Solo in defensive or offensive?

[Kalem]

<p>Hi all, I have 43 shadow knight, with barely 20 AAs.  I'm working on increasing those AAs though!  I'm 1 AA away from attaining reaver.</p><p>At that level is it best to run in defensive while soloing?  Our offensive skills are lowered, but the bulk of our damage is coming from our spells.  I've recently switched to defensive for survivability.  This is just a sanity check to see if it's the best choice.</p><p>Also, what type of weapon setup is best for soloing?  Since the bulk of our damage is spell based, would going two hander vs 1 hand and shield make enough of a difference to forego the defense of a shield?</p>

[Talonmare]

<p>I put some AAs into wisdom to avoid the penalties of my defensive stance (and help in raiding).  That being said, I now generally solo in Offensive stance with a 2H, and have had much success.</p><p>I've always found that the secret of soloing is to do enough DPS that you kill it before you run out of mana / health.   That being the case, you are probably better off going Offensive.  You may want to keep the board around though, in case you are soloing mobs that hit a lot harder than your lifetaps/reaver/etc can keep up with.</p>

[Beldin_]

Depends a lot on what you are fighting and what kind of gear you have. In general i prefer offensive stance with shield 95% of the time.

[Kalem]

<p>I'm wearing mastercrafted gear, with a fabled two hander, all of my skills are at adept III with the exception of the Master II spells.</p><p>Though mastercrafted today, isn't what it was a year or so ago.  I do excellent against groups of solo mobs, I don't worry much about those.  But I do have a tough time with heroic mobs at the moment.  I know that's because I lack Reaver.  I took on a named that was lower than me in offensive with the two hander, he was a several levels below me, and still did too much damage for my life taps to keep up.  I tried him again in defensive and it made a huge difference.  Now, I'm assuming with reaver I could have killed him purely in offensive.</p><p>I do like the idea of offensive with sword and board though.  Thanks for the input you two.  I do appreciate it.</p>

[Dead Knight]

Gear and preference dependant.

[hellskitten]

<cite>Shalla@Valor wrote:</cite><blockquote>Depends a lot on what you are fighting and what kind of gear you have. In general i prefer offensive stance with shield 95% of the time. </blockquote><p>I concur <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I stopped even picking up 2handers because truth be known Ill basically never yank it out the bag. Many will holler about the DPS of a 2hander blahblahblah. Its really personally preference but I view a shield as extra stats (ie int) and a extra attack/stun.</p><p>Only time I ever drop into def is on a hard named thats killed me couple times with stuns.. like that zek fool at ent to acad.</p>

[AziBam]

<cite>hellskitten wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Shalla@Valor wrote:</cite><blockquote>Depends a lot on what you are fighting and what kind of gear you have. In general i prefer offensive stance with shield 95% of the time. </blockquote><p>I concur <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" /> I stopped even picking up 2handers because truth be known Ill basically never yank it out the bag. Many will holler about the DPS of a 2hander blahblahblah. Its really personally preference but I view a shield as extra stats (ie int) and a extra attack/stun.</p><p>Only time I ever drop into def is on a hard named thats killed me couple times with stuns.. like that zek fool at ent to acad.</p></blockquote>For anything other than very easy mobs I'm generally the same.  Offensive with sword/board.  The shield just adds SOOO much avoidance that I like to keep it on.  Naturally, I use two handers for when I'm doing dps on raids or grouping but not tanking.