Returning Paladin - Last visit: Spring 2004

[Jorel]

Hey all,

I've been away from EQ since spring 2004. Now I've reactivated my account and was thinking about playing for a bit, but everything has changed, A LOT!

So, here I am:

- Lvl65 Paladin, 27AAs.
- About 6600hp fully selfbuffed.
- Got some gear from Luclin and PoP
- About 4k plat in the bank

What I would like is some advice of where to go and what to get, both when it comes to gear and LVLs/AAs.

Are there some special AAs to go for before lvling for a bit?

Do I need to hunt lower things to get cash to buy stuff before taking on my intended targets?

I ran by Cazic-Thule and was clubbered by 2 lightblue lizards, but I made it. Then I went off to Rathe Mnts and was flattened by some lvl60+ orc in 7 hits hehe.

Any and all ideas will be appreciated

/Jorel

[Normy]

Will need to get you set up with groupable gear first. Intricate Defiant gear is likely to be cheap at this point, but depends on what server you are on. On Tunare server you can probably get most pieces there for less than 4k. I kinda wish some of these returning pallies would be on my server, I could offer more direct assistance.

You'll need a few friends to get by for now. Soloing is possible, but it'll be slow at that point. AA's are going to be easier than you remember, but leveling is still a pain.

I'd suggest working on getting at least some Slay Undead AA's first and see about going into the Hole and killing there. The live mobs might be a pain, but the undead there is cake with slay.

[Isaelie]

Every single piece of gear from POP and Luclin is now crap. Sorry to be so blunt, but EQ has had mudflation on an unprecedented scale.

Remember Luclin? Any item with +100hps was good? At your level, good items are +350hps.

Elaborate defiant plate is the armor you want.

Its required 59, reccomended 70, it gives awesome bonuses and huge hp boosts. Buy them cheap. They drop commonly from level 70'ish mobs. On my server, a full set would cost about 15k. Some good ways to get an idea for specific gear items is to use eqplayers or magelo to search for other 65 paladins and see what they are using. The single most important item is your weapon, of course. You should find a 50/40'ish 2hander pretty cheap (under 2k).

The most important AA's, as always are your defensives, and then your Slay Undead. I suggest you stay 65 and gear up(to a point you don't feel gimp) and aa up(at least 100 or so, I had 400 before I left 65).

Right now, you can get a better weapon and maybe 1 piece of defiant, and head on to Crypt of Decay for some easy solo xp. If you can get a group, do it. The xp groups in Plane of Storms aren't too bad right now, and any loot from there has a high tribute value. Also, there is no more flags needed in POP, so its easy to go to Plane of Fire in a group.

[Jorel]

Hey,

Thanks for the input. I'm at the Cazic-Thule server btw. I'll tell you what I've done so far.

Since I was in Rathe to get my corpse I decided to have a go at the Hill Giants. That made me about 700p in a couple of hours, which brought my total fortune to about 4.5k. I then went back to the bazaar to see if there were any of the good items you suggested up for sale. I found 2 Elaborate Defiant plate pieces up for sale for a couple of hundred plat, bought them instantly. I then proceeded to ask a couple of questions in the general chat. That brought me response from a fellow paladin who generously donated 6 really nice paladin items(2 elaborate plate, a really nice haste neckpiece, a great belt and 2 earrings)! All items blew my previous items away totally!

I then looked around for a new weapon and found a couple of Dawnlight Zweihanders up for sale. After thoughtful consideration I decided to buy it, so I grabbed the cheapest. That took away half of my money, I think I payed 1800 or 2k for it.

Then I decided to follow your advise and headed out to PoDisease to continue to CoD. I had a hard time making it to the entrance so I gave up and went back to PoK. I realised that I should buy some potions. I therefore bought a stack of Skinpike potions and a stack of Cloudy Potions. While all this happened I read about Crypt of Nadox as a good place to gather AAs so I thought I might give it a shot. Said and done, I ran there and invised down to the undead part(had to ask in general chat again about where it was and how to get there hehe).

I was at 27AAs so I thought I would get started on the Slay Undead AA line. I already had CF1. Started fighting and realised I could take 2 at a time, but not 3. Kept fighting for a bit, got about 4 AAs and invested them into CF2, then I headed back to the bazaar.

I decided to buy another piece of Elaborate plate as well as some clarity, alacrity and skinpikepotions for the money I had left/got while killing the undeads. Thats where Im at right now. I think my next step will be to gather about 500p to buy one of the DD augmentations to put on the weapon to help increase my dmg output.

/Jorel

[frocus]

I play on Cazic as well if your still looking for items i can rummage thru bank to check if i have any elab plate or dsh items rotting to help you out. My pallies name is rezzinnx hes the toon im usually on however i play wierd hours since i work the GY shift.

[Jorel]

Thx Rezzinn =)

I live in sweden so I guess my playing hours are kind of wierd too hehe.

/Jorel

[Isaelie]

Glad some of it worked out for you. For CoD, use the cloudy potions to get past the live mobs.

Nadox is a nice spot. I had better gear and more AA at 65, but I'd stayed in Nadox for about 100AA. The xp was really good if you could live through pulling like 5-10 at once. I had full defensive AA's and full healing AA's, so it was a lot easier for me. Also, the slay undead was going off on my ripostes, which was awesome.

[Zorbee]

You might also try the hole. There is TONS of cash drops there.

[Jorel]

Just wanted to give you all an update:

I've spent most of my time in the undead area in Nadox. I've been able to upgrade most of my armor in the Bazaar, I'm now at maxed out stats(with 280 cap) and about 9.3k hp.

I get an AA every 30 mins or so, which I think is awesome compared to how it used to be some years ago.

I've gotte the following AAs:

CF2, CF3, SU1, SU2, SU3, KA1, SotK1

What I plan to get:

SotK2, SotK3
CA2, CA3
2h Bash
CS1, CS2, CS3
Some healing AAs(haven't looked into it yet)
Weapon Affinity

Was also thinking about getting started on the Epic(1.0 or 1.5)

/Jorel

[Brohg]

Screw healing AA & weapon affinity, get as many levels of CA & CS as are available to you. There should be at least another 3, probably another 6 at level 65.

[Wanyen]

Weapon Affinity, unless you have some amazing proc (the only ones that likely fall in this category would be raid dropped weapons), or rely on utility weapons (snare, slow, avatar, etc), just should not be a high priority early on. The others are definitely worth having IMO. And like Brohg said, more CA/CS will help, even if it may seem less exciting -- believe me I understand this well. This weekend I caught my paladins CA/CS up to the cap for level 71 at 18. Now I am good for a couple hundred more AA and a couple more levels.

Before you spend much time on healing AAs, and after you have CA/CS caught up (and purchased 2h Bash), I would probably invest in persistent casting and steadfast will. This will make casting during combat notably easier, which will help getting roots and stuns and heals and everything else cast completed successfully, instead of interrupted.

[olts]

i shall agree with brogh. once ya have the tank aa, get the heal aa. dps aa last... beside that i cant add much what hasnt been said beside: wb

c.

[Zorbee]

Personally I think the DPS AA has much more mileage per AA than healing ones.

Yes, having the adept line maxed and a lot of the HG is wonderful, but not nearly as productive as just killing the mob faster to begin with.

Swing and Crit AA are wtfpwn when completed.

[frocus]

Yeah i have only got first 3 ranks of each healing aa while sitting at 400ish aa atm. And i got the heal crits mostly for lifetap proccing weapons so they could double proc. Im quite fond of lifetaps while soloing tho and will probably grind the rest of the heal aa's once i get to 21ish ca/cs and finish off a few more ranks of speed of the Knight. Its great to crit heals etc but while soloing i try to stick to content i can kill fast with minimal healing since having to chain heals blows my mana pool really fast. More heal aa's would likely just lead to more wasted overheals which is still currently my biggest problem i.e. crit heals on using 40-60% of hte heal so not really thinking i need more with the exception of when i get adds while soloing named in DSH at which point im thankful for every crit i get.

[Jorel]

Thanks for the input all

I will adjust my AA path a bit considering your stated points. Last night I got SotK2+SotK3 so that part is done until I lvl out of 65.

I looked into CA/CS and it looks like I could get up to CA8/CS8 at lvl 65. I'm thinking about getting 2h Bash before CA/CS though since it's just one rank for 6 points and, after all, it gives an added attack(even if it's minor). Also, I'm thinking of getting KA2 and KA3 mixed into it somewhere, just to get some variation when grinding.

So, something like(AA points needed):

- 2h Bash(6)
- CA2(4), CA3(6)
- CS1(2), CS2(4), CS3(6)
- KA2(4), KA3(6)
- CA4-8(5x5)
- CS4-8(5x5)

That's the next 88 AA points, how's that?

/Jorel

[Lisene]

Do your AAing and plat farming in zones where you can gather AC augs. There's a lot of old hotzones with AC augs now and even 10AC is going to be better than a lot of your Luclin/PoP augs. Check the groupable aug list ( ) and you should be able to come up with a good farm plan to fill all your slots.

[Zorbee]

Good idea. Except that list has almost none of the lower level AC augs listed.

Listed in Ease of Getting for a 65 Paladin:
Tower of Frozen Shadow: Frozen Crystalline Eye 7AC/30HP
LGuK: Greater Stone of Power 5AC/10HP
Acrylia Caverns: Heart of the Sky 10AC/40HP +1 regen
Old Sebilis: Stone of Might 8AC/30HP
Cazic Thule: Stone of Greatness 10AC/45HP
Halls of Honor: Crest of Valor 10AC/30HP/50Mana
Crypt of Nadox: Corrupted Peridot Amulet 10AC/30HP

Up to this point you can probably solo all of those. The following ones probably need a couple friends.

Brains Monster Mission: Rot-Covered Tombstone Shard 20AC/30HP (good one since it can go in shield)
Sunderock Springs: Petrified Bladefin Eye 18AC/50HP +1heroic wis
Noble's Causeway: 10AC/50HP (this might be more difficult to get at 65)
Dain Monster Missions: Diamond Studded Coldain Historical Seal, varied stats based on how many you have completed
The Buried Sea: Gali Vertebra 20AC/60HP this would be a serious camp and actually would probably require at least a partner or two at 65.
Dragonscale Hills: Polished Caracite 25AC/40HP this is rotting a lot near "the farm" camp. If you get a group here you'll probably get it.
Muramite Proving Grounds: Ground Murkglider Eyes 20AC (also a shield aug)

[frocus]

Seb also has the benefit of having a 35 hp/mana/end aug from the current hotzone set that will possibly work to fill a slot til he can get another ac aug.

[Jorel]

Thanks a lot Zorbee

I will look into it. Nadox is my current hunting ground, I've already got that aug. I haven't auged any of my armor yet though. Can I get more then one of the same kind if I apply it to the armor? Since it's lore I can't have more then 1 unagumented at the same time.

/Jorel

[Zorbee]

You can only have one period. Whether or not it is aug'd or not.

But it is silly not to aug it. Drop by the guild lobby or the bazaar (or any of the LDon camps) find the birdbath and put your augment into one of those elaborate defiant peices.

[Zorbee]

Yeah quite a few zones have hp augs from hotzones. Grab them if you see them drop and have open slots, but none of them are worth "searching for" and needed to be put in a list like those AC augs.

[Lisene]

The RSS Flameshield Stone (25AC) and DSK Shard of the Guardian (25AC/25hp) are both not Lore and fit into 4 and 5 different slots respectively. They'll form your solid base of AC augs until you can upgrade them. RSS is the lvl 70 hotzone until November and DSK is scheduled to become the lvl 75 hotzone in the next batch. Getting them will keep you busy rolling through the aas if you're the right level at the time. Probably too early for you atm though.

If you've picked up the lower level augs and have managed mostly Elaborate Defiant gear, RSS at 70+ could well be soloable (I think about 3k AC was when I started soloing them there, was a while ago so I could be wrong though sry... test yourself on a single near the zl - is RSS still 69 lvl min?). A slow proc (Willsapper) and a snare proc (Anklesmasher is good, I used Sargasso Spear which is unreliable at best) will be a godsend if you're on the cusp of being able to solo there. Getting them though will be tasks in themselves, Sargasso Spear being the easiest.

[Jorel]

Thx for the added info Lisene =)

A short follow-up question(mostly unrelated to equipment):

If I want to start working on the Epic 1.5, how hard are the pre-quest and the epic 1.5 quest? What part could I do solo at 65, what part requires a group and most importantly, do I need a full raid force for any part of these quests?

I have read up on the info presented on this page about the quests, but I assume that info is all based on everyone being 65 AND having the gear present at the time when 65 was max lvl?

Thanks in advance

/Jorel

[frocus]

Prequest is a bit of hell at lower levels need to kill a mob in pos that requires the clearing of entire forest giant fort and either hand of maestro or maestro himself for parts of prequest.

[Zorbee]

He's only 65 with less than 100AA. He's months and months away from soloing RSS heh.

[Jorel]

Small update again:

I've got 2H Bash, CA1-3, CS1-3, PP1-5 and Holy Steed now.

I decided to go out hunting for the mentioned AC/HP augs you mentioned earlier Zorbee. So far I've picked up the one in Nadox, the one in CT and the one in Sebilis. While in Seb I decided to see if I could handle the deep end and to my surprise I cleared out Trakanons Lair with ease! That means Tolapumj and Seb Protector and all the seb guardians, not Trakanon himself(he wasn't up hehe).

I'll continue to improve while staying 65. I think I'll see how far I can go and how much I can take on at 65(including giving the Kunark dragons a try if I ever see any of them up).

/Jorel

[frocus]

One hotzone ac aug not listed on there it the 10 ac 50 hp one from Nobles causeway may not be soloable initially but its not much harder in NC than in HoH.

NM he has it listed as needing friends lol missed it im blind

[Zorbee]

I think NC is much harder to pull and solo.

At least you can sit in HoH and only get two mobs at the most and have many of them be undead. Plus I believe the HoH mobs are all about 61-62ish and a lot of NC is 63-64.

No such luck in NC.

[frocus]

Murks in the valley near ds are level 61=62 and mostly singles its only when you get out of the valleys that the pulls get harder. NC mobs also have slightly higher attack so will hit harder on average even tho max hits in both zones are similar.

[Zorbee]

I don't think the aug drops off those murks.

I know it is supposed to be a zonewide rare, but I camped those for several days without an aug. Then within a couple hours of moving closer to WoS, it dropped three times.

Others have given similar testimony about that aug when it was a hotzone.

[frocus]

I want to say a murk near pack/body dropped my aug when i was pling with a mage in nobles while i farmed runes 76 mage and pally was 61 at the time.

[Zorbee]

I'm not sure what pack/body is, but the murks that weren't dropping it were the undead ones near DS.

The ones that did drop it (and off any mob type) were the ones by WoS.

[Jorel]

I've got all the soloable Augs now, except for the one in TofS. Last one I got was in HoH and all I can say is wow, was the AA exp good there or what? I got a little more then 4 blue bubbles for every kill! Too bad there were so few mobs though. I fought the undeads at the SE basement corner and I think only 4 or 5 of the mobs seemed to respawn.

While getting the aug from there and the one from Acrylia I managed to get CA4-CA7 and I feel a lot stronger now then when I came back to the game a month ago(I've gained a complete new set of armor and about 100AAs), would be weird if I didn't hehe.

/Jorel

[Justinious]

Long time lurker (at least since I got back after four years away) and first time poster.

First, I just want thank you for the info from the group, like this thread. It has made a difference since my return (I also left in the 2004 timeframe). If you are wondering if people are reading, they are (at least I am).

Second, upgrading augments solo or with groups has been a fun challenge. I have gotten all the "solo" ones from this list except CT and Seb (can anyone confirm that they still drop?...and if there are any ways to figure out the "unmasked changling" mob, please let me know). I have gotten several of the group augs from the list (still no luck in RSS, which is where I am going to be focusing next -- lvl 80, 510 AAs (came back at 65 with 50 AAs a few months back)).

Any other suggestions on augments that can be soloed would be appreciated as well as thoughts on the hp/ac debate (e.g., when do I trade out my 55 hp aug for a lower level ac aug with a few hps?).

Anyway, thanks and good hunting.

Justinious

[frocus]

Seb aug is still dropping and the changelings have a chance to trigger of any mobs between 0 and 50%. Had alt in seb other day playing around had 3 of each aug drop moving from ZI to Disco 2 times.