Fungus Grove

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Shrooms will assist Mutants. Not sure if lvl 60 can single pull Mutants out of Shrooms or vice versa -- will let you know after I ding 60.

Alright, we made our first attempt at the fungus grove and made some interesting discoveries. Our group was made up of the following:

51 Ranger
50 Warrior
47 Cleric
46 Wizard
45 Warrior
45 Bard

Casters had Kei and we gave the caller the smallest amount of drink. So we stomped off ot the left most cave and the fight began. Two spawned in front of us down in the cave, and one spawned behind us near the entrance. The one outside immediately attacked the caller, and drew agro from two other callers nearby. The other callers swatted this fungusbeast silly, so we didn't get to loot. We made our attempt at the other two. These things hit FAST! Our casters drew aggro easily, and the fungusbeasts made short work of them. Survived the first one and quit immediately to rethink our strategy. Tried again and root didn't last long enough to keep the second mob from below off of us. ((Aside: make certain that your cleric(s) NEVER sit down and get your warriors killed in the process.....thanks Kah ;)) To me at 45 most conned red, some yellows, and very rarely small white ones...this was what we got in the three waves we did before deciding our group wasn't going to cut it. My brother's and my final thoughts are as follows:

1) Need a slower of some sort.
2) Utilize the callers nearby to deal with adds.

We're going to try and bring an enchanter or shaman next time for slows and mezzing. Will give a full report after our next attempt.

Grenik Tinkertoe
Gem Chopper of Ak'Anon
46th season

Edited, Fri Nov 7 15:53:36 2003

It would be interesting if someone, anyone, would post something of tactical or strategic interest on this forum.

Some interesting tidbits might be:
1) Some pulling strategies for each of the mob types
2) Some good ways to avoid aggroing other people, like which way to zone, etc. Rather than complain, help work together to solve training problems. Wow, isn't that a nice idea...
3) Some safe medding/healing areas
4) Some tactical information on how best to take down a specific mob or two
5) Locations of mob types in the zone by coordinates

On a side-note, most of us are not interested in the bad-snare good-snare conversations going on. In addition, I guarantee that nobody is interested in the personal frustrations people are having with Verant. Anyone who cannot get over the fact that: a)EQ is just a fun game b)Anyone complaining is by definition, still playing... c)You have the right to quit if you hate it so much... d)If this is the worst thing you have to deal with in your life, you got it pretty good.

On a positive note, I am a 60 Ranger who is going to learn this zone. When I do so, I'll return and post some relevant and helpful information.

I've been learning the later stage areas, mostly preparing myself for when I get there. I'm a pretty weak little druid who minds her own business, tries not to train, (I'm of the if you know you're going die, turn around and take it like an adult and not become a problem for someone else, school of thought)

I don't quad, I don't like it much, it interferes with my talking. So I happily live out my life just one at a time, never really finding any great loot but I get by.

Now to the point of all of this (could ya tell I was a first time poster? It must be my innocent expression) All of the anger in the posts about snare/root being unusable, and the equal amounts of anger at quaders who run trains, lets think about this for a minute.

They're folks same as you trying to find the best way to level that they can and have learned from the previous 4X levels. The frustration which comes screaming out in the posts shouldn't be at each other, we're all in the same boat, we all pay 10 bucks a month just to be pissed-off (or on) most of the time, with only a few blips of GREAT moments, --they come but let's face if your good times out weigh your bad times in EQ, your too happy to survive in the world :)

Now, who we can be mad at is the folks at Verant, and Sony...They set this up to take a L O N G as possible to squeeze every 1000 cents out of you the first of every month. They don't care about your anger, they don't care about your situation, they are in it to make money. I got no problems with that, Mamma was a madame so I got no judgement about how folks earn their money, but dang it, as least a hooker gives you 5 good minutes all in a row.

Instead of making group-friendly envions (which I'd LOVe to see the psych reports the company must have done to see which would make people play the longest based upon the human dynamic of need for other evolved monkeys) they could pay attention to their customer base, who at least by going by the posts like to solo and make friends on the side, and plan accordingly. Group minded folks could still play group-classes, or choose necro, bard, druid etc, but the rest of us could go have a good time, do things in a resonable amount of time..and still have SOME hair left in our heads rather than where we pulled it out because with a GM tailor halfing bags still fail about half the time or you walk into a zone and BAM you are wiped out by someone's train because they couldn't manage the crowd.

I'm a lawyer and writer (and before anyone says anything about spelling and grammar...I only do those things when there is a paycheck involved, otherwise it's from the hip) and see the weird cruelty that Verant set up, then nerf "because they didn't see the repucussions" well dang-it, that is what we are paying them to do....

Be ready with a few creative minded planners to see how things will get exploited, (kinda like prison planners who have to KNOW what won't get turned into a weapon) and be ready with wicked returns to them who would rob the rest of us by making themselves look good. I'm not a big fan of banning, but I am a big fan of putting a GM on a trouble maker until they quit. Shame is a much better weapon than banning. Making them quit will just make them make new accounts on game-cards and do it all over again. Letting the bad boys know they will get caught, and their deeds known to the WORLD that would have more effect. Save perhaps for those sad souls who misbehave to get attention. The kids who pee-ed their pants in 2nd grade and have fetishes today because of it.

But anyway, Verant could make the place Dynamic...not GM intensive stuff, just random loot holdings and quest making stuff, it wouldn't cost a CPU downtime as much as running the graphics, and it would keep people from using things like Allahkazams (no offense to our host) to skip to 65 by using every known fact about the game. But make the game itself interactive and NEW to each player. All it would take is 10 creative minds, who could come up the volumes of different and BAM you got a new game which won't lose the battle of the MMRPG's in time.

THey don't like twinks, so they fight against it, rather than exploiting the twinkers, there are at least 5 good ways to make it bad to twink a character 50 levels above where they are, without using item restrictions, all of them Role playing, all of them evil (wicked, since some of my best friends are evil) and would stop the silliness in 3 months.

example: Seeing your uber-twink get roughed up (punked out) by bandits who like the bright and shiney stuff with no CR available, that would a good way to get 2nd levels in tattered armor again.

but no, they do stuff like what was being complained about in these forums by people who are frustrated and have fallen into the spiral of hatred for other people who are in the same boat. There was an old chinese general would admire the tactics, divide your enemy and win. If you don't beleive Verant sees player as the enemy then listen to a GM or guide quitting the game and ***** everybody out for being rotten human beings on a 30 minute tirade. The GM's are just the foot soldiers in this ugliness, they are screwed from above and below.

And we follow suit, we hate each other, we let the worst ourselves, do our talking, we covet, we envy we basically jump through the hoops set for us by verant. Because creating a prison is easier to control than a dynamic place in which to play.

With all that said, I'll add this, I like EQ, I like the world and basic lore. They did a good job overall, just they started with reaction somewhere back when and never got their feet under them again. They reacted to smart players rather than making allowances for them. I wish rather than making Tradeskills so miserable, they added about 1000 more recipes to let the skill go to a 1000 or beyond, give us more content, and we'll take away our hate. It is imangative gridlock that keeps the game as limited as it does.

So the next time you get ready to flame at an idiot online or in a post, stop a minute and figure out if they are an idiot or just trying to get through the game, then figure out what Sony VP got a corner office because they figured out how to keep a half a million people coming back for mindless drivel which lead to hatred caused by frustration then not having to pay anyone to think about the elements of the game which made it the grand thing that it is.

Edited, Thu Jan 9 13:56:56 2003

Okay, the Tarmoks are immune to snare.

Is Anything here snareable? Bugs? Bandits? Dregs? shrooms?

thx =)

Just a thought: Root, as I understand it, is a spell that causes the target's feet to become rooted in the ground, causing it to be unable to move. Snare, as I understand it, causes the plants and roots in/on the ground to tangle around the feet of the target, thereby slowing it. Since the MOB's in this zone are, in fact, a form of intelligent/mobile plant, it does make sense that they would have developed methods for freeing themselves from the ground and for preventing themselves from becoming entangled in their lesser bretheren.

Of course, if that were the logic, it should apply to all mobile plant creatures on Luclin.

OK, as you may know the final battle for the Beastlord Epic weapons take place here, this is the info I know from killing Draz Nurakk today with my guild.

The BST interacts with the scout in some way, causing Draz Nurakk to spawn in a hut very close to the water where the dredge guys hang out. Draz is an Iksar BST and has a pet. Draz hits for 150s, pet hits for 170s. Draz is 55, pet is 53. Here is the twist: Draz is immune to melee, except for Monk/Beast hand to hand or Beast claw (as part of epic quest).

We did the battle with the following:
1 WAR
1 MNK
1 PAL
3 SHD
1 RNG
1 BST
2 DRU
2 NEC
1 CLR
2 WIZ
1 ENC
1 MAG

Lvls were between 52 and 60.

BST did the interaction with scout to pop Draz & pet, one group of melees attacked the pet with a DRU healing them, while all the other casters and a PAL attacked Draz. PAL cast stuns and taunted to keep agro.

ENC Tash'd Draz, then I (52 MAG) attempted to land Malosi. It took me 4 casts to get one to stick. PAL had DS on him and we let him get agro until Draz was down to about 70%, then started nuking occasionally. For nukes use Cold or Magic, both of those hit fine (even at 52 and I could land Shock of Swords fine after I landed Malosi). Do NOT attempt to use Fire nukes on Draz, he is nearly immune to Fire. I don't know about Poison or Disease.

When Draz was at 50% we started really nuking, by the time he was to about 40% the melee group had killed the pet and came to help taunt. Interestingly, even those he is immune to melee weapons, he is not immune to H2H. Our MNK was able to punch him just fine. Also interesting, pets can hit Draz well but ONLY if they don't have weapons! I made the mistake of giving my pet daggers to make him dual wield and he didn't do a single point of damage (go figure, fire pet and mob is nearly immune to fire). There was a lvl 60 Necro pet and another Necro pet (not spectre) and they both hit fine. The lvl 60 pet was using slashing attack, but it landed. I guess they have a built in scythe.

The whole fight lasted about 5 minutes and the Pally had to be CH'd twice, if I recall. No one else really got hurt baddly. Draz dropped Dark Animist Tunic, 20AC 9STR 9WIS 6DEX 50HP, I forget the other stats and weight. It's BST only, MAGIC LORE NODROP. Also Dark Animist Gloves 9AC BST only, MAGIC LORE NODROP. Last item was Heart of something 5WIS range slot item. I didn't get to see that stats on heart. BTW Dark Animist armor is black when worn.

So any way, if you're going to do Draz you need about 2 groups of about 53+. You should have 2 Clerics, one SK or Pally to taunt Draz, Chanter for Tash, Shammy/Mage for Malise, and lots of casters. Like I said above, use save vs. Magic or Cold nukes. Magi make Water pets (better nuke damage than Earth or Air), Beastlords give your pet Lightning or Cold proc, and no one give weapons to your pets (not even magic weapons).

Edited, Fri Apr 5 17:55:31 2002

I have ventured into this zone several times to do the faction quest and I am always noticing the large quantity of lvl 60 players. As a 51 Necromancer I am curious to see what types of groups and character tactics are being used here. I know all the snare tactics (such as a Necromancer's snaring darkness line) are obsolete, so thus I could not fear/kite. Is any class able to solo this zone. Most interested in Necro input. Can my pet and DoT's go toe to toe with a single pull? Will the guards save me when things go horribly wrong? What are your tactics for Fungus Grove?

Yeah Verant didn't anticpate kiting, fear kiting or root/blast techniques. The game design idea was interdepence. In other words, they want to the game to be played in groups and to encourage guilds. The have certainly been consistent with that every expansion, nerf and class balancing change. They have been real serious about it in a couple years. But I think at the design meetings if someone could come up with and idea that would take these techniques out of the game without filling up their e-mail inbox with flames that person would go right to Vice-President.

Since when are rooting and snaring unfair tactics???? Its all about game balance. Yosa, you compare this to an exploit (the bit about standing in a spot and nuking where mobs cant go) and theres no comparison. Snaring and rooting is not an exploit, but a strategy used by those who have the means. For say, a druid, the fact that he/she cannot tank the mob makes snaring essential. And you think its unfair???? Just because YOU may not have the means to do it doesnt make it unfair. If V considers it unfair as YOU say - why then a while back did they allow snare and root to stack (when at release this wasnt so) which only makes it even easier. And its NOT what they had in mind????? Where the heck are you pulling this out of???? Sounds like to me someone have a certain kind of envy. Trust me - if it wasnt what they intended - theyd nerf the hell out of it till it was useless.

can someone please post locs of camps.
i printed a map with just loc numbers and when someone tells me to meet them at a certain place i would like to just say ok, rather than ask for a loc.
thanks

Bozac
53 magician
Crystaline Avengers
bristleband

Can anyone tell me if Cleric spells also drop here and if they do..from what mob(s) thanks.

I'm hearing different reports of this zone that everything is KOS, and that mostly everything isn't KOS.

I just want to get to Twilight Sea, I did try through Tenebrous Mts., but my druid friend and I had a bit of trouble there and had to Evac out.

So what would be the safest way? Go back through Tenebrous Mts, just be careful and make like you're playing Frogger trying to avoid the mobs, or to run through Fungus Grove Invisible? (Assuming Invisibilty, unlike TM, works on all or most mobs there.)