EZ Server

This is a condensed guide with some class specific info.

I prefer to use non frontal stun classes as tanks.
I also recommend that you level up 2-3 epics on sk
If you see someone in /ooc saying they will buff stop what you are doing and go get buffs.
Exp Buffs will greatly shorten your lvl time from 1-70 (if you cant find someone buffing i would /ooc asking if anyone has a 100% xp pot you could grab off them)
In Qrg see "Trainer" hail and follow prompts for spells 1-69 meditation and discs
See newbie vendor and buy a velium blue diamond wedding ring, velium fire wedding ring, a banker, 2x golden sapphire earrings, bristalbanes party plater, a few magic boxes, and a black sapphire neck.
on epic vendor buy your epic 1.0
Once you Get 550p go to a newbie vendor and buy a "staff of fluxing power" http://www.ezserverwiki.com/File:Staff_of_fluxing_power.jpg

Things to look out for and hold as you LVL (DO NOT SELL THESE):
Black sapphire,
Jacinth,
Diamond
Blue diamond
Rubies


lvl 1-10
http://www.ezserverwiki.com/Field_of_Bone
10-16
Kurn's Tower
16-35
http://www.ezserverwiki.com/Mistmoore
35-55
http://www.ezserverwiki.com/Dulak%27s_Harbor
55-70 (can only do quest once)
http://www.ezserverwiki.com/Bastion_of_Thunder

70 and beyond
This is where EZ server content actually stats.

Now there are a few different ways to continue from here so I will briefly cover them.

Once you reach 70 I would highly recommend spending 2-5 hours in JaggedPine farming SLS(min 6). these sell for ~250k each. What you are looking for is to get enough plat to 1) cover the cost of 4x noobie v2 charms 2) cost of 1x 2k aa crystal 3)cost of crafters guild (if you were to farm about 60 sls (few days{at most} of farming) this would give you a HUGE advantage you can buy a 20k aa crystal and burn them in roa (if you feel like beings stupid you can get the first rk of E.O.A. instead)

First, I would highly recommend either leveling a chanter up to 47 or finding one that will do a few mass vial of purified mana for you.
With this you will make Artisan Seals for your Crafters guild quest.
http://wiki.eqemulator.org/p?EZG_Crafters_Guild&frm=EZ_Server_Main

visual
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9A8LWJEUf9nb0tyZlJDSi02UkU/edit

The other option is to grind out BoT till you have about 200-500 aa well spent in offensive and def aa's and you will still want to do the crafters guild quest.

Caster/Fighters Guild Quests
You are going to want to do BOTH of these.
http://wiki.eqemulator.org/p?EZG_Guild_Quests&frm=EZ_Server_Main (the link to the spreadsheet has the information you will need)



PotimeA
As a solo Sk you are going to want a min of 300 well spent AA and 80% of BoT gear to start here.
While this might be a little slow going it is very doable.
Keep your eye out for Sk only 2hs that has lifesap 1 on it (i think it's called bloodreaper) (link avail later). This weapon is on par with the 2.0 epic.

Once you find this weapon you should be solid enough to head to Sro and grab a 1.5 book.
I would def recommend having a pet up while you kill spiders. you can FD pull Terrorantula to a better kill spot then where he spawns. This is where you will get your first experience of adds spawning while fighting. I would highly recommend jumping between named and adds. Also again if you see someone buffing in ooc i would go get buffs to make this fight easier. (it is still doable without buffs)

Once you get the pages and book and make your 1.5 goto the crafters guild and get a firestrike I aug and insert it into your epic

recap by the time you leave time (if you chose to run with the first option of farming some SLS (which is faster then trying to farm out your aa btw). If you bought all the pertinent aa you should have around 1500 spend aa and a roa 30-50ish.

Ldon
This is a tricky zone because if you die before you get to level 6 you have to start over from level 1. so again if you can get buffs get them =P

With the addition to the buff bot and armor merchant at the beginning of each level this has made progression through these zones a lot easier.
Buy all armor upgrades with the cards (each piece only costs 1 card each) You definitely want to get AND HOLD ON TO the chest.

You will need 4x kings chest cards to complete fighters/casters guild quests. (8 in total).

This will also yield all pages for 2.0 the book is in chambersa which you can be teleported to from epic dude (i did mine right after i did my 1.5 with little to no issues)(see sro epic  1.5 book info farther up in post) also note to remove any augs from weapons/armor before doing turn ins and combines

Note:
Here is where i'm going to say that this is where my guide really splits off from being a group to a solo guide: and other peoples' path of progression.
If you are not soloing as an SK this is where you will fail as a war and need a group. Also if you are using an SK tank you can continue on with progression and obtain better gear/abilities quicker.

I recommend staying in ldon on flr 5 until you have at least a lvl 21 sorc charm before you continue on your progression. note (if you want to tought it out you can do LDON 6 and get prismatic charm upgrades and push past lvl 21 sorc charm) also no that the staff of fluxing power is better overall until sorc charm 11

Recap
All Ldon gear (especially chest) + accessories and range (this really shouldnt be any issue when getting your charms) if you followed my path on getting an aa crystal you should have a roa between 50-100. depending on drop rates if you had any xp buffs etc. (again if you see someone buffing go get them). and epic 2.5

Qvic:
You can venture into qvic pre sorc charm 21 however you will find it very uh painful do to the fact that some pulls can yield 5-6 mobs. This is why i recommend grinding out the charms and some aa into your roa rank.  Also loot any HP augs you find to put into your armor slots.

basic guide/info
http://wiki.eqemulator.org/p?EZG_QVIC&frm=EZ_Server_Main
please not that he does refer to the spreadsheet from the caster/fighters guild quest. also note that you will need to loot and essence of (zone) from this zone on.

Once you have completed the quest the npc will give you a copy of the 3.0 book if you did not loot on in qvic. turn your 2.5 and book into the vendor and get the aug. hail the level up npc receive 71 and go to postorms and look for the weapons vendor and buy your choice of weapon. goto the dragons merchant and buy a ring of dragons and equip also from dragons vendor buy a dragons major vellum. You will need to acquire an sk ink from another player at this point as well.

combine ink, vellum, 2x magic element(nexus vendor),disease element(nexus vendor) in magic box to yield t2 spell Thirst of Muram (this spell line is our best spell line) Essential what this does is a DOT lifetap. How to properly use this spell is ... well dot a mob and kill the other mobs and kill the dotted mob last. Before everyone gets bent out of shape about this ... it is basically dru rejen.

You can get a small dps bump also by getting a 2nd ink and making spell call of the void (t1) look at spell recipes on the left side of page.


at this point again you are left with a few different options.
You can power your way through qvic ct and get your gear. then move onto what i'm talking about or you can do what i'm talking about and have a much easier time in the rest of qvic/ct

My recommended route (please note that this does not replace the required progression gear but this will help you achieve that gear at a much faster/safer rate.

again if you see buffs go get them =P

Frozenshadow:
Here is where some real fun starts. At this point tofs1 will be a p.i.t.a., however if you have been following my guide. have your epic 3.0 with a FSI aug in it. and a few pieces of qvic gear with roa 75+ and sorc 21 you should be able to handle this with or without buffs. (note that qvic and tofs will dispel some of your buffs until you hit about 1800 resists)
You should be able to handle a pull of 3-4 here and be able to kill the named SLOWLY to get a key to flr 2. If you choose to do this route know that you will die a lot. but it will be easy to recover and continue. if you do kill the flr 1 named go to flr 2 the mobs don't hit as hard and have less hp, however they do cast and can be nasty. it shouldn't take to long to bump your resists up to resist those kinds of spells. in all honesty there is no reason you could not have at least a rk 5 resist aug in every slot within a few days. by doing this you should walk out of tofs with around 1300 resists easy. this will give you a HUGE boost in lower zones.

also while on tofs2 you will find crystallized shadow gear. as of right now this gear is unable to receive hp/resist augs do to recent changes, however hate said he was going to update these to receive one or both of these? dunno but i am going to assume he will add both like other gear.
again this gear DOES NOT REPLACE YOUR PROGRESSION GEAR
If hate does make this gear to receive hp and resist augs you will want to get a full set of gear. 6x pieces of gear with 3-5k hp on them is quite a nice jump and will take you almost to t3. THIS GEAR WILL HELP YOU THE MOST AT ACHIEVING A FULLY GEARED GROUP ALONG WITH ABILITY TO SOLO.

At this time if you have followed my steps you are geared in tofs gear with hp augs and resist augs. roa 100-150 t2 spell thirst epic 3.0 and a FSI aug.
Now is time to go back to qvic/ct and get all missing pieces of progression armor.

Aug progression vs UW progression. Well here's the deal ... the fact that weapons will now only hold 1 aug. you are better off spending the few ess sls etc on getting augs.

I would expect you to have found at least 2x CT ess in your killing so i would say you have a fs3 aug made before entering into t1

Podragons ... if you followed my guide you should have enough resists to resist a good portion of the dots. the mobs dont hit as hard as CT and seem to have less HP. so t1 should be cakewalk. t2 should be fairly easy as well except for kronos.

Kronos strat. in my experience 95% of the time the real kronos is the top mob in the extended target window. what you want to do is if he spawns tag 1 mob really quick and see if he drops as fast as a normal t2 dragon. if he does you are on the wrong one. you might consider casting da and move the mobs to be closer together pick a new target and see how that one drops. if that one drops fast as well then you know the real kronos is the 3rd one and you cast thirst on that one and kill off the other 2 adds and continue like you would a normal fight. you might need that ldon chest to burn through on this fight.

Hohonora: well if you have followed my guide you should have around a rk10 of all charms with a rk 21+ sorc charm. you should be able to achieve a UC in a weeks time farming (less if you can find someone farming tokens who will let you loot the charms in exchange for looting the instance).

Now here is where i will get some disagreement on what steps to take next. and that is at this point you are geared pretty much up to t3 you can do a decent size train in qvic and live without being way to overkill. I would recommend farming 100 qvic and 100 ct ess at this point. and work on getting uw2. if you do this by the time you have achieved this feat you should be able to get to t8 with minimal problems if you are 2-3 tiers behind on your UW. if you choose not to go down this route you will be able to continue to solo up until t7 (you will not be able to kill epic guy without help or uw8) and in t8 there is a mob that you will not be able to out dps his lifetap without uw9+ with eoa 40+.  

also the epic 3.5 changes from the 3.0 from a lifetap proc to a def proc. this is where having a few epics comes in handy. at this point you are better off having 2 weapons switching between the 2 for the def proc and the LT proc.

thanks to darpey and chunka for their wikis that i linked to.

i will be making slight changes/adding pics over the next few weeks to be slightly more detailed but this is a very good rundown that should break you into t5 in about 3-5 months depending on play time and ability of the player.

and again IF YOU SEE BUFFS RUN YOUR ASS OFF TO GET THEM !!!!!







11-25-15 edit

(http://www.quickmeme.com/img/97/97445165f7551b4ddc9981dbede5046bfd86a0c6c32037fce264f37101256b9b.jpg)

Cry for me warriors. SK > All.


-Hate

No pally tank = sad branny =(

edited

Nice read, but the 20k AA's into the earring (the first rank does not require GSoA for those unaware, it's just 20,000 AA) is a complete waste no matter how you slice it. Rank 100 RoA is 25,000 HP and less than 20k AA's to achieve.

At the rate RoA achieves HP / stats / regen, spending 20k on the first rank of the ear doesn't even come close until the point where you already have earrings better than 5k HP

There is literally no reason to go for a rank 1 Ear at any point in progression.

i do agree but you dont get a 5k ear until t4/t5 ... that's the only reason i have it in there as a suggestion

And when do you get a 25k ring? Point Kruciel !

I've had a few new people trade me a Gemstone for 20k AA's and watched them instantly go from Rank 1 ring to Rank 120 ish  :)

ok i'll switch the wording around =P my real point was that even though jaggedpine sucks a few hours in there and trading out is worth way more in return then trying to farm your way up

Added it to the wiki... Main Page --> Guides --> A solo SK journey / Easier start for war guide (http://ezserverwiki.com/A_solo_SK_journey_/_Easier_start_for_war_guide)

Hope that's okay.

You listed that they should hold on to the gems for the artisan seals, but what about rubies for vials of mana?

So....I gotta ask: I KNOW Watch didnt solo to where he is, he used boxes. So has ANYONE been able to successfully get to T6 solo as an SK? I mean TRULY solo....not solo the Peign way (sponging, buying, begging). As far as I know only ONE guy here has ever made a real attempt to solo an SK to any extent, and he gave up at T1.

And sorry if it seems I am jumping on ya Watch....I'm not! Just think a lot of people are posting anymore based on theory rather than experience...and getting quite a few new players who suddenly think they can pop in from P99 and get somewhere solo. We all know giving them this impression isnt doing them any favors. And maybe its just me, but having to rely on some kind soul to drop a bunch of buffs so you have even a slim chance of being able to play....and even THEN its a major longshot and it will require mountains of time and patience. But again, maybe you know someone who's genuinely solo'd a char to T5.....if so I'd love to talk to em! I love learning new strats!

And again, just me, but its a huge difference between running 6, 12 or 18 boxes to gear up a char then soloing and just really soloing.

Going to see how well this goes with my SK, what always got burned me out on the server was managing gear for all of my boxes, I'd much rather just kill slower and only gear up one toon.  I'm ultra casual though so I'll come back and update occasionally with details/issues.  I do have some plat/augs already though so I'm not doing this 100% legit but I will be progressing through solo with the sk.

Luck! Keep us posted.....I'd honestly like to be able to point to at least on example of a successful solo player here who's gotten anywhere....but to date I have been unable to find one who's actually solo'd past PoDragons.

And honestly....I cant see why managing gear for boxes would be difficult. Once you get to the point that you need to get T4 gear or later you're gonna get enough rots to gear up another team anyway, just trying to get all the armor/items for one character. In all honesty gearing up 12 boxes isnt much harder than gearing up 1....and often takes a lot less time.

Finished up 2.0/fighters guild this morning, things are going pretty smoothly.  The 2.0 lifetap is really not all that amazing though, still needing to use potions/CH book while doing ldon floor 6.  probably best to work on sorc charm and finish 2.5 next.  

Honestly one thing that might entirely derail this as a possibility is lack of cures.  Without the donation cure item I'm not sure how its going to be possible later on.  Anyway, so far so good!

And this is exactly what made the SK previously mentioned give up soloing once he hit T1/2. With single slots available he wasnt able to realistically get resists high enough to be able to survive PoDrags solo. So far my biggest PITA has been dispells and lack of DPS on the SK I am trying....but still working it.

that's why i say goto tofs and farm up resist augs. especially now with the aug slot changes.

Hi started on EZ back in 2010 with Big Mac with Fries (he was a pally but could never finish off BoT mobs) and then grouped with a SK, who basically lawnmowered through BoT.  I thought heck I need to change over to be able to finish.  I played all the way through POD and found that I could not get through T2 boss mobs as the poison coupled with hard hits stopped me in my tracks T1 full armor with Epic 3.0.  At that point I switched over to boxing with a bard and cleric.  I had considerable help to get me to T4 in HOH but have now gone back and have a group of support characters.  my SK is still my main at least for the time being and may have to bring on a Warrior but trying to see how far my SK can go as the main.

You'll be able to go far, but you're losing a tremendous amount of efficiency due to the loss in tanking ability.  You'll take 50 hours to do what a warrior tank group can do in 20-30.  You'll probably have it rough in Loping Plains with the respawn time and you'll be pulling small in ToV.  T10 will break you in half. 

First, can it be done? yes

Second, can it be fun? yes

Third, is it advised? no

Recent changes to the Shadowknight and Paladin classes (last year) brought both classes closer to a true tanking role, however neither matches the tanking ability of the Warrior.

I was heavily involved in the changes made to both classes and did quite a bit of comparison testing, what I found is that the changes basically made Shadowknights a great dps tank (with all the sub quest gear) and it made the Paladin a great healing tank (with all the sub quest gear). What the changes did not do is make either class interchangeable with the Warrior.

I think you find that over time the SK and Pally class start to pale in tanking ability to the Warrior and you will probably find yourself wanting to make/gear up a Warrior for tanking. I would advise you make that Warrior now to save yourself time and grief later on.

Just my 2 copper

I heard a rumor the other day the a SK with a UW actually hangs near the top of the list for DPS.

Remember when hate did all that DPS parsing but didnt do any for UWs? you should do some DPS parsing for each class with UWs :)

The Shadowknight I used had every quest item maxed and he did a ton of DPS.

The spells and combat skills allowed him to do a lot of DPS, so much so that he ripped aggro off the tank frequently.

It's a great class, brings a lot to the table for a team, but I just don't think the SK or the Pally is the main tank for later tiers.

alot of time i read DPS but i dont had any idea where i can watch it or how i can watch it ... exist there an directly viewin tool window ingame addon or something ?

Gamparse

Back in the day I made it quite far with a SK, Whatzizname. Although this was in the days when T4 was the end all beat all and we spent most of the time farming and combining rocks and wait for help in T4. I group a lot with other guys who cam up with me But it was enjoyable to do because it was a lot like playing EQ. When I was in a guild I made it to T5 with a lot of help but it was doable after awhile. Today I could not see anyone making it to T4 without help.

one thing i would like to see is the shadowknight and the pally config  edited so that they have the ability to dual weld. i dont know if it would interest many out there, but i personally would like to see that a possibility. you could take the warrior configs and add them to the pally/sk then those two classes would be able to match and possibly out rank the warrior classes.
just my 2 cents on the matter.

I honestly don't see this happening as it would have very far and wide implications for all 3 classes. I think the warrior class as the main tank will always remain, but I could be wrong, time can judge that.

I would rather see Shield Specialist work for pally/sk but it would probably need to be tuned a bit because of UW.