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In this guide I will concentrate on places myself and friends used to level. Where
possible I will include details down to the location of camps used. Others where less
information is available I will provide what information I do have and as time goes on this
is where the guide will improve. For pretty much every level you can go to any of the main
zones of the expansion. By main zone I mean things you start off with access to as well as
things requiring one access quest from one of the open zones. The reason is this
expansion is tailored for 50 – 60 and that really isn’t that large of a level range. Most
zones were designed with all levels in mind. After all, 40 – 50 was easily completed in pre
expansion EQ2 in one or two zones. Most camps can be found by heading to a zone and
looking for white/yellow cons to kill with a solid group. Post combat changes oranges and
higher are simply too hard to kill for your time/effort. If you survive you will have lots of
downtime, and with the fast respawn rates in Desert of Flames, that is not a good idea.
Levels 50 – 55
As with any other zone, evaluate what your group can handle and work from there.
If your group is on the weaker side (not enough healing, dps or less than 5 members) ,
look for a fast respawn blue/white con heroic experience camp and chain pull there. One
such camp would be the spiders in Sinking Sands, and you will also be able to complete
part of step two of the carpet quest here. If your group is a bit stronger, then I suggest
Living Tombs. Its the traditional popular dungeon of the expansion – which means there is
some crowding. However, what’s different between this and other games (such as EQ1)
the respawn is high and the zone is very, very large. This means that usually a group can
be parked quite near yours and still have no trouble finding enough to kill. If that isn’t
enough you should be able to find a spot deeper in that is free of people all together.
There are multiple places you can go for these levels, and efficiency will be
determined by group make up and the amount of time you have. If you have less time,
start work on the flying carpet quest or level in the Pillars of Flame. For the carpet quest,
see Appendix B: Quest Information for the carpet quest. Each step of the quest will
require 7 real life hours to pass so working on it a bit at a time is a good idea. Camp the
Rujarkian orcs outside of the Clefts of Rujark until an Orc Highwayman spawns. Kill him
and the first step is complete. This camp is random and can take many hours or just a few
minutes to spawn. Personally it only took my group about 30 minutes.

Harvesting you will be looking for rare fabled drops for each sort of tradeskill and
even the regular components. Right now tradeskillers are in a mad dash to 60, and will
need many man-hours worth of components. Even roots are valuable! Put everything you
have on the broker or make a deal with the traders in the tradeskill channel and advertise
your services. The more you save and find out what the market needs are for your server,
the more money you will make. You can also make profit buying and reselling rare spell
and armor components. Look for people shouting in zones trying to quickly get rid of
cobalt or pearls quickly. Also, farm ?’s in tier 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 zones. These still provide
components for collection quests and people will pay several gold for most. Amassing a
collection of them will easily earn plat on the broker. The best thing to do is harvest in
indoor zones like a dungeon because the ?’s tend to spawn in the same spots and are
easy to follow a route and farm them. You can also make money by farming Coins from
opposing factions in Maj”Dul and selling the coins (depending on economy) for 50s to 2
gold each.
For tradeskillers, the sooner you can reach level 60 the better. The things that will
sell well on the broker are imbued weapons (Weaponsmiths), imbued armor (Armorers),
App IV and Adept III spells and abilities (Jewelers, Sage, Alchemists), and the new hex
dolls (Tailors). Consumables like food, drink, poisons, potions and arrows don’t
particularly make a lot, but they can in bulk. Early on in the expansion, the main thing is
people will be looking for the tradeskillers with the recipes and knowledge to make items
they might not even know exist. Talking with other players you group with and raiders, to
advertise your services. Players, after reaching level 57, will find that their weapons will no
longer work against monsters that are 64+ and will need replacements. Making deals with
players who may not even know about this issue, will net money via word of mouth.
The following is a list of rare things you will be looking for:
Root Node
- Succulent Roots
Wood Node
- Sandalwood / Ironwood (Rare)
Ore Node
- Idirium / Cobalt (Rare)
Rock Node
- Rough Nacre / Pearl (Rare)
- Beryllium / Vanadium (Rare)
Shrub Node
- Prickly Pear (fruit/grain)
- Coriander (garnish)
- Cloves (sweetener)
- Artichoke (vegetable)
- Darjeeling Tea Leaf (tea)
- Maj’Dul Coffee Bean (coffee)
- Macadamia Nut (nut)
Fungi Node
- Mulberry
- Date
- Foxglove
- Amaranth
- Chamomile
- Valerian Root
Den Node
- caiman meat
- sabertooth meat
- sullied excellent (insert animal name here) pelt
Fish Node
- Red Herring
- Conger Eel
- Tiger Shrimp

Grouping in Desert of Flames is an overall pleasurable experience. Zones are
large and wonderfully colorful and scenic, there are lots of points of interest with dynamic
camping, lots of quests, and foremost a high respawn rate for monsters. Gone are the
days of being crowded into one small dungeon fighting for pulls with other people. EQ2 in
general wasn’t the weakest in this category as far as MMOs go, but they definitely
increased spawn rate dramatically as a whole in this expansion. So much so that in a
good camp, there are often too many monsters to kill if you like to pull slow or go AFK.
That doesn’t mean that smaller groups or more casual groups will have trouble, it
just means that less situations occur where groups end up bumping heads. Overall,
smaller or less capable groups (i.e. lacking healing power or DPS) can head to a smaller
more traditional camp and safely experience, and the stronger groups (extra healing,
excellently geared, and/or high DPS) can break into a spot that meets their level of
challenge. To this point, in DoF, the best thing to do is evaluate your group strength, and
figure out how fast you want spawns to come (do you want slow safe pulling or chain
experience?) and find a camp that suits your needs. There is surely to be one available
somewhere.
As far as group dynamics, any group (even one full of melee) can team up and
make experience, but by far the best combination is 2 healers (any kind) and some sort of
mana regeneration (Dirge, Troubadour, Coercer and Illusionist), a main tank (any fighter
class), and fill the rest of the group with DPS. This combination will likely result in zero
downtime and very fast kills.

There are a great deal of quests that will give you something to do between
looking for group or a small goal to work on if you are short on time. Although the rewards
are not terrific for many of these quests, most of them give a few gold and give you a short
term objective to complete when short on time or wanting to solo. Also some of the larger
quests of the expansion (Carpet Quest, gaining faction with the Courts of Maj’Dul and
Shimmering Citadel Access), start out easy enough that you can work on them in your
spare time solo. The later portions become heavily group oriented though. Below I have
listed a few quests that should be soloable along with starting NPCs.
Zone Starting NPC Name
Maj’Dul Shan A Damsel in Distress
Maj’Dul Tears Grifter A Lesson in Gouging
(actually returns faction
coins of your choice of
factions)
Sinking Sands Aquim Answering Zalar’s
Summons
Maj’Dul Darzi Sendoa Darzi’s Tailoring Shop
The Pillars of Flame Arbos Sendoa Helping the Naga Hunter
Maj’Dul Darzi Sendoa Hunting the Hunter
Maj’Dul Barter Lord Tum Jal’Daris My Service for an Idol
Shimmering Citadel The Muse Musing on Love
Maj’Dul Tears Grifter Poke, Prod, and Pry
Maj’Dul Tears Grifter Subtle Strife
Maj’Dul Darzi Sendoa Suppies for the Seamstress
Maj’Dul Aquim The Afterlife
Maj’Dul Antiquator Kantos Mor’Tael The Bones in the Box
Maj’Dul Antiquator Kantos Mor’Tael The Tale of Dalgin B’Dynn
Maj’Dul Aquim The Unamed One
Maj’Dul Tears Grifter Thieving from Thieves
Maj’Dul Barter Lord Feth
Ardala
Trap Snapping
Sinking Sands Numair Cooking Crocodiles
Sinking Sands Numair Diggers for Dinner
Sinking Sands Ghasan the Trader A Delicate Matter
Sinking Sands Ghasan the Trader Another Employer
Sinking Sands Rashad The Final Piece
Sinking Sands Rashad The Lonely Crypt
Sinking Sands Rashad The Search Begins

I would suggest soloing some quests given in Maj’Dul, the solo zone Azhar’s
Penitence and leveling in Sinking Sands until level 55 if you are a solo player. For Azhar’s
Penitence see Appendix B: Quest Information for the “Gauntlet of Al’Azhar“. Its a fairly
good instance and the first time you complete it you will get a choice between 3 fairly good
rewards. Harclave instance in Splitpaw Saga is not as recommended as the amount of
experience you receive (roughly 3%) isn’t so great for the amount of time you will spend
clearing it.
A good solo leveling or small group spot for levels 50 – 55 is the spiders at [-751,
0, –724]. They are also used in the Carpet Quest for DoF (see Appendix B: Quest
Information). The spawn rate is fast and by being careful you can kill these without too
much danger.

Soloing in DoF is definitely possible but as this is an upper level expansion
focused on level 50 – 60 content, the experience rate soloing is far lower than in a group.
This is not because you cannot solo, but rather because the mobs offer so little
experience. After the combat revamp some classes may find it easier or harder to solo as
well, so make sure you try out new abilities and spells on well known areas before
proceeding solo into Desert of Flames. With that being said, its probably possible to
achieve about 4-5 % experience per hour if you solo in the Sinking Sands and some of the
single person instances.

Harvesting you will be looking for rare fabled drops for each sort of tradeskill and
even the regular components. Right now tradeskillers are in a mad dash to 60, and will
need many man-hours worth of components. Even roots are valuable! Put everything you
have on the broker or make a deal with the traders in the tradeskill channel and advertise
your services. The more you save and find out what the market needs are for your server,
the more money you will make. You can also make profit buying and reselling rare spell
and armor components. Look for people shouting in zones trying to quickly get rid of
cobalt or pearls quickly. Also, farm ?’s in tier 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 zones. These still provide
components for collection quests and people will pay several gold for most. Amassing a
collection of them will easily earn plat on the broker. The best thing to do is harvest in
indoor zones like a dungeon because the ?’s tend to spawn in the same spots and are
easy to follow a route and farm them. You can also make money by farming Coins from
opposing factions in Maj”Dul and selling the coins (depending on economy) for 50s to 2
gold each.
For tradeskillers, the sooner you can reach level 60 the better. The things that will
sell well on the broker are imbued weapons (Weaponsmiths), imbued armor (Armorers),
App IV and Adept III spells and abilities (Jewelers, Sage, Alchemists), and the new hex
dolls (Tailors). Consumables like food, drink, poisons, potions and arrows don’t
particularly make a lot, but they can in bulk. Early on in the expansion, the main thing is
people will be looking for the tradeskillers with the recipes and knowledge to make items
they might not even know exist. Talking with other players you group with and raiders, to
advertise your services. Players, after reaching level 57, will find that their weapons will no
longer work against monsters that are 64+ and will need replacements. Making deals with
players who may not even know about this issue, will net money via word of mouth.
The following is a list of rare things you will be looking for:
Root Node
- Succulent Roots
Wood Node
- Sandalwood / Ironwood (Rare)
Ore Node
- Idirium / Cobalt (Rare)
Rock Node
- Rough Nacre / Pearl (Rare)
- Beryllium / Vanadium (Rare)
Shrub Node
- Prickly Pear (fruit/grain)
- Coriander (garnish)
- Cloves (sweetener)
- Artichoke (vegetable)
- Darjeeling Tea Leaf (tea)
- Maj’Dul Coffee Bean (coffee)
- Macadamia Nut (nut)
Fungi Node
- Mulberry
- Date
- Foxglove
- Amaranth
- Chamomile
- Valerian Root
Den Node
- caiman meat
- sabertooth meat
- sullied excellent (insert animal name here) pelt
Fish Node
- Red Herring
- Conger Eel
- Tiger Shrimp

I highly suggest two activities for making money in DoF – harvesting and instanced
zones. For the instance zones, just get any access completed for each and try to get
master chests. The more you farm these solo and with friends – the more chance you
have getting some Master abilities/spells and weapons. The spells and abilities in
particular will net several platinum each. Hidden Cache and Scornfeather Roost have
particularly high drop rates for master chests. Also regular experience groups in Pillar of
Flames, Living Tombs, Clefts of Rujark and Shimmering Citadel will net money via dyna –
camps and regular chest drops. Wooden chests contain the Adept III recipes (4 gold each
to a vendor), and Adept I spells which also sell for about four gold to a vendor. In the
sabertooth camp in PoF with Cinderpelt and the raptor camp near Cazel’s Mesa in Pillar
of Flames will drop items worth 6 to 8 gold to the vendor. The named raptor Ament that
spawns in the Pillar of Flames dropped “Ament Hide Skullcap” and “Boots of Raptorian
Speed”. They are lore so you can kill him 6x for each person in your group to get one and
then sell them. Often the named mobs will spawn back to back and many times per hour
so this won’t be an issue.
To farm the most money, farm all instances in DoF. Build a solid group of friends
and learn the lockouts and raid each zone as soon as they are available to you. To make
money, you will be farming fabled items and Master I spells. If you or your group doesn’t
need the fabled item, it will sell to a vendor for about 50 gold. Some fabled items are notrade
and will have to go to the vendor. Others such as weapons may be resold to other
players (do not attune them) for possibly more than 50 gold. You will also get Master 1
spells which should sell for several platinum a piece on the broker. Depending on server
economy, you can easily get 4 – 10 platinum depending on the rarity and what the ability
does. Talk to members of the class and find out the desirability for the item and price it
accordingly. Also, send tells to higher leveled players letting them know you have the item
and are willing to sell it.
Master chests (containing tradeskill rares, fabled items and Master abilities/spells)
can drop off of any monster in the game, to increase the amount of gold you obtain, farm
the following instances: Hidden Cache, Scornfeather Roost, Cazel’s Mesa, Halls of
Testing, Poet’s Palace, and any of the 3 instances you obtain with max ally faction in
Maj’Dul. Each of these instances has a higher than normal reported rate for master
chests. Scornfeather in particular has about a 25% chance to drop a master chest. Poet’s
Palace, Halls of Testing, Cazel’s Mesa, Maj’Dul faction all have high chances to drop a
metal chest upon completion. Formerly, they had 100% chances to drop but recently their
rates have been decreased. Poet’s Palace lockout has been increased from 6 hours to 6
days.They are quite difficult, but taking time to farm these regularly will enable you and
your friends to earn several platinum each week. I also suggest splitting the money up
equally once you build a solid team. Depending on your skill, it will take about 2-3 hours to
clear each, and you will likely earn 1-10 platinum a run. That’s approximately 20gold to 2
platinum per person per run and that’s just for the large master chest items. You will likely
gain approximately 20g-30g each just from regular loot. If you do this 2-3 times a week,
you will have farmed about 6 platinum each in no time. Halls of Testing, Maj’Dul instances
and Poet’s Palace will require faction and quests to gain entrance see the faction sections
and Quest Appendix B for more details.

The new Persona window now has three tabs and includes more information about
your character. The Stats tab will show your level progress, vital stats, attributes and
resists. You will notice that mitigation now shows a value instead of a percent. The Details
tab will show your character’s last name, house, location and bind point. You are now able
to also choose a new last name once a week via this tab or the /lastname command.
Using the /lastname command on its own without parameters will delete your last name.
Last names can also now use one “ ’ “ or tic in each last name. Like De’Raen, for
example. This tab will also allow you to select your Prefix and Suffix titles at will and your
characters biographical information. The Faction tab displays all your faction standings inDoF as well as the old world. Shortcuts are as follows: P will bring up the Persona tab,
Control + P will toggle the Persona window to the Details tab, Alt + F will toggle the
Persona window to the Factions tab.
EQ2 now has tooltips for most game interfaces and when examining most items.
This can be adjusted on a global level via the game options under Options > User
Interface > Tooltips. You can also turn off the damage spam that appears above the
heads of players and NPCs. This option can be found in the Options > User Interface >
Name and Chat Bubble and check or uncheck “Show overhead combat feedback.“
You can now also open all bank bags at once or close them all by using
/togglebankbags. It can be used in a macro or bound to a set of keys using Options >
Controls > Window Keys.

Guilds no longer rely on the old Patron formula to level. Due to the amount of in
guild conflict occurring with the old system, two major things have changed. First, early on
just before the expansion if someone leaves a guild or becomes de-Patroned. Their guild
experience stays with the guild. Secondly, the concept of Patrons has been removed from
EQ2. Now, the status earned is divided by the number of unique accounts with the
minimum being 6 and the maximum being 24. So now if you are in a really small guild, not
much has changed (the old minimum was 12), and if you are in a large guild of over 24
you will still be penalized. This is much better because now since everyone contributes
status there aren’t arguments about who should and shouldn’t be a patron. Some guilds
that are able to pare down their roster to 24 members may benefit, but I think most people
would agree that the current formula is fine and not worth removing people who don’t play
much or moving alts to a separate guild.
Additionally guilds now have banks that can be accessed from regular bankers as
another right click option. Guild leaders have the ability to set up all sorts of options
relating to who has access and deposit and withdrawal options. Especially helpful is the
fact that both Freeport and Qeynos guild members can access the same vault. This is a
good way to share items and goods between guild members.