I didn't want to go out and level my Illusionist. All I really wanted to do was continue with my carpenter. Unfortunately, I'd reached a wall where my harvester, previously known as my main, couldn't farm in the areas equal to my crafting needs. I've already stated multiple times that EQ2 style questing doesn't suit my tastes for many reasons, so I won't belabor them here. Dragging my feet like a petulant child, I hopped on my level 40 Illusionist and headed out.
My Questing Strategy
The plan was to focus on leveling while taking harvesting breaks in between to break up the monotony. I must be a very odd duck if I find harvesting the break in between the questing monotony. *LOL* I assure you that's not the case for me in other games. With dual purposes in mind, I started out questing in Zek because of the wood found there. My strategy in EQ2 is to pick up quests, start killing and looting stuff, allowing slay and collection quests to be completed passively.
I'll stay in the area killing things I find interesting. I often stage challenges for myself, like taking on double-A mobs, triple-A mobs and heroic encounters. Sometimes I win. Other times I run away screaming like a little girl, leaving my pet behind as a sacrificial lamb. Then I change it up by going back to slaughtering things on my kill list. When I get bored with an area, I delete unfinished quests and move on to the next spot. That is the most I can do to make myself level in EQ2. *shrug*
After Zek, I flew over to Enchanted Lands - again because of the wood and ore I'd find there. Visually, I enjoy this zone more than the trodden-earth Orc riddled landscape of Zek. I stayed here a bit longer and especially messed with the AAA fairy groups. Some times they are so high in the air or obscured by trees that they surprise players who are innocently passing by. For that reason, they need killing!
Before leaving the zone I sparred with huge floating eyeballs that were oh so inconveniently blocking my way to nice stashes of harvesting nodes. They were guarding mounds of them, just sitting there for the taking. However, these were really heroic and could easily 2-shot me. I played cat-n-mouse with a couple. I was successful at wresting a few nodes from under their evil glare, before I had to run away like a lil b*tch.
My last stop was my favorite of the three zones I was hopping through. Steamfront is more my style outdoor zone. Granted, I prefer cityscapes and villages for fighting. I really REALLY REALLY wish developers would stop sending us to fight in the middle of nowhere! That said, Steamfront is at least sunny, open and airy. If I have to be in the middle of nothing, I'd prefer it to be scenic. The area has cliffs, mountains, winding trails, gullies, etc., aka variety. I skipped around there the longest and after gaining two levels, I was able to reach the spots only three adventurer-levels below the types of resources I need for crafting. I didn't see any Ebony wood nodes. I suspect they were further in, nearer the level 49+ mobs.
Where the hell are you going?
I completed a few slay and collection quests, killed things that annoyed me or I just didn't like the look of. That's right, give me and my shadow the stank-eye while we're passing through, and it's likely to initiate a throw down. Well - unless you have too many friends. If you do, we'll instanta-invis and slink by unnoticed. If I'm trying to sneak harvest, invisibility doesn't help so we creep along carefully.
“Shh, stay close shadow… OMG, where the hell are you going? Noooooooo, don’t aggro that! Ruuuun Forrest! Sorry, every woman for herself. I’ll have to cast a new version of you once I get to the other side of that ledge. See ya in the afterlife.”
Behind door should-not-be-opened
Toward the end of my 2nd day of being focused on leveling, I completed some fetch-n-step quests. Along the way, my curiosity had me open one too many mechanical doors. Behind door number should-not-have-been-opened, a crazy gnome Wizard and her skelly jumped my ass while I was only half way across the threshold. Of course said door promptly closed in my face, leaving my view half in and half out, unable to see WTF was going on, other than I was hemorrhaging health. As for my shadow, that finicky chick, who randomly turns off her "defend master until death" setting, she was somewhere standing by being useless. And to think, I clothe her in nice appearance items so she doesn't have to float around looking like a buffoon!
When my sense returned, I stunned that four-eyed big-headed wizard long enough to move fully into the room. I got my shadow moving and together, we burned the Wizard and her companion into the dust. As if! We left the area without peaking behind anymore doors. I decided I'd had enough leveling for the week and returned home.
Dances. Screams. Faints from excitement!
When it was all said and done, I'd gained 4.5 levels. Woot. In a blink of an eye I'll be level 45 which is the highest I've ever been in EQ2. But for now, it's back to crafting!!
A guild member, FizzleWizzles, was generous enough to use her faction to purchase a woodworking station for my house!!! OMG - cheers, dances, and wiggles around the room. I'll still do a majority of my crafting out the the common area because carpenters use three different stations. But now I can craft in the house when I want to and more importantly, when I'm advertising I can stay busy crafting instead of standing around the house just waiting for customers to come in. I will also be able to make furniture orders right there on the premises when necessary. Am super super excited.
I was going to reply to your previous post where you mentioned having to level in order to harvest but I got distracted playing EQ2X.
I thought for a while you meant that you thought your harvesting skill was tied only to your adventuring level, but it's clear from your comments above that you know it is capped against the higher of your adventure or crafting levels, so that's not the problem. The only other problem you could be having would be issues over finding safe harvesting spots and as you confirm above, that's the issue.
Raising your adventure level is obviously good, because it allows you to harvest just about anywhere, but it isn't actually necessary. There are safe harvesting spots for at all tiers for crafters even if their adventuring level is in single figures.
Of course, the trick is in knowing where they are, but asking in a crafter-oriented channel usually brings plenty of good suggestions. In some tiers there are completely safe spots with no aggressive mobs at all. In all tiers there are many spots where an alert and careful harvester can avoid getting squashed by aggressive wildlife.
As far as I can tell, mobs in EQ2 do not change their agro radius according to the difference in levels between them and you. Unlike other MMOs, red-con mobs won't spot you from half a zone away and charge over for an easy kill. (Those Evil Eyes you mention are a notable exception, in that they are one of the few mobs in EQ2 that actually use Line-of-sight agro rather than a radius - a joke about them being, well, Eyes. But I digress).
From memory, the most challenging tier is T7. The Kingdom of Sky zones were designed specifically to prevent crafters with no adventuring levels from getting easy pickings. Stupid decision and they did revamp some areas to make harvesting easier, but it remains the most awkward stage. With Faydwer, though, there are other options besides the KoS zones.
Anyway, I personally think it's more fun to level up adventuring and just remove the annoying creatures in your way, but if you don't want to, you really don't have to.
Posted by: Bhagpuss | September 29, 2010 at 01:19 PM
@Bhag - Thanks for the information, that is definitely good to know. I'd heard that some crafters never adventure but I couldn't see how they could do that and harvest.
Leveling the way I explained in the post, it wasn't nearly as annoying as I thought it would be. In two sessions, I dinged 4.5 levels. *shrug* And I have to go out to harvest so if I can make it mildly entertaining then I'm good. I'd like to see some of the other content at some point. If I just level like this then I can elect to do some guild runs if/when I'm in the mood.
There's a group wanting me to hurry up and do the Ship Out quest as the pre-req for the crafting instances they do. After this next decorating job I'll at least do that, even though I abhor quest chains. I want to see the crafting instances and contribute to the guild. They are a very nice group of people although most of the time I'm off in my own little crafting world.
Posted by: Saylah | September 29, 2010 at 04:32 PM