Feldon Destiny of Velious provides many options for solo and duo players wishing to gear up without stepping into a heroic dungeon.
- For starters, the Othmir and Snowfang quest lines reward gear that was unheard of except for raiders in Sentinel’s Fate.
- Public Quests offer sets of gear, weapons, and more, with or without joining a group or raid provided enough players are present and successful.
- A largely unknown solo/duo dungeon Crystalline Breaks provides additional gear up options.
- And finally today sees the introduction of a Velious Solo Shard Quest to fill out player options for gearing up without a full group.
Public Quests
While we’re disappointed that GU60 did not introduce the Pit of the Awakened Public Quest, briefly seen in Velious beta, the two existing Public Quests remain busy. Even Storm Gorge, which with each subsequent revision seems to become more of a pain-in-the-rump for all but organized raid forces who have long since outgrown it, continues to have a steady stream of visitors showing up for a chance to gear up.
There are two sets of gear rewarded in Public Quests, depending on the level of difficulty the PQ was completed and your level of participation. The lesser set has only white adornment slots, while the better set has both white and yellow adornment slots. A Chestpiece and Weapon are very rare drops which some players have completed hundreds of PQs to acquire. It’s worth pointing out that certain armor only drops in one PQ or the other, while others drop in both.
Crystalline Breaks
There’s also the often overlooked solo/duo Crystalline Breaks dungeon located just off of Ry’Gorr Keep in the Eastern Wastes. It is unlocked via an early Ry’Gorr questline and becomes a normal repeatable dungeon once that questline is completed. Crystalline Breaks is easily soloed but more fun with a duo setup, and is stocked with 4 easy names with considerable upgrades even from Public Quest gear.
Solo Velium Shard Quest
So as you’ve probably heard, a solo shard quest has been added in Game Update 60 to allow solo players to slowly acquire heroic gear. The quest is offered by a Coldain dwarf in Thurgadin Harbor named Bas. You will need at least 10,000 faction with Thurgadin before he will offer you the quest.
Unlike past solo shard quests introduced in TSO, and SF, the Velious Solo Shard Quest puts you in a proper dungeon (a variation on Iceshard Keep), and gives you a choice. While players are welcome to slog through and kill every mob in the zone on their way to the shard chest, this will take a long time due to the high amounts of health each mob has. They don’t put out a lot of damage, as the zone is balanced for solo players, but it is slow going nonetheless.
In keeping with the theme of choices, there are better rewards for not being spotted at all (50 gold and a Cloudy Velium Jewel), and lesser rewards for being noticed but shaking off the enemy (50 gold), although all players will still get a Pure Velium Shard for completing the zone. From Gninja:
Noone says you can’t just go into the zone guns a blazing and get your shard and be done. You can just get addition rewards if you want to take your time and dodge mobs etc. As long as you finish the quest you get the shard no matter what.
NOTE: The Velious Solo Shard is not just one quest, but three on a daily rotation. EQ2 ZAM has a writeup on the three quests. According to Matthios of Butcherblock, if the quest you’ve picked up is not completed correctly, you can end up with an unfinishable zone.
Although you’ll want to visit the 4 factions in Velious — Othmir, Snowfang, Thurgadin, and Ry’Gorr to determine which faction you wish to build first, a devious Gnoll has managed to work out a partnership with the 4 factions and offers almost all gear and adornments in a one-stop-shop on the Thurgadin Harbor docks.
Cloudy Velium Jewels can be turned into any of the 4 Velious factions to gain favor and buy their adornments and other items. Players can already acquire 2 Cloudy Velium Jewels per day from each Public Quest.
But before you drop all those shards on a merchant, you may want to consult your local Tradeskiller who, if he or she has acquired the 3rd edition book from Tradeskill Instances can make much of this armor and jewelry for you for a lot less shards.
Too bad the solo Shard quest come too late, since GU60 shard are just good to buy adornments and prety much useless (at last very soon for people who dont have hundreds stockpiled yet)
Same as Domination quest and DoV zone.
People who have clean kael have no more reason to do previous zone, Tower, Velketor, Kael got banished from the game with the GU60.
It’s a stand alone, where you only need to do drunder. Everything else is a wast of time that will give… nothing. You should get enough token from drunder for brough the few adornement you need.
So it’s a good thing for people who dont group… But they will be allowed with effort to buy something that is not anymore best no raider gear. So it’s craps 😉
More they add thing to EQ2, less we can play.
How long befor everyone run in circle with nothing to do ? GU60 will not help for sure.
I have plenty to do. That happens with the bulk of your guild leaves for Rift.
You’re righ…Lath…you should never join groups that aren’t Drunder. I’m not suggesting I’ll do that. It sounds like you shouldn’t waste your (gaming) time outside the top heroic zones.
For others who lost their raiding guilds to Rift or progression bugs…I’ll catch up with you to chill and have some fun in any zone where time wasting is fun (which is usually more about the group than the zone).