My experimental blog about playing a newborn Ranger.

Hey! To anyone who might be interested this is going to be a blog about my new ranger I'm starting up on a live server. For the time being I shall remain anonymous and my server will remain a mystery as well except to say it is a server that has been around since the launch of Everquest. Most likely I will reveal my character name and server at some point, I just don't feel like leading off with it.

A brief history of my previous EQ experience is as follows. I played from the original launch thru Velious. After that I took about a 10 year break, then came back and played a bit about 3 years ago, but just dabbled around and never hit max level. I think it was around the RoF expansion.

My original character was a monk and when I came back last time I played an enchanter. This time I made a Ranger and my goal is to reach max level and join a high end raid guild while learning this class (and sort of relearning the game) from the ground up as well as taking my time and enjoying the ride.


This blog will serve as history of my character as well as a place to ask questions, bounce ideas off other people, give other new people one players perspective on how things are going, where I'm leveling and what equipment I'm using etc... This blog is not about how I'm taking the hardest road or not taking any help from anyone or trying to brag about how good or not good I, or my decisions might be. It's just going to be my own personal experience of leveling up from level 1 to 105.

Hopefully this will be fun and entertaining for people to read, and I'd like to encourage any feedback from the professionals out there. Or if you hate this and hate me you can feel free to call me a piece of trash if you want to too. It's all good.

So let me start by saying I've been mulling over this idea for a couple weeks and so ill have to back track a bit and catch you all up to where I currently am.

My ranger was born in Surefall Glade and blessed by Karana. I choose to go with the Human race. I've always had a real love for the Human race in this game. They are my second favorite race behind Dark Elves. I don't know why, maybe because my first character was a monk. Yeah that has to be it.

After adjusting my UI a bit and handing my note to my guild master for my epic 1 ac tunic, I was off to Qeynos. Unfortunately it was night time, and I immediately regretted my decision of choosing Human as my race. Who chooses stupid humans anyway? I made it to Qeynos in 1 piece tho by simply staying on the path and following the in game map.

Once I arrived safely I began unleashing the fury of my asterisk rusty short sword on all the "a large rats" and "a decaying skeletons" that dared cross my path. After about 5 kills I was level 2. Owned... This game is easy... This went on for a bit and soon I hit level 3, and I added in a few of the other critters that roamed this fine newbie area. Things were really cruising now, ding level 4, this is sure going faster than I rememb.... You have been slain by Fippy Darkpaw.

As I stared down from the birdseye view of my lifeless body the struggles of the old times from 1999 flooded back into my memory and a a a smile came across my face because, I rememberd one of the many things I loved about this game which is just when you start thinking you're the $h!t Norrath will remind you that it's their world, you're just trying to live in it...

The joke was on them tho because I respawned back in SFG and was able to sell some of the lawn trash I collected and get s few spells. A little dot that requires a fire beetle eye... Perfect I just sold my only fire beetle eye for 2 silver but the good news was I could buy it back for over a gold. Maybe I'll just farm another one eh?

So after a few quick spell purchases I headed on back to Qeynos and slashed and kicked my way to level 5. That's when I decided I wanted to go home to my original starting city of Freeport from when I played all those glorious years ago. So I hit the PoK book and headed to Freeport. Holy smokes this place looked different. There are sooooo many mobs now too. In a short time I dinged level 6 and headed out to the common lands..

And this is where I'll leave off tonight. It's getting late and I have work in the morning. Let me know if you enjoyed reading. I'll write more tomorrow. Have a great night.

So it was off to the common lands where the next several levels of my life took place. It was spiders, lions, and bears oh my! I found a little hill where I made my camp not too far from the nektulos forest entrance and began my slaying of shadow wolves, large spiders grizzly bears etc...

I should mention that I had saved a few plat pieces and looted a couple pieces of crude and simple defiant armor. I also used my gift of legacies lost for a better weapon and got a crude defiant sword so I was lookin' good, feelin' good, and ready to murder some internet monsters. I should also mention that so far I have not used a mercenary. I wanted to actually play my character a little bit and not just have the tank merc power level me up.

Leveling sure goes fast at low levels and before I knew it I was level 9 or so. At this point I started to take on some orcs at the large orc camps there in the common lands. I had to to train a few of the named ones off and lead them to the guards because they were red cons and they liked to punch me in the face. Once I got the camp split up pretty good it was non stop action. I was wondering at first if I would be able to hold the camp and keep my health and mana up high enough before things got out of hand. I was barely able to hold on and once I dinged a couple more levels holding the camp got easier and I cruised in up till about level 14. Made some good money here as well and when I was done selling all the stuff I found I had a good couple hundred plat.

After selling my goods at one of the local merchants there in the common lands I set out for my next destination High Hold Pass. I made my way thru the treacherous Kithicor Forest by hugging the left wall all the way up thru the zone. Once into HHP I fought my way up to the large orc camp near the zone. I was able to fish a couple single or double pulls out of that camp and kill them. By taking my time the first few go arounds I was able to stay alive and gain a couple more levels. Things here got easier and once I was 18 or so I could clear the entire camp without too much trouble.

I camped out and didn't have much play time the next couple of days but I managed to still level out of here at about level 22 or so. I even picked up a Shraelok Pack during my little stint here. Exp went fast and all in all I was very pleased with my time in HHP.

Tomorrows adventures will lead us to High Hold Keep and the picklaws!

Until next time see you in Norrath!

I'd love to see your take on the TLP servers while leveling. But the idea of a blog is awesome!

This is a fun read I love your writing style. I'll be eagerly awaiting the next entry

On to High Keep! I had fond memories of HK from my early years with my monk. Having a bank so close to where the mobs are was especially great for a monk back when weight was such a huge deal in the game, and even coin had weight. I recall as a monk always destroying my copper and never being able to carry any good loot like fine steel weapons or bronze armor and heavy things like that to sell and make money. It was a constant struggle.

Anyways, I had such great memories of this place, and I was really excited to be here. I should mention that I had purchased a new computer since the last time I played EQ and my maps were not all working correctly. I had some trouble navigating my way thru the updated HHP and was struggling to find my way down to the picklaws. At this point I started googling EQ maps and trying to install some new and updated maps but could not find the proper links from mapfiend. EQ resource seemed to only have the latest few expansion maps and I was really starting to get frustrated. Finally I came across a link to "Brewall" maps. I literally just followed his instructions on his page and quickly had a new set of really amazing maps. I highly recommend them.

So now that I have maps, I made my way down to the merchants and banker to handle my necessary business transactions. After that it was down to the cellar I went. I took one look at the first picklaw guard at the bottom of the stairs.... Red con... Well that's fine, I really don't feel like going back outside to the orcs, and I have been keeping up with my defiant gear so I should be okay. Let's try shall we. Pull with snare, 3 reds come *sigh* well I guess I can bring them up to the guards. I was able to root one of them and back up a bit and try to fight just two, after 3 more attempts I couldn't get another root to stick. I was able to get one of the picklaws to about 40% health or so, but I had to run. So it was up I went and my good friend Captain Bosec had my back along with a few other forgettable guards. They dispatched the baddies in short order and much to my pleasant surprise I was awarded full exp for the one that I had wounded.

After licking my wounds a bit I went back down to see what other trouble I could find. I remembered what we used to call the "Lookout" room to the right due to the lower level picklaw lookouts that spawned in there. In there were 2 yellow cons and a solo white con in the corner. I was easily able to carve up the white con, and then take on the 2 yellows without too much trouble. Another red con outside the room was taken down after I healed up a bit. That left just 1 other yellow for me to handle. After he was down I had enough time for about a 80% recovery before he first repop. Another red con down and let the cycle repeat.

Let me just say that the exp here was amazing, and before I knew it I was lvl 25. I figured this was a good round level to go back to the PoK and check the bazaar for some cheap upgrades, get new spells, train with my guild master etc... Since this was my original account I had full veteran aa's, so with one flick of the throne of Heros button I was back in the guild lobby. I headed out to PoK and picked my latest spells plus a couple levels more. I had to hit my guild master and train up some of my spell skills I had been neglecting. I took a little time to set up proper spell sets, one for buffing, and one for fighting. Even at level 25 I'm really enjoying the diversity of the ranger class, as they seem to get a bit of everything. I was really looking forward to level 28 when I would get spirit of wolf. Anyways, after that I picked up a couple better cheaper weapons, and made the run back up to HHK. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I grabbed a couple damage shield potions for my level while I was in the bazaar.

When I got back down to the picklaws the room was much easier to split this time. I was well prepared, fully self buffed, new swords, and a fresh damage shield. The next 3 or 4 levels flew by with ease and it was time to call it a night.

Tomorrows update will move to the lower floors beneath HIgh Keep and on to my next destination.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you back here tomorrow!

P.S. Most of these updates are typed from my phone while laying in bed. This helps me fall asleep, but please forgive the occasional typos...

Around level 28 is when I decided to strike first blood on the lower floors of High Keep. Clearing the first floor was great, by the time I was done with it and healed up the repops would begin. After a fresh clearing and rebuff including my newly acquired, and highly anticipated SoW, I was ready to pull my first picklaw warrior. He was a solo pull and although I was able to down the red con warrior he was a formidable foe and he took me to under 40% health. I knew there was no way I was ready for the room of 3 yet. Luckily there was one more spawn in the hall that was a solo pull so I healed up, and dispatched him as well.

I decided to do a couple more rounds of clearing of the first floor while adding in those 2 mobs to gain a couple more levels. The exp was still surprisingly good even tho some of the mobs were starting to turn light blue. Once I dinged 30 I was ready to try the first room on the next floor down. I rebuffed and devised a plan. I was going to root the yellow con in the back and then kill the healing mob first and then worry about the other 2. So I get my line of sight on the mob in the back of the room and cast my root spell. Resist.... 3 mobs come rushing out of the room at me. They must have been really excited thinking finally something to do! We've been sitting here since the servers came up weeks ago. I cast a second root. Resist again... Okay screw it let me start killing these, I got this. A picklaw seer begins to cast a spell.... Your feet adhere to the ground. w t f.. Okay now I'M rooted. How did these little green focks figure out MY plan and use it against me? Oh well, not much to do now, but duke it out. Let's fight this out and see who is left standing shall we? I shall cut you down like my ancestors before me! Do you goblins not know of the lineage of the Rangers of the North? You cannot possibly think you could... Oh perfect a repop, now there are 4 picklaws beating on me and I have only nearly killed the one. Ughh... well let's just say I managed to kill one of them before I died. It was a brave and valiant effort. I shall be rewarded with a brisk jog back to High Keep to try again.

So after running back, buffing, and clearing the bottom floor, I was ready to try again. This time I would hurry so I would not get respawned on again. My plan was sound; I had just gotten unlucky with resists. I had killed the caster so I didn't need to worry about being rooted again. This time I would prevail! And so I did. My root landed first try, and I was able to actually root off the second mob, and kill the first. After that I switched to my snare and proceeded to slay these demon goblins back into darkest depths of cyberspace, and turn them back into all zeros of the binary code of computers!

I healed up again and worked my way down to the bottom room of picklaw raiders. This room too, was cleared using the same strategy as the last, and before I knew it I had the entire cellar of High Keep on farm. Within a couple hours I dinged level 34 and I decided to deploy one of my favorite leveling strategies.

One of my favorite tricks for leveling is to save my lesson of devoted for when I've almost out leveled a place but not quite. I do this because I can milk another easy level with almost no risk of dying. It saves me from having to go find and learn a new place to level and hope things go smoothly enough that I don't waste a lesson. So that's what I did. I popped lesson there in High Keep and gained another level and got nearly halfway to level 36. Once lesson wore off and exp slowed down I figured it was time move on from this little corner of the world. It had been really good to me. From the Orc camps outside to the picklaws here in just a couple of nights I went from about level 14 or 15 to level 35 while making hundreds of plat.

I turned in all my left goblin ears to my main man Captain Bosec and he gave me a bit of experience and a ton of faction. Now that I was regarded warmly by the citizens of High Keep it was off to my next adventure!

I knew just where to head. All I needed was a quick resupply and I would be on my way!

Thanks for reading... Check back again for more Ranger adventures!

It was hot. There was a foul stench in the air that would make the tiny hairs in your nose curl. A musty suffocating smell like a dirty rat's nest that lingered heavy, and filled your lungs with every breath. The echoing sound of wolf like wailing could be heard from all directions. Snarling and sniffing sounds played tricks on your mind as you could hear them from nearly every passage way.

Nagafen's Lair...

The fiery dungeon carved out inside of a volcano that was an endless labrynth of caves, tunnels, and lava. Filled with angry hungry kobolds, fiery insects, flaming Giants, and the one true dragon who once ruled over the entirety of Norrath, Nagafen. A dangerous place indeed.

Luckily I had prepared ahead of time. I picked up my all my new spells and set them up properly as my new buffs and fighting sets. I knew that going into a place as dangerous as this would require some help. At this point I decided I needed a stout companion to accompany me in my adventures.. Hmmm which tank mercenary would strike fear into the heart my enemies? I got it. Ogre! So off I went to buy my only friend. His name was.... Stupid.. So let's just call him Ogre!

Ogre is a good friend he's strong and stupid. Most of the time he just does his own thing and attacks whoever he wants instead of following my lead. Kind of like a honey badger.. He just doesn't give a sh:t. That's fine tho it's usually not much of a problem.

So here me and Ogre are, just inside the tunnels of soulesek B. Time to get some kobold blood on our blades! We round the first corner and attack. The kobold snarls and nashes his teeth as he lunges toward us swiping his grizzly bear sized claws at our necks. He's injured and surely going to die as his buddy from around the corner comes to check on him. He leaps into the fight stinking and snarling, trying to get close enough to take a bite of man flesh. Ogre proves his worth from the start, cutting them nearly in half with his two swords. A red and yellow con taken down without barely breaking a sweat. This Ogre friend of mine will likely wind up being the bestest friend I ever paid for (and that includes the friend I found at the dwarven brothel which was appropriately named Beauties with Beards.)

So on we went thru the dungeon halls as time passed our experience grew and soon we were chopping these mangy animals down with ease. Two, three, even four at a time were no match for me and my Ogre friend. A couple times we took dirt naps because someone... *cough* *cough* forgot to snare the chickensh!t dogs as they tried to run away and call for help. Sometimes too many of them would join in and all of sudden my brave, battletested Ogre would flee the battle and take off running who knows where down the endless maze of tunnels.

Once again the exp here was great. My first session here netted me a few levels and the mobs were still dark blue. A fine session this turned out to be with more Naggy Lair adventures in store for tomorrow! See you there.

In all of your adventures you fail to mention if you are using a bow. This tool is the Rangers bread and butter. Start an attack with /autofire and sit back and watch the arrows fly until they are in melee range. Hopefully by then Ogre has their attention and you can maintain a barrage of arrows until the mob is dead.
Once you start to get AA's and get the endless quiver, you only need one arrow in your inventory. Other AA'sm such as Head Shot, become very useful, although it got nerfed really badly.

Good luck my friend, and may the green mists of Karana bless you.

Thanks my friend!

My bow and arrow discovery is coming soon.... I didn't have a ton of extra coin to afford a decent bow and a steady supply of arrows, nor did I wish to spend my time tradeskilling when I was so pumped to go out and slay internet monsters. However, let's just say when I do finally get around to trying it out... I wished I had taken some advice like yours sooner.

The next installment brings us deeper into Nagafen's Lair.

Ogre and I are getting along great. I pay him money, he pretends to be my friend, while he's snappin' necks an cashin' checks. By now we are young into our 40's. We were able to enter the main area with guardian and his other two named buddies I can't remember their names. Each room is a 4 or 5 pull so there was a ton of action. If you aren't careful or Ogre decides to go all "honey badger" on me things can get outta hand quickly. A couple times I'd have to make a run for the exit to stay alive. Ogre being the generous friend that he's paid to be would usually stand and fight to the death while I chickened out and headed for the zone line. If he ever did die I would always take the time to fully rebuff us. I needed to keep my magic skills up. It's no fun literally fizzling all of your mana all the time because you neglected your spells.

The kobolds were still decent exp at at 42 but my thirst for some fresh blood drew me deeper into the firey tunnels. As I ventured deeper in I stumbled across a few lava duct crawlers. These creepy 8 legged bugs were significantly harder than the kobolds, they had much more hp as well. It was something new and different so I roamed this area for awhile being careful not to get too many adds. After a couple more levels I decided to go even further in and try some fire giants. The first one I came across was still red at level 46, how red I wasn't sure. I moved in for the kill and Ogre joined in shortly after. These guys have tons of hp, and while fun I could tell it was just going to be too slow going to get a good amount of exp for the time spent. We finished off 3 or 4 of them and then made the decision to go do a last lesson burn at the easy kobolds.

Having got my fill of Naggy's Lair and dinging level 48 it was time to move on. I couldn't honestly really think of where I wanted to go next, or even what would be a good spot to at least finish my day off at level 50. After going back to PoK and resupplying I figured why not give old seb a try.
It had been years since I had been in old seb but it was another place I had fond memories of.

Since I was too lazy to really look up the best way to run there, I had the brilliant idea of just taking the FV stone from PoK and "finding my way"...

Big mistake.

I won't pretend to try and remember the route that I actually took, or how long it took before I finally found my way, but it was stupid. Add to that the amazing human night vision and it was a trip I would like to forget and not soon repeat.

Anyways, the end result was pretty anti climactic. I finally found the entrance and zoned in. The first mobs were a yellow and white con. They were killed without too much trouble but they seemed to have more hp than I remembered. As I pushed my way in further I didn't run into to too many problems. Ogre was able to take 2 or 3 frogs at a time without much trouble. I stayed for about an hour or so and was just about to hit level 50 when my wife walked in the room,and started asking me questions about nothing important and I forgot to snare one of the frogs I was fighting...
I look back at my screen and my extarget window is full with mobs and I couldn't remember how to zone out of this frog forsaken place. I accepted my fate and took the death like the glorious kings of old.

When I came too back in the Pland of Knowledge, I knew I would have to seek out a new, fun and reliable place for exp. but that would have to wait until tomorrow.


Hope you at enjoying! If you have any comments or advice to share please feel free. Even tho I have left and out leveled these places if there a new people reading who may benefit from some tips please feel free to share. I'm sure they would appreciate and it never hurts
For any of us to learn new things.

Thanks for reading!

See you guys tomorrow.

Brings back memories of reading Friday Night in Norath many years ago. You have a fun writing style and I hope you make it to the Uber Raiding guild some day so I can see some raids through your eyes.

After the debacle in sebelis I did some soul searching... Or rather Internet searching on where a good place might be to for the level 50 range. I came across Almar's Guide for EQ which had a suggestion for the Plane of Hate from lvl 50 to 60 so I figured I'd give that a try. The only way I knew to get there was the guild hall so I decided to make a guild to have my own easy access.

<One Man Wolf Pack> was taken so I just made a silly giberish name and zoned into my hall. I figured the innoruk stone was the right one, and my guess turned out to be right.

There I was a fresh soul for the demons of hate to steal away. Now my memory of PoH is much different than this current place. I remember as a monk having to FD pull this zone for my guild raids back in the day, and you could get some outrageous trains if you weren't careful. I remember Plane of Fear being worse, but still this place was no picnic for the first time your guild set foot in this place all those years ago. When I went to pull the first mob I figured me and Orge were gonna have our hands full. I wasn't sure how many mobs were gonna come from all the nooks and crannies in this place. It was a red con little rock statue guy (I think that was its technical name) I can't recall its actual name tho. Anywho, it was a red con and it seemed no matter what I did I couldn't get a single spell to land on it. No matter tho, he didn't call any of his friends for back up and he didn't try to run away while low on health.

Now I don't remember too many epic battles taking place here but let's talk about some of the really good things about hunting in this zone.

Let me get the one bad thing out of the way first which is the mobs have a lot of hp because this is technically a raid zone. That also makes the out of combat timer 5 mins which does kinda blow. The other is that until you learn your way around the mobs seem a bit spread out so you might have to look around a bit to start your next kill. Okay so that was 3 kinda bad things not 1, but they really weren't all that bad and I had little to no trouble dealing with them.

Some of things I really liked about this zone were none of the mobs ran ever. The agro radius was really small making for easy single or double pulls. The coin loot was pretty good and the armor exchange for gems in PoK made it one of the best places so far for me to make some money and get ahead with some extra plat. Also the respawn time was pretty good and there was a steady supply of mobs. For the first couple hours I was avoiding the cleric mobs but as more and more respawns happened more and more clerics were showing up so something had to give. Let me tell you, these mobs blow for a ranger at least because I had no way of really stunning them to prevent their complete healing. Most of the time me and Orge would have to kill them 3 or 4 times before they ran out of mana. I tried many strategies to interrupt their casting but just could not do it. After putting in some time and leveling up a bit, once they were light blue they seemed a bit easier to interrupt and most of the time we could kill them first shot.

I pretty much followed the advice given on Almar's Guide and spent the next 2 or 3 nights here just grinding away. All in all I had a pretty good time here.

One really cool thing that happened while I was here was a 105 Ranger popped in the zone, I think he took one look at me and some pity swelled up in heart. He asked me what and how I was doing and we talked for a bit. I told him I was a returning player and was loving playing a ranger. I explained that I was determined to level up and start raiding some day. He asked me what kind of bow and quiver I was using, and I told him I didn't really have one and actually was a bit confused on how the bow and auto fire and quiver and range attackthing thing really worked. He seemed a bit flabbergasted at me and I suddenly felt a bit inadequate as a ranger, like I had missed my true calling or something. I knew that rangers used bows but I was honestly waiting until I hit 59 for endless quiver because I didn't really have the money or the time to get my own arrows.

Anyhow this nice level 105 ordered me to return to PoK at once and told me he would set me up with some stuff to help me out archery wise. I was really excited. When I met up with him here in PoK he gave me a quiver, a few hundred ancient arrows and a defiant bow for my level. He took some time and explained how it all fit together and said should I focus on getting 59 and 60 to get endless quiver and headshot. I thanked him profusely and told him I would pay him back someday when I was more capable and he just asked that I would pay it forward to some other lowly noob at some point. I told him I would.

What a nice guy this ranger was, and I always enjoy meeting great people like this in this game. Everquest was always full of helpful and nice people. I mean, here I was a lowly noob in his early 50's and some max level character sees me and stops and takes a good 45 minutes of his time to help me and explain to me how to do some things that will really help my character. I don't think in many of today's modern mmo's that you'll find a lot of players willing to help this much with nothing really to gain for themselves.

Anyways, I thanked him some more and he sent me on my.

Back to plane of hate!


Tomorrow will consist of my a bit more PoH and my first head shots as a ranger.

So here I am back in the Plane of Hate about 70ish percent into level 57. I took the advice of the ranger who so kindly helped me, and setup my bow, quiver, and ammo slot with all my new toys..

Ummm excuse me..... I'm shooting arrows for over 1000 damage...... W.. T.. F.. Why did no one tell me about this? Oh, it must be because I never asked, and had no effing clue. I pulled a little ghast or goul mob or whatever they're called, Ogre engages, and I started shredding him with arrows. I mean, pretty much I'm Robin muther effing Hood at this point. For reasons unknown to me every arrow is doing double damage and I'm pretty much the best Everquest player in the world. Thank you...You're welcome...

No, seriously tho I was hyped. I could not believe how fast these mobs were dying. I was pulling as fast as I could, the mobs health was just chunking down 8, 9, 10 percent at a time. I was completely blown away.

I couldn't take it. I hit lesson of the devoted and continued chewing thru mobs. Right away ding 58. I went a little deeper in and found some more dark blue mobs. Breakneck speed now, Ogre on a rampage, me going straight hamburglar on any and every foul creature in sight. Before I knew it Ding 59. Are you serious? Endless quiver! Throw some plutonium in the engine of this hype train and pick up some speed, because I'll never need another arrow again!

Lesson subsides but level 60 is right around the corner. 15 short minutes later and DING level 60. Headshot! Okay so pretty much all I knew about headshot was that the mobs had to be dark blue or lower, and a humanoid. Well there was plenty of dark blues around still in PoH but not any humanoids... Everything that was humanoid was undead so figured they wouldn't count.

So I opened this door to s decent sized room and there are 2 clerics of hate standing there staring back at me. Hmmmmm I wonder if I can headshot thes.... Bam! First shot, cleric died... I could have sworn The low deep bassed slow sounding voice sounded in my headphones... You know the one..Heeasadshooooot. Now all of sudden the hardest mobs in the zone become the easiest, and it was no problem shooting out another level here in PoH.

Seriously guys I can't tell you how surprised, excited, and hyped I was for all this to take place... I did not know Rangers were this badass especially at this level. This truly was of those few moments I'll never forget. I had tons of fun figuring that all out and seeing the power a ranger has.

Thanks again for reading!

Hope you enjoyed it.

At the time when Everquest was new, there were news groups on something called List Servers, I think. There were several Everquest groups among them, some mostly spam, but one was a fine community with good advice and entertaining information. Why mention that here? There was a character named Monual who posted Monual's Adventures. Like you, he posted with flavor and imagination his tactics and strategies and opinions. I miss him. But long may he live, wherever he is. And the same to you. You have reminded me of him.

Time for some Hot Zone action. Understanding that the hot zones have recently changed, my adventures have not yet caught up to present time. So at level 60 I picked up the Hot zone quest from Mr. Teek for level 55 and 60 I went to the Bloodfields first.

I forgot to mention this before, but at level 50 before I went to the Plane of Hate I tried to do the level 50 hot zone quest in Corathis Creep or whatever that place was, and I failed miserably. I mean... I couldn't even kill one of those cute little purple mushrooms, but Ogre couldn't either so I didn't feel so bad. Our Ego's had suffered a mighty blow... The tiny purple mushrooms were invincible (they complete healed and hit really hard). So that is when we decided to move to PoH.

Anyways, I zoned into the Bloodfields and had to kill 5 dragorns. They were wrecked easily with Headshot... I could get used to this. I was able to clear out all the dragorns near the zone in before they even respawned. I decided to stay here and just take advantage of this perfect spot. Headshot was still so new and I was pretty excited to find an entire area full of headshottable baddies, right at the zone in no less. I hit my lesson and me and ogre crushed these dragorns with ease.

I know that the pro's headshot with no merc up but I was still getting used to it and there was lots of adds. It helped to just have Ogre take them all on, and chase them around while I shoot them down from afar. Also I found that it was hard to snare and root 5 different mobs with single target spells. I was still too young to have vinelash.

After picking up a couple levels here I moved to Undershore to complete the level 60 hot zone quest. It was awesome here as well. Tons of monsters here could be headshot too, but we had to be a little more careful here. The mobs were tougher and much more aggressive, but make no mistake they died too. Every now and then Ogre would get overwhelmed and poof into thin air, or there would be too many mobs and I'd have to retreat and zone out. I've been thinking that's kind of hilarious actually that mercenaries don't die and leave and a corpse. They just poof and disappear.

Exp over all was starting to slow a little bit. I mean in relation to how fast the levels were coming pre 50, but I guess that is to be expected.

I spent the next 2 or 3 nights basically doing this same routine. picking up the hot zones for level 60 and 55, and grinding out my lesson of devoted in Undershore. In the meantime I was doing some research on headshot to figure out where I should go next. All the stuff I came across was from when headshot used to only work on light blue mobs. Apparently it got changed awhile back and I couldn't really find any updated guides on it.

I decided I would take some of that information and just speed it up. For instance there was a guide that talked about Headshotting the Plane of Fire at level 80. That was a long ways away for me so I looked up the level of the mobs there and decided I could go there at about level 66 and maybe have some success.

...And that is where tomorrow's journey will take us. From what I read the Plane of Fire was the bread and butter for headshotting, and a classic zone for ranger leveling. I was anxious to learn the ropes and leave my mark in the Plane of Fire like so many Outriders before me.

Until next time...

After spending some time selling, resupplying, training, learning new spells, and making new spell sets I was ready for my first adventure in the plane of fire.

Long side note: I've always enjoyed the so called maintenance side of Everquest. The little things that make going out and hunting more fun. Things like having a few clean bags just waiting to be filled with vendor stuff to make plat. Checking the bazaar for maybe a new weapon for your level and lucking out and finding a good price. Having proper spell sets ready so rebuffing and getting back to exping is fast and efficient.

I've always loved how the little things just add up to make a difference. Everquest was always about adding a little piece here or there. A small upgrade here, a new clicky there. An epic weapon here, a new augmentation there. Any one of these things by themselves usually won't make much of a difference, but when you start adding them all up together that's when your character really starts to shine. I always appreciated what a difference a well put together character looks like compared to a power leveled one that couldn't fight its way out of a wet paper bag.

That's why I take the time to look for equipmeant upgrades that I can afford. I read all my spells and test them and try to find the best ways to use them. It's why I bother to save even some of the crappy augs and move them to a new crappy piece of gear I find. I just like trying to get the most I can outta my character, and I'm noticing more and more that soon things are gonna catch up to me gear wise, and I'm probably gonna really struggle. That's okay tho. I'll get thru it by being diligent and building a solid foundation for my character to grow on. That's why I wanted to start from level 1 and sort of relearn the game. Soon I'm going to start taking some time each night to piece together my epic and look for any other really important things I need to do as far as quests or clickies etc... If anyone knows of some ranger must haves please pass the information along.

What do you guys think? Am I crazy for looking at my character that way? Let me know what you guys think about it. Are you currently leveling up a character and taking this approach? i can imagine a lot of people here have been playing so long they could probably pick any class at max level and be just fine. I just felt the need to really learn what the heck is going on. There are so many spells and aa's it can get overwhelming.

Okay so our adventure leads us to the plane of fire. This was to be my first time here. I knew only what information I could gleen from the World Wide Web so after zoning in I headed to where I thought the famous C1 camp was located. I climbed up high onto the side wall of the zone and levitated over towards the castle structure. I floated down far enough to land on one the side walls. Right away there were mobs all up and down this long wall. I was invis so I was able to pick a good spot where I could safely engage just one mob. With things looking like mostly single pulls I didn't figure to need Orge around so I told him to take a little break.

I started the mob off with a root and then began plunking him with arrows. My strategy at this time was to always start the mobs off with root, then use my aa snare so if root breaks I have plenty of time to recast it before the mobs reach me. As soon as he died I just moved along wall and started in on the next one. This kept on for awhile as I made my way down the next floor, and eventually down to the ground floor. In the middle of this camp there were quite a few more mobs packed together, and on the other side was another wall I could make my way back up filled with lots more single pulls. I spent a little time pulling on the ground floor in the middle but I kept getting lots of adds so eventually I headed up that opposite wall with all the single pulls.

Exp was pretty good here and over the next 2 to 3 hours I was able to reach level 70. Already these mobs here were mostly light blue. It was getting late but I wanted to find the C2 camp before I crashed so I'd know exactly where to start tomorrow. I finally figured out that to get out of this current camp I had to actually use the proper exit.. I kept trying to just go up to the top of the walls and levitate off them. After all, that was how I had gotten here in the first place.

Once I eventually found my way out of C1 I basically just looked on the map and made a logical guess where C2 was. There was what looked like another building or structure similar to C1 but far off tucked in the corner of the map. So I invis'd and ran up and hugged the wall and made my way over. Let me say that I love the fact that Rangers get an instant cast aa invis. I mean, I can cast it on the run without having to keep the spell memorized. It's very convenient.

My guess turned out to be correct and I found the entrance of C2. The baddies were all nice and dark blue again. I couldn't help myself, and I had to "test" them out before going to bed. It was a successful night here and after slaying several of these new dark blue guys it was time for bed.

Thanks for reading!

The next night brings us back to the C2 camp. I happened to look closer at my /claim and found a bottle of adventure lll so I decided to claim it and see if I could pull a few levels here in the plane of fire. After all if people used to headshot here at level 81 and and 82 I figured exp should be pretty good at 70. As it turns out, with a 50% exp bonus running it was quite good. I just had to be careful not to get too many adds. Any more than 4 at a time and keeping them all rooted becomes a hassle.

Ding 71, ding 72, ding 73, once the 4 hour exp potion finally wore I stopped to rebuff and took a short break to let the mobs respawn. Once I hit level 73 I got the vinelash spell. This spell is a full blown game changer. For those who don't know, like me until I used it first hand. It roots all mobs in front of you for a pretty good distance away for 30 seconds. After the 30 seconds is over the mobs become automatically snared for 30 seconds. The spell has about a 7 second cool down so there is always plenty of time to just reroot everything. It has a pretty narrow cone of effectiveness but the mobs don't have to be like directly in front of you for the spell to land. It works really well.

So after most of the camp respawned I clicked lesson and went for it. My goal was to hit 75 here and look for some new equipment in the bazaar and then try to find my next place to headshot. I made it about 65% into 74 and just had to grind out the rest. After a long trip to PoK and the bazaar I wanted to take a break from headshotting. No question it was the easiest form of getting exp, but I wanted to still keep my melee skills up as well as get a feel for some of the aa's I had picked up.

I decided to pick up the hot zone quests for 70 and 75. Getting to the grizzly bears in ocean green hills proved to be a PITA... And finally when I was able to they were red con weak mobs but still put up a good fight. I decided to try out myself as a tank and used my healer merc. It worked but just felt really weird overall. After struggling thru the grizzly bears it was time to hit the level 70 hot zone wall of slaughter. I made my way in and killed the merkgliders without much trouble.

That was how I approached the next few days. I would knock out the hot zone quests and was able to find a new headshot place in direwind cliffs. Right when you zone in if you follow the wall to the right there are groups of 5 to 6 mobs. 1 vinelash will usually lock them all down and you can let the arrows do the rest.

Even with this being a very good spot with constant pulls and no downtime exp has started to slow quite a bit. I was able to gain about a level a day by combining the hot zone quests with a lesson at direwind cliffs and an hour or 2 of headshot grinding on top of that. I stuck this out for the week and was able to reach level 80 by this past Friday night.

My next update should catch me up to where I am currently and we'll go from there.

Hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!

Tonight's update is listed in the Veteran's Forum.

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...-from-1-to-85-long-also-advice-needed.232275/

My name and server is at the bottom of that page if you were curious and the post is basically a review of the game so far from 1 to 85 and a few questions on where to go from here.

Have no fear... the updates are not over. I will still be posting my adventures on this blog.

For those who have enjoyed reading thus far please feel free to leave your opinions here or on the other post in the veterans forum if you so desire. I'm unsure how I want to continue my journey from 85 to 105 so any insight or input I can get will be of value.

Thank you

Thanks for the blog, very interesting to a fellow returning player.

Out of curiosity, do you have any /played times at any of the milestones you've reached? I'd like to compare progress, but I only play in tiny bite-sized chunks, an hour here and an hour there, so it's difficult to compare to a # of (presumably longer) sessions.

Sorry Theophastus I don't really have any /played times available. Even if I did they would be pretty skewed from going afk for long periods of time.


Time for my next update.

I took a couple days after hitting level 84 to decide how I wanted to approach the next chapter of leveling up. I also had some busy things come up in my schedule so it seemed like the perfect time for a break.

After reading the advice of many folks here who are 105 I decided that boxing seemed like a good choice.

I agonized somewhat over my decision on what other class to box or if I should box 1 or 2 more characters. When I dinged 84 I figured I'd go with the heroic option and at least get a little exp for 3500 db cash. So I bought the heroic option and upgraded my ranger.

I decided to go with 2 other characters to box and have a nice well rounded group with mercenaries. After much thought I added a shaman to the group for slows and extra heals and buffs. I also decided to add a warrior in for tanking purposes. My thoughts are that I eventually want to be able to do all the group content and I figured a fully buffed out warrior will give me he best chance with that.

After creating these new characters I had to take a significant amount of time to look thru the aa's and set up hot keys and macros to make life a little less complicated.

I've decided not to use any other software and just go for it the old fashioned way. I took the time to set up autofollow keys and assist keys etc..

By the time I had set everything up the way I wanted to and got things figured out, all I pretty much had time for was to do the mercenary quest for my j5 mercs.

It took a long time to do simply because I had to get used to things. Overall it was fun tho and tomorrow's adventures will continue in Feerott the dream where I'll be attempting to get my heroic augments.