I only play EQII part time, but I do like my Troubador (Anoki on old Unrest ). He's in his 70's and I'm taking my time levelling, trying to do all the quests I can find basically. Primarily I solo since EQII is my part time game, basically played when the mood strikes me. So that said, anyone have any tips or suggestions for a soloing troub? Generally speaking, I find my DPS tends to be too low to take on some mobs, even ones that should be tough but still soloable, and in combat regen (and in combat healing) are hurting too. It may be I'm just missing the right consumables to help out, or not equipped well enough to do what I'm trying, so I'm open to suggestions for what weapons and armor to be looking to get (quested/hunted ideally). What I really need too is to know what sort of stats and abilities I should be working on. Since I'm also a provisioner, food/drink buffing is relatively easy to get, and I have a set of TS alts that are close to my L70 level as well I can use to try and make the rest. I also need tips on what sort of buffs to use, both long term and in combat. My line up hasn't really changed in a long time, so I'm probably missing something blatantly obvious. Thanks.
Sorry this is so massively long after your post, but it looks like you're still in your 70s anyway, so I hope I can help. The generic answer you're going to get for troub soloing on most forums is "don't" because of the problems you've identified (it's not actually your playing style that may be the problem). The good news is you've already passed the hardest soloing levels IMO. Soloing is pretty straightforward once you get your casting bar in order. Since I also raided, my first hotbar starts with mez (for soloing) followed by all my debuffs then my short duration buffs (JCap, PotM), cheap shot, all my stealth or from-behind attacks and then my main attacks in order of highest damage to lowest (these will end up being on the second bar if you follow my scheme). Ranged attacks, charm, evac, etc. are on the third bar since they'll see the least use. With this setup, for most mobs you can basically skip right to the damage attacks starting with Thunderous Overture (TO) and Perfect Shrill. Hit these two as often as you can and you'll be fine most of the time. In general this goes TO, autoattack, two spells, autoattack, TO, rinse, repeat, loot. For slightly tougher mobs, start with your stealth attacks followed by cheap shot and your back stabs, etc. (I have no patience for this most of the time . For yet tougher, add in your JCap and PotM before pull. And for yet tougher mobs, mezz, go through all five of your debuffs, JCap, PotM, back stab, cheap shot, bump, sneak attack, TO, etc. If you have to deal with an encounter you don't think you can handle, don't knock using your charm and mezz before pull. As you get better gear these become less useful (and I understand they're completely useless in DoV, though I've barely play my troub in DoV because I hate what it did to us [see elsewhere on these forums]). The buffs to run when solo are pretty straightforward. Wis/Int is useless to us, so I generally run Dance of Blades, Graceful Avoidance(1), Rejuvenating Celebration(2) (yeah, it's not great, but it's got extra HP now which helps if you're struggling right now), Allegretto (3), Song of Magic (4) (again, it's underpowered, but what else are you gonna run?), and Aria of Magic (5) (also underpowered, but again what else are you gonna run?). Buffing yourself is about knowing what you're weaker in and what you're gonna be facing. If you're going up against caster mobs, you may want to switch to Arcane Symphony or Elemental Concerto depending on the type of caster. As to stats, AGI and STA all the way. You're not into SF or DoV content yet, so things like Potency, Crit, Crit Bonus, etc., aren't really available to you yet. Once you do get into that content, I believe the standard for SF was to raise Multi-attack and Crit (the quests will reward you choices of one type of gear or the other). In DoV, it's all Crit, Crit Bonus, and Multi-Attack as well as Crit Mit (with 120 crit mit being a minimum it seems if you ever want to get into a group or x2 raid). EDIT: I looked elsewhere and the DoV order is: Crit > Crit Bonus > Multi-Attack/Flurry > AGI > 1500 Ability Mod > Potency > Reuse > Other Mod. Last thing since you mentioned you're struggling with regen: upgrade your buffs first. If you can hold off until 81, you'll save yourself some money. After 81 getting everything Expert or Master will make survivability much better. I hope this helps. If anyone else still remembers what it's like to solo troubs, correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks. It's similar to what I've been experiencing I think. Still I've made some recent discoveries that do help. The biggest one I've found is that I can use charm to pull mobs out of clumps of other (unlinked) mobs. It's helped me a lot as I've worked through Kunark zones. I've also taken to pulling linked mobs with a mez and then charming (or vice versa depending on range and if I've forgotten the order). That usually helps space things out enough for me to survive. I don't know if it's the bow I'm using or if it may be a bug, but I've found I can often get into a 'sweet spot' where I can use my range attacks while meleeing. It helps me get a bit more damage in to get the mob down faster. I do have to rearrange my hotkeys. Like in EQ, I've been playing a Long time (Anoki is over 6 years old now), so I usually append as I need/remove as I find I need more space, and order is essentially unordered. I also need to take the time sometime and make my targetting key combos more like what I have in EQ. I may play a cleric on Luclin, but I do pull and am used to various forms of F8 targetting (Nearest/next nearst/last targetted etc...) that work differently in EQ2. I miss my XTar window dearly in EQ2 too.
When I solo'd from 70-80, I looked for room to move -- enough so I can circle-kite around. Then, I open up with an arrow attack, snare the mob, & immediately begin circling left or right. I don't know how others do this, but I use my down-arrow key & one of the two side-arrow keys simultaneously. Basically, I auto-ranged attack while circling, & unload ranged magik attacks on the mob when they're off cool-down. This takes a while, but is usually pretty safe in most areas. 1-70 was all fairly standard scout stuff, tho -- I didn't need to worry about circle-kiting until I got to ROK, at which point the mobs hit me too hard to try stealth-&-melee.
