The Spirit Realm

Stuff which still is useful till today:

OOW MPG Trials: Trials which will give resi stats otherwhise not available. there are 6 trials which in total will add 50 to all resis. Look for Proving Grounds: The Mastery of Efficiency and similar on alla. there are 2 sets of trials one set of 6 is grouplevel but there is another set of trials for raids. Don't pick the raid ones

DON: gives stats and a buffslot. You can't do all without a raid, but nowadays most of it should be doable with a group.

Gear: nothing better than global dropping Defiant gear til level 80. Next droppable than would be "Archaic xxx" which is already SOD Entrylevel gear with foci to lvl 85.
Once lvl 80 and some new gear, if you have a group, you will be able to start SOD-Progression.


Progression:
For SOD than you need to take your time. I would suggest to do all the progression to get the best of this expansion. You will also try to get most of the gear of SOD befor you will be able to handle the Underfoot-stuff. A possible shortcut for the gear would be the new tradeskilled gear from Underfoot: "Stalwart xxxx". Requires lvl 81 and its level of gear is slightly better then best SOD-gear you can get.

For the non-visible slots, if you can stand it, there is a Boomerang mission in Brells rest. This covers most inivisble slot. levelrequirement of that gear is lvl 80. But you can get in the "mission" earlier.

Setting foot into Underfoot content requires a solid base in AAs and gear. Unterfoot starts where SOD ends, there is no overlap as there has been in the past, allowing to skip some of the previous expansion.

AA vs. lvl:
If you can mangage to gather a group together I would not rush to lvl 85. Take your time and adventure a little along the expansions. A shaman can get away with not so much AAs, but your tank will need a lot of them nevertheless. At level 70 with some defiant gear and buffed in GL with lvl 85 buffs gives the possibillity to do AAs faster than lateron.

I disagree with the above posters.....

First I would try to level to 85....The path I would take is start every day doing the 3 Monster Missions in PoK. Once you get a feel for them you can do all 3 in about 75 minutes. This will give you INSANE exp for the time until the mid 80s and also give you beers which can be used to midlevel gear until you complete a few raids.

Also I would bug my friends for any task add to any SoD or UF mission you can, and then participate in as many as you can. Specific arcs can be followed using the guides at raspers repository.

Dont worry about anything prior to SoD as it all becomes trivial once you start getting geared out in the SoD /UF stuff. You can then go back and pick and choose what arcs you want for which spells/augs/skills/abilities ect you want to do and do them much faster.

And if you can manage it, you skip t8 entirely with task adds to t9 and then gather rots in VH and Conv that are equal to or better than SoD tower loots.

Most of your rank 2 spells /tomes you can buy in the bazaar with the Plats you earned from the Monster Missions.

NOW this is if you want to get equal to your friends fast while sacrificing some truely amazing content. It is just what YOU want out of the game.

Level Vs AA, the age odl question.

If you are going to be mainly solo or just hanging out with some friends, I would say AA.

If you are going to try to get in pick up groups etc then you will want to level to 85 as fast as possible, Just get the invisibility AA at 72, and the Slow AA at 78.

AA - due a AA check on what AA's you might need or want before you start lvl to level so you know if you want to wait till 85 or get them before

If root rotting

VP- AA's
Dot AA's

Spell slots we now have I think 10-12 spellslots.
AA's like slow or Malo
Survaial aa's like Fixed Invis

eqplayers is now free can look up the AA desctiptions

Thanks again for the great input to help get me started again.

My current plan is to level up at least to 81 and stop along the way just to pick up these AA:
72: Silent Presence & Canni
73: Union of Spirits 2
75: mnemonic retention, Malosineate
76: VP 4
78: Turgur's Swarm
81: Tigir's swarm

Will check out the monster missions, DoN progression, clickies listed above, and maybe even start picking away at my epic.

Really enjoying being back in Norrath!

Aniha

Tigir's isn't super, and I wouldn't stop to level up Union. Every rank of Canni, Mnemonic Retention, and Virulent Paralysis (and Hastened Virulent Paralysis) is definitely worth getting.

Have to agree with Brohg on skipping tigirs and union for now.