Solo Farming Rares

Someone on the forums had said farming solo instances like Refuge of the Apostate, Isle of the Iron Statues, Forgotten City (Unchained), and Dead Man's Hand (Unchained) for rares was full retard.  I respectfully disagree.  Doing Nightmare Bubbles would be full retard.  Solo farming for rares is just partial retard and everybody knows you never go full retard.  And having done it to get the Children of Yag shield, the Hyrkanian Chest and necklace (on different toons), it is also very tedious.

When I wrote the guide to Dead Man's Hand's main quest line, I ran the instance 18 times to get an idea of how much gold, Esteem Tokens, etc. would be gained.  Dead Man's Hand, while fun, is the most time consuming of these solo instances but each one, if completing the quests in them, takes around 25-40 minutes (although I know people can do them faster if just going for the rares).

Walkthrough for The Weakling, The Warrior, and The Wanton (Unchained)

Dreary place

Outside of raiding and PvPing, one of the best ways to get better gear is by gathering Rare Trophies that can be traded in (with gold) for purple gear.  One of the easiest Unchained instances to gather rares is Dead Man's Hand.  It generally takes longer than Island of Iron Statues and Refuge of the Apostate but is easier than both and significantly easier to access than the latter.

All a player needs to access this (and Island of the Iron Statues) is the Turan Adventure pack (which costs 1300 Funcom points or 6300 for the Jewels of Turan version which has several additional features including the Sand Demon combat pet).

To start the quest, talk to Artus in Ardashir.  The first time this quest is run, there's some extra steps (that I won't cover here) that set up the story for the recurring section.  After the first run through, the island only has four recurring quests.  Despite not paying much in silver (four to six silver, compared to 10 to 12 for Khitai quests), these are fairly easy to complete and in your general path through the island.  The fourth quest is available on the island but since completing it takes you off the beaten path, it's not covered here although it is pretty straight forward.