Yep, this zone is so much fun that I felt it necessary to come here and post about it. Druids can charm the 'Drakkel Dire Wolves' in the pit south of the bank, and these things can pretty much tear up a better part of the zone. Catch is, they summon, and given that tuffer mobs in the zone also summon...it's fun stuff. Over the past couple of months I've been working on a set goal of solo progression in Kael, and what really makes it great for me is that charming in Kael is so much more about skill than it is about gear, or hi level. Anyone who has the slightest interest in charming at all should definitely check Kael out, it's the most fun I've ever had in EQ and I figured it'd be good to share it with people. To give you an idea, here's a list of my progression:

1) Clear West Plaza (by the bank)
2) Clear Iceshard Manor excluding cycle
3) Kill Drioc, Korakaz, Helssen, and/or Vkjor
4) Complete circuit around the arena, starting in the street with the guards and sr. guards and going up into the plaza with troopers, etc, clearing across and back down into the street, in a single run
5) Kill Capt. Bvellos
6) Plate Cycle!
7) Kill Kallis and his PoZs
8) Kill the Prophets (Semkak and Gkrean)
9) Castle Sentinels (Level 66s)
10) Kill Dlammaz Stormslayer
11) Kill Kyenka and Yetarr
12) Clear back rooms and Keldor Dek`Torek
13) KT's personal guards
14) GoZs, TGs, AoZs
15) Vindi (my best attempts have gotten him to 91% P)
16) KT, SoRZ, IoRZ, AoW, all that good stuff

Needless to say, as a level 65 druid, I'm stuck at #15, and still working on doing #12 without assistance getting to the back rooms.

You can start charming some wolves at 52 with CoK (and I still use these), but I'd recommend Kael charming to 63 and above (not for charm, but for the 2k quick heal...it really helps). I have 3k hp and 4k mana and do just fine self-buffed with kei. I'd also recommend the Exodus aa...will really cut down on deaths.

Have funzies; just throwing this out here as an opportunity for a challenge and lots of fun for folks )

Heh. I did up to 10 + 14 back before GoD came out :p Made a pile of cash at the time from selling armor MQs

With the added levels and stuff, like veteran aa's, it might be nice to see if someone could take Vindi and his guards solo. I think it probably could be done by a shaman. Some other decked out classes like paladins, sks, rangers, and druids, could possibly do up to that much as well. I am pretty sure Kt, and the Statue maybe soloable very decked out. I have been doing some Kael stuff on my ranger, it is rather fun seeing what I can kill. Captain Bvellos was fun to do solo. Not sure I could do plate cycle solo but, other things like Kallis maybe possible for my ranger to do. I noticed that since everything is generally left up in Kael now, and other places in Velious, that the Npc's are talking amongst each other now wearas, everything worth mentioning, was dead, or not up long in the earlier days. Dragons Necropolis had Jaled Dar's Shade talking to Zlandicar, but, alas, I have not been sticking around to much in Velious zones anymore.

Couple neat things Wendhawks(?), the dude for the skyshrine key quest in Kael, near bank area, is chatting with the other giants about how is betraying them and stuff like that, the giants talk about him behind his back when he wanders off. Tormax has been talking about Velketor, stuff like that. Just kinda nifty to hear, since after all the time I spent in those zones I never heard of it, because all the mobs were dead! Possibly new additions, or just old emotes they never played out much, or old broken emotes that got fixed. Either way pretty neat.

Vindi has been solo'd by an SK.

I heard a ranger solo`d him too -- but being that he wasn't on my server i can't comfirm.

Also, a druid would not be able to solo him with what's currently avalible.

Vindi hits average out to ~1 per second, so your DS hit will roughly be your DS dps. The best druid DS (w/o vines / bard song / grove etc) is ~150ish. The pet also does 150ish. If 480 dps took ~7:30 to kill him, how long would 300-350ish take?

As a very rough estimate, I'ld say vindi would do 375-400 dps to a druid.

~number crunch away

Note that vindi is unslowable....

What kind of DPS can can a hasted/charmed pet do though. I think it would be possible, but charm break would be dangerous. Also, I am not sure how a druid would go about splitting him off his guards. Hmm maybe snare em both, evac, and run back quickly. For that to work you would have to be fast to get back before repops though, and what about your pet?

Not sure if anyone else knows this, but in the arena in kael, the section where you can PVP there is a script that runs there on its own where giants and wolves can spawn, the wolves that spawn in that section are Dire Charmable and hit pretty hard, i DC them and use them to kill giants, very fun and no risk of charm dropping, I havent tried them on vindi or tormax yet but they do good against other giants easy. its a random spawn for them to spawn but there is a way to make them spawn, 1 of the giants up on the stands overlooking the pvp area in kael sells tickets if your not kos to them, buy them and give them to the giant on the opposite side of him in that same area and that makes the giants and wolves to spawn, the way it works is either 2 giants or 1 giant & 1 wolf, or 2 wolves will spawn, its completely random what spawns.Try it out.

Hmmm... Somebody mentioned before that there is a broken script going on there in Kael Arena, in which some level 1 NPCs spawn and despawn. They are not KOS to players.

It's interesting to know if they are really level 1.

They are level 1, but hit quite hard, I tried attacking one with my level 1 ogre there one time :p Died quite fast.

I went into Kael with a level one today, ran to arena, watched the script. they were already up when I got there, then one despawned as in lost the fight. the other stayed a second. I might try something like make a halfling and use sneak on stonefist there see if I can buy a ticket to duel or whatever. I had fun though I ran all the way to tormax room, he wasn't up and ran back to see statue, vindi was not up...... killed by a temple guard hehe. I made it past the guardians of zek interesting enough, considering level one aggro, possibly bridge helped me out. I might check some scripts out there sometime.

1 of the giants up on the stands overlooking the pvp area in kael sells tickets if your not kos to them, buy them and give them to the giant on the opposite side of him in that same area and that makes the giants and wolves to spawn
You wouldn't happen to know the name of the mob you turn in the tickets to, would you? I sneaked up behind Vkjor and handed him a ticket but he returned after saying something about having no use for it. He was the only giant that was opposite of the ticket guy. Captain Bvellos paths by that area as well - could he be the ticket turn-in guy? I'm assuming it's not one of the spectators but I didn't have time to test them.

http://eq.forums.thedruidsgrove.org/showthread.php?t=2115

some info here, but no names.

http://eq.forums.thedruidsgrove.org/showthread.php?t=2115

some info here, but no names.
Thanks. I wasn't able to initiate the script but I'm guessing that the turn-in mob is Vkjor and that you need better faction than you can get via sneak.

I did find, however, that when a character reaches the flat area at the top of the steps into the stadium part of the PvP arena, it will spawn two combatants in the arena itself. If left alone, they'll sit there for a minute or so and then one will despawn. The other will despawn about 30 seconds later. There are a number of different named mobs who can spawn and while most of them are giants, there are two DC'able dogs: Black Fang and Swift Claw. Of the two, Swift Claw is a better pet -- he hits for 185 and can dual wield. Black Fang hits for 135 (IIRC) but is similar in every other way to Swift Claw. Both are significantly better than the Domesticated Dire Wolves and Swift Claw isn't too far behind the Drakkal Dire Wolves (who quad for ~230) but lacks their quick regen. Sadly, you can only initiate the script roughly once per hour using this method. Given that SC/BF are fairly rare spawns I continue to use the Drakkal Dire Wolves if they aren't up when I check in on them.

This is one of the zones I was planning on living in when I heard they where going to increase the DC level for us.

I heard a ranger solo`d him too -- but being that he wasn't on my server i can't comfirm.

Also, a druid would not be able to solo him with what's currently avalible.

I agree, I don't think a druid could do it either. However, if anyone wants to give it a go, please let me know so that I can make a toon to come and watch. :)