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Dadbat's Solo Self Found Iksar Shadow Knight
Contents |
Beginnings
This began more of a journal than a guide, but I decided to make a Wiki for others if they ever felt a desire to do something similar. This is the story of Dadbat and my learning process during my first foray into the Solo Self Found (SSF) arena. I had read and seen a bit of what Barthorn had done, and decided I would attempt to do something similar. I chose a Shadow Knight because I actually have never played the class in any iteration of EQ, but it would also give me a few more tools to work with. Iksar because outside Dwarf they are the best race and with the availability of the Crusader and Dreadscale Armor would give some potential guidance on how to approach gearing. I also wanted to play in Kunark more than I have and explore places I haven't been before.
Leveling Path
Some of these areas will be well known to me, some not at all but it has been good to explore the game more than I have previously and more focused on completing quests and tradeskills than I have since 2000.
Levels 1-5
Nothing surprising here right. FoB is considered the best newbie area in the game.
Collect
WT: 0.1 Size: SMALL
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
- This stops giving valuable experience at 4 so you can save up a few bone chips for your level 9 pet.
WT: 5.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
- This stops giving valuable experience at 7-8. The curskin are also heavy, but the combined bag is lighter than 8 skins themselves so you can maybe have 16 (8 combined, 8 noncombined) skins on you for a turn in. I would prioritize this because of the armor and experience returned.
If you want continue to stay in Field of Bone until 12 before we move to Kurn's but I had seen plenty of FoB so I decided to head somewhere different.
Levels 6-10
So before we make our way to LOIO, make sure to stop and train Bash if you are level 6.
You should also pick up our first true Crusader's Tests quest, so make sure to chat with Lord Gikzic and get your
LORE ITEM NO DROP
WT: 2.0 Weight Reduction: 0%
Capacity: 4 Size Capacity: SMALL
- Time to go Sarnak Hunting.
To be honest, I did not know there was a newbie area like this in LOIO. I probably should have known, but FoB has always been the default that I never bothered with LOIO, Warslik, or Swamp. I am glad I came here though because I actually think LOIO is more enjoyable at least on this journey.
So our first hunting grounds are going to be to the left of Cabilis and up to #2 on the map. We are looking for A Sarnak Hatchling. These share spawns, and are do get killed by the roaming goblins so you might have to do a bit of work to get them. Once we get 4 heads, make sure to combine them first and go turn in the bag to get your
LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 1H Slashing Atk Delay: 26
DMG: 5
WT: 5.5 Size: MEDIUM
Class: SHD
Race: HUM ERU DEF TRL OGR GNM IKS
- You need to be careful of the the small building because it does house a 3 spawn of goblins that can contain A goblin hunter who can be level 10. Also be aware of Scalebone Skeletons that path from the ruins to the City edges.
From here, you can either head back to Lake or head to FoB. For this, we stuck around in Lake.
Depending on how lucky you were with Hatchlings, you might have to continue to grind on the sabertooths, goblins, and generic skeletons (non decay/scalebone) until we reach level 8. At 8, it's comfortable enough to be able to run the goblins in the ruins at #2 to the guards to get them to have a split timer. Level 8 might take quite a bit of time here because it will involve some running back and forth, but stick it out and get to Level 9 to where having a pet and spells makes these much easier to deal with.
Once you reach level 9, head back into Cabilis and grab your spells. Since you are in LOIO it is closer to grab them from the Necro spell vendors than heading back to East Cabilis unless you also want to add a point or two to your spell casting abilities to get them off the ground.
When you are ready, head back out to LOIO and let's get a buffer into 10 before we begin the super fun task of Blacksmithing and head out on our first stat gear camping adventure.
Blacksmithing
So before we go and spend time at our first gear camp we should work on our blacksmithing and maybe get a piece or two of Banded. Hopefully you were blessed with many
Slot: SECONDARY
AC: 7
WT: 7.5 Size: MEDIUM
Class: WAR CLR PAL RNG SHD BRD ROG SHM
Race: ALL except DWF TRL OGR HFL GNM
I followed the leveling guide here Blacksmithing except I just skipped on the Large Lanterns and went from Scalers to Skewers.
If you don't have enough platinum to get to the first set of trivial levels for banded, that's fine. I didn't either. I think it takes about 150pp (I wish I had paid a bit more attention) to get to 115-120. I took a gamble on making a few 1-2 sheet pieces at the end at skill 104 and didn't fail. I wouldn't bother with doing the cloak or waist and maybe the neck because those are our next item camps.
Because our next Crusader Test weapon won't be until at least 15, you might also want to craft aSlot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: 1H Slashing Atk Delay: 30
DMG: 6
WT: 7.5 Size: MEDIUM
Class: WAR PAL RNG SHD DRU BRD ROG
Race: ALL
Wherever you end up, just know we will come back to this once we have a bit more plat saved up.
Levels 10-12
Before you head out of Cabilis make sure to train *Dodge* at level 10.
Our first item camp. We will be looking for A scaled prowler. He drops two items that we will be picking up
Slot: WAIST
AC: 5
AGI: +3
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Race: ALL
Slot: BACK
AC: 6
STR: +2
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Class: ALL
Race: ALL
I only recently found out about these items as I was scrolling the Wiki looking for paths of drops, and some of the research here was new to me and there was conflicting information on his spawning. I will only share what I found.
See the attached image as his spawn points. There are actually 2 pathing a scaled wolf or a scaled wolf hunter from here both really close to each other. When you get there you will notice a small sloped section. One spawns there, and the other spawns to the east just on the ridge by a tree. They will path back eventually, but there are usually only 2-3 wolves up at a time in this west valley of FOB so it is fairly easy to find them and start the hunting. They will get killed if they encounter a pathing Iksar Marauder.
Hold these two spawns down and in any downtime you can either kill other mobs or visit a potential spawn at roughly 1500, 2500. This guy is static, but is also killed by roaming Iksar. I never was able to get a Prowler spawn here, so unsure if it is actually one.
I was able to get about 30% into 12 before I got both pieces. I ended up with 3 belts before my 1 cloak. You might get lucky and sell the extra belts for 10p. I was able to trade one for 2 stacks of bone chips which I then sold. The other just ended up being vendored. All extra to Blacksmithing!
You are close to Warslik zone if you get into trouble. The Hunter's run faster than strafe speed as an fyi.
Now that we have our first stat items, it is time to head into Kurn's for a few more.
- Continue to work on blacksmithing as you have time, need a break, zone overcamped etc..
Levels 12-20
Kurn's Tower & Swamp of No Hope
Hopefully you made it to level 12. If so, make sure to head into Cabilis and train your Meditate skill. If you aren't 12 yet, you can attempt to play in the entrance of Kurn's or stay outside and looking for various mobs on the outskirts of the pit.
Focus is on the entrance. If there are a few people here this floor can easily be cleared before respawns so it you might have to be quick on the tag. I preferred to use the secret room and pull back to it. Scalebones will start to green at 14? I think, but there are plenty of spawns that this floor can take you to 16 no problem.
Keep an eye out for Greater Scalebone on the stairs to the next level up. These have the chance to drop
LORE ITEM NO DROP TEMPORARY
WT: 0.0 Size: TINY
Class: NONE
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AC: 2
INT: +5 HP: +10 MANA: +10
WT: 0.0 Size: TINY
Class: ALL
Race: ALL except ELF HIE DWF HFL
Ok so you hit 15. Time for a little change of scenery and to the first point of this adventure that made me want to quit this game entirely. Fun eh?
- Time to farm our Squire's Khukri, but first make sure to stop off and get your Level 15 spells.
You don't need to do this yet, but gives as the added bonus of 1 page head start. Go and talk to Lord Gikzic again and tell him you 'will retrieve the tome'.
Our camp spot with be at the mouth of the opening to the Field of Bone zoneline in Swamp of No Hope. You would think killing level 10-11 mobs wouldn't require such drastic pulling, but such is the nature of where these Froglok raider's spawn, that most of our fighting will be at night, and there are plenty of level 20 mobs that surround this area. Image to the right shows 'O' as our camp spot. 'X' denotes my believed spawn points for the raiders.
I could never figure out 100% if it relied on killing other mobs, or if they were entirely on their own cycle. Would probably need a tracker to figure this out completely.
For the fun part. Raiders generally spawn at night at 8pm gametime. I would do some general killing of mobs like other frogloks, Iksar brigands and marauders (save
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: FACE
AC: 2
STA: +3 CHA: -10
WT: 1.0 Size: SMALL
Class: ALL
Race: BAR TRL OGR IKS
Once it became dark, I would venture out and carefully scout to see if there was a raider. If so, pull it back to the wall and kill it. Hoping to not bring anything else with you. You will certainly have to strafe run to the FOB zone a few times. Try to get a snare off on the raider so you can catch it on the zone back. Anyway, you need to farm 10 items from the frogs. You need a container book and 9 scroll pages. 8 of these pages are lore. 1 is not. Ridiculous. Don't get too excited when you are able to loot a page because most likely it will be the non-lore one. I felt like I was a bit lucky in that it took me until my 7th unique page before I actually received a duplicate and jinxed it by thinking this wasn't going to take me too long at all. All in all, it took me over a week of night gaming and about 3 levels to gather all of my pages. I think I killed 83 raiders before the final page dropped.
- If you do not care about the unfinishable Greenmist quest because you are doing SSF, I would suggest waiting even longer to do this just to avoid all the slow running and pulling and frustration.
Ok, so you got lucky enough to get all the pages and hit combine on the container. Head back to Lord Gikzic to get your Squire's Khukri.
At this point I was level 18, trained Parry and was ready to head to Kurn's again. But first, make sure to turn in your snout rings Marauder Armor at the Warrior GM. This gives a decent chunk of experience and some Leech armor which should be an upgrade if you haven't already filled out in Banded.
From here we should be in all banded or maybe some Leech, if not focus on leveling blacksmithing before we go to Kurn's.
Our next camp spot is An undead jester who drops the fantastic probably won't ever find better in a solo run
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: 1H Blunt Atk Delay: 18
DMG: 7
STR: +4 WIS: +4 INT: -2
Effect: Fleeting Fury (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 10
WT: 8.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: ALL except NEC WIZ MAG ENC
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: SECONDARY
AC: 10
SV MAGIC: +10
WT: 8.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: WAR CLR PAL RNG SHD DRU BRD ROG SHM
Race: ALL
LORE ITEM NO DROP TEMPORARY
WT: 0.0 Size: TINY
Class: NONE
Race: NONE
LORE ITEM
Slot: NECK
AC: 2
INT: +5 HP: +10 MANA: +10
WT: 0.0 Size: TINY
Class: ALL
Race: ALL except ELF HIE DWF HFL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 1H Slashing Atk Delay: 24
DMG: 6
INT: +3
WT: 5.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: SHD
Race: HUM ERU DEF TRL OGR GNM IKS
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 1H Slashing Atk Delay: 24
DMG: 6
INT: +3
WT: 5.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: SHD
Race: HUM ERU DEF TRL OGR GNM IKS
- Now, the only real pain point of this camp is the Thick boned skeleton. Do not kill this guy if he spawns as the Jester PH. He will ruin your Burynai faction and make this camp infinitely more challenging. It's best to either let the camp go and just focus on the cook or head into the tunnels to camp Glowing Skulls. I had a few of these spawn and just ended up letting it go for the night and generally by the next day someone had come and cleared it out. I got my Iksar Berserker Club on Jester #4.
With all of this, you should have bags full of Bone Chips and be at least level 20 before we head off for our next adventure. Try selling the Bone Chips to fund future Cultural Blacksmithing, it's not uncommon for someone to come into Kurn's and offer 10p a stack.
Head back over to Cabilis, train Double Attack, grab your Level 22 spells and prepare for a little jaunt to a beach locale.
Levels 20-26
We've now reached the magical mark of 20. Our swimming can now go past 100! Good thing too, because we are going to use it. Before you head out of West Cabilis, make sure you have food/water stacks, bone chips, and a few Cloudy Potions. You can buy these at the Alchemy vendor in the tunnel between West Cabilis and East Cabilis. You should 100% be in at least full banded at this point, hopefully with an IBC and your Knight's Khukri.
Once you are fully stocked, head out to Warslik Woods and start your run to The Overthere. You might run into a few goblins, and make sure to stay a bit clear of the Giant Fort. Use a Cloudy Potion if you want to be safer, but it's wiser to use those once you zone into OT. When in OT, we are heading to the Outpost. We are Iksar here, so we are KOS and can't just run in. Run to the North Eastern wall, and swim around the wall until you come back to land. You can safe sit here and way for the boat to arrive. When the boat appears, you will need to swim out to the opposite side and swim/jump up the side of the barrels to get up onto the platform. It might take you a few tries, but it works. Stay off the Dock. Take the boat to TD.
Elven Outpost
Now, you are in Timorous Deep--where to? Off to kill some Elves. Jump off the boat and start swimming to the South East. You might have to go a bit further south to avoid the zone boundary but eventually Eastward opens up. Once to the island, follow the wall around until you get to the opening. There are 7 total Wood Elves that are in this area. At 20, you won't be able to clear all of them but you get there at 24. There is one that paths outside the guarded area, two at the entrance that can be single pulled, one that paths through the entrance and back up to the docks, two at the closest building that can't be pulled single, and then finally a single inside the building. It's easy enough to go through the 4 that can be single pulled and leave the building alone until you get 22 and new spells including your upgraded snare which makes it far easier to deal with the pair.
- There are also two more spawns at a building around -4000/-6500. The spawn inside the building can be An elven overseer which didn't have a wiki page when I got him to spawn. Never tried to kill him either because the run back isn't fun and didn't want to fight an even con Magician.
The Elves can drop items to sell, and conveniently in the small building to the right inside the camp is a vendor who is Neutral and will sell to Iksar. You can make not terrible money here. Ideal to bring a gem or two to help exchange coin to lower weight.
These can easily and quickly take you to 24 before it becomes just too slow to stay. I attempted to move on and tried a few spots like WW giants (soon), but took too much to kill a single giant. I decided to head up to the Ogres in TD.
Ogres
These guys are up at 5500/3000 and if you are coming from the Elven outpost it's quite a swim..but doable. You should be able to kill the raider's and wise ones fairly easily. Only risk is do not pull the Ogre in the house next to Oowomp.. I found out the hard way. Even though Oowomp is factionless, he will assist the other Ogres. There is also one double pull from the northern most building. There is a single ogre outside and one inside. These will always pull together. If you want to stay away from that, there are 6 single spawns you can play with. One by the real dock, two by the fake dock, one in the furthest house from the dock, one in between rocks by the mountain, and then one on the coast of the mountain. Ugrak da Raider Can spawn at least in the house and the spawn between the rocks at the mountain. He is level 24, but can be fear kited as long as you use your pet to eat his Harm Touch. He does drop items, but in the few times I killed him he never did so not worth camping him specifically.
Make it to 26, wait for the boat to return and do the reverse. Jump off in OT and swim around. Then head to the most common of all common camps now.. Warslik Giants.
Levels 26-34
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Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 1H Slashing Atk Delay: 25
DMG: 7
INT: +3
SV MAGIC: +3
WT: 5.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: SHD
Race: HUM ERU DEF TRL OGR GNM IKS
I was able to keep roughly 3 spawns down before they repopped, sometimes a little longer medtime depending on luck. I stayed here until 30 (29 dragggged) and got a few weapon drops and a single
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: EAR
AC: 2
DEX: +3 WIS: +3 AGI: +3
WT: 0.1 Size: TINY
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
Once you hit 30, make sure to head back in to Train *Riposte*, grab your level 30 spells, turn in for your Zealot's Khukri, etc..
During either downtime, fort was too busy, just needed something different -- I worked on Blacksmithing a bit and crafted the non statted Cultural armor Cabilis Scale Mail. It's a bit pricey for what it offers (+1ac/-1wt per piece on average) to Banded, BUT it looks better than Banded and it does help with some weight issues knowing that we only have +2str bonus right now. It's really up to you if it matters or not because we will soon be replacing pieces with Dreadscale Armor that is a bit costly as well for the gems.
Ok, so we've leveled to 30 and spent some time do some blacksmithing and questing right? Time to move to the best xp/money combo camp at 28-34 in the game.. a skulking brute. These are in the NW part on Warsliks in the tunnels that lead into Crypt of Dalnir. There are 5(6 but who cares out about the roamer outside) in the tunnels. A 3 spawn and a 2 spawn before Dalnir. Despite their /con, they will not agro and they are not social so this camp is about as safe as you can get for afk purposes. They are sometimes hard to get because folks like them, so if you can't get either spawn room stick around the Giant fort and kill Evergreens.
You can camp the Brutes to 34 where they start to green out too much (even 33 is a little long but the money is worth it), by then you hopefully have made about 3kpp which makes buying gems for Dreadscale a breeze.
- Grind pause. At 32 I decided to take a break and go farm my Crusader's Khukri and my first Dreadscale piece Dreadscale Mask since they both take place primarily in Firiona Vie.
So let's start with Crusader's Khukri. Start the quest, get the coin, and head out to LOIO and into FV. You are going to want to end up at the coast where folks like to quad, kite, and such. *BE CAREFUL RUNNING. IT SEEMED LIKE 50% OF MOBS COULD SEE INVIS SO BE LIBERAL WITH FEIGN DEATH* At 9pm game time you will find Trooper Azeal either walking in place or kneeling by a boulder. Be aware of your surroundings as you hand in the coin to not agro anything close to you. Once you hand it in, and give him the phrase 'What news of the Charasis Tome?' From that he pauses and eventually begins to run off. Do not follow him I made the mistake of trying to run with him, in the dark. Eventually we made it to his ending spot, but too many higher level Drolvargs are around to where I died pretty quickly. Instead, once you give him the code word follow the blue path shown in the image here. Still be careful of See Invis mobs, but on the wall you should be safe and you can setup shop next to the Drolvarg tunnel entrance where he paths to. You will beat him there as long as you don't have to FD any mobs so don't worry if you don't see him he should show up eventually.
Once he is there, a drachnid spy spawns and starts buffing himself. Try to to be close enough to pull him back to the wall before he does too much. Should be fairly easy at 32 or a bit earlier. Loot your first book.
Now for Hero Goxnok. Like you he is a ShadowKnight and has a pet out. This should be an easy enough fight, but the setup can be tricky depending on the Drolvargs around you. Go up to him and hail him and then spam pet attack so that hopefully your pet eats the Harm Touch. If he does, great.. run back to the wall and finish your kill to loot your second book. If needed, be ready to fear kite along the wall.
Head back to Cabilis, turn in the two books and your Zealot's Khukri to receive your last Khukri for quite a while I feel.
Now the Dreadscale mask is easy enough. While you are waiting for night spawn, or just feel like a change of scenary killing pirates, pilgrims, drolvargs.. keep an eye out for Lady Chromoire. She's a tad larger of a Drixie and will most like be fighting drolvargs or pirates. Pull her and loot her wing to turn in for your first Dreadscale piece.
Dreadscale + Axe of the Iron Back Farming
I needed a break from XP camp and want to finish as much of the Dreadscale set as I can at 34. Looks like maybe the Greaves and Bracers will be out of reach for now, but we can probably scoop up half of the items needed for those on our journey and finish it closer to 40.
- Lake of Ill Omen
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: HANDS
AC: 10
DEX: +4 INT: +2
SV MAGIC: +5
WT: 3.0 Size: SMALL
Class: SHD
Race: IKS
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
WT: 0.6 Size: SMALL
Class: NONE
Race: NONE
- The Overthere
Here we are looking for Sarnak Berzerkers and Thorny Succulents. Run the wall to the Frontier Mountain zone line area. You can easily fear kite up on the flat ground zone path. I got both the braid and the head from a single berzerker. It took me 5 succulents to get the quills. We can't solo the other piece that's dropped here yet, so time to make the run back to Field of Bone.
- Field of Bone
1450,200 is where you want to go in the NE corner. There is a single Large Heartsting Scorpion that spawns here. I could never get a spawn from anywhere else even after clearing mobs during the spawn window around Kurns. I suspect this is the only one in the zone. He will roam from spawn, but once you find him in the green grass.. sit and camp ever 6m40s. Took me 8 kills for this piece.
- Kurns Tower
The last piece you need for the boots is from the Thick Boned Skeleton in Kurns. Remember how I said not to kill him earlier? Well you will have to here if you want the boots. You will become KOS to all Burynai in Kunark if you do. If so, head down to the basement and clear some skeletons until spawn. Should be easy enough at this point.
These were all the items that I was able to solo at 34. Legs, Wrists, Helm all a bit out of reach at this point. Next stop will be Gorillas in TD for the Arms, but after running around for a bit it's time to get another level or two at a static spawn.
- Frontier Mountains
Last item we are looking, if you haven't gotten it already, is Axe of the Iron Back. There is surprisingly a lack of decent 2h weapons in Kunark that are available at lower levels. Most come from the random giants with the Axe here being the best one. So far we might have stuck it out with our IBC or Khukri, but it's time to get something a bit more hard hitting now that we are past 30 and damage caps. You might have gotten lucky in WW with this, but if not it's not terribly uncommon at FM. I feel like I got lucky as there was a giant up already with it when I got there.. Either way, giants are a good XP camp as well so you can probably skip our next little XP spot in FOB below while farming this.
Levels 34-?
Here we go again. I am going to try a camp I haven't done before and actually didn't know existed until I started this.
Field of Bone Servants of Sythrax
So I did this to 35.. and felt like it was more trouble than it was worth for a ShadowKnight. Routinely would have combats that caused more downtime than expected. Tried the jesters as well and same thing. This feels like it would be an awesome camp for a Necro, Shaman, Enchanter.. basically any caster. Going to move on at 35 and head somewhere else. I might come back and try it a few levels later just to see, but there are greens that appear at 35 so it may not be worth it.
