For someone who never played EQ when Tunare was around... why were we killing 'good' deities?

Cyph, most likely it had something to do with "phat lewtz".

Or just, because, "we can"

Umm, if memory serves me right as a raiding monk at the time, Fist of Nature was definitely velious-era. Not sure how you would think it's not possible at 15/18 since Fist of Lightning was the same (albeit off-hand only and no HP stats, but has haste).

The fist of nature + fist of lightning combo was used for dual wielding dps (15/18 + 15/18) monks. You would also see Fist of Nature + Primal for those who didn't need the haste and preferred the stat boost on primal (also better for soloing due to Avatar buff).

I had the Baton of Flame (13/17) + Fist of Lightning (15/18) combo.
My brother had the Fist of Nature (15/18) + Primal (15/20) combo. (He used Brother Xave's Headband off of Vulak for haste so preferred stats on Primal). This was all during the Velious era, as he quit shortly after the Luclin released while I continued on to PoP. Of course, you can argue the point of my memory on that. Also, hand to hand weapons were only introduced during Luclin and so the weapons were all 1HB before that (retroactively changed later).

Of course, Fist of Nature was not on the original Tunare loot table. As I recall, her original loot table was either crap or nonexistent when FoH downed her about the same time that Legacy of Steel teamed up with another guild (can't recall name) to down AoW. As an aside, it's also about the same time Blood of the Spider on my server (The Rathe) did the first Sleeper awakening ever. I was 15 or 16 at the time so some details can't be recalled. Now I'm going off topic with this history lesson so I'll stop here.

Edit final note:
Fist of Lightning and Baton of Flame was also DEFINITELY velious-era, as I had them both since about level 55 and I hit 60 well before Luclin release (I recall the dawning realization of the grindfest that was AAs).

The evils could get their revenge for years of pillaging by the lights of Fear/Hate and slaying of their gods Cazic and Innoruuk, or loot.

The issue is not the stats on Fist of Nature, but rather that we can't find any evidence of it existing prior to Luclin. The fact that the first screenshots of it are also as a Hand to Hand item further suggest that it was likely added in during the revamp of Tunare/AoW loot.

You may well be right on this, I'll try to do some more digging. The gap between the takedown of Tunare and the release of Luclin is small enough to question this.

Fist of Nature werent introduced to game until around beginning of 2002. Luclin was released in 2001 in like December(iirc).

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....w/SMiXZgbLZCcJ

http://web.archive.org/web/200205281...llakhazam.com/

Listed as new item on Zam May 2002

http://web.archive.org/web/200206040...tml?item=12308

Last updated as May 23, 2002

Unless someone kind find earlier evidence or a picture with Monk only/1HB this is looking like a Luclin+ item.