EverQuest Legends: The New Dungeon Crawl

Sorry about the AI banner. Someone was saying that people won’t watch your YouTubes unless you have a really good AI thumbnail, so I figured what the hell, I’ll give it a shot. If you weren’t going to click on this post before you saw the AI thumbnail, then I guess it worked. Yay.

To be honest, I really like it.

So: big news in EverQuest Legends. From today, you can no longer make outdoor, non-dungeon zones non-respawnable. The whole non-respawnable deal never worked the way they wanted — more rare nameds — and so that’s gone. Instead, they now have the Dungeon Crawl.

Clear out the zone and you’ll be rewarded for it.

• Nothing you kill will respawn naturally.
• To finish, slay every rare creature and enough of the zone’s original population.
• You’ll earn motes and experience, and everything you killed may add its loot and coin to the reward pool.
• The easier the zone is for you, the smaller the payout.
• Finish it and you get your instance charge back.
• Rare creatures show up more often, and you’ll see them on your map.

A bit of additional information on that last bullet point: if the monster is normally invisible, it won’t show up on your map unless you can see invisible things.

That was a problem for me.

I absolutely had to do a dungeon crawl the moment I got home, and made supper, and we ate, and then we watched the Dice Tower’s Crowdsurfing (Camilla is leaving the Dice Tower! Going to Gencon I hear!).

And then, only then, we went Dungeon Crawling, Kasul in Mistmoore and Lower Guk, me in Nagafen’s Lair.

Nine nameds were on the map:

• Kobold Noble
• Kobold Champion
• Kobold Priest
• Kobold King
• Stone Spider
• Noxious Spider
• Death Beetle
• Efreeti Lord Djarn
• Targin the Rock

Where was the tenth? I also had to kill a hundred mobs total. I figured the tenth would show up at some point.

But no. So I thought perhaps King Tranix or Warlord Skarlon in the fire giant area? I went and killed a lot of fire giants. They weren’t up at all. Maybe Magus Rokyl? I killed a lot more fire giants. I killed all of them, but nope.

I then went back out and killed all the lava duct crawlers and sonic bats. Nope. I finally asked on the EQL Discord. “Guano harvester. It’s invisible.”

Damnit. I’d forgotten entirely about that goblin, going around cleaning up sonic bat poop and putting it into his bag of crap. I cast Leviathan Eyes and he popped right up on the map. I killed him, and it was over.

The thumbnail is a bit of a lie; Naggy wasn’t up, and I have my doubts I could kill him solo at D4. Even with fire resistance, his lava burst hits too hard for my mana to keep up with. I did it at D2 last night and it was a close thing, mana-wise. I’d already bled his mana dry but that didn’t slow down the lava.

With the death of the guano harvester, loot began pouring down from the sky. A bunch of monster parts sorted itself into my tradeskill depot, and I additionally got:

• Fleshripper +4: This had a neat proc on it, but was otherwise a middling two handed axe. I removed the proc and deleted it.
• Black Chitin Leggings +4
• Golden Efreeti Boots +4
• Large Soiled Bag
• Mithril Breastplate +4
• Polished Erudite Heart Amulet +4
• Four Major Motes of Potential (tier 5)

I’d gotten some of that same loot from the bosses when I killed them; the loot isn’t useful now, so I deleted it all. I remember farming some of those things when I played a druid and I was so happy to get them, it kind of makes me sad that I don’t need them anymore.

I had three of the void crystals from the raids Kasul and I did yesterday, and these new motes. I felt I should upgrade something, so I upgraded my Gasping Breath, a decent enchanter DOT. I figure no matter the combo, I’ll always have enchanter in there, and I already have my charm at level 10 and my slow at level 7.

How long did it take me? About an hour and a half. It would have been much faster if I’d known I didn’t need to do the fire giants — there were a lot of them and they had a bunch of health at D4. I think the stone spider was the last named mob I really needed to kill (aside from the invisible guano harvester), and of course I was making things easy myself by charming mobs and sending them against their buddies with little care for their survival.

Since I don’t really need any of the loot that drops there (aside from the Razing Sword of Skarlon, which doesn’t drop at all in the crawl), I think I’d have done better off just doing the normal dungeoneering. I’d have probably gotten more motes. I know some people get up to nine, so the game must have thought this content was too easy for me. Most people of max level were trying the planes, and some of them were grouped.

A few players on the Discord were hailing the Dungeon Crawl mode as a great reason to play in a group at maximum difficulty. Everyone gets loot, it’s easier and faster with more people, and it just makes sense especially when you’re not really looking for experience.

It’s a good addition to the game, and it’s the kind of thing regular variety EverQuest should consider. Though, to be really honest, they do have a lot of special dungeons for quests that give special rewards, and then there is the whole Lost Dungeons of Norrath deal where your group gets their own dungeon and loot. But to do it solo; that doesn’t really happen.

Good luck, Crawlers. Floor collapse in 10 hours.