Zolth goes from 36 to 49 a diary

[Zolth]

Well I went from 36 to 42 slower than I had hoped over the weekend. The 39 pet was a great help. Between getting the 39 pet, the pet haste, spirit of the monkey, and discovering mage pet toys I was able to head to Sol B and do kobolds.

There were times when the kobolds were being used to PL some folks so at those times I headed to Rathe Mountains and did hill giants. Fluffy and I were able to do pretty well on both of these. The runners in Sol B never made it too far thanks to the 34 ice nuke and Fluffy proc'ing like a machinegun. The Hill giants were kind enough to give me enough cash to buy an Immaculate Elven Dagger which doesn't proc as much as I'd like, but still often enough to get me aggro when I don't want it in groups.

I did my first 3 LDoN's which were a nice change of pace. 1 as the main tank, which was enough to see that my tanking ability is fading, and 2 as a DPS machine (with 2 warriors who were much better tanks than me).

Over all 39-42 are awesome levels. I love levels just after new pets, makes you feel like you could solo anything. Looking forward to the new spell at 44 and dreading the stall between 47-49.

[JillieMT]

Some nice tips there, especially with keeping it fresh by trying a few things, and throwing in some LDoN's!

After 44, I would hit Ogguk! I have no idea how many times I have pushed it here, lol... but I had a GREAT time there, made the levels to 49 fly by! The xp was good, NO ONE else was there, and made some fantastic money for that level. Give it a try!

[Zolth]

I may try Ogguk tonight as I made Level 44 doing four LDoNs and some soloing in Sol B again. After my 3+ year vacation from EQ it's nice to go to zones that used to echo with cries of "Camp Check" or "Train to zone!~" and have them all to myself.

I haven't had a chance to do any xp into 44 yet, as soon as I dinged I went to the vendor and bought Spiritual Light. Fluffy is still doing well but is light blue for the second level and I am starting to see hints of the dread 48th level approaching.

[Mneumenth]

Id try the Dulak entrance now youre 44.

[JillieMT]

Yeah, Dulak is fun too, BUT it is SOOOO crowded now. It was great there before the Gunthak book appeared, nice and quiet. Not anymore, lol.

But Ogguk is still quiet and safe if you are in the soloing mood.

[Zolth]

Went from 44 to 45 last night. Play time was very limited so I started off in Echo Caverns as I had camped out the night before at the bazaar.

Pet toys were on the market at 25pp each item, um ouch? No way that makes my budget so I headed off to Echo as it was close and I had a new buff to try out!

Buffed up me and fluffy, slapped on Spiritual light and started rolling the umberbulks. My goodness! It's only been a level or three since I had last done these guys and they have gotten a lot easier.

My routine was pull with tainted breath to get my sucky conjuration up, sick the pet and drowsy then kill, kill, kill until my health was under 50% (mainly tanking to get my defense and riposte skill ups). Then I would sit on my hiney and bind wounds up to 70% by which time my mana would easily be full again. Thank you spiritual light!

I did the 4 entry guys and up to the TM room until after the second wave of respawns when Fireclaw popped in the hallway. He is no joke. He ate my pet and thrashed me soundly by the time I could get my ass to the zone. Even slowed I still ran out of mana DoT'ing him and playing pet cleric after he got me under 30%.

At this time a friend came over and I logged off to go get dinner.

Logged back on and decided that Fireclaw was off my Christmas card list, so back to Sol B. A friendly mage was handing out pet toys for donations in the PoK so I snapped up a set for Fluffy and hit Sol B.

Zoned in to someone being PL'ed on LDCs at the zone-in. Used my SoW speed to just blast past the kobolds and zone out above the hot tub room. Zoned back in and set up camp. Kobolds were way easy now that I have some mana regen. They hit very lightly and I could take a rare 3 pull pretty easily as long as they focused on me instead of Fluffy.

The exp flew by and 45 came about 15 minutes before EQ chimed reminded me that I have to work in the morning.

I still want to try out Ogguk, but the confort of hunting a zone that you know with your eyes closed is hard to leave. I will likely do Sol B until the GKs go light blue next level then maybe try Ogguk. Hard to say though as Fluffy sure doesn't hold up very well right now and if the bouncers hit any harder than the GKs I seriously question if Fluffy could hold off an add long enough for me to slow it and finish the first mob.

So now that I am 45 will I be able to get a KEI when a kindly chanter does a MGB at the PoK bank? I normally run away from the bank at light speed when I see an enchanter say they are about to cast this as the lag of 100 toons rushing to get a KEI is lagtastic.

[Oneiromancer]

Yes, you can get KEI at 45.  Other high level buffs can't land on you until 46 or 47.

Game on,

[Zolth]

Thanks!

I also added a magelo to my sig to give others starting out an idea of what my gear is like while I do my leveling. Some of the leveling areas that I have read require gear beyond what I ave been able to get at the bazaar on my shoe-string budget.

I could likely do more hill giants for plat (it's how I bought my dagger), but with the 39 pet they are too slow to consider for exp. All the reading I have done says that level > gear so I will stick to leveling in places where my gear is adequate.

[Zolth]

So logged on last night at the bazaar. Again pet toys were priced beyond my pay rate so I headed into Echo Caverns. This time killed 5 umberbulks and then was run out by Trilcor. I am really starting to hate the named spawns in Echo.

Was going to head to Sol B, as I am a creature of habit, but while stopping off at the bank in PoK to grab some plat to buy food/drink I got hit with a MGB of KEI (so yes it does stick at 45 as folks said).

Figured what the heck and hit the Ogguk book. I was a tad nervous when the bouncers outside were red cons but bit down and trained them to the Ogguk zone in.

Ogguk was WONDERFUL! My word, I tank 100% of the fight and finish at around 50-75% health. They are VERY resistant but this has had the side benefit of getting my conjuration/alteration up a bit faster. The downside is that Flash of Light doesn't hold on these guys long enough to get any real crowd control value from it.

I fought here for about 3 hours and made about 4-5 bubbles of EXP so I am now about 2 bubbles into 46. For my 3 hours worth of work I made around 800 plat which was at least 2-3x what I make in Sol B for the same amount of time. The zone is considered outdoor so I can keep SoW up for those akward times when a roamer comes by and decides to join in on the fun when I am low health.

Pathing is horrid here though, and frequently I would get about 1/3 of the way into a fight before I'd see Fluffy finally make it to the show. Fluffy spent a lot of time pondering walls and the tops of hills instead of just going over them (silly cat).

In the end by the time my 15% EXT KEI had expired it was time for bed and banking. I did find that for me the best deal was selling all the loot while using sneak, then buying back round shields at ~1.6 plat then reselling them for ~1.1 plat. Got rid of the copper-gold weight pretty well and allowed me to hunt a tad longer. I just held onto all of the ambers/topazes until I was ready to head in for the night since they are light weight.

Long rambling post, what's the point? You're a beastlord, not a mouse! Don't be afraid to take the advice of the other posters here. Some of the spots folks list may be a bit too hard if you are under geared, but some may just be the gem you needed. I made great exp, great loot, and for 90% of the time I was the only person in the zone. The only other toon in Ogguk was a 30's Ogre Warrior that was more interested in how a beastlord solos than why I was killing the bouncers.

One addition: At level 46 about 1/4 to 1/3 of the bouncers are now light blue to me (none were at 45). I figure since Fluffy is light blue as well at this level I shouldn't push my new found luck so I imagine that tonight I will be putting more bouncers to sleep. Sorry son, he was rabid. I had to put him down.

[Mneumenth]

In the end by the time my 15% EXT KEI had expired it was time for bed and banking. I did find that for me the best deal was selling all the loot while using sneak, then buying back round shields at ~1.6 plat then reselling them for ~1.1 plat.

Try buying bandages...you dont take a loss, you work a good skill, and you get free hps at the same time.  Win/Win alll the way around.  Sold at the very first merchant at the zone in.  Sneak is your friend, as you found out, hehe.

You're making nice progress.  I still reccomend Dulak, but whatever blows your skirt up.  GL to you.

[flubuk]

just a quickie (oeerr)

i find it easier to sneak sell to the guy in the first "tower" on right (the one that sells fletching gear)

buy arrows (stackable) for like like 500 gold, and sell for 40 plat, a bit of a loss granted but much faster/easier

[Zolth]

In the end by the time my 15% EXT KEI had expired it was time for bed and banking. I did find that for me the best deal was selling all the loot while using sneak, then buying back round shields at ~1.6 plat then reselling them for ~1.1 plat.

Try buying bandages...you dont take a loss, you work a good skill, and you get free hps at the same time.  Win/Win alll the way around.  Sold at the very first merchant at the zone in.  Sneak is your friend, as you found out, hehe.

You're making nice progress.  I still reccomend Dulak, but whatever blows your skirt up.  GL to you.

Yeah I buy bandages too But after 10 stacks I still had a lot of silver/copper to get rid of so I went to the shields. When I try again tonight (most likely without KEI) I bet I'll start using those bandages a lot more.

I went to Dulak, but it is bard-circle-kite-hell on Bristlebane    I wanted to try it out as I haven't played any of the Ykesha content yet but it looks like when I get ready to try for Malaria I'll be heading over that way.

[JillieMT]

Yay, Ogguk! I am glad to hear that you are enjoying it!

I only wish that I had sneak so I could have sold there!

[Saab]

Thanks a ton for this quality infoz, Zolth!

Im about to hit 41..so not yet for me...but I played a bit in CoM to check the hotspot...man..what a hassel getting there tho!
eeek.... all dark n stufff..... 2 guys died, so ..I camped.as it was past bedtime anyways...so gonna log right to CoM and hopefully do a lil solo there....

One thing..I live in Tampa..so..heh..Charley ( Hurricane ) is coming..Work already cancelled for tomorrow.friday...hopin my cable doesnt go ou!

[Zolth]

Thanks a ton for this quality infoz, Zolth!

Im about to hit 41..so not yet for me...but I played a bit in CoM to check the hotspot...man..what a hassel getting there tho!
eeek.... all dark n stufff..... 2 guys died, so ..I camped.as it was past bedtime anyways...so gonna log right to CoM and hopefully do a lil solo there....

One thing..I live in Tampa..so..heh..Charley ( Hurricane ) is coming..Work already cancelled for tomorrow.friday...hopin my cable doesnt go ou!

I hope you get some value out of it

Zolth logged in a tad early last night since things were slow at the office I jetted out of work about an hour early.

I headed back out to play with the bouncers and made level 47! I still have to zone out every so often when I get a roamer sticking his nose into a pull. I could probably take on 2 light blues but the downtime is far worse than just zoning out/in. I have started expanding my pull area beyond just the initial 8-10 guard that are close to the zone in but I still rarely have more that a minute to wait for a pop.

Once I dinged 47 the entire tower of 4 by the zone in was light blue. I figured that I had finally outworn my welcome and headed off to find some dark blues that would get me to 49.

What a head ache! I first went to the Over There. Upon zoning in and running to the wall I found a DB sarnak. Yay! I killed him and then went on to find that 98% of this zone is light blue. Boo! Tried the skorpis <sp?> guys in the pit. Also light blue. Went to FV only to find that the range here was mainly light blue as well.

Well crap if it's all going to be light blue I may as well go to Ogguk! So headed back to Ogguk to find that in all honesty about 50-60% of the bouncers are light blue but there do still spawn dark blue as well. I powered on killing bouncers until a bubble from 48 when the EQ Alarm chimed and I headed to the PoK bank to unload the coins.

Over the time I have done bouncers I have made about 2200 plat in the bank, plus about 300 plat that I have spent on upgrading my range item and neck item (Broken Hynid claw and a spiderfur collar).

When I was logging off I hit a MGB bonanza! A ton of spells that I have never even heard of. The ones I remember are Protection of the Nine, Symbol of Khazad, and KEI. There are also two that look like wolf heads that seem to have boosted my ATK value up by about 200 points or so.

All in all I am hoping that between these buffs, the great advice I have read here, and a little carpal tunnel I will be able to get Fluffy leveled tonight!

Edit: Glad to hear of your experiences in CoM. I was invited to a group there last night but I was on such a tear in Ogguk I turned it down. After hearing how big of a pain it was to get out there seems like purely exp wise I made the right choice