Essence Emeralds: A Primer

Unique to the Necromancer, essence emeralds are quite the handy little gem. Their primary purpose, and only real use, is to provide a reagent for necro resurrection spells. We will take a look at one other use, just for some interesting history. It is a safe bet you won't ever use it though.

There are a few methods to obtain an essence emerald. In order that they were implemented into the game, they are:

• Sacrifice
• Venin line nukes
• Soulrend

Making Essence Emeralds

Sacrifice

The old school method. The gift of resurrection spells was not given to necromancers lightly. In order to revive a corpse, a sacrifice had to be made. The spell Sacrifice actually, take a look.

Spell: Sacrifice

To make this work, you need to be grouped with a player level 46 or above. You cast on them, and they get a permission pop up, just like a translocation spell. If they accept, they are instantly killed. That corpse can NOT be resurrected for experience! It truly is, a sacrifice.

It was quite profitable in the older days of EQ to pay for these sacrifices, and then sell the essence emeralds. At a time when 10k platinum was a small fortune, you could pay someone 150 platinum per sacrifice, and turn around and sell the gems in the bazaar for 300-500 PP. This could vary by server of course, just an idea how they were basically money in themselves. Some people would take alts from 60+ all teh way down to 45, when they could no longer sacrifice that character.

Venin and Other Poison Nukes

At level 71, necromancers were given a new spell ability. The poison nuke was an upgrade, but had the added effect of a small shot at a free essence emerald. It required two different luck factors. You had to get the kill shot on the monster, which could not con trivial, and even then it is only a 5% chance. It is pretty hard to time it just right, and then still only have a 1 in 20 shot at a gem, but it was FREE which was awesome. At least, the nuke itself was not terrible, but in current content, mob HP has scaled so much, its even harder, only doing 1-2% per nuke.

Soulrend

The latest addition to the set is the level 103 Spell: Soulrend. This is the easiest one to use, but has the lowest chance. It has a fixed chance of 2% per cast to create an essence emerald. There is less timing involved, and more ability to just spam it constantly. It isn't too bad for a lifetap itself, and can be helpful in a group that kills too fast for DoTs.

Uses for Essence Emeralds

Resurrection

The primary use is to give necros a rez spell. There two versions. Each consumes one essence emerald.

Convergence Spell - Level 53 spell, 93% rez

Convergence AA - Level 95 Alternate Ability, maxes out at 96%

Useless / Historic Uses for Essence Emeralds

Just for completion, here are the other uses for essence emeralds, even though they are either far outdated, or just never were useful. Each of these costs one essence emerald to cast.

Spell: Infusion - Level 55, refills 1,000 mana

Spell: Trucidation: Level 60, 1,500 point lifetap