Characters - 30

gear - pretty complete up to this tier

efficiency - 30s is pretty typical but it does vary.

Time played - I don't know, it's variable but I've been playing a lot I probably get about 5 hours a night. Sometimes I can hop in or an additional 30 minutes or hour just to get a few things done. The first week I played substantially more on some weekend days.

Progression quest: Just finished enraged.
Shield: first shield took 16 AoWs. I have the ability to spawn ~5 AoW and just missing velk heads for 7 more after that so it's probably fair to say ~2 shields in the course of doing enraged could be expected.
UCV5: I finished 75/80 before the shard changes and just finished my first one right after finishing enraged. Now they are quite fast and I'm already pretty deep into my second ucv5. Based on my kill numbers I would have completed roughly 3.5 UCv5 in the process of doing enraged had this drop rate been around the whole time.
Mantles: Finished roughly 2 mantles to rank 5. The only significant piece in this is Relics of Norrath. The essence combine item is very similar to flawless GSOA from VP where it requires a much more valuable component (essence of kael) to make something that drops relatively often from Rot. Perhaps there is a relic combine I don't know about but they come rather slowly.
Armor: I counted armor pieces as a function of enraged kills along the way. At last check I had 650 enraged total had 82 pieces of armor. So a drop every ~8 enraged implying a player should expect 125 armor pieces over the course of doing enraged (an 18 man group needs 126 pieces total). Of course, 1/4 of this will be leather and in general you will get duplicates and rots. When I finished enraged my warrior had ~30/60 armor rot hand-ins. I should say, at some point I stopped killing DR so I hadn't used Ymir to supplement armor drops. Ymirs mechanism is huge for progression in that it lets you direct what pieces you get. He is also extremely common from my experience so that helps a lot avoiding situations where you get very unlucky with one piece. I've still never seen a chain breastplate drop from Voltanis, for instance, yet I have 3 full sets of chain thanks to Ymir. This is a good mechanism.
UW13: I finished 2 UW13s which means I had roughly 240 essences drop in the span of doing enraged (36 for NS augs). I also have been saving AoWs which seems to be good for like 2-3 per clear so I probably farmed the equivalent of 250-260 essences if you count those unredeemed heads.
Roxy Aug: My MT is on sparkling which I guess is the 4th rank. I'm probably slightly unlucky here because I spent almost 90k coins total on this last upgrade. Although RNG will be high here, I suspect most will be at sparkling after enraged are done.
Cold delivery: I skipped as many wolves, bears and sirens as possible while grinding enraged so I'm nowhere on this quest (3 of 30). I'll probably put some effort into this now. Right now this quest is tangential to most of the rest of the zone, not sure if that's good or bad.

Favorite features - I have a lot of positive things to say about the zone in general. I like that you have to keep your brain engaged and think things through. You need to pay attention to what you are killing (for instance, to shape the drops you need), you need to pay attention to kill order (for instance if you have a boss and a named up to not waste a possible boss pop or if you have too many in camp to kill animals first to avoid possible chains). I like that using your brain is beneficial to your productivity and as a result I've very rarely, if ever, felt bored in Kael. I like that the bosses have mechanics that are well-telegraphed and clear (compare to like zeixshi for instance). I like that there is a real sense of progression as you move through the zone, you will get more capable you will get stronger. I like that the content presents a real challenge that pushes players to hone their play. I like that there are tons of small things to work on (AoW spawn, armor, spells, UV5, UW, mantle, coins/augs etc) while you are progressing through the overarching "Long grind" of enraged.

Areas for improvement - I don't have much here. I think this is a good step but I'd love to see this approach to boss design continued as we move forward. I'd like more mechanisms more often so you don't just zone out while a blob of HP drains away; Ragnar is a decent example of this, without his second enrage the fight is basically done at 80%.

I guess one thing is that Kael is homogenous, the entrance is basically identical to the deepest parts in terms of difficulty. I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to have difficulty gradients or particularly difficult parts, VP had this a little bit, but it was bypassed by binding in the zone beyond the challenges. I think that aspect was a good feature of the zone.

Glad to hear your parents are getting the care they need, Draca. Looking forward to a really good era of ez content  Thanks again for your dedication.

Nice! Previously, halloween weapon ended up becoming more of an annoyance because you have to remember to get rid of it when you make a UW. I think this is an overall good change!

Two ideas: one is that there are multiple installs of mq2 on your system and you are looking in the files for the wrong one.the second idea is that the file you are looking at has extensions hidden and isn't actually .xml, it's just a file named with the right name followed by .xml.txt or whatever. Maybe if you say how you solved it the first time it would make it more clear what's going on?

Why would someone need to farm 10 hours? The fastest is the fastest no matter how long you do it for. And it's not that people play longer than you, they play more efficiently. Every time I have given you advice or seen someone give you advice you say you can't be bothered to do x y or z and then blame something external or say you "can't be assed" to do that even when it's as simple as "use this defensive spell". The outcome of not taking any of those suggestions is that you farm slow, your time is less productive than someone who thinks about how to improve and plays better. This is a hole you dig for yourself and then come here and act shitty towards literally everyone because you view it as everyone else fault and the server must change to accommodate you. You act shitty toward players trying to give you advice, you act shitty towards draca because he "lied" about changing some trivial thing or that something is STILL broken as if you are an impatient boss.

Once you learn how to do Tunare it takes 15-30 minutes regardless of party size. You not doing it has nothing to do with the time and everything to do with what I wrote above. You pulled the trash once, declared it was impossible unless you have 40 boxes and ignored the torrent of advice finally declaring you "just can't be assed to heal that much damage". You are better equipped than most people who do this with items like the gm gift aug that they can't even get.

I would say xp in VP is very good. The crystals you get a worth way more than any mob massacre in any other zone I would say.

Yeah vp is the best in the game if you need to focus to 1-10 characters. For more it lags for sure. Overall I like that there are ups and downs with it. VP doesn't need to simultaneously give the best rewards for everything.

Warrior epic ... Great but 30 minutes up time is and has always been terrible and not everyone can compile a massive macro to encompass every single buff possible with timers in so they self buff and nor should we have to.

This doesn't require anything extravagant like you describe. Just a single line "/if (${Me.Buff[Warrior's Defense VIII].Duration} < 100) /itemnotify 13 rightmouseup" will refresh it when duration is below ~10 mins. you can juts put it on any old button you hit more often that once every 10 minutes.

Curious if you got this figured out?

I haven't seen a difference in incoming damage in that section either.

Did you do that poem with Chat GPT?

No way! It clearly says a human wrote it!!

Halloween Event thru the weekend
Double Loot
Double Exp

No credits as of now, check back here, I will update if they become available.

          ↑↑↑↑ -Draca


          ↓↓↓↓ -Pubis

Oh plants, how great you are!
You bring life to the world near and far
From the tallest tree to the tiniest weed
Your beauty and usefulness we all need

Your leaves and flowers give us air to breathe
And your roots anchor the earth beneath
You provide food, medicine, and shelter
Your importance to us cannot be helter-skelter

Your variety is amazing to behold
From cacti to ferns, your stories are told
You thrive in deserts, forests, and seas
And you help keep our planet at ease


But how does this relate to Everquest, you ask?
Well, my dear friend, it’s a fascinating task
For in this game, plants play a vital role
In ways that may surprise and console

You see, in Everquest, you can be a druid
A master of nature, whose skills are astute
You can heal, protect, and summon plants
And use them to aid your fellow combatants



But that’s not all, for plants in this game
Can also be used for a different aim
They can be harvested for crafting items
That are sold to players, creating income

Herbalism and alchemy are skills to acquire
To make potions, poisons, and more, that will transpire
In battles, where the right concoction can save the day
And lead your group to victory in a heroic way

So, you see, plants are not just a pretty sight
They have a purpose, both in life and in fight
And in Everquest, they are an essential part
Of a game that has captured many a heart


So let us celebrate plants, in all their glory
And acknowledge their role in our story
For without them, life would not be the same
And Everquest would not be the best-selling game.

I actually haven't kept close track of how many drops but looking back through screenshots I have one I took of a 9 drop (flawless gemstone, exp crystal, 2x gsoa, aug, lroa, chain bp, map, drink) and I've seen someone else with a 9 drop. So it can happen.

 It seems to me maybe table 1 is: GSOA, GSS, flawless gem, exp stuff and can have up to 3 drops. Pool 2 is Masters, LROA, ucv4 and can have 1-2, Pool 3 is anything from VP (aside tunare I THINK) 1 drop, Pool 4 is Tunare + gnome drops 1 item. Pool 4 is Map, credit or gem of war 1 item, Pool 5 is drink/food, 1 item.

It's possible too that GSOA is also in pool 2? Not sure I haven't paid super close attention but I'm happy to send you any and all data I have. I think the drop size range is 7-9 because both pool 1 and pool 2 can be +/- 1 item.

Edit: Ok well got 2 exp crystals, flawless GSOA, augment, sk bp, robe, map, food. So I guess aug can maybe be in another slot too. Not sure how it works.

Oh also I believe the aug (and probably shield too) can be on either real item drop table. I've gotten the aug and a BP before and I've seen just the aug as the tunare specific item.

Only additions I have: the random stuff drop can have 5 things. Lroas is in that cluster as well. Gnome augment can drop in the tunare specific slot.

Also I suspect table 1 is two smaller tables but I'm not 100% sure where the line is. I would bet the ucv4, masters, lroas are on their own table... I've never not gotten at least one of those

It varies a lot based on who you are talking to but there's a few things to keep in mind.

First, people get to "top tier" pretty fast these days and players don't sit on those tiers farming, they progress. I took it relatively slow through the tiers, didn't know about GC until it was too late etc and I had a total of ~50ish GSOA drop through my entire time through T10. A low level that spends their time farming SLS in jagged or whatever is entirely wasting their time, you can get 100s a day in HoS (when active) along with really good AA and important essences and halloween drops, double, triples ZPs which are legitimately game changing. Time spent farming a handful of SLS is time not spent getting to the point where you can take advantage of high end zone drops. I can farm more of almost any resources in a single triple hour with ZPs then a new player will get in their entire natural progression through the zone. Basically, just because a resource is farmable at low levels doesn't mean anyone should do it.

Second, materials like GSS which drop a lot in higher tiers are only needed in relatively low quantity (8 per character at most, 7 if you farm a kote instead, 6 if you don't make a BP anymore for various reasons, 5 for rogues etc etc). Compare to something like GSOA where 50 are required per character, or a low tier essence where 105 are needed, AAs where 15.7 million are needed (although a tunare drop will knock ~7.3 million off this total which is huge).  

Lastly, at least in the case of GSS, yes they only come from high end zones but anyone that trades a valuable resource to get them "now" (by the way they can't even use them till after they are essentially done with T10) is just mortgaging away their future. UA doesn't really matter except for a small handful of pieces, yes you'll need 3 each to get into Sleepers eventually. My value is based primarily around the idea that you should be trying to acquire resources that allow you to collect resources faster. Don't spend things you'll need in the future for things you will finish the moment you get there.

There are two big players here, the first is the power of GC, the fastest progress takes a GC and a UW on the tank (a EOBA would be cool too but it's negotiable) and the rest of your crew is primarily there to loot and speed up dps a little. The second culprit is the power of halloween drops. The best bet for a new player is to get to the point of farming that content asap.