I am have a difficult if not impossible time soloing blue con mobs and whites are just too much. Until I hit 22 I had no trouble. Is this just me or my fighting style or a combination of both. I use HO to the max. My armor and weapons are not the best but they are all I can find at the moment. This is very discouraging to me. I do like being a Dirge. By the way these mobs are in Nek. What seems funny to me I did solo a couple of these mobs before Friday. Any thoughts on soloing in general would be helpful.
Bah, not sure what happened with the 2 almost blank posts... Anyways, I am a level 23 dirge, and I can solo yellow con "solo" mobs in Thundering Steppes and also I can solo the green "group" undead mobs. Not the ++ ones (yet), haven't tried the 2 x + ones, but the 3 or 4 linked ones without pluses I can do (easily in fact). The key is simple: 2 things. One is equipment. My AC and hps are almost 900, and could be quite a bit more if I had more cash. Two is spell upgrades. I have all Adept 1s minimum. On the green "group" mobs without pluses, I can literally stand there, do the fight without using any special attacks for damage, only use buffs and debuffs, and often have full health after the fight. Full health. No potions. They just aren't hitting me very often. Get that AC up there, and the parry disc is your friend on the yellow solo mobs =)
Bah, not sure what happened with the 2 almost blank posts... Anyways, I am a level 23 dirge, and I can solo yellow con "solo" mobs in Thundering Steppes and also I can solo the green "group" undead mobs. Not the ++ ones (yet), haven't tried the 2 x + ones, but the 3 or 4 linked ones without pluses I can do (easily in fact). The key is simple: 2 things. One is equipment. My AC and hps are almost 900, and could be quite a bit more if I had more cash. Two is spell upgrades. I have all Adept 1s minimum. On the green "group" mobs without pluses, I can literally stand there, do the fight without using any special attacks for damage, only use buffs and debuffs, and often have full health after the fight. Full health. No potions. They just aren't hitting me very often. Get that AC up there, and the parry disc is your friend on the yellow solo mobs =)
Hey double poster. I'm the same way. I have very high resists, very high AC, agility is excellent, I have all adept I's for all skills, and find that I can solo anything up to yellow that is a solo mob, and groups of unaccented greens are easy to kill without losing any health at all due to my defense rating. I just fight them one-at-a-time with Akin's Lamentation or whatever to wittle down the whole group as I go along. Great way to get those Adept I book drops without having to share.
Not only good for getting loot you don't have to roll for. Also good for praticing disarm skill on chests =) Up to 82 now, and I got my first successful chest disarm on a Thundering Steppes level chest.
If you are having trouble soloing blue con mobs at lvl 22 and are using HOs then you have some serious problems. The only time I ever had problems soloing even white or yellow mobs (except for the occassional very-bad-roll syndrome, which is rare) was when I was 17-19 trying to take out 20+ mobs who had the dmg boost when I didn't have it. I'd suggest either concentrating on running all of your armor quests to get decent equipment or you can do what i did and buy some crafted medium armor (and then I ran all the quests and resold what I had bought). You really shouldn't have any trouble at all with white-con solo mobs.
I am a 23 Dirge and I can solo yellow mobs on a consistent basis and rarely do I die or have to run from a fight. Here is what I do: Before I pull, I bring up: Insatiable Ardor ... I then pull with Reproaching Discante. Once the mob is in range, I use: Tarven's Crippling Crescendo. During the Fight: I use a mixture of: Walt's Singing Blade, Sparkling Blade, Piercing Shriek, and I try to get in Ringing Blow every oppoturnity I get. I'll recast Taren's if needed. The only time the fights are close is if the mob resists Piercing Shriek (I generally solo in Nek Forest near N'Mars Accent (sp). Usually casting Sparkling Blade before I cast Piercing Shriek does the trick, if I get 2 resists during the fight with Piercing Shriek and if Ringing Blow doesn't come up (even with coin flip), I'll stop attacking, sing Verlien's Enigmatic Falsetto and I'll break the fight and run away, there is no sense in trying to push an encounter and rack up exp debt. Sure you might win but the time it takes to work off the exp debt versus the time it takes to regroup is greater. Its better to just call no joy, if the RNG isn't in your favor. Also keep in mind, that I am wearing up through AQ5 (I have AQ6 done just cant' wear the BP yet) and I have nice jewerly. I think buffed my AC is around 1100 or so, solo its almost 1k (like 935-950, I don't remember exactly). I also notice a difference in the amount of parries I get when I use Ardor versus when I do not.
What have you guys been using for weapons? I haven't really tried to solo, but I have nice jewelry, i've finished and i'm wearing all my AQ, and for weapons I use dual weighted spatha of battle. I don't have adept1 in everything, mainly because they're never for sale or they never drop on my server. I'll have to try soloing in TS and see what comes of it. I'm 26.5 dirge atm, and a 25 provisioner, so I'm sure I'd have little or no down time with the food / drink I make.
Another useful trick when soloing is the solo backstab. To do this, use your stun and make sure to turn autoattack off and not have the dot effect of sparkling blade? (sorry if i got the name wrong on it) going. Remember that the stun only lasts until the mob is hit again. After stunning, circle to the back and you can get in a backstab attack instance. I find this to be a useful tool when soloing because of the extra attack with 60-120 damage (with adept 1 on the bs). Also, a good trick for pulling is to invest in a decent bow, and work your ranged skill up. I know most folks don't seem to like our double shot arrow attack but once you work your ranged skill up, it comes in very handy. Start a pull with our DD song (around 100-140 dmg if not resisted) then immediately begin to backpedal when it goes off. Start off the double arrow shot and with a decent bow (and skill up over 100) you'll generally do another 100-150 dmg with the bow shots. It makes a mob a whole lot easier to solo if you're starting off with it down 1/3 of it's health when you get into melee with it. Oh and for those that don't like the double shot arrow attack, I didn't care for nor use it until i finally got my ranged skill up to 90+. Before that it almost never hit. Now, I use it almost every pull when I solo because of the extra damage potential involved on the pull. Damascis Darkhorseman 24th lvl Dirge Crushbone Server
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also, a good trick for pulling is to invest in a decent bow, and work your ranged skill up. I know most folks don't seem to like our double shot arrow attack but once you work your ranged skill up, it comes in very handy. Start a pull with our DD song (around 100-140 dmg if not resisted) then immediately begin to backpedal when it goes off. Start off the double arrow shot and with a decent bow (and skill up over 100) you'll generally do another 100-150 dmg with the bow shots. It makes a mob a whole lot easier to solo if you're starting off with it down 1/3 of it's health when you get into melee with it. -- from a previous post - Warchant -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I use doubleshot on every solo encounter, and as im usually the tank in a party without a tank, it helps me get agro back sometimes if im desperate. ever notice you get agro mostly when you dont want it when you cast your songs, and when you do, the mobs ignore you? im hoping the increase hate will help with that. i see that spell as the replacement taunt when mixed with AoE dmg song. i would like to figure out how to best use the dirge abilities to get agro off the healers so they can heal more then just themselves. i realized that since i have read all these posts, no one talked of acting as the tank. i assume im not the only one who does, as i do as much damage in attacking as a figher one lvl lower then myself, and usualy have more hit points then said fighter. i would love to hear any feadback even if its "your a bard not a tank, get over it!! :smileywink: Dirges Unite!
Yeah we arent good tanks by any stretch of the imagination, but with a cooperative group bards can tank just fine on white++ and lower. In my experience, above that gets sketchy, though still fine - especially if you are geared well and dependent on your healers and their power :smileywink: I tank all the time when I duo/trio with my wife and friends who are a couple levels lower than me. Best thing to do is to be sure they assist, so they dont build up aggro on a mob in the encounter that you have not touched. Sing your buffs in battle as needed to get/hold aggro, works like a charm. Dirges should be doing more damage than a fighter our level :smileywink: And on usually having more hit points - you are definitely right -the gear I see on some fighters, ugh, a dirge shouldn't have higher AC and health but it happens heh. Even if the dirge is "better" stat wise, remember the backend unshown things like mitigation that can give a "lower" statted person the edge tanking. Just some thoughts - pretty tired waiting for servers to come back up ~ In reference to the original post, I'm continuing to work up my ranged skill - the 100-140 hits you are talking about, do the super cheap arrows (tin) do that much, or do we have to start spending cash per shot for level suitable arrows?
Some decent advice. Nothing too shocking. Wear good gear. Use buffs before fight. Pull with high damage ranged attack, or strong debuff spell. Do HO's as often as possible. Stun and backstab when you can being mindful of dots breaking stun. The stun/backstab combo also buys you time for other abilities to refresh while not getting pounded. A couple other things I would advise, not just for dirges, but all players in general. A.) Solo with a purpose. Group exp and loot is vastly superior to solo, so don't waste time soloing unless you just don't have the time to deal with lfg. Likewise, don't waste time just sitting there with thumb in butt with lfg tag on. Get something done solo while lfg and /ooc what it is your looking for. When you do solo, solo with a purpose. Specifically, try to make some ground on quests that you can handle solo. For instance, the 3 keys book quests from South Qeynos are great making progress solo. Gaining some ground with Access quests is always a good idea as well. Like at 25, if you can't find a group head over to Nek forest and start working on EL access. First part you kill a ton of crabs, which you can do solo. Gather some resource nodes or something. There's alot of progress you can make on your character solo, just have to keep yourself busy and ears open for opportunity. B.) Know your opponents/environment. Soloing you take on all the risk/reward by yourself. No one but yourself to blame if you die. Step one is learning what you can and can not do. Take Thundering Steppes for example. Over by the west coast where the sunken ship is, you have 2 main solo opportunies. The crabs on the beach, and the sirens in the water. The crabs are docile and won't attack unless provoked, plus they don't assist each other. The crabs are warrior type mobs with decent hp/ac. They have 2 main special attacks that I've seen. A stun type ability that interrupts your spells and a barrage that can hurt pretty bad sometimes. Usually, they aren't too tough if yellow con or below and the occasional crab claw sells well. The sirens on the other hand are aggressive and will attack you at a fair distance. Some are group so you need to pay attention to target tags. They are primarily caster type mobs with a variety of spells/debuffs. As casters, they have truely crappy hp/ac. Plus some of their spells have longer cast times, so if you stun them periodically it can really drop their dps. Sirens are a pretty easy solo even if orange con. The real risk with sirens, isn't fighting them. It's pulling them. As water creatures, you gotta swim around to pull them. There are agressive group mob type octopuses in the same area as sirens, plus swimming limits your field of vision and the environment is 3D so unintentional aggro is possible. Plus, you have to pay attention to breath bar. Also, if your paying attention, you may notice the chest at the bottom of the bay. It has a very nice/easy high con quest to kill sirens. I think it's 20 of them if I recall right. I did it at lvl 20 I think and was red con at the time, so uber exp plus 16 silver to boot. Also, on the beach sometimes a named griffon called Windfeather likes to patrol the area. If your not paying attention, he'll gobble you up as he's lvl 28 double undercon. Happy hunting dirges.
Giving everyone an update. My AC used to be around 650. Its now 1024 unbuffed. (I am 24.4 Dirge now BTW) I upgraded my armour even before I finished my armour quest and it did help. I can solo blues. I have not found any whites as of yet. I am still in the process of finding which spells are the most effective. I thank everyone for their comments.
Well, admittedly I spend little time soloing. My guild is pretty tight, and we've always got people online to group together. More fun, and much more interesting potential in a group, especially as a Dirge. I've found two things to be true... 1. I have no trouble acting as tank when necessary. A good Inquisitor with reactive heals going even gets the chance to get in and melee on occasion when I'm tanking, and I have no problem tanking against Orange and better mobs in Nek and TS. Often I've sone so duo with a good like-level healer. Shaman wards are helpful too. If you pull social mobs and don't want to fight all at once, switch targets, stun, then switch back to your primary enemy. That'll buy you some time and impress the hell outta your partner. I've found it to be somewhat tricky, but a good tactic if/when you can pull it off. 2. Soloing is easily doable if you invest in yourself, as several other posts suggest. Make sure you not only have good equipment and good abilities, but understand how to use everything. Learning good combos may result in some deaths, but playing solo you're going to die a few times anyway. Might as well make the debt worth something. And I'm not sure if anyone out there has struggled with this, but I'm finding a lot of groups don't fully understand what a Dirge is capable of. Can anyone out there post anything (hate to call them 'success stories') about how you've impressed a group with a "wow, I didn't know you could do that!" type thing... Myxx Olydian
Well alot of players simply don't know what a dirge is so it's kinda easy to impress them. Alot of people forget I can disarm traps, evac, track and other scout stuff. This maybe because I'm a Barbarian and just to through them off a little more I wear a robe often =P I got one invite from a guy who thought I was a healer. He's like, ok now all we need is some dps since we have 2 healers. And I'm like... uuhh... I hope you know I'm a scout class. Evac and Fear have been the two abilities I have that kinda 'wows' some group members. Most our other stuff, the players probably have no clue what I'm doing or how much my buffs and debuffs actually help the group. If you didn't play a dirge how the hell would you know what the song buffs do by the title?
My guild, for the most part, understands the value of bard characters, and since there are only two of us that are 28+ one dirge (me) and one troubador, when the call for groups goes out, we get picked first after tank and healer.
