It’s been about a month since I made my return to Norrath (the world of EQ2) and it has been a total blast. Grabthar the shadow knight is now level 72 and questing in Kunark. He has 93 aa (a tad on the low side) but is on target for having 100 aa by level 80, if not more. I decided to take a break from Grab for a while, for a couple of reasons. First, I feel like I’ve missed a lot of great content by leveling so fast. We skipped so many dungeons, open instances, and closed instances on our way to “endgame.” And second, shadow knights are tanks. I didn’t know this when I rolled (the class was called “Fighter”). I don’t really want to play a tank. I’ll continue playing Grab to 80 and thereafter, but I don’t want to tank instances.
I have been playing my low-30s ranger, Ipswich. This is the ratonga that I rolled a while back and betrayed Freeport with, at around level 15. He’s a ton of fun. The ranger is a tough class to play–the style is unlike anything else I’ve played–but the scout archetype (which includes the ranger, assassin, troubadour, dirge, brigand, and swashbuckler) is so well-implemented, with features like stealth, and tracking, and pickpocketing. I’m not thinking about endgame with this guy at all. Rather, I want to level a little more slowly, take time to experience dungeons and instances.
Ipswich is also part of a larger playing group. My wife and one of our friends have joined me and my brother on our quests through Norrath. The wife plays a warlock and the friend plays an assassin, while my brother has switched to the wizard. So we have a ranger/assassin combo and a warlock/wizard combo. That’s some devastating dps, but at the cost of fighting over gear. :+)
I ran a couple of dungeons on Grabthar last week, and I’ll post about that as part of a bigger piece about instances and stuff in EQ2. I’ll get to it if I can peel myself away from the ranger for 30 minutes!
