(N)EverQuest Scrolls

From a  post on EQLive by Blurred_Memories:

ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT:

My priority AA routine is like this:

First – Get anything that will help me live longer. Rationale? You can’t do (expletive deleted) if you are dead.

Second – Get anything that directly or indirectly grants a power that is unique, awesome, and / or abusable like beguiler’s directed banishment, enhanced forgetfulness, fog of memories etc.

Third – Get anything that helps reinforce the likelihood or strength of your most used or necessary spells.

Fourth (or as needed) – mana regen. yes i know mana total will get you on leaderboards but i’d gladly give up 3/4 of my mana bar for double my current mana regen.

Lastly – convenience aa’s like perma lev or mass group buff etc.

*and as a rule, passives before clicks.

LIVE LONGER AA’s:

I highly recommend combat agility, combat stability, natural durability, shield block if you use a shield, and general sturdiness. All of these are passive aa’s and either give you more hit points or keep the ones you already have from disappearing as fast.

Veil of Mindshadow, Hastened Veil of Mindshadow:
keep this buffed below all your other runes since it takes longer to refresh it.

Friendly stasis:
since self stasis lasts its full duration whether you need it to or not, I made this social so i could use Friendly stasis like a slower bard fade:

line1 /tar blurred
line2 /pause 1
line3 /alt activate 8702
line4 /alt activate 8702

the pause is necessary or you end up casting on your previous target. now click off friendly stasis and go back to (expletive deleted) things off.

Mind Over Matter / Mana Draw:
These two work great in combination for when your healer is dead and you are taking massive ae damage, or accidentally tanking.

Utility AA’s:
good passives to have are:

Mezmerization Mastery: this allows permanent lock down of an infinite number of mobs with the blue gem ae mez.

Earthen Allure, Dreamlike Allure: anything that helps lessen the chance of mez resisting should always be considered.

Quick Buff: This i got primarily so rebuffing runes would be faster, but it also is beneficial for rebuffing battle rezzed allies.

Auroria Mastery, Total Domination, Spell Casting mastery,

Clicky aa’s:

Bite of Tashani, Dreary Deeds

2nd spire of enchantment, 3rd spire of enchantment.

Whenever you go to use one of your spires, please announce it in the chanter channel which spire you are casting and on who before you actually cast it. If two chanters notice same cleric needs mana we do not want to waste a spire by tagging the same person in the same 10 seconds.

A guide to the quest for Progression players – valid for Fippy/Vulak.  Below is my outline; I will update it for faction details as required. (continue reading…)

The enchanter class drop from Time is:

Serpent of Vindication; Tallon Zek.
Clicky slow: Forlorn Deeds. Looks horrible, but nice effect. Note that the enchanter 1.0 epic is Staff of the Serpent, which is clicky haste, and substantially worse stats. (continue reading…)

a goblin brawler
a sabretooth cat
greater scalebone
a Sarnak youth
a goblin skirmisher
greater skeleton
a Sarnak courier

PH names may not be capitalised as here on track, will have to check. Sometimes a common mob can spawn as the PH; use track to check this. I have seen Iksar brigands and marauders, Sarnak flunkies, sabertooth tigress in the cycle – none of the other mobs, including goblins, so far. The mobs listed above, if they appear, will always be part of a courier cycle, however.

Spawn points are in the area between the windmill and the lake. There are several courier cycles in the area; the ones to the west, closer to the Sarnak fort, are reported not to drop the ring. Two cycles exist between the windmill and the goblin ruins at the lake, one mostly north of the ruins, and one all south of it onto the hill next to the windmill. So far I have only taken a ring from the north of the two cycles.

The best strategy seems to be to look for goblin brawlers and skirmishers first, then greater skeletons/scalebones and sabretooth cats. Sarnak youths (and the occasional flunkie) will be attacked and killed by goblins – as will the courier, if you don’t watch out. Finally chase down the iksars in that valley. Mobs will spawn on the hills to the west, and out the stream to the north, but seem to roam in towards the valley. The exact spawn points seem random, but the northern mobs all spawn at or north of the line of pillars, and the southern spawns are all south of this.

The courier drops… Goblin Gazughi ring, instant clicky invis to animals, essential tool for charm classes.

Take a look at Mythiran Tower or EQTraders for detailed information on spell research.

16 Mesmerisation p26 L&R Tasarin’s Grimoire
20 Berserker Strength p30 TG
20 Illusion:Iksar quest
20 Color Shift p312 TG
24 Strip Enchantment p390 TG
24 Tepid Deeds p 8 & 9 Velishoul’s Tome
29 Feedback p 108 & 109 VT
39 Wandering Mind Velious drop
44 Tashania coin quest
44 Boon of the Clear Mind FV/OT turn in result
44 Leviathan Eyes LoY quest
49 Allure Nitilim’s Grimiore p378 & 379
50 Improved Invisibility Velious drop
51 Theft of Thought Kunark drop
51 Everlasting Breath Luclin drop
51 Levitation Luclin drop

A very nice spot to practice charming for enchanters, druids and shamans is at the kodiak caves in Great Divide. Bloodmaw, a named kodiak, is your pet, and a remarkably safe one. He is a level 20 undercon with 32k hit points, and will be green at the time you charm him. The other kodiaks seem to range from about level 30 to 37.

I take the Plane of Knowledge stone to GD, cast levitation on myself (or air elemental form for an enchanter), and invis, then run more or less due south west to reach the kodiak caves. The cave you want is the middle of the three all on the same level. Head in (still invis), and straight across the cross roads; Bloodmaw is along with a gnome captive in a room at the back. Take a look around the cave while you are here. A few kodiaks spawn along the main passage and wander around and out, and there are caves to the left and right with several spawns in.

I use a ceramic band, and don’t bother with KEI; I rarely need a break for mana reasons without KEI. If you don’t have a ceramic band, mem a low level damage spell to use to pull.

When you are settled in, charm your pet. For an enchanter, always tash it first, before charm. There’s no need to do anything else. Haste or shielding won’t make much difference to your kill rate. A couple of things you should know about Bloodmaw: he seems to have a very slow regen rate; this may be just a function of his large hit points pool. If he dies, he won’t respawn for several hours (he is usually back up the next day). He is also a quest NPC. If someone comes in to do the quest, I ask them to wait for my current pull to complete, then let them go ahead. Unfortunately, he despawns after the quest hand in. One thing worth remembering is that a level 39+ cleric can heal Bloodmaw; it will take several casts of complete heal while you have him charmed. As a cleric can’t invis, you will need to bribe and fetch your helper.

When I am settled, I head back to the crossroads looking for a kodiak; at first, most will be very red to you. I pull with my ceramic band or low level spell (low MR, so resists are rare, even with the reds). One thing to watch is that kodiaks WILL get stuck in the walls unless you are very careful about guiding them through the tunnels. This means that you WILL take a few hits. If they get stuck, they will pop on you after a few minutes and take a big chunk out of you, usually while you are fighting another kodiak. With limited running around space, this is bad. When they are engaged, root the mob. If you are an enchanter, tash and slow the mob; if you have a druid, snare it; if a shaman, slow it. Keep the mob rooted whenever it breaks. Don’t snare the mob on the pull; they are naturally slow, and they seem to get stuck in the walls a lot more when snared. Snare also generates a lot more aggro, which can mean that you have to kite around Bloodmaw’s chamber for a minute while he builds up aggro.

One other thing to watch is where you sit in the cave. If you are on the room wall at a couple of spots, you will sometimes see an aggro message for a kodiak, which will warp on top of you sometime in the next 5 minutes. Be ready if this happens.

This camp gives extraordinary experience, with very little loot. I was getting between 2 and 6% per kill from 30 (mostly 6%) to 35 (mostly 2%) before the charm nerf; after the nerf a quick test with a level 29 shaman showed him getting around 2% per kill at 29. You will find kodiak pelts (plain ones, not suitable for the coldain ring quest), kodiak claws and kodiak bracers, all of which sell for a few platinum. A rare spawn, Icetooth, who is level 37 and a significantly tougher fight (he can take almost 10% off Bloodmaw’s hit points), also drops a pelt or some claws, which can sell in the Bazaar. I found it very boring, and had to get out into the light in Dawnshroud after a few levels. It is an easy camp for druids, as they can snare their pulls (I do this after engagement) to make breaks easier to handle. For this reason, as well as he inevitable damage you will take from a break at close quarters, my enchanter liked to partner with a druid here.

A few notes on this subject, regarding buffing.

Druid charms start at level 14, enchanter at level 12. Druids get pet buffs at 19 (Feral Spirit) and 44 (Savage Spirit). Enchanters get haste buffs from 16 upwards, which mutually overwrite, although both druid and enchanter strength and AC buffs seem to stack with the druid buff (check?).

At the level a druid gets Feral Spirit, the equivalent enchanter haste is faster (28% compared to 16%), although the druid strength and ac buffs available are still weaker. By level 24, the druid ac buff is better, and by level 34, both strength and ac are better buffed separately.

Savage Spirit is another story; it gives significantly greater haste than the same level enchanter (66% versus 47%), which enchanters can only match at level 58.

So until level 44, if the pet is going to be buffed, it is always better to get an enchanter haste. From 44 upwards, use the druid pet buff instead. Stacking an enchanter ac buff with a druid skin is always beneficial.

On the subject of other buffs, opinions vary, as always. It is pretty clear that haste, HP and AC buffs all help, to a degree. Some people say that strength buffs increase ATK, and improve the chance of maximum hits; but others say that parses show no improvement from ATK buffs. Stamina buffs don’t seem to increase HPs for pets; but dexterity buffs do increase the chance of a pet procing (this is significant for beastlords).

The buffs compared:

• Feral Spirit, level 19. 16 – 20% haste, 16 – 20 str, 7 – 14 ac.
• Savage Spirit, level 44. 64 – 70% haste, 42 – 45 str, 15 – 16 ac.

Druid strength buffs:

• Strength of Earth, level 9. str 9 – 15
• Strength of Stone, level 34. str 22 – 25
• Storm Strength, level 44. str 32 – 35
• Girdle of Karana, level 55. str 42

Druid AC buffs:

• Skin Like Wood, level 1. ac 3 – 4
• Skin Like Rock, level 14. ac 6 – 7
• Skin Like Steel, level 24. ac 9 – 10
• Skin Like Diamond, level 39. ac 13
• Skin Like Nature, level 49. ac 16
• Natureskin, level 57. ac 18 – 19
• Protection of the Cabbage, level 59. ac 24
• Protection of the Nine, level 63. ac 32

Enchanter AC buffs:

• Haze, level 4. 3 – 4
• Mist, level 12. 6 – 7
• Cloud, level 20. 9 – 10
• Obscure, level 29. 12 – 13
• Shade, level 39. 15 – 16
• Shadow, level 49. 19
• Umbra, level 57. 22

Enchanter haste buffs:

• Quickness, level 16. 28 – 30%
• Alacrity, level 24. 34 – 40%
• Augmentation, level 29. 22 – 28%
• Celerity, level 39. 47 – 50%
• Swift Like the Wind, level 49. 60%
• Aanya’s Quickening, level 53. 64%
• Augment, level 56. 43 – 47%
• Wonderous Rapidity, level 58. 70%
• etc

This is a good spot for both enchanters and druids, although killing strategies are very different for each. At this level range, you need to be killing the cave basilisks found near the Blackburrow zone point, close the the Brell gnolls. Other mobs outside of the caves will be both aggressive and much higher level. Druids can charm the basilisks, or kill them in other ways. Enchanters should charm the gnolls, and use them to kill basilisks. These will start to turn light blue during 41, but are still useable for experience through 42, at a much slower rate. Basilisks drop research items, mostly words, chunks of meat, poison glands, and eggs. The eggs are prized by bakers, as they make the most dough per egg. This is not a profitable camp.

When you arrive in the caves, take some time out to explore the area. There are bankers and merchants to one side, and you should observe the pathing of gnolls both inside and outside of the enclosed area, so as to minimise unseen aggro when you pick a pet. Most of the gnolls inside the walls path into the wall very close to where your potential pets outside the walls path – you don’t want to have five gnolls all aggro on your and work their way out and into the caves to find you. Also check the basilisk caves; only genitors, the ones that drop eggs, will aggro on you if you get close. Beware, because basilisk run almost as fast as jboots, and will stun. As you enter the basilisk area, there are two small caves to the right, followed by one larger cave, and one large cave to the left. When you know your way around, memorise the route out to the Blackburrow zone for emergency exits.

Spell lineup: I use Beguile, tashani, mez (level 4), root (level 4) and a blue ceramic band. You can use your lowest level dot if you wish instead of the ceramic band. You will want to have either jboots or Spirit of Wolf potions. I self buff with my latest sheilding, obscure/shade, clarity, radiant visage and rune III, and buff my pet with obscure/shade, and alacrity/celerity when I have confidence in it. KEI is a waste of time for you. I don’t give my pet weapons, for two reasons: firstly, they don’t seem to dual wield with them; and secondly, I don’t want the faction hit of killing any gnolls. That’s right: we are going to let the pet die while fighting, and won’t try to get any experience from them; I want the gnolls to at least not hate me, so charming doesn’t get any harder.

Stand by the entrance to the basilisk area, and watch for a gnoll; you want one to your left, not to your right where you may aggro other gnolls. Cast mez on it, then tashani and finally beguile. Buff with obscure/shade depending on your level while waiting for mez to wear off. The gnoll will come to you, moving directly away from the wall and other gnolls. Turn and find your spot.

I like to start with the first of the small caves on the right. It is easy for an unhasted gnoll to kill all of the basilisks, and is still close to the exit. Send the gnoll at the first basilisk, and tell it to guard at that location while you root, tashani, slow, use the ceramic band to claim full experience and re-root the basilisk. Then select your pet. Basilisk dies, pet is at 60 – 80% health. Continue exactly the same process for the other three basilisks in the cave. The pet may die on the last basilisk; in which case, nuke it down. If it doesn’t, you can either make the pet sit and wait for the respawn, or carry on to the next small cave until the pet is dead, which will probably be on the first or second basilisk in that cave. You now have gained 5 – 10% experience in around 5 minutes, depending on your level, and mana is at 60 – 80% (Without KEI).

For your next try, haste the pet. Don’t attempt to slow the basilisks, you will barely have time, make sure that you use the ceramic band (or little dot) to get full experience. Stay at the entry of the cave, and make your pet guard at the back. You will work through both of the small caves with a battered, but still living pet at the end, and have time to wait for the first cave to respawn.

The same approach works with the larger caves, neither of which quite have double the number of basilisks of the small caves. You can rest your pet while waiting for respawns.

Most of the time, you will get a pet with low MR, and you will see tashani wear off before charm breaks. These are good pets to have hasted. When that happens, if the pet is low on health, press on and try to have him die killing a basilisk. Or just move back to the gnoll sanctuary walls, and wait for the break, with your pet targetted. Mez, re-tash, and re-charm. On a random charm break, or a charm break with an unrooted basilisk, do not hesitate, do not attempt to recharm. Run to the zone point and zone out and back in again. A basilisk will catch up with you without SoW/jboots and will stun you, and then your pet WILL kill you. You can stay ahead of the gnoll with jboots, but possibly not without. A gnoll will hit you for 95 or 100, which is very hard for the level; and this is why they make good pets. A hasted pet hitting a stunned you is a guaranteed death without a rune, and very likely even with.

I expect to get 34 here in a little over an hour, and 39/40 in around 3 hours, allowing for rest breaks between charms, and waiting for a potential pet to walk to exactly the right spot. One thing about charm killing is that it never will be boring, so long as the experience gain is appreciable.

This worked for me from level 33 to 35, but should scale down well to at least 29. I came here when experience from Bloodmaw in Great Divide began to slow down, and I was bored. Experience will slow down as you hit 35, as a significant fraction of the mobs involved (shroom and lightcrawlers) start to turn light blue.

Charm soloing works best when higher level mobs with high hit points or damage per second and low magic resistance are found close to lower level mobs with relatively low hit points. Then a single charmed pet can work its way through several mobs without a break. Dawnshroud is a good zone for this, as it has a very wide range of mob levels, from the rockhoppers and stonegrabbers down to the shroom and lightcrawlers. For my approach, you want to kill lightcrawlers and shroom using a charmed zelniak; the level of zelniak you charm will depend mostly on your level.

You should ideally have a blue ceramic band and either SoW potions or JBoots. KEI isn’t really necessary; it just means that you can do the entire process without ever needing to med. I can run with just clarity perfectly fine, keeping myself at around 50% mana.

The best place for this camp is outside the Sanctus Seru entrance. Zone in from Netherbian Lair, turn right, and run around to the next zone exit, which is Sanctus Seru. Stay high up on the wall for several reasons: avoiding wolves and lightcrawlers, which will aggro on you; and avoiding the one shroom ring just before Sanctus Seru. Shroom have a large aggro range, and will attack you regardless of your level.

Sit at the Sanctus Seru entrance facing out into the zone. To your left is the ring of three shroom. To your right is an area with lots of lightcrawlers, and beyond it a couple of merchants and the lightcrawler armor quest giver, Kanthuk Ogrebane. Straight out into the zone are a ton of wolf traps, a few lightcrawlers, and lost of different zelniaks.

Buff up with your usual shields, charisma buff, clarity, resist magic and rune. You will want to have either Spirit of Wolf potions or Jboots for this (and for any other outdoors charming). Then cast invisibility on yourself, and run straight out towards the centre of the zone. You are looking for a dark blue or even con zelniak to charm, standing clear of any wolves or lightcrawlers. Other zelniaks will not aggro. Depending on your level, this could be a zelniak or large zelniak. When you find one, stop and cast mez (level 4) on it; resists are unlikely. Then tash it, and re-invis yourself, and start to run back to the zone. The object of this exercise is to aggro the zelniak without running the risk of collecting a train of wolves and lightcrawlers. Back at the Sanctus Seru zone line, stop and wait for your pet to arrive; recast mez, tash and charm. The guards will ignore you, and certainly will not protects you. Dark elf enchanters may run the risk of being attacked by the guards, I don’t know.

I don’t bother to haste my pet; he’s going to kill without any great loss of hit points without any assistance from me. This applies for large zelniaks; if you use a plain zelniak, for instance at a lower level, try using haste.

Make your pet wait out a little from the zone, I like to stand just in front of the guards with my pet guarding just inside maximum casting range. If the shroom ring to the left isn’t camped, bring your pet close to this and pull a shroom. If you send the pet in to the shroom ring to fight, very likely all three shroom will aggro, which isn’t necessary. I always pull here with slow, run back until the spell gems refresh, send the pet in to attack, and stop and cast root, then tash. Then finally cast Shallow Breath (level 1 dot) on the shroom to get maximum experience. If you have a zelniak rather than a large zelniak, you may need to assist your pet with a couple of nukes, but a large zelniak should be perfectly capable of running through all three shroom and the entire lightcrawler camp without any need of assistance.

Once you have killed the shroom, they will respawn in about 12 mins (I think), so go back to your parking spot in front of Sanctus Seru and pull lightcrawlers. I use the same technique, pull with slow, send in pet, root, tash and dot. The lightcrawlers can blind you; resist magic should help with that, but you should never have a lightcrawler in melee range for this to happen – and that should only be possibly on a simultaneous charm and root break, or if one spawns on top of you while pulling.

Loot both shroom and lightcrawlers. Ignore the no drop shroom items, and ignore cracked lightcrawler shells; everything else is valuable. The shrooms sell for between 2 and 4 pp at the nearby merchants, and the lightcrawler shells and legs can be traded in two matching shells at a time inside Sanctus Seru for lightcrawler armor, which is good armor for short race melee classes – sell it in the Bazaar.

If you get through all of the shroom and lightcrawlers, there should also be a few zelniaks and small zelniaks that are worth hunting that come close to Sanctus Seru. If you have a large zelniak charmed, you should be able to take out wolves one at a time, giving your pet some assistance.

Most charms lasted me longer than tashani did, with a few breaks just after recharming. Mez was only ever resisted a few times, and then only on charm breaks. If you stand well back from pet, you should be able to remez; if that fails, the zone line is just a few steps away. Doing this I was getting from 5 – 10% experience on every charm, roughly a yellow in 40 minutes at 33 and 34, including rest breaks and meditation.

One option to carry on from here into higher levels and stay in Dawnshroud would be to try for the 6 shroom spawn points to the left of the Netherbian zone; two (sometimes three) just by the entrance, three more just over the hill, then one more just past the rockhopper caves. There are a few problems with these: the first is that this corner is frequently trained by ignorant people, either with the shroom you are killing or with rockhoppers or even wolves. The next is that the rockhopper caves you need to pass are much higher level and will aggro if you get close; and finally, the spawn rate can be slow with only six or seven mobs to kill. The single shroom spawn can sometimes spawn a named shroom (usually Fungus Shroom, with capitals, I believe). This is mid to high 30s, is usually a caster, sometimes a druid and sometimes a ranger. Expect to be rooted, dotted, or nuked for 440.

You can also camp outside the shroom farm ( a big building near the Greig’s End zone), and use proximity aggro to pull shroom, as well as kill wandering tribals and zelniaks.