EQ2 in 2022 - A Brief Overview (and book!)

One of my large projects for both my guild and the game at large is collecting information to turn into in-game books. My first major book is this one aimed at new and returning players about major points to know coming back playing on live servers.

HUGE thank you to everyone who's helped me get up-to-date with the game coming back, as it's enabled me to create this guide and pay it forward.

The only major thing that will need updating is the Shadowed Ethereal Trackers with Renewal of Ro. I'm not sure what those are doing since I'm not on beta.

If there's anything I missed, or anything that needs to be added, do let me know and I'll edit the content below the break. Otherwise just copy + paste into your book of choice.

If you're on Maj'dul I am selling these at a variety of price points! Look up "EQ2 in 2023" on the broker. I will have them available starting as soon as y'all think it's good to publish.

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EQ2 in 2023: What You Need to Know
By Nari of Maj'Dul

~*~

Hello, friend! Here is a quick overview of everything you'll need to jump in the game no matter what level you are. Everything covered here will help you be your best, especially come end-game. EQ2 Wiki will have more information on everything covered, and when in doubt ask questions in-game, in EQ2's Discord, or on the EQ2 Forums.

A huge thank-you to the community for helping me with my own questions and enabling me to create this guide for others.

------ Familiars ------

Quest: Familiars Wild
Level: 5+
FtP: Yes

You'll want to collect and train familiars with this daily quest. There are 4 different qualities: Treasured, Legendary, Fabled, and Celestial. You can level them, but save levelling for the Fabled or Celestial levels. Keep your duplicates! You can #feed# them to your chosen familiar to level it up to 10. Items to level your familiars can also be obtained by doing Overseer quests and the Panda timeline. Once they are max level, you can purchase a Familiar Infusion to enhance its stats.

------ Mercenaries ------

Level: Any
FtP: Under lvl 110

There are 4 qualities of mercs: Treasured, Legendary, Fabled, and Celestial. You can train your mercenaries to make them more potent/powerful, up to 20 levels. Make sure you do it on one who's quality is worth putting time into. The higher your merc's levels, the more armour and accolades they can wear. There are mercenary contracts you can buy from the broker as well, but you'll need access to the zones they're in, so buy carefully! Once you have your merc, you can unlock them using DBC to receive a battalion buff. There are Mercenary Infusions available to enhance these buffs. Always use mercenaries from the latest expansion if you are going for end-game content as their buffs will match the expansion's required stats.

------ Deity Quests ------

Level: Varies
FtP: Under lvl 110
You can choose a deity to follow! Through quests you are granted blessings to use in combat and a pet to enhance your stats that you can further buff through AA points. Bristlebane is a popular choice, but go with what you like. There are also Deity Abilities you may access through the EQ2 menu for more blessings to help your adventures. You pay for those with tithe which is earned through adventure experience.

------ Panda ------

Level: Any
Quest: The "Travels" of Yun Zi Timeline
FtP: No

You must be an All Access member to have access to this timeline. Started in Sundered Frontier, these are a series of quests started in 2017 with 9 quests offered each year. You must start with the 2017 quests first all the way to the current year, but you only have to complete the quest series on one character as reward access is account-wide. These are lengthy, so start them as soon as you can!

------ Overseer ------

Level: Any
FtP: No

If you are an All Access member, your first tools are accessed through your /claim window. This should give you your first agents and a quest. You can buy more charged (temporary) quests for 0c from Stanley Parnem found at both Qeynos and Freeport docks. Also be sure to pick up your daily Heritage Quest from the black market in your city # Arabella F'arquharson for both Qeynos and Freeport. Doing these as often as possible will get your Overseer level up, therefore rewarding you with higher tier loot. 40 is the max level at the time of this writing. You can improve your chances at winning bonus chests by adding your unlocked mercs to missions, and lessen your chances for mishaps with acquired familiars.

------ Mounts ------

Levels:
Ground - Any
Flying # lvl 85+
Mount Training # Any
Mount Gear # lvl 110+
FtP: Under lvl 110

Purchasable at any level with in-game coin or Daybreak Cash in the Marketplace. You may train your mounts just like mercenaries, and starting at level 100 you can gear them up with saddles, hackamores, barding, and more. Like mercs, train the ones worth putting time into such as the ones found end-game. There are Mount Infusions available to enhance their buffs and bonuses as well, so pick those up.

------ Signature Lines ------

Level: Any
FtP: Under lvl 110

Signature lines in each expansion are always a good way to explore that content, but they become a requirement if you want to fly within some of the later zones such as Blood of Luclin, Visions of Vetrovia, and more. You can complete either adventure or tradeskill signature lines to do this.





------ Class Epics ------

Level: 80, 90 and 100
FtP: Yes for lvls 80 and 90, no for lvls 100 and 125

Class epic buffs were first introduced at lvl 80 in Rise of Kunark through epic weapons. The quests are still available, but they later turn into more easily obtainable Epic spells at level 90 in Sentinel's Fate with the #Fiery Jewel of the Underfoot# and #Epic Reprecussions# questlines. The second tier of Epic spells at level 100 are purchasable in Sanctus Seru from Maesy Colmiter. Spell upgrades for those spells can be purchased from Beluba also in Sanctus Seru if your crafting level is 120+. The final tier of Epic spells are available in Renewal of Ro, started by turning in fertilizer to the #shiny trader# available after you have completed both the signature quest and all music box quests.
------ Ascension Abilities ------

Level: 100+
FtP: Yes

These abilities were added in the Kunark Ascending expansion and are still relevant in the current expansion. You can take your pick of 4 classes: Geomancer, Etherealist, Elementalist, and Thaumaturgist. There are a LOT to these abilities, so please so have an in-depth read on the EQ2 Wiki.

------ Shadowed Ethereal Tracker ------

Level: 120+
FtP: No

These are account-wide tokens used in enhancing your AA abilities in your Shadows tree. Absolutely do not skip these if you are playing end-game! These were added in Reign of Shadows, but you can currently collect these from the 2023 Panda rewards off of the merchant Pas Yu.

------ Coin System ------

Level: Varies
FtP: Under lvl 110

Each expansion from The Shadow Odyssey onward has its own currency system where players complete daily and weekly quests to earn it. They are used to buy powerful, best-in-slot gear. In VoV and RoR, there are various types of coins, but the most important come from daily and weekly quests.



~*~

If you found this helpful, please pay it forward by helping out your fellow Norrathians with their needs and questions. Teamwork makes the game go 'round! Good luck, friend!

Shadowed Ethereal Trackers - started in RoS (Ethereal event - points instead of coins) and then VoV missions were updated at some point to allow for 3x for returning players to get caught up.

Reign of Shadows and Ethereals Are Almost Upon Us! | EverQuest II (everquest2.com)

ASlo check Visions of Vetrovia Guide for Beginners (or Returning Players) | EverQuest 2 Forums (daybreakgames.com)

Thank you! Can you still do RoS missions and get those currently? My levelling coming back sent me from PoP straight into VoV so I haven't done that content yet.

Not sure about RoS missions to be honest (but I think it was turned off when the event ended). It was added to VoV missions at some point early in the expac.

Welp, I have been informed via server chat that there are Class Epic 2.0 spells that came in Kunark Ascending. I'm putting that in!

This is precisely why I am putting this together because I know I am not the only one missing all of this info, lmao.

You can buy the Epic 2.0 spells off the Merchant in Seru for BoL.

Added the update for the class epic info! Hopefully I made myself clear trying to summarize like 3 expansions into one blurb, lol.

I edited a couple things and redid the format so it copy + pastes nicer.

It is now on the broker in Maj'Dul under the title "EQ2 in 2022: What you need to Know" although you might need to do an advanced search with everything listed by Nari.

It is also available to read for free in Cloudwalker's guild hall library located in Kelethin. Hope it helps some folks!

I added the following for the Class Epic section for the Epic 2.0 spells: "Spell upgrades for those spells can be purchased from Beluba also in Sanctus Seru if your crafting level is 120+"

If on Maj'Dul you can't find the book by searching store owner Nari, her house is at 18 Karana Court in Qeynos.

Just stopping by to say that I absolutely love the fact that you're doing this. Thanks and keep it up!

Familiars only level to 10, not 20.

Would also add that mercenaries provide a “battalion” buff starting at level 5 and increasing to 20. The buff lasts even after dismissing and you want to make sure it is always up as it is a significant increase to stats at max level.

Otherwise nice write up. Are you going to be updating it for RoR? Would be good to mention the coin system and how to earn them. Think it took a while in VoV for people to understand the importance of Obols and the system is essentially repeating in RoR.

Thanks and great work!

Thank you! I'm looking at what's different in RoR and will update as I can understand and explain everything clearly.

The battalion buff is only applicable if you pay to unlock the merc? I have not had the buff with any of my toons (maybe that'll change with holiday funds) so I haven't been able to expand on this detail yet.

The reality is, mercenaries today are really not much more than secondary familiars. As an actual assistant for a player, mercs are in a pretty woeful state. Functionally. they were nerfed into oblivion back around BoL.

I took a break from books over the holidays but I'll update in the New Year!

Biggest thing to add is to the daily Overseer HQ from the black market dealers in your home city, and the coin systems like those in RoR and VoV.

Updated for 2023!

I learned a couple tricks for Overseer and updated for epics and whatnot. If there's a better way to word things let me know, but I have filled almost all pages! I have 4% left in case I need to add a sentence or two, but that's it.

Resurrecting this! Changed how I worded a couple things, but the overview is still current and up to date as of this writing.

How about the Diety quests? Are those still relevant? I personally always do them up until I get the lil minion as it adds some helpful stats. Just a thought

These are still relevant!

So I had to re-word other content to get this to get deity info in the book, but I finally managed to do it!

Book is now at 100% in-game! Full! Packed! Done!

Edit: I will be putting up this copy on the Maj'Dul broker shortly.

If there is anything I missed it'll have to be discussed through forum posts. If I'm still playing in 2024 I will make a new thread and book edition then!

Can the book also be bought on the halls of fate server?

Sadly it cannot, BUT, everything in the first post is what's in the book.

If you copy + paste everything below the line into a blank player book of your choice that's my best workaround since Maj is the only Live server I'm on.