something like spell focus effect items do to see it working? Otherwise, it was a severe disappointment. I can't group due to disjunct play time. And mage pets don't last against two mobs at all. All dungeon zones are right out for me. I'll have to do Stonebrunt Mountains type zone and find a "safe place" to solo. I'll post back here in the coming week(s) whether I am successful or not. Either that, or I'll have to shelf the mage until Kunark comes out with more viable solo zones. The Overthere would be great for the level 30s. I'm not strictly opposed to alt-itis for the next 8 weeks.
Allakhazam's lists Stonebrunt Mountains as a classic EQ zone. That's where I got my info. I haven't confirmed it.
Ah, I think I see what happened. It wasn't part of LoY, it got added as a free zone. But it didn't come out until after PoP. So it's Classic, as far as Zam is concerned, but I'd be surprised if it's on Phinny. Don't have any chars there, so no way to check. Would like to hear from someone on there who can verify it, either way. Tat
Pet focuses show no indication that they work. No glow, no message: nada. You need to equip the focus when you cast your pet, then you can bag it if you wish. Pet's usually are summoned at a higher level, but the easiest way to check on the old focuses is to see what the max hit is (it should go up).
Stonebrunt was added along with Paineel and the Hole, so it should have arrived with the planes, just before Kunark. However, with previous Progression servers, like with the Luclin newbie amor quests, they decided to add it in out of sequence. Both the Warrens and the Hole are present, so I guess Stonebrunt is as well.
Really? Because when I started (August 2000), the Hole, Paineel, and the planes were already there, but I remember when Stonebrunt came out, a bit later. Tat
That's what I thought - could well be wrong, though, I started a little later (after Luclin opened), so I have to rely on what I can remember of what other people say (i.e. not a lot). But Stonebrunt was there well before PoP, at least. First comments on ZAM were in August 2001, so during Velious - my notes for that say that Warens and Stonebrunt were added at the same time. So, revised best guess - Warrens and Stonebrunt should be activated either with Velious or Luclin (or randomly, at whim). Thanks for the correction.
Yes, your recollection is correct, they were added just before Luclin. And, yes, Warrens and Stonebrunt were added together. My LoY mis-remembering is because that's how you get there
I meandered over towards Stonebrunt Mountains. I couldn't get into The Warrens to get there. They aren't available yet for the Phinigel server.
Dahaman , keep posting your Mage solo adventures about to start on Phini after more than 10 years lol. I been thinking to start as a mage, necro or bard since I did not played any of those back then, only my Druid and Wizard. Tempted to do a wizard since never got past level 46 before I cancelled the sub. I remember on boring days going to CB and buffing/healing/SoWing low levels or just killing cyclops one at a time with druid lol ..Never got the hang on quading until later in the 50's and bards running past me with hordes of mobs behind them always looked like an awesome pastime lol . But I kept on playing with the druid since I had the most fun and memorable times with it. Specially for PL'ing friends and in honor of my early days mentor who was a druid and helped my from early 10's to 30's showing me around the zones and buffing me for hours sometimes while he waited for his raids to start. I'm going to stop here lol I can talk about why the druid is fun for me for hours and write a dissertation about it lol ...
Solo mage continuing saga... on Phinny... At last report, my solo mage was level 29 in South Karana. Hunt times were growing increasingly longer. It was past time to go somewhere else. I tried Stonebrunt Mountains, but they are not a classis era zone. They are a no go. I then went to Lavastorm Mountains to see just how many basilisks and elementals there were. There are enough for perhaps 3 to 4 people to hunt. Not many, but enough! Levels 29 thru 36 were spent in Lavastorm Mountains. The pulls were simple and always singles. The hunt times were extremely low. There was hardly any competition, although some. I never had a random red mob come along and pummel me out of the zone. It felt like the zone actually had a bonus Zone Experience Modifier on it as well. Perfect! Well, almost.... loot was abysmal. So, I took my time and only "played" the mage when I was mostly away doing other things. I could sit for mana, come back, kill a mob or two, and then sit for mana again. Rinse and repeat over the course of the last two weeks. Yeah, that's not an ideal or fun style of play, so any real blocks of time were spent on alts instead. Still, my mage did level up. At level 36, I got the new water pet. This pet was strong enough that I could moreorless slay non-stop in Lavastorm. That made for a lot more fun playing style again. However, I wanted to test the future and try out the hill giant area. This plan was a bit of a risk, because higher level mages said neither the pet nor the mage could tank hill giants. After 10+ hill giants, I found out my mage could tank hill giants long enough to burn them down. Wasn't hard at all. Allowing the pet to tank at all had minimal value, so my mage just took it on the chin. The risk seems to be fairly low, but I do have to med for too long to have much fun at it. Plus, I can't afk med because some pesky lizard man comes along and attacks me. The pet kills it nigh instantly, but that breaks meditation and mana regen. Yuck. The biggest fault of the hill giants has zip to do with the mage though. The biggest drawback is that it is a swarm fest for level 50s (necros the majority) killing giants for cash. The average giant lasts less than 10 seconds before it is agroed. Competition is intense. And because my mage doesn't dare adds (the pet can't offtank anymore, have no snare, no CC, etc.), I don't dare get on the highway to compete with the level 50s. I'm left with scraps that spawn off the side of the road. I was getting 5-7% XP per hour I'd reckon. It was better cash tho. So, I'm back to the point of looking for a better place to solo. I will likely go back to Lavastorm to finish out level 36 with a flourish. After that, hmmm.... EDIT: I might take a break from my mage until Kunark comes out on the Phinny server. Overthere is perfect for a level 36 mage afterall. So, it might be a while before I add anything else to this thread.
Switch UGuk and LGuk but that'll take you to level 40 on Phinny. After 40 The Hole and Nagafen's are the best but sometimes it's slow getting groups there.
so Dahaman ...is camp saturation something to think about once you reach the upper levels ??? I been seeing phini full almost 24/7 ..i think day break need to open another phini clone lol ...I been thinking about this and I think i may keep playing sporadically the druid/chanter (cant decide lol love them both) on phini but play even slower until and maybe old world would open up more camps ..right know you cant even walk to much without seeing oceans of dead mobs lol ...
The way I see it, there are two things causing the ocean of dead mobs that you are seeing. First, lots of people are approaching the top end and it is crowded there. The mobs are on a fast respawn rate though, so the mobs have been respawning at a fine rate for me. Second, it takes a LOT more mob kills to level on Phinegal. So, people are naturally killing lots and lots more mobs in all areas they visit. I've been spending time on alts here of late... shaman and shadow knight. My mage is up to level 38, but I'm not too worried about raising it much higher until Kunark. Kunark will open much better zones for me to solo that mage up higher.
