They drag me back in... now what?

[Jaruden]

Well this free to play ploy seems to have worked. I've found myself playing somewhat regularly over the last month, and just last night re-subbed for a 3 month period. I'm really liking the free 2 play, they did a good job giving you just enough to go on (at least at lower levels), while still providing some incentive to upgrade.

I quit back shortly after Gates of Discord came out, level 65 was the cap. Never was a raider, we mostly did challenging 1 group content (or 1 grouped things that were supposed to take more). I'm probably solo for a bit, can't seem to talk anyone else back into it yet. Loving the mercs. I may roll up a second box mage to 2box and help out too.

So the question is -- what to do? I was thinking of levelling to 70, sitting on AA for a bit and experiencing content around that level, then going to 75, stopping for a bit and doing the same, etc to sort of catch up on the past 8 years. Any tips for "must do" things at each level? Equipment I can go after by myself? Fun / rewarding quests?

A few things I've seen mentioned that I was pondering:
- "shawl 2.0" quests.
- epic 1.5/2.0 - is this doable solo? I assume I may need to wait a few levels?
- feign death ring in sky - i figure i may need to drag some others on for this
- anniversary quests - already did the huge 10th anni ones, they were pretty fun (and worth a ton of cash...)
- merc progression quest (I got the feeling you can't do this till higher level?)
- are there quests to unlock those additional merc spots, or are they purchase only?


Thanks for any ideas!

[Shiuna]

I think the first shawl 2.0 quest requires level 85, so add that to your to-do list.

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/ques ... quest=5044

There's a HUGE jump in equipment quality at level 80. For example, this stuff is selling for less than 3k plat on tunare:

neckguard of purity - http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=120014
emerald ring of rot - http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=120035

Back in the day, in the high 60's and low 70's I spent a lot of time in the Hive and farmed the DoD spell tasks for equipment for 5-6 players, but the defiant stuff is better than anything I got from those tasks.

Since I've been back I did some SoF daily tasks to earn faycitum to buy this for about 750 faycitum for several characters:

decomposing metatarsal stud - http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=101142

The tasks are described here:

http://maitreya.zymichost.com/faycitum.php

I did Entrapment and Special Delivery for 30 faycitum per day each, and Fangbreakers for 20 faycitum and some faction. Fangbreakers requires a trip to North Karana, so if you don't have a druid or wizard, it could be time consuming. None of these required any significant combat, just watch for see-invis mobs. Watch out for the stupid fairies around the tower where the questgiver is, they aggro!

Around 70-71 you can go to Direwind Cliffs, a hot zone. When you get to 73, I think, you can ask for the daily hot zone task for level 75, which is a simple kill 5 task that gets you 512p and the elegant defiant back, shoulders, or belt. Griffons or gardeners are easy, black guard minions are behind the Ashengate entrance, I think, and I understand everything summons in there.

[OlafSpritzen]

stop at 71, then 76, then 81 for AAing. Those break points open up a ton of new great AAs.