Return to Deathfist Citadel

by: Tony “RadarX” Jones

If video games have taught us one thing, it's that when bad guys get their butts handed to them enough they slink off into sewers to plot revenge. The recent changes to Deathfist Citadel in the last update prove this point beyond a shadow of a doubt. What challenges can you expect in this heavily fortified dungeon? Tons, so lets take a look.

For starters, there are orcs. Tons of them. I know, you are thinking “Wow that is insightful” but there are patrols everywhere from the battlements to the hallways, and a respawn timer guarantees you won't be zerging back to your party. Among these new orcs is a new group of nameds to get AP experience for:

• Chief Torturer Goortz
• High Priest Kuzbak
• Alchemist Yallessul
• Arena Champion Kraz'k
• Prince Gluntok
• Prince Valtoris

All of these guys must be dealt with in order to spawn Emperor Fyst. The good news about Fyst, is he is no longer an Epic X2 so no putting together a T4 raid or waiting until you are level 60. He can be dealt with at the proper level.

The layout of this zone has been left pretty much unchanged. One major exception is the fact it is no longer split into two instances. This means you now have a choice of starting in the sewers or just crashing the front gate. The other exception seems to be a giant glowing catapult up near Fyst's throne which I never could find a use for but it fits right in.

Snipers. Yes that's right, I said snipers. There are frigging archers in every tower of the exterior whose only purpose is to drop an arrow in you every few seconds. They are painful, annoying, and absolutely one of my favorite things about this revamped zone. There is nothing like running from building to building under a hail of arrows even at level 70.

Finally, similar to the Estate of Unrest they didn't want to exclude the Tradeskillers which is never a bad thing. Come on though, you couldn't have tossed one epic in there for the raiders? A plethora of recipes drop in the zone which will provide additional gear but require an ingredient only dropped in this instance. I only found two problems with this implementation.

First, all the recipe books that drop are for armor meaning all the love went to armorer. Now as a T5 armorer myself, I can tell you we really need more recipes to help with the grind, but other classes seem to have been left in the dark. I'd have preferred to have gear crafted from multiple tradeskill classes versus one, but I can understand that may have been a more time consuming route. I'm just happy to have more gear.

Second, with 20-25 new recipes all requiring blood iron ore, you can see how it might come in short supply. Clearing almost the entire zone only netted me one piece and that can be time consuming even at 70. Based on what I see on the broker, it's hard to believe this is just me. The drop rate needs to be increased in my opinion, or blood ore only required on the more rare recipes.

Overall, the Deathfist Citadel revamp has taken a messy, complex, underused dungeon and turned into an instance well worthwhile for the upper 30's to mid 40's. If you fit that bill, I would highly recommend grabbing a friend or two and heading inside. If that isn't you, you should still check it out if nothing else for the discovery experience. This zone is a great addition to the original EQ2 zones and it's nice to see content like this being polished up. Will we see more like this? Only time will tell.