Low level gear drops/quests

[Trelaboon]

Alright, so I've been on this server since it opened and I feel like I've played most classes to at least a decent level. I have: 60 Shaman, 60 Enchanter, 60 Warrior, 56 Monk, 55 Ranger, 51 Rogue, 51 Necro and several 30-40 chars. The majority of those characters have been twinked (at least for their time period)

I remember my first char on he server (Shaman) had to quest and/or loot much of his gear leveling up because there weren't many items for sale and I didn't have much money, and I kind of want to relive that.

I was thinking I might make a Bard or possibly an SK or Pally and I'd like to try and level them at least to 55 or so (won't be swarm kiting) without acquiring any gear from a third party seller or charity of any kind. I want to try earning all my gear by my own hands. Either by crafting it, or by looting it or questing it (only if I do it for real, no MQs or loot rights from higher levels who want to help)

This will obviously be pretty challenging, largely because I've been twinking for so long, I don't remember any good low level loots or quests that would be nice. I'm leaning toward Bard right now and I'd like to see what sort of quests and/or loot you remember out there that you could recommend and direct me toward so that I have some ideas.

Let's see what you've got! I know Unreat had some loots, so I'm thinking some stuff like that! Thanks in advance!

[Daywolf]

grr bards. hmm... I'd like to tip on the SK, but not sure, I dropped my starting SK armor from another char. But for Pally, though SK can work too... just harder, I'd go to CB and farm belts and pads, sell them until you have around oh 500pp or so (edit gee forget how much it cost to raise to plate), maybe a little more for final plate suit cost (it's about 150pp to banded for sure). Use the armor crafting guide and work up to fine plate. You can buy all the mats off vendors, I mean for sheet metal, just being faster than smelting. Or slower and smelt everything yourself but save plats a little, at least thru banded.

Of course the hard part with any evil race is area faction. But you could always go for bandit sashes or whatever, things that sell at low level, I just pref CB for quick plats at low levels.

Also, beyond fine steel plate, you could go with cultural armor down the line, open for an option anyway. Starting as a human is really good for that imo, way more armor choices for crafting. Anyway if going the crafting rout it's something to look into ahead of time before selecting race and deity if you think you may ever go past banded or fine plate.

ps out of those choices though, I'd go with SK. And don't rule DE out ;)

edit: and really, you could do CB to the point of getting a full banded set, pretty easy. Then go to NK and do the gypsy camp quest turning in the lightstones and selling back rewards. That'll get ya plats easy to finish off smithing for full plate. From that point you might only need to worry about hunting down STR stuff to add in, rings etc.

[Jimjam]

Iksar Berserker Club from kurns tower is probably the best weapon you can find early on (7/18) but if you play bard that is less important.

[lowner411]

I am considering the same thing with my bard based in Qeynos. So far, he is level 14, in store bought leather, wielding a combine long sword, and killing bandits in WK to raise money to make banded for himself. I think a Dragoon Dirk, a Polished Granite Tomahawk, and a Combine Morning Star are in his future, get some really low level stat stuff from Blackburrow (the agility earrings) and Cutthroat Insignia Rings when I try to kill Dorn for the Dragoon Dirk. That's as far as I've planned.

[Trelaboon]

Yea I've never crafted before was definitely gonna give that a shot!

[jolanar]

Bard would be a good class for this, since you wouldn't be screwing over any potential groupmates as your songs aren't going to depend on gear. Playing a SK or Pal without buying any gear is just putting that evil on your group. On the flipside, casters would be a bad class for this challenge since they don't really need gear either way.

[Tewaz]

If you want to really start over. Start on Red. You will level into your 50's with cloth/leather/banded pieces still. Its super fun.

[Daywolf]

Bard would be a good class for this, since you wouldn't be screwing over any potential groupmates as your songs aren't going to depend on gear. Playing a SK or Pal without buying any gear is just putting that evil on your group. On the flipside, casters would be a bad class for this challenge since they don't really need gear either way.
err not even. SK is always in demand for leveling groups. SK doesn't even need an expensive weapon compared to what a warrior needs. Spells give the SK pretty good aggro control, and they can even solo pretty well when zones are slow. People play bards because of the pathing bug, to swarm kite for fast leveling. Way too many bards and have pissed a lot of people off. For bards lfg, you're competing with other bards for a group spot, and while some groups just rather not have a bard.

OP doesn't seem to be racing to lvl cap, would consider crafting, and smithing is actually pretty easy before cultural. This would be ideal for an SK, because as far as for leveling, fine plate is really all you need until later levels when you decide to do some armor quests. Early/mid lvl STR items just so you can carry more loot, like Hero Bracers. Or for human, which would be my suggestion in this case, some str and a little int.

But as I wrote above, you can be mostly geared before lvl20 (apart from like hero bracers unless bought), no one would turn you away from a group... and you may be annoyed by tells asking you to join groups ;)

http://i.imgur.com/1zWC5Sc.jpg?1

[derpcake]

for real non-twinks i guess pal / sk would be some of the absolute worst choices from a power perspective

you'd drag down groups a few notches and you can't really solo for squat, fear kiting with a rusty 2h doesn't work

on a bard you could hit 60 naked, and even at 50+, having 12 plat worth of instruments puts your songs over 80% max efficiency

just play what you like, not like you can't reroll that lvl 17 naked dude later right :)

@above poster "fine plate is really all you need until later levels", that stuff has a trivial of 228..

[Jimjam]

LOL that is some good hyperbole! Even if you are doing a fresh start no ECmart you are NOT going to be stuck with a rusty scythe by the time you can fear kite.

[jolanar]

LOL that is some good hyperbole! Even if you are doing a fresh start no ECmart you are NOT going to be stuck with a rusty scythe by the time you can fear kite.


hy·per·bo·le
hīˈpərbəlē/Submit
noun
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
synonyms: exaggeration, overstatement, magnification, embroidery, embellishment, excess, overkill, rhetoric; More

[Calthaer]

I'm doing the same with a bard right now - but it's my only character, so I have to do this. What low level quests you do really depends on where you start - Highpass Hold does present a bit of a barrier for low-level folks wanting to move around, as it's often just not cleared.

In Qeynos, bandit sashes are decent plat...but even better are the rabid wolf pelts. The rabid wolves in the Qeynos Hills are pretty camped, but there are loads of them in the Karanas. Gnoll fangs from Blackburrow (take it to Halas to hand in) are also great ways to get experience. I took my Wood Elf bard over to this half of the continent (it was risky!) just to nab that phat loot.

In Faydark, the Crushbone Belts are pretty good. There are also some sisters in Lesser Faydark but I haven't checked out how camped they are.

But having plat isn't actually tremendously worthwhile without having a place to spend it. Banded armor is OK but there are equally great options that just aren't available. Some lower-level magic weapons (e.g., Gnoll Hide Lariat) and armor can be tough to find. I lucked out and bought some Vale Reinforced Leather stuff in hobbittown and have made a few pieces of banded, but there were a bunch of items I saw on the wiki that I thought would be nice and reasonably priced - but will never find (e.g., those drops from named mobs in the North Karanas). It's tough to find appropriately leveled loot for the 15-30 lvl range - everything for sale is in the hundreds or thousands of plat. Things in the 5-25 plat range are hard to come by.

[Daywolf]

@above poster "fine plate is really all you need until later levels", that stuff has a trivial of 228..Banded coat is triv at 175, I made the above green dye set at ~195 after cycling some plate collars back to the vendor. Below triv doesn't mean you can't make it, just that there is a chance to fail. If you want to make plats selling sets (not my goal), don't start selling until you reach triv. Want to save plats on starting-armor account wide? Smithing is easy compared to most other trades to 200, and not much more expensive than buying a set of armor. To get to banded armor, I spent 150pp, which a set costs about 100pp. The above dyed fine plate set is worth more than I put into smithing all together to that point... less the actual material cost of that armor set. My current black fine plate armor set a little more (black harder to farm).

The reason newbies don't run around in fine plate at lvl20 (meh bronze bleh) is they are too concerned about leveling as fast as they can to bother with crafting, which can be time consuming. That and they see crafting as too expensive and time consuming, and not sure how to make plats to fund crafting as well. Though my fist post gives a general mention how to get the plats to do it (and while leveling mind you), it's still a bit of farming work (not too bad), though a vet is accustomed to.

[utenan]

I have a 26 ranger that I'm playing like this and it's a lot of fun - I never really understood twinking, I mean, isn't it fun to explore the game and search for items/rare mobs/quests to get better stuff? Whats the point if you already have everything right off the bat? i dunno...that has never felt very rewarding to me.

Right now I have a minotaur's ribcage and a labrynth talisman from the gorge of king xorbb, a forest giant hammer and a forest loop from warsliks woods, a short sword of morin that I quested, a decent bow and arrows that I've made, derv rings, and basically everything else is raw hide : ) Ideally at some point every piece of gear on my character will have a story, or a memory behind it ( along with a screenshot! ) which is fun for me I guess. I'm actually learning a lot about the game by hunting down rare mobs and going to rarely visited zones and looking through quests.

hopefully i can get my hands on a straw spun belt and a lumberjacks cap before I leave the giant fort in ww - looking forward to trying to get some groups going for the new and improved runnyeye - blackened iron longsword, grotesque alloy mask, black iron girdle, sporali gloves - there's a lot of treasure down there!

[lowner411]

I am glad to hear all these suggestions here. I am going through the equipment I didn't know about, looking it up on the wiki, and making plans! Thanks for starting this thread!

Also, I know that this server is lousy with bards, especially for their kiting ability. So you know, I dislike AoE kiting, and am more into fear kiting and chant kiting, and eventually grouping. I figure that once I get high enough, groups won't mind that I am undergeared compared to those who shop the bazaar, as long as I can sing and reliably pull.