There are 4 quest lines in Hills of Shade, Camp Valor, Bertox Chosen, Blackwater and Kirathos. Camp Valor and Bertox Chosen have several quests that hit the same camps so I put together this plan. The best way I found to avoid having to redo the camps is to start with the Camp Valor quests and do the Bertox quests that pair up. Cartogrophers Nightmare quest can be completed as you go from camp to camp or you can do the mapping at any time.
Camp Valor Quest Bertox Quest Other Quests
Aviaks How the Mighty have Fallen (L1/2) The Perfect Omlete (L1) Erons 5 Box (Prelootable)
Aviaks Borrowers/Recoup the Coup Borrowers/Recoup the Coup
Notes: After you clear enough and complete How the Might have fallen parts you can move on to other camps and come back and complete egg loots and Borrowers/Recoup loots.
North Ilse How the Mighty have Fallen (L3/4)
Crypt How the Mighty have Fallen (L5-7) The Perfect Omlete (L2) Erons 5/Lost Lumpling Drops
Crypt Undead Slayers
Notes: Must complete How The Mighty before getting Undead Slayers. Armor names at camp: Ancestral Deathguard (sleeves) PH Any crypt guardian. Festerclaw (Boots) PH any ghoul. Sorrow (Helm) PH any shade.
Sporeli A Mysterious Bond The Power of Decay Absent Absinthe Collect
Notes: As the valor quest is a loot item and Bertox is a kill, you may want to get bertox quest multiple times for faction. If you intend to do the Blackwater line, collect the absinthe quest drops. Armor Named: Cadaverous Bloom (legs) , The Rot (chest) PHs shrooms.
Bonegolems An Extract Science (L1) Bigger, Faster, Stronger, Dumber
Roots/Trees/Wisps An Extract Science (L2) The Perfect Omlete (L3)
Roots/Trees/Wisps The Spark of Life
Graveyard Carrion My Wayward Sprout I Would Exhume So
Graveyard Making up for Lost Time
Cartographical Nightmare, Where Has Sister Donna Gone and Recycled Arms have no linked quests. One of Our Own takes place in the crypt but can not be gotten until you have higher Bertox faction.
Okay, so there is another group of factions in Hills of Shade too? These appear to be entirely different than those in Dragonscale and Loping Plains.
What is the purpose of these four factions? Are they similar to the others in that with ally status you can buy higher level spells and tomes, or are they needed for some type of progression?
I spent a lot of time getting ally status to Fangbreakers, Ladies and Akanon Strike Force only to be able to purchase a couple Rk. II tomes and gain access to some expensive evolving weapons that I will never buy. Just doesn't seem that the work justifies the rewards, at least not for this warrior.
I think SOE needs to rethink all of these "faction for progression" zones. They eliminate the flagging and keying for 80% of the zones because they don't want new players to get discouraged by the timesinks involved in collecting shards and signets, yet the largest timesinks in EQ these days is faction based progression. Faction is still a big issue with DoN, CoA armor, Katta armor, TSS progression and now SoF.
I sure get tired of repeating boring tasks over and over and over, just to gain one faction and then rinse and repeat for yet another, all within the same zone.
I'd rather that they kept the flagging and keying in place and eliminate all of these ridiculous factions. There's nothing more discouraging than doing a task repeatedly and then checking your faction only to find it STILL hasn't changed yet.
personally i like the factioning, it gives something to do. for one it is good exp and for 2, it gives you something to do besides just exp in zones. Most people get worn out of simply exping for endless hours with no other incentive. By doing factioning you are getting end rewards that can be worth the time, though some may not be, most are. They opened up a lot of old zones because most of them are obsolete now. You look in those old zones and there are still no one in them because you can go to a newer zone for similar exp with more people to group with.
The main factions in HoS are Camp Valor and Bertox Chosen. The other 2 factions quests are part of the requirement to buy from the Camp Valor elite vendor and to be able to get the Scorn raid mission.
Your class may or may not have a tome/spell from one or both of the 2 main factions.
Overall in SoF there are 7 Main factions that you can buy stuff from.
Hunter Omegga Silvguard
80th Season Champion of Faydark
Forest Stalker of Norrath with 1600+ AA points.
Master Fletcher (233), Master Archer (305+AM3/EQ), Master Tracker (300), Master Forager (200)
There are a lot of us without regular groups and getting factioning or required quests is difficult. I've been working on the 5 BMK quests for 2 months and still have 2 to do.
Actually only the Akanon strike force faction is critical to anything, thats the one you need to buy the Steam core conbiner. The other factions offer a non critical spell and something like an aug quest or illusion.
Hunter Omegga Silvguard
80th Season Champion of Faydark
Forest Stalker of Norrath with 1600+ AA points.
Master Fletcher (233), Master Archer (305+AM3/EQ), Master Tracker (300), Master Forager (200)
Back when DoN was still popular, I can't even begin to count how many Creator missions I did. People did them strictly because they were semi-fast and predictable. There's absolutely nothing interesting or challenging about doing the same mission 25 times. No one was interested in doing any of the others, they just wanted quick and easy faction. How does that equate to any story line or fun? It's simply repetitive, with no other goal other than faction.
Another good example of ridiculous faction work is that to acquire the CoA armor pieces. If you don't have ally faction you can't do the turn in to the NPC. After winning a drop in Anguish a long time ago, I realized that I still didn't have adequate faction to do the turn in. So, I spent about a week slaughtering Nocs in Draniks Scar for no experience. Nothing fun about that either.
Most recently, I spent weeks working on Fangbreaker faction in LP so I could PURCHASE the craptastic Tome called Knuckle Smash for almost 10k. A level 80 combat ability which reduces incoming damage by 5% for 30 secs. So instead of a mob hitting me for 1700, it's reduced to 1615. Pretty worthless return on such a large investment of time: for faction.
My idea of "something to do" typically involves helping others or working on progression of some type. Repetitively doing the same things over and over, just to achieve a faction, is not rewarding nor fun. It's a part of EQ that really needs some work.
From what I understand. You can do factioning the "easy" way and the "hard" way.
the easy way is soloable mission but requires ALOT of factioning.
The hard way requires a group but give much higher faction hit and thus less missions required to reach ally. however can be a wipe-risk.
I absolutely loathe faction and only work on it if I cannot find something else to do. I still have some faction work to do for Katta RKII spells and let me say I only do this because the greenhouse is still decent exp at lvl 76 and quite a breeze solo. I have the same problem with DoN faction, I only do these if I cannot find someone to hang out with. Faction grinding is only slightly better than staying LFG in the guild hall.
Mordethe 76 Necro
Ardekis 71 Pally
Originally Posted by midnoctus "Some Necs can Kite in a phone booth"
This was not ment to be an aurgument on faction, just a guide to the most effiecient way to obtain parts of the 2 augs in HoS and if peeps wanted, faction for the faction vendor spells.
Hunter Omegga Silvguard
80th Season Champion of Faydark
Forest Stalker of Norrath with 1600+ AA points.
Master Fletcher (233), Master Archer (305+AM3/EQ), Master Tracker (300), Master Forager (200)
