With POP just about done on Agnarr, I am steadfastly preparing for LoY. Having never played it, however, I am curious if there are any decent items at the high end? I realize the server will always be about "Time" gear, but until you are fully decked out on Time gear and sufficiently burned out on EQ for another 10 years, are there any new items that players may want to concern themselves with?
If you are in a guild that clears Time, there will be no gear upgrades in Ykesha and very little reason to go there at all.
There is no "high end" in LoY. Group loot from PoP easily beats out anything that drops in LoY, and the one thing it had going for it, charms, have all been made obsolete by the PoP charm progression (Edit: even only doing the early steps of progression will make the PoP charm better than most any other LoY charm). That being said, there are a couple charms with focus effects or haste (27% or 31% iirc) which are decent for twinks. The only other neat item I can think of is the pet proc weapon, Vander's Bane, which is in the ballpark of Velious raid weps and subpar compared to elemental pet proc weapons. Most classes will still want to do their LoY spell quests; even though the spells are in the 40s range many of them are worth using.
All charms are obsoleted by the PoP Progression Charm. Bards and Druid/Cleric/Shaman get new cure spells/songs via LoY quests that are useful in PoP and LDoN Raids. Clerics get Temperance to buff noobs. Other classes get some decent filler spells in the 4050 range but at 65 the listed spells are about the only useful ones. Tradeskills should unlock some better Tailoring skillup paths via the ribbons and robes. I dunno what changes with research if anything but originally LoY added 51-60 research for priests and casters. Gear wise there are some clickies that are weird. I know Druids get a clicky pet Haste buff that is sort of nice so you never have to memorize the spell. There’s a raid that has a hammer that procs swarm pets for novelty.
Best item from LoY: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=23016 Has kickass graphic. Is highlight of LoY.
LoY could be released prior to PoP on progression and not throw much of anything out of balance... it might even get reasonably used for a time. It was never meant as a standalone expansion (originally marketed as an "extension") but is retroactively listed as one. That status doesn't really matter, but on progression LoY should never be its own era. Spoken as a person that actually enjoys the LoY content and has done many of the events and things that most never bothered with.
Captain Krasnok has one of the best death animations I've seen in EQ though. He weirdly gives a serverwide when you kill him too.
I kinda think Loy should be tossed in with PoP at the very least if not Luclin. It's kind of wasted content now on Agnarr.
