Zolth goes from 49 to 5x a diary

[Zolth]

Well having made 49 doing mostly LDoNs and Ogguk I figured I would continue on with tracking my adventures into the 50's. My main goal has been to get to level 49 so I could do LDoNs with 2 RL friends who were 55 and 56 so now the pressure to level is lessened.

I started out 49 by doing some HGs in the Rathe Mountains to let fluffy play a bit while I made some money. My basic for logging in has become to log out at the PoK bank and if I get lucky I will get a few MGBs cast on me by the time I log out or while I am logging in.

Once I get Fluffy summoned and prepped I throw on the LFG tag and head to the Rathe Mountains (I have my eye on a Lodizol Shell Shield) and get a bit of cash. At 49 and 50 the HGs are still dark blue to light blue. I wasn't able to make much in the way of cash before I was asked to LDoN in BB. (Does anyone even do the other LDoNs?)

The LDoN group was awesome. We took down a hard which was fun, and good adventure points but marginal exp, however it did get me enough points to buy pack shrew. Next the group had a few leave and a few new members added so we did a normal. This time the mobs were all blue to me (in the hard they were Yellow - DBlue) and the exp just rolled in. Before I knew it I was well into level 50.

When the group disolved I had a bubble left to go in 50 and wanted my primalist durnit! So it was back off to Rathe Mountains and about an hour and a half of HGs until I dinged 51. Sunday the family came back home from being at a kids camp for the week (hence all my play time to get to 51) so things slowed down. I played only an hour or two and made about 2 bubbles into 51 mostly just rolling HGs and getting my bank account up to just over 7k.

At this point I must say that the lack of power I had felt at 48 is long since gone. Fluffy and I are killing machines. At times taking on 3 HGs if things go poorly and 2 being an intentional pull. I am still not too sure about the 51 pet buff. The push factor on this thing is annoying at times, though I imagine it's a blessing when there are casters to take down.

My abjuration is still hovering at 151 and even casting inner fire for a full mana bar is not raising it more than a point or two per go. Looks like my 108 wisdom is holding me back a bit there. When Zolth was born his initial points were put into Stamina and Wisdom about 3 to 1 but perhaps 1 to 3 would have been smarter. As is I will just have to keep my eye out for gear with good AC/HP but also some wisdom.

Well enough early morning ramblings from me. I'll update this again tomorrow but if anyone who actually read this far has suggestions for raising my abjuration I'd appreciate it as I'd love to be able to cast frenzy once in a while :)

[danaconda]

What I did to raise my abjuration skill was to cast the spiritual light spell on myself and go to town casting the low level, low mana cost abjure spells. Think I used Endure cold or whatever it is we get at lvl 9.

I found a REALLY nice program on EQRangers.com called Autofire. What it does is it automatically presses any button you tell it to, in any time increment you want. This is kinda risky because I think it technically is against the EULA, however, I never left my computer alone for more than a couple minutes. I would watch TV from my computer desk and use Autofire to press the buttons for me and save me from carpal tunnel. If you want the program go to www.eqrangers.com and click on "EQ Links" on the left side panel. Select the link for Autofire and go from there.

Got my abjure skill in the 180's and just gave up after that figuring I would raise it automatically by just using it after that. Did the same thing for my divination skill with Flash of Light. It takes some of the tension off your fingers and wrist after hitting the button over 100 times. And as long as you don't actually leave your computer, no one can tell (since in order to get caught a GM would have to send you a tell and try to mess up your "macro" or whatever).

[Gizzie]

The other way to cut down quite a lot on the button presses is to create a macro , I have one called 5Cast1 which basically casts whatever spell is in slot 1 5 times.

/cast 1 , pause 50
/cast 1 , pause 50
/cast 1 , pause 50
/cast 1 , pause 50
/cast 1 , pause 50

Then I just put the lowest level spell I want to use in slot 1 and prest macro button and wait , cuts down on the rsi at least :D

[Hereki]

All good suggestions - just, whatever you do, don't be a level 65 troll/ogre beastlord who can't cast spells.  I've seen too many of them.

Buy a KEI, and use it just for spell casting practice.  Change how you hunt to include a flash of light, a sicken, a nuke on every kill, and keep frenzy up.  It's a lot less boring than practice casting :).

[Zolth]

Well my need for leveling seems to have been quenched, that coupled with my family being back in town has had me playing daddy a lot more than EQ.

I have sqeezed in a pair of LDoN sessions that have me 1 bub from 52 and finally got my bank account up enough to buy me a Lodi Shield, Yay!!

It seems now that I am over 50 and folks are finding out that Zolth is my main (also have a mid 20's enchanter) the guild invites are starting to come in. Not sure I want to be guilded though, been there and done that. The amount of strain it put on my play time was just not cohesive to me having a fun EQ experience.

I will play a bit more and update this when I make 52 :)

[Zolth]

Well I made 52, almost exclusively doing LDoNs. In the process I discovered that it is actually possible to fail an LDoN! I was shocked.

Add a monk that doesn't split pulls, a paladin and 2 clerics that don't use root for crowd control, and a beast (me) that gets aggro and goes down without ever getting a single heal and tada! Failure! And to think they wanted to do a hard  :shock:  but accidently got a normal  :shock:  :shock:

Oh well, was a good learning experience none the less and I still ended the night a full bubble into 52. Always good to have a reminder that a mediocre group is about the same exp as soloing, a good group is better, and a bad group can undo some of your soloing  :lol:

At least we won the adventure before where the enchanter was meleeing with his staff while I medded up to slow the pulls...

[Whiptail_Warclaw]

Well I made 52, almost exclusively doing LDoNs. In the process I discovered that it is actually possible to fail an LDoN! I was shocked.

Add a monk that doesn't split pulls, a paladin and 2 clerics that don't use root for crowd control, and a beast (me) that gets aggro and goes down without ever getting a single heal and tada! Failure! And to think they wanted to do a hard  :shock:  but accidently got a normal  :shock:  :shock:

At least we won the adventure before where the enchanter was meleeing with his staff while I medded up to slow the pulls...

I can't realy blame the Paly for not trying to heal you and the Monk may not be good at splitting mobs, but I sure as hell hope you put both the non-healing Clerics and the Tanking Enchanter onto /ignore and your "Never to group with again" list.

[Zolth]

Well now I am level 54! Just finished scribing the new pet and a quick check of the bazaar showed that Spirit of the Snow is not for sale on Bristlebane. I started off my session by running to The Fungal Grove and turning in the quest earring to get the Earring of the Solstice. I purchased the questy bits with money largely attained by killing HGs in the Rathe mountains, which is rapidly becoming my preferred zone to hang out while I am LFG waiting for an LDoN.

Again I leveled 53 and 54 by doing LDoNs and I am starting to get a list of people asking me to join their groups even when I am already in a group. I figure that I must be doing something right :)

I made the majority of 53 grouped up with an enchanter and shadow knight that I would go out of my way to group with again. It was pretty obvious from their banter that they have other characters that they play together. The SK was constantly joking about trying to train the enchanter, so he had better hope the cleric has a rez memmed.

The pulls were very fast, and the kills flew by. By the end of 3 LDoNs level 53 was finished up! Now I just need to figure out what to spend these points that I am accumulating. I have almost 400 points spread across BB (250+), N Ro (almost 100), and EF (75-ish) but no focus yet with what I am going to do with them.

Maybe I will save up for the BB haste aug? Will it fit in any old belt/back slot or does it require an LDoN item to go in I wonder?

Anyway, work calls.

[Oneiromancer]

The best buyable Haste augment (36%) is type 3, so you will need a relatively expensive LDoN item to put it in.  I spent my early points on Pack Shrew, and pretty much ignored other items until higher level.  I think the 50 point lifetap is 360 points or so in Mistmoore if you can save up that much, it's a fun thing to have especially when you're soloing (and more especially now that you can take it out when you upgrade your weapons).

Game on,

[Zolth]

My goodness 54 is a slow level. I am now at the halfway point to 55 and I have done a ton of LDoNs. This has had the definite upside of getting me more LDoN points (which I am hoarding for some unknown reason) and has helped me get several of my casting skills caught back up.

I am averaging about 2 blues of exp per LDoN and about 17 points. I have decided that Mistmoore is the best LDoN for a group you have never played with. The dungeon is easy to the point where I wonder if I couldn't solo a collection there (I have duo'ed over half of one thanks to 3 folks going LD on zone in). Tak is my favorite so far, if you have someone that actually mems a snare/root, and EF is a fun dungeon crawl. The other two I have yet to go into as at my level range no one does pick up groups to these (or so it seems).

So this is my "halfway there" check-in. Hopefully I'll be able to get past this level by the weekend as my wife and daughter are out this weekend to a kids camp so lots of playtime for me! :)

PS: Thanks all for the info on the charm and such. I'm going to stick with my Kobold Skull for now as it has stats and my adventure stone does not.

[Zolth]

Made 55 and almost 56 over the weekend. Again mostly in LDoNs but I did visit GE for about a bubble or three. Problem I have with GE is that at 55 it doesn't take much for a bad party member to bring the whole group down. I suppose this is true of any zone though as the levels progress :)

[Zolth]

Well last night was a very casual one. I logged on in Ever Frost from having done an LDoN on Sunday evening and went to pay a visit to my dear friends the ice giants. However they were very stingy with the plat but by the time I was encumbered on plat, gold, and fine steel with both frenzy and furious strength I cleared about 700 plat and was within 1 blue of level 56.

As I was banking my newfound wealth I received a holler asking if I would join a BB LDoN. As an official LDoN junky (I have both the T-shirt and commemorative pin) I rushed off to Butcherblock and 2 mobs after we had officially hit the kills required for our little slaughterfest I dinged 56.

I am now about 1 blue into 56 and about 3 blues from dinging my first AA (I went 90%xp/10%aa when I dinged 51). Once I get that all mighty Regen1 I will likely toggle it back to 100% exp and continue to gain some levels until I get to 60 or 62. I have 2 real life friends who are not addicted enough to EQ and 1 is 55 and the other is 56 so I can't go past 62 or I would no longer be able to LDoN with them.

My bank account is hovering at around 7k plat so I am at about the halfway point to getting my next shiney object (Ornate Boots). I saw Spirit of the Snow for sale last night in the bazaar, but at 6500 plat I figured it could just sit there and look pretty while I continue to push on toward my new Nikes.

Unfortunately I will not likely get to play much this weekend as I have to go visit friends out of state or some such muck. Silly wifey thinks that this is a valuable use of our time, doesn't she understand that 60 is in sight now?!  :lol:

[bellzebut]

i once saw spirirt of snow at 7k on Cazic server. Now im really regreting it of not buying it then because now the one or two for sale are at 15-20k  :?

[Arazex]

 Greetings Zolth ,

  Must say i have enjoyed reading your posts! During your LDoN's have you considered < heard of > the DPoC from the camp in North ro ? Is a pet focus that increases your pets hp lvl and dmg it deals , is one of the *best* buys that will last you along time if not your entire life as a beastlord.  As far as spirit of snow / flame go - i personally have never used them nor have i wanted them , just didnt seem worth the 40 - 50k on my server for it  :-o .

At 56 - 60 i mostly solo'd in Plane of Justice - was before all the exp changes and such tho - or got groups in GE or Plane of Disease , but with the zones being opened up - Tier 2 being opened , Plane of Valor and Storms , you could probably find a group in either of those zones. Dont recall much past 60 in terms of where i hunted cause it starts to blur together for 60+ for me  :roll:
 
Ara~  Http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=1043550

[Dakat]

If you need cash and your are hellbound to doing LDONs I highly recommend doing Everfrost.  Mobs here were not modified when they revamped LDON several years back.  Most mobs in here drop between 12pp to 21pp per kill.  Its almost like doing hill giants O).