Guide for Vah Shir Beastlords

9 August 2005

This guide is a comprehensive guide for a new Vah Shir beastlord. I don't tell you how to play Everquest, and I don't give you detailed walkthroughs of any of the quests; but I will point you at useful places to start. My starting point is an assumption that you play a Vah Shir because you are interested in the race, and a beastlord because the class interests you, and so will be inclined to "role play" a little more than the norm (which is exactly zero, btw). I'll take you through native Vah Shir hunting grounds as well as the game tutorial, and point out the quests and rewards. If you want to powerlevel and twink, that's up to you, but a lot of what I have to say won't be of any interest to you. If you are still interested in reading further, you've made a good choice!

The Vah Shir also have the potential to progress through their teen levels faster than any other race, thanks to their proximity to Paludal Caverns. Most people know Paludal only for the bandit camps next to the Shadowhaven entrance, but the Shadeweavers and Hollowshade entrances can take you from 6 all the way up to 24 with a very smooth progression, and very rapidly thanks to the experience bonus Paludal offers.

Another important point is that money is very scarce in the Vah Shir areas, and players used to more generous loot elsewhere (plague rat tails dropping from level 1 rats, for instance) will be surprised. You have to learn to manage your resources intelligently, and sufficient money will come. Shamans, with expensive spells to purchase, will suffer the most, but there is no reason that a beastlord should feel any pinch.

With most classes (druid and shaman, for example) when soloing I adopt a strict strategy of taking one blue at a time; with a beastlord, I can confidently take on a white, or several dark blues, and often yellows. Beastlords can solo with confidence, certainly well into their thirties and forties, and can make it to 65-75, although grouping becomes much faster as you hit the higher reaches.

Because of the nature of the Vah Shir and their starting area, Shar Vahl, a lot of this information applies to other Vah Shir classes - but I have only run a beastlord there (well, and a bard; and had a lot of input from a Vah Shir shaman), so I can't entirely vouch for its accuracy for classes other than beastlord.

Refer to: http://www.eqbeastlord.com/bigchart.html for a good list of beastlord spells and skills (this is a little outdated now, but not a bad starting point). These quests have reasonable walk throughs at: http://www.eqtraders.com/articles/article_page.php?article=q32 (more accurate and complete than those at Allakhazam).

The Guide - Links

My Motives, My Excuses

The Vah Shir have one of the best starting areas and newbie quest series in the game, and yet I often used to see (pre-Planes of Power) level 1 newbies asking for ports off Luclin; this could only be, I felt, the result of a profound ignorance of the area, and a fear of this ignorance being discovered, as well as revealing a reluctance to play Everquest in the (semi) roleplaying way that seems to suit it best. I believe that there is an excellent sequence of zones and quests suitable for a Vah Shir beastlord, one that gives the best experience in the game for any race/class combination, with very appropriate quests and above average gear. There are still some bugs in the quest sequence, but the bugs in the Vah Shir quests are not too disruptive (at the young levels). All of the newbie quests suffer from keeping you hunting greens for far too long; the Vah Shir may have you do this less than others.

My Beastlord Bio

I made my first beastlord and first Vah Shir on Bristlebane around May, 2002; only my third ever Everquest character. I leveled him to 32, mainly in the company of my wife's first character, a Vah Shir shaman, before writing the first draft of this guide on holiday in Hawaii in June 2002, entirely from memory and my notes (no web access). I had already seen guides for other beastlord races on the EQ Beastlords site, but no Vah Shir guide, and felt that the unique situation of Shar Vahl lent itself to a roleplayer's guide to the class. I took up to September to review and rewrite the guide, which at that point went up to level 24 only. In December 2002, I created a new Vah Shir beastlord on a different server, Venril Sathir, and leveled him up to 24 over three days elapsed time with 24 hours played to review the guide, and noticed quite a few minor changes that I needed to adjust for. By June 2003, he had leveled to 52, with only just over 10 days played time, by way of helping me write the then current draft that extended my detailed outline up to that level. By September 2003, he had reached 61 with 10 AAs, Coldain Prayer Shawl 5, Officers Cloak, and 20 days played. As of September 2004, he is level 65 (for some time) with epic and 100+ AAs.

What's Missing?

I am conscious that the levelling guide could be expanded; this will always be true. I haven't explicitly covered anything to do with the most recent expansions: GoD, OoW, DoN, PoR and TSS; they don't have much impact on these lower levels. There are spells, armor, augments and other aspects from these expansions that I have ignored. I will have to expand some sections to cover starting in Crescent Reach as an alternative, and all the armor quest series available there. Some aspects are best covered elsewhere: so for gear choices, I have linked to a thread on www.beastlords.org; and my AA coverage describes starting choices only.

Since I last updated this, the Tutorial zone has been expanded to cover up to level 10 and use the task system; spells have been reallocated to be every level, and new tradeskill based armor quests have been added (DoN). Why so slow on updates? Because, like many Everquest players, I have been playing World of Warcraft since February 2005 (European release date), with a level 60 hunter, rogue, warlock and (soon) warrior. I haven't completely given up on Everquest, and intend to update this guide as things change while I still keep an account open.

Recent changes:
7 September, 2004: added section on the Tutorial zone
25 May, 2004: rewrite of fletching quest section and new LDoN section
18 May, 2004: started to cover iksar beastlord quests
16 May, 2004: cover 60 to 65 spells and epic
3 January, 2004: convert to Blosxom, to take advantage of its writeback system
25 October, 2003: weapons guide
26 August, 2003: levelling guide outline and AA guide
25 August, 2003: added new sections covering spells from 49-59, and hunting guides for Jaggedpine Forest.
2 July, 2003: complete Sonic Wolf Bane details for the two Hollowshade sections, leading up to the Garrison Cloak; and added a Grimling Forest section for the Officers Cloak and start of the epic.
6 June, 2003: Hollowshade War section; added 49 strategies and LoY spells guide
5 June, 2003: updated level 39 spell strategies and extended the Echo Caverns section
24 May, 2003: revised to catch up with small changes in the game; added details relating to tailoring quest, and higher level (35-44) hunting in Dawnshroud and Echo Caverns
28 March, 2003: minor revisions, split into separate pages for all sections, new sections for Echo, Dawnshroud and level 30 spells
4 February, 2003: minor revisions
27 December 2002: complete revision to catch up with latest patches, changes throughout, added section on Field Priests Armor, rewrite Equipment section
12 September, 2002: initial draft

For anyone who is interested, the old version of this site, with every section in one big web page, is still available here. This only goes as far as low 30s.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has written in to make comments and suggestions for this guide; please keep them coming, any response is very satisfying.