So you just dinged level 10, and it is finally time for you to start your meteoric rise to fame as the baddest, meanest, most feared player in all of Norrath. You shun the safety of the city walls and hunger for your first victim. There, you’re in luck, an even con, and presumably your first victory, is standing just a few steps away. You approach the fight with the confidence of an immortal Greek God and begin your assault.   

AA Points and Level Locking

If you spend any time on a PvP server, you are bound to hear a lot of talk about AA. “How should I spend my AA as an illusionist?” “I am level 15 and I am looking to quest for some AA, where should I go” are some questions you might see, or even have yourself. Although it seems nobody really knows exactly what AA stands for (popular theories include Alternate Advancement or Achievement Award), they are still an important part to building a well developed PvP character. You gain access to AA’s after level 10. You can hit the ‘L’ key to bring up your AA menu. Each class has different AA’s to chose from, and they range from enhancement of particular abilities, to gaining completely new ones. AA points can be gained in many ways, the most popular of which is questing. Any quest that is level 10 or above AND that is green or higher to you will give you achievement xp, which you can monitor by right clicking the xp bar at the bottom of your screen and choosing “Show Achievement XP.” It should be noted, however, that repeatable quests do not give AA once they have already been completed. At low tiers gaining some quick AA is not hard to do; there are a few hotspots where many people do questing circuits for some fast AA. I usually go to the following zones to get my AA: the Caves, Greater Faydark, Darklight Woods, and Antonica. I guess now would be a good time to explain how to travel between the low tier zones of Norrath. Getting From Qeynos to Kelethin: If you start in Qeynos and you need to get to Kelethin or Greater Feydark (Gfay), you can do it in about 5 minutes, and this is how you do it. Go to the Qeynos Harbor docks and find the magical carpet (there are usually several players standing near it.) Click the carpet and it will zone you to the Sinking Sands. You will appear on a large blue platform; head inland until you see another magic carpet under some tents. RIGHT CLICK that magic carpet and chose “Return to Butcherblock Mountains.” You will appear at some docks in Butcherblock Mountains (BBM); attack something more powerful than you so that you can die and chose to respawn across the zone. When you die, respawn near Greater Faydark. You will appear at a small tent under a gryphon tower with a path near it; turn left onto the path and follow it to the Gfay. Now you have reached Gfay and Kelethin is a city that is made up of platforms high up in the trees. Getting from Greater Faydark to Qeynos: If you start in Greater Faydark (Gfay), and need to get to Qeynos, you can do it in about 5 minutes, and this is how you do it. On the western side of the Gfay, you can find the zone to Butcherblock Mountains (BBM). After you enter BBM, attack something more powerful than you so that you can die and chose to respawn across the zone. When you die, chose to respawn at the Butcherblock Docks. At the Butcherblock docks, you need to find a magical carpet. It is tucked out of the way in the corner. You can find it easily by making it so that the water is on your right hand side, and then walking past the two docks that jut into the bay; the magical carpet will be right in front of you then. Click on the carpet and it will zone you to the Sinking Sands. You will appear on a large blue platform; head inland until you see another magic carpet under some tents. RIGHT CLICK that magic carpet and chose “Return to Qeynos Harbor.” Now you have reached Qeynos Harbor. The Caves: The Caves are a great place to start questing for AA; it is a small zone, accessible from the Qeynos bell, with a lot happening in it. I usually begin questing for AA here because it is fast, easy, and there are few Freeporters to interfere with you as you start developing your character. There are several quests waiting for you right as you zone in, get  going on all of them. The quests here are pretty straight forward, and you can usually finish up in a night’s worth of work. In the end you’ll be a few AA the richer. Greater Faydark (Gfay): Greater Faydark is probably my favorite zone; it is a sprawling forest with huge trees, a varied terrain, and an abundance of activity, but aside from its undeniable beauty and allure, it is also a great place to get AA. There are several quests that can be done in Gfay, and happily most of them come from the same 2 places. The first place to find quests is within the treetop city of Kelethin; there are four guilds there that give special guild-quests called city writs. Each guild gives several writs for each tier, and it is a good idea to do the writs in sets of 4 (meaning get 4 quests while you’re in the city, then complete the quests and return for 4 new writs) The next source of quests for Gfay is a small encampment just south of the giant wizard spires; the wizard spires are in the middle of the southern half of the zone and can be seen on the map as a feature in the shape of a large X. I recommend getting the writs from the guilds and the quests from the encampment at the same time because many of the quest goals overlap (for example, killing a certain type of mob may help you complete two quests at once) Questing in Gfay may take a couple of nights, but it is easy because most of the quest-mobs are in fixed locations, so there is not a lot of searching or waiting. Darklight Woods (DLW): Darklight Woods is a free, downloadable bonus zone that can be reached by traveling to the Commonlands vie the teleportation spire, and then heading directly north to a cave entrance. The quests that are found here come from a cluster of tents just west of the center of the zone and a large oak tree that is in the northwest corner of the zone (both spots can easily be found on the map) Like Gfay, the quests here are pretty straight forward, the problem lies in the fact the this zone is typically crawling with PvP opponents, and the cluster of tents where most of the quests begin happens to be the Freeport respawn point. Because of the nature of this zone, with all its PvP, estimating how long it would take to complete the quests would be impossible, but in spite of the challenges, I still recommend questing here.  Antonica (Ant): Ah Antonica. Antonica offers a great number of quests. The only drawback to Antonica is it’s sheer size and finding the quest mobs. Questing in Antonica takes a very long time, and I usually quest here last because it helps to already have a healthy amount of AA before you begin roaming around there. The level 10 – 15 quests can be found at the cabin, which is in Antonica-West, just north of Archer’s Woods. The level 16 and up quests can be found at Windstalker Village, which is in Antonica-East by the lake where the aqueduct system ends. In addition to these quest sources, there are also Far Seas Trade Requisition (FSTR) quests, which drop randomly off of mobs. These quests are done like any other quests, and can be turned in to a lady in the lighthouse when completed. I recommend holding off on turning in your FSTR’s until you are confident that you have found them all, otherwise you will pick up the same ones over and over again and possibly get confused over which ones you have already completed; there are probably around 15 in all, but I don’t remember the exact number. Be prepared to spend a lot of time searching for quest-mobs in Antonica. The one major upside to questing there is that the harvestable nodes are abundant and very easy to spot in the wide open plains, so this is a good opportunity to find some rare harvests. All of the zones listed here have more quests sources than the ones mentioned here, but I outlined only the ones that are conveniently packed together in the interest of gaining AA as quickly as possible. Once you have completed the quests in all of these areas you should have close to 20 or so AA, and at tier 2, that is about average. If you want to go above and beyond, however, you could quest in the evil zones and zones that are off the beaten path, but discussing that would be beyond the scope of this guide. Here are two links that will greatly help you with your questing: http://www.eq2interface.com/downloa...onOfficial.html - This is a downloadable utility that updates your in-game map system with points that show where almost everything is located (If this link changes, as sometimes things on the internet do, try searching for EQ2 Map Updater in Google) http://eq2.allakhazam.com/db/zonelist.html - This is Allakhazam’s EQ2 zone list. This site is great for quest information because it lists the quests from each zone and they can be organized by level. Level Locking: Level locking is probably one of the hardest things for the PvP beginner to understand. For those who don’t know, level locking is accomplished by disabling combat experience, thereby making it so that your character only gains levels experience through questing. Technically while you are level locked, you can still gain adventure levels, but it will take much longer. Almost all PvPers opt to disable their combat experience in order to become more powerful. It is such a hard concept to grasp because it seems completely counter-intuitive; how could keeping a character locked at a low level possibly make them more powerful? The answer has to do with maximizing AA. By making it so that your character does not gain xp from killing mobs, you have the ability to complete a lot more quests for any given level range than you would normally. Imagine you are out adventuring for AA, and your quest-journal is filled with quests that range in difficulty level from green (easy) to red (hard). As you begin to kill mob after mob for your various quests, you happily find that you have gained an adventure level. Not thinking much about it, you continue your questing, and suddenly you ding again. Now you decide to look at your quest journal again, but to your dismay you find that a good portion of quests that were once green are now gray. Those gray quests give no AA (unless you mentor down to someone, but most players like to avoid that), and each gray quest in your log equals a missed opportunity for more AA. That essentially is why most PvPers level lock. There is another group of level lockers who chose to remain at low level long after they have maximized their AA. These players chose to compete exclusively in low tier PvP, which almost always has a healthy population, and they invest large amounts of time and platinum to develop their characters for that specific tier. Unless you are one of these players yourself, it is best to just avoid them, as their investments have made them extremely powerful.  

Race and Class Selection

Race Selection - Erudite, Erudite, Erudite: In my opinion race selection for PvP is very easy. If you can look past the baldness, and those unsightly glyphs, Erudites have a huge racial advantage in PvP: Aura Sense. Aura Sense is an Erudite only vision enhancement that allows the user to see what class archetype other players are. The way it works is that characters with magical abilities are outlined by a thin, but clearly visible, glow. A green glow means that the character is a healer type, a blue glow signifies caster types, and no glow means they are fighter types. Knowing which characters are capable of what, especially where most PvPers hide their class type by being Anonymous, is a huge boon in any PvP situation. And if you cannot stomach the base statistics of an Erudite, just know that even at low tier, gear makes it so that race based stats only make up a negligible portion of a character’s over-all stats. In my opinion Aura Vision more than makes up for any small lack in statistics that an Erudite might have. The Player Bombodale has noted that small races, such as the Ratonga and Fea, offer an advantage in PvP because their size makes them harder to target. This can be quite helpful, especially when there are several targets in the area, and your opponent is forced to use the mouse to select targets instead of using targeting buttons. http://www.eqsummoners.com/eq2/crea...n-conjuror.html - This is a Summoner site that happens to have a well laid out table comparing the different races of EQ2. Class Selection: Class selection and class balance is one of the most contentious and fiercely debated subjects in all of Norrath, especially in PvP. Some players believe that the classes are for the most part balanced and that anyone can succeed with any class as long as the take the time to learn and develop their character. Others believe that there are inherent class imbalances and that while some classes are extremely powerful, others are virtually useless. With so many factors affecting a character’s PvP potency, a fair comparison of classes is almost impossible, but I personally believe that there definitely are class imbalances. In my opinion, there are certain classes that, no matter how much gear they have and how many AA, will always be at a disadvantage, and likewise, there are classes that the opposite is true for. A class by class comparison is beyond the scope of this guide, but there are a few things to consider when choosing your class with PvP in mind. Healing: Having the ability to heal is probably one of the biggest advantages contributing to PvP survivability. Armor Type and Mitigation: The difference between a cloth wearer and a plate wearer cannot be overstated. Being able to survive the first surprise volley of melee damage that many classes are capable of will enable you to turn an unexpected ambush to your favor. To see exactly how mitigation works, open your persona window and mouseover the Mitigation number; it should say something like, “You will absorb X% of the damage from a level Y opponent.” Stuns and Stifles: Stuns and stifles are devastating in PvP; having the ability to completely derail somebody’s plan of attack is not only enjoyable, but very beneficial to survival in PvP. Most people know what stuns are; they freeze your opponent for a short duration making it so they cannot move, cast, attack, or do anything for that matter. Stifles are similar to stuns. When someone is stifled, they cannot cast any spells or perform any combat arts; however, they can still move and auto-attack. Burst Damage: Many classes succeed in PvP simply because they can put so much damage on their opponents in such a short time, that their opponent does not even get a chance to fight back. Tracking: Tracking in PvP is quite helpful for obvious reasons. Being able to find your enemies instead of them finding you has many advantages. Roots and Snares: Roots and snares are also important in PvP. Aside from the obvious defensive applications for these types of abilities, they are also quite useful offensively. You will find that many PvPers will attempt to turn tail and flee when it becomes obvious that they are losing a fight; in those moments there are few things more satisfying than having a root or snare, so that you can see the fight to its rightful conclusion. Well, that’s about all that I can think of for this guide. I hope many of you find it helpful in your quest to becoming a serious PvP contender. Please feel free to respond to this post or look me up on Nagafen. My toon names usually begin with Kust. Your first attack lands, but doesn’t do much. Your second attack gets resisted outright. Your third attack lands, but again, doesn’t do much. Uh Oh, you think to yourself, this is not going well… Then your unsuspecting target decides to lash out. A second later a menu comes up asking where you would like to respawn, and you’re scrolling through your combat log wondering, What the hell just happened?