I started this because there was a lot of confusing information out there. This is MY journey. Take from it what you may. So there I was level 85 in The Feerrott, the Dream. First thing I did was click my Mercenary off and then zone into the Plane of Knowledge. I then headed right for the "Lag Pile" by the Guild Lobby enterance. I then sat in the lag pile for a good hour. What did I do in that hour besides get power-buffed by all the MGB's for free? I went through my spells and AA's. I set up spell lists – one for solo killing(root-rot), one for group killing and one for buffing. I set up my cast bars. I went through all the AA's that were on my cast bar by default (right click & the AA description should pop up). Once I knew what was what, I added or subtracted AA's on the cast bar's. I also set up 'the clickies' that were on my equipment on a separate cast bar. Then I typed '/bazaar' and looked to see if there were any spell upgrades I could buy right off the get go. My solo spell list was this : Root Rot 1) Breath of Queen Malarian II – Disease Damage over Time(aka DoT) 2) Malicious Decay (level 63 – Disease counter helps Slow land) 3) Mojo – Magic DoT 4) Pocus - Magic DoT 5) Ancestral Obligation – Conversion (aka Canni) 6) Nectar of Rancor – Poison DoT 7) Bloof of Kerafym – Poison DoT 8) Halycon Whisper – Heal over Time(aka HoT) 9) Nectar of the Slitheren - Poison DoT 10) Blood of Jaled'Dar - Poison DoT 11) Pertrifying Earth (level 64 – last `real` root spell) 12) Bite of the Unkun – Poison Nuke On my top spell bar I had in the boxes : 1) Melee Attack – smack things with my stick 2) 11) Root – Your friend 3) AA : Malosinete – Resist counter 4) AA : Turgur's Swarm - Slow 5) AA : Virulent Paralysis – Root with a knock back effect 6) AA : Cannibalization – Hit points to Mana conversion (HP>Mana) 7) AA : Union of the Spirits – Heal with a nice regen 8) 5) Ancestral Obligation - Canni 9) nothing 10) nothing 11) nothing 12) AA : Spirit Call – A suicide dog squad These are some the AA's that I put onto cast bars : First Spire (bonus to DoT crit's), Languid Bite (free Dot when you use Slow), Call of the Ancients (HoT on a stick), Pact of the Wolf (because I like looking cool), Ancestral Aid & Ancestral Guard (they have their use's)...also Silent Presence(Invisibility), Perfected Levitation and Shrink. First place I went was back to the Feerrott, the Dream and did the J5 Mercanary quest. I popped my A5 merc and followed the quest steps. Very easy quest. Had my new J5 merc in less than 1/2 hour. Second place I went was The House of Thule courtyard. Hint – when you cross the bridge run down the bank of the river. You will not have to worry what way you are running or catching a train. You run right down to the HoT zone line. In the courtyard you will see Ruppoc Rockjumper. He gives out the quest "Thinning out their numbers: Rotdogs and Snakes". You only have to target Ruppoc and say 'snakes' to trigger the quest. Pick a side...I personally liked the right side. Kill 4 rotdogs and 4 snakes then 'hail' Ruppoc get XP and repeat. This quest is great for three reasons. 1) It is easy. Do it solo or there are always other people popping in wanting to join. 2) lots of XP and 3) faction with the Dream Delvers. Why is the # 3 faction ? The Dream Delvers are the guys you buy your Rank II spells off of in the Feerrott. Sure you can stick with you regular Rank 1 spells but come-on. You can get up to level 88 spells no problem but to get your level 89 and 90 Rank II spells you need to do some faction grinding. All the quests in HoT will give you Dream Delvers faction...I found the easy way was to go with Ruppocs quest. You will need to get to Amiable with the Delvers to get level 90 spells. I would pull with Malicious Decay and when the mob got close enough I would hit 5 on my keyboard and throw a VP on it and then DoT it up. Canni when low on mana....cast a Hot on myself and continue. Some times I would just use PE and root the mob in place, de-buff and then DoT it up. How many times did I do that quest. I don't even know. I know that I went from 85 to 86 and also grinded 60-ish AA's from that one quest. Why not! I was getting one AA per quest turn in! Just watch out for the named snakes and dogs. Do not attempt them solo or even in a small group sometimes. When I was there, usually, some high level character would swing by and kill them looking for drops or for the Hunter of the HoT achievement. I should say that I never used my merc when I was soloing in the courtyard. Even the J5 merc I found was not the sharpest knife in the drawer if you know what i mean. Example : My merc stands right next to a mob who is hitting it. The merc is chain healing itself when if the merc would have taken 3 steps away from the mob, the mob would of stop hitting it. The merc stands there even though I have moved to see if the merc would come with me. No...it would rather pull a lemming death. I would use my merc, sometimes, if I was grouped with other players. One of the bonus's of playing a Shaman. You are not dependent on your Merc for anything but HP buffs. Also you can occasionally pop it if you need a heal to get back to killing faster during downtime. As I said I did like 60 AA's while I was leveling to 86. Why? Well, even though I already had the 5200 or so Heroic AA's I had gotten for free there were still some that I did not have which are very useful. Armor of Wisdom – more AC...no brainer. Spell Casting Mastery – cast spells for less mana...no brainer. Fury of Magic – increase in DD crits. Persistent Casting – continuing to cast while stunned...life saver. Gift of Mana – cast a spell for 1 Mana - self explanatory. Destructive Fury – bonus to DoT spell crits - we'll talk about that one later I also did my Alchemy Mastery AA's. Those are just a few. The AA's just added up. I also banked a few for level 86. Basically I stayed in the courtyard because of the faction grind. When I reached Amiable faction with the Dream Delvers I XP'd the last 2% I needed to hit 86 and then leveled. If you did not get any Minor Nebulous Dream Fragments while in the courtyard just go to the Bazaar. On Bristlebane they were less that 100 pp per fragment. I made sure that I had all my various dream fragments purchased before hand and had "bought" my spells for my new level so I had them when I leveled. Level 86: At level 86 I went into The Grounds of the House of Thule. Get a group or don't. Down by the Well is a great solo spot. Getting to level 87 was not that hard. The xp here is pretty darn good. Work on getting those AA's for your level as well. Level 87: More of the same. Also in Pok go see Franklin Teek and get the level 90 & level 90 alternative HZ task's. They are AMAZING XP. I was getting 10 AA'a per turn in. You should be able to solo the Grounds task and you might even be able to solo Framers. If not there are always PuG's happening in the Valley. Also go to Argath. Do Argath #1 and Argath #2. These tasks are repeatable every 6 hours. Also very good xp & very easy. The closer you get to level 90 the worse the rewards get. I went from getting 8 AA's to getting 2. Plus you get some cool props to mess with people. ``What a Shaman with a bow!!!`` Or do it for the regular XP. It is nice to have a quick 5 or 6 % XP cushion right after you level up. I tried a lot of others spots. Al'Kabor's Nightmare, The Well(not too bad actually – very sketchy if you get to many adds), The Warrens, Toskirakk, Kurn`s Stronghold, Old Blackburrow, Fortress Mechanotus, Hills of Shade all looking for XP. Go to The Grounds that is where the XP is! Level 88: At this level I was splitting my time between The Grounds and The Valley of Lunanyn. In the VoL there are 2 ditches. The one closest to the Argath zone has a wanderer that can mess things up for you. The other ditch however has 4 static farmer spawn points. These were yellow and red to me. I wasn`t really concerned about whether I got a group or not. I could root-rot these farmers easily. At 87 you get Malosene which adds a damage bonus to your magic DoT`s. Another spot is by Mabus. When I added Malosene to my rotation I dropped the 12) Nuke and moved the Malo AA down my cast bar to the 11th spot and put the Malosene spell gem in its place. You will still need to cast the Malo AA once and awhile if the Malosene gets resisted, which it randomly does. Just cast the AA Malo and then cast the Malosene. Also at level 87 you get the first of our 'quick DoT's' – Nargul's Malady. This is where those AA's you put into DoT crit's start paying off. The base damage starts at 3K per tick. Nargul's was critting for over 16K regularly for me. At 87 you also get a new pet so I will say something about pets. I do not understand why Shaman pets do not benefit from Pet Foci. Anyways it probably wouldn`t help anyways as our pets are <insert bad word here>! I have bought Mage gear and I have bought Defiant gear. I have had my dog buffed to the gills. Our puppy use to be a managble `free` DoT. Now it is a waste of time. Even in groups it next to useless. One riposte from a mob and down goes puppy. From what I have heard, even with all the Pet AA`s maxed our pet is not substantial. I admit I gave up because it was a waste of time, mana and money to get the Dog going and have it die so easily. Level 88, continued : More of the same. Doing HZ task`s, doing Argath #1 & #2 whenever the timers unlocked. The Grounds should be easy and the VoL should be getting easier. Solo or group up. The shaman is lucky as it groups well with any other class(well maybe not Wizards cause they get jealous of our nuking capabilities). Other places I tried for XP : Morell's Castle, around Argath(looters & thieves), South VoL & Beasts Domain. Stay with what works or go exploring. I also tried some of the the other solo Task`s in and around Argath – Gone Traitor Gone, Secure Within, Collecting the Steels. Level 89: I stayed in the Valley except to do Task`s in other zones. Farmer`s are cake. You can kill Soldiers & Rangers but they take way too long to make it worth while. Unless you are in a group. As I said before grouping wasn`t my main focus. I was getting good XP soloing. When I was feeling it I would go and root rot 2 farmers. Grab a new one just as one was about to die – Necro styley. I would group with PuG`s and Guildies if I got the chance. I guess I did 70% solo + 30% in groups. Level 90: So all the time I was leveling from 85 to 89 I was constantly scanning the Bazaar(what else are you going to do when you are sitting in the Lag Pile?). By level 90 I had gotten quite a few level 90 pieces for cheap – less than 10K, mostly around the 3K to 8K area.. I did not bother replacing any of the herioc gear I got at level 85 while leveling unless it was rotting on a kill and I got it for free(another good reason to go to the Grounds!) Time to suit-up! At level 90 one of the first places you should head to is Shard`s Landing. Do the quests Shard`s #1 and Shards #2. Shard`s #2 will teach you the Alaran language. You probably know some from doing those task`s in Argath. Why is this important? You need to have at least a minimum of (50) in Alaran to puchase your level 95 Rank II spells. You also can get a nice cushion for the start of your level or a free 8 or 9 AA`s. At level 90 I went to Erillion, City of Bronze. There are lots of animals that do not summon and can be rooted. I also went back to the Valley and killed a `wraith of Arelis`in the SE end. There is a kill 12 quest called `Who you gonna call ?` You can get the quest from the Rallosian camp in the North part of the Valley. Also if you can start doing them, do some Herioc Adventures in Dead Hill`s. Addicting and good XP. At level 90 I have a spell line up like: 1) Nargul`s Malady II 2) Malicious Decay (yes I still have it!) 3) Undaleen`s Venom II 4) Pocus 5) Ancestral Covenant II 6) Mojo 7) Hex II 8) Halycon Gust II 9) Spinechiller Blood II 10) Nectar of Torment II 11) Petrifying Earth (still!) 12) Malosene II That is where I am at the moment. If I have time maybe I will do a Part II and follow up on my adventures past 90 into level 100. Last things last: Get some Distillate of Clarity XIV and Distillate of Spirituality XIV for when you can`t get any Enchanter love or when your Voice of Precognition wears off. Use your Extended Target Window. Using Canni & the Halcyon `X` HoT while switching between yourself and your target is real easy when you use the ETW. When you are hanging out in the Lag Pile look at the characters around you. Find the ones that look like casters, especially Enchanters, Druids & Clerics. Buff them with a Unity and a SoW.. Do a ` who all <Name>` to find out their class. Great way to get a VoP, a Shieldstone Skin or a Surety. AA`s : Get into the habit of grinding a bunch when you first level up. They are easy to get especially when you get 8 or 10 a task! Some of the ones that I do every level are – Planar Stamina, Planar Wisdom, Armour of Wisdom, Cannabalization, Hastened Cannabalization, Hastened Virulent Paralyisis, Spell Casting Rienforcement, Destructive Cascade, Destructive Fury...etc. For Grouping I use Counterbias Slow II, I have at least one heal and one Hot up, plus a couple of counters like Malosene and Feralescense. I also have my `fast` DoT`s up. I am never the Main Healer in any group I am in. Usually there is a real Cleric or a Merc Cleric. Shamans can be great healers if they have their Healing AA`s all up to date. Merc`s : I hardly ever use Merc`s, even in groups I usually let other people pop theirs. I have tried having merc`s up when I soloed (see the Healer story). The War merc is okay, the Rogue(dps) merc is better, the Wizzie Merc is okay (also tends to stand there and get beat on though?). Merc`s do not take your XP so that is nice...there is no downside of having a Merc out and helping you. Just my personal preference was not to. Why did I stay in the Courtyard of House of Thule for so long? I was new! I did not know anybody or my class(other than basics). I stayed there and learned. I tried all the spells, I tried different mercs, I tried my pet, I tried solo, I tried grouping, I tried singles & doubles. I died...a lot! I had fun! I met other characters who are on my friends list now. I met the members of the Guild that I joined. No one is saying that you have to stay till level 86! I did not start the HZ tasks at 85 because they were very hard to do. Mobs that summon and give you the 5 finger death punch are no fun. Once in awhile if a Guildie was doing them I would tag along. Otherwise I did not bother. I started the first week of Everquest way back in `99. My first character was a Ranger(I remember getting a Fine Steel Longsword and I thought I was Mr.Uber and was going slaughter everything... Banded Armour for 1pp per AC – those were the days...sigh!). My second character was a Barb Shaman just before Kunark. I never looked back. I played up to Omens and then went with some friends to play another online game. When I came back a few months ago I tried some other characters. I got a Wizard up to 90, a Necro up to 90 with an Epic 2.0, an Enchanter up to 89, I even tried a Sk up to 88. None of them were a Shaman! The Shaman is one of the top classes in Everquest. It is one of the top 3 best solo classes(I believe)...Necros get snare & FD, so....the other one is Wizards. Shaman`s get Alchemy which is such a unique and all encompassing trade skill. Race: Go to ZAM wiki under Races and see what each offers. I picked an Iskar for the HP Regeneration Bonus(24 per tick vs 10 per tick sitting at level 65) and the innate Forage ability. Foraging Vegatables and using them to get your baking to 102 (making Vegatable Oil) quickly is enough reason. Get the Foraging AA when you have some spare AA`s as well. Never go hungry! AND finally....do not take my word for any of it. Get out there and explore. Everquest is a HUGE world. There are lots of zones and content.
Post is rather long, but this needs correcting. Disease counters (all kinds of counters) do nothing, they're only a mechanic for removing effects. Effects with Poison counters need cure-poison to remove, effects with disease counters need cure-disease to remove, ditto curses & corruptions. The counters themselves do absolutely nothing. Further, the actual disease resist debuff on Malicious (and other versions of) Decay doesn't help Slow land. While Slow spells have disease counters (as noted above, those counters are only about curing the effect), only rare & pretty bad versions of Slow are on disease resist. Turgurs AA, Counterbias & the rest are Magic resist. Malo and Tash (and some bard things) are what helps Slows land. Malicious Decay is helpful for landing Virulent & Pestilent Paralysis AA roots, and making them harder to break, but this function is unlikely to be worth a spell slot. Higher levels of the Decay spells directly add to the damage disease spells do, but that effect is only better than just-another-spell when it's amplified across many players, like in a raid. When you can get the Pathosis AA at level 95, using it to debuff disease resist some is a freebie, it doesn't take a spell slot. Obviously you do that with every mob. The decay spells, though - a nonraiding shaman should pass on.
12) Bite of the Unkun – Poison Nuke You don't ever use nukes (or DoTs with an initial nuke component) when root rotting - they break root. There is a potion - tonic of efficiency affinity - that extends the duration of detrimental spells. This works on DoTs except the short duration ones. Even using the most current one for your DoT's, you probably only get one extra tic except for maybe the disease DoTs. With the way that focus effects are calculated (something to do with rounding up I think) you can be pretty well over the level of the potion and you still get the extra tic on your DoT. You done have to use the highest (most expensive) one for your level. While it may not sound like much to just add a tic to your DoTs, it does affect your rhythm and you get fewer lost tics on your DoTs. The order you use to pile on your DoTs is also important if you don't want to lose tics. I think I was using 2 fast then 3 magic and then started three nectars and somewhere between the first and third nectar, the quick DoTs are refreshed. Finish the nectars and you have one or two tics to canni and then start with magic again. Don't remember when quick DoTs are ready in that round - I think after the third magic. You want to ramp up quickly and then maintain as many DoTs as you can without dropping tics because a DoT wore off and you're not ready to recast it yet. With that philosophy, I could never rationalize using disease DoTs. They're just too slow and low damage. My thoughts were that I'd rather be using a higher DPS DoT even if I have to recast it. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, the potion lasts a long time (3 hours base I think.)
