Bountiful Harvest

Just after Thanksgiving I decided that my next EQ2 goal was to get Sisca and Acsis to 75. This would open up almost all of the game to me and put 80 well within reach. Last weekend Sisca, Acsis and Lore all managed to hit the target as well as ding their 100th AA. So, Sunday evening I was casting about for something new to focus on and for some strange reason I decided that I just had to start in on the quest for the Cloak of the Harvesters.

I knew that this was a long quest that involved harvesting in every tier but I actually enjoy harvesting and, being 75, only tier 8 would have me harvesting in zones with agro mobs. How hard can it be, right?

It started off simply enough, go to any tier 1 zone and bring me back 10 or so of multiple items from the various nodes. This took me longer than I thought it would mainly because shrubs were almost non-existent – right, who’d a thunk it since it wasn’t that long ago that you could zone into T1 or T2 and find nothing but shrubs up. Next up was T2, I had Acsis port us over to Antonica and we were able to complete everything but the fishing without even getting out of site of the spires.

Next up T3 and this is where it started to get complicated. He wanted you to harvest equal quantities of the same items from both Thundering Steppes and Nek Forest. TS was no big deal, I know several good harvesting spots for all of the various nodes there but Nek has never been one of my favorite zones so I haven’t spent a ton of time there. Still I managed to find an area that I could run back and forth through and get most of the harvests, except for dens. T4 was a repeat of T3 except he wanted stuff from Zek and Enchanted Lands. Again, easy enough and, being 75, I went deeper in to both zones to leave the easier to get to harvest for the lower levels.

For T5 it was off to Rivervale and Feerot. Much like Nek Forest, Feerot has never been one of my favorite zones so I decided to put that off. I know Rivervale, I’ve harvested in Rivervale even when it was still green, this should be a snap. Two hours later I was finished with everything except DENS. In that entire time I had seen maybe 10 dens tops and you didn’t just need 20 or so of the pelts but also 20 or so of EACH type of meat from the dens. Frustrated, I gave it up for the night and started thinking about finding something else to focus on.

The next night Lore had her Paladin, Serrenial, working on the quest and she was up to Rivervale as well. She said she was seeing quite a few dens up if I wanted to come over and finish that off. I decided to tempt fate and head over there one more time but this time with just Sisca, Acsis would have to wait to get his cloak. It still took me about an hour to finish off the dens but apparently having Serrenial in the zone is what it takes to actually trigger the bloody dens spawning. Next up was Feerot and after my experience in Rivervale I have to admit I was dreading this since just moving around and seeing in there can be frustrating. I headed in and picked a direction and just started running as best I could in that maze until I came around a corner and ran into wall of dens, probably 6 of them all in a row, put there I’m sure just to taunt me after Rivervale. This led me to a little area around a pond that I could circle and harvest non-stop so I had everything except for fish – no fish in the pond just those strange snake things – within an hour. I pulled up the map, found the nearest river and headed off to finish up my fishing.

After the hell that was Rivervale and T5 I was dreading T6 but it was back to being simple, head to Sinking Sands and clear cut the zone. Next up was T7 and Kingdom of Sky was in for the slash and burn treatment. Finally T8 and off to Kunark where stuff is still green/blue and agro. Funnily enough it took me less time to do Kunark than it did to finish even Nek Forest much less the bloody, stinking, cesspit that is Rivervale.

So back to the brat…err eager young man…that started the quest for a final turn in. Oh, yeah he’s been working on your reward but his tailor friend is finishing it and she just needs you to bring her a Mantrap Root – oh just a simple T8 rare that’s really rare. Luckily I had one from one of the tradeskill missions, I’ve never actually harvested one of the things. Give her this rare prize and viola…

This is what a weeks worth of harvesting will get you.

Oh and if you’re wondering the helm is:

One of the quest rewards for the new Frostfell quests.

And now it’s off to Frostfell and running quests to get tokens so I can buy all the shiney new stuff from the broker.