The Hollow

[Centinull]

Drazz suggested this to me but it was such good advice I'd like to share it in this forum. The Hollow is the newbie zone of Cresent Reach (in the same zone). The far portion if it is just crawling with undead, lvls 16 to 20 roughly. With our spook the dead and hungry earth spell, this place is crazy exp. If you pull to the wall on the left hand side and fear kite, the mobs path in a straight line towards the city. Hug the wall and you should have no problem with adds, though at 16 I was soloing yellows and handling a blue add or two no problem (ate all my mana but better than dying /shrug). I leveled insanely quick here and am now in its neighboring zone, Blightfire Moores. These place can be rough at the begining, but stick near the zone to CR and there's plenty of blues, whites, and yellows. The named mobs (I've killed Mossback and Plaugebearer) drop Blightfire patterns for your mid twenties silk armor quests in CR. For necro's its Twisted Silk Armor, and the stats are crazy for a non twink like myself. HP and Mana regen, good mana HP and INT boosts, spell focus effects and resists, plus some other stuff I can't remember. Anyway, I'm lvl 27 now thanks to these two zones, and my thanks goes out again to Drazz for the great advice!

Centinull, 27 Froglok Necro

[Limmdul]

Shweet, thanks for the advice. Have been hunting for some regen and focus gear for my semi-twinked Necro, didn't think to check out the quest armor for CR. Will definitely look into hunting here more.

[Drazzminius]

I'm glad that you both are getting some use of my suggestion. For XPing, TSS zones are killer XP, when used right. At lower levels (I'd say 45 and below), you can basically go from level 1 to level 45 in three zones:

Crescent Reach - The Hollows (Quests)
Blightfire Moore (Quests)
Stone Hive (Quests)

Yep, even though these aren't Hot Zones (at least, not anymore), they give killer XP at a rapid rate. At level 45, your options are almost endless, but Hot Zones are great for the XP Modifier (free additional XP) and possible Aug Drops. Currently, the Hot Zones are:

• 20 Lake of Ill Omen
• 25 Feerrott
• 30 Frontier Mountains
• 35 Tower of Frozen Shadow
• 40 Lower Guk
• 45 Wakening Lands
• 50 Old Sebilis
• 55 Blackfeather Roost
• 60 Plane of Storms
• 65 Sunderock Springs
• 70 Riftseeker's Sanctum

Check them out and most importantly, have fun!

[Lylith]

Blightfire Moors is awesome. Hit the undead section with skellies and the witch (left when zoning in) from level 28+. They can easily take you to level 40+. In the crator ( middle section of BM), their are undead giants. They are good exp till 48, then it slos down. You kill rate incraeses and I have used them to get to level 51 on some alts.

[Centinull]

I'm glad to hear there is plenty of time left in this zone. The rats and snakes are starting to turn light blue, but the mushroom men and plant people are still dark blue to red. Bog turtles and crocodiles are okay exp too. I've avoided the undead camp lately, it's all red and I'm not sure I could pull a single skeleton (maybe with one of our undead crowd control spells, but if it gets resisted I'll be toast). I had a question for you though, how often did you come across Blightfire Infused Silk? I've spent quite a while here, and seen only one Blightfire Infused Hide, which is no use to me. I've got patterns for the feet, arms, and head items but not a single piece of silk! Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Drazzminius]

Go up to the camp in the center of the zone and start getting the quests from the Explorers and Trapper. From the snakes and rats, you'll move on to the Gnoll Mines (get the quests!!!). From there, you should be around the lower 30's and so move over to Roanoke (kinda NW of the camp) and get the quests from him for killing Trees. He'll give you a second part to the quest to kill the Mushroom Men in the upper west corner of the zone. That should get you to mid-late 30's. After that gets boring, move to the eastern part of the zone and get the quests from everyone for the Bixies and Wasps (that'll start off in the eastern Blightfire area and will move you into the Stone Hive). My Wizzie is level 48 and is still killing the LBs in the Stone Hive for ~1% per kill (just trying to finish up the quests).

I can't stress enough ***GET ALL OF THE QUESTS***

Also -- You ARE working on your Wanderlust Loadstone, aren't you?

Look for the Blightfire Silks on the traders in the Camp.

[Limmdul]

I had a question for you though, how often did you come across Blightfire Infused Silk?

Was trying to farm this quest with my main (trying to keep the necro to a comparable level with a friend, or would've hunted with him) for approximately 2 hours, non-stop slaughter of the gnoll caverns, ended with most of the patterns (couple duplicates) and 4 silk.

I've read the dead dragon sporali's are the place to go for silk, am planning on trying them tonight.

[Centinull]

I've done one quest called The Mucktail Quarry and got a Gnoll Hunters Cloak.

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=53560

Unrelated, but do you think this is better than my current back item?

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=28652

I prefer the 10AC and the spell focus does little but buff my lifetaps (maybe leech?). I hardly use life tap except to finish a mob or nuke down an add with all my mana to survive (I've been getting good at agro kiting, killed a red baleful briar the other day, not mana effecient at all but exciting).

I will check the merchants for silks, but I recently read blightfire witchlamps drop silk and other goodies, also they drop burnt out light stones I need for my research (My spells are in the can right now, still using lvl 16 pet, spent all my plat getting skill to 37 and still can't craft the darn lvl 20 pet spell). I have some plat now and I am trying like heck to squeak by to 29, when I get a (store bought!) new pet and Boil Blood (That may be lvl 30...). Either way, when I get my store bought spells I will be a force to be reckoned with and can then gather the funds to up my research. I wish I had know about some of these quests before because I kite the trees regularly and just sell/destroy the stuff on them. Also, I will look into that quest you mentioned, the Lode Stone? Could you please direct me to a quick explanation of augments? How do I attatch an augment to a piece of equipment? I appreciate all the advice, and I realize two of my questionss belong in the equipment section but this is all blightfire related stuff so if fits, right?

Happy hunting, good luck on getting that armor (It's Twisted CLOTH Armor, not silk like I said before) hopefully we'll both have a full set of it soon.

[Limmdul]

Anyone whose actually played for the last two years feel free to correct this post.

Augments are essentially addons for your gear. Most new gear has an aug slot or two, and when you put an augment in them they gain that augment's stats.

So, for instance, you have Boots with +5 Int. An Augment with +5 Mana. You put them together for Boots with +5 int +5 mana.

To put an augment into a piece of equipment, you go to a "birdbath" (which can be found at LDoN camps, in the Guild Hall, and I believe they exist in Abysmal Sea and PoK) place the armor, the augment, into the birdbath and hit combine.
***Edit: There is not a birdbath in PoK. You need to zone into either the Bazaar or the Guild Hall from there for one. Also, with all of the hunting being done in Blightfire Moors (as per this thread), there is a birdbath located in the Crossroads Camp.

Poof! Augmented gear.

There are some catches though. Augments have types, as do the augment slots in gear. An augment type 4 wont go into a piece of equipment UNLESS it has a type 4 slot. Pretty straight forward.

You can remove the augments from gear if you find an upgrade, for fairly cheap until you reach a higher level. Whenever you want to remove an augment from a piece of gear, inspect the augment and read the area under "Item Information." A "Class <Number> Augmentation Distiller" will remove the augment from the equipment. Near all of the birdbaths will be a vendor which sell the Distillers. Combine a distiller and a piece of equipment in a birdbath to return the equipment (and the removed augment).
***Edit: Augmentation Distillers aren't always sold near the birdbaths. Guild Hall is one example of not having them readily available... Try to use the one in the Bazaar if you are in the area, if you are either swapping the Aug out for a better one or over to new gear.

Augments have gotten much more advanced now, allow for Tradeskillable augs and such that I haven't learned a wink about. But this should help until 50's-60's I believe.
***Edit: Examples of Tradeskillable Augs are Cultural, Solo/Duo/Trio Jewelry, and Radiants.

Happy Huntings!

***EDIT***
Thank you Drazz!

[Drazzminius]

Added some info to the above.