Soloing Downtime

[Novoselic]

I'm trying to solo at EK on my 18 druid but without C or even a breeze my downtime is ridiculous. I charm a mob and throw a dot but after 2 or 3 mobs i end up oom and having to sit for 20 mins afk to get fm. Am I soloing wrong or is this just how it is?

[Diogene]

Do you get both pets low hp's and break charm and just finish them off with root / rot? If you do so, you should't be oom after 3/4 kills, unless frquent unwanted charm breaks

[Tecmos Deception]

Charming is rough at low levels. Charm breaks, snare, root, even a tiny dot... these things all eat a relatively large amount of mana. And since the level range of things that you get solid XP for is so small, you end up fighting stuff that is basically too high level to charm very effectively.

It gets much, much better as you get more levels.

For now though, my guess is you need to stop exaggerating (20 minutes? it doesn't take a 50+ wizard that long to med to full after a quad) and/or focus on the little things you can do to improve mana useage/regen. Are you ALWAYS sitting down as soon as you can and for as long as you can to get med ticks? Do you waste mana on things like snare or root when you could just make use of wide-open spaces and SoW to avoid getting hit instead? Are you letting the mobs get as low as possible (under 10% at least) before breaking charm to finish them off? Are you keeping yourself buffed with stuff that's unnecessary (if you're outdoors, you basically only need sow and that's it). When you DO need to use a root, are you using the lowest level one? Are you sometimes fighting against even or yellow cons who resist a lot more and have more HP to whittle down?

Stuff like that really can add up over the course of a couple-hour-long solo session.

[thebutthat]

Just train mobs you can charm to that roaming guard over there. Charm before he kills, when he walks away, use your low mana nuke and repeat.

[Mzy12345]

I charmed hounds here at that lvl and didn't seem to experience the mana issues you were having but I did have the luxury of a Gob Gazughi to get them very low. The hounds do have a pretty good range in level so there are times when the pets don't match up well at all. If one is still 40% or higher when you break charm I think you are better off recharming. Also, snare them mid fight since the duration is not that long. That way when you break charm they start running and you can use the lowest mama spell you can to finish them off without them moving and worrying about adds.

Also, when you ding 19 I bound at the bridge and would port back to WC and stalk enchanters to get Clarity. It makes a huge difference at that level. I'm sure someone will mention from an efficiency standpoint the mana for a port to WC then Gating isn't efficient but with Clarity and Full Mana I could kill 12-15 hounds without having to med. Then when I ported back I could just afk and med up so it depends on how you want to play.

[branamil]

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

I'm trying to solo at EK on my 18 druid but without C or even a breeze my downtime is ridiculous. I charm a mob and throw a dot but after 2 or 3 mobs i end up oom and having to sit for 20 mins afk to get fm. Am I soloing wrong or is this just how it is?

Yeah thats just how soloing is. They make soloing very punishing for most classes. That's the game strongly hinting you need a duo buddy or a group.

[indiscriminate_hater]

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

Just train mobs you can charm to that roaming guard over there. Charm before he kills, when he walks away, use your low mana nuke and repeat.

A+ advice. Always let mobs do work for you

[Renault]

I didn't find it efficient to charm until a little higher. For 18 I was still soloing with tree form + DS.

[Lhancelot]

on my lowbies that are punishing to solo on, casters/priests particularly you will find buffs from higher lvls extremely helpful.

I would suggest binding at your hunting spot which should be close to EC tunnel. Then run to the tunnel, look for shamans, chanters, druids and politely ask for buffs. Druids can give regen and even POTG if they are 60, shamans give regen and nice hp buffs, chanters give clarity and haste if you meleeing.

Charm is not efficient in low lvls, the charm breaks a ton and the mana used is huge for your mana pool unless you have a ton of nice mana gears on.

Not until early 20s does charm seem to get more efficient.

Druid dots are not the best either, but soloing you have little else to work with until you can quad which you should definitely strive for as a druid if you soloing.

Anyway, if you get buffs at tunnel, then gate to your hunting spot, you lose little time on the buffs you just got.

The mana regen is a huge help and so are any regen buffs etc.

With high lvl buffs on, you can probably throw DS on yourself (thorns) and melee if you have a half decent weapon on. Throw one dot on mob, and then just melee with thorns. If you got a higher lvl regen on, it will help immensely. If you regen mana fast, use a nuke or more dots on mobs.

[Shodo]

The mobs should be fleeing when you break charm (i.e. get them under 10-15%), so if you have mana issues just snare the uncharmed one before breaking. When the mobs get far enough apart they'll stop chasing and flee, so you can just finish off with melee. Even a 50p 1hb will do the job in a few swings. Depending on how long it takes it might be better to just nuke and med, but for very low health mobs meleeing can save you a lot of mana.