To become a monk ..

[Ghar]

Sadly, I did not do enough research when I started my first character, an Iksar, and now I realize that I have to do a betrayal quest to go from Freeport to Queynos so that I may become a monk.With all of the horror stories I hear about how difficult it is, and how much time it will take, and how low the chances of finding help are, I must ask ..Would I be better off starting over with a character from Qeynos? It took me from Friday night to Sunday night ot get to 14, but would it be a better use of time to cut my losses and start fresh?

[Coter]

I'm not sure how things are on your server, but on Oggok the longest thing about the betrayal quest is getting people to help you get the named, there are plenty of camps of grey gnolls around antonica and you can just go to one of those camps and kill gnolls while you are looking for a group. The problem was no one wanted to group up in the mid to high teens on my server, so getting a group to do the named, (which is required since they are at least blue ^^ at 17th,) is difficult.The other option you have is to become a bruiser, which is esentially the evil version of the monk, they are fairly comparible to monks, with slightly more DPS, it's more a flavor thing then anything else really. I don't recommend rerolling as a good monk unless you really have your heart set on being a monk, and don't want to wait 2 - 3 days to finish the betrayal quest, bruisers are just as good as monks, and a decent alternative to running the very long and boring betrayal quests.

[Ghar]

Ah, I didnt research well enough to realize that bruiser was pretty much the same as a monk, for the evil side. I was drawn mostly to the name, 'monk', which of course led me to believe it would be much different than bruiser, and that bruiser would not be enough like a monk to please me.Thanks for helping me take the step to research it better, you've saved me a lot of grief

[FamilyManFir]

As someone who is doing the Betrayal quest right now, I'll chime in and agree for the most part with Coterei. I knew about and expected the grind to kill 500 gnolls and it wasn't that big a deal. I killed level 11 Heroic gnolls in the Caves while 15, then level 11 and 12 Heroic gnolls in Antonica once I hit 16 & 17. It pretty much flew by as I was trying (unsuccessfully, I might add <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />) to see if I could clear all the groups of Heroic mobs around a gnoll camp by myself (I just didn't have the Power to do it fast enough).I didn't expect the difficulty to find and kill the 5 named gnolls. I had the unpleasant experience of having one de-spawn just as help arrived and having two killed under my nose by greedy 21st-levels as I was waiting for help. Fortunately I got lucky last night and grouped with another betrayer who had a 26th-level Rogue-type guildie who was willing to hang around, track the nameds, group with us until our group was ready, then drop from our group so we could take the named on and get credit for the kill. We managed to get all 5 in about an hour of play (killing other things in-between).If you really want an Iskar Monk, for whatever reason, go ahead and betray. The quest is a tad long but not too bad if you're prepared for it. Definitely work on the nameds while you're killing the 500, though.

[Jaril]

<DIV><FONT size=2> <P>Don't be put off by all the negative press this quest gets. I am a Ratonga monk and had to go through the Betrayal quest. While 500 gnolls may seem a lot (and granted, it is) you will find that it goes by quickly. I spent most of my time grouped in Blackburrow completing quests in there while killing the gnolls I needed, including the two named in there. I also found that I made a few good friends while doing this. They were betraying as well and we were on at pretty much the same times so ended up doing a lot of it together, including the final part where you have to run around talking to people.</P> <P>So, in the end, I highly recommend doing the quest if you have your heart set on being a monk. Just an FYI as well, although Bruisers may be similar to monks they are not exactly the same. Check out some of the websites out there such as <A href="http://eq2.ogaming.com/db/list/quests_byzone.php" target=_blank>This one</A> if you want to compare their individual abilities.  See the "Abilities and Spells" portion on  the right.</P> <P>Whatever you choose to do, I wish you the best of luck.</P></FONT></DIV>

[Aegi]

There's nothing difficult about this quest. I killed it in a night with no problems. Just rounded up some guildmates to help me kill the named.

[Bur]

The quest took me about a day. The names took less time then the 500 gnolls. No sweat, if you wanna be an iksar monk just do it.