Catching up on expansions, regarding gear upgrades

Discussion in 'Tips, Tricks, FAQs, and New Player Discussion' started by a_shrubbery, Jul 13, 2022.

  1. a_shrubbery Active Member

    Howdy fellow Norrathians

    Returning player, the last expansion which I also raided in was Chains of Eternity.

    I want to catch up on expansions. I want to level through the questlines and experience at least the overland zones content - while getting my character from 95 to max level. I am mainly soloing for now, just chilling.

    My main question is regarding the quest rewards : should I bother with any of the upgrade systems in eg. Tears of Veeshan?

    Because from what I remember, I am guessing that quest rewards (full gear + primary/secondary) of any expansion will be better or equal to at least Heroic content drops from the last expansion right?

    So I'm thinking maybe I should just go through quest lines - for example instead of wasting times doing Solo or Advanced Dungeons in ToV, just continue with the quest lines from Altar of Malice, then Terrors of Thalumbra etc. because those will make any "upgraded" gear from previos xpac obsolete. Is that correct?
    Ayodi likes this.
  2. a_shrubbery Active Member

    And are there any upgrade systems like gems I should pay attention to - prior to Visions of Vetrovia (last xpac as of writing) ?
    Ayodi likes this.
  3. Bramdar Active Member

    There's really no reason to bother with these systems, unless you want to. Starting with level 100 and the Planes of Prophecy expansion, all expansions have a Tishan's lockbox crate in the starting area that provides baseline expansion gear for free. You can obtain and equip the PoP gear as soon as you hit level 100, even if you're still working on older expansions.

    I would focus on upgrading spells/combat arts, personally, and let quest rewards and loot from instances augment your gear as you complete the questlines. There will be some steep difficulty spikes, especially once you get to 110 and have the BoL prerequisite instance to deal with (you might want to ask for someone to help you get through that instance, although if you have alts then they'll have an easier time since completing it unlocks access for the account.)

    Once you get to level 120 and Vetrovia, there's a guide here in the general section on gearing up since the lockbox gear for this expansion is probably the most extensive including multiple types of adornments. (Much of the previous lockbox gear is adorned too, but the VoV set is the most comprehensive.)
    Twyla and KauaiJim like this.
  4. a_shrubbery Active Member

    Thanks a lot. I can see already most quest rewards from ToV are better than my raid gear from CoE, albeit without the Yellow (square shaped) gems, like "Sublime Power".. and also the green gems that you used to level.

    Should I keep those yellow / green gems, or can I trade them somewhere?
    Ayodi likes this.
  5. Bramdar Active Member

    You can keep and use those gems if they're upgrades. But don't keep them around for later gear - many of the colored adornment slots have changed over time, and as of the most recent expansions, all gear has white and red adornment slots, and some items have blue, green, or turquoise. So once you outlevel your current gear, those older adornments won't be useable any longer.
  6. Ayodi Active Member

    You have a good question & nice answers have been tendered here. Just a thought - with 44 & greater slot bags avail, one might use house vault to store a given expanses gear in. In case you want to go back and run elements of an older exp pac self mentored with gear relevant to the exp pac. ATM there is a kind of Dev TSA segregating some gear and adorns from certain expacs. Darn nice to have accurate gear & adorns when one of your buddies says "Hey lets go run some BoL" :) food for thought. Good Luck!

    -The Ayodi
    Twyla, KauaiJim and Jesaine like this.
  7. a_shrubbery Active Member

    Hello again

    I'm confused, in Tears of Veeshan there is a NPC named Tonremand - near Daarspire. He SELLS yellow adornments, which afaik have been replaced with Purple ones.

    These are the same yellow adornments which I've extracted from my old Chains of Eternity Heroic/Raid gear -- while my new quest gear from ToV has purple slots.

    Why is this NPC there? What is his purpose?
    Twyla likes this.
  8. Twyla Well-Known Member

    He allows your character to start to make those adornments while giving a basic lesson in how to use them. ToV is unique in that some of the equipment 'levels' - differently than when they introduced it again in PoP - he also teaches you how that works. Just a note, it's only useful in ToV. The next expansion doesn't use any of those skills. It's still a nice quest series to do. It takes about 10 minutes total, and the rewards are semi-useful in that expac.