Hi all, I'm doing the Stepps right now and the mobs hit pretty hard, the J1 Merc tank is surviving well but is there an old school zone with better xp (ideally outdoors) that i could be hunting? my group is a dru/mage/mage/chanter with healer/tank merc. Any advice would be welcome.
The Steppes is part of EQ's 12th expansion, TSS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest_expansions Try going back a few years in time to an older expansion such as Planes of Power, The Legacy of Ykesha, Lost Dungeons of Norrath (if you're boxing with another account or have a friend with you since you need at least 2 players and 1 merc to get a mission), Gates of Discord. The level cap for all of those was 65, although GoD was tuned for level 70. Suggested zones: Plane of Fire is set up pretty well for kiting. Lower level planes such as Bastion of Thunder offer decent hunting. LoY zones are not really worth the trouble after level 60. Any LDoN on Hard will give decent XP. Multiple GoD zones are great XP at 65 and still offer a real challenge. OoW, DoN, DoDh and PoR were capped at 70. Noble's Causeway, Wall of Slaughter, and then Muramite Proving Grounds (65+), Riftseeker's Sanctum (69+), Ruined City of Dranik are fun. Anything in DoN is fun because it's my favorite expansion. I like The Ascent and The Nest. Depths of Darkhollow has some cool zones like Ruins of Illsalin and The Hive (quite good for kiting). Arcstone is a good introduction to PoR at 65 or so. Check your hot zones from Franklin Teek. It's a dungeon but I like the revamped Splitpaw in the 60s.
1) Plane of Fire good loot and xp. 2) Crypt of Decay 3) Wall of Slaughter 4) Sirens Grotto (if all you want is xp I would stay away, bad xp compared to the risk, but it may be fun to try. Once you hit the Mid to upper 60's you should be able to start doing the quests on the farm in Dragonscale Hills. As long as you stay away from the road (and the evil giant mechanical robot) its a pretty easy place to level, and if you do the three farm quests (Beatles, snakes, and crows) over and over its good xp. I did almost exclusive Plane of Fire then moved up to Dragonscale Hills. I kind of wish I had done more in the Wall of Slaughter. Sirens Grotto is only listed as a challenge, I remember that zone being very tough.
On my server (AB) its almost impossible to find a group i have been lucky the past two days tho . Most ppl seems to just AFK in PoK ? Logged in doing nothing ? Have they allready finished all content in the latest expansion ? Why are so many people just sitting doing nothing in PoK ? Happens at all times during the day.
I think heroic characters are a great deal. Get all the progression along with gear that isn't too crappy.
can you headshot (ranger aa) in plane of fire? Also, how much is the heroic guy going to be on sale for this weekend?
Some old school zones have been upgraded or expanded over the last 15 years. They tend to have relatively weak monsters. Infected Paw is probably the easiest one: weak mobs, easy to get to, only 4 static named mobs see invisible. Depending on your class, you can start killing them around level 65 when they are yellow, but make sure that you pull them to a safe place. There is a metric ton of mob traffic in some corridors; you can easily end up with 6-8 mobs on you. I usually pull to the zone-in, to the "safe room" at the opposite end of the zone or to the mini-island not far from the safe room, which has only one mob. Other, more challenging old zones in that range are Solusek C and Chardok B (Hall of Betrayal). The challenge with Solusek C is that mobs vary in level and there are a lot of them packed closely. The challenge with Chardok B is simply getting there through the original Chardok. If you want something easy and safe, try Plane of Hate, which is split into 4 Tiers. The 1st tier is trivial at 60+, but Tier 4 will be deep red at 60. The only problem is that it's technically a "raid zone", so you don't get regular out of combat mana regeneration. For something really easy, try the "gate" area of Grieg's End. Mobs are level 56-58 and very easy. Some are single pulls, some are double pulls plus the occasional wanderer. They don't run, so once you hit 65+ and get high level buffs, you can swarm them and get to 70-72 quickly.
