Returning players: TBL, ToV, or CoV?

Hi all,

We are some returning players (for the nth time) that started again during lockdown, and we are now reaching 110+. I am (almost) 115, the others range from 108 to 112. We are grinding the last toons to 110 in Sathir's Tomb, but I am planning where to go next.

We intend to do at least one of the 3 115 expansions more or less end to end, before daring ToL (hopefully Q1 2022).

But which one should it be?

When all stars align, we can break 1 Mdps, but most often we are around 750k; this will of course improve with levels, gears, AA, and spells.

We have:
SK, Brd, Shm, Mag, Mag, Enc. Bard, Enc, and Mag are mained, rest are boxed.

So in theory, we are quite strong in CC, but not the strongest in DPS.

We are not terrible players, but in no way super competent.

Could you perhaps give us a pointer of what would be both doable, fun, rewarding, and likely to prepare us for ToL?

TBL isn't 115. Do ToV, it was easy and fruitful.

Main the SK, Shaman, and a Mage

Box the Bard, Enchanter and other Mage

At 110, you can purchase everything you need for the ToV t1 gear (Faded Snowbound). Faded pieces (visibles) can be purchased in Baz, and then the Ore and Emblem can be purchased off of the Merchant in Crystal Caverns (GH clickie puts you right in front of merchant).

From there it should be easy peasy to start tackling ToV progression

If you skip TBL, you'll be missing out on Jann's Veil and "Illusion Benefit Greater Jann". https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=134319.

Illusion Benefit Greater Jann
1: Additional Damage to Spells (200)
2: Stacking: Block new spell if slot 2 is effect 'Add Proc' and < 49000
3: Increase Attack Speed by 50%
4: Mitigate Spell Damage by 100%, 0 total
5: Increase Corruption Resist by 20
6: Increase Chance to Reflect Spell by 5%
7: Metabolism (50)
8: Increase Mana Pool by 1000
9: Increase Damage Shield by 100
10: Increase Hitpoints by 10 per tick. Max: None. Calculates to current max level
11: Increase Endurance Pool by 1000
12: Increase Double Attack by 6%
13: Increase Chance to Dodge by 20%
14: Decrease Damage Shield Taken by 200
15: Increase Mana by 10 per tick
16: Mitigate Melee Damage by 100%, 0 total
17: Increase Max Hitpoints by 1000
18: Increase Endurance by 10 per tick
19: Absorb Dot Damage (100%)
20: Increase Damage Bonus by 25 with 1H Blunt
21: Increase Damage Bonus by 25 with 1H Slashing
22: Increase Damage Bonus by 25 with 2H Blunt
23: Increase Damage Bonus by 25 with 2H Slashing
24: Increase Damage Bonus by 25 with Hand To Hand
25: Increase Damage Bonus by 25 with Piercing
26: Increase Damage Bonus by 25 with 2H Piercing
27: Limit: Max Level(250)
28: Limit: ClassPlayer (131070)
29: Stacking: Block new spell if slot 1 is effect 'Additional Damage to Spells' and < 200
30: Stacking: Overwrite existing spell if slot 1 is effect 'Additional Damage to Spells' and < 200
31: Stacking: Block new spell if slot 2 is effect 'Chance to Reflect Spell' and < 5
32: Stacking: Overwrite existing spell if slot 2 is effect 'Chance to Reflect Spell' and < 5
33: Stacking: Block new spell if slot 7 is effect 'Metabolism' and < 50
34: Stacking: Overwrite existing spell if slot 7 is effect 'Metabolism' and < 50
35: Stacking: Overwrite existing spell if slot 2 is effect 'Add Proc' and < 49000
36: Add Proc: Jann's Light
Conq

Is that the stone you buy to give to the teleporter NPC, or is that the collector's edition item clickie?

Collectors Edition - I'm not 100% sure where the stone puts you...should still be relatively close

Thanks!

I didn't know about this, so the one time I made the trek to get the ores, I did it the hard way. Nice to know there's an easy way if I want to go back

ToV -> CoV -> TBL

If ToL comes out before you finish CoV, you can probably skip CoV and go right to it, doing CoV and then TBL after.

If ToL has a replacement for Jann illusion, you can probably skip TBL entirely.

You can buy the emblems in POK off the NPC for your class by the small bank. Many times on my server folks will have the tradable ores in baz for just a few plat more than off the NPC

NO! The stone puts you in another zone entirely, EW, the same place as the griffins in N Ro. Only the click thing puts in CC.

Aye, I wasn't in a guild the first time I had to do it, so I had to make the trek through the zones and the mobs and ugh lol

make sure all your chars are 111, then go do ToV progression. With ToV they changed the xp you need to get to the next level, and only the progression in ToV ( the mercenaries, partisan and hero missions ) will give you a set % of a level, not a set amount of xp. Make sure you are 111 before you go do this though, since a toon that's not 111 will end up at lvl 113 max and needs to do ages of normal xping in order to get to lvl 115 ( and up with ToL ).

By end to end, are you including hunter, scavenger, or challenger achievements? Or just general progression, such as partisan/mercenary quests and paragon (the group missions)?

The progression pieces are very quick compared to hunter/scavenger and tend to contain the best rewards, assuming you have enough gear, AAs, etc to beat the missions.

The quickest way to prep for ToL would be to do ToV progression, which is essentially completing the Icebreaker achievement (partisan/merc/paragon), to get everyone to level 115. Then, jump straight into CoV missions and start farming them as soon as you're able to for optimal gearing. Zlandicar would be the first target as it should be burnable by a 6 person team before heavy tank CDs wear off. The Call is the second easiest, while Aary and Crusaders have some pretty nasty DoTs that you'll probably need more gear for.

In terms of rewards, ToV prog gets you tons of exp, the spell focus aug, and gryphon mount for the mount buff. CoV paragon gets you a familiar (upgrade to RoS). You'd be missing out on the CoV progression mount (a minor upgrade to ToV) and the TBL Jann Veil illusion, so you'd get most of the progression-related rewards with just ToV prog + CoV paragon.

If you're looking to be more completionist, I'd agree with the others that ToV is best to focus on. You'll want to do progression regardless in order to level, so expanding on that to add hunters/scavengers/challenger would be pretty straightforward. I don't think you'll get gear blocked on anything in ToV either.

At 110 I'd start in
EW doing merc/partisan quests
GD doing merc/partisan quests
Once your group hits at least 111 look at doing missions in GD and EW.
ToFS you need keys for each floor so its good to start there once your group has mez
Velks is a little easier than Kael, your mezer will be busy
Kael giants hit a little on the hard side

Keep an eye on general chat for TAs for the TBL missions. My friends tend to do them often so there is usually a few free TAs floating around.

That said AD is quite an active guild so you may be able to get some guildies to help you.

Right, not completionist end to end, more along the lines of progression and main expansion group benefits and gear

I want to get my main back to have AA maxed out, again, missing quite a bit with 36k… . Almost 115, Overseer is a big help

EW partisan tasks spawn pretty tough mobs - Restless Ry'Gor in Orctooth quest and a rabid tundra kodiak in Ada's task are lvl 118'ish have lotsa HP and hit hard, almost as tough as nameds in EW. Those would be a challenge to lvl 110 group with scaps gear and no AA's.
In GD all 6 quests can be done easily by killing single-pull (if you have somebody with calm) common mobs. I would start in GD, then go to EW for Partisan.
And EW and GD missions for lvl 111 AA auto-granted bazaar geared group? I have my doubts. 2 million group dps check for Griklor or you get adds, and 4 Narandi clones may be a bit too much. Probably TA purchase is more realistic for leveling up.
ToFS can be done easily if somebody with keys is willing to help with logistics. Then on the 5th floor single-pull golems and vampires if you have calm working (bard or enchanter from OP).
Yes, mobs hit harder than in Tier 1 zones, but still manageable single.
To make the trip efficient: ask somebody to mirror you up to the 2nd floor, make the campfire, then travel with that somebody to the 5th floor. Kill golems and vampires than jump to campfire to kill ghosts and you're done. All 3 quests can be requested at once with proper keywords: [help] , [shards], [study].
Velks is also quite simple: get double inviso with mage, run upstairs to Qabruh's floor and start killing 4 single-pull gargoyles, 2 single pull orcs. Then run back to the entrance and kill 4-5 single-pull spiders outside tarantula room. usually 2 respawns will do for the quests.
Kael is the hardest because of hardness of lvl 115-116 giants, which AE and stun. Though, all 6 quests can be single-pulled with 1 possible exception - Frost, it is usually leashed to the giant and it takes some luck to pull him single.
Also, pretty good exp can be earned by killing those quest mobs during the progression. "Not thrilling, but nice" (c)

ToV was (generally) very easy.

I would give CoV a try to start with (it's where you'll get the best gear) then fall back to ToV if needed.

I would pick up TBL when you have time. There are drops from the fight fire mission that can be evolved and be useful even now but the time vs reward likely isn't there when you are not at the point of chasing chase items.

Should do some GMM missions as well. Great xp, and crazy good group gear for the time period (between TBL and ToV). Useful to fill weak slots.

I haven't seen it mentioned here about the Luminous Ice aug from ToV. Not sitting at my PC but I think it adds up to 7% to damage spells by the time you complete the 4 ToV missions. I agree with many here, ToV first, if you can manage Zland in CoV you can farm him for the upgrades then skip to ToL.

Edit: notice aozs mentioned the aug, so ditto to their post.

Pretty sure this is fakenews. You get a set amount of XP and doing ToV when you're level 100 (I think this is the minimum) will give you more than an entire level of XP.

I recently leveled a char up and did ToV before 110 based on this. You can compare the XP shown in the achievement window at different levels if you have them and see that they change.

Also, Rallos Zek earring initial quest can be requested at lvl 95. All the kills and combine can be done at 95 and the quest reward is 25 AA, (same as O.M.A.D - for comparison), which equates to almost half of the level at 95. You can't equip the earring to "bloody" it, but the quest reward is given on turn-in after combine.
Other quests in ToV for Mercenary and Partisan requires lvl 100 as fas as I remember. During bonus time lvl 100 gets upped straight into 115 by progression alone.