Game over

I quit EQ about a month ago.  The pressures of keeping up with the leveling and raiding schedule were just not compatible with my lifestyle as an IT professional, husband and father.

Old Sebillis

I spend a LOT of time in Old Sebillis.

Let me briefly discuss the zone.  Its loaded with frogloks.  Those same filthy frogloks I never got tired of slaughtering in Upper and Lower Guk.  Same froaks.  Ugly nasty little bastages.

Remember him?  Before we could even visit Sebillis, we had to kill some trash in Trakanon's Teeth.


Anyway, there's lots of camps in Seb.  Most popular camp seems to be Juggs.  High level spells drop here, and some nice items.  King is very popular because he has a Fungi Tunic drop.  Lots of mobs there.
Then there's Disco.  Disco is only good to 55 really.  Juggs will take ya to 60.

Many people think that's it.  Seb has just those 3.

There's also Crypt, which requires a rogue.  Lots of good loot, plenty to kill.  Buggs.  Some loot, lots to kill.

Jail(Ibis) and Jail(upper).

Plenty to kill.  Its a big zone.  Don't see 30 people and say "crap, we can't xp here".  There's a camp, go find it.

Why new guilds should start on Phinigal

Ok, Phinigel has instanced raiding.

This means you get to kill naggy.  Not watch one elite geared 52 SK solo him.  You get 50 of your buddies and kill him.

Some would say "But the server is already in kunark, we'll never catch up".  Bullshit.  You start now, you level for 3 weeks, then you start raiding classic.  You can even get some Open World targets at this point, since everyone is doing Kunark, and interest in those classic mobs has waned a bit.  My guild just did its first Open World dragon last night.

There's plenty of time until PoP, and even then, new guilds starting later can get plenty of good gear and raids out of PoP without even hitting Elemental Planes, if they aren't ready(AA/Gear/#'s)

This is a great server to raid on.  Come try it out.

There's room for EVERYONE!

Pressure

"Daddy likes fighting things.  Daddy makes them lay down."

My 3 year old sees a lot more of me playing everquest then is good.

I'll have to think about this.

Kunark Opens Wed!!!

The Ruins of Kunark goes live on Phinny this Wed.  I am maxxed XP into 50, but I do have two raids coming up in which to lose some xp.  :)

My plans are to XP hard when I can.  My guild is hardcore about raiding, too fucking hardcore.  They want me to get 2 levels a week and do 3 raids a week, and key seb, hs, and vp.  40+ hours a week.

Bunch of lifeless 20 somethings is all I can imagine.

Anyway, assuming I manage to keep up somehow, I'm looking forward to some of it.  Most loot in Kunark does nothing for me.  No monk class armor(don't bring up crescent armor).

In my 72 hours of raiding, I've got 2 items of note to show for it, the Gauntlets of Fiery Might and the Runed Bolster Belt.  A handful of crap items such as Golden Efreeti Greaves, Treasure Hunter's Satchel, Darkwood Trunk, Whitened Treant Fists.

So, is it worth it to keep raiding?  One thought is to skip the VP key, and just not go to those raids.  Do Trak/other dragons/vs etc.

Guild help with Epics is a non-starter too.  My epic is a significant DPS boost.  I could always pay Krono for another guild to help me I guess.  See how pathetic that sounds?

Level 50 now....The Hole beckons

Dinging to 50 was great.  Now I'm pushing to max my XP bar so I can ding 51 once Kunark drops next week.

The Hole is always a great place to do this at.

Notable camps include Jail, Pit, Sword, Stables, Docks and Undead.

There are plenty of less known camps, including at the tunnel to Undead, on the live side.(no name for this one)  Another one is up some stairs from there, a huge temple with lots to pull.  I often see a group pulling between Docks and Stables.  This is not a problem as long as no group is running 2-3 chanters.  if they are, mobs become scarce.

Good news! Xp to be increased

Of course, it happens as I am approaching 50, but I'm glad.  It will add longevity to the server.  Especially from those at max level waiting for raids and reluctant to level an alt.

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/xp-updates-coming-to-phinigel-ragefire-lockjaw.230592/

I'm still plodding along, but I did put a decent XP group together on Saturday, and made about 35% in 2 hours(with XP potions).  That's decent.  its the difference between having some 50's who want to max out their bar, vs some low 40's with no raid gear.  Also, having a good enchanter is critical, and a good healer to keep the chanter alive when things go south.

Edit:  It was about a 25% increase

Cazic Thule..God of Fear..we fear you not..

<the broken wave> totally pwned CT.

We went in and did a pre-clear before the raid, so once raid force arrived, we had maybe 1/3rd of trash left and golems(and 2 dracoliches).  Finished up in about 2 hours and on to dragons.

We're getting pretty good at this.  Only issue really is PoSky has some really badass mobs, that are sometimes tough to kill with 40-45 raiders.  I look forward to growing our guild so we can have more like 50-60.

Innoruuk down!

We got Inny!  First for guild and me!

Also did my first Yael.

The Inny strategy was crazy, we had tanks dying constantly, getting 0% rezzes, and then taking aggro right before DT to die again.  That's a lot of XP bar sacrifice.  Thank goodness for the double XP weekend to help them fill their bars.

Plane of Sky!

We dropped Gorgolosk and Noble Dojourn my first run up.  I had to buy the first two keys thanks to advanced loot bugging out the keys.

I also got a Belt of Tranquility off a trash mob.  That was nice.

Tons of SK loot dropped, including a Blade of Abrogation.

We might go back and go to Isle 4 for Keeper of Souls.

Level grind is still brutal

Saturday I logged on with an hour to play.  I was camped out at Elite Goblin isle.  Took me 20mins to get my group there, and we xp'ed for 40mins and I had to go.  I made 4%.

I may quit before I ever hit level 50, since at this rate, it's going to 30 hours or more to go from 47 to 50.  If I can tough it out, Kunark will get better, so many more places to go.  But then again, have to go 50-60.  Ugh.

Note, 14 days ago I posted how I was 46.  2 weeks and I've gained one level.

Revenge! Vox down! Naggy down!

So last night was a productive raid night.  Over three hours we cleared Nagafen and Vox.  Naggy dropped 2 CoF's, and Vox dropped 2 Eyepatches, some of their best loot.  There was other crap too, a white hide, a golden plated yakinasha, dragon bone bracelets and weight reducing bags.  Oh, and some gauntlets of fiery might that I bid on, but didn't win.

As a monk, I was of course, a puller.  Oddly, as the lowest level monk, I ended up doing all the dragon pulling.  Exciting work, got me 2 corpses.  Once, a tentacle terror blew me into the pit, and on the Naggy pull, I ate an AE before disengaging after leaving on the tank, then someone's fire giant broke charm and hit me twice, which gave me low hp aggro, and Naggy ate me.

Pulling is perilous work!

Planar Level

Ever since the end of double xp, leveling has been tough.  XP goes sooo slowly.  Its no longer possible to gain a full level in one sitting.  With a high DPS group (2 necs and a chanter all charming specs for DPS), doing non-stop pulls in OOT goblins, I was getting one yellow every hour at 44.  So 5 hours a level.  Its even slower post 44, and with more normal DPS.

It does help me stay focused on just one character.  I obviously won't have time to level any other chars.

I just dinged 46 after a long day at OOT Goblins on Sunday.  My entire family was sick, so I played EQ in between nursemaiding everyone.  Do you know how fucking hard it is to pull while burping one baby with another on your lap waiting for her bottle?

Pull, feign, assist, deal with babies, mob hits 30%, go pull, rinse repeat for 7 hours, DING.  I did give up about 25% of my DPS by not mashing Dragon Punch and Flying Kick, but whatevs.  I was still #1 DPS, so suck it Paladin and Rogue and Bard and Enchanter and Cleric.(see why it was slow xp?  No real DPS, just me)

I'm hoping to push hard to 47 so I have a nice fat xp margin for dying in the planes.

Vox broke me

We raided Phinny and Vox last night.  Phinny died quick,  and against Vox, so did I.

She melees for 410, and double attacks.  Two rounds and I'm dead.

There were lots of problems, mostly centered on our organization.

We did get her down to 38% before wiping.  As a proud member of the "pull team", I ate 6 deaths.

1st Raid, pushing up in levels

On 12/28 my guild killed our first raid target, Phinny.  It wasn't hard by any means.  We also roamed about in the Hole as a private instance, slaughtering the content.  Due to bad coding, Yael does not spawn in the instance.

I was level 36 at the raid, and over the next week, and double XP weekend, I pushed on to 44.  I managed to get an FBSS, and returned to help others get one to 44.  At 44 though, the Frenzied Ghoul camp in Lower Guk starts to get to be poor XP.  Playing in the early morning, I was able to pull a lot though, which helped.  I just dinged 44 this morning.

I also ran out of XP potions.  They were half price over christmas, so I used all my daybreak cash on them.  I kind of like the non-stress of being out of them.  When I had a potion, I felt very intensely that I needed to race hard to xp.  No tradeskills, no chatting, just pull pull pull.  Now I can relax a bit.

An issue I've had is being unable to play late at night, I tend to just fall asleep instead of playing.  But then I can wake up early and play.  This will be challenging as my guild raids at 10PM my time.  I need to be awake at 10PM-2AM.  Sort of the worst time ever, literally, as its too late to sleep before, and too early to sleep after.  I plan on just limping through my post-raid days with 3 hours sleep.  Its a 3 day a week schedule, so I may only raid 2/week.  We'll see how it goes.

The babies have not been a challenge so far.  They usually wake up once, around 1 or 2AM, and I can bring them out to my laptop area, change diapers, and feed em while playing, as long as I'm not pulling.  If I'm pulling, then its harder, since I normally use keyboard to move, and mouse to turn, using just one is more dangerous, plus since I"m distracted I don't notice "x mob as begun to cast root" type messages, so my feign gets broken more.