As the title asks, is the Hero's Journey worth doing? I was coming back with a basic 3 box to see how far I can get. Is it better to just grind or do the heros journey now?
For missing out on expansions and getting to see diff zones you may never do. Yes Was well worth it and get the only clicky Drakkin Illusion item. But if just tryn to grind and lvl prob better ways to go.
Well, to clarify there is "Hero of the Journey" and the reward for that is Hero's Sigil of the Council Shroud of the Council - this is the drakkin illusion Then there is also "The Hero's Journey" which encompasses all these https://www.paullynch.org/eqguide/guides/heros-journey/ And then there is the small quest "Jokes on You" which will get you one of these Devious Drakkin Disguise Devious Drakkin Potion If you feel the need for the Shroud of the Council then go for it. Personally I did not, but there are a truck load of other excellent rewards scattered throughout The Hero's Journey that are definitely worth doing
If you are starting toons and not in any kind of hurry to get to max level, then definitely do the Hero's Journey as you go. It does an excellent job of pointing you in the direction of content that is appropriate. As you get higher level you will start getting to parts where you will need a group, at that point, you can now choose to go to the older zones and level up in those with the better gear you will have gotten from the Hero's Journey, and then every so often go back and try the step you were stuck on and fight your way up from there, till you hit a barrier again. Though if you use mercs you likely won't hit too many barriers. You can also always ask for others to join you, which can be hit or miss at lower levels without a guild or friends. When you get into your 80s the gear rewarded from the Hero's Journey achievements is very good.
TSS does keep you busy for many months or even years especially if you want to to solve all zone side quests and unlock everything. Pretty exciting lore there with many secrets like unlockable areas, teleports and unique items. On the other side the expansion is a bit strange and feels like another game. Some zones definetly got influenced by other games. Blightfire Moors = DAOC.
I did it for hero's sigil of the council, but at the end that really wasnt such a big deal. Had fun doing it though.
Aside from the base Serpent's Spine expansion content, which is fun and quite rich, There are also overarcing rewards of consigned gear and such for completion of blocs of /achievements which spawn in your rewards window. If you've never done it, go for it!
I vote yes. Very entertaining. A few really painful quests like the multi-steps quests in goru kar mesa but overall, well worth it. Finishing LDON was a great feeling.
I'm a returning player after a decade or so and have been having a great time with the Hero's Journey EXCEPT (and strong EXCEPT here) -- the Goru'kar Mesa quests, specifically Dorina and Ciodaru are.... well, they're a lot. A lot of tradeskills. Nearly all of them allow you to have an NPC craft the items for you except Dorina has a hard-tailoring requirement. Don't sell any Silk at all during your journey to make it more tolerable. Ciodaru has a quest that requires Dark Green Dye -- which has a reagent that can only be made by a Shaman or Rogue through Alchemy. Luckily it's a low enough trivial point that you can make an alt and do it yourself... or if you're lucky enough to find someone to help with it. Other than these two specific quest lines the Hero's Journey has been great. SIDE NOTE: Dorina's quest lines made me feel questionably ethical. Helping her basically enchant some guy to love her after her stalker-like behavior and unwanted advances isn't a feelgood moment. Felt gross/dirty taking part of it at all.
Sorry to hijack this thread - but is the Breath of the Council debuff still relevant in today's EQ? -100 to all resists sounds fantastic in a raid situation!!!
I am hoping we get a "Heroes Journey TLP" one day, starts with everything up to TSS unlocked but with a level lock system until Level 75 is unlocked. Every class & every race available on launch day but still with progression roughly in line with a traditional TLP. 1-75 on this TLP would be much different to any prior TLP thanks to the TSS 1-75 content/journey, serial recyclers would be presented with "new content" that some have asked for within that Classic to PoP era of the TLP they play during.
I would say that it is still very helpfull especially as a chromatic beam AE. It is -25 to all resists for one minute. -100 resist adjust is a bonus for landing that spell.
Heres my take, I've been working through Heroes Journey recently with a new grp + mercs. theres some gripes I have with this. TLDR: Its good but has some glaring spots of oversight and should really be looked at if its to be treated as an on boarding path for new players. Way better to do this solo and get a high level guy to wipe out the tough parts. Its quite the slog if you do 3 or more characters. ___________________________ the CR and blightfire portions are great, good gear and the quests roll nicely. The downside to any of these quests is if you group with other people they take much longer to complete as nearly every quest is a "solo" task, meaning everyone has to complete it. Kill tasks work great, everyone gets the credit but when you box 2-3 other characters you need to wait for every ground spawn, trigger every event and loot every piece for each character. Population is sparse in these level ranges as well, theres quests in Stone Hive and Blackfeather Roost that are incredibly tough even with a merc. The queens in both zones are definitely tuned for a group. The gear you get is great, you hit every slot and its relevant for the zones you're fighting in. I had a great time doing these quests UNTIL I hit Goru'kar Mesa and Blackfeather. If doing this on multiple characters it is such a trudge and slog to kill wolves/bears/snakes over and over again for what seems like half the NPCs. One NPC in particular has you go out and do a loot mission for each subtype, then follows you completing these missions with doing a last quest that is all of them combined and repeated. This was atrociously boring and I spent 2-3 weeks playing 2-3 nights a week for 2-3 hours just killing the wolves/bears/snakes/spiders to get my drops. My next step on the Dorina quest line required I farm even more materials off these creatures, followed by a 170 trivial combine which EACH CHARACTER needs to have a high enough skill to complete.Its a lot of farming to hit this skill level with one character alone. This quest line is required for the over arching completion of the mesa zone. I honestly skipped it as flawed defiant gear wasn't a great motivation for doing 3 characters tailoring up to 150/170. If this was reduced to be completed in the 75-80 range it wouldn't be so bad. So I carried on to the Roost, the quests were much better in here as you progress decently quick despite some of the drops being a bit rarer (snake fangs for me). Things were moving smoothly until the part where you need a heart from a named harpy on island 4. Each character needs his drop and he he drops one and spawns every 45 mins. So I grinded and killed the area for roughly 2 hours on a mob which really should either have the drop changed to a feather or claw (cause yes he likely will only have one heart) and then drop 3-6 per kill. Now I'm nearly done the roost with 3 level 68 characters who are over leveled for the zones they are in. Now the good parts: The TSS zones have good vendor trash drops, I made enough plat to keep each guy up to date on spells, pay for mercs and buy a few cheap upgrades as I found them in the bazaar. Each zones questline does take you through every part of the zone which is great, get to see everything. The gear you're earning is actually useful for your level (a big problem this game had until LDoN) Looking further up the quest chain the gear you earn at level 80-85 is good enough to get you started into House of Thule which is a very good modern starting point for the game as SoD gear would have a tough time holding up in HoT and Underfoot is pretty tough if you're undergeared. My suggestions is to tune the bosses in these zones to be doable with 2 players of appropriate level with mercs. Increase quest item drop rate or give everyone credit on a drop and turn in as long as they are grouped. Increase the speed in which quest npcs respawn and/or increase the amount of items they drop per kill. This should be a structured training mode to get to lvl 85 which is when the game takes a major turn in how most classes are expected to play. by the end of this you got gear, AAs, an idea of what you're doing (hopefully) and can tackle modern-ish stuff.
Bloody Kithicor is where a lot of that reaches peak nonsense. Many of the Hero's Journey quests there are long chains that have steps that require a group (if done at an appropriate level), interspersed with steps that require looting or interacting with a ground spawn that only respawns every 5-10 minutes. If you do these in a group, you will spend 30-60 minutes just sitting and waiting for ground spawns. And that isn't just one isolated example, it is multiple quests, and sometimes multiple times within the same quest. In CotF there are ground spawn quests where if you pick up a ground spawn, you share it with your group and everybody gets one on their cursor. Many of the Hero's Journey quests are sorely in need of a mechanism like that.
Pretty sure, for the 100+ trivial tradeskill quests from Ciudaru and Dorina, there's an option to gather the materials and hand them to a skilled NPC and they will make the item for you. Check the quest text box carefully.
