f13.net

Went through the new version last night. It is quite fun. I had a groupmate share most of the quests but there are 4 in the Green Hood camp and a few inside.

1) Still a high 30s / low 40s single group instance.
2) You can enter from the front or the sewers. I recommend the front based on comments from my guildmates.
3) The quests will drive you to kill most mobs in the zone, but you don't have to get everything to fight Fyst.
4) Lots of named. My 70 zerk (mentored obviously) earned 3 AA in the housr or so it took.
5) Less laggy. I always had to turn down my graphics settings when doing DfC previously.
6) The arena fight and Fyst fights are separate. You fight Fyst up on top now. He has a knockback+memwipe ability. He can drop a FABLED 1hs.

When you first arrive in Zek, there is a gnome standing by a catapult in the fort. Talking to him gives you a quest that you complete in the citadel. Once complete, you can "ride the catapult" across Zek to get to DfC quickly. Made me chuckle.

Hoping to do this next week, actually.

My regular party is about to crack 40, so it'll be a while before I see this. Very much looking forward to it though. Any suggestions on 40ish stuff to do? I was figuring Maj Dul/Sinking Sands/the Club, after a brief stint with Gnomeland security in the Steamfonts.

Zonk, as indicated by (1)....this is perfect for your regular group as it is a high 30's, low 40's instance (not shared anymore).  It is quite well done, especially with some class specific armour added in.

doh. I saw 70 and my eyes glazed over. kickass.

You should do it now. Almost all the gear I saw drop last night was 37-39. We had 4 people mentored to 42 (zerk, guard, assassin, warden, coercer) and a 46 wizzie and the zone was a cakewalk. Don't wait too long. If you haven't started the Shiny Brass Shield HQ, you can do all the trials in about 30 minutes and then get credit for Fyst as well. The SSOY HQ is more involved but if you have that mostly complete, that too ends with Fyst. Completing both HQs + all the named and discovery AA probably = 5AAs in addition to regular kill/quest exp.

I'm really not that organized.

There's a ton of quests in Feerott, most are solo quest lines but not all (4-5 AA's worth). There's one or two heritage quests in Lavastorm you can work on. There's quests in Everfrost and you can hit Permafrost in the upper 40's.

If you haven't done them yet make sure to do the 2 instances in RunnyEye. Those are good around 38-44 and you can usually pull a few rares, masters, or legendary items just by fighting down to those and clearing the instances.

I would wait till around 45 to start Sinking Sands and Maj'dul. There's also a boat load of solo quest lines in SS.

If you have access to a raid group or at least a few level 70's willing to help you can start the "Speak as a Dragon" quest line which if for the first prismatic/epic weapon. It will require a raid force at points now but pick up raids should be able to blow through that content pretty easily now since it used to be done with 24 level 50's. We did it once early when DoF came out with a 56 tank and it was a breeze to kill the final epic dragon with abour 18 people.

The Peacock club is the Epic 2 quest line and will also at some point require raid forces but there's a lot of quests before then.

Because solo players shouldn't have epic weapons.

I'm glad you agree.  :-D

I do believe that people should be rewarded for going through the extra effort of having to put up with each other.  It's something that's in the best interests of the game long term.

But, EQ2's greatly increased solo-ability is the main reason I am playing right now.

But it's an odd feedback loop. Solo players can't get the best weapons, thus fall behind on the power curve as the advance...thus becoming less attractive group material. Also, as content is balanced to deal with all the guilds full of folks with epic/legendary/whatever (I've only had two lvl 6 master weapons in the game ever btw), soloers once again fall behind and groupers complain that non-group-only content is too easy if it's left balanced for non-epic/legendary/whatever solo players.

I don't mind long quests (in chunks), quests that take some brains (kids can hit up spoiler sites if it's too hard to think), but the utter cockblock of doing a long quest that suddenly drops in a large group or raid portion....that just sucks.

EQ2 is a great game...except for that stuff. And the whole 'stay outta the dungeons, solotard' thing. They should really split dungeons into solo and group instances, but....whatever.

If it makes you feel any better the prismatic 1's that were the best at level 50 were pretty much outclassed by mastercrafted gear you could equip at level 52.

Back when I was raiding I always ended up replacing my fabled gear with the next tiers mastercrafted/legendary stuff when the next expansion came out. If you fall behind just wait a few months and you'll be right back in the mix.

There are some nice intermediate rewards in the peacock series and the claymore series (t7) that will only take a few people to earn and don't require a raid. But to get all the way to the end you'll need a raid force.

And just to refute all 3 points. I regularly solo dungeons and instances with my conjuror. It's a few levels later than I could do it with a group but you can usually solo dungeons once they are about 8 levels below you, at least as a conjuror.

I have never witnessed anyone getting dis-invited from a PUG due to gear and I have seen some horrific examples, e.g. a level 50ish wizard wearing Treasured level 30ish gear.


There are too many different instances of varying difficulty for this to be a systemic problem. Once you decide you want to do these instances, it isn't hard to work the progression in PUGs. Only the epicX4 zones are going to be tough to PUG but yet I still see calls for Labs raids in the level 70 channel quite a bit. Labs is really the first x4 zone in the level 70 cycle and a full 24-man raid can do half the nameds if only barely competent and all but Vyem is reasonably competent. Last night my guild was one healer short of beating the 2nd and 3rd named with 14 people. We do have a fair amount of the EoF class-based armor sets, though. All of which are obtainable in single groups in zones that are often calling for people in the level 70 channel.