(N)EverQuest Scrolls

What to Do and When

by on Mar.09, 2011, under Hints & Tips, Leveling

This is a guide for current and returning players, who may be mystified as to what opportunities to advance their characters shouldn’t be missed. As many of these opportunities are from old expansions, and SOE’s crazy mudflation makes many things much easier over time, I will try to give suggestions as to when best to do these things.

I am writing this assuming that you have access to help (a guild, a friend, or a high level character), a decent amount of platinum (from the same sources, or just work for it yourself – it’s easy enough to do), and want to know what is useful to get and when to get it, without being a complete spendthrift. For spells and tomes, you need to do your own research to find out what you need, then collect from the Bazaar, find as drops, or make (with research) as required. The idea is that I have listed most items at the point that either: can be soloed – or – where they are most useful, if you can get them. It’s up to you to decide which I mean. This will work for starting from scratch, or for a returning character that is obviously under-equipped.

You can install Everquest using the Everquest Launchpad. Make sure that you have updated maps from Mapfiend installed.

If you left when EQ2/WoW was launched, then please read Returning from 2004 – it covers the big differences.

Start up 1-25

First start by making your character; just choose your class, and any race – pick the race you like the look of the most, there is no strong difference between races that trumps how you feel about the race. Don’t bother with changing starting stats, as your points are now automatically allocated in a reasonable fashion (and starting stats don’t matter anyway), but you get to choose the official starting zones (Crescent Reach, or the old home cities for your race), although you will be directed into Crescent Reach if you follow the tutorial, regardless of which home city you pick. I’d do the Mines of Gloomingdeep (that’s the tutorial) just to get the Kobold Skull Charm; open barrels to get bags and some cash loot (Forlorn bows), and a full set of Stitched Burlap from killing spiders; it doesn’t do much, but is better than being naked until you get some drops (which is what I suggest you do). see Guide to Escape to Norrath for a guide (it’s for the trial, but is almost exactly the same as the in-game Mines of Gloomingdeep).

At any time up to the start of level 10, any character can skip back and forth between the Mines, Crescent Reach and Plane of Knowledge. You can enter the Mines by clicking the Tutorial button at Character Select no matter where you are; from there you can enter the tunnel (click on it) to get to Crescent Reach, or /say to Arias “ready to leave” to find yourself in the Plane of Knowledge.

At some point early on, you should set up your UI. I am happy enough with the default, and this is what I do: open out two hot key bars. On one of them, put any Veteran rewards from the AA panel that I want to use regularly: Lesson of the Devoted, Steadfast Servant, Throne of Heroes, Summon Agent and Summon Banker (if you have them, that is). On the other, I make hot keys for assist (/assist), and any useful abilities: hide, sneak, lay on hands, harm touch, forage, tracking; for melee characters, taunt, kick, bash and anything else that seems appropriate, such as autofire (/autofire). Finally, I’ll make an open key (again, just /open), which is useful in the tutorial. I will usually open out the potion belt (shift-p), as I will be using potions, and create a second main window for “spam” – setting this to gather all melee and spell messages; right click the title bar to configure the windows.

If you have a melee character, then find (in the Bazaar!) a Blackened Acrylia Blade or Blackened Acrylia Greatsword, depending on class. Other options include Shaded Blade, Shaded Dagger, and Centi Short Sword. All of these have no level restrictions, and have a reasonable ratio. If priest/caster, do the top floor quest in Crescent Reach at level 10 for a 1HB (A Dark Heart). Knights are left out: an SK would want a Mace of the Shadowed Soul, and either class would want a Blade of Disruption, which becomes their best dps option from about level 30 to 65.

At level 5 (or so) you can use a goblin rogue shroud to do the mapping quests for Slipgear’s Gem. This doesn’t take very long, is “safest” to do at this level, and is better value for time spent than the Crescent Reach charm aug. Speaking of charms, you can consider getting Serpent Seeker’s Charm of Lore from the collection quest for the Librarian in Crescent Reach, although you will be upgrading it at some point from 75+, although an Intricate Defiant Charm is excellent and can be worn from 48.

Level to 20 in Crescent Reach; do the two Disgruntled Boawb quests, which can be done at level 1. Upgrade by vendor mining for the Crescent Reach drops and Blightfire quest items (Blightfire-infused and patterns; see Kimem in the Crescent Reach forge); Defiant will be too expensive to be worth buying from vendors,so stick to the Bazaar for those. Collect HQ bear pelts from the bear cave for Handmade Backpacks and/or tailoring skill ups. Most mobs in Crescent Reach offer some relatively high value vendor trash drops for their level.

You may want to get an Adventurer’s Stone, if you want to use LDoNs, although they certainly aren’t necessary. You don’t need it for all of the Magus ports, although there are some restrictions. The starting NPC if your home city is Crescent Reach is just outside the upstairs banker, sitting on a chair – Vladnelg Galvern.

Move to Blightfire; collect any armor quest items that drop, by repeat killing Plaguebringer and Mossback. Melee characters can do the Scout quest by the gnolls for a 1HB (not knights or berserker, unfortunately). Do the bag quest from the forge (killing gnolls, so collect the quest before leaving Crescent Reach).

Leveling spots 25-50

City of Mist is good for 35-50, and not bad up to 55.

The Hole 35-71, various camps. This is also a very good zone for high value vendor trash drops.

Hot zones in general. Talk to Franklin Teek outside the Guild Lobby in the Plane of Knowledge for details, and quests that will give you Defiant gear for back, waist and shoulders. There are rare drops of augments from most current and old hot zones, see Allakhazam for a list. I don’t bother to start collecting these until 55.

Consider moving to Goru’kar Mesa around 40, do the Scout Madu armor quests; help will be required at this level for the two named animals: Ursalua and Fantoma. This is a reasonable zone for experience, and the armor quests can fill out any gaps cheaply.

Fabled Goblin Skull Earring from Fabled Grachnist the Destroyer can be soloed at 40+. Fabled JBoots from 55+, but you can often persuade a higher level to get them for you, if you have the Najena keys required. This obviously only applies during the Anniversary season when Fabled mobs are active (March/April each year).

40-52: consider doing the LoY spell quests, which start in Gunthak at the Lighthouse. The spells are often useful for a much wider level range than most other spells.

45: collect any Kunark armor clickies that are useful for your class (eg Warrior shrink and invis, shaman nuke, ranger summon arrows and gate). The Bazaar is the obvious starting point.

50: consider the Classic EQ class specific spell quest – eg, Coin of Tash, Concussion, Life Leech, Call of Earth, Divine Might, etc. This is more for fun than actual benefit from the spell.

Level 46-51: consider doing epic 1.0. Some are very easy given a little help: beastlord, rogue, enchanter, ranger, druid, magician, berserker, shaman, cleric. The rest either have minimal benefit or are still unreasonably hard to complete, for reasons of death touch mobs, or overcamped mobs.

Levels 50-65

From 50-65 collect the better hot zone augments; you only want the ones that will make a full set at 65, as you will be upgrading from there.

Collect PoP ornate molds/patterns for the clickies for use at 55. Clickies will be hands, chest, legs for pure melee, chest and legs for others. Also at 55 you can get the PoR aura (for some classes, not all); this will be soloable by 65, possibly needing merc.

Collect Elaborate Defiant armor set from the Bazaar for equipping at 59.

Levels 65-70

Collect SoF tier 1 drops in the Bazaar: search on level 65 required, for non-visible slots and weapons. You should also be able to buy Elaborate Defiant rings and earrings from the vendors in the Plane of Knowledge, close to the Crescent Reach stone; these are likely to be much more expensive than the Bazaar items. The Franklin Teek quests starting at this level will give Elaborate Defiant back, waist and shoulders.

Level 65: start on epic 1.5; some are much harder than others, but most can be soloed by a friendly level 85 with a merc (not paladin or rogue, which require raids of a certain number). Will require some trade skills at 100+; consider doing these early and possibly getting the TS trophies, in case you want to trade skill later; the trophies you can get at skill level 50 are much easier to get than at higher skill levels, and once you have a trophy, it will level with your skill if you equip it while doing combines.

There are several shield options for 65-71 tanks: a drop from Fire (Basalt Bulwark), Undershore (Dark Void Shield – same quest can also give a 2H +dmg aug), and Valdeholm/Frostcrypt (Battered Shield of the Fallen Guard – quest start Haesgrin).

You can start Fenden Helter quests at 65 for SoF faction and currency. You will only need the Loping Plains/Hills of Shade quests (“acts”) if you need currency. Faction comes from “errands” and “combat”; you may not be able to do the combat tasks until higher level, and some are much easier than others. 20 hour lock out. He sells SoF tier 2 items, equippable at 75.

Levels 70-75

Level 70: weapon augs from DoN camp in Lavastorm. Start DoN faction and progression for AAs and currency (radiant and ebon crystals; these can also be bought from the Loyalty merchant in PoK). The DoN AAs are never superceded. Also get the DoD/PoR spells, which is simplest by research; these are typically very useful, and will last many levels (ok, to 75 in most cases, but the auras aren’t superceded).

Level 70: epic 2.0; will require “raid” (aka one group of friends, no mercs) for orb, and some fights may not be soloable even with 85.

Level 70-75: Jonas Dagmire Skeletal Hand quests. Can start the easy ones at 70 (or earlier; some will open up at 65 or 66), finish at 75, possibly with a little help depending on class. Requires a lot of bank space and some expansion currency (80 doubloons; again, see the Loyalty merchant in PoK, but these are easy to earn yourself with the right quests).

Level 70-75: TSS clickies/aug quests. Dog Whistle – Icefall. Necklace of Warportal Fragments – Steppes. Direwolf Totem of Spirit – Icefall. Direwolf Totem of Battle – Icefall. RSS augs, for tanks.

Level 71: collect Othni/Athlai drops for armor, which can be equipped at this level. These drop from zone revamps active at Anniversary and some other times; hand in NPC in PoK is Thach Jerden.

Consider the Coldain Ring quests to number eight for DS clickie. MPG group trials for the AAs, which are never superceded.

Levels 75-85

If you are lucky enough to have the Fabled pet weapons, they are usable at 75, and are the best dps weapons until high end raid weapons.

Level 75-85: SoD progression. Do as early as possible for the merc upgrades and access to spells. You only need the Warrens progression to get the tier 5 mercs. Complete the aug quests if possible. Bayle’s Heraldic Crest should be easy, Blood of the Fallen is afflicted by various bugs, so is harder to complete than it should be.

OMM missions (from Old Man Mackenzie in Plane of Knowledge) are monster missions that send you to Nagafen’s Lair or Lower Guk as a level 50 character in 1999 gear. These require a group of average level 80+ to start. Chest rewards when the mission is complete are good, of SoD tier 3 or better equivalent. This is superceded by House of Thule dream mote gear from level 80.

Level 80-85. SoF zone drops – Mechmatic Guardian augs. SoD tier 3 drops for armor upgrades. SoD faction for spells and type 3 augs. Look out for zone wide aug drops in SoD zones for +dmg and purity.

Now that HoT is available, you should consider skipping the SoD progressions apart from the Warrens tasks that will give you the T5 merc; the augs are still worth having, however.

At 80, HoT tasks for experience and gear beat everything else. If you can, buy 330 dream motes in the Bazaar, and use that to buy 11 non-visible items; the low tier visible armor items will also be available in the Bazaar.


4 Comments for this entry

  • FoximusPrime

    Thanks for the help. This guide is great.

  • Solomani

    Hi,
    For level 50 you mention collect augmentations to make a set. A set of what? Noob here.

    • paul

      It’s more to make a start of a set – a set of augs. The hot zones include augs that can be used in all visible armour pieces (and some others). The low level augs (from the low level hot zones) are rather feeble, so the ones worth collecting start around level 50 – although you may choose to skip them, as they will mostly be replaced from 70 onwards. Augs are much more worthwhile for tank characters, who should focus on AC.

  • Solomani

    Thanks for your reply.

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