EQ2: Extreme Questing Update: Fubared Edition

It has been a while since we checked in with the Extreme Questing Leaderboard!! When last we peeked, back in June, it looked a bit like this:

Maltheas EverQuest 2 Extreme Questing Leaderboard 2592 69

We had finally added the 60-69 tier in our leaderboard, and Maltheas was still holding his own against such distinguished adventurers, and looking forward to striving to improve his own efforts.

This time the board looks like…


Oh wait. I can’t show you what the board looks like because leaderboards have been broken on the EQ2 website for months, and it sounds like that is going to continue to be the case, at least for a while. I’d been waiting for it to be fixed before posting one of these, but the clamour for news of our brave Ratonga pal has become almost audible, so I’ll bring us up to date.

He’s levelled once since last time, bringing him up to level 42, and is currently on about 2742 quests in total. I’ve not played a huge amount since the last check, but Frostfell has a tendency to coax me into action! I did manage to catch Tinkerfest for the first time, and also made sure to get stuck in to the return of the Heroes’ Festival.

Maltheas mentored down, and finished all the new quests in New Halas, Greater Faydark, and Darklight Woods. There was quite a bit of nice new house furniture to be gained, and generally I like the changes, though I mourn for the quests that were removed to make way for the new ones. In some cases I also mourn for the questgivers.

EQ2 RIP Grum Eater Of Small Things 550x366

Grum will be missed by many, but not by the small things.

Maltheas has more or less finished with Runnyeye, including both small instances. The death of Lord Rulgax has brought Maltheas one step closer to completing the Staff of the Observers. Here we see Maltheas, some of his loyal tinkered attack robots, and his new pal, Mr Snowy, giving Lord Rulgax what for. It was a fairly tight fight, made tighter by me fiddling around trying to get a decent picture. While he’s technically the big bad boss of Runnyeye, he lacks the lore or name recognition of Varsoon or Everling, so I didn’t think he deserved his own post. He sure is one BIG evil eye though!

EQ2 Lord Rulgax The Evil Eye In Runnyeye 550x305

Team Maltheas engaging Lord Rulgax in Battle Extreme!!!

It’s quite a relief to be done with Runnyeye. It’s far from my favourite heroic dungeon, being a bit featureless and dull, composed of narrow passages that force you to bash your way through dozens of opponents to get to wherever you want to be. When you’re trying to finish book quests that delight in alternating between creatures from different ends of the dungeon, that can get a little tiresome. Still, its well worth a visit, especially if you’re not quite so compulsive about doing every single quest. It is packed with named bosses, many of whom drop some pretty decent legendary and fabled gear.

I’ve also been working through the new crafting lines that were brought in in GU 57. Maltheas is still only a level 36 Carpenter (after respeccing from level 90 weaponsmith), so he’s only done the New Halas and Butcherblock sets so far, with Steamfont yet to do. They’re nicely made, and a great introduction to the joys of EQ2 crafting. The Butcherblock set even gifted Maltheas with a mount! It’s just a 25% speed boost one, but it would be great for a newer player. My only gripe would be that they follow the same one-zone-per-tier Golden Path as the modern adventuring quest series, and it would be nice if they occasionally reminded new players that other zones exist beyond the bounds of that path.

So what’s next? I’ve managed to clear out some decent space in the quest journal for once, so it’s time to run around and see what new tasks can be found. Everfrost and Lavastorm will be continued with, alongside Steamfont and the Feerott. I’m eyeing Deathfist Citadel suspiciously. It’ll need to be done, but I suspect it’s going to be a bit bruising. The Temple of Cazic Thule, and the Obelisk of Lost Souls are also on the heroic dungeon agenda. I’ll need to sort out the Bloodline Chronicles areas, and might dedicate a post to that adventure pack somewhere down the line.

There doesn’t seem to be any need for Maltheas to level just yet, though it might not take me too long to run out of quests he can realistically achieve at level 42. That won’t stop him from trying though!! No giant eye or ridiculously large statue will long stand between Maltheas and adventure!

EQ2 Construct Of Thule In Feerott 550x351

A Construct of Thule attempts to deconstruct Maltheas.

EQ2 Maltheas Quest Journal December 2010 550x400

Maltheas' Quest Journal, December 2010

You can check out Maltheas’ Quest Journal from 6 months ago in this post.

5 comments to EQ2: Extreme Questing Update: Fubared Edition

  • Kirskax

    Annyya and I are pleased to see Maltheas is back in action. /cheer

    The state of the leaderboards is a travesty, and it is amazing how Sony can give them no attention for so long. I am sure you have seen the message board threads on this and the lack of attention even those threads get.

    Annyya and I have adventured vigorously while you were away on holiday, and we are both 59th level now with ~ 3800 quests completed. I think we need to betray back to Qeynos soon to get rid of the 55-59th level writs before we can advance any further. The change where you maintain your masters even with betrayal has assisted us greatly in our freebooting and mercenary ways.

    Cheers and may your shadow never grow too short, lest stealing the cheese lose its challenge.

    Lt. Kirskax Lunaria
    currently emplyed by the Great Overlord Lucan d’Lere

    • Thanks! I’m glad to know you’re still going too!

      Wow, you’ve raced ahead!!! Did you skip much on the way, or is that pretty much the sort of number I should expect to be at by then? I sometimes wonder if Maltheas will ever reach anything like level 59. I guess it depends on how often I let him out to go adventuring!!!

  • Kirskax

    We haven’t skipped much. There are ~ 30-40 quests that require drops that we have not gotten (e.g., the cursed Ruins of Varsoon collection books), and while we attempt to whittle down that list periodically, our patience for that type of activity is limited. We also showed dogged persistence in levelling tradeskills up to 90th level and completing all of the attendant quests. We haven’t taken the bold step of changing tradeskill profession yet, and likely will not do so until we see what Velious does to tradeskill professions.

    Probably the best way for me to answer your question is provide a list of the zones we have hunted in since July 2010 where we have depleted or virtually depleted the quests:

    Feerrott
    Obelisk of Lost Souls
    Cazic Thule
    Deathfist Citadel (you are right, its a bruiser even for a duo)
    Everfrost
    Permafrost
    Steamfont
    Klak’Anon
    Lavastorm
    Solusek’s Eye
    Lesser Faydark (about 2/3 done)
    Tenebrous Tangle (about 2/3 done)
    Barren Sky (about 1/3 done)
    Sanctum of the Scaleborn (about 1/3 done)
    Loping Plains (about 1/4 done)
    Sinking Sands (about 2/3 done — waiting on 60 to finish the final Court of Blades quest before looping back to do the remaining Court of Coin and Court of Truth quests)
    Pillars of Flame (about 2/3 done)
    Living Tombs/Silent City (about 2/3 done)
    Shimmering Citadel

    Whew, that’s quite a list. I think you will be around a similar number at 59th level.

    If you ever merge into or transfer to Crushbone Server, let us know and we can group. No doubt that much of our efforts are possible due to duoing.

    Lt. Kirskax Lunaria

    • Thanks, but I don’t think Lucan will ever merge. The only other RP server, Antonia Bayle, is already too full.

      That’s quite a list, and I’m definitely going to be busy on the way to 59! I’m still missing a couple of Varsoon tomes myself, though I do try to be pretty thorough on dropped quests. They are always the tricky part, but at least I only need to find one copy! Finding two of these things must be painful.

      I’ve been putting Deathfist off, apart from a couple of easy ones. I do revel in Maltheas’ ability to survive in places where he has no business being, so I’ll be heading back in there soon, I expect.

      I’m quite looking forward to getting in to some of the really lore-heavy quest series, though the ones that involve raids are going to be a bit of a problem. Maltheas can handle some Epic opponents once he gets them down to blue or green, but it varies wildly and sometimes they just annihilate him (as, I grudgingly admit, is supposed to happen!). The fancy scripted raids I’ve heard about that need special tactics will certainly be unsoloable. I may end up having to call in some favours from my server-friends!

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