I want my priest cake and eat it too =)

[Takya]

<p>Small mmo background...I, like most people in world, came from WoW.  I played Priest and Shammy in raids and groups at high levels.  Now I loved to heal and kill bosses, but...for me to spec good healing I lost any decent soloability for farming/harvest for tradeskills.  </p><p>I'm probably living in a dream world of a priest that can solo decent (ie kill level 70 names to farm plat, I don't expect to kill heroics or orange and red mobs), and be a main healer in groups and raids.  I don't like to do a lot of kiting.  Root back up and nuke is fine, but continually running around is not for me (i'm lazy in real life too).  </p><p>I'm also wondering with Templar, does plate with appropriate stats drop often or is it gear more towards fighters?  same question for chain and leather.  </p><p>I've played a temp to a whopping level 8 and warden to 12 (the tiger is pretty cool), what level would give me a decent flavor of a class?  I'm going to try fury and mystic also.  15, 20, 25?  I basically quit my other healers b/c I couldn't play solo at higher levels.  I'm not really a PuG kind of healer.  Too many people who can't play their classes right, though I'm finding the EQ community much more mature, maybe that would be different?</p><p>I know this is a bit long and unstructured and I hope I got my concerns/questions across.  Again I may be living in a fairy tale.  If i am give me a good /smack and tell me to play a dps class.</p><p>Tak</p><p>P.S. The AA's seems to enhancers rather than "specs", that don't completely change your skills just making some a little bit better.  Is this a good perception or am I totally wrong? </p>

[Zard]

Druids are the best (=fastest) soloers in the Priest class. While Clerics and Shamans <i>can</i> solo they lack DPS so fights take longer. Furies are probably better for grouped mobs and Wardens probably better for solo mobs. Both do well against heroic encounters with the level difference depending on your gear, spell quality, mob type and player skill. As an extra bonus, you get a run speed buff (Spirit of the Wolf/SoW) and can create portals between druid rings which makes travel much faster.

[Agaxiq]

IMO, Fury has far more offensive abilities than a Warden, and really stand out of the pact if you wish to do damage and heal.  That being said, Wardens have a much more comprehensive healing line and pretty decent DPS - but it won't come close to a similarly equipped Fury. Fury has a very large INT buff (= more damage from spells) whereas the Warden has a large WIS buff (= larger power pool)  In addition, two. of the Fury's Ancient teachings are offensive, whereas Wardens only have one.   We also have a Fury AA called Energy Vortex that increases our spell damage by 50% while taking a 50% hit to healing, so if you don't need to heal, its devastating. But the largest differences are the Fury's two main nukes - Strike of Thunder and its upgrades and Starburst.  Strike of Thunder is pretty darn close to the Ball of Fire line of the Wizard (albeit less damage and longer recast timer, but still...) - Starburst is in a similar boat to a Warlocks "Absolution" Line. Warden doesn't have anything to come close to that.  But in terms of healing power, Warden has a definite edge. My fury looks more like a Wizard than a healer (by design) - I'm wearing lots of +INT pieces and wearing some cloth armor.  My INT is probably 50% higher than my WIS. As druids we can get our Spell Crit % much higher than any caster class without difficulty, so a Fury can: Energy Vortex --> M1 Thunderstrike --> Crit --> Will probably hit higher than any other nuke other than an Ice Nova, assuming the INT is comparable. agressiv

[Catsy]

Preface this with the standard disclaimer than a fury is a healer first and foremost, and that should be your primary concern in groups and raids. With that said, I mainly group with guildies, who very well-equipped, and so I frequently do not have a lot of healing to do. Heck, even Labs runs these days I could probably sleep through. So I've had a chance recently to play with dps'ing, and when the situation allows, it's a lot of fun. I can easily do 1k dps on trash fights, and when Energy Vortex is up (ever other or third fight) I can do around 1400-1500. This has succeeded in embarassing one or two dps classes who were phoning it in that night. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> The long and the short of this is that the fury is a lethal class. Not a true dps class--but we can parse respectably and solo extremely well. With basic treasured and mastercrafted equipment, you can root and nuke heroics, and can survive the inevitable breaks long enough to get a root back on them. With high-end instance and raid equipment, you're a force to be reckoned with--I tanked Sanctum the other day for a group that needed to get down to the forge. If you hate pickup groups and want to be a healer who can effectively solo to 70, I would unreservedly recommend a fury.

[Takya]

<p>So I'm seeing a pattern here...hehe</p><p>One quick question?  Are furies the Flavor of the Month and gonna get nerfed back to the stone ages?  I know this is always a fear of any class in an everchanging MMO but I don't wanna invest a lot of time into a toon and then get ripped.  It's happened to me twice <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Thanks for the quick responses!!</p><p>Tak</p>

[Kizee]

<cite>Takya wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>So I'm seeing a pattern here...hehe</p><p>One quick question?  Are furies the Flavor of the Month and gonna get nerfed back to the stone ages?  I know this is always a fear of any class in an everchanging MMO but I don't wanna invest a lot of time into a toon and then get ripped.  It's happened to me twice <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Thanks for the quick responses!!</p><p>Tak</p></blockquote><p> If you plan on raiding then forget about playing a fury because as you can see they are a dime a dozen and you probally will have a hard time getting in a guild. </p><p>It really doesn't matter what healer class you play because they can all solo to 70 although furies probally do it faster than the others.</p>

[Agaxiq]

<cite>Kizee wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Takya wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>So I'm seeing a pattern here...hehe</p><p>One quick question?  Are furies the Flavor of the Month and gonna get nerfed back to the stone ages?  I know this is always a fear of any class in an everchanging MMO but I don't wanna invest a lot of time into a toon and then get ripped.  It's happened to me twice <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Thanks for the quick responses!!</p><p>Tak</p></blockquote><p> If you plan on raiding then forget about playing a fury because as you can see they are a dime a dozen and you probally will have a hard time getting in a guild. </p><p>It really doesn't matter what healer class you play because they can all solo to 70 although furies probally do it faster than the others.</p></blockquote>I can't agree more.  On pretty much every pickup raid i've been in I've been one of at least 2-4 furies - no joke.  We were looking forever to get a non-Fury for the MT. Even the pickup groups i've seen looking for instance runs It's always "looking for 2nd non-druid healer for xxx". With the right AA build, spells, and equipment, any healing class can effective at dealing damage.  With a fury, it simply doesn't take much effort so you can see it even at the mid-levels. agressiv

[Catsy]

I have been playing a fury for a couple years now, and I have not seen them get nerfed once. That's not to say that it won't happen at some point, just that for quite some time the devs have apparently been of the opinion that furies are a well-balanced class. I'm inclined to agree. Our dps capabilities are really impressive nowadays, but they come with a nontrivial cost. That said, they are a dime a dozen. They seem to go through regular cycles of FotM. And as Kizee said, you'll have a hard time finding a serious raiding guild that is recruiting for furies for that very reason--they're not hard to come by. Another problem is that the increased DPS capabilities offered by the Energy line in the Fury AA tree has inspired a new generation of nuke-kiddies who don't have the faintest idea how to play their fury as a healer. This has led to a whole lot of hate for furies in the higher-level channels, to the point where group leaders are routinely advertising as "looking for any non-druid" healer. Occasionally this is just because they already have a druid in the group and are looking to maximize their effectiveness, but more often it's because they're either fed up with furies who think they're a dps class, or completely ignorant about the class are are doing it because "everyone else" is down on furies.

[Lady Unicorn]

I play a 70 warden as my main and I must say i have had alot of fun playing her both in solo and group content.  Granted takes me alot longer to kill a mob solo then in a group but i can do it and I'm not major armored up either just the master crafted for each tier.  Alot of it is how you play the toon itself and not what everyone feels is the IN character. If you play your toon well and show that you can do both DPS and healing effectively it wont matter what priest you play.

[da5idblacksun]

Don't roll a Templar if you want to solo. 

[Takya]

<p>I went to EQ2 players and found this info:</p><p>(all level 70)</p><p>Defiler: 1878</p><p>Inq: 2109</p><p>Mystic: 2239</p><p>Temp: 3897</p><p>Why are shamans least played?  Are they a difficult class to master?  Are they "broken" as in their spells don't do what they say/bugged?  </p>

[Aela@Test]

If you spec your AA's for soloing Mystics can be pretty freeking good melee dps, for a healer.  Plus they heal circles around Furys. 

[knightofround]

<b>Takya</b>, Shamans are the least played for two reasons. First, they are the worst at soloing. Second, they don't have the capability to DPS like druids do. Third, their primary method of healing is by erecting wards, which absorb damage before it is even dealt. Fourth, if people want to play a healer they typically think of druids and clerics -- they don't think about shamans. Although Shamans are the worst at soloing and dps, they are better than Clerics and Druids when it comes to keeping an entire group alive. They have the best buffs and debuffs. You will shine if you're in a group, but if you're soloing...well, enjoy the loooong grind. If you're looking for a healer that can solo well (A wise decision in this age of mature servers), I'd recommend either a Fury or Inquisitor. Properly AA specced, an Inquisitor can solo just as well as a Fury. All of the other healers are fairly weak at soloing. Ranking healers in terms of soloability: 1. Fury 2. Inquisitor 3. Warden 4. Templar 5. Defiler 6. Mystic

[DwarvesR]

<cite>knightofround wrote:</cite><blockquote><b>Takya</b>, Shamans are the least played for two reasons. First, they are the worst at soloing. Second, they don't have the capability to DPS like druids do. Third, their primary method of healing is by erecting wards, which absorb damage before it is even dealt. Fourth, if people want to play a healer they typically think of druids and clerics -- they don't think about shamans. Although Shamans are the worst at soloing and dps, they are better than Clerics and Druids when it comes to keeping an entire group alive. They have the best buffs and debuffs. You will shine if you're in a group, but if you're soloing...well, enjoy the loooong grind. If you're looking for a healer that can solo well (A wise decision in this age of mature servers), I'd recommend either a Fury or Inquisitor. Properly AA specced, an Inquisitor can solo just as well as a Fury. All of the other healers are fairly weak at soloing. Ranking healers in terms of soloability: 1. Fury 2. Inquisitor 3. Warden 4. Templar 5. Defiler 6. Mystic </blockquote><p>/agree.  The shaman style of healing is very procative -- it's a combination of putting up the damage ward that make's the tank's health not move plus debuffing the mobs so that they don't even hit the tank (or at least, not very hard).  As a result, it sometimes doesn't feel like you're truly "healing" as in. . the bar drops, you cast heal, the bar goes up.  Now we do have direct heals too, but they are last resort.  If we have to use them, we messed up.</p><p>This is a bit different than your typical healer role, so a lot of people who try shamans don't stick with it becuz it's "odd" or "doesn't feel like healing.</p><p>So far as the soloing goes. . . dps is dependent on your aa's in a lot of ways.  Looking at "just" the base classes, so far as ease of soloability goes, I'd rank them as follows:</p><ol><li>Fury</li><li>Warden</li><li>Inquisitor</li><li>Defiler</li><li>Mystic</li><li>Templar</li></ol><p>This is more due to speed of dps of the base class than anything.  Arguably Warden used to be at the top of the list until Fury was given a root in addition to their snare.  Inquisitors have always had a lot of "punishments" that served to bump their spell dps up a bit, and defilers are a little more offensively oriented than mystics though not by a whole lot.  Templar's analogues to the inquisitor punishments are proc heals, though, so thye had the lowest dps, hands down.</p><p>Now from there your aa's make a difference too.  Shamans and Clerics can aa spec to give themsevles a 100% critical rate on their hits.  Shamans can also aa spec a pretty nice Berserk proc on themselves too.  Mystics, Inquisitors, and Wardens can use aa to convert their spells into melee combat arts as well, so for the Mystic and Inquisitor, at least, you can look at doing some pretty serious damage with them since they're guaranteed to crit.  I'm told that Wardens that go "melee spec" still do quite well too, though.  Defiler's can use aa to boost the damage their spells do by up to 35%, so that helps a bit on their soloability.  Templars class specific aa's I know nothing about, so I can't comment on them at all.  </p><p>Assuming that a priest spec's for max dps, I'd make the list look like this:</p><ol><li>Fury</li><li>Inquisitor</li><li>Warden</li><li>Mystic</li><li>Defiler</li><li>Templar</li></ol><p>I'm not terribly familair with mystics anymore, since I betrayed mine to defiler at 39 and haven't looked back, and I've never played a templar, so I'm going by "word of mouth" on that and on the warden too, for that matter.  I have a 68 Fury, a 70 Inquisitor, and my Defiler is 54 now, so I feel like I speak from experience there.</p><p>The fury simply has massive dps capability, both single target and aoe both.  Earlier today on the fury I accidentally pulled a white-con heroic group and decided to try to fight in instead of running, and I won handily.  My gear is only mastercrafted.  No legendary or fabled at all on him.  But the fact that he could do a lot of aoe dps made it so he could take them down quickly.</p><p>Inquisitor spec'd Battle line also does quite repspectable dps plus the plate armor mitigation helps the survivability too.  that said. . . my Fury in mastercrafted leather has 40% mitigation and my inquisitor in legendary/fabled plate has 54% so the difference isn't as significant as you might think.  That said, it's significant enough.  I've got no problem on my inquis charging into the middle of a couple of groups of linked blues and taking all 8 down at a time.</p><p>Wardens may not have the sheer size of nukes that a fury does, but the nukes are faster casting, so the dps is closer hen you might think.  They also have a root and a group root, which enhances their solo capabilities.  Beyond that, I'm going on hearsay from wardens about how they easily solo even con heroics.  YMMV</p><p>I'm putting Mystic at number 4, assuming they go with the 100% critical hit rate, the berserk proc, and the melee CA conversion.  Since the Inquisitor essentially does the same thing, I'd think the dps would actually be similar to the inquisitor, with the only reason for the soloability being lower as due to the chain armor not mitigating quite as much damage.  I'm guessing here, though, since I don't have a melee spec'd mystic.  Seems reasonable to me though, since it's the same as the inquisitor spec.</p><p>Defilers I put 5th becuz on my defiler I know that even with the 35% soell damage increases on, I still am soloing slowly.  Add that those aa's are actually considered "non-optimum" for raids, and you my find that defilers aren't really going to be spec'ing for dps anyway.  That said, a properly timed Defile spell will pump out a lot, but that's not until level 65.  For the soloing defielr working up. . . it's a plodding grind.</p><p>Templars I put at the bottom, but again I'm guessing.  They can do the 100% crit on autoattack, so a big slow 2H weapon will still have them be a decent melee dps force.  Beyond that, though, I don't know what their class specific aa's do for them dps-wise if anything, so. . . .take this with a complete grain of salt.  I certainly wouldn't object to making them 5th and defilers 6th either, much as I love my defiler, she kills things slooooooowly. . . . . </p>

[PurpleWarri]

<p>I wholeheartedly agree with anyone who puts the Templar at the bottom of the soloability rankings for healers. I played a Templar to high 20s and he was a liability solo <img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Superb in a group though.</p><p> My fury can solo very well, but I usually Duo him with a Lolladin. In a group he is a great healer - I just switch to 'tree' form. The one slight advantage he has over a Warden in groups is that he can heal through spike damage better, imo. </p><p>My warden is a great healer, don't get me wrong, but when some mobs really unload on the tank it can be a problem keeping them from redlining him. The Fury can drop 2 or 3 big insta heals in that pull him back from the brink much faster.</p><p> Overall, the Warden has the edge, just that one specific situation causes occasional problems.</p><p>For soloing I'd rate Fury and Warden as best, Mystic in the middle ground and Templar bottom. I've not played the other two as I can't stand Freeport <img src="/smilies/908627bbe5e9f6a080977db8c365caff.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Cuz]

Don't forget as a druid you get run speed buff, group invise or evac, and summon portals. I have never been in a group that really needed more than a druid to keep us alive, but I mostly run with the guild and they're a pretty good group. Really aside from the fact that they're so good and everywhere, there's nothing wrong with them.

[Ebarel]

<p>also do not forget that as a shaman you always have an aggro problem due to the wards.</p><p>especially if the tank has to body pull. When he pulls, his aggro =0. The mobs chasing him start to hit him before he can start taunting. all the damage the ward absorbs directly increases the mobs hate against the shaman, before any other healer. that often results in a dead healer, especially if the tank doesnt know how to prevent that. of course you can stop warding the tank for the pull, at least you only have a dead tank in case things go bad - but i would assume that tank wouldnt like you /shammies <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Kizee]

<cite>knightofround wrote:</cite><blockquote><b>Takya</b>, Although Shamans are the worst at soloing and dps, they are better than Clerics and Druids when it comes to keeping an entire group alive. </blockquote>All healers can keep a normal grind group alive but I can tell you for sure that a templar will be able to solo heal alot easier than a shaman would.

[Catsy]

If you are the only healer in a group, shaman = bad idea, both for their front-loaded agro and their poor direct healing abilities. Shamans, however, are worth their weight in gold in raids or two-healer groups. Pair them up with a druid and there's almost no group content you can't survive. Whatever damage soaks through the wards is easily mopped up by the druid's potent HOTs and direct heals.

[Zard]

Sotanyavejin@Guk wrote: <blockquote>If you are the only healer in a group, shaman = bad idea, both for their front-loaded agro and their poor direct healing abilities. Shamans, however, are worth their weight in gold in raids or two-healer groups. Pair them up with a druid and there's almost no group content you can't survive. Whatever damage soaks through the wards is easily mopped up by the druid's potent HOTs and direct heals. </blockquote><p> You must be joking. My Defiler can easily solo heal a group -- especially with a Brawler tanking -- while my Fury struggles to keep up. My Defiler rarely heals, they are too slow and mana inefficient to depend upon, wards are his primary defense.</p><p>The priest combo you mentioned, Shaman + Druid, is awesome. They complement each other well and the overlap gives them to use their offensive abilities (DD/DoT/Debuff) instead of just spamming heals and wards.</p><p>EDIT: The "front-loaded aggro" is from pre-warding, I assume. There is no need to pre-ward with good coordination between tank and shaman. The shaman can time his casting so it hits immediately after the taunt hits so a body-pull goes like: tank inches up, monsters pause a moment and turn to face, shaman casts ward, tank runs back to the group, tank taunts (while moving), ward lands, monster hits ward, and the fight is on!</p>

[Karlen]

>>>All healers can keep a normal grind group alive but I can tell you for sure that a templar will be able to solo heal alot easier than a shaman would.<<< While shaman's might not be the best at healing, with the proper use of wards, they should only rarely need to heal.  Rather than heal, shamans focus on damage prevention.

[Kellin]

<p>"Front loaded agro" shouldn't ever happen.  It's not limited to shamans, either.  Any healer could have a class heal on a tank during a pull, and this is NOT the way to do things.</p><p>Any spell showing in your maintained bar can be canceled early.  I do it all the time if the tank is using proximity pulls.</p><p>Pre-warding is not the best way to handle an encounter.  Your tank should be perfectly able to handle a hit or three at the beginning of a battle while you cast your heals.  Raiding is a bit different, but even then, pre-warding is frowned upon - it's simply too easy for the priest to get pasted in one hit, and if the tank has to hit rescue to get a mob off of you because you healed too early, you're the one messing up the encounter.</p><p>Understand:  controlling your agro is YOUR responsibility.  Mages shouldn't over-nuke, scouts shouldn't unload huge melee early in a battle, priests shouldn't pull early agro.  Heals are pretty high agro, but the tank should be able to keep ahead of it if you don't pull early in the fight.</p>

[Kizee]

Karlen@Befallen wrote: <blockquote>>>>All healers can keep a normal grind group alive but I can tell you for sure that a templar will be able to solo heal alot easier than a shaman would.<<< While shaman's might not be the best at healing, with the proper use of wards, they should only rarely need to heal.  Rather than heal, shamans focus on damage prevention. </blockquote> I know that.  I ment keeping a group alive not healing in exact terms.

[Magpie1]

<p>""Front loaded agro" shouldn't ever happen.  It's not limited to shamans, either.  Any healer could have a class heal on a tank during a pull, and this is NOT the way to do things."</p><p>I have to disagree with this Im afraid. Whilst Shamen should not have their wards up for the pull templars should always have their group reactive up on the pull. Firstly, I rarely have had a tank lose aggro with this reactive up when body pulling, unless the tank gets stunned. Cast reactive, body pull, reactive fires on first hit whilst tank is casting taunts and mobs always go to the tank. If the tank is stunned you are in trouble anyway, in which case the mobs head toward whomever has proc buffs up that happen to fire. Again, the group reactive will heal any non-MT members whilst you recover the situation. In addition, on the rare occasions aggro heads towards you fire off harmony and bounce it straight back to the tank. It is an invaluable pre-heal spell, especially on raids and has easily saved more fights than it has ever lost me.</p><p>What I wouldnt advise is having sanctuary or your single target up, these regularly get me aggro. Probably because the single target reactive procs a higher heal per fire.</p>

[Takya]

<p>Thank you for the many replies and observations.  It is helping me to make my decision.  <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[JamesRay]

<p>I have a 61 fury and a 62 mystic.  They both are pretty different.</p><p>I specced out my mystic with the agi line so she crits 100% of the time, and can proc rage, which gives 35% chance to double attack and 35% haste if I remember right.</p><p>I also maxed out her weapons mastery line so that instead of nukes and dots, they are replaced with combat arts, which, yes, crit 100% of the time (you also don't have to upgrade those spells, which is nice).  The final ability also gives her like an extra 62 levels of offensive skills, but it will still be scaling for a while, and adds 7.5% chance to parry.  Another cool thing is INT doesn't matter for your damage any more. STR increases the CA damage range and also helps your autoattack damage.</p><p>End result, she rarely misses, which ups the odds of raging.  Typically it runs non stop during a fight unless I spend a lot of time casting wards.  Ursine augur upgrade adds a 25% to proc additional slashing damage.  It is fun to watch.  Typically solo creatures are at less than 50% health by the time I spam out the first cycle of CA's.  Am curious to experiment with the blackscale maul once I ding a few more levels.  Delay is huge but I think it will up the odds of double attack since the base calculation delay is 3 sec.</p><p>When considering heroics, the 2nd ability in the AGI line has a root that can last up to 12 secs if maxed out.  So you can load up some wards (typically 30 sec recast), charge in, blow all your CA's (two are relatively quick recast, the others are like 20 sec), debuffs, etc for about 20-25 seconds, nail him with the root (30 sec recast), back off, quickly refresh wards and possibly squeeze in a heal (though they are pretty slow), rinse repeat.  The other key difference I noticed with the mystic is the DPS and attack speed debuffs, which help compensate a little for the lack of HOTs.</p><p>I do miss the ports that the fury offers though, as well as their nice agitation line buff.</p>

[da5idblacksun]

My main is a Templar and we're useless for solo. However I was a raid last night and was topping the healing parse by far.  There were 3 healers and I was doing pretty close to 50% of the healing total.  That's the first time I've seen a heal parse and I was blown away by how much healing I was doing.  And the parse isn't quite accurate because it doesn't count Reverence (takes power used by the target and turns into hit points) and cures aren't counted (I was doing most of the curing).  In addition there was a Shaman in the group and wards take precendence over reactives. I have AA's spec'd for critical healing. I was getting 10-20 critical heals per encounter. I had a single heal of 11k.  Templars are great for healing but that is it.  If you want a more well rounded toon, Templar is not it.

[zaun2]

With my 46 mystic, I found the key to soloing is CAs.  Chilling Strike, Feverish Strike, Circle of the Ancients, and Glacial Strike as must have abilities, and mean the difference between soloing slowly but decently, and getting frustrated soloing.  They scale with every level, are a major damage boost compared to the original spell, and you don't have to spend lots of money keeping them at app or m1.  Disadvantage:  They are very short-ranged spells, so if you are into PvP, people can figure that out and root you or just stay out of your blast radius.  Dogdog is a DPS tool, although I turn off his auto-attack, and send him in only after I fire off a HO and my first round of CAs, so the mob is already mad at me. I'm not soloing yellow 3-ups with my mystic, but I can sometimes peg a blue one, or multiple yellow cons (even to 1-up.)  Not sure if that is good or bad, relatively for soloing. I levelled an inquis, but I put his AAs into the wrong tree, so even though he crits 100% of the time with his hammer, he doesn't have the close range strikes to deal damage, so fights take a while because they are mainly hack and heal.