I finished off a small handful of other quests involving Crescent Reach and nearby areas today in EQ, but I figured it was time to take a bit of a break and explore some other games I’ve recently bought. But then later on it was right back into EQ, of course…

I did some more charm soloing in Sunderock Springs, and hit level 73 after a couple of hours, breaking 10k mana in the process. With the new spells, I had upgrades for my nuke (with a new max crit of 4230 so far), single-target clarity, a DoT, spell damage mitigation (too situational, usually not worth the peridot it costs to cast), and a point-blank AE mez.

Those were nice, but the real benefits came when I finally spent those AAs I’d been saving up. I put a rank in Clinging Root and it’s already noticeable how much less often roots get broken by nukes, I bought a rank to raise the mana regen cap from items, and I got Perfected Invisibility just for kicks. But the big one was Beguiler’s Directed Banishment, which will make it much safer to deal with charm breaks from now on. It casts quickly, and knocks the enemy back a ways and keeps them rooted long enough for me to reapply tash and charm. Ideally, I shouldn’t get hit at all during the recharm if I notice the break in time.

My mercenary also got a nice upgrade with a new healing spell that seems to be much more efficient. Before I hit 73, she would gradually fall down towards being out of mana, but now she stays nearly full in the same situations.

Now that I’ve gotten used to higher-level charm soloing, I’m tempted to pause the leveling a bit and grind out some more AAs. There’s still plenty of stuff to buy additional ranks in…

I started off my new era of charm soloing in Sunderock Springs, where there were some level 70 drakes and basilisks that were quite charmable. I quickly learned to get back into the habit of keeping the target rooted whenever possible, though; I’d been able to get away with not doing so back in HoH, but these monsters hit for over 800 damage, so I don’t want two of them on me at once. I got chased away a few times and died once, before getting the hang of it.

I also did some quests in the zone, involving killing some catapults and their operators and some drakes by a geyser. After I got a little tired of hanging around here, I went back and did some more of the Wanderlust exploration quests (my Wanderlust aug has fairly decent stats now, with 11 to each stat), and finished off a couple loose end quests in Blackfeather Roost, from some previous time I’d revisited EQ.

The xp per kill is definitely better now that I can kill higher-level monsters again, though it takes longer to kill each one, too. I can get about 14% of a level in the daily double-xp period, which isn’t really that great, but I can fight in a lot more new places now, to keep things interesting.

The first thing I did in EQ today was switch mercenaries, from a Tier III Apprentice healer to a Tier I Journeyman healer. It costs about three times as much to maintain, but money hasn’t been a problem so far. Since it’s only Tier I (higher Journeyman tiers have to be unlocked) there’s a chance it might run from combat when it shouldn’t, but it hasn’t happened yet.

The main reason for the switch was because I’ll probably need better healing when I start charm soloing higher-level monsters again, since they’ll hit a lot harder. The previous merc also had a bad habit of overhealing me with a big heal-over-time, when I only needed a small top-off, wasting a lot of mana. The Journeyman merc has more ‘modes’ to choose from, and…unfortunately she still overheals that way in the ‘efficient’ mode. But she should still be better overall, and uses the Rk II versions of spells.

And then I hit level 72. I got my all-important new mez and charm spells, a new haste (the new ones aren’t actually any faster, but add other stats instead), a new lull, and a new tash. I was still missing a colour stun, so I broke down and bought the level 69 one from the bazaar, since I don’t get the next one of those until level 74 and it’s somewhat essential to my charming strategy.

Didn’t have time tonight to actually go play with my new toys, but there’s the whole long weekend to go…

Another day, another 40% closer to level 72…

It was a fairly boring night in EQ, with some more grinding in HoH putting me one third of the way towards 72. I did however note for the first time that I’ve broken 10k health when fully buffed, thanks to my merc’s latest spells. Not bad considering that I had about 5k when I returned to EQ.

I spent more time charm soloing in Plane of Tactics in EQ tonight, and the xp was decent overall, though I couldn’t say for certain that it was better than HoH. It was certainly more interesting though, as I worked my way through the tunnels rather than sitting still. I even killed the Diaku Supplier once, though the loot was rather useless compared to Defiant armour. The Fabled Diaku Armorer popped as well, but at level 80-something I had to steer clear of him.

The one annoying part was that occasionally the oracles would land a slow on my charmed pet, rendering him useless for a few minutes, and there wasn’t always another one I could switch to. Clerics can normally cure the slow, but I guess the mercenary isn’t that smart… The slows annoyed me enough that I left Tactics when I was at 97% xp and I ground out the last little bit back in HoH, hitting level 71.

I picked up my new spells from the bixie impostor in Stone Hive, but it’s not really an impressive set at that level. Two runes, a shielding upgrade, a cripple, and an animation. Nothing that really enhances my killing power much, though the animation will be nice for low-level questing and farming, but I won’t get the real meat like charm and mez until 72. Clearing the HoH basements is down to 3% per wave now…

Today was mainly spent questing in EQ, where I did one of the older anniversary quests that gave me an exp bonus potion, and a few more of the Wanderlust tasks in Crescent Reach, which improves the stats on an augment I got from them.

I spent the usual daily xp bonus period in HoH, but afterwards I did a bit of charming in Plane of Tactics as well, just to test it out. First impressions are good, and although the ogres there are intimidatingly huge, charm seemed to stick really well on them. I’d have to do more testing to see if the xp there is actually any better, but I managed to gain another 7% or so there and ended the day 40% into level 70.

Unfortunately I’ve just realized that although I can start buying spells at level 71, I won’t really get some of the more useful ones like charm and mez until 72. Argh…

As planned, I spent today in EQ getting the Silverwing ring and belt items again, but I gave up on the cloak after a while as it was starting to get boring. It was also around that time that I realized I’d forgotten about the mana regen cap — apparently the default cap for regen from items is only 15, and so far I have from my items a total of…39. So any further regen isn’t really going to do me any good anyway until I get a lot more of the cap-raising AAs.

I also spent some time working on my epic 1.5 weapon, by doing the preparatory step of collecting a bunch of pages and turning them in. I probably won’t be able to do anything else on it anytime soon since it involves some fairly tough fights.

And although I managed to avoid HoH for almost all of level 69, I returned there just to burn off my daily double-xp period, and hit level 70. I still don’t have any other new spells, but I can now wear all the elegant defiant silk items I’d been saving up, giving me boosts of over 600 health and mana. Not too shabby.

I’m only getting 4% per clearing of the HoH basements now, but I’m only one level away from finally being able to buy spells again, so perhaps I just need to grit my teeth and put up with it for just a little longer. Even the highest level monsters I can charm con light blue to me now, without that level 68 charm spell.

I soldiered on and finished off the Silverwing quests in EQ tonight, netting me this charm, which is a significant upgrade from my old one. The only annoying part was a long stretch in Trakanon’s Teeth where the piece I needed just did not want to drop.

Ironically, getting that charm made my stats worse overall, since I had to combine all of the previous Silverwing items to make it. In particular, I was getting 12 points of mana regen from the other Silverwing items before, and afterwards I only got 5 from the charm. But, now I can go back and remake all those items again, and get a total of 17 points of regen, and I’ve already regained the earring from HoH.

That’ll probably be my goal for tomorrow, and with luck I should also hit 70 and be able to wear all the Elegant Defiant Silk armour I’ve saved up.

On a whim, I took another stab at the Silverwing quests tonight instead of doing HoH for the zillionth time, and actually managed to find some of the pieces fairly quickly. After running around Droga, Noble’s Causeway, The Deep, and Velketor’s for a while, I had three more pieces: the belt, cloak, and mask. The belt and cloak were even decent upgrades, which is going to make giving them up to make the charm even more difficult…

I also ran across an old friend from the very early EQ days, when I had a small, regular group I played with a lot. Looks like the mercs are bringing back even more people.