New Member and New Tradeskill Quest Information

[Donnan]

Hello everyone! I finally took the plunge and registered here. I figured I might need help from everyone since I'm embarking on the ambitious 1750 plan (I'm completely bonkers aren't I? ).

I also haven't seen anything posted yet about the new Tradeskill Quest that is going live on October 8th. If I just missed the discussion about it, I'm very sorry about posting it again, but I figured if anyone is interested the people here would be. I'm just going to paste the text of the e-mail, but basically it's a quest taken from the pen-and-paper version of EQ, put out by Sword & Sorcery. Here's the information;

Of course you know that every EQrpg product contains clues to exclusive new online quests. Yes, the quests have been a while in implementation, but the next one makes the delay worth the wait. A huge quest that rivals the POTC trade skill quest goes live on October 8th, 2003. In fact, the rewards for the quest are superior to the POTC earrings (EQo players know what we mean), and one of the rewards can even be attained without the complexity of the trade skill portion of the quest.

Remember the oldie but goodie, the Robe of the Oracle? Well, like the rest of Norrath's inhabitants, the Oracle thought it was high time for him to upgrade, so he's about to unveil his Grand Robe of the Oracle. Or for the clerics, druids, and shamans among you, he has a Grand Tunic of the Oracle to offer. The Oracle will want your Velious robe/armor in exchange but take his word for it, itıs a trade you want to make.

And the other item? How about a phylactery like the one that enabled Miragul's transformation into a lich? With EverQuest trade skills, anything is possible!

[Zacatac]

Hmm, it better be worth trading my ToV robe in for, I'm rather fond of it right now!

Actually I've heard rumors, but this is the 1st detailed post I've read on this subject.

[Leysa]

The Oracle will want your Velious robe/armor in exchange but take his word for it, itıs a trade you want to make.

I hope that's a joke, leather tunics are so rare it's not even funny, plus a lot of us aren't able to get them in the first place. Hope they add an alternate route to obtaining the quest item or I'll be major bummed Factioning for weeks and paying exorbitant amounts of plat for a leather tunic MQ isn't my idea of a good tradeskill quest.

[Scrav]

Edit : removed, misread a month.

[Itzena]

Um, not to sound too negative or anything but is there a link to this message?

[Donnan]

Originally posted by Itzena
Um, not to sound too negative or anything but is there a link to this message?

As I mentioned in my original post, the information was in an e-mail I received. The e-mail was sent out to everyone on EQRPG mailing list.

I went and looked at http://www.eqrpg.com to see if they'd posted anything, but the only relevant discussion seems to be in their forums, which you're welcome to go take a look at.

[Itzena]

Probably why I haven't seen it anywhere then.
Thanks.

[Kaysha Soulsinger]

Ok, time to put some thoughts about this to words.

First, it is obvious that the Robe will be for INT casters, while the Tunic will be for WIS casters. Right here, the word "Tunic" doesn't make me happy. I am a Cleric, so I like a Plate look and Tunic just sounds a bit too much like Leather to me. Already I am somewhat annoyed that three recent upgrades actually have a leather look instead of Plate; if my Breastplate would go the same way (and that's likely, if it's indeed an upgrade to Velious chestpieces - what I currently still use), the requests for SoW and ports will increase ten-fold, I'm afraid.

Second, looking at it, there are seven classes involved, with four different variaties of breastplates, making for 28 different ones. Are there going to be 28 different quest rewards? By the wording above, apparently it isn't. So, how would they compress it then?

One option would be to compress the four different types and let the Oracle give out only seven different ones, depending on class. Regardless of what Velious chestpiece you have, you then get the same one as someone else of your class gets, who has a different chestpiece. I'm just going to list the four Cleric chestpieces, since that's my class:

Chestplate of Stability
AC: 42
STA: +7 WIS: +13 INT: +5 HP: +50
MANA: +60 SV FIRE: +2 SV DISEASE: +3 SV COLD: +3
SV MAGIC: +7 SV POISON: +2
Breastplate of Forbidden Rites
AC: 42
DEX: +5 STA: +7 WIS: +13 HP: +30
MANA: +80 SV DISEASE: +5 SV COLD: +5 SV MAGIC: +7
Templar's Chestplate
AC: 54
STR: +5 STA: +8 WIS: +15 HP: +40
MANA: +90 SV FIRE: +4 SV DISEASE: +3 SV COLD: +3
SV MAGIC: +7 SV POISON: +4
Akkirus' Chestplate of the Risen
AC: 50
STA: +9 WIS: +15 AGI: +5 HP: +50
MANA: +90 SV FIRE: +8 SV DISEASE: +9 SV COLD: +8
SV MAGIC: +9 SV POISON: +8

As you can see, different stats. Unless the Tunic covers these all, the Tunic could be less on stats than the above (like when it misses STA, or STR, or AC).

Another option would be to compress the INT casters and the WIS casters, resulting in eight different quest pieces, depending only on the area from where you got the chestpiece (Plane of Growth, Thurgadin, Kael Drakkal, SkyShrine). There are a few problems with this, however. First, the effect on the chestpieces differ from class to class. Druids use Regrowth of the Grove, Clerics use Mark of Karn, Shamans use Riotous Health, Wizards use Enticement of Flame, Enchanters use Rune IV, Necromancers use Conjure Corpse and Magicians have Shield of Lava. After compressing the classes, you lose this effect. While some of the above effects may be crappy, others may be (very) useful. Furthermore, among the WIS casters you also have AC to consider. Since Clerics are a Plate class, Shamans a Chain class and Druids a Leather class, you would expect AC to match their type. If there's only one item - a Tunic - it's AC will most likely mean it's tailored to the lowest AC class, which means that Shamans and Clerics lose out on AC, unless the AC is higher than 50, which would give Druids an incredible AC boost on their chest piece.

Third option is that there's only two different rewards, one being the Robe, the other being the Tunic.

The biggest problem is that you don't know what you're going to get before you give your current Velious chestpiece away - unless you wait for someone to post a spoiler ...

Just some random thoughts about this quest, in advance. I think that when I see the reward, I'll be "wowzers" and do the quest anyway .

[Trentazra]

Velious robe or tunic? Lame. Despite logging hundreds of hours in Kael and ToV I've seen about 2 robes, 3 breastplates, and 3 leather tunics drop.

This won't be the "next POTC" if only a small number of players can take advantage of it. The success of the POTC earring is based on its ability to be used by everyone and their twinks, not just those who lucked out on drops and awarding of loot.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

and one of the rewards can even be attained without the complexity of the trade skill portion of the quest.

I'm really hoping that's all the Velious tunic/robe bit is ... that its just a little side thing (or alternate path), and not at all related to the main, tradeskill quest.

[CaiserSoze]

Trashed my velious bp a year ago... =( Would be nice if they wouldn't put in new quests requiring rare drops from 4 expansions/extensions ago..... /sigh... hopefully the tradeskill quest will be worthwhile and won't have similar issues.

[NightGod]

From reading posts on the EQRPG site for the past few months, its pretty obvious that the phylactery is the part that is meant to be done with tradeskills and the chest piece will require questing/turn-ins.

Course, I just upgraded my BP, so if they quest is reasonably easy and he accepts a PoG BP instead of requiring one of the three quested, I'll be happy to risk losing a clicky MoK to find out what the new one looks like.

[Heartsong_Steelsoul]

I will try to remember to post what the EQRPG stats for the original robe of the oracle and the grand robe look like. I know, it's a bit of an apples/oranges comparision, but maybe it'll give an idea of the stats in game...

[Taedirk]

Yay! Time to go wish I could farm PoG, since ToV robes drop once every 6 months. /hug new quests and old expansion.

[Quaras]

Velious Tunics

The leather tunics are so rare as to be astounding finds even now. It will be very disappointing (or lead to a ton of farming in TOV/Kael) if they do not up the drop rates on the leather breastplates in connection with this quest. Otherwise the leather folks (i.e. druids) will be left with very little in terms of the Grand Tunic of the Oracle.