BoL Solo Instances ...really??

As expected, the solo zones are much easier in better gear and at level 120.

Don't rush to do the signature line. Get to 120 in the Blinding. Do all the quests out there to level and get better gear. Check out the quests in Aurelian Beach to also get better gear. Once you have your potency up above 80k, going through the solo zones is much easier.

So the issue I've found with the solo instances is they try to do this thing where you're fighting Heroic mobs with a buff called 'Grace of Norrath'. The idea is to make it seem dramatic where you're doing extra damage and harder to kill (and well should nearly be impossible to kill).

The issue is the buff is a straight percentage to your normal stats. So you see exponential increases in your performance the better your gear is. Sounds pretty standard and should work as intended. The issue is the gear you're assumed to have is far higher than you can obtain. You're also expected to have spell rank training for the 111-120 spells (using Ancients and Grandmasters from previous ranks is not recommended as the newest ranks change the effects of the spells substantially in some cases).

It also assumes that you have a geared (and trained) mount and mercenary (if going solo). This is a major issue for those who made new 110 characters. These are going to be ungeared and untrained.

What Daybreak should do, is decide what they wish the TTK for the mobs should be. Figure out a base rotation for some the classes, parse the damage, and then multiply that by the TTK and make that the HP of the mobs in the solos. Do this with fresh characters with the gear provided in the Blinding. Adjust the mobs in the later dungeons to have a little more HP to account for gear upgrades.

And if they're adamant about keeping the Grace of Norrath a thing, then multiply the mobs HP by the amount giving to the damage of the buff.

I have no idea why they haven't done this. Its basic level design. Effectively they took the heroic versions of the dungeons and copied and pasted them for solo, slapped a buff on to compensate, and didn't test it for the minimum gear and experience of a character they expect to be in there.

Let's be honest with ourselves here. IF we were undergeared for this content. It SHOULD pretty much one or two shot us. When you enter an area and in seconds get trounced, that's a clear indication you are too low for the area. When you go into a place and the enemies cannot even pin ***** you, but yet you can't hurt them either. It makes it awkward. It seems buggy, and probably is.

It's not being lvl 120 that matters. It's getting your potency up to heroic levels.. ie 120k. That's right.. if you're not a high dps class, you need to have potency good enough to be effective in T1 heroic zones to not spend an inordinate amount of time in SOLO zones.
That means throwing plat at solo gear to infuse it... for solo content....
Because reasons

Since I'm referring to people who were having trouble with solo zones and the signature line, being 120 does matter. Getting to 120 and upgrading gear is the best way to make it through the signature line. If you want to make it even easier, I guess you could infuse your gear, but that seems a bit much since the higher level and the better gear makes so much of a difference.

I've plat infused, reforged, used every potency infuser I can find and am still 6000 short of 120K.

Boring!

I noticed zero difference in the solo zones at 114 and 120.
None of the quest rewards require 120 to wear and only a few of the arts were worth swapping for the new apprentices.. and none of those were dps arts.
What about being lvl 120 magically makes a toon more effective?

120 and having better gear is what I said. The higher level enables the wearing of better gear.

I haven't seen any solo-achievable gear that requires lvl 120. Have you?

Are you just being obstinate? Leveling up and getting better gear helps you to get through zones faster. Unless you'd like to argue against that and have better advice for people.

Better gear makes sense, I agree. But the leveling part doesn't actually add anything I've noticed if you've got a full set of 150/155 gear already equipped. And the only way to GET that full set of gear is to do the sig line.
Level 120 w/o the gear is no better than level 144 w/o the gear. That's my point.

Less chances of resists if a caster type. I mean if you're going to be using 100 spells per mob, and having 10 of them resist gets noticeable. That shaves 5-10s off the TTK of each mob. Which can add up to a significant time saving.

Melee probably doesn't miss so much. But I'm not sure.

I finally Completed Echelon of Order Solo last night it took me about 4 to 5 hours. I now know how to complete the zone and I could do it again in less than two hours. It took me longer because the first time through you have to kill all the trash for the quest.

Thank you to the devs for adjusting Healer damage I could definitely tell a difference between this run and my first attempt.

The boss fights took about 20 mins each and I followed the scripts.

Just to let you know I'm a returning player playing a Templar my mount is untrained and using a level 4 familiars my merc is level 4 as well. I'm using the free gear at the start of the expansion plus the gear offered through the quests in the Blinding. I'm not using infused gear nor have I done anything with ascension.

Here is how I figured out how to beat this zone.
First Don't kill the trash encounters one at a time. This was my first mistake and why it was taking forever.
Gather up about 10 to 15 mobs at a time. It was taking 2 to three minutes to kill the first couple of mobs but after that, the other mobs had taken so much AE damage from my merc and Familiar they were already in the red and died quickly. The more trash mobs you can handle at a time the better. I was taking no damage from this many mobs and I plan to push the limits next time to see how many I can take at a time. The more trash at once the faster it will go.

Second strip your gear and buffs before you enter the zone. Once you enter wait for the zone buff to hit you then put your gear on, summon merc, familiar, mount, and then buff.

Third, on boss fights as a templar DEBUFF DEBUFF DEBUFF. Let me say it again DEBUFF. Mark of Divinity is an absolute must for a templar. It lowers their mitigation so more damage gets through.

Fourth switch to a DPS Stance and modify AAs to enhance debuffs and damage instead of heals. I went back to my mirror and created new AA sets.

To me, 2 hours is still a long time but it is the start of a new expansion and I know with better gear things will get quicker and I need to also deal with leveling mercs mounts and familiars as well as get ascension powers all will tremendously help speed up these instances.

I hope these tips help my fellow healers get through this instance

Not only heroics in BoL have plunderable items, there actually is an achievement just for that(so that tracking is easier yay).

2 hours is a long time for a heroic zone. It is an unreasonable amount of time for a solo zone. Especially when scouts are clearing the zones 10-15 minutes.

Sooo,... I take it healers ought ask their friendly neighborhood Ranger to join them to have an easier time?

Healers shouldn't have to ask for somebody to drag them through solo zones to finish in a reasonable amount of time

...right on cue; ""healers" do not need anyone."
uh huh, quite the expected response.

No. I don't mind helping people out and getting help.
But healers shouldn't be the only class that require a second player to do SOLO zones in a reasonable time.

For something listed as a Solo zone, its not too far fetched to assume you don't need anyone, no matter which class you're playing. In most (and by most I mean all others) MMORPGs solo means one-player only, as in you wouldn't even have the option to take another.

Instead of Solo Dungeons, we have literally Heroic-Lite. Its the Heroic dungeon with a Grace of Norrath buff that doesn't quite compensate for the lack of 6 players. You say grab a ranger, but its still going to take an inordinate amount of time. These are 6 man dungeons that give us a buff to have the HP of 3 players and the damage of 2 rather than 6 and 6. And that is where the problem is.

I've taken my main (Guardian) and one of my Alts (Troub) thru the sig quest. I am not sure either are "dps" but we got thur it.