Things were looking pretty bleak for EverQuest Legends before the latest content drop. Once bustling rooms were standing empty; all the servers were listed as low population; Kasul and I, among EQL’s biggest fans, had moved on to other games.
Kasul wants me to explain: He only quit because he had unlocked all the races and all the classes, and had finished farming Fear for the Slime Blood of Cazic Thule, the best ALL/ALL gloves in the game. He adds: he didn’t really quit, he just hadn’t logged in for six days. He was playing Frosthaven Digital.
I was playing Dune: Awakening and Enshrouded. I “stopped playing” because there wasn’t anything I felt motivated to doing. I wanted to wait for Half Dark Elves to be released so I could start a new combo. They’re called Half Dark Elves, but I just shorten that down to Quarter Elves.
Anyway. We knew Game Jawn was working night and day to get the content drop out before Hallowe’en. We’d be getting the Eighth Elves, a new race that needs to be leveled up, just as with classes. If you unlocked Sixteenth Elves (via the lengthy but not difficult quest) and started a new loadout as one of them, you’d be starting at level 1, no matter what level the three chosen classes were at. Fortunately, you could start right off with three classes instead of the two that were available prior to level 10 as a new character. That new homeopathic elf also is restricted to the primary classes that you have unlocked.
Along with the new race comes a new starting city/newbie ground, Lake Nerius; a new collection of class trainers and merchants in the HDE hidden refuge, the Undercroft; and Nektropos Castle itself, home of the Everling family, who lost everything, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together. It’s EverQuest Legends.
The Ayr’Haeth
Half Dark Elves, whose official name means “Half Lesser”, are a mélange of human, elf, and dark elf ancestry. If half elves don’t feel welcome in either elf or human society, Ayr’Haeth aren’t welcome in any of those places, and dark elves don’t want them, either. The only place that will have them is the wine cellar — the Undecroft — of Nektropos Castle, where they have thrived in secret, unbeknownst to the family living above.
I’d thought that “Half Dark Elves” would be the vampiric Freeblood from EverQuest 2, but these mixed peoples weren’t that lucky. No turning into bats or wolves for them. They have reduced health regeneration when outside during the day, but they do get extra benefit from lifetaps and runes, and they can sense the presence of the living from a great distance.
But they are definitely not Freeblood. Again, they don’t get the special bite attack. EQ2 Freeblood are awesome.
The Undercroft
This is the official home of the Ayr’Haeth — if one casts Origin, this is where they are transported. It’s a maze of wine casks, left here who knows how long ago. Every class trainer is here, except for (as far as I could tell) magician. There may be others, but this one stood out for me when I started a Half Dark Elf Rogue/Magician/Druid and could not find any magician spells. I had to take my new Half Dark Elf butt to Steamfont. Which was fine; I D4’d Steamfont and got a half dozen easy levels while I was there. Low level stuff is trivial when you have planar gear.
Lake Nerius
Lake Nerius is west of Nektulos Forest and is a suitably spooky meadow covered with low level bats, snakes and spiders, skeletons, and ghosts. I’m not sure where the ghosts come from, but I vaguely remember the area in EverQuest 2 had a bunch as well. The river is filled with piranha; the lake itself, with ghostly gillfish, with a nasty high level undead guppy in the northeast corner of the lake. This is a key mob for the quest for the key to the castle. In the NW corner is a fisherman. In the NE corner of the zone is Nektropos Castle and the Undercroft. West of the Nektulos Forest zone is a collection of huts and ruins that provide services and vendors for the non-Ayr-Haeth visitors. It’s here that the quests start for the Nektropos Castle key, the Half Dark Elf racial unlock, and the Hallowe’en event (that rewards you with a pet illusion, in addition to the free one you get with the content drop).
The free pet illusion is a werewolf. You can choose among several others once you finish the quest; I chose Gelatinous Cube.
I was thrilled to see the Dire Bear that lived in the Nektropos Castle vicinity in EQ2 had accompanied the castle to EQ Legends. I still have the Dire Bear pewter mini that came with an EQ2 expansion, and starring whom I did a webcomic back in the day (Adventures in Monopoly).
Nektropos Castle
Game Jawn promised that they spared no expense in making Nektropos Castle as similar as they could to the EQ2 zone; you can overlay the maps of the EQL and EQ2 zones and they would more or less match up. Finding my way around was mostly a matter of trying to remember how I got around the place in EQ2, and more often than not, that would work in EQL.
Easier, actually, since areas were not blocked off by solving environmental puzzles. Everything opened either by key or plot; no finding places to fit boar eyes or chess pieces.
The loot in Nektropos Castle is generally pretty good and appropriate for the level; many pieces can find a place in your build even if you’ve spent time in the Planes and working on Sky quests. I believe I am using a range item, a ring, and a chest item from Lord Everling himself on my main Paladin/Monk/Enchanter combo; more items have found their way into my other combos.
The main story quest for the zone tells the story of corruption that spread through the castle, perhaps from Lord Everling’s laboratory, that started driving the castle staff insane. One servant, Plimptos, killed all seven of the daughters. He was immediately killed, but then was brought back to life, cursed to not die until his curse was lifted.
As he relates his sad tale, the demi-goddess Ulkorruuk speaks in our mind telling us that to remove his curse, we must put all seven daughters to rest (in EQ2, these daughters are really golems in the shape of the daughters; here, they are ghosts). Ulkorruuk is the demi-goddess of treason and insurrection, and we must meet with one of her priestesses in the Plane of Hate as part of the entrance quest.
But killing the seven daughters is not enough; we must also kill Lord Everling so that he cannot raise them back up again. Completing the quest grants a fairly decent one handed slashing sword with a semi-unique look (though not as unique as it looks in your inventory).
The Fights and the Controversy
Some players want all the fights in EverQuest Legends to be AFK-auto-attack tank and spank power fantasies. These people are all over the EQL Discord complaining that their preferred combo cannot complete all the content.
Other players want the fights to have lots of mechanics. These players will be pretty happy with what they find in the castle.
That’s not to say that there are no face tanking bosses in the zone; there are several. But the best stuff requires a little more thought.
I’m just going to spoil one of them, but it’s the biggest one — Lord Rikantus Everling.
Everling pretends to be a necromancer, but that’s just to have you underestimate him. He will hurt you.
Tanking Lord Everling solo is hard enough; he can crit for over a thousand damage just by poking you with his staff. Not to mention all the spell hurt he lays down. At 90% and every 20% thereafter, he will summon a Guardian Golem to pummel you. At 80% and every 20% thereafter, he summons a horde of untargetable, unkillable zombies (that despawn when you pass a threshold). If a Guardian Golem is still alive when the 10% threshold is hit, the room fills with zombies.
Nuking Everling down will fill the room with hurt.
The secret is to root and snare Everling and kill him until the golem spawns. You then drag the golem away and kill it (or charm it and send it to Everling for him to kill, as he has 95% damage resistance while the golem is alive). Then burn it through the zombie spawn until the next golem, rinse and repeat. Need a rest? Just keep Everling rooted during one of the breaks between spawns and heal, rest, etc. After the last golem is dead, burn him down.
Kasul and I did this for all difficulties from D0 through to D4 just to see if we could. Yup, we could — though Everling hit very very hard at the higher difficulties. I tanked with evasive stance toward the end.
As a duo, it was easy. But my combo couldn’t do it alone; I don’t have a snare in my combo, and my root is prone to breaking. (There may be an AA for that; I’ll have to look). I only have one DoT and my ranged options are not great.
I figure I could do it if I changed to a Paladin/Druid/Enchanter combo, though. Druid brings better roots, snares, DoTs and nukes. Enchanter, buffs and slows. Paladin, armor and other buffs.
But, I’m totally out of luck with my current combo. My Warrior/Cleric/Enchanter combo didn’t work any better — gotta have that snare or he will always be in your face. My Shadow Knight/Berserker/Shaman combo probably could do it, but that combo is only level 33; I’d have to level it up.
Everling’s fight is the hardest, but it illustrates how Game Jawn is building encounters now. Soloable, yes. Is it soloable with every combo? No. Can you ignore the mechanics? Maybe, sometimes, but if you’re playing at the highest difficulties, probably not. To GJ’s credit, the mechanics are not that hard to figure out, once you’ve died to them once or twice. C’rate, the named mimic in the cellar, will feed on you, instantly killing you, unless you interrupt the feeding or move out of mouth range. The Game Master will flip the gaming table on top of you and pelt you with billiard balls from the other side of the room. The Head Librarian is dealing with cursed books — and so on.
The loot is good enough to get people logging in to farm. Grouping makes mechanics easy enough that I would expect duos to have a real advantage. Having the new race start at level 1 is a kind of poor man’s reincarnation, requiring one more trip through the levels.
Is it enough?
I hope so. I really, really want to see what the team has in store. I think the current direction is amazing; we were not seeing this level of boss fighting in classic EverQuest until Velious, and there it was definitely not soloable.
With WoW Forever on the horizon, and the game already facing an exodus of players, I don’t know how many people will still be playing to adventure in the Rulers of Kunark expansion. But, maybe the lure of Kunark will bring people back.
This is the content they should focus on, though — this is the new stuff that I want to see. A Permafrost revamp, as with the recent Mistmoore revamp, is a welcome addition for the people already playing, but they won’t get anyone new to subscribe or log in with just revamps of existing zones. Content like Nektropos Castle and the Rulers of Kunark, will.
