Best solo melee

[elwing]

Depends on the mob, we get large in fight regen... 1min is fine for me on legionaires at 4way for example. As a human without fungy... A few minutes every handful of rats in pom for exemple... Without fungy the trick is to pick your fight so you almost need no hp regen.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

What is the downtime like for an SK at the higher levels? (I wouldn't play either an iksar or a troll, too ugly for me) Are we talking like 10+ minutes of sitting on your butt? Not confident I can ever afford a fungi

Shadowknights can make cash quite effectively by killing guards. I got my Shaman's Fungi that way. Feign death and fear kiting make all guard camps viable. Having a high strength helps a lot with carrying all those guard weapons to the merchant. You should easily be able to afford at least an Iksar Ceremonial Chestplate by the time you hit 50. A cheaper alternative to a fungi is https://wiki.project1999.com/Dark_Runed_Breastplate . This heals you faster than a fungi out of combat, and it recently got buffed to 90 hp a heal as opposed to 63 before. This will only cost you like 25k to MQ, which is easily affordable if you mostly level by killing guards.

For a low budget SK, get a https://wiki.project1999.com/Embalmers_Skinning_Knife first.That will allow you to bind wound to 50% indefinately aftet every kill for free.

Once you hit 45 you get access to Blood Ember Boots and Gloves, which are cheap and save you a ton of mana. With these two items you can basically save all your mana for life taps, which means more time between reqired meditation breaks. By having free fear kite, you also save a lot of hp because you aren't constantly getting hit by the mob you are fighting.

Shadowknight downtime only improves as you get higher level, because procs and clickies save you tons of mana and hp. With a Shadowknights ability to farm money fairly well, you shouldn't have a problem obtaining the items needed to reduce downtime.

[Danth]

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

A cheaper alternative to a fungi is https://wiki.project1999.com/Dark_Runed_Breastplate . This heals you faster than a fungi out of combat, and it recently got buffed to 90 hp a heal as opposed to 63 before.

A slight terminology nitpick: It was a bug fix, not a "buff" in the conventional sense. It was never supposed to heal for the lesser value.

I like the Blood Ember gloves and keep a set handy, but I've never cared for the Blood Ember boots. Casting time is too long, almost half the maximum duration of the fear. Mana regeneration is definitely the Shadow Knight's main limitation, much moreso than health regeneration. Protection of the Glades might be my favorite buff spell due to its combination of mana regen and long duration.

Danth

[Ennewi]

I would add that while blood ember boots aren't worthless by any means, the fear effect doesn't last long enough for most situations given that the click takes a considerable amount of time to cast; not bad for lazy duos and trios, but the multitasking required while soloing can be a bit much. On the other hand, Polished Obsidian Great Axe offers a more substantial fear at level 40, 9 levels before SKs can even mem the spell. Though that does mean relying on rng/dex, it's still a great option if already using a two-hander–just swap in and out as needed. The duration of invoke fear is significant and, more often than not, another proc will occur before the previous one wears off.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I use Blood Ember Boots quite a bit. It is actually quite beneficial that the fear is short. This allows you to fear kite in tight spaces, because you can measure out how far the mob goes before fear wears off. You can basically rubber band them back and forth along a fairly short runway consistently once you know the pathing in the area you are fighting.

Yes you will get hit when the fear runs off, but you are still saving a lot more HP that way than just face tanking. Blood Ember Boots will lengthen your kill time since you need to cast the boots more often, and the cast time is slow. But it is free, which means you can do it indefinitely on a mob, regardless of your current mana situation. In my opinion the extra time spent killing the mob would have probably been spent meditating instead if you used a mana fear. I would need to test that to confirm, but either way you have a time cost. It is either in additional casts, or additional med time.

Obviously the biggest drawback to the boots is the cast time, so you can't really use them to fear away multiple monsters consistently. But usually fear kiting is one mob at a time, so that is a more specialized case.

[Danth]

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

In my opinion the extra time spent killing the mob would have probably been spent meditating instead if you used a mana fear. I would need to test that to confirm, but either way you have a time cost. It is either in additional casts, or additional med time.

Correct for the most part. I don't like the boots because they annoy me, not due to any ineffectiveness. I consider the longer meditating preferable to a longer kill since I can be AFK doing something else for the former. I also sometimes use the shorter fear if I have to fear in tight places like most dungeon zones where fear might get used although the longer fear is obviously preferred whenever it's usable.

Danth

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Correct for the most part. I don't like the boots because they annoy me, not due to any ineffectiveness. I consider the longer meditating preferable to a longer kill since I can be AFK doing something else for the former. I also sometimes use the shorter fear if I have to fear in tight places like most dungeon zones where fear might get used although the longer fear is obviously preferred whenever it's usable.

Danth

I agree. Blood Ember Boots do require quite a bit more effort per kill. So they are not ideal during play sessions where you want to take breaks from time to time.

[White_knight]

Monk, Paladin, SK, Ranger, Warrior, Rogue.


In that order for soloability.

[Sacer]

What do you mean by solo melee, are we talking cash camps at 60 or soloing to 60?

For cash camps I can see how pal/sk could be stronger, as long as you have plenty of time to recover between respawns, but for exp from 1 to 60 monk is far far ahead from the others.

Where does the monk shine :

- you will take a lot less damage, it's not even close
- the downtime is much lower as long as you have bandages
- you kill much faster once again not even close
- the permanent "out of jail" card with feign death, you can easily crawl any dungeon and if you do it right you should almost never die


The gear required is also pretty low, as long as you have your epic at 50 (wich is miles better than other hybrid epics and a lot easier to do it's a must have), a haste item and some weight reduction bags to carry a ton of bandages you will be fine. Fungi cuts the recovery time even more but really it's the bandages doing most of the healing at least for 50 - 60.

Bonus points in my opinion monks are also more fun to play and the skill ceilling is higher than other hybrids.

[jolanar]

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

What do you mean by solo melee, are we talking cash camps at 60 or soloing to 60?

For cash camps I can see how pal/sk could be stronger, as long as you have plenty of time to recover between respawns, but for exp from 1 to 60 monk is far far ahead from the others.

Where does the monk shine :

- you will take a lot less damage, it's not even close
- the downtime is much lower as long as you have bandages
- you kill much faster once again not even close
- the permanent "out of jail" card with feign death, you can easily crawl any dungeon and if you do it right you should almost never die


The gear required is also pretty low, as long as you have your epic at 50 (wich is miles better than other hybrid epics and a lot easier to do it's a must have), a haste item and some weight reduction bags to carry a ton of bandages you will be fine. Fungi cuts the recovery time even more but really it's the bandages doing most of the healing at least for 50 - 60.

Bonus points in my opinion monks are also more fun to play and the skill ceilling is higher than other hybrids.

I doubt there is a cash camp that knights can handle that comes close to mass killing in a place like Droga. But I would agree that if you want to have "more options, but do them slower" than a knight is better choice.