Returning after long break

[Amberionn]

After a 2 year break from playing, I recently, in the last week, returned to EQ. While never a high end paladin, my gear was not too terrible, and I was able to function as the tank for a group. I now find myself, though, at level 68 with inferior gear, and limited funds.

I did pick up the titanium edition, so have all the expansions except for PoR and TSS, and probably will pick them up soon. I am curious where would be the best initial hunting spots, to upgrade my gear, and gain experience. I am also curious as to what major changes, if any, have been made to the paladin class since Oct 2004?

Amberionn Shadowblade
Quellious/Rodcet Nife

[Eowenna Celerdain]

Welcome back.

I can't guarantee that I'd remember every single change since Oct 2004. Possibly the biggest universal changes are the addition of a "rest mode" which permits much faster health and mana regen, and the re-coloring of the "con" system.

Mode status shows up in your character name window, along with your HP / Mana / Endurance. There's a little icon that informs you if your character is "in combat" (crossed swords), "on a timer" (hourglass), "Could be resting if not for a debuff" (flame), "Could be resting if not standing" (grey swirl), and "Resting" (gold swirl). If on a timer, a grey timer countdown bar appears under the endurance bar. When in "rest mode" or "out of combat mode" your character regens hp/mana/endurance *really* fast compared to how those regen during battle. So if you get your character into rest mode, your character can go from empty to full in approx 2 minutes.

Current "Consider" colors -------------------------------------------- Old "Consider" colors
=================================================================================================
Red (more than 5 levels above player) ---- Red (more than 3 levels above player)
Yellow (1-5 levels above player) --------- Yellow (1-3 levels above player)
White (same level as player) ----------------------------- White (Same level as player)
Dark Blue (1-5 levels below player) -------------------------- Dark Blue (1-10[?] levels below player)
Aqua/Light Blue (6-10[?] levels below player) ----------- Aqua/Light Blue (up to approx 15 levels below player, if still giving exp.)
Green (up to approx 15 levels below player if still exp) ---- Green (too far below player to still grant experience)
Grey (too far below player to still grant experience)

There are several other things, such as auras and new scrolls and the like, that others can probably describe / explain better than I can. So I'll leave those to them, but those two are sufficiently huge I thought you'd appreciate notification.

One place to get better gear would be from doing DoN (Dragons of Norrath) missions. It's similar to LDoN (Lost Dungeons of Norrath) in style, except that the crystals you earn from the DoN missions are transferrable. So unlike LDoN points the DoN crystals can be traded, bought and sold.

The gear that one can buy with crystals only (NPC vendor absolutely refuses coin) will probably be at least moderate upgrades to the gear that any non-high-end Paladin would have from 2004.

I'd also recommend that you seek out a guild that suits your play style. EverQuest is still geared toward groups, so you'll encounter some serious obstacles if you try to solo exclusively.

One place you can probably "own" is Veksar, at the bottom of Lake of Ill Omen. There are drops in there that can sell reasonably well in Bazaar, which can lead to you acquiring more coin which may be helpful in things like topping off crystal counts. It is semi decent for AA experience, but not outstanding for standard experience.

Additionally, Depths of Darkhollow has several missions that yield "cursor loot" upon completion. An item will literally appear on your cursor. This site has a fairly comprehensive chart of what mission yields what items, so you can target specific missions to pursue for items. Additionally, some monster missions (I know, they have a bad reputation because they were abused before getting retuned) do yield some fairly decent drops in their treasure chests at the end. As with many mobs, most monster missions have both a common item that's not outstanding, and a better "rare" drop.

If you get the Prophecy of Ro expansion, one mission in particular that I recommend is the "Dain" trilogy. After you collect the seal upon successful completion of the mission, you give it to the Dain's historian. He transforms the first you turn in into an aug that will show no stats until you equip it. The second two seals upgrade the aug, and the end result is quite respectable.

If you don't already have Anguish access, you may well wish to pursue collecting your signets. Once that is done, you can join "pick up" Aug runs (usually hosted by raiding guild members, but open to anyone who hears about it and wishes to join). There are an assortment of augs that grant +90 each to Hp / Mana / Endurance.

That's just off the top of my head, probably others can add to and fine-tune this information. Hopefully it will at least help you find a place to start.

Again, welcome back.

[Amberionn]

Thanks so much. This is the first I have heard of the auras. Did not realize until reading through the site here that we had new disciplines even...lol.

I am looking into guilds. Still have my old guild tag, but looks like the active players have all moved on to new ones.

[Samanna]

[Amberionn]

Thanks! Had cut and pasted a bunch of that info into a word doc and printed it off, along with a lot of the info from the links at top. Thanks to the shamans for having the paladins as a guest here. I left right before Paladins of Norrath had moved from ezboard, and good to see some familiar names are still around.

I am curious where to get the new paladin disciplines, if anyone can share the info. I did try the tome merchant in PoK, but they only had the 4 that I have already. The new Guard line looks interesting.

[Lonedor]