The blood mage is sitting at level 43, and I’m eager to begin the trek to 50. I’ve never been end game in Vanguard before although I did make it a goal of mine some time back. Now that I’m back in an active guild (7-20 people on throughout the day and evening at any given time) I’m excited to see what I can get done. My partner in crime (Growlius, plays a DeathKnight) has not returned (yet) but I have my fingers crossed. A tank would be nice.
I’ve been looking for places to level. I found a few posts and forums mentioning areas, and I plan on checking them out. I have a few 50% potions left to save up for quest turn ins, even though I don’t have any 100% ones. I used those ones for crafting, of course. Plains of Anquish is where I was to start I believe, but I didn’t finish all of the quests there, so I’ll have to head back.
Level 40-50
Thestra:
—Plains of Anguish – A good place to quest & level for early 40’s. There’s also a cool skeleton illusion quest that provides a nice piece of armor for your class, and it would lead you back into Graystone to finish one part of the skeleton illusion quest. So before going in to Graystone, it’s a good idea to get this quest started in Plains of Anguish.
—Lost Canyon – You’ll find quite a few quests here in your early 40’s. You should at least have a partner to do these with.
—Ruin Falls – Once you hit level 41, you can do the quests available here. These quests will eventually lead you on down south to do the faction armors.
—The Fallen Cove – There are quests here you can do to pad some levels, since you need level 44 to start doing the faction armor quests.
—Vsurog Moor / Floridiel / Ichtakhta – These 3 zones contain some quests you can do at around level 43, and once you hit level 44 you can start doing the faction armor quests. They provide you with some really nice endgame armor, it’s worth doing and will require a group for many parts. Many players do these faction armor farming all the way until level 50.
—Swamp of Rumog – Once you hit level 46 you can head to the outpost in Swamp of Rumog and quest there. Right here you will encounter high level 40’s mobs, but many are soloable if you can kite. There’s also a dungeon with high level mobs for group play, with quest npc’s outside so make sure you grab them before entering. The famous single group Hegnerian encounter is located in this swamp dungeon, and the encounter is on a 2 hour respawn timer. Hegnerian drops nice items, and is needed to finish your faction chest armor since it drops the Core of Ezigoth. It’s a fun encounter, definately take a group in there and check it out.
Qalia:
—Razad – Lots of new quests were added to Razad for the early 40’s. There’s also a new Trickster’s Haven dungeon in this zone that you can take a group in to. It’s a fun and rewarding dungeon.
—Sunset Pointe – You should be able to find a few quests here in your early 40’s.
—Stranglewater Shore – You will find the Xenn dungeon here, a great dungeon for the early 40’s to take a group to. It’s a fun and interesting dungeon, definately worth checking out.
—Rhaz Inkur – You can do quests here starting in your mid-40’s, and you can head inside once you get level 46+ with a group. Be aware mobs are mostly immune to movement debuffs and mezzes here, so don’t try things solo.
—Afrit – You can quest here starting in your mid-40’s, it has armor quests here, you should grab at least a partner to do these quests.
—Tehatamani Harbor/Temple – Lots of quests here you can do starting at level 40. There’s a lot of faction farming you need to do, and many things require a group here. You can get really nice epic items by questing here.
The leveling guide is a little out dated, but I’m thinking that most of the places will still work. Razad is about the only place I’ve been to in any depth, remember I stuck to a mid-high 30’s area for my last level and a bit, using potions to enhance the experience gain. It worked out great, after turning in 20 quests or so I managed to ding 42, even though none of the actually mob encounters gave any experience. I’m also getting close to 50 artificer (mineralogist). It will be nice to hit 50 in both spheres at almost the same time. I’m 10% away from 47, which is a huge accomplishment for me. Still trying to decide which crafter I’ll level next (yes, I do plan on leveling another one). There are some fantastic changes coming to Vanguard (including fishing and Galleons) in December, a week or two away. Looking forward to experiencing these first hand, and I should have some more write ups soon.
I love the way the graphics are in the Moors of Ykesha. When you head to one of the very first camps, you’re in the swamp and surrounded by flies the entire time you quest. It’s these great little additions that make EverQuestII come to life, and I’ll never get tired of them (even when they lag my machine up). I still haven’t managed to get enough faction to buy the recipe books or appearance armour, but I’m getting there slowly. So far I’ve been sort of two sided about the release of TSO. On one hand it’s very pretty, with nice rewards. On the other hand this is the fourth year (going on fifth) that I’ve played EQ2 (yes, I’ve been here from the start) and it feels like I’ve done all of this before. The void shards are great for those who can manage to get a group, but for those who are unable to it’s frustrating. It’s more or less because I still don’t know anyone on Najena aside from Nostalgia and a few Siege members, and those I do know already have their static groups. I’ll have to see if I can remedy this. The only real innovation that grabbed me right away was the crafting bits and I realize I talk about crafting an exceptional amount in this blog, but that’s not the only thing I enjoy in my games. It just happens to be a large portion. 
I love crafting in Vanguard. It’s one of the most complex and interesting craft systems I’ve seen, and it’s not timed which makes it more enjoyable for me. While I can appreciate the system EQ2 has in place, some times the phone rings, or the door, or a pot boils over or some other real life interruption occurs, and in EQ2 this could mean disaster for the process. In Vanguard it just means stepping away and hitting the next button in the stage when you get back. There’s so many combinations of things you can craft, and so many different catalysts and powders and dusts and what not that you can add to each and every individual item, I just love it. There’s a LOT of crafting quests in Vanguard as well, which makes it interesting and fun. I love crafting in any game, but yes, Vanguard is my favorite. 
I also noticed another change since I’ve been gone. When you’re leveling up, as soon as you get to 20+ you’re required to save up Masterwork Sigils for your upgrade recipes. Basically this is the difference between crafting handcrafted items, and mastercrafted items (except mastercrafted items in VG are really really really nice, and sell very well). These sigils used to be VERY rare. In all my levels I only ever earned 4-5 of them. You need 8 per recipe of the current tier you’re on, and 2 less for every tier you’ve passed. There are (for me at least) three recipes to purchase that use these sigils, per tier. That’s a lot of sigils! When I started crafting yesterday I thought it may have just been dumb luck that I managed to get two on my first batch, but by the end of the craft day when I was looking at 15 sigils, I knew things must have changed. I’m not lucky, and I’m certainly not THAT lucky. I did manage to buy the T5 jewelery recipe upgrade (30g, OUCH!) so that means I can make rare jewelery for levels 40-50. Crafting also still involves help from other crafters. To make rare jewelery I use a rare gem but then I also use a truesilver sheet, which is crafted by blacksmiths. It’s nice, and it’s one of the things that have kept the community together and so strong. 
The final word count: 50775 words in one month. I’ll be posting this story online for people to read on my personal site once I go over it a tiny bit (and let things sink in). I have a 
