Faction in Velious

[curtischoy]

Hallo. I searched the forums for posts related to what I am going to ask but I didn't find anything.

I took a break from EQ during the Velious days so I pretty much missed this expansion except for some NToV and Kael raids when my guild was starting ssra in Luclin. So I don't know much about grouping in it or the factions that are required to get gear.

I know some basics, like there are three main factions. Dwarfs, Giants, and Dragons. And that you can get quest gear from each of them with the right faction.

Are these quest pieces groupable? Basically meaning, should I worry about the factions if I am not going to raid?

Do the factions affect anything other than these quests in addition to what faction normally affects?

Which faction do you like best? For whatever reasons. The gear, you like Kael, you hate Dorfs, whatever.

I'm a newb when it comes to Velious. Any links or info that you could post would be great.

Thank You.

[Daldaen]

Armor pieces:

Coldain Quest Armor - Drops from 40-50+ Giants in Kael (This is groupable)
Giant Quest Armor - Drops from Dragon Trash in West ToV (This is raid content, 2-3 solid groups)
Dragon Quest Armor - Drops from 58-63 Dragon Trash in East ToV, AKA Halls of Testing (This is raid content, 2-3 solid groups)

Faction affects several other quests. Coldain notably has the Coldain Rings and Shawl. Dragons have some very good groupable quests like Circlet of the Falinkan, Bracer of Hammerfal, And Leuz Task. Giants have a few decent ones like Coldain Skin Boots/Gloves.

Primarily though, faction helps traveling a bit. Being friend with dragons (Claws of Veeshan) means traveling freely in Skyshrine, not being killed by Wuoshi when getting ported to Wakening Lands (A dragon placed right at the druid/wizard portal), and not being attacked by dragons in Western Wastes. Coldain faction allows you to use the city of Thurgadin for all purposes you may need (reagents, bank, tradeskills... It will be a central hub). Giant faction lets you use Kael for banking.

I prefer being Dragon+Coldain friendly. It allows you to travel safely most places except Kael. It lends itself to most of the best quests. The Dragon quest armor is generally the "best" stats wise, may depend on class though. Plus killing Giants is fun.

[Sampten]

It's going to be interesting to see how it all plays out.

KT and Dain and Yelinak will be instantly killed the moment they spawn, just like every raid mob is currently downed in minutes.

KT, Dain and Yeliank heads are turned in for quest gear that is fantastic. Unfortunately with engage happening within seconds of them respawning, I don't know how people are going to be able to complete the quests.

Velious is going to be a very difficult challenge and I'm not sure how the GMs and Roegan are going to deal with it. The option will either be "stay classic" despite the environment not being really classic, or create a non classic NPC for head turn ins to award the quest gear.

In a nutshell, it's going to be F-UGLY.

[Ele]

Plane of Growth offers comparable armor to Thurgadin without the need to quest, but you need to take 3+ groups to do a plane clear.

[Swish]

With all the fine tuning on the current raid scene I think a lot of players are going to say...

"I remember this being harder" ;)