Melee Soloing

[duneadx]

Hey all, just asking the best and the brightest what their opinion of the best melee soloing setup for a twink would be. What I really mean is what would be the ideal setup if one were to twink out a Warrior, Monk, or Ranger for soloing purposes. I've recently lost a lot of my available time to play and was considering setting up a new char that allowed me to pop on, do some killing as a melee with as little downtime as possible. I understand its a tall order on here for now, not asking to solo reds, just enough solo ability for it to be effective.

Any advice or thoughts are greatly appreciated!
Thanks

[Splorf22]

With a fungi tunic and some bandages you can solo any melee to 60 I would think except maybe a rogue. It slowed down for my warrior at 40 but was still quite reasonable.

[webrunner5]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

With a fungi tunic and some bandages you can solo any melee to 60 I would think except maybe a rogue.

No Melee is going to take on reds or even yellow mobs very high up. Mobs just hit too hard without a slow on them. I know a Ranger has the Swarmcaller but they still get hit pretty hard.

You have to be a caster class that does not get hit to kill yellow mobs and reds. And it takes a lot of time to do that.

I would have to lean toward a Twinked as hell Monk if I had the make one. A Iksar at that. Great DPS, good at pulling and FD. But slow going high levels XP due to the 44% Iksar penality on them. But SK, Pally, and Ranger have 40% so not that much of a deal. Monk has the problem with the weight thing so you have to buy a shitpot of Weight Reduction bags for them. Not cheap.

[fischsemmel]

Monk will almost certainly be the most capable of the classes you listed, OP.

They take hits very well, though maybe not as well as a warrior. They do much more damage than anything but a rogue who is behind a target. They have awesome utility in mend and feign and sneak.

You mileage will vary based on how much platinum to have to put into a monk, but I think that at any level of twinkage the monk will still outshine a warrior or ranger for solo.


SK is probably going to be more viable than warrior or ranger too. Much less DPS than a monk, but you still get feign. Lifetaps between 2h swings, a pet for a bit of added damage, snare+fear, all help make up for the lower DPS. But you will have to deal with a nastier xp penalty.

[duneadx]

Thank you for the quick responses! I will definitely take into account everything mentioned above.

[Scavrefamn]

Originally Posted by fischsemmel [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But you will have to deal with a nastier xp penalty.

Actually I believe Iksar monks get the same exp penalty as non big-race Shadow Knights.

Very specific case, but just felt like being pedantic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Kevlar]

Your best bet is to make best friends with a shaman.

[SirAlvarex]

If the only reason you want a melee is to hit stuff with weapons, you can try a bard. Our only soloing option until 27 is swarm kiting, but past that we can fear kite.

And with a fungi, you might not even have to fear kite. You get your own slows and heals to boot.

[duneadx]

Hmmm duly noted.... I mainly was just writing to see what people thought of the idea. If they had any advice on gear whether it be fungi or lifesteal weapons, stuff like that. I have to say i never even considered a bard for melee soloing lol

[Noselacri]

Monks are alright soloers with good gear. You can solo to 35ish with ease in just a set of Wu's, hp rings, jade mace type weapons and FBSS. If you add some more heavy-duty twinking like a high-end haste item and expensive staff, you could go to 40+ with no trouble. A fungi would let you solo to 60, though it'd probably start to suck after the early 50s.

Shadowknights can fear-kite all the way, and that's guaranteed to be a decent route. Can't match the actual solo classes, but it's a fully viable way to go. Doesn't require that much gear, either; a good weapon and an FBSS will do, you aren't going to be tanking very much. Add solid twinking and it's a strong soloer. Only serious concern is mana since you can't med while fighting and fear is kinda expensive, but this gets better when you can use Blood Ember clickies for your snare and fear, you only have to spend mana on tapping back the little damage you take while re-casting fears. I've soloed a shadowknight to 40 with less than 40k in gear (no regen item) and it didn't feel particularly slow.

Paladins can just barely solo. Their DPS is terrible and they don't have much solo-applicable utility, so it'll be okayish against undead and marginally doable against anything else. Deepwater helm helps some, but that's 46+ so you'll be without it for most of the journey. What they gain from buffs and healing, they lose by doing so little DPS that the fights are too long to be efficient.

Rangers are actually okay soloers. Their heals are small but have almost the same mana efficiency as paladin, druid and shaman heals. That whole line of 'X Healing' spells don't change much except for the size - it only costs 30 more mana to heal the same amount with Healing as you do with Greater Healing. They have a good ratio of DPS to tankability, they have amazing solo utility (snare, root, harmony, tracking, thorns) and have the option of bow/DoT-kiting if they want. Add the 50% slow from Swarmcaller and it starts to look reasonable. It obviously doesn't compare to caster soloing, but I'd call it better than paladin and comparable to a monk without fungi.

Warriors and rogues shouldn't bother without fungi. Maybe you'd get to 30 with an ikky bp, but that's it.