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Meviin's Monk Mechanics
Contents |
Getting Started
Intro to This Guide
Monks are a highly technical class that I have enjoyed in my time on Project1999. On classic, I only had a low level monk, but on P99, I got Meviin to 59 (almost 60). This guide compiles many things that I have picked up over my time. You may find this useful if you want to know the many subtle tricks involved in playing a monk.
Some things in this guide are exploits of poorly designed EQ mechanics (in particular, free offhand with 2HB, sneak pulling, strafe running, jumping, FDing to trigger running, and power leveling). My understanding is that Project1999 was designed to emulate classic everquest, the design flaws and all. It also emulated other exploitable design flaws of classic EQ such as multiquesting, bard swarm kiting, Chardok AoE groups, clickies like Soulfire being usable from the inventory, etc. It also emulated other design flaws like resurrection timers running out when you're on a different character, bad XP bonuses when grouped, and hell levels. I believe that the server staff is aware of all of these mechanics, but if anyone can show to me that they are not aware or that something is not allowed, I will note that in this guide.
If anything is unclear or missing from this guide, let me know in the talk page, in a forum message, or in game.
Should I Play a Monk?
Monks are an active class. If you play a monk, then when you go AFK, your group isn't getting experience. If you aren't paying attention, you can wipe your group or yourself. If you don't know the zone well, you will pull trains and spend forever on pulls. If you want to be able to play EQ while only paying half attention, don't play a monk. If you want an active play style, a monk may be the choice for you.
Monks are the go-to pullers. If you don't like pulling, don't play a monk. If you like getting to be intimately familiar with every zone you play in, then a monk may be the choice for you.
Monks can also do good DPS, but monks can't tank as well as plate classes, crowd control, or provide other pieces of utility. If you want to have group roles other than DPS and pulling, don't play a monk. If you like those roles, a monk may be the choice for you.
Monks can travel through any zone (feign death is even more reliable than sneak/hide in some cases, though it's more annoying in general), can bank anywhere, and can sell anywhere. If you like being free to travel anywhere, a monk may be the choice for you.
Monks can usually get groups, and they can solo okay, but monks can't solo as well as a druid, shaman, mage, necro, enchanter, or bard. If you primarily want to solo, a monk might not be the class for you. If you want to group a lot and solo some, then a monk might be for you.
Monks are one of the most played classes on the server (along with shamans, bards, necros, and druids). If you want to play a more unique class (eg, for a better chance at raid drops), a monk may not be the class for you.
Monks don't get a self SoW (until JBoots or SoW pots) or ports (until OT hammer). If you like being able to travel around at a moment's notice, a monk may not be the class for you. If you are okay paying for a SoW or port, then monks may be okay for you.
Starting Points and Race
Iksar are better than Humans (better AC, better regen), but humans level 20% faster. Once you get high enough level, it's also very easy to sell and bank in Freeport even as an Iksar, so faction doesn't matter. So, the min/max choice is Iksar, but either race is fine.
A level 60 shaman can buff you to max strength even with a poor starting strength, so the min/max choice for point allocation is stamina.
Pulling
Strafe and Jump to Outrun Mobs Without SoW
I have my keys bound so that W and S go forward and back, A and D turn left and right, and Q and E strafe left and right. You can change your keys to suit your needs, though. Also, if you engage mouse look (eg, hold right click) and then try to turn (A or D in my configuration) it should strafe you.
When you are moving forward and strafing at the same time, you will move slightly faster than you would if you were just normally moving forward. This makes it less likely that mobs will hit you when you're running away, and if you're running a long distance, it can also save you some time.
Jumping also gives you a slight speed boost (though watch your stamina -- you can't jump when you're out). You can combine jumping and strafe running as well.
If your raid pulls too many mobs and you need to kite them around, strafe running in a circle (hold right click. Move forward and strafe to one side all the time. Slowly move your mouse so that you go in a circle) can keep the mobs occupied.
Sneak Pulling
If you sneak and a mob (including merchants, bankers, and guild masters) has its back turned to you, that mob will be indifferent to you.
If you aggro a mob by throwing a shuriken, javelin, or other throwing weapon at them, it will not aggro its friends if those friends have their backs turned to you and you are sneaking.
This means that if there is a camp with 10 mobs in it but all of them have their backs turned to you, you can easily single pull that camp.
It also means that if you pull 5 mobs and then feign death, sneak, and wait for the mobs to start pathing away from you, you can single pull the one at the back.
If your group wants you to pull two mobs and you have 5 mobs pathing back in a line, you can throw a shuriken at the second mob from the back, and it will aggro the two from the back.
Clearing Aggro
For mobs below level 35, if you feign death and stand up immediately, none of them will re-aggro you. For mobs level 35 or above, those mobs will usually re-aggro you immediately.
You can clear aggro on a mob in one of five ways:
- If the mob is below level 35, it will automatically clear aggro when you FD.
- If a mob goes back to its spawn point, it will clear its aggro. This doesn't work on mobs that wander around the zone all the time and don't have one point that they reset to.
- If a mob has its back turned to you, and you successfully sneak while FDed, you will clear aggro when you stand up.
- If you /quit while FDed, mobs will forget about you when you log back in.
- FD has a chance (20%?) to clear aggro on each use, so repeatedly standing and FDing can clear aggro, though it's incredibly annoying to do.
BEWARE: Many monks get cocky with using sneak to clear aggro. A successful sneak WILL NOT clear aggro if the mob is facing you. In high end raid situations, it is particularly important to be careful with this because a failure could wipe your raid. In zones like the Plane of Fear, if you aggro a train, you need to /q out after FDing. You can't assume that sneak worked.
Feign Death Breaks and Failures
If your attack is on when you Feign Death, your FD won't succeed.
If you get the "you have fallen" message, your FD has failed.
Taking area of effect damage will break your FD. This is of particular importance when dealing with raid mobs like dragons or the bee boss in the Plane of Sky. You need to run out of range before FDing.
If a mob starts casting a spell on you before you FD, and it finishes casting when you are down, your FD will break. This is NOT true for all spells. For instance, if a dispel lands on you when you are FDed, your buffs will be dispelled, but FD will not break. I haven't tested whether other non-damaging spells or whether spell resists also cause an FD break.
If your FD breaks due to taking spell damage, then all mobs that had you on their aggro list will re-aggro. However, if you FD and clear aggro before taking spell damage, only the mob that cast the spell on you will re-aggro. This isn't very useful at high levels because clearing aggro on mobs over level 35 takes time, but at low levels, it's extremely useful. It means that if you have a train of spell casters on you, you can FD and immediately stand, and only the mobs that were casting on you will re-aggro rather than everything re-aggroing. What Throwing Weapons Should I Use? Shurikens are the highest range purchaseable throwing weapon. I used these exclusively until I started raiding.
Once you start raiding (and even before if you have weight reduction), you'll want Forged Javelins. Forged Javelins are the highest range throwing weapon that is stackable. It's easy and cheap (a couple hundred plat at most -- just follow one of the smithing guides) to get your blacksmithing skill high enough to make these yourself.
Getting Help from Groupmates
When you're pulling, it takes mental energy to make sure that you are only bringing one mob. Also, if you're pulling around corners and such, it might be difficult to actually see if you got a single. As such, it can help to have a second monk FDed in position to tell you if your pull is clean or not. A rogue will also work.
Sometimes, you're splitting a bunch of mobs and your sneak isn't working, so you can't single pull them. Or, maybe, you're splitting in a twisty hallway, and by the time you stand up and throw your shuriken, they're already around the corner. In these cases, it can help to have a second monk sneaking and ready to tag the mob when they start leaving.
Sometimes, there's a non-KoS caster, and it would be a pain to split. In these cases, a shadowknight can park their pet near the mob, walk away (eg, around a corner), and have their pet attack. The mob will kill the pet then come after you. The SK can feign death, and the monk can safely single pull.
Sometimes, you could split mobs, but it would be complicated, and you have a cleric / druid / enchanter in your group. In these cases, it can be useful to get a lull on the mobs so that you can split them easily.
Soloing
Using Feign Death to Make Mobs Run
Some mobs run when they get low health (below 20%, I think). Some mobs just don't run -- this includes skeletons, beetles, and some others.
However, other mobs will normally run, but they won't run if they've been fighting you and they think they're about to kill you or if they have friends around (any mobs that they would social aggro with that are in a short range). In these two situations, you can trigger a mob to run if it is already low health by feigning death and standing up again.
The mob will start running away when you are FDed because the social check and the check of whether you, the player, are low health don't apply when you are FDed. And, if a mob starts running when you are FDed, it will continue running even after you attack it.
When doing this, you can't FD and stand up immediately because mobs take a fraction of a second to start running. But if you wait too long, the mob might regain its health. So, FD for a short amount of time.
This can help when you're soloing because it means you take less damage since the mob is running rather than attacking you. It can also make you kill faster because you're hitting the mob's back.
Jousting
When you attack, it starts a timer for the next attack. If you have an
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 2H Blunt Atk Delay: 40
DMG: 38
WT: 4.0 Size: LARGE
Class: MNK
Race: ALL
In practice, you won't need to do this often, but it can be useful in a close fight if you have a slow 2HB. Also, I hear that it's used more in PVP.
Free Offhand with 2HBs
Your offhand is on a completely separate timer than your main hand. That means that if you hit with yourMAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 2H Blunt Atk Delay: 40
DMG: 38
WT: 4.0 Size: LARGE
Class: MNK
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: HANDS
AC: 15
STR: +20 DEX: +10 STA: +10 AGI: +10 HP: +100
SV FIRE: +10 SV DISEASE: +10 SV COLD: +10 SV MAGIC: +10 SV POISON: +10
Required level of 46.
Effect: Celestial Tranquility (Must Equip, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 50
WT: 0.1 Size: SMALL
Class: MNK
Race: HUM IKS
This can improve your DPS, but it means clicking a couple times every few seconds, so it's probably not worth it.
How Does the Monk Weight Limit Work?
Monks get an AC penalty for going over certain weight. The weights are listed on the Monk wiki page and should be accurate.
How this works precisely isn't well known -- eg, how much of it is mitigation vs avoidance and how severe the penalty is. Many people say that at low levels, they didn't worry about their weight limit, but that at high levels, they always stick under it. Personally, I always tried to stay below the limit.
How Can I Bandage Above 50% / 70%?
At level 50 or below, bind wounds can bandage up to 50% of your health. At level 51+, when you get 201 bind wound skill, you can bandage up to 70%.
This health percent works on anyone you bandage. So, at level 51, you can bandage others to 70% too.
If one bandage heals you 5% and you are at 49%, then you will go up to 54% -- you won't be capped at 50%. The limit of 50%/70% is your max health before taking into account the health you get from the bandage, not after.
When you equip a health or stamina item, it increases your max HP without increasing your current HP. That means that you can artificially lower your current health percent when bandaging. For instance, I might be at 51% health, but then I equip some extra health items and I go down to 48% health, so I can get one extra bandage in.
Dealing with Faction
If you sneak and a mob's back is turned to you, that mob will be indifferent to you. This is useful for turning in some quest items, for purchasing items from merchants that are KoS or dubious, and generally for getting through areas where you have bad faction.
If you are an Iksar and you want good faction in Freeport (even though you don't need it once you have feign death), you can get a wolf form in East Freeport and turn in gold 2 pieces at a time to a bard. This will repair your faction in most of North Freeport, which means you can bank and sell without fear.
If you care about good merchant faction, you can turn in brandy in South Qeynos (just use Sneak -- there aren't any guards that wander at the turn in location).
If you care about East / West freeport, you can kill a bunch of orcs for monk faction and turn in orc belts for guard faction and corrupt merchant faction. Note that this will harm your North Freeport faction, but that's easy to raise with the bard quest.
You don't need to faction up for your epic. You can get the Freeport sash by killing a level 30 GM in the monk guild. You can do the Qeynos Headband turn ins on a level 1 human monk alt and just trade the headband. If you want to get good faction in Qeynos, you can kill a bunch of gnolls (and turn in the teeth in Halas for Halas faction).
Skills
Bind Wound is vital when soloing, when power leveling, and when duoing with a shaman (you heal them so they can cannibalize). At level 1-50, you can bind wound up to 50%. At level 51, when you get 201 skill, you can bind wound to 70%. You can also bind wound in combat (target self, bind wound, stand, target mob, turn on attack), but it's hard to do properly (if a mob hits you before you stand, they do max damage), so I don't bother. Keep it maxed.
Mend is amazing for emergencies. When you're in a stable group or a stable duo, you should use Mend to save your healer mana. You can also use mend when you're fighting a very strong mob because it effectively lets you fight it with over 100% HP. Keep it maxed.
Hand to Hand: When you get your epic, you will use hand to hand. Before then, it isn't as good as easily purchasable 1HB weapons, so you'll only use it on corpse runs. I used it when leveling to keep the skill maxed.
1HB: Good general purpose. Keep it maxed.
2HB: Even if your 1HB / H2H are better DPS than your 2HB, you will still use your 2HB weapon when fighting a mob with a damage shield. Also, 2HB is useful because it maximizes the damage that you do with your riposte and it minimizes the damage that your opponent will do with their riposte. When fighting mobs that enrage (enrage means automatic riposte of all attacks), 2HB is useful because you won't accidentally hit the mob a bunch of times and hurt yourself a lot. Keep it maxed.
Offense / Defense / Dodge / Double Attack / Dual Wield / Block / Riposte: All great skills. They will max out on their own as long as you put a point in them.
Kick / Round Kick / Tiger Claw / Eagle Strike / Dragon Punch / Tail Rake / Flying Kick: In general, always use the highest level of these skills (Flying Kick once you get it).
- Caveat 1: Tiger Claw, Eagle Strike, and Dragon Punch / Tail Rake use your hands, whereas the others use your feet. That means that if you are fighting a magic mob (like a willowisp or many higher level mobs) and you don't have magic boots but do have magic gloves, you should use Dragon Punch / Tail Rake instead of Flying Kick.
- Caveat 2: when power leveling low level friends, you often want to do small amounts of damage. In these cases, having the full spectrum of abilities is useful. For this reason, I kept every one of these skills maxed.
Throwing: Dealing damage on the throw is nice if you want to keep aggro, but it doesn't really matter that much, so this skill doesn't matter much. It will go up on its own.
Feign Death + Sneak: Both essential to Monking. Keep them maxed.
Intimidation: This has a chance to fear. Fear can be useful when soloing in outdoor zones at mid levels. You can keep this maxed by using it on a mob that isn't in range -- it still has a chance to skill up even if you aren't actually close enough to use it on a mob. I never use this in group situations.
Disarm: it can be nice to disarm a mob with a weapon to reduce its damage or to make it stop proccing, though disarm doesn't work immediately enough to rely on. It can be fun to disarm your friends in duels. Also, disarm generates aggro, which is useful when you want to keep aggro for power leveling purposes, for general grouping purposes, or when you want to get a faction hit on a mob without the chance of stealing a kill.
Safe Fall: You won't appreciate how useful this is until you switch to a character that doesn't have it. You don't necessarily need to keep it maxed, but it's certainly handy.
Swimming: This isn't needed every day, but it is useful. In some zones (eg, Kedge, Sebilis), it is very useful. You can max it more easily by walking through shallow water than by swimming. You don't necessarily need to keep it maxed, but you should probably max it by late game.
Sense Heading: Very important. Remember to put a point in it when you start. Bind this to a movement key so that every time you turn left (for instance) you know which way you're heading. If you also bind that movement key to a /location hotkey, then you can get a lot of use out of an app like ZlizEqMap. This should be maxed by the time you're level 10.
Disciplines
Stonestance: useful when soloing. Reduces melee damage by a lot, and it has a very low cooldown.
Whirlwind: useful in emergencies. You riposte all melee attacks from the front.
Voicedance: useful in emergencies. You ignore all melee attacks from all directions.
Inner Flame: useful for going full burn on raid mobs. You deal more damage.
The other disciplines aren't useful.
Power Leveling Others
If you clear aggro (either by being FDed when the mob dies or by FDing and standing up in any of the conditions that clear aggro as described in the pulling section), then the damage you did to a mob doesn't count for you anymore. For instance, if a mob has 100 hp, you can do 80 damage, your friend can do 11 damage, you can FD and clear aggro and then do 9 damage, and and your friend will get the XP from the mob.
BEWARE: in the scenario above, if you do 80, your friend does 11, you clear aggro, and then you do 12 damage (even though the mob only had 9 HP), I think that you still get the XP. Overkill counts to your damage total. If you want to be safe, you can just not do any more damage after clearing aggro.
As such, it's easy to power level friends who are much lower level than you because you can do most of the damage to any mob as long as they can do a little bit of damage, and they'll get the XP. It's easier to power level melees than casters because casters need mana to deal damage.
Also, bind wound is very helpful for keeping your friends high health when power leveling them.
Leveling Locations
I did the following as an Iksar:
- 1-12ish: Field of Bone
- 12ish-20: grouping in Kurn's Tower. I preserved my Burynai faction for roleplay reasons, but I still did the skeletons in the lower levels (avoiding the Thick Boned Skeleton, which is on Burynai faction).
- 20-24: soloing in Kurn's. There are enough blue and high green greater scalebones and lesser icebones / charbones to keep you busy. I would usually go to the top of the zone and clear the ones there, then work my way down to the lower tunnels, then zone out, zone back in, and repeat.
- 24-30: Warslik's Woods. You can solo, but groping is better.
- 30-40: Frontier Mountains. You can solo, but grouping is better.
- 40-45ish: City of Mist groups.
- 45ish-51ish: SolB (Nagafen's Lair) Kobold groups.
- 51-55: SolB Bugs and Bats (you can solo again because you can bind wound to 70%). Also, groups for LDCs or Efreeti are great.
- 55-60, you can solo LDCs or City of Mist second floor, but they are difficult to solo without a fungi or other good gear.
In general, there are plenty of options:
- 1-40, there are a bunch of different spots, so choose your favorite.
- 40-50, you can do Lower Guk, SolB, City of Mist, Dreadlands, or a few other zones.
- 50-60, you can do Karnor's Castle, Howling Stones, Sebilis (though it can be hard to find a group below 55), Kael, Velketor's Labyrinth, or a few other less popular spots.
Gearing
What Bags Should I Use?
When you start out, you should use
WT: 0.4 Weight Reduction: 0%
Capacity: 6 Size Capacity: LARGE
WT: 0.4 Weight Reduction: 35%
Capacity: 8 Size Capacity: LARGE
PENDING LORE
WT: 0.4 Weight Reduction: 25%
Capacity: 8 Size Capacity: GIANT
WT: 1.0 Weight Reduction: 100%
Capacity: 10 Size Capacity: GIANT
LORE ITEM
WT: 1.0 Weight Reduction: 100%
Capacity: 10 Size Capacity: SMALL
LORE ITEM
WT: 0.1 Weight Reduction: 20%
Capacity: 2 Size Capacity: SMALL
LORE ITEM NO DROP
WT: 0.1 Weight Reduction: 70%
Capacity: 8 Size Capacity: GIANT
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
WT: 0.4 Weight Reduction: 100%
Capacity: 10 Size Capacity: GIANT
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
WT: 0.4 Weight Reduction: 100%
Capacity: 10 Size Capacity: GIANT
What Equipment Should I Use?
From 1-50, my equipment was Wu's Quivering Staff, 2 Trance Sticks (I only used them to keep up my 1HB), a couple medicine bags for bandages and shurikens, cured silk armor that I tailored myself, and random drops (eg, Crescent Armor from Dalnir, Droga rings, Forest Loops, Targishin's Bone Mask). At these levels, don't worry about your gear unless you're a twink. Just get levels, and gear will come eventually as you get money.
After that, your top priority is more DPS. Some form of haste is important. Belts of Tranquility rot in Sky all the time, but if you don't want to raid, you can use SCHW or FBSS. You can upgrade your 1HBs to Jade Mace / Stave of Shielding, Adamantine Club / Stave of Shielding, or 2x Stave of Shielding. Once you get your epic, you'll use Epic / Stave of Shielding. You should upgrade your 2HB to an Imbued Fighters Staff. Some people recommend Peacebringers instead, but PBs are heavier than IFSs, and PBs are faster with pretty much equal damage (and in a 2HB, slower is better because of your riposte, your opponent's riposte, and your opponent's damage shield).
After that, here is some mid tier gear to work towards. You might want a regular set of gear as well as a resist set of gear for raids or situations where you might get ice cometed. I am listing mid tier gear because for low levels, cured silk is good enough, and for top tier gear, you can probably figure out what you're working towards.
Ears: Orc Fang Earring, Sarnak Earring of Station, Earring of Essence, Blue Diamond Electrum Earring
Head:Circlet of Tallon, Circlet of Vallon, Crown of the Froglok Kings
Face: Targishin's Bone Mask, Golden Diamond Mask
Chest: Ice Burrower Skin, Fungi, Robe of the Whistling Fists
Neck: Choker of Majdd (if you care about see invis), Golden Blue Diamond Pendant, one of the +6 talismans in Western Wastes, White Gold Necklace
Arms: Azure Sleeves
Back: Spider Fur Cloak, Dire Wolf Hide Cloak, Kunzar Cloak
Belt: FBSS, Belt of Tranquility
Shoulders: Wurm Scale Coat
Wrists: Shackle of Steel, Rijoely's Bracelet, Tijoely's Bracelet, Velium Blue Diamond Bracelet
Gloves: Epic
Boots: Wolf Fur Slippers
Fingers: Platinum Fire Wedding Ring, Velium Fire Wedding Ring, Velium Diamond Wedding Ring,
Range: Stone of Morid, Idol of the Thorned
Also, while the above is individual pieces of armor, there are also armor sets that are good. In some slots, you probably want an item from one of the below sets because there isn't anything great and easily accessible outside of the sets (eg, pants, boots).
- Wu's is cheap.
- Crescent Gear (from Dalnir) is surprisingly good considering how low you can be to get it.
- Black Pantherskin is the best all around armor set that is purchaseable.
- Netted Kelp is good, but people rarely sell it.
- The pieces from Plane of Sky are great, but they can take a while to get.
- The Shiverback Hide armor is good.
- The pieces from most of the Velious armor quests are good as well (especially since they have good clickies, like one that summons shurikens).
What Situational Items and Clickies Should I Use?
The Overthere Hammer (
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 2H Blunt Atk Delay: 50
DMG: 6
Effect: Overthere (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 50
WT: 3.2 Size: GIANT
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: FINGER
Charges: 3
DEX: +2
Effect: Gather Shadows (Any Slot, Casting Time: Instant)
WT: 0.1 Size: TINY
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM NODROP
Slot: FEET
AC: 1
Effect: JourneymanBoots (Any Slot, Casting Time: Instant)
WT: 2.5 Size: SMALL
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: 1H Blunt Atk Delay: 24
DMG: 9
STR: +4 WIS: +4 INT: +4
Effect: Tashani (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 35
WT: 1.6 Size: MEDIUM
Class: WAR CLR PAL RNG SHD DRU
MNK BRD ROG SHM
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM
Charges: 3
Effect: Ensnaring Roots (Any Slot, Casting Time: 1.5 seconds)
WT: 0.1 Size: SMALL
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM NO DROP
Slot: SHOULDERS
AC: 6
DEX: +7
Effect: Levitate (Any Slot, Casting Time: 6.0)
WT: 5.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: WRIST
AC: 6
Effect: See Invisible (Must Equip, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 10
WT: 2.0 Size: SMALL
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
LORE ITEM
Slot: NECK
SV FIRE: +1 SV COLD: +1 SV MAGIC: +2
Effect: Eye of Zomm (Any Slot, Casting Time: 4.0)
WT: 0.2 Size: SMALL
Class: ALL
Class: NEC WIZ MAG ENC
Epic
The monk epic is easy, though it requires some patience.
You'll need to do the Qeynos headband quest, kill a monk in freeport for the sash, camp Targin in SolB, camp Raster in LGuk, camp the pawbuster in KC for one pipe, buy an MQ of the Chardok pipe, and do 4 fights. You should get a group for Targin and KC, but the other parts of the robe quests are soloable in your low 50s.
The first three fights are easy (should be doable with one good group or two okay groups) and the last fight isn't too bad (should be doable with one very good group, two moderate groups, or three okay groups). None of the fights are contested -- Eejag is triggerable from a common mob, and the other three mobs respawn every 2 hours.
