From whoop butt to lame ...butt.

[Eetog]

So I make a DE summoner and betray over to Q, since I've never went from evil to good...Adept 3 pet, Adept 3 lightning blast. I get them for a song after selling an old toon's gear. At 15 I'm mowing through Gnolls 12-13 heroic, 12^ heroic, you know the mystic 3 gnoll group and the 5 person groups of the heroics just off the QS griffon rider. I felt pretty amazing sending pet in, letting get aggro, doing seism, lightning storm with alternate healing the pets...I have completed the betrayal, now a member of Qeynos, level 19 now...Funny thing is that I can't take a 14 heroic to save my butt. I wanted to do them so I could get to 20 and become a Conj. Pet gets overly chewed up, I usually can't keep him healed (with the level based master 2 heal) and with him fully buffed.I went from whip [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] to lame [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]. Is this par for the course, or did I just expect too much? I can kill a 20 down arrow bear, but the exp is CREEPING. Any suggestions? Should I get used to just single target encounters?Thanks for the advice,Tog.<div></div>

[Xalmat]

Are you trying to do your level 20 class quest? You don't need to go into Blackburrow, the mobs are trap spawns just to the west of Blackburrow, and are flagged solo. MUCH easier to kill than in Blackburrow.Sounds to me like you haven't upgraded your support spells, or you don't have the proper strategy down pat. Don't rely on your pet heal; instead put your pet in defensive stance, use Petrify and Seism to stun your target, and overwhelm your target mob with as much damage as you can put out.You should have taken Protective Brace as your Master 2 choice and not your pet heal. Not much you can do about it now unless you want to use your veteran reward to respec (when you get it, that is), but you <i>can</i> get Protective Brace to Adept 3 or Master I and you'll be in excellent shape then.Don't expect to easily solo heroics unless you are a <i>significantly</i> powerful Conjuror. By that I mean most or all of your spells are at Adept III or higher (especially your pets and your pet stances), you're wearing Legendary or Fabled gear, and you have a rock solid strategy. I will also say that as you level, it actually gets <i>easier</i> to solo heroics (At level 20, you get your first damage shield, at 24 your first swarm pet and a tank pet upgrade, 25 your first AoE stifle, etc etc).

[Eetog]

I was trying to do the betrayal quest from Freeport to Qeynos. Then when I did, I was just exping, and I love to see the exp bar move with Heroics. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I was hoping to get to 20 as fast as possible, so heroics were on the menu...I haven't upgraded my support spells, you're right. I'm at adept 3 of lightning blast, storm of lightning, root, pet. I have the respec item and will switch over to the master version of the pet buff tonight. More he can take a punch, the less I'll have to heal. It's a good idea and backwards of what I was thinking. Good idea, thank you.I can't find Seism upgrades, but I'm still looking. I use petrify a good bit to stun the target mob, but with a couple pounding on him, it doesn't make a huge amt of difference for now. I'll see if I can upgrade that too. I have 2 plat left to my name.I'll just have to have patience with it, as you said. I was just shocked that I did so well in the beginning and now heroics are so difficult. I just went up like one level on the heroics encounters, I was hoping I'd scale up from there.<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />I'll take a breath, relax and grind till 20, then to 24 to get the level based pet upgrade, then probably after that too... heheThanks againTog.<div></div>

[Xalmat]

Another thing to keep in mind. The higher level the monster, the harder it is. I'm not talking normal increases because of simply raising level. I mean higher level monsters get newer and stronger abilities they don't have at lower levels. Even a 1 level difference will make a huge difference.

[Nanite]

<div>In my experience you can forget about heroics for a while. In fact level 20-30 is a pretty bad slog. However there is  a nice bright light at the end of the tunnel. First of all, the air pet is just awesome. enough HP to stand up to most solo mobs, and he puts out lots of damage. Take the offensive stance as your master2 whenever you can. Even without heroics, the air pet will rock your exp bar cause it just mows stuff down so fast it's sick <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. At level 40 you can start soloing heroics again because of the vehement rock spell, gives your pet 3 free hits, and with all your stuns/stifles those three free hits are really all you need to take down a blue ^^^ mob.</div>