Everquest Ding 98 -- ok, if you say so . . .

I don't know, man.  This level's ding did not feel satisfying for some reason.  Usually there's this great moment of elation followed by hands rubbing together to see how much better that made my character.  It should have felt great! Level 98 for the Beastlord brings an upgrade to your pet, a couple great buff spells, and a standard power increase, but getting there was grindy and still full of deaths. I guess that's just Everquest though.

So lemme try to figure this out . . .

Maybe it was because there was more elation during the middle of this level than usual? What do I mean by that? I mean, I finally remembered my second account had a cleric on it. I logged in the account and I didn't realize I had worked up this my Frogluk cleric to 95 as well.  What the heck?!  That's amazing! TIME TO TWO BOX!

Stingite, Sethanae, Bigdeal, and Jatrier back together again!

Baron Bigdeal brings with him an erudite caster DPS merc and that alone started making fights go faster and faster. The funniest thing is that Baron Bigdeal THE CLERIC did not get kicked from my old 2017 guild, but Stingite Sleestak THE BEASTLORD did. I see where you place value in things, old guild leaders. I SEE WHAT YOU DID!

Perhaps my lack of elation came from the stupid re-learning curve of this game? With newfound power, comes new stupid tests of it.  There's a boss in Rubak Oseka named Tiuanid the Faithful. He conned yellow to me, but I'm like . . . LOOK AT THIS TEAM! WE CAN KILL ANYTHING . . . and tried to take him down. I pulled him and started to work on him, and at first it looked like I could pull it off, but then the Mez spell started hitting my beastlord over and over, and I was just locked down. Come to find out, my 2nd box cleric could have been casting a spell called radiant cure to cure the mez, which I had no clue even existed. So . . . the learning curve lengthens YET AGAIN. 

Could it be that two-boxing brings with it its own set of problems? It takes twice as long to get somewhere. I'm managing two screens of knobs and dials. I'm also managing group agro now . . . idk. It all just makes me grumpy.  And now that I know I have the second account and how much it speeds up kills, how can I ever go back to just playing one account. LOL.  Look, these are all first world problems here, folks. Just let an old Everquest player rant for a second.

Maybe it just wasn't different enough from the last level? I mean, that's kind of a base issue with Everquest. With Sarith being a Hot Zone for exp, why leave? For real . . . the mobs are evenly spaced out and aren't tough, you can run the same quests over and over again, and it's just buttery.  But at the same time, it's the same zone with the same mobs over and over: King Crabs, Large Squid, Sharks, and . . . tiny little piranha dudes.

This fish probably has more DPS and health than most gods in the Planes of Power.

But I must give these well-deserved props . . . the one major game play difference throughout this level was starting the Overseer quests thanks to a helpful tip from Bhagpuss from a couple posts ago. I'm loving the little extra boost of experience from these jobs. It reminds me a lot of the companion tasks from Pirate101. Completing those little text adventures was one of my favorite things from this last level.

Which dev posed for this Rugged Gnome Citizen who is also Benevolent and Extravagant?

AND LOOK . . . I don't want you to think that I had nothing but a bad time last level. I actually enjoyed playing Everquest last week. I was pretty obsessed with it to be honest. That's a good thing and a good sign that I'm enjoying a game. It's just that ding didn't really feel great. Shrug.

I think I'm going to take a break from Sarith for a bit and head over to Shard's Landing.  Lemme go kill snakes and bugs for a while and see if that feels better. You know?  I'm feeling pretty waterlogged from killing all those sharks.  

Happy Dueling!