Quarm.Guide

Bathory’s Solo Self-Found Guide

This guide has been created with the intention of helping players who seek to take on the solo self-found challenge on the Project Quarm EverQuest server. I play Bathory, a solo self-found Shadow Knight & the server’s first non-hardcore solo self-found player to reach level 50 during Quarm’s EQ Classic era.

Big Legacy props to Darrell, Cube & Larry - Quarm’s first three HCSSF level 50 players

While this guide is not intended for players who plan to flag as Hardcore , some of this information may be useful for the SSF aspects of activating all available player flags on Quarm (FWIW- I died four times on the way to 50…thanks Grimfeather).

If you have any questions about this guide and see me online please feel free to send me a tell!

Preparing Yourself

EverQuest was not designed to be played solo- in fact, you probably already know that the opposite is true. Most classes are pretty bad at soloing once they get past level 30, and a few cannot solo effectively at all once reaching a high enough level.

As a prospective SSF player be sure to note: you will never be able to receive any buffs from others, get any ports or rezes from others, and (unless you can bind yourself) will have some long & sad corpse runs ahead of you. You won’t be able to “dumpster dive” for player-sold gear on NPC merchants. You will never be part of a raid or be able to obtain your epic weapon regardless of which class you are. Other players will prove to be a challenge at times for certain camps/hunting areas and may prove to be dismissive with regards to your needs or issues. Many players you meet will not understand the rules associated with SSF flags and (without being able to ‘consider’ you while directly selected) will have no way to tell you are flagged without you telling them directly. Your character, once flagged, will never be able to “un-flag” or otherwise become normal.

I will not lie to you; this mode is hard, and you may need to frequently summon a lot of patience to complete challenges that are otherwise simple for multiple players to accomplish. That said, I believe that if you have never leveled to at least level 50 normally before attempting this challenge, your odds of success will be very low. However, if you are a veteran player who is looking for a new/unique challenge, don’t let this bit of info deter you- even the hardest-to-solo classes can make it to max level with enough effort.

Choosing Your Class

Your class as a solo self-found player will define nearly every aspect of your experience with this challenge. If you plan on selecting a class that usually has more of a group role (such as a tank) you will need to re-evaluate both your typical playstyle as well as how you look at stats and gearing.

Class balance for soloing does not exist on Project Quarm, so if SSF is what you seek, make sure you pick a class that you are comfortable soloing with at all levels.

Questions about what classes can effectively solo on Quarm are common- so much, in fact, that the following chart was created by Secrets to answer the question in Discord when it comes up:

Aside from merely considering how “ok” or how “easy” it is for a class to solo, a key part of this thought process needs to include thinking about the method of solo you want to utilize- especially during the later game when soloing becomes much more challenging or may require a deviation in tactics.

As a Shadow Knight, for example, my primary method of effectively soloing at level 50 is fear kiting. The Shadow Knight’s early game solo experience is mostly “face tanking”- but since this fails to remain effective for leveling past a certain level I needed to adapt to a new solo method later on due to my class choice. As I no longer tank in most situations, I focus on using gear with +Strength, +Intelligence and +Dexterity to maximize my effectiveness while kiting - this is a divergence from the typical SK setup that sees the use of a lot of +Stamina and +Hit Point gear which isn’t very useful for fear kiting.

Some soloing methods may include:

-Bard: Kiting while twisting songs for run speed and damage-over-time

-Cleric: Undead nuking

-Druid: Root-rotting, Animal charming, Quad kiting

-Enchanter: Charm

-Magician: Chain-summoning pets

-Monk: Feign Death kiting, Jousting

-Necromancer: Fear kiting, DoT kiting, root-rotting, undead charm, etc.

-Paladin: Face tanking & root-healing

-Ranger: Bow kiting

-Shadow Knight: Fear kiting, DoT kiting

-Shaman: Root-rotting, Face tanking with Torpor

-Warrior: Beating things to death

-Wizards: Quad kiting

Solo methods may also expand, change, or improve as new expansions are released. Project Quarm is currently about to enter the Kunark expansion, but far down the line when it enters the Shadows of Luclin expansion (for example) the addition of something like Alternate Advancement points may fundamentally change how you can solo (i.e. Rangers gaining the ‘Headshot’ AA, Paladin Undead AAs, etc.).

Choosing Your Race:

This guide assumes that you are familiar with EQ’s racial traits already - if you are not, please check out this link.

When considering your race for SSF you should be thinking about a few factors:

Is this race the best option for soloing with the class you have chosen?

While this really boils down to stat allocation, there are some other factors to consider based on the class you want to play. For example, does your class benefit from fast regeneration? If so, you may want to consider choosing Iksar or Troll for their racial regeneration abilities, even if they are not statistically the best choice for your class.

How difficult will it be to obtain gear with the right stats for your race?

Usually finding gear with primary stats such as Strength or Intelligence isn’t too tough- but if your race is lacking in a stat (such as Ogres with Dexterity) will you struggle to find gear as a solo player to fill in the gaps for the stats you want to boost up?

Cultural Tradeskills

Project Quarm grants solo self-found players the unique ability to use some custom NPCs to enchant metals for tradeskills, which makes them extremely useful for obtaining some best-in-slot solo gear. Each race has some distinctly different benefits for certain tradeskills based on their race (some of which unlock later with Shadows of Luclin). Check out this link for more information on Cultural Tradeskills (when selecting your race select the ‘Old Cultural’ link at the top of the list).

Selecting a Good Race or an Evil Race

Choosing a Good race will provide you with a lot of safety early on. Choosing an Evil race, however, may provide you with many benefits when it comes to higher level camps. The impact of this choice will diminish, however, once Shadows of Luclin and Planes of Power are released.

Racial Utility

Since you will be exclusively soloing, selecting a race with traits that complement the SSF playstyle will benefit you greatly. Consider the following racial traits:

• Increased Regeneration (Troll, Iksar)

• Frontal Stun Immunity (Ogre)

• Slam (Ogre, Troll, Barbarian)

• Hide (Dark Elf, Halfling, Wood Elf)

• Sneak (Halfling)

Ability Scores for Soloing:

Sometimes selecting a race for having the best statistical advantage can be a wise choice, but remember to consider secondary stats and their applicability to soloing. If you were to select Ogre, for example, consider allocating points to Agility and Dexterity as a melee class due to the scarcity of gear that boosts these stats.

Racial Drawbacks

Outside of experience penalties, bad factions and a potential lack of infravision as well as other racial drawbacks exist due to a lack of utility.

As a large race, for example, not having a way to shrink can be a serious problem. Some areas (such as SolA and Paineel) will be completely inaccessible without the ability to shrink. If you were to die in SolA and have no outside means of shrink, you could potentially be stuck with no way to get your corpse back.

Flagging for SSF & Getting Started:

Once you have created your desired character, enter the game then immediately head to the nearest Priest of Discord. Do not go to your guildmaster just yet!

Once you locate the Priest of Discord select him and say “solo self found” (without the quotes). Once you do so you will respawn at your default bind point, set completely back to default. Note that this MUST be done at level 1 or you will not be able to flag. You can now select & consider yourself to confirm that you have been flagged correctly:

Now that you’re flagged you are ready to get out there and start leveling!

Leveling

This is not intended to be a comprehensive leveling guide, but with the Project Quarm Database Interface (PQDI) you can find the best mobs to solo very easily. I would suggest the following:

Level 1 - 10

This should take place in your newbie starting area. Use any method at your disposal to claw your way up to level 10, get some starting gear, and get your first set of spells (if applicable).

Leveling Beyond 10

It is now time to start leveraging the NPC portion of PQDI. Look for NPCs that accent your solo method (i.e. if you are a caster, look for mobs with low MR, etc.). PQDI will show you spawn locations, spawn times, spawn pools, paths, and everything else you could ever need to know to successfully find the optimal monsters to kill at any level.

Gearing

PQDI, used in addition to the class gear sections of P99, is a great way to find gear that you can obtain solo. Use the P99 charts to find the gear with the stats you want, then use PQDI to drill into the details of the mob to ensure that you can solo it.

Tradeskills will also be very important for obtaining your best-in-slot items as a solo player, which brings us to the next section:

Tradeskills

Project Quarm provides players with the ability to enchant metals via NPC (a couple of different Enchanter Guild Masters; Drizm J’Axx & another Enchanter GM in Felwithe?). This makes Jewelry Making accessible to every SSF character and likely integral to getting the best gear you can.

While leveling up I would highly suggest saving as much money as possible to devote to both Jewelcraft as well as your target cultural tradeskill.

SSF Tips & Tricks

•Always keep tradeskills in mind: Save your platinum, save animal pelts, save spiderling silk, etc. - almost every tradeskill has something to offer solo self-found players. Invest in tailoring for bags early on.

•Never go somewhere you can’t get back to naked. If you need one of your items to get where you left your corpse, getting it back may prove to be very difficult or even impossible in some instances.

•Player assistance during kills will lock you out of experience and loot, specifically if you are not FTE. Even in the instance of a player doing 0% damage to a mob but being FTE- fully killing the mob will lock you out of loot and prevent all experience gain. In general, avoid any attempt to receive external assistance if you want to loot and/or gain XP from the mob you are killing.

•Save your skill points for tradeskills- you will likely need to utilize almost each tradeskill, so make sure you save some of your skill points to get an initial investment to prevent up-front material costs.

• Double check your default faction status with PQDI if you are not certain about it - this will save you from many avoidable deaths.

•Melee Classes- get the Ring of the Dead. This will allow you to bind anywhere in the world a single time (such as the TD firepots) and is the only method of SSF binding available prior to the introduction of Soulbinders. PQ has also left this quest as active for the time being, so disregard the nerf information from P99 for now.