I love Stormhold. I think it’s one of those older zones that isn’t used for far too much any more. I remember when it used to be absolutely filled with people doing their dungeon crawls. It doesn’t seem quite so big any more, one or two groups is enough to feel crowded if they’re moving from named to named. There are still quite a few quests that use this zone, as well as a heroic one that rewards in a legendary bow. Remember when the scions used to be epic? Someone would spawn one by clicking the lion heads in the main entrance and BAM suddenly you’ve got an epic on your head chewing you apart. Those were good times. I remember almost at the very start of the game, when you used to be able to group with someone far higher level then you and have them ‘grey out’ zones. My friend managed to agro a scion and he dragged it through the zone on purpose, having it aoe on other travelers. They didn’t look too kindly on him (not that I can blame them) but it was still fun. I died from the aoe’s too, not that I minded, even if I did have to run back for my shard (ah, shards, good times).

Over time, pretty much any ‘difficult’ aspect of the game is toned down. That’s just one example, there are many. Crafting is another that’s been constantly tweaked and changed and adjusted over time to suit the wants of the players (some, players, not all). Speaking of which, Lader clued me in on this post, talking about new crafting cloaks, which yes, I did squeel about. They look like they have nice graphics. I’m all for nice graphics. The mannequins also seem pretty interesting, looking forward to getting a few of those in time. You’ll need 30,000 status with your crafting faction to purchase the recipe, and I know I’m a few away from that, but I’m sure Calreth won’t mind crafting me a few if I’m that impatient.

** Edit** There are crafting EPICS being put into game?! Now that I had no idea about. I knew about regular epic weapons, sure.. but tradeskill ones? Is that what those new cloaks are, epics? Woot!

In game I’ve been restless (again, big surprise I’m sure) and floundering about from character to character, not really sure which I’d rather play more. That was the purpose of closing one of my accounts, to be able to focus slightly. It’s not working.

In real life, we’re having a nice day full of ice and rain and wind. Be careful on the streets you people in Ottawa, it’s slippery.

I love making signatures, they’re a lot of fun. I don’t even have forums that I belong to really aside from the Eq2players one, but I still love creating signatures for my characters. So today while enjoying a nice lazy afternoon (the weather outside is horrid, it’s freezing rain and ice and all that other gross winter stuff that we happen to get here in Ottawa) I decided to create a signature for Ishbel.

I had a lot of fun making it, the tattoo on her neck is the symbol for Innoruuk which I managed to find on the EQ2 wikia, along with brief summaries of each deity. The signature itself is made up of four screen shots, plus three separate text layers. The backgrouns is one screen shot, and has not been manipulated in any way. It’s one of the windows inside of the mage tower in South Qeynos, which is ironic since Ishbel is Freeport aligned. The image of herself I used from a shot in the crafting instance earlier today, touched up her eyes (Ishbel has a strike of red that cuts through her left eye) and her hair, added the tatoo and lightened things up a little from the original. Wanted to keep it fairly simple, so I didn’t add a fancy boarder, the text is kept to a minimum as well. It probably took me two hours from start to finish when all was said and done, but that’s also taking into consideration the amount of time I spent rescuing the cat from pillow attacks (don’t ask) in the living room.

Her hair is a little more blurry then I’d have liked, especially that strand on the left side, but I can’t be bothered to fix it right now, maybe a project for another time when I decide to make another signature, it’s been a while since I’ve made any. I suppose I could stand to make a few more paper dolls as well for the EQ2player profiles. A few of mine are missing (though Ishbel does have one here). Nice to see profiles haven’t been updated in quite some time, it says she’s level 73, she’s actually 77.

In game today things are quiet. I’ve been harvesting (how exciting is that hmms?) for crafting supplies. Late last night I hit 30 carpenter, so it won’t be too long before I’ve caught up to the 35 carpenter on the closed account. As far as crafters go, that leaves me with:

1. 80 Sage
2. 80 Jeweler
3. 80 Provisioner
4. 63 Alchemist
5. 60 Weaponsmith
6. 30 Carpenter
7. N/A Armorer

I haven’t started the armorer quite yet, that’ll be Ysandria’s profession once I get around to starting it. On another good note, the guild hit level 29 last night as I grinded some alchemy writs (woot!). A huge congratulations to Torrent Knights, since there are only 5 members (if that) to the guild, and no one has mains in the guild pretty much, I’m glad we’ve managed to come that far. I’d still like to at least hit 30 for that extra row of bank slots, as well as being able to buy some fancy new clothes from the status merchants, but we’ll get it when we get it.

Epics come out next week (supposedly) and everyone is mighty excited, can’t say I blame them. I won’t be getting mine any time soon, but I’m not sorry about that, the mad rush of folks working on them I’m sure would be enough to make me pause and wait anyhow.

Oh, and Tipa, if you’re reading this, fix your site! We’re (the readers) getting restless waiting for it to come back online, hope you got my email about it!

Yamini just wasn’t suited to Qeynos. Every day she heard “have you ever seen a gnoll before?!” she had to resist the urge of throttling the little twerp who irked her. So it was that I decided to move her back to the comforts of Freeport, where she could lurk in alleys and steal pie from window sills all she wanted. It’s not like she hasn’t already betrayed before, numerous times in fact. Yamini is my second character that I ever made on EQ2, and she’s only level 53 with 37aa. I made her shortly after Dasie my templar, who’s also a halfling, go figure.

She did the old school betrayal quest at level 14 where she was cast from Qeynos and lost her shard (ah, the good ‘ol days) and became an assassin, then not too long ago she went back to Qeynos, embracing the ways of the ranger, until yesterday where she’d had enough and went back to an assassin. A friend asked me if there were any characters aside from the new monk who I had not betrayed, and I had to answer honestly- no, I’ve betrayed them all. Tipa asked the question of how many had only been betrayed once, which was a clearer answer, two have betrayed once. The druid I have, and dasie, who only made the trek to inquisitor once before I’d decided the class was simply not for me.

I like the versatility of being able to betray back and forth even though I absolutely hate having to work the faction up afterwards. It wasn’t so bad this time around, I choose to wander through Neriak and do the quests there instead of my usual sneaking into Qeynos method. It would have gone by a lot faster were it not for the sudden influx I saw of people who were also moving onto greener pastures in Freeport. At least 4 people also sported “the exiled” as titles to their name, a permanent fixture until you finish pledging your allegiance to your new home town.

Once I’d finished getting her all settled I made for Freeport, did the citizenship quest over there, and bought her a (mostly) empty house to stuff her potions and poisons in. Oh yes, of course she’s a crafter. 53 assassin, but 62 alchemist. It comes in handy to use her own crafted poisons with all the adept3’s I make and dusts I have kicking around for use. Not to mention it can be quite profitable when I actually get into a crafting mood (which I have not, lately).

I spent quite a few plat upgrading her skills, buying the new home, and getting settled. Browsing through her quest journal I noticed she’d completed 6 heritage quests, but not missing mask, which is typically an essential HQ for all my characters, as I love popping into dark elf form. So once servers come back up I imagine that’s what I’ll set off to accomplish, not to mention the guild is quite close to level 29, and I’d love to see us push for 30. We’ll see how it goes. Cordanim mentioned he was going to be doing some crafting, so hopefully he’ll be pounding out a few writs as well *nudge nudge*.

Other then that, and making fun of some roleplaying tactics, I had a blast talking to Tipa about her WoW rp days. They sounded amusing to say the least. I wish I had known her when I was playing the game.

I know I’ve mentioned it from time to time, but probably not enough. I write because I enjoy doing it, and there’s no better reason for me. So when I get a comment or a mail in game from a reader, it always brightens my day exceptionally. I don’t expect to hear from anyone, but to those who read, thank you. I’ve met so many wonderful people, from both the blogger community and the readers. Everyone likes to know that they’re doing good, everyone likes to be praised, even if they don’t outright seek it.

So again thank you, to writers and readers alike. It’s nice to have a little space on the web to be able to vent frustrations or share joys about a game that plenty of us have in common, and form communities from it. EverQuest is all about our own epic stories after all, and I’m thankful for having such a wonderful bunch of people around to share mine with.

Oy. Enough with the sappy stuff now eh?

Since I closed one of my accounts, it means I’m without my monk, who was my quest character. Also means I’m short an armorer, and I wanted to have one kicking around mostly for adornments, they get to make some pretty nice ones. So with my final character slot on the one open account, I made a high elf monk named Ysandria. She’s also a roleplay character, though I haven’t decided on any sort of background or story line to her yet. I’m sure it’ll come to me in time. I spent most of yesterday questing around Gorowyn, and it didn’t take long to get to level 18 with 14aa that way. The new zones SoE’s added over time have been wonderful for new players, providing far better gear and rewards then the old shattered lands starter zones. I actually think both of the islands could use a revamp, as none of the gear is on par with the starter zones of Darklight Woods, Kelethin, nor Gorowyn. Though it is nice to start there for quest credit, then move on to greener pastures.

So once I’d finished off all of the Gorowyn chains, which ended with me lighting some machine up and exploding aviak out of the air (best quest ever lately) I headed to the shattered lands zones. I enjoy doing the smaller chains there as they reward you with faction for your respected city. So I hung out in The Caves, The Forest Ruins, Oakmyst Forest (how many times I died to that named bear back in the day I couldn’t even start to tell you, he was a bane of my lowbies existence) and did the small quests around those areas. Some have been revamped, over time npc’s have moved, though there are still a few oldies. Npc’s in Baubleshire still ask you to hunt forgotten guardians for a few goodies, and ask you to explore the mage tower. At level 19 these zones were mostly gray to me, but I still had fun and got about 1% exp for turn in. The quests didn’t warrent any aa at my level either, but I’m not too concerned.

It’s nice to be taking a break from the T8 grind, and exploring the smaller zones that I fell in love with when I first started playing this game. I miss the T5 raids, and how difficult I thought they were at the time. When frogloks were introduced the raid zone gave you a title as well as a house item and I fell in love with it immediately. I still remember doing my prismatic 1.0 and how proud I was to have been going with my templar at level 45 (which was the min. to get into the zone to begin with). I remember that I went with Allure, an Australian guild on Najena. Ah good times.

I gathered up a small handful of house items while I did these lowbie quests, four books for my house (which was nice, none of them are L&L’s) a small lab flask, a small cage that hangs from the ceiling, and a bench. I’ve outfitted Ysandria’s small inn room with these, and promptly put her meager gatherings for sale - which all sold, go figure. I priced level 1-19 stuff for 1g and made 31g just from that. Thank you transmuters.

No idea how long I’ll keep playing the character, but in time I hope to make her into a crafter, and continue on questing. Ah yes, the break from T8 is nice.

Ishbel hit 76 yesterday, and is 60% of the way through her level to 77. I decided that once I finish working her to 80, or when I get bored (which may be soon at this rate) I’ll work on the templar some - after I spec her to a dps aa spread. There’s no way I want to spend 30 minutes hitting one single mob waiting for it to die. I finished off almost all of my Kunzar Jungle quests, got faction along the way with whomever I needed it with, and decided to take a little trip into Jarsath Wastes. I picked up a few of the entrance quests and got those done quickly enough while trying to find ‘the mob’ to charm.

Hrms. Lack of mobs, so far. The spectral type by the entrance are ranger and shadowknight mobs, not bad, but not great. A few others I charmed were again, alright, but mostly melee type mobs that aren’t anything to write home about. I know there are some draconian casters on the other side of the zone near the Skyfire mountain range, but I think they’re still orange to me right now.

I did find two named up, the saber cat and the prickly guy, so I pit my pets against both of those, treasured for one kill and legendary for the other. A bracelet with 40int and 140 power or something with a stifle. Meh, not that impressive. Plus it’s only selling on broker for 2p or so. I was hoping for some trooper scale boots for the bard.

Speaking of the bard, I’ve been hearing stories of them parsing 2-3k easily on raids by dropping the BD line (blade dance) and picking up the int line for extra dps. I haven’t managed to test this myself since 90% of guilds I’ve been in require their bards to have BD. Apparently though guilds are trying to break away from that, and work through aoe’s in other ways. Nice to hear, I’ve always hated having a whole aa line just to get the end skill when the points could be spent else where.

I haven’t decided how I’ll spec the healer yet. I enjoy my strength line for the immunity to stifles, but apparently that line (so say some) is not that great. Any advice from dps spec’d inquisitors and templars out there? I don’t own the aa respec mirror, but until I hit 80 (if I ever do) I’m not too concerned, the dps line should suit me just fine.

Other then that, things have been quiet. I’ve been getting involved in some rp on the server, and while I haven’t exactly been grouping a lot, I am chattering to people and meeting some new folks. I’ve gotten a few guild invites on the coercer which I always find amusing because the people inviting me don’t even know me. They’ve never seen me play. They just see that I’m a coercer who’s untagged as it were, and instantly pop in with their “hey, are you looking for a guild” speech. Not that I mind I suppose, but I’d always want a guild to get to know me first before I joined. Personal preference.

I’ve made a lot of coin working my alts up through RoK, but I’ve noticed that there’s not a whole lot to actually sell for coin. Almost anything of vaule is no-trade, and masters are sparse. Besides rares (silicate loam anyone?) or raws that are harvested, my characters are left on their own to make coin. Quests are a one time deal, so once you’ve completed the chain, the coin starts to slow down. I’ve only been so lucky thus far because I have so many alts to work through all of those chains- and aside from masters, there’s very little to actually purchase. I have a provisioner to make food, and a sage to make spells, and my jeweler to make whatever else I may need. Not that I’m complaining, but it seems like I spend far more coin on alts and upgrading their little level 40 stuff then I ever do on anyone who’s end game.

I experimented some last night with other charmed pets. My favorite not changing though. It may just be because of levels - other pets as fun as they are, also seem to break charm a lot more frequently. My own pet is white to me now, while some froglok wizards were yellow, and doing 2-3k dps when I ran my parser. Sweet. They also were breaking charm every 5 minutes though and then I was getting smushed, frequently. Not worth it - yet. The screen shot (little small, I know) is Ishbel in the City of Mist area of Kunzar Jungle, solo’ing one of the heroic specters. They’re not fun, since they’re casters. Which mean they’ll still hit my pet even at ranged and lets face it as nice as coercer pets are the majority of them are not tanks. Stuns and stifles do work well to keep the damage to a minimum.

So Ishbel got another level, and dinged 76 this morning. She’s been gaining roughly a level a day, or every two days. I checked out her leveling ratio and sort of snickered. She was created on May 25th, 2007. Mostly because I had betrayed Stargrace a few times back and forth from coercer to illusionist, and figured it would just be easier to create a coercer rather then continue betraying. May 30th she hit level 31. Power leveled? Oh yes. I got bored and then didn’t play her for a bit. The next interesting bit of leveling was in December, when I played in New Tunaria. She went from level 64 on the 16th to 68 on the 17th. Pretty sure I drained all of her vitality during that. Ah yes. New Tunaria is a lot of fun.

From January 11th until now she’s gotten her last 10 levels. I haven’t really been concentrating on her except for this past week. The class is fun. She’s too big to be power leveled which is why I turned to the whole charming bit. I’m sure Tipa is getting annoyed by my ever eager ranting about the class now *grins* I’m sure it will slow to a steady drone before too long.

I am closing in on the end of Kunzar Jungle quests, most of the remaining ones I have are heroic and want me to either go deeper into CoM (I want to ensure my charm is going to actually last before I do that too frequently) or want me to head to Seb. I haven’t gone there yet, so I don’t know what sort of mobs frequent easy to reach areas, and whether or not I can find a suitable mage pet for charming and running around with. Or even if I’ll be able to solo in there. Probably not, which is fine I’m coming up on the levels now where I can actually be useful in a group if I can find one who’s looking for a little crowd control. Though most likely they’ll just be after the power regen. I think it’s funny that even on a huge server like Antonia Bayle, a few months after the release of RoK now, I am the 55th coercer to hit level 75. World wide, I’m sitting at 1,069th. Underplayed class much? Most raid guilds only need one, there’s no way our dps matches up to that of an illusionist (at least, not as easily as they do) nor do we bring things to the table like TC, or illusionary arm (remember, I play both). Soloing though, has been quite fun.

Hopefully a few more quests and I’ll move on to Jarsath Wastes. Still not looking forward to those dispelling mobs, but maybe grinding the faction quests won’t be quite as annoying. Or charm could break every 5 minutes (I really miss EQ1 dire charm) and it’ll be a disaster. Still need to find some good mobs to charm there.

Ishbel may have taken forever to finally hit 74, but it was no time at all to hit 75. I dived into Kunzar Jungle which has always been the RoK zone I hated the most - not this time. This time I loved it. I moved at my own pace, and learned where things were this time through. Last time I quested here I was so turned around and lost most of the time it was a wonder I managed to get anything done. At first I charmed my typical vespid, and then I found an amazing pet. No, I’m not going to name it here, because then I’ll get to enjoy having it nerfed.

With my new pet in tow, I wandered to the outside of CoM (City of Mist) and did a few quests there, then randomly thought to myself. Hmms. Level 74. I wonder….

I stood back.. and set my pet against a level 77^^^ heroic.

Two minutes or so later with the resounding thunk of a treasured chest dropping, the mob was dead. I was ecstatic. I’ve never been able to solo heroics my own level before with any of my characters, let alone something three levels higher then me. Ishbel’s got 0 masters (aside from her charm) and she’s wearing nothing but treasured gear, far under the gear the rest of my characters have. Now, it’s not that easy, don’t let text fool you. It’s a lot of work, actually, and then there’s always the “what happens when charm breaks” factor that can go off like a ticking time bomb at any second (and usually does RIGHT when you don’t want it to) and how to control those situations.

So how did I manage to do my CoM quests by myself? Well. Like any mage, I have to use the root and nuke method. I put my pet on ranged (who is also, conveniently a nuker) and before sending them in I start with a root. I have aa into this line to speed up the casting. I’m also an enchanter down the perpetuity line, so I machine gun cast making it easy to re-cast root when it breaks, and it does break quite a few times. If the mob is immune to root I of course have a much much harder time. I also use my stuns and even mez’s in between roots while my dps pet works down the heroic.

If charm breaks while I’m doing this, and I have no adds, chances are pretty good that I’ll live. The mob I’m tackling is rooted after all, a bit away from me. I quickly target my un-charmed pet, and cast a mez (made faster, by the fact that I’ve been chain nuking with perpet) and then re-charm - hopefully before the rooted encounter breaks and eats me. It doesn’t always go as planned, of course.

Adds are the same way. I mez whatever I need out of the fight for a bit, and then take them down one at a time - resists allowing, of course. Resists are my bane. Especially when I’m fighting things three levels higher then me.

Do I sound excited?

You betcha. It’s been a while since I’ve been so excited about a class, and don’t get me wrong here, I DO enjoy grouping as well, but I’m typically on early on in the day when no one is around, and I don’t want to LFG for hours. So while I level myself up to a “useful” level, I enjoy soloing. Grouping is for evenings, when people actually need enchanters. Well, not that we’re ever really needed. It’s nice to be able to handle things on my own, and it’s great that it actually takes work and makes me think and keeps me on edge. I’ve also of course died, a whole lot. I die probably once or twice an hour, some times more — if you can manage to get around the resentment of dying so often with a class, the time between deaths, is VERY worth it. Ishbel is level 75, with 10 days played time on her. I’ve been upgrading all of her T8 spells to adept3 (dang it enraging demeanor, you’re never going to drop are you.. ) so she’s finally making what I’d consider some progress.

I’ve kept her unguilded, so I could get to know people, and figure out the whole guild thing at a later date. Too many times do I just try to throw myself into a guild just because they’re looking for a class I play, as opposed to looking for a guild where I know people, who I have a community with, and where I get to play a class that I honestly, just want to play.

Oh, and I’m really looking forward to the next GU when ever that goes in. Sounds like a lot of interesting things, even though the whole “faction faction faction” grind that I’m expecting with epics certainly won’t be fun. At all.

I’ve been focused lately on the coercer, and if I haven’t said it lately, let me just mention again that the class itself is SO much fun. It wouldn’t nearly be as fun though were it not for the m1 charm I have. In fact, there’s such a huge difference between adept3 and m1 that I feel quite confident in saying I’d hate the class were it not for the upgraded spell. It’s a shame that one single spell holds so much over a class, but it’s true.

She’s sitting comfortably at level 74 now - having finished all of the Kylong Plains quests (those quests took me from level 65 to level 70.. I couldn’t complain at all) then the Fens of Nathsar quests, which took me from 71-73. The past three levels seem to have dragged by REALLY slowly, even though I worked hard at them, not sure why. At level 73, I’d finished the fens quests except for the one Bellywhumper one that requires a whole lot of faction, and contemplated heading to Kunzar Jungle. 73 is a little low, I wasn’t sure how well I’d do.

I shouldn’t have worried.

I picked up all the quests from the first village I stumbled into, and found a vespid (I think..) caster, who had swarm pets as one of their abilities. The charmed pet was 76 to my 73, but wow did they ever rip into mobs nicely. I finished the first two rounds of quests and managed to ding myself to 74. Now, don’t get me wrong. As nice and ‘uber’ as I find the coercer - they’re frustrating too. When charm breaks (which it does, often) I’m pretty much guaranteed a death at this level. When the charmed pet is lower level then me it’s different, I can gage my survivability. Yellow broken charmed mob though + whatever the mob was beating on suddenly turning on me = smushed coercer.

I’ve died a WHOLE LOT with the coercer. Probably more with her then any other one of my characters, and that includes raiders. The 15 minutes where charm holds steady though are worth the deaths. I still accomplish things way faster. I’m looking forward to gaining a few more levels and maybe finally getting to see the inside of some instances with her. Pretty much everything that drops is a piece of gear upgrade for her, since I never bothered to get any gear after level 40. I’ve been upgrading all T8 spells to adept3 as I level, and keeping her up to date in that regard (now) at least. She’s still only got 8 days played on her, but I’ve been afk a lot doing other things so not all of the time is actual played time.

I’m working on decorating her home, and she’s involved in some intricate roleplay that’s a lot of fun. She’s a Teir’Dal who’s a faithful follower of Innoruuk and his teachings, so I play her as such. I consider most groups and raids to be ooc, so I don’t worry about placing unusual limitations on myself. Hopefully I can get a few more levels over the next few days and have something more interesting to blather about aside from the stuff I’ve already done on multiple characters.

The high elf glanced around the sparsely decorated Inn room located in the Willow Wood and shrugged. It wasn’t home, but then again these days what was. She’d unpacked her few possessions which consisted mostly of her instruments, and settled in for the night. A wandering minstrel traveling across Norrath, she wasn’t about to complain, she’d seen worse.

Faralithe (or just Lithe, to those who knew her well) had a purpose which was (to her at least) very apparent. It was her job to record and sing about the tales of great and mighty people - but not only them. Her job was also to bring awareness to the smaller communities, about the great deeds their own people had done. She tried to make them uplifting, but also tell about the rich history people had. Especially since much of her own was lost to her. Which was fine, she preferred it that way, having no ties to anything at all.

Over the years she’d discovered that people liked nothing more then to hear the sound of their own voices. This was a simple fact, neither good nor bad, just something she’d observed. She made sure through her travels to take no sides, which allowed her access to establishments that may other wise slam their doors in her face. She knew as a high elf she should feel something for Tunare, but she didn’t. How could she with the upbringing she’d had. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in the Gods and Goddesses who’d returned to Norrath, no, she knew they were there. But she treated them all with a sort of vague indifference. The matters of the gods did not concern the mortals who walked below.

About her own life she’d kept quiet. Not letting anyone in. It wasn’t as though she’d lead a horrible one, nor was it particularly interesting though she thought when compared to those she sang about who had done so many amazing things. Wandering around Castleview Hamlet she learned a little of the Koada’Dal, scribbling down notes where she could. Barely learning anything about her own people before now was due to nothing more then forgetfulness, she’d always wanted to, but just couldn’t seem to find the time. That was the one thing life was short on, time.

She gathered her lute and headed out the door, wondering where the people of Qeynos gathered to collect and share their stories. She knew in Freeport people frequented the Bloodhaze Inn, but it would be some time before she could come up with a disguise to get into there after the last fiasco involving an over zealous gnome and his rotting thrall side kick. She glanced around the wooden doors that lead to Qeynos Harbor, searching for scraps of parchment that people may have stuck there indicating their events. Nothing. Curious.

Faralithe would just have to wait for another time. She wasn’t the most patient of people, but she’d learn.