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Ladies and gentlemen, I submit this guide for your approval. May it be of some use to someone.
Hollyfeld’s Guide to Enchanter Research
So you’re an Enchanter, and you wish to learn research to learn those spells you are unable to find from merchants. You have just embarked on a long and tedious path. But life is not all bad; you can thank the Powers that Be (even if you are Agnostic) that you are an Enchanter, because spell research is easier for you than all of the other casters. Where other casters look for two or three Words of… (or Runes in the case of Wizards) and combine these with a parchment and quill, Enchanters simply have to find the pages of someone’s tome, writ, or grimoire and combine these pages (without a parchment or quill) in the Tome of Endless Enchantments. The pages you need to find follow a nice progression through the levels as well.
Before I continue, I have to say that there is very little accurate information available concerning skill levels and trivial levels for combinations. My information is based on the best sources I have available and my numbers will be fairly close, but probably not exact. My best sources of information are EQ Caster’s Realm and EQ Trader’sCorner; please visit both of these websites for more thorough information.
Your first skill point in Research must be trained, and you cannot train in Research until you reach level 16. Some references suggest you do not train your first point until you reach level 19. The next thing you have to keep in mind is there is a skill cap for your character level. The formula for this is:
5x(your level –15)
This means that if your character is at level 30, your highest possible research skill will be 5x(30-15), or 75. So, if you place your first training point into research at level 16, you will automatically have a skill level of 5 for research and you will not be able to raise it since you are at your maximum skill for that level. (I trained my first skill point at 16 because I didn’t want to wait to learn the Mesmerization spell. It still took me a few levels before I could successfully research it, though.)
So you’ve trained your first point in research. Now what? You will need a Tome of Endless Enchantments, which can be bought from vendors all over Norrath. There should be one at your Enchanter’s guild in your starting town. Then, you simply open the tome (it’s actually a 4 slot container, not a book per se), place the pages inside, press the combine button and hope for success (and skill-ups).
The pages drop randomly from creatures from the same level of the spell to 5 levels above. This means that to research a level 20 spell, pages will drop on creatures that are from level 20 to 25. They seem to be uncommon drops, however, and it’s much easier to find these pages on vendors. The research combinations seem to become trivial at the research skill cap one level above the level of your next set of spells. What this means is that level 16 spell combinations will become trivial somewhere around skill level 30 (the research cap when you reach level 21). Pages also seem to drop more often in particular zones, but I have never seen a list to show what zones the pages drop in. There seems to be no correlation to what creatures drop the spells – if you have two creatures of any type of the same level, each is just as likely to drop the page you want.
Faded pages deserve some special mention. When you find one of these, place them in your research tome by themselves and hit the combine key. On a success, you will get a page that will be used for a second combination to get your spell. There are two Faded Velishoul’s Tome pages (which become page 16 and page 108 after successful researching) and five Faded Salil’s Writ pages. Researching these faded pages becomes trivial somewhere higher than the end spells they will become. In other words, the trivial level for the Invigor spell (created from Velishoul’s Tome pages 16 and 17) is somewhere around 75, but the trivial level to research the page that makes Velishoul’s Tome page 16 is somewhere higher – no one seems to be exactly sure how much higher. You should look carefully for Faded Velishoul’s Tome pages which become page 108 – these seem to be very rare. I can count on one hand the number of these pages I’ve seen the entire time I’ve been playing Everquest, and it is used to research the Feedback spell, which is the only Damage Shield spell Enchanters receive. Some of the rumors I’ve heard tell that these pages may drop in The Burning Wood, which is one of the less utilized zones. I know the Feedback spell, so I don’t look any more. :-p
The other thing that must be mentioned is the Phantasmal Tome. This is the research book that replaces your Tome of Endless Enchantments. Once you reach skill level 100 in research, go to the Gulf of Gunthak and find Researcher Alvarik. Tell him that you are an Enchanter and he will give you a Phantasmal Tome. You can now sell your Tome of Endless Enchantments or pass it down to a younger upcoming Enchanter; all of the research combinations can be made in this new tome. (If you have a Geerlok Automated Quill which raises your research skill by 5%, you can get your new tome from this guy with a skill of slightly less than 100.)
You’ve read this far, and now you are wondering “Which vendors am I supposed to buy these things from?” and “**** – isn’t there a faster way than this?” The answer to the first question is any vendor you can find that is selling them at the time. Vendors will only have these if another player has sold the pages to the vendor in the first place. A very good place to look is the Plane of Knowledge on all of the merchants and librarians (yes, I said ALL of them – there’s no telling which ones have had pages sold to them). For the second question, there are two faster ways…
The first faster way is training. You can go to a trainer at any time and train up to your skill cap, and eventually to your maximum level of 200. This can get very expensive at higher skill levels.
The second faster way is through researching Faded Salil’s Writ pages. These can be bought for much less than most other research pages, and now, I’ll let you in on one of my secrets. These pages are very easy to find if you look in the right places. I’ve literally bought stacks of them at a time. They can be found most often in the Rathe Mountains at the vendors near the inn near the Druid ring (the closest vendors to the Hill Giants) and in the Ocean of Tears from the Sisters’ vendor near the dock on Sister Isle, the Dwarven armor merchant at the Northwest corner of Sister Isle, and on the Magician spell merchant in the ruins on the Ancient Cyclops Isle. As I said before, there are five different Faded Salil’s pages and some of them trivial higher than others, but these pages will get you well into the 140’s for your skill level. Pay close attention to your current skill to make sure you don’t waste pages trying to practice over the cap for your level. How do you tell one page from another? Well, you can’t until you research it. Faded pages that become different pages will not stack with each other, though, so you can at least tell you’ve got more than one type of page.
I mentioned earlier that the research pages for Enchanters follow a nice progression. Here’s a short list of what to look for. More complete lists can be found at EQ Caster’s Realm, EQ Trader’s Corner, and other sites.
- Level 16 spells – Tasarin’s Grimoire pages in the 20’s (left and right halves)
- Level 20 spells – Tasarin’s Grimoire pages 30 and up (left and right halves)
- Level 24 spells – Tasarin’s Grimoire page 390 (left and right halves) and Velishoul’s Tome pages under 20 (consecutive pages)
- Level 29 spells – Velishoul’s Tome pages above 40 (left and right halves)
- Level 34 spells – Salil’s Writ pages 90 and under (left and right halves)
- Level 39 spells – Salil’s Writ pages above 150 (left and right halves)
- Level 44 spells – Nilitim’s Grimoire pages under 360 (consecutive pages)
- Level 49 spells – Nilitim’s Grimoire pages above 370 (consecutive pages)
Levels 50 and up, you are still looking for pages of someone’s tome, grimoire, compendium, etc. Unfortunately, you now have to look for left and right halves and find consecutive pages, and you now have to buy a piece of parchment and a quill like the other casters. On the bright side, you are also now able to research spells for Wisdom casters, and you can also use your research skills to create swatches and ribbons for tailoring magical robes. All of these research combinations will have to be made in your Phantasmal Tome; you will no longer be able to use the Tome of Endless Enchantments.
Hollyfeld’s Guide to Enchanter Research
So you’re an Enchanter, and you wish to learn research to learn those spells you are unable to find from merchants. You have just embarked on a long and tedious path. But life is not all bad; you can thank the Powers that Be (even if you are Agnostic) that you are an Enchanter, because spell research is easier for you than all of the other casters. Where other casters look for two or three Words of… (or Runes in the case of Wizards) and combine these with a parchment and quill, Enchanters simply have to find the pages of someone’s tome, writ, or grimoire and combine these pages (without a parchment or quill) in the Tome of Endless Enchantments. The pages you need to find follow a nice progression through the levels as well.
Before I continue, I have to say that there is very little accurate information available concerning skill levels and trivial levels for combinations. My information is based on the best sources I have available and my numbers will be fairly close, but probably not exact. My best sources of information are EQ Caster’s Realm and EQ Trader’sCorner; please visit both of these websites for more thorough information.
Your first skill point in Research must be trained, and you cannot train in Research until you reach level 16. Some references suggest you do not train your first point until you reach level 19. The next thing you have to keep in mind is there is a skill cap for your character level. The formula for this is:
5x(your level –15)
This means that if your character is at level 30, your highest possible research skill will be 5x(30-15), or 75. So, if you place your first training point into research at level 16, you will automatically have a skill level of 5 for research and you will not be able to raise it since you are at your maximum skill for that level. (I trained my first skill point at 16 because I didn’t want to wait to learn the Mesmerization spell. It still took me a few levels before I could successfully research it, though.)
So you’ve trained your first point in research. Now what? You will need a Tome of Endless Enchantments, which can be bought from vendors all over Norrath. There should be one at your Enchanter’s guild in your starting town. Then, you simply open the tome (it’s actually a 4 slot container, not a book per se), place the pages inside, press the combine button and hope for success (and skill-ups).
The pages drop randomly from creatures from the same level of the spell to 5 levels above. This means that to research a level 20 spell, pages will drop on creatures that are from level 20 to 25. They seem to be uncommon drops, however, and it’s much easier to find these pages on vendors. The research combinations seem to become trivial at the research skill cap one level above the level of your next set of spells. What this means is that level 16 spell combinations will become trivial somewhere around skill level 30 (the research cap when you reach level 21). Pages also seem to drop more often in particular zones, but I have never seen a list to show what zones the pages drop in. There seems to be no correlation to what creatures drop the spells – if you have two creatures of any type of the same level, each is just as likely to drop the page you want.
Faded pages deserve some special mention. When you find one of these, place them in your research tome by themselves and hit the combine key. On a success, you will get a page that will be used for a second combination to get your spell. There are two Faded Velishoul’s Tome pages (which become page 16 and page 108 after successful researching) and five Faded Salil’s Writ pages. Researching these faded pages becomes trivial somewhere higher than the end spells they will become. In other words, the trivial level for the Invigor spell (created from Velishoul’s Tome pages 16 and 17) is somewhere around 75, but the trivial level to research the page that makes Velishoul’s Tome page 16 is somewhere higher – no one seems to be exactly sure how much higher. You should look carefully for Faded Velishoul’s Tome pages which become page 108 – these seem to be very rare. I can count on one hand the number of these pages I’ve seen the entire time I’ve been playing Everquest, and it is used to research the Feedback spell, which is the only Damage Shield spell Enchanters receive. Some of the rumors I’ve heard tell that these pages may drop in The Burning Wood, which is one of the less utilized zones. I know the Feedback spell, so I don’t look any more. :-p
The other thing that must be mentioned is the Phantasmal Tome. This is the research book that replaces your Tome of Endless Enchantments. Once you reach skill level 100 in research, go to the Gulf of Gunthak and find Researcher Alvarik. Tell him that you are an Enchanter and he will give you a Phantasmal Tome. You can now sell your Tome of Endless Enchantments or pass it down to a younger upcoming Enchanter; all of the research combinations can be made in this new tome. (If you have a Geerlok Automated Quill which raises your research skill by 5%, you can get your new tome from this guy with a skill of slightly less than 100.)
You’ve read this far, and now you are wondering “Which vendors am I supposed to buy these things from?” and “**** – isn’t there a faster way than this?” The answer to the first question is any vendor you can find that is selling them at the time. Vendors will only have these if another player has sold the pages to the vendor in the first place. A very good place to look is the Plane of Knowledge on all of the merchants and librarians (yes, I said ALL of them – there’s no telling which ones have had pages sold to them). For the second question, there are two faster ways…
The first faster way is training. You can go to a trainer at any time and train up to your skill cap, and eventually to your maximum level of 200. This can get very expensive at higher skill levels.
The second faster way is through researching Faded Salil’s Writ pages. These can be bought for much less than most other research pages, and now, I’ll let you in on one of my secrets. These pages are very easy to find if you look in the right places. I’ve literally bought stacks of them at a time. They can be found most often in the Rathe Mountains at the vendors near the inn near the Druid ring (the closest vendors to the Hill Giants) and in the Ocean of Tears from the Sisters’ vendor near the dock on Sister Isle, the Dwarven armor merchant at the Northwest corner of Sister Isle, and on the Magician spell merchant in the ruins on the Ancient Cyclops Isle. As I said before, there are five different Faded Salil’s pages and some of them trivial higher than others, but these pages will get you well into the 140’s for your skill level. Pay close attention to your current skill to make sure you don’t waste pages trying to practice over the cap for your level. How do you tell one page from another? Well, you can’t until you research it. Faded pages that become different pages will not stack with each other, though, so you can at least tell you’ve got more than one type of page.
I mentioned earlier that the research pages for Enchanters follow a nice progression. Here’s a short list of what to look for. More complete lists can be found at EQ Caster’s Realm, EQ Trader’s Corner, and other sites.
- Level 16 spells – Tasarin’s Grimoire pages in the 20’s (left and right halves)
- Level 20 spells – Tasarin’s Grimoire pages 30 and up (left and right halves)
- Level 24 spells – Tasarin’s Grimoire page 390 (left and right halves) and Velishoul’s Tome pages under 20 (consecutive pages)
- Level 29 spells – Velishoul’s Tome pages above 40 (left and right halves)
- Level 34 spells – Salil’s Writ pages 90 and under (left and right halves)
- Level 39 spells – Salil’s Writ pages above 150 (left and right halves)
- Level 44 spells – Nilitim’s Grimoire pages under 360 (consecutive pages)
- Level 49 spells – Nilitim’s Grimoire pages above 370 (consecutive pages)
Levels 50 and up, you are still looking for pages of someone’s tome, grimoire, compendium, etc. Unfortunately, you now have to look for left and right halves and find consecutive pages, and you now have to buy a piece of parchment and a quill like the other casters. On the bright side, you are also now able to research spells for Wisdom casters, and you can also use your research skills to create swatches and ribbons for tailoring magical robes. All of these research combinations will have to be made in your Phantasmal Tome; you will no longer be able to use the Tome of Endless Enchantments.