On Wed, 9 Jun 1999, Rodney Morris wrote:
> David Rubino wrote:
>
> > I'm level 23, and I soloed to 23 with no problem.
>
> Well, maybe you are a bard that pumped most of their stats into
> AGI and STA, instead of CHA like I and others did. With 100 CHA,
> my ability to solo is virtually NILL at level 13. Sometimes even
> blues give me a run for my money!
I put 25 points into chr and 5 into agi. I didn't have much
of a problem soloing between 12-17 (which was back when I
refused to kite too). Do you remember back around L5-10, how
everyone loved to attack goblins because they were wimps
relative to how they /conned? Some mobs are just tougher, and
you have to find the wimpier ones.
Between 12-15, I'd say soloing was actually better than
grouping. But the reason for that was server overcrowding.
There are so many people playing in party-safe zones (i.e.
ones without wandering insta-kill mobs, or the few safe spots
in zones with them) that it's difficult to avoid spending a
lot of time sitting on your butts while the fetcher tries to
find something to kill. OTOH, playing solo, I could dodge the
hill giants and griffins in the Commonlands and hunt wisps and
the occasional undead and bear. Make sure you twist
Restoration while you fight, and search for something else to
kill as you're healing up.
At about 17, my friends and I started fighting in Highhold
Pass. Sometimes there are a lot of jerks there, but many
times the people were pretty reasonable about taking turns.
The orcs came quickly enough that I'd pick up a couple bubbles
every night I played there. I have a friend who went from 17
to 20 in 4 nights at Highhold. When I solo now, I usually
pick a risky blue, kite it near a zone, then fight it there.
After being forced to kite in the Ocean of Tears (red pirate
dropped on top of me, and you can't zone out of the OOT), I've
experimented with it a bit more. It is incredibly boring and
usually takes much much longer than if you just fought the
thing hand to hand and healed up afterwards. But it's useful
for softening up something before the melee fight so that
you'll definitely win instead of the outcome being iffy.
So there are just some level ranges where the available mobs
and spawn rate make soloing better, and some where grouping is
better.
> > When I do group, I find one of my main selling points is "I can't dish out
> > the damage, but I sure can take it".
>
> See my first point on placing mega stats into STA.
At 17-19, I've found that a monk is pretty good at drawing the
monsters off me, as can a warrior with decent weapons. A
rogue can do it if you give him a head start. I still get
beat up pretty badly if there are multiple mobs, but I usually
have two clerics and a paladin in the group so I feel really
safe. :-) The impression I'm getting is that the mob magnet
business is not as bad as it was when I was around L12-14.
--
John H. Kim
kim@...