Author: Stargrace

Remember that warlock I made when the evil fae first came out? Well today she wanted to play

Restless. That’s how I am in game lately. It comes from a few factors, being bored of all my alts, restless in game with old content, and trying to wiggle around some and figure out what I want to do. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I envy those who have one “main” character, and no alts. I wish I could do that. I’ve tried, but it’s just not my style. So today I piddled around absentmindedly in game and barely did anything for the majority of the time. I did manage to get Tulips a level in her armoring, and damn is that an annoying craft.

I also spent 10p and bought two full sets of cobalt armor. Why? Well, my ranger is sitting at 48, and my dirge at 47, and they’re not going to be those levels forever. Eventually they will hit 52, and need something pretty to wear. So why buy it now? Cobalt armor was selling for 60g a piece. Cobalt clusters were selling fro 95g a piece. That doesn’t include the fee I’d have to pay someone to make it, since my armorer is sitting at uh well level 33. 60g was a great price for me to snag those pieces, especially with the mad influx of evil fae that are going to make their way slowly across all leveling fields. This is in fact the busiest I’ve ever seen Nektulos Forest.

So later on in the evening I brushed off Minxes, my warlock, and decided to delete her. I made her into an inquisitor. Why? I have no idea. I’ve never played one before, and with three T7 healers already, well, it’s not as though I needed another. I brought Goudia to Darklight Woods, she’s my exiled dirge. She has +13,000 with the city of Freeport, but that still leaves Neriak, Kelethin, and Qeynos all disliking her. I figured I’d try to see if the npc of Darklight give out their quests still — and they did.

So I mentored down to level 1, smacked a mob once, and it died instantly. Smacked a few more, got the inquisitor to level 7, and completed all of the lowbie quests on Goudia for some quest credit, then decided I didn’t want Minxes to be an inquisitor after all. So I deleted and remade her back into my origional warlock. Completed all of the level 1-7 quests (again) and managed to get her to level 10 within a relatively short period. I really do love Darklight Woods and all of the quests that can be found there. I really wish Antonica and Commonlands hosted the same sort / quality. Even the gear is far beyond what you can find in any of the “old school” starter zones.

I also managed to get the monk to level 19, and a few more quests under her belt. I was looking on EQ2players.com (a site I adore and use to snoop on people!) to figure out where I rated in the “quest scheme” of things. Stargrace (my “main”) is 33rd on most quests for Illusionists. The top few don’t even play any more. There is also a level 26 coercer (or maybe it’s an illusionist, I forget now.. I was checking both) who has 600+ quests under their belt. Wow. Now that’s impressive.

So my day in game was restless but fun none the less. I’m hoping this is just a phase and I’ll settle down as always. In the mean time, between my two accounts that leaves me with the following: 70 fury, 70 templar, 64 defiler, 19 monk, 10 warlock on one account, and 70 illusionist, 53 conjuror, 48 ranger, 47 dirge, 31 coercer, 7 berserker. I have room to make 2 characters on one account, and 1 on the other. Not that I’ve any intentions of making more alts.. yet.

Stargrace, 70 illusionist 70 provisioner, stats while playing in Obelisk

The screen shot above is of my illusionist, while she’s playing in Obelisk. I wanted to try to get some templar boots last night, Dasie is going to be heading to Freethinkers Hideout tonight, and her boots suck, to put it bluntly. The best thing about that screen shot, is that I’m grouped with a shadowknight, and a templar, but that’s it. The templar had just cast Divine Recovery, which is one amazing aa they have. As you can tell by the spell casting speed, and the spell recovery speed, I well over the cap on one, and brushing the half way point on the other. This makes me a machine gun caster. I can do some fantastic dps with my illusionist, especially with her int sitting at 836, and if she’s below 30% power, which I rarely am, but I try to be. The enchanters do 30% more dps when they’re below 30% power.

It’s amusing since during raids everyone keeps trying to give my illusionist food and drink. I keep food and drink on me at all times, I’m a 70 provisioner after all. But I do raid with sprint on, to keep below the 30% mark. It sounds easy, but with a bard in my grp, and me having to keep my regen spell up for the other group members, it’s very hard. Takes some practice to be able to hover there.

I did a lyceum raid not too long ago with a guild that had a few extra slots. The raid went alright, the group set ups were completely weird to me though. I’ve been on a good amount of raids over the years, and this was the first one where the illusionist was in the main tank group. There was a coercer on the raid, level 70 as well, and they were put into the mage group. The tank asked for Time Compression, which doesn’t do that much except it does affect their taunts. It does not help with general CA’s though. I was still parsing 1-2-3 on the raid, in the main tank group on a raid with warlocks, wizards, necromancers, and conjurors, and not because I was parsing high, but because the dps was incredibly low.

There’s only one key thing you have to do on a raid that 70% of people who are ‘casual raiders’ seem to miss, and it’s pay attention. If you’re going AFK every four seconds or every few minutes, you’re not paying attention. If you’re in tells, or chattering away on channels, you’re not paying attention. I realize that there’s such a thing as real life, and people have children, but honestly that’s the one thing that bothers me beyond all else – when it’s raid time, dedicate the few hours you need to do the raid, and try to clear your time table for that. Everyone asks how they can raid better, how they can parse better. Pay attention, that’s all you need to do. Realize that you have spells that need to be cast in a particular order. Cast them in the right order, and keep casting them when they’re up, and you’ll do fine. Why do my healers do well? Because I pay attention, and not just to the main tank, but to the entire raid. People need to be cured, group heals need to go off, spot heals for other groups. If you have a necromancer who’s life burning, you need to heal them or they’re going to die. Why does my illusionist parse in the 1k-1.5k range without being in the mage group? Because I pay attention. Cast spells in order, remember to debuff. Wait for those dispatch messages, assist the proper person and don’t take frequent AFK’s.

Tonight’s raid should be interesting to say the least. I know the guild I’m going with has difficulty to begin with on this stuff. There was also a recent change to a tinker made item that used to let you mem-wipe constantly and prevent the 2nd named in Freethinkers from doing their script. It now has a 2 minute recast timer, and can’t be used as effectively for that use any more. Which means all those guilds who used to breeze by the encounter by mem-wiping, will have to do it the good ol “regular” way, off tanking all of the adds that spawn — or — hope that you have enough enchanters on your raid to mem-wipe the real way. I’m expecting to be naked once or twice with Dasie on this raid. She’s not exactly the best geared of my characters, in fact she does not have any fabled from KoS or EoF at all. She’s wearing legendary, has 6.3k power self buffed, and 7.3k HP. She has good saves though, and all of her spells are master quality, so I don’t think she’ll be a liability. We’ll just see how it goes.

The guild’s been busy, what can I say

I managed to get five more levels today on Ishbel, the coercer, sitting her comfortably at 30. She’s only been to three zones, the Darklight woods, the Wailing Caverns, and Fallen Gate. It leaves a lot of room for some discovery and questing later if I ever feel like it. I took Cordanim’s little Ratonga alt with me to Fallen Gate and we managed to get him three levels as well. It was a fairly quiet day none the less.

I decided to do an in depth look at Neriak, my site’s been getting a lot of hits for various things relating to the zone, and while I’ve been crafting I answer at least the same 10 questions every single day. So here they are:

1. Where can I do the citizenship quest for Neriak? Easy, Clerk V’Nox will start the Neriak Citizenship quest for you, at the house of Landlords. It’s just past The K’Nex Falls, in the Eastern section of the city.

2. Who will take my status items? Step to your nearest guard, and right click them. Then select find NPC. Type in guild status merchant, and they will mark your map with an X, it’s the same building as the guild registrar, in the dock area.

3. Where is the achievement respec NPC? Tria L’Blek will help you respec, she’s by the stables in the Western portion of the city — but again, the guards of Neriak are very helpful. Right click any one of them and do a find NPC for achievement. They’ll lead you in the right direction.

4. Is there a pet store some place in Neriak? Surprisingly enough, yes! Ch’hok Milk’Tokk just east of the House of Landlords will be pleased to sell you all the furry friends you could ever want. You can use a guard to locate them as well.

5. Where is the shinies collector of Neriak?! Phyra Zesmice, is the shiny collections person of Neriak, use a guard, or make your way to the docks, you’ll find them there.

6. Are there portals to TS and Nek in Neriak like there are for Qeynos and Freeport? Yes! You can purchase a ticket from an npc in the Dark Bargainer Hall, it will take you to TS or Nek, the spires though, not the docks. There is also a carpet to get to Sinking Sands located in Darlight Woods, at the fair.

7. Where can I find my class trainer, I’m lost! Again, just find a guard, and do a search for whatever your class is. They’ll point you to the trainers.

8. How can I use the teleport pads? Divton T’Szelyl at the entrance will give you a level 10 quest to use them. Be sure to mentor down for the completion in order to get that AA!

9. Where is the broker? Banker? Crafting stations? Again, use a guard! Anything that an NPC has as a title under their name, you can ask a guard about. For a general idea though, head to The Down Under, caves located in the Eastern section of the Dock Market area.

10. Are there writs offered for the people of Neriak? Yes! There are.. they’re level dependant though.. the level 10 range can find theirs at the Indigo Brotherhood. . . Level 60 seemed to be behind Darklight Palace. If you’re some other level range, just wander around the zone with your map open, you’ll see the orange flashing circle indicating a quest giver.

11. I’m from Neriak, but how do I get my call of Neriak spell and my set recall point spell? Check your spell book using the K key, and under the abilities category. You’re lucky, you’ll have it already if you’re already from Neriak.

As a side note, it’s very handy to get EQII Maps if you have not already. The points of interest marked on the map are priceless, and you’ll know your way around Neriak in no time.

Misako, Ishbel, and Ixxar, happily fishing in Darklight Woods

If you enjoy questing at all then you’re going to love Darklight Woods. There are at least 100 quests within the zone if you include the few that send you to Neriak. I feel sorry for those characters who start out on the island still. Their gear and quests are not nearly as entertaining as the ones in both Kelethin and Darklight Woods. The quest session yesterday was joined by Misako and Ixxar both who mentored the (at the time) level 7 coercer. Ixxar got about 6aa to his name, Misako managed to hit 75 of her own and 85% into her level. I’m in no rush with her lately (what else is new, when an alt has caught my fancy).

I am a bit ashamed at Misako’s clothing choice though, as you can see from the picture the coercer is sporting a nice white and grey/blue dres, the bruiser is decked out in some clothes that at least match, and then there’s poor Misako decked out in bright purple and green with blue tints and bright red oven mitts. Looks fetching doesn’t it? Well, ok not exactly.

I realize that to give players the option to colour their own gear would be a huge endeavor, and then we’d have issues of neon green and yellow outfits around Norrath, but dang, whoever came up with the idea for those pants to tuck INTO the characters shoes.. must be hurt. Badly. Aside from the bad colours and the interesting graphics, I’ve been making a nice amount of coin off of the lowbie adepts and gear that drops. In fact it’s selling very very well. I can make a few plat a day off of selling my little farmed items. Of course my level 25 coercer is still wearing level 1 gear, but well that’s the joys of being able to two box and move your character along at whatever pace you like. I don’t really need the gear on her, she’ll get some new stuff at 30-32, until then the level 1 stuff will suit her just fine. I don’t want to spend a bunch of money on items that she’s just going to out grow in a day or two.

Newest character to the alt-army, Ishbel, a dark elf coercer

I’m not realy keen on the new race, and I did make a warlock (who I have yet to actually play) but after some contemplating I decided that it would be nice to have my choice of illusionist or coercer depending on what I was needed for or what I was in the mood for. So along came Ishbel, a dark elf coercer who lives in Neriak. Home sweet home. There were over 100 people in the starting zone, and it showed. Crowded, and lots of people fighting for mobs. Didn’t bother me too much though I’m used to just being able to selectively ignore the masses that bother me. I love the starter zone of Darklight woods. There are a lot of quests for the new players and my good characters who start in Qeynos are very envious of both Kelethin and Darklight. I got her to level 11 fairly painlessly, with 40quests completed and 3aa under her belt. She bought a simple 1-room inn in Neriak, and paid her respects to the Queen and various others who deserved it.

I was doubly pleased when Kilanna decided to roll an Arasia on AB, and joined my guild. Gave me someone to ramble to and she seems to be having fun with the little warlock. I hope so at least. I have been slightly occupied the last few days with random tid bits of real life that keep interupting me *grins* so things have been quiet game-wise at least. Last night was a horrible night where I ended up spilling liquid onto my G15 LCD keyboard, directly onto the LCD monitor portion in fact, which fried it. Guess if there was ever a sign to call it an early night, that’s it. Bought another one today, I think I’d be lost without this keyboard. I really love it, just the feel of the keys and the lights is enough to make me happy with it.

The guild hit level 13, we’re slowly leveling ourselves along. Since there are only 10 unique accounts in the guild, and I’d say about 5 of those are active to any degree, it’s a slow grind. The top guild status holders are various alts of mine *chuckles*. I’m trying to get us closer to 15 so we can pick out a guild crest for our cloaks. Hopefully it’ll be a design that everyone is happy with since it costs extra to change the heraldry. I finished off the “By hook or by crook” HQ on both Stargrace and Misako, and then decided to finish off the screaming mace that I’d had forever. There are still plenty of HQ that I’ve yet to do but most require some very annoying camps that I don’t have the patience for lately. Had Wrehn make me some furniture for Misako’s new home in Neriak, I’ve put the majority of her furniture in the corner of one room for the time being, inspiration hasn’t hit me quite yet.