Curse

Nazo · Feb 18, 2006, 11:00 PM // 23:00

I'm trying to get an idea of how bad my current character is. (I have no delusions of it being a really good one.) I'm curious how some various builds out there are doing at soloing. And by solo, I do NOT mean no humans in the group, I mean, 100% alone with no henches to fight by your side or to heal you (which is probably a little tough-ish in many places for just about any build.) I also don't mean runners, who just get some sprint or something handy and run like heck without actually fighting any more than is 100% necessary (if at all.)

Well, to answer my own question, my current character is able to solo a lot of the ascalon area. But, I run into limits when I start to run into a lot of enemies and they begin cutting through all my armor and I have to stop using frenzy. For example, if I step outside the serenity temple alone, there's a group of three stone elementals (can't remember if they were hulking or what) standing just outside. I slaughter them. Horribly. But, immediatley after, there's another group with four and I hit some kind of limit. I kill one or two, but, usually have to turn and run, heal really quickly, then come back and finish them off the rest of the way in the second shot. Bear in mind that this is with no healer at all, so any health lost stays lost during the fight (no vampiric yet or anything else to regen HP right now, so HP lost stays lost until I use signet of healing.) This is with a level 16 character who hasn't managed to cover all of Kryta yet and who has a very minimal amount of the jungle (can't remember the weird name of the thing off the top of my head) covered (I just managed to crawl bleeding and dying into quarrel falls with all my useless henches slaughtered, so I'm starting to upgrade my armor, but, I'm broke right now.)

I would assume that, for example, a powerful elementalist or a strong warrior can go out there alone for a fair deal longer than I can, but, I'd like to get an idea of the scale of things at least. Might give me a better idea what I need to work on and if there's any hope for this build really.

moriz · Feb 18, 2006, 11:13 PM // 23:13

i've solo'd to yak's bend with my r/w, who is essentially a warrior in ranger armor. it's tough, but the key is to control how many monsters you fight at once.

with that said, i believe that the soloing ability of classes depend on the situation. for example, areas with narrow valleys are especially favourable to rangers, where your pet can simply plug all the monsters in one place while you shoot them. and i disagree on the elementalist part, since elementalists have no armor and all their spells taking so long to cast. they'll get pounded in a few seconds without something blocking the way.

Nazo · Feb 18, 2006, 11:28 PM // 23:28

I said elementalist because in many areas -- particularly weaker ones like where I was using as an example on my own character -- may be able to get their spells or even just one spell to do enough damage to kill creatures before they can break through the elementalist's armor. A good AoE against those elementals for example might just keep them running and slaughter them long before they get in more than a hit or two. I'm not clear on what you mean by "elementalists have no armor" though. I'm not exactly loaded myself, but, atm I have a stone eye providing 39, robes providing 39, gloves providing 30, leggings with 30, shoes with 30, a shield with 9 (with -2 damage received while hexed I might add) and finally a sword that does +4 (didn't get it for that, but, it's a bonus despite the -5 energy that my energy storage makes up for.) Anyway, a lot of elementalist spells don't take so long to cast. You have to pick your skills carefully with that sort of thing in mind. Bear in mind I'm not talking about just waltz out there unprepared and hope you survive, but, what you can actually just go out there and do when prepared, so an elementalist can stop in town and carefully pick his spells and skills for my concept of soloing. Don't forget, for example, Armor of the Earth. I'll be honest with you, I still haven't 100% understood the armor system of this game though. (I miss good old D&D where it just affected how likely they were to hit you at all and the calculation was built right into the actual armor class itself so there was minimal math involved.)

I'm not sure about pets. I was kind of meaning completely alone with no help whatsoever, but, I am forced to admit that pets are a key makeup of the ranger model so can't be disregarded either. It's just that it still breaks it up into two fighting against the groups instead of one, which leaves one able to maneuver. A single person has to deal with more than two because they are more likely to be interrupted, have to deal with being hit while healing, etc. On the one hand, having a pet is kind of unfair to the solo equation, but, on the other, you're expected to have a pet and it's not fair to ask you not to since the character is balanced towards having one.

I do agree about splitting enemies up btw. I always do whatever I can to split groups. Often they'll be milling about, but, really it's just several groups together, and you can sometimes aggro just one group, run a bit to seperate them, then fight the one group alone. I do this all the time whether solo or not because to me it just seems stupid to do what most people do and barge right into a huge mass of enemies to get slaughtered by sheer numbers. It feels a bit unfair to me that the AI won't allow me to split up single enemies very often at all though. It's kind of unfair the way they kind of all share a telepathic link I swear.

EDIT: Is that soloing the TRIP to Yak's Bend, or it's immediate area (say to Borlis Pass)? And I just took on a group of three hulking stone elementals, two stone elementals and survived with less hp loss than I expected by far. Guess it just depends. I think that one group must hit me with something I haven't noticed yet or something, or maybe I just have too much of a habit of taking care of my HP since often thanks to that frenzy some enemies will kill me with one shot if it gets down that low (I've been slaughtered suddenly without time to respond with a hit that I swear must have been 150 or more from an ettin on several occasions, so now I watch more carefully, but, I'm being a lot more careless with these mere elementals.)

Oh yeah, and can you give me an idea more what kind of abilities you have? Level, what level of skills you'll have access to at this point, etc.

FaeBaul · Feb 20, 2006, 05:08 AM // 05:08

In response to the Thread Topic; Anything, just give me time and I will have a Character Build that will solo it.

Nazo · Feb 20, 2006, 05:18 AM // 05:18

Yeah, that kinda doesn't help me very much.

Whispering Siren · Feb 20, 2006, 05:33 AM // 05:33

you should consider not using frenzy - taking double damage is rather painful. switch that out and see how you do.

also - your armor has a bonus vs. physical damage, find melee foes to solo (i.e. the ettins near Ascalon Settlement) and stay away from eles, necros and mesmers. I'm not sure what you should be able to do at this point, honestly - just try it out

you should find yourself a low damage longbow and use that for pulling enemies apart, the range is larger than your aggro circle and you'll only pull one group toward you - much easier to separate them that way. Most groups consist of 3 to 4 foes.

an another important consideration is your skills - if you are able to, you should carry some sort of interrupt when soloing, so you can stop the most disruptive skills or healing skills of the foe.

Nazo · Feb 20, 2006, 05:52 AM // 05:52

Well, I wasn't so much looking for advice as just benchmarking. Kind of getting an idea of my progress. However, I must say that I already have a bow and it doesn't seem to work like that. At least for me enemies have some kind of telepathic link with all others in the same group unless they are quite far apart for some reason (which is rare indeed) so if I attack one from the farthest distance any weapon or spell will allow me, I get the whole group. Thankfully, only one or two rare groups out there share that telepathic link between groups, so usually I can use that trick to get just one group rather than two or more. Usually.

As for frenzy, I'm using it on purpose. I'm aware of it's limitations and only use it when I can afford to. Just it's hard sometimes to keep up and every now and then an enemy slips one past me and suddenly hits for 150 when IMO none should be able to do that (so far only an ettin has ever done that, but, I still consider it unreasonable even for them.) I may not keep as good of an eye on my health as I should, but, I don't appreciate having only a bit less than 1/2 hp and just suddenly dying without even time to move. Just remember, frenzy has it's downs, but, overall, you do considerably more damage yourself with it, so it shouldn't entirely be disregarded as worthless.

Le Grinder · Feb 20, 2006, 07:03 AM // 07:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by FaeBaul

In response to the Thread Topic; Anything, just give me time and I will have a Character Build that will solo it.

I've been wondering about sand giants... there are many out to the northeast of destiny's gorge, and they are poweerful enough to give the party a morale boost in one of those missions. East of the gorge there are at least 45 of them, and they always hang around in groups of at least three.

They attack with:
Giant stomp
Vile touch
Signet of agony(?) - the one that causes bleeding on the caster
Plague touch

As of yet i haven't been able to beat them individually. mabye a 55 monk can, but they do have knockdown... I'm sure that they would drop some nice treasure too.

EDIT: As to what i can solo... Most of the iron mines mission, all the basic stuff, anything that is the warrior or ranger type build. Elementalists too. Necro type bad guys and monks are more than annoying though. Mesmers are usually fine.

Jetdoc · Feb 20, 2006, 06:48 PM // 18:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Le Grinder

I've been wondering about sand giants... there are many out to the northeast of destiny's gorge, and they are poweerful enough to give the party a morale boost in one of those missions. East of the gorge there are at least 45 of them, and they always hang around in groups of at least three.

They attack with:
Giant stomp
Vile touch
Signet of agony(?) - the one that causes bleeding on the caster
Plague touch

As of yet i haven't been able to beat them individually. mabye a 55 monk can, but they do have knockdown... I'm sure that they would drop some nice treasure too.

Their drops are so-so - the best place to solo them is the Thirsty River mission, since they appear one at a time. Just make sure you engage them and the rockshot devourers SEPARATELY.

You really only need three skills to do it effectively - Mending, Watchful Spirit and Dolyak Signet, with a maxed out Strength attribute. Keep Dolyak up all the time.

Do NOT bring any condition causing skills (i.e. bleeding, deep wound, etc) as they'll use plague touch to put it back on you. Focus on damage, damage and more damage and you'll kill them before they can kill you.

Riceboi · Feb 21, 2006, 08:51 AM // 08:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by FaeBaul

In response to the Thread Topic; Anything, just give me time and I will have a Character Build that will solo it.

Sorrows Furnace and Tombs(new UW) please! gg thank you

striderkaaru · Feb 21, 2006, 04:33 PM // 16:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by FaeBaul

In response to the Thread Topic; Anything, just give me time and I will have a Character Build that will solo it.

furnace can be done, i believe.

so, tombs and hell's precipice please. gg thank you.

@the OP
considering where you are in the game, i wouldn't worry too much about soloing yet. wait until you have hit level 20, are wearing drok level armor, and have all of the elites you need capped. oh also, never use frenzy for pve. ever.

Nero · Feb 24, 2006, 11:47 PM // 23:47

i can solo

Trolls
Griffons
Sand Drakes
FoW Spiders (thx to racthoh)
FoW Driftwoods(thx to racthoh)
FoW Dryders(thx to racthoh)
Minotaur
Hydras

with my W/N (all on my own builds except for the fow stuff)

Nazo · Feb 25, 2006, 12:50 AM // 00:50

Thank you for actually posting on topic. I was dissapointed how quickly the thread was hijacked and turned into a howto guide rather than its intended purpose.

Quote:

Originally Posted by striderkaaru

@the OP
considering where you are in the game, i wouldn't worry too much about soloing yet.

Like I said, it was a benchmark. I dont freak out that I cant solo so-and-so, I wondered about how I was doing. It kind of gives you an idea how well your character has developed when you see how strong and how many enemies that character can fight against without anyone or anything around to help. I have to admit though, the ranger does kind of throw off the equation entirely.

Face Smashery · Feb 25, 2006, 01:42 AM // 01:42

To OP:
strider had it exactly right.... it's unimportant to benchmark yourself when you realize that:
A. You are wearing extremely low end armor, even on an elementalist the endgame armor value is 60.
B. You spoke of having half health and getting a one shot death to a 150 dmg attack so I'm assuming you have 300 hp or so, which puts you ard lvl 10 soloing is unimportant at this point.
C. I have 4 lvl 20 characters at endgame areas that can take on any number, yes thats ANY number of those golems if I chose to do so as they are extremely weak as far as soloing goes.
D. It's not a true benchmark of your skills but rather a matter of the skills you have unlocked atm. for example, my latest character (Ele/mo) was soloing lvl 22 hydras in the crystal desert area at lvl 11.

Its really important to browse the build forums and get an idea of optimal setups that you can work from. People may say that they don't like to "use other peoples builds" but remember the phrase "Don't reinvent the wheel". To some extent you should start with someones elses work and go from there, thats the whole point of shared knowledge after all.

Loviatar · Feb 25, 2006, 01:57 AM // 01:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nazo

I said elementalist because in many areas -- particularly weaker ones like where I was using as an example on my own character -- may be able to get their spells or even just one spell to do enough damage to kill creatures before they can break through the elementalist's armor. .

my elementalist can very comfortably open the gate on the Nolani Academy mission and kill everything that comes in and then finish the entire mission killing things in the way not running it in less than 20 minutes.

yacks bend is nice to wander around in as are the Ascalon foothills with the hydras.

i have also very carefully done Altheas Ashes quest cleaning out the entire Flame Temple Corrodor and everything around and including the alter itself solo just me no henchies

i can run through sanctum cay but not fight it

Armageddon · Feb 25, 2006, 11:25 AM // 11:25

I can comfortably solo lvl28 Titans - upto 6 at a time E/R

ThePadawan · Feb 25, 2006, 11:48 AM // 11:48

My lvl20 W/R can solo the devourers and gargoyles outside Ascalon. Wheres my prize?

Jetdoc · Feb 25, 2006, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThePadawan

My lvl20 W/R can solo the devourers and gargoyles outside Ascalon. Wheres my prize?

Candy Canes and Candy Cane Shards?

:dunno:

Nazo · Feb 25, 2006, 11:56 PM // 23:56

@Face Smashery I had life lowering things I think. A major rune or something, I don't recall. I was definitely not level 10. I go past level 10 a very short time after leaving pre-searing. At this point my build has kind of changed around a little and I'm still trying to get the hang of things, but, I had 470hp before I added a superior rune. Bear in mind my armor goes up a fair amount with the help of a spell or two.

I think this is kind of handy to get an idea of progress when people actually give me an idea of where they are in the game. Main problem is since it maxes out at 20 long before the game is done, one level 20 can be very different from another. I don't like that about this game. (I miss D&D where a level up made a huge difference rather than a small one *sigh*) I don't suppose this helps anyone else?

Francis Crawford · Feb 27, 2006, 06:39 AM // 06:39

I soloed most of Ascalon with my elementalist. However, I forget how much of this was after I got Drok's armor. A Fireball to open the conversation, followed by killing the monk fast, was good. Glyph of Lesser Energy/Phoenix usually finished off whoever as beating on me, and THAT fast I didn't die. Rangers were a problem, but I eventually outdamaged them. Ether Feast was key. Lava Font did some damage and discouraged loitering when I was in real trouble and needed a couple of Ether Feasts in a row before getting pounded on more.

This all came to a crashing halt when I got to the mountains and the dwarves had Disrupting Chop.