As Green as it gets: Returning Monk Questions

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by Newbei, Nov 23, 2012.

  1. Newbei New Member

    Ok. So I came back almost a month ago. After a few false starts, I was off and running my Iksar Monk on Firiona Vie. I'm up to 63 now, with just over 100AA. Just bought a pair of sweet procc'ing weapons DIRT cheap off the bazaar (one procs a 400dmg highly unresistable!! It cost me 40pp!!!) and I think I'm going to settle down in the hole for a while to grind out more AAs. I'm not sure, between Alacrities, Skinspikes and some high end Celestial Healings I might be able to make it without a merc if I'm careful. Gonna try this evening w/o. (Darn you Sunderrock Springs! Still beyond me!! How is this Level 60?!?)

    And I'm looking through Monkly Business, dreaming about epics and thinking about life. I was going to post this there, but I figured general answers might be enough for now.

    1: Is there a point when I should aim to start opting out of Defiant Gear? Is there a point where questable gear is better? I've been upgrading it as constantly as I can (which isn't all that frequently, but still) Or is Defiant pretty much the way of the world now?

    1b: Cultural Armor: How do I start the quests? Is it worth bothering with? I've been doing a little bit of tailoring work. I'm sure if I put my mind to it, I could get my skills to respectable levels.

    1c: Augs: How can I get more of them, or just plain better ones? I just recently hit the bazaar and outfitted myself almost entirely in various augs, mostly aiming for ac to try and better my mitigation so I could handle sunderrock springs, but the snakes are actually hitting HARDER now. 800s as opposed to the 700s I saw at 61. Is this just balanced against AC being not only Damage Reduction but also "Miss"? Like, they're...hitting a lot harder, but missing a lot more? I can handle the mobs, and since AC'ing up and blocking "Supernal Elixir", I've been able to take them, and the fights aren't as swingy as they used to be. Just not as fast as I'd hope a DB to go.


    2: I hear monks on monkly business and people on various websites talking about grinding AAs, and they mention "Lesson" or "Lesson Burn". What is this? I assume "Burn" means "Burning C/Ds" or essentially "Using Discs", but what is Lesson?

    3: Quests I should be messing around with? I've got the Hotzone guy on lock. But that's about all I'm currently aware of. I'm tangentially aware that I should probably go kill that guy and steal his Robe of the Whistling Fist, or hang out with Cazic and get his Whistling Fists (for the same sweet clicky). I tried a few of the armor quests the game tells you to do at level 10, but those just plain sucked. Too much investment for too terrible a reward. Even at-level, they'd be bad in the Age of Defiant. Anything an extremely green 63 monk should be aware of?
  2. Eadricx New Member

    I will try and answer these the best that I can.

    1. 65-70, defiant gear is still good. But there is also other gear in the 200+ HP range that you may want to look for.

    1b. I can't answer that, I don't do trade skills

    1c. Check out raspers repository website. There is information on a lot of the expansions regarding gear and augs.

    2. "Lesson" or "Lesson Burn" refers to the 1st year Veteran Reward. Type /veteranreward and it will tell you whether or not your
    Account/character qualifies for the veteran benefits.

    3. I'm sure there are Quests out there, but nothing comes to mind.
  3. Derd Augur

    Well i'm no monk, but to answer the defiant question, most likely yes stay with it for now. None of the early quests gear has been upgraded. There are some still useful clickie items on quest and mob drop armor (some eq items have beneficial spells you can cast on yourself) They are able to be used from inventory and not worn but you still get the spell benefit on your buff window. Hopefully a monk might have more info and list some you could try to camp at your level or as you gain more.

    Burning = for most anyway waiting till your group is all set to spend a half hour and using "lesson" a veteran reward that increases your xp gain per kill. To maximize the ability's usefullness you burn, use extra abilities for dps etc to kill as many mobs as you can while the buff is active. You can buy potions in marketplace that buff in similar fashion also.

    Not knowing what augs you have, but all the current hotzones and previous ones have augs that drop to this day. Allah's has a list of all the previous ones and the aug if you want to check the list out for ones that might be upgrades for you. Hope some of that helps and for another zone to try i love greigs end, even at your level its still decent and has a nice h/z aug. Have fun!
  4. Sleppen Augur

    As far as quests go, be sure to look at the Hero's Journey quests in the Achievements system. Type /ach to find this. Basically, if you complete a series of preexisting tasks, you get a free set of defiant quality gear. You can buy the same stuff, but I've found that having a set of goals makes the XP grind far more tolerable. And make no mistake, the XP grind will get more intense as you level up.
  5. Cakeny Augur

    Wear defiant till 80 when you get House of Thule armor or 75 for Solteris raid armor.
  6. Yther Augur

    1: Others answered pretty well. There are some options 71+, but none are too great, other than the Thach Jordan's Glowing Armor Quest. But that stuff probably isn't much available, if any, since it's short lived event each year. Generally, as said, defiant till 80, other than a few extra clickies along the way, then HoT gear.

    1b: Refer to several links: First http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/Everquest_Guide_Dragons_of_Norrath and under Cultural Armor section, read the appropriate race link, Iksar at http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=3050 . Once you get the books to make the patterns and figure that out (See Pattern for Cabilisian Wristguard, as an example, at http://eqtraders.com/items/show_item.php?item=19265 ), then the Cutural Armor wiki page at http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Cultural_Armor will probably be useful since it has templates for more most of the combinations except for the exact details on the newest expansions final combinations, as they changed a little from the previous format. Also you might want to look into cultural weapons, as you can pick and choose which procs you get and still keep your ratio up. For a monk, ratio will probably be more important than procs in general, unless you need a certain proc for an event, or special function like slowing or snaring.

    1c: See http://eq.zam.com/wiki/EQ:Hotzones and check out the various ones there, even from previous hotzones, as the augs still drop. That's usually an easy way to get some descent ones. Fabled time has some good augs around your level as well, but that's several months off (starts mid-March through mid-April). This page is a little dated, as it doesn't include the last 2 or maybe 3 expansions, but for your level is a good resource on the best defensive augs, http://everquest.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=1&mid=1258744503313114438 . There's also OoW augs, that can be upgraded to be better, and to add focus effects. Note though if you attune one, then you'll have to do all the upgrading yourself, and the focus effects require Grand Master level of either Poison Making (Rog-only tradeskill) or Alchemy (Shm-only tradeskill) to add them, and Grand Master Jewel Crafting skill to upgrade the basic stat. These are also very expensive, but makes it easy to get a 40% haste aug. See http://eq.zam.com/wiki/EQ:OoW_Augments .

    You might also want to look at LDoN merchants ( See http://www.cardplace.com/eq/ldon/list.cgi for a sorting script, or this LDoN Overview for a list of individual merchants to browse at http://everquest.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=1&mid=1275575760230916006#3 ), as well as DoN merchants (See Tatsujiro the Serene [Norrath's Keepers Merchant] for good side or Xeib Darkskies for evil side).

    2: Veteran AA's were basically covered already. But here's a list of each year's rewards at http://articles.eqresource.com/veteranrewards.php .

    3: Quests covers the basics types of quests, and how to evaluate them. I always recommend doing 1.5 at 65, and 2.0 at 70. If you want to skip the 1.0, do the 1.5 monk prequest. If you haven't been working on it, I always recommend the Charm of Lore aug, and either the Wanderlust Guild aug series, or the DoDh one that's easy to do shrouded as a rogue that I'm spacing the name of at the moment. It's a good charm item till 70s when you can start getting better ones. You might want to look at http://eq.zam.com/wiki/EQ:Items_Containers for some good weight reduction bags, if you're not full up on 100% WR ones. Most you can buy, but there are some quested ones that are nice. Ignore coin WR bags, as coins don't weigh anything any more. Then there's the great clickies. If you can while working on the Epic 2.0, hopefully you can snag the Jayruk's Vest for the chest quest, with awesome beneficial buff dispell clicky. There are lots of other good clickies to quest which generally include chest pieces from various expansions.

    EDIT: Not sure what ratio weapons you're currently using, but for Steppes, the quest Gnoll bane weapons are nice ratio. See Sweeping the Steppes: Gnolls at http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=3878 .

    Hope this helped some,

    Yther Ore.
  7. Cakeny Augur

  8. Borek-VS Augur

    Slipgear. It's easy to do at a low level with a shroud - although people have said recently that there may be some level restrictions added to the quests. The TSS charm aug eventually works up to be better, but with many steps, so you'll have to decide if you'd rather make Slipgear's Gem last through until you can get the better augs, or spend the time on the TSS series.
  9. Yther Augur

    Slipgear always slips my mind :(

    The Wanderlust is sort of level locked for various steps also, but not too bad for the zones, if you plan on hunting solo/molo in them, but still a little lower than what I'd like (I'd like to finish it before 60, and do the Vergalid parts by 50, but it doesn't work out that way).

    Yther Ore.