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Lunar Madness: Living and Levelling 26-40Follow

#1 Oct 13 2013 at 1:23 PM Rating: Excellent
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Levelling:

If you have been levelling on the moon, level 25 is a natural break in the zone design for level ranges (see this . Basically you can live off the fumes of Shadeweavers and Netherbian Lair if you want (or need to) for a few more levels, but the closer you get to 30 the less effective that will be.

Marus Seru is ideal for the 20s (especially as a hotzone) well towards 30s. While it is listed as going to 45 I think that is long past the ideal range for it. Because it is a hotzone, it is probably the best zone for catching up a single character with a merc in this range as well.

We talked strat for these zones in the 1-25 thread I will keep it short here, instead looking to new places:

Hollowshade Moor is the intended Vah Shir levelling path for this level range. Various quests out of Shar Vahl have drops in the zone. In the 20s you can really start to hunt here. Sonic Wolves, Grimlings and Owlbears are the main prey, and as a result there is bane weapons geared for this. The devs spent a lot of time doing stuff for this zone, but you have to truly engage the content to even know it (see quests below).

Echo Caverns is listed as 20-45, but this zone is less forgiving to the unprepared. It also has a hard side and an easy side. I remember killing the mosquitoes in a part group in the late 20s. In Luclin-era gear it will be interesting to see when/how we are effective here.

I remember Dawnshroud Peaks being a popular levelling spot years later. Smiths liked the drops here iirc. Most people camped near a zoneline as it is an easy place to get adds. Enchanters used to really like charming a pet in here... Since it is a hotzone it will be hard to beat for xp across this entire level range.

Grimling Forest is 25-50. At level this is a tricky place. I'm curious to see how we handle it. It's been subject to some dev love over the years to fix bugs with the event/war... which is probably not doable in era gear at level 50.

Twilight Sea is a bit different in the Luclin zone mix in that it is a huge quest hub, but not that great of an xp zone if you aren't doing a camp at the sweet spot for it. However, it is one of the better loot zones in this level range.

Scarlett Desert is a good zone if you can handle adds. They changed the drop rules in this zone... you get all the quest loots for the twilight armor quests off a given mob rather than just 1. Handy if you know what you want, a lot of looking up stuff if you don't. My memory is that killing one type of alien makes the others like you. Apparently they added a high level (75+) alien so watch for that. One of my all-time favourite weapons used drop here: sunflower thorn but I haven't seen one in years, and couldn't manage to get the named to spawn last few times I bothered to try.

Katta Castellum is a great designed city (maybe not the one path up) that you can faction with or choose to kill.

Mons Letalis and Tenebrous Mountains have mobs in the 35-40 range, but are probably best left for the 40+ seasons.

Quests:

The Hollowshade War is one of the best scripted non-raids in EQ. I've done the war many times (years ago) and all 3 variations actually work. Living on the Moon (as we are) the drops are going to be useful. It's not going to be easy in Luclin-era gear, but totally worth it on an EQ-bucket list thing.

progressive cloak quests that seem to be mostly for Vah Shir (some have more large race options). Hollowshade also extends nearly every tradeskill quest out of Shar Vahl.

In Echo Caverns some will want to do this quest for priest clicky before having the real fun and killing the mutants.

Also in Echo, but early for this level range is quest for enduring breath item but it is worth being aware of in case you get the drops.

Dawnshroud has a variety of weapon quests, many of which no one has said a thing about in years. ogrebane armor is noteworthy as it is aimed at small races (who get shafted in Shar Vahl area) and uses the annoying lightcrawlers. A fair number of Twilight Sea quests need drops from Dawnshroud as well.

Twilight Sea has 196 known quests starting in it... armor for every class (maybe not berserker...) and connections to the rival cities of Sanctus Seru and Katta Castellum for a few good items like a sword .

Katta Castellum likes you: foraging machete , Vamp killer , enduring breath are ones that are probably doable 26-40. There's some other important stuff tied to this zone: like earring waaaay beyond the casual little group . NOTE that some quests in Sanctus Seru lower faction here... Jewelled Quiver is worth doing before building up faction with Katta Castellum in my view (for example).


Edited, Oct 13th 2013 9:39pm by snailish
#2 Oct 14 2013 at 8:09 AM Rating: Excellent
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Twilight Sea is pretty crazy for loot and probably our best bet for gearing up at this level. Elementals and Shades both have named which drop gear that would upgrade just about any of us.
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#3 Oct 14 2013 at 10:45 AM Rating: Excellent
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Field agent Wizard reporting in from the front lines~

It looks like there is a lot of overlap with zones for leveling within the 20-30 range on luclin, Especially Netherbian lair, Paludal Caverns and Shadeweaver's.

I've been to the twilight sea, the elementals there are a good option from lvls 25-29.They drop weapons and they can be easily sold to the merchant in the castle. Did I also mention the castle looks super cool?
One issue with twilight sea is that it is difficult to get to without using ports. (I've just gated there to get there, its so convienient)


Hollowshade moor ive visited a few times. The grimlings to the south are an excellent source of cash flow.They in the 21-26 or so,level range. They drop runes,spears and other things that sell really nice at this level.
The owlbears were a bit tough for me around 25, so i think they are better approached later. I have yet to check out the sonic wolves and see how worthwhile they are. Been farming the grimlings for cash for spells!

I visited echo caverns but i noticed that its easy to get adds there, it was a bit problematic, but not too bad. Things hit hard there, i remember having to run for my life from a giant sized blood sucking insect, Smiley: eek
All of the merchants behind the wall were scowling at me, wonder if theres anything worth doing with them?

There are some tough shak dratha and gor taku in the south end cave in shadeweavers that would be good xp through 25-30,they look nasty. I managed to get in there and kill the barkeep and smith, obviously ruining their excellent party Smiley: grin

#4 Oct 14 2013 at 11:04 AM Rating: Good
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Snail...excellent write up... Smiley: bowdown, can't wait to get rolling ( just got to get some time away from work...Smiley: glare )

At...you are my favorite wizard ( see Rhaah post ) and that is some great info you posted as well...Smiley: grin
#5 Oct 14 2013 at 11:08 AM Rating: Excellent
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AtnaEverywhere wrote:
Did I also mention the castle looks super cool?


It is a cool castle my wizard used it as a base of operations from about 40-50
#6 Oct 14 2013 at 12:12 PM Rating: Good
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Valkanry and I just duoed the low entrance of Echo Caverns (find it in Shadowhaven by the soulbinder... there is a hidden wall in the rogue room there) as a 25 druid and 28 wizard without mercs.

Boglings are mostly dark blue to me at 26 in this area. They drop lore spears that sell for 4-5 plat each... so very nice for us poor folk.

We also would have been fine doing the mosquito room, they range a level or two higher than the entrance boglings. The named mosquito, needlite queen, dropped a decent dagger for wide use (melee and int casters).

With a merc, a level 24 character can easily solo the boglings (even the harder end of the tunnel where they will be red, and the mosquitos). With 2 mercs out we were able to kill the Giant Mushroom, but both died. A couple of levels on us, or a larger group and the giant shroom is on farm status (lol). My druid actually needs a quest drop from it.

Visited the mutants... My druid is amiable to them. Looks like only 1 has a quest I want to do. I will betray them later.
#7 Oct 14 2013 at 12:32 PM Rating: Excellent
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On the subject of Twilight Sea Armor, not sure if I've seen this guide linked yet (if it has been, sorry).. if not, here is your shopping list:

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/equipment/luclinarmour.html
#8 Oct 14 2013 at 1:35 PM Rating: Good
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Felicite wrote:
On the subject of Twilight Sea Armor, not sure if I've seen this guide linked yet (if it has been, sorry).. if not, here is your shopping list:

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/equipment/luclinarmour.html



Extremely useful link. Completing a full set of this... while it is still all upgrades (even just playing in Luclin era) is looking pretty unlikely. That's a lot of zones/drops to gather for one set. It will be interesting to see how our luck is on this.
#9 Oct 15 2013 at 10:38 AM Rating: Excellent
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I'm currently level 30, and XP in the zones certainly feels different.
I'm trying to avoid dawnshroud this go-around. I often use dawnshroud for my characters normally because of the hot zone modifier. Its a great place to do levels 30-40 fairly easily. This time around, i'm trying to avoid it, as well as somewhat avoiding Marus seru. I've been visiting marus seru to get more Hopper hides, but otherwise the loot there is terrible.

I've been trying to stick to Echo Caverns, Twilight sea and Hollowshade moor to see how it goes. Hollowshade moor surprised me a bit, there is still lots of dark blue mobs to kill there at 30. The big grimling camp was hard to solo, so it would probably require a group. The outpost looked tough, i think a group of low 30's would probably be able to handle the outpost themselves, as long as the whole thing didn't get pulled at once. The grimling guards on the outside are even cons to me. With the war going on there is not a lot of variety, all the other camps are taken over by grimlings so there is not as much to explore.

Been in echo a few times now, i tried to solo the mutant camp, but its too hard with adds. I can handle 2 mobs at once, but more than that i have to run back to shadow haven again. With a group this camp would be interesting, because there are some funky drops here. I have to see if i can do some of the boglings by myself again.

I'm a bit scared to try grimling but the low level monsters might be worth trying here. I'm excited to get back to the twilight sea area, because the drops can be really nice there.

For really good XP, i think the shroom hut in dawnshroud is good xp, and the monsters there are lower level, it would probably be possible to do the shroom hut from around 25ish(around netherbian lair level?) before doing the tribal gatherers in the zone. Im certain the shroom hut has a fair number of adds each pull, would be ok for 2 or 3 people.


#10 Oct 15 2013 at 10:51 AM Rating: Excellent
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My issue with "really good xp" is that the dings don't mean a thing if I ain't got that clink.

In other words, spells are expensive and outpacing my rate of income doesn't really help me. Especially when I need to keep current with pets and focus items to stay competitive with the mobs. Add gear considerations into there as well.
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#11 Oct 15 2013 at 11:16 AM Rating: Excellent
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I forgot to mention i've had to go farm the grimlings several times to get enough coin to be able to buy spells and such. I've had to make multiple trips gathering the acrylia runes and selling them to just get enough money for all the spells.

A list of better loot drop mobs would be useful. What comes to mind are:
- Loda Kai in Shadeweavers, sometimes drop Loda kai mail
- Bandits in paludal Caverns, drop coin, armor drops, weapons
- Grimling fishermen, grimling herders in the south part of hollowshade moor (killable around 20ish)
- For lower levels the shak dratha and gor taku drop weapons, sell for a few gold to merchants

Anyone want to add to the good-loot list?
#12 Oct 15 2013 at 11:21 AM Rating: Decent
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AtnaEverywhere wrote:
I forgot to mention i've had to go farm the grimlings several times to get enough coin to be able to buy spells and such. I've had to make multiple trips gathering the acrylia runes and selling them to just get enough money for all the spells.

A list of better loot drop mobs would be useful. What comes to mind are:
- Loda Kai in Shadeweavers, sometimes drop Loda kai mail
- Bandits in paludal Caverns, drop coin, armor drops, weapons
- Grimling fishermen, grimling herders in the south part of hollowshade moor (killable around 20ish)
- For lower levels the shak dratha and gor taku drop weapons, sell for a few gold to merchants

Anyone want to add to the good-loot list?


Thanks for the heads up on the weapons drops...that is the thing that I need the most right now. Got a good piecer, but sold my blunt weapon accidently Smiley: oyvey ( and it was not listed on the merchant, damn sneaky merchant...Smiley: glare ) so could really use a decent one. Or any non-hand to hand weapon would be great...
#13 Oct 15 2013 at 5:47 PM Rating: Excellent
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AtnaEverywhere wrote:
I forgot to mention i've had to go farm the grimlings several times to get enough coin to be able to buy spells and such. I've had to make multiple trips gathering the acrylia runes and selling them to just get enough money for all the spells.

A list of better loot drop mobs would be useful. What comes to mind are:
- Loda Kai in Shadeweavers, sometimes drop Loda kai mail
- Bandits in paludal Caverns, drop coin, armor drops, weapons
- Grimling fishermen, grimling herders in the south part of hollowshade moor (killable around 20ish)
- For lower levels the shak dratha and gor taku drop weapons, sell for a few gold to merchants

Anyone want to add to the good-loot list?


Echo caverns:

level 27ish mosquitoes have wings and bits that sell for gold to a few plat each.

The lowest boglings can drop some nice 4-5p things, but so far all I have seen are lore so you want to run and sell then kill more.


Outlevelling money has definately been my druid's issue last couple of days lol.
#14 Oct 20 2013 at 5:36 PM Rating: Good
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snailish wrote:
Felicite wrote:
On the subject of Twilight Sea Armor, not sure if I've seen this guide linked yet (if it has been, sorry).. if not, here is your shopping list:

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/equipment/luclinarmour.html



Extremely useful link. Completing a full set of this... while it is still all upgrades (even just playing in Luclin era) is looking pretty unlikely. That's a lot of zones/drops to gather for one set. It will be interesting to see how our luck is on this.



Update: since the named drop a pile of quest drops each time you kill them, and the majority are tradable... we now have a guild bank bursting with the Twilight Sea drops alone. If we tackle the other needed zones with the same enthusiasm we should see quite a bit of set completion.
#15 Oct 20 2013 at 7:31 PM Rating: Excellent
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Funny thing: When you're setting things in the Guild Bank and set it to a specific player, you can just enter anything into the name field. So I went through and tagged all the GBank TS drops as "Warrior", "Monk", "Wizard", etc. Anyone who wants anything can just change the permission to Public and withdraw it since everyone has full banking powers. So get to the Guild Bank and see what your class has stored and get it out already Smiley: grin
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Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#16 Oct 21 2013 at 10:02 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Funny thing: When you're setting things in the Guild Bank and set it to a specific player, you can just enter anything into the name field. So I went through and tagged all the GBank TS drops as "Warrior", "Monk", "Wizard", etc. Anyone who wants anything can just change the permission to Public and withdraw it since everyone has full banking powers. So get to the Guild Bank and see what your class has stored and get it out already Smiley: grin

This is pretty clever.

In the past I've done much the same thing with setting all the items to "Public if Usable" and then you filter on "Withdrawable" to see the items you can use.
#17 Oct 21 2013 at 10:40 AM Rating: Excellent
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I learned it on accident while making a typo on a character name and the system not caring that the name entered wasn't a guild member.

I suppose if we ever invite a guy named Warrior, he could clean us out in warrior TS drops. Smiley: laugh
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Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#18 Oct 21 2013 at 10:46 AM Rating: Good
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That must have been very time-consuming. You deserve an extra fish roll! Smiley: clap
#19 Oct 21 2013 at 11:11 AM Rating: Excellent
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On a bright note, Jhenni made our first piece of TS amor last night -- the magician hat.

I have the pieces for the choker and mask but those wouldn't be upgrades and I don't want to waste the sun/moon/astral/etc jewels just for the hell of it.
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#20 Oct 22 2013 at 8:48 AM Rating: Excellent
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The escort mission in Netherbian Lair should be a piece of cake for a couple of us grouped. Just need to walk some dude from the Dawnshroud side to the Nexus side of the zone, fighting three waves of bad guys along the way (Fungoids, Netherbians, etc).

Reward is the Jasper Kundan Earring. Nice for the melees and priests. Respawn on the NPC is a couple days though.
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#21 Oct 22 2013 at 3:11 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
The escort mission in Netherbian Lair should be a piece of cake for a couple of us grouped. Just need to walk some dude from the Dawnshroud side to the Nexus side of the zone, fighting three waves of bad guys along the way (Fungoids, Netherbians, etc).

Reward is the Jasper Kundan Earring. Nice for the melees and priests. Respawn on the NPC is a couple days though.



^things like this are a great idea. I'm going to hit echo up again for my necklace quest too (then I can kill mutants!).

Even with the self-imposed restrictions causing us to be badly-geared compared to same-as-us-level characters back in the actual Luclin day, I feel like I am still levelling faster than I can keep up with quests and spell purchasing. This isn't a bad thing, I'm actually impressed that there is so much to do.
#22 Oct 23 2013 at 6:58 AM Rating: Excellent
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More quests:
Jylian's Research is a real simple quest. Kill Spire Spirits in Mons Letalis until a No Rent robe drops. Hand it in for a Frayed Etheral Drape. Lesser spirits were lt. blue to me at 44, Greater spirits were dk blue. More annoying is how mobs outside the tower aggro through the walls into the tunnels.

Acrylia Plans is a another simple quest. Kill Grimling Runner in Tenebrous Mts, hand in drop for a pattern, use with some other components to make Rallic Pack. Need a tracker or a lot of luck.

Rakshasa Skulls is for a group closer around level 50+ but the reward is the Shield of Bane Warding which would be great for the paladins & priests. Plus it's tradable so anyone can do the heavy lifting.
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#23 Oct 26 2013 at 6:14 AM Rating: Excellent
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Update:

We've got a core group of the most active players now into the 40s, will the bulk of the more-casuals (or multiple character distracted) into the mid-20s.

Marus Seru and Dawnshroud are such good xp as hotzones that they are absoletly the best catch-up levelling path.

Twilight Sea (thanks to guild port and 3 druids, 1 wizard) has been our go-to zone for variety (if we'd all stuck in Dawnshroud we'd level too fast) to the point we are risking getting sick of it. The quest armor drops are piling up (especially some classes like necromancer), but you have to hit a bunch of zones to complete most of those. Kwarell (paladin) has been getting great use out of fear undead and Aenuuven (enchanter) has got to do a lot of crowd control, especially when we've tackled the harder stuff in Scarlett Desert.

I play on the early end of the playtime range for the guild, so I don't see a fair number of people in game (or maybe it's right to say they don't see me?). I do see that progress is happening just by the level range in the guild. Feel free to post updates as everyone's path is interesting to me (even if just told in point form). We're starting to get some decent gear for the way we are playing (defiant armor & weapons as vendor fodder, PoK quest gear ignored, trying to stick with the moon) so someone joining now or making a new character has a gear advantage from handmedowns.

Class balance in the guild is amusing. We have at least one of every class. From an active play perspective I think Mage, Wizard, Druid, Enchanter, Paladin is your best bet early to middle of an evening. It looks like Shadowknight, Shaman, Cleric, Druid and everything Yenwangweh is playing is mid to late.

Any one interested in joining, just post here or seek out <Lunar Mutant Rights Now>. If what we are doing sounds like something you'd enjoy once a week that is fine. Jophiel will tell you "attendance is mandatory", however compliance with that is optional. Smiley: lol

We're up to 10-12ish forum folk for a slate of 25 characters in the guild. Grouping happens and so does soloing "my own thing" while having a laid-back guild to chat with. I know some of us expect/intend to slow down levelling (for AA and catching up gear/quests) in the 50s so it is definately not too late to join up.
#24 Oct 26 2013 at 8:05 AM Rating: Excellent
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I altered maps Hollowshade Moor and Katta Castellum.

The MapFiend map of Hollowshade was missing an island and huts in the south camp and is now updated.

The Katta Castellum map was drawn using an nearly invisible shade of yellow and has been updated using black 0, 0, 0 line colors.

Get them here: http://www.mediafire.com/folder/725c9l6cd0syf/Everquest_Maps
#25 Oct 28 2013 at 11:10 AM Rating: Good
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snailish wrote:
Any one interested in joining, just post here or seek out <Lunar Mutant Rights Now>. If what we are doing sounds like something you'd enjoy once a week that is fine. Jophiel will tell you "attendance is mandatory", however compliance with that is optional. Smiley: lol

Last Thursday was my 21st anniversary and I went to Del Mar, CA for the weekend. Basically I've not been in game for a week.

I'll be back this week, honest! Although realistically I usually only play a few times a week. I will forever been the kitten of the group I expect.
#26 Oct 28 2013 at 11:44 AM Rating: Excellent
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I really like the improved maps, Way better than the originals. Way to go :)

Cool to hear fel, good to see more people on here and there. Its a fun concept, Its one of the reasons keeping me going this long.
That and nukes ^.^/
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