Mad`Dul is a slightly different type of area. It’s a city zone, but you can kill guards and
citizens here if you want to. And you do, because you’ll want to ally yourself with one of
the three faction groups in the zone – the Courts of Blades, Coin, and Truth. Allying
yourself to one of these gives you access to new quests and items (including a call spell
that allows you to gate to Maj`Dul), bank, brokers, and mailbox in the city, and allows you
to buy a residency license so that you can rent a house in the city if you want to.
To gain faction, you can do quests in Sinking Sands (the three tents closest to the zone-in
point from Qeynos are allied to one of the three different factions). The quickest way
however is to head to the city itself and kill guards. These drop insignias which you turn in
to NPCs in the Tower of the Moon (which is right near the zone-in in Maj`Dul)
After spending quite a while working on faction with the Court of Blades, I realized that it is
a whole lot faster to do this solo than it is grouped. If you want to group, you can kill in the
towers in this zone. However those towers have terrible pathing and of course you have
to share insignia drops with up to five other people. Killing solo guards by yourself makes
it go much faster as you get all the tokens that drop and there are a lot of different places
where you can kill them.
As well as this, there are quests you can do given by the NPCs called “Tears Grifters”.
They will give you short errands to run which usually involve heading to a nearby Maj`Dul
residence and killing a few people. You get a few gold for this, plus 4-7 insignias. The
refresh time on these quests is about 30 minutes, so when factioning I will normally start
by doing a quest, then head to one of the solo guard areas and kill until the timer is reset
and I can do another quest.
One thing to remember is that the Sha`ir in the zone (very powerful guards that travel
around the city on flying carpets) will kill you if you spend too long killing guards
continuously. This is one good reason to take a break every 30-40 minutes for a Tears
quest, as this will usually keep the Sha`ir from attacking you.
There are also some very interesting and fun quests to do in the city. My favorites so far
are those from Zeke Two-tone (a must-do, as this quest leads up to the one that gives you
Shimmering Citadel access), Aquim (the first one gives you a neat item called a tiny
magical stuffed tiger. It’s a little tiger that you can put in your house), Siyamak and
Barakar (the humanoid forms of the epic dragons), and the quest from the Terrorantula
thugs outside the Golden Scepter in the market district. This quest leads into a long and
hugely fun series of quests related to a secret society called the Peacock Club.
You could probably start soloing in these zones in the very late 40s, but honestly I don’t
think there is much point as there is so much to do in the Sinking Sands that you won’t get
bored enough to want to. Once you get to 50 or so, the Pillars or Flame is a fantastic
place to solo. Like the Sinking Sands, it’s an outdoor zone that is good for both soloing
and grouping and there is an enormous amount of solo quests to be found here as well.
First thing you want to do when you zone in here by yourself for the first time is cast
Escape. This will put you at the revive area, which is also the Swiftrider camp where you
can find a mender, vendors, and several quest NPCs as well. As in the Sinking Sands,
there is a flying carpet here that will fly you to various places around the zone once you
have visited them on foot.
There are several groups here to earn faction with, which will open up new quest lines for
greater and greater rewards. There are the Swiftriders at the revive area, the Ortallians in
the same area, the Ashen Disciples and the Ashen Order monks at T`Narev in the NE
corner of the zone, and the Char`Gin camp in the NW corner of the zone.
In the Living Tombs, there are a couple of nice experience spots which are great for the
low 50s. Stealth up, and drop off the edge of the aqueduct at the zone-in. Do a 100
degree turn to your left, and you’ll see the beginning of a tunnel. Head over to the tunnel,
and stay on the watch for see-invis mobs (there are a few in this area). Through the
tunnel you’ll see a building. Right around this area is a fantastic solo spot, but it can often
be crowded so if it is, you can go a little further to a more secluded area close by. To get
to here, stealth up again and jump on the ledge in front of that building. Follow it around
to the front of the building and you’ll see there’s a wall to climb. Climb up top and there
are rooftops with a few solo mobs there. You can stay here if you want but there’s not a
lot here so you can move through to the pipe and run around in the tunnels there clearing
mobs out too. Between the rooftop and the tunnels there’s a lot here to keep you going,
and if they get too easy for you, you can jump down into the next courtyard and tackle the
higher level solo mobs there (quite a few heroics in that area though so it can be
dangerous).
Favorite Experience Spots in the Pillars of Flame
• Scorpiorns and birds just outside the Swiftrider camp (levels 48-42)
• Djinn rock in SW corner (levels 50-52 and best place to do Djinn L&L)
• Goblin camps (levels 50-58)
• Harpies at the Needle (levels 52-58)
This is a good place for cash soloing, as there are quite a few named that drop cash loot
and occasional master chests. The locations of solo named on the first floor of this zone
are:
Lakkh the Drunk ( 9, -5, -173)
The Overseer ( 24, -5, -63, very tough fight, I wasn’t able to do this one till level 51)
Stonegorger (101, -2, -135)
The Prison Warden
Crimson Cackler ( -61, -9, -69)
Apart from this it is a great place to solo for experience up until about 53 or 54. There are
plenty of mobs and they respawn quite quickly so you will never run out. The loot is good
even if you’re not farming, as well.
Favorite Experience Spots
• The dining area
• Mining area (Named – Stonegorger)
In your early 40s you can head to the Sinking Sands via the carpets at the docks in
Qeynos Harbor. There are lots of great quests in this zone, as well as plenty of places to
solo. Generally I suggest just starting out by getting quests from all the NPCs you can
find at the various camps near the shore. The Oasis of Marr and the beach are good to
start out on, and there is a large network of caves close by the crocodile hunters camp
that is packed full of level 45-47mobs (and is a good place to harvest as well).
You will be able to explore most of the zone by the mid-to-late 40s however you’ll want to
watch out for the epic mobs that are scattered around. There is a huge level 64 epic x 4
spider called Terrorantula in the spider area, and two or three x 2 epics scattered around
the zone as well. These don’t roam a lot so you’re pretty safe even when they’re up.
As you gain a few levels you can venture up into the dunes and there is plenty to hunt
here too. The zone is packed full of both solo and group mobs. My favorite places to solo
here are the gnoll and lizard camps at the Twin Tears in the centre of the zone. There are
dynamic adventure camps here that are soloable and spawn named quite often. These
camps are good at about 48-52.
Raptors and other heroic groups are great experience and fun to kill once you reach 52
and get Thorny Trap. See the section on soloing techniques for information on how to do
this.
At the zone-on point from Qeynos, you will see that there’s a tent just down the ramp that
has a flying carpet in it. This carpet is how you travel to Maj`Dul and it will also carry you
to various places in the Sinking Sands after you have traveled to them on foot.
Favorite Experience Spots
• Beach and Oasis of Marr (levels 42-46)
• Crocodile caves (levels 44-47)
• Twin Tears solo dynamic camps (levels 48-52)
Everfrost and Lavastorm are both decent solo zones, although they’re also pretty light on
soloable quests (Lavastorm has virtually no quests that you can do by yourself and about
the only things to solo here are writ mobs). Now that the DoF expansion is out, there’s not
really much reason to use these zones unless you’re doing level 45-50 adventure writs.
The Lavastorm beach is quite a good area for soloing at 40-45, and Everfrost has a few
decent soloing spots as well. But honestly I would either stay in the Feerrott or just head
straight to the Sinking Sands, as there isn’t a whole lot to do in Everfrost or Lavastorm
once you’ve explored and done the few solo quests that are here.
Favorite Experience Spots
• Beach area in Lavastorm (levels 40-45)
• Writ mobs in Everfrost (levels 45-50)
Rivervale is a fun place to explore, but is pretty light as far as soloable quests and mobs
go. There are solo mobs close to the zone and village area, but there aren’t really many
quests here that you can do solo.
The Feerrott has quite a few solo quests that you can get from NPCs in the northwestern
section of the zone, and there are many that you can get while exploring the zone. I
recommend spending as much time as you can at the Huuptic camp on the beach before
they go grey, as these mobs are confirmed droppers of the quest starter for the Robe of
the Invoker. There are lots of good places to kite in the zone as well, and a good chance
of spawning named mobs at the dynamic Lizardman camps. Feerrott remains a good
solo spot up until the mid-to-late 40s.
Favorite Experience Spots
• Huuptics on Feerrott beach (Level 33 until they go grey or you get the robe starter)
• Solo areas just inside the zone from the docks (Levels 34-40)
In the late 20s, you’ll want to start exploring the Enchanted Lands and Zek, as your
previous hunting areas will become quite poor experience as you get closer to level 30.
The Enchanted Lands is a great solo zone, and the first area close to the docks is a very
safe place to solo with decent experience up until the early 30s. Zek is slightly more
dangerous, as most mobs in this zone will attack you on sight.
Both the Enchanted Lands and Zek have a huge amount of quests that you can do solo,
and many will give some quite nice rewards of armor and jewelry. There are many that
you can get at the zone-in areas and several more than you’ll pick up as you explore the
zones.
There are solo spots in both zones that you can get decent experience and loot at for
quite a while, up to level 40 and higher. Once you get to 35 or so, you can also begin to
explore the Feerrott and Rivervale. There are nightblood, siren, goblin, and evil eye Lore
& Legend books that you can get to work on during these levels as well.
Favorite Experience Spots
• Docks/Fort area in Zek (Levels 28-32)
• The “newbie yard” in Enchanted Lands – walled area by docks (levels 28-35)
• Nightbloods in Enchanted Lands, NE area near old Lavastorm docks (levels 36-
42)
EverQuest 2 Ranger Guide
4.3.2. Levels 20-28: Antonica, Stormhold, Thundering Steppes, Splitpaw,
Nektulos Forest
Now that you’re level 20, you can work on the set of armor quests that starts in Qeynos
Harbor. Some of these will require a group, but you’ll also be able to solo quite a bit of it
(section nine contains further details on these armor quests). These quests involve killing
mobs in various zones, including Antonica, Stormhold, Blackburrow, the Crypt of Betrayal,
and the Thundering Steppes. For these levels there are also plenty of soloing spots and
quests in Thundering Steppes and Nektulos Forest.
If you are working on the series of quests from Matsy Rollingpin in Antonica, you’ll be able
to continue with a new series of quests in Thundering Steppes. There are also several
quests you can pick up on the docks here, plus a half a dozen more from an NPC centaur
at Coldwind Point, in the northwestern section of the zone. There are quite a few Lore &
Legend books you can pick up for these levels – Giant, Centaur, Treant, Skeleton, and
Zombie. At level 25 you can also get books for Shadowman and Elemental mastery. A
couple of these may require a group to get to but once you have the book the quests
themselves are soloable (section nine has details on where to find Lore & Legend books).
At level 20 or so, if you have the Splitpaw adventure pack you can start working your way
through the quests and zones associated with it. The great thing about these zones is
that they scale to your level – so you can get good experience and loot both solo and
grouped at any level. To start adventuring in the Splitpaw zones, you will need to /claim
the item associated with it, then examine it and head to one of the “terraporters” that are
dotted about the countryside in the Thundering Steppes. Clicking on a terraporter will
transport you to a solo zone which you must complete to be able to enter the Splitpaw den
(which is located in the southern part of the Thundering Steppes).
Favorite Experience Spots
• Stormhold (halls and chessboard area, levels 18-22)
• Trial of Harclave (Splitpaw, level 20+)
• Dead River Basin (dry riverbed in TS, start near the docks and work your way
deeper in as you level, levels 18-26)
• Port Naythex (Nektulous Forest beach, levels 20-24)
• Coldwind Point (NW beach in TS, levels 22-26)
- 38
4.3. Soloing Locations
In general, soloing is usually nowhere near as good experience as grouping, but by
making sure you have a steady stream of solo quests running, you can get more
experience and loot for your time spent. I suggest heading to the mage tower of your city
(South Qeynos or North Freeport) and purchasing some of the books from the Scribe
there. These books are quests, most of which are soloable. They give decent experience
rewards when completed, as well as a book you can put in your home or sell. Various
books also drop or can be picked up in different adventure and city zones. There are also
several free books you can pick up in the tower and around Qeynos (some have a level
requirement, such as the two Lore & Legend books that are gotten in the Mage Tower).
4.3.1. Levels 10-20: Antonica and the Commonlands
If you do all the city quests first, you’ll be level 10 before you start getting into combat – at
this level you’ll be heading out into Antonica (or the Commonlands if you intend to betray).
If you’ve gotten this far on errand-type quests without much combat you’ll find your melee
- 36 -
EverQuest 2 Ranger Guide
skills are a little low, but they will go up very quickly. Spend some time in the starting
villages of your city to pick up whatever quests are available before you head out to battle.
Whether you are in Antonica or the Commonlands you can just start at the city gates and
work your way out, exploring the zone and finding out all the different mob locations and
things to do. In each of these zones there are new quest lines to do as well. If you’re in
Antonica you want to find Matsy Rollingpin, who is located on the second floor of the cabin
just beyond the two guard towers south of the city gates. In the Commonlands, you need
to see Mooshu at the crossroads to start these quests.
This is also a good time to learn about how dynamic camps work. These are areas of
static mobs that spawn around a central targetable item – you can find such camps in all
the overland zones in Norrath. For example in Antonica you’ll often come across several
groups of gnolls all standing around a targetable gnoll tent. These are dynamic camps –
when you kill all the mobs surrounding one of these targetable items, you have the chance
to spawn a named or a “distressed merchant”. If you spawn a merchant and then reclear
the camp, the merchant will respawn as a “gratified merchant” who will then sell you items
you can’t get anywhere else – each merchant type in the various outdoor zones sells a
couple of quest books that are unique to merchants in that zone so they are well worth
collecting.
Favorite Experience Spots – Antonica
• Area between the North Qeynos gate and the griffon tower (levels 8-10)
• Archer Woods (levels 10-14)
• Dynamic gnoll camps north of the TS griffon tower (levels 14-18)
4.3. Soloing Locations
In general, soloing is usually nowhere near as good experience as grouping, but by
making sure you have a steady stream of solo quests running, you can get more
experience and loot for your time spent. I suggest heading to the mage tower of your city
(South Qeynos or North Freeport) and purchasing some of the books from the Scribe
there. These books are quests, most of which are soloable. They give decent experience
rewards when completed, as well as a book you can put in your home or sell. Various
books also drop or can be picked up in different adventure and city zones. There are also
several free books you can pick up in the tower and around Qeynos (some have a level
requirement, such as the two Lore & Legend books that are gotten in the Mage Tower).
4.3.1. Levels 10-20: Antonica and the Commonlands
If you do all the city quests first, you’ll be level 10 before you start getting into combat – at
this level you’ll be heading out into Antonica (or the Commonlands if you intend to betray).
If you’ve gotten this far on errand-type quests without much combat you’ll find your melee
- 36 -
EverQuest 2 Ranger Guide
skills are a little low, but they will go up very quickly. Spend some time in the starting
villages of your city to pick up whatever quests are available before you head out to battle.
Whether you are in Antonica or the Commonlands you can just start at the city gates and
work your way out, exploring the zone and finding out all the different mob locations and
things to do. In each of these zones there are new quest lines to do as well. If you’re in
Antonica you want to find Matsy Rollingpin, who is located on the second floor of the cabin
just beyond the two guard towers south of the city gates. In the Commonlands, you need
to see Mooshu at the crossroads to start these quests.
This is also a good time to learn about how dynamic camps work. These are areas of
static mobs that spawn around a central targetable item – you can find such camps in all
the overland zones in Norrath. For example in Antonica you’ll often come across several
groups of gnolls all standing around a targetable gnoll tent. These are dynamic camps –
when you kill all the mobs surrounding one of these targetable items, you have the chance
to spawn a named or a “distressed merchant”. If you spawn a merchant and then reclear
the camp, the merchant will respawn as a “gratified merchant” who will then sell you items
you can’t get anywhere else – each merchant type in the various outdoor zones sells a
couple of quest books that are unique to merchants in that zone so they are well worth
collecting.
Favorite Experience Spots – Antonica
• Area between the North Qeynos gate and the griffon tower (levels 8-10)
• Archer Woods (levels 10-14)
• Dynamic gnoll camps north of the TS griffon tower (levels 14-18)
• Crabs on northeastern beach (levels 16-20)
Favorite Experience Spots – Commonlands
• fallen orcs outside the Sprawl gate (levels 8-12)
• carrion hounds near the dog pond (levels 8-15)
• ratonga at the farm area – take the west road out of the crossroads (levels 10-15)
• tower of Zarvonn (levels 15-20)
- 37
• Crabs on northeastern beach (levels 16-20)
Favorite Experience Spots – Commonlands
• fallen orcs outside the Sprawl gate (levels 8-12)
• carrion hounds near the dog pond (levels 8-15)
• ratonga at the farm area – take the west road out of the crossroads (levels 10-15)
• tower of Zarvonn (levels 15-20)
- 37
Soloing is all about tactics, but equipment plays an important part too. To solo well you
absolutely must take care to ensure that your equipment and skills are kept up-to-date
and of good quality – all your skills should be at least apprentice IV quality and your armor
and weapons should be the very best you can obtain.
In addition you absolutely must use poison while soloing – ideally you should be using it
all the time, but it’s a must while soloing at the very least because of the DPS boost that it
provides.
A good-quality bow is very important also, preferably one with a proc, as proc damage will
contribute to your DPS quite significantly when you’re kiting. Appropriate-tier arrows are
also a must if you’re planning to use auto-attack while kiting (strictly speaking you don’t
need to use auto-attack while kiting – I’ll explain more about this shortly).
- 32 -
EverQuest 2 Ranger Guide
4.2.1. Toe-to-Toe
Melee soloing is a viable tactic to use on most solo mobs. Armor quality is particularly
important, as are the liberal use of HOs – Heroic Opportunities (see section 7 for an indepth
explanation of these). With good quality armor, weapons, and poisons, you’ll be
able to melee most solo encounters without too much trouble.
A HO macro is a great thing to have handy for soloing. This is created using the in-game
macro system, which is very user-friendly and it’s quite simple to make macros for HOs
and other things. You can make your first HO macro at level five when you get Lucky
Break. It should look like this, with one command per line –
/useability Lucky Break
/useability Evade
/useability Searing Strike
This tells your character to use all three skills, one after the other, to start, trigger, and
complete a solo HO. As you level and get new skills you’ll be able to replace these low
level ones on the macro. The amount of damage a HO does is dependant on the level of
the skill used to complete it so you need to use the highest level HO completing skills you
have.
You will need to make two HO macros – one for melee use and one for range use, as you
can use attacks like Corner and Leaping Shot to complete HOs at range while kiting, but
you’ll use different skills for HOs when you’re meleeing.
When soloing I’ll normally pull with whatever high-damage ranged attack I have up, then
as the mob is moving towards me I’ll fire off as many bow skills as I can that allow me to
shoot at the front of the mob. Cheap Shot, root, and snare allow me to slow the mob
down and give me time to get out of range to finish it off. With a bit of practice it becomes
easy to kill solo mobs without ever getting hit.
- 33 -
EverQuest 2 Ranger Guide
4.2.2. Kiting
As I mentioned, kiting isn’t as easy as it used to be. However, it’s still quite possible once
you’re familiar with your bow skills and how they function.
Kiting is very effective for classes that can either increase their own movement speed
during battle and/or slow down opponents. The basic principle involves using high
damage ranged abilities to kill a mob while it follows you around snared and unable to get
close enough to hit you. Kiting is something that is easy to learn but hard to master.
However once you do master get the art of kiting you will get to the point where the only
thing that decides whether or not you win is whether you have enough arrows.
The key to kiting is to NOT get hit. If that means holding off on your CAs a moment while
you maneuver around a rock or tree then so be it. Keep yourself steady first, shoot
second. All the damage in the world isn’t going to help you if you back peddle into a wall
and have a pack of angry mobs on you. It’s a good idea to use third person view when
kiting so that you can easily see what’s around you. You should also keep all your kiting
CAs on the number hotbar so that all you need to do to activate them is press a single key
for each one. Keeping your movements as simple as possible is important because it
takes quite a bit of effort to keep moving and keep mobs at a safe distance while also
making sure that you don’t run so far away from their spawn point that they leash and
reset. This can be the cause of a huge amount of frustration, especially if you’re almost at
the end of a kite when they leash.
There are several things that you need before you start. The most important is, of course,
a good bow, preferably with a proc. The second thing you need is poisons. When kiting I
like to use a DD poison and a fettering poison, which reduces movement speed.
Kiting is normally done in open space. It’s a lot easier to move around when you don’t
have a ton of obstacles in your way. It is possible to kite in dungeons – difficult, but
possible. Generally you want a fairly wide-open area where you can see all around you
without too much in your way, and you will need to learn how to play and move around in
third person view if you don’t know how to do this already. If you’re new to playing with
this viewpoint, take some time to figure it out before you start kiting anything too
dangerous.
- 34
EverQuest 2 Ranger Guide
Unobstructed movement is quite a difficult thing to achieve, especially in zones like the
Feerrott, which brings me to the next important point – your space bar. Yes, your jump
key. It has saved me more times than I can count when kiting. I jump over rocks and
stumps and other obstacles and always do my best to prevent such objects from
interfering with the kiting process. When kiting I have auto-run on and use the mouse to
choose my direction, and the space bar to jump when I need to. Using this method I
normally have my right hand controlling the mouse exclusively and my left hand is
concerned with jumping and executing CAs.
Next, buffs – ranged buffs and your offensive stance should always be up. Forester’s
Insight also – this gives you a 5% run speed boost that is active in combat and I can’t
stress enough how valuable this is when kiting.
Lastly, make sure you have plenty of arrows! It has to be the worst feeling in the world
when you hit a CA in the middle of a kite and find that you’re out of arrows. Make sure
you carry several stacks when you’re heading out to kite, and use makeshift arrows as
often as you can.
One very important thing to remember is that bow skills which can be cast while moving
generally need to be cast from behind or in stealth (or both) and skills which must be cast
while stationary don’t have those requirements.
We have quite a few different types of snare at our disposal, and Trick of the Hunter (the
snare skill obtained in Splitpaw) is quite valuable for kiting purposes now, as when it
terminates the target has a chance to be rooted. When the root does take effect you can
back up and fire a few ranged shots until the mob dies or the root runs out.
Cheap Shot is good for this too. Although it now lasts only two seconds there’s usually
time for at least one rear attack before it wears off.
There are a number of things you can do using melee-based skills to get some extra
damage in while kiting. The easiest of these is the Entrap/Surveil/Hidden Fire
combination. You need to do this when you have a decent amount of distance between
you and the mob, as it requires being in stealth and therefore having your movement
- 35 -
EverQuest 2 Ranger Guide
speed reduced quite a bit. All you need to do here is snare your target, queue up Surveil,
and then let fly with a Hidden Fire once you’re in stealth.
Keep in mind that anything involving stealth is unlikely to be effective when you’re kiting
multi-mob encounters, as you’re extremely unlikely to avoid getting hit.
4.2.3. Thorny Trap
This new skill (level 52) deserves a section all of it’s own because of the huge impact it
makes on soloing, in particular the ability to solo multi-mob heroic encounters.
Basically what you do is lay a trap, and then pull a group of mobs with Storm of Arrows,
run to the trap (you can continue shooting at them while you run) then run them over the
trap and let them trigger it and get rooted.
Once they’re all rooted, go into stealth and use Natural Selection. By this time all your
poisons and procs should have the mobs well within the orange/red health range and you
can just pick them off one by one.