What should I be able to take down whilst soloing?

[Lightfoot]

<p>I'm just curious as to what I should be able to kill.  Want to know if my monk is up to scratch or failing miserably.</p><p>As an example, at lvl 41 should she be able to take a lvl 35^^^ down.  If the answer is yes, then I'm doing something wrong and in the failing miserably catagory.  If the answer is no, I can breath a sigh of relief.</p><p>I know at lvl 41 my armour is coming to the end of it's life and after dinging 42 I'll be able to craft a new set, which will increase my chances of survival.  Most of my skills on my hotbar are master 1 and usually take the agressive stance.  Have got STR and INT line filled to the bottom using 4/4/8/6/1(2), so am fighting bare handed.</p><p>Would just like to know what I should be capable of to know if I'm up to par.</p>

[BChizzle]

You are doing something wrong.  Try and chain your stuns and daze and mit buff.

[Lightfoot]

<p>It was late when I wrote the above, pehaps I should be a bit more specific.</p><p>Again as an example.  'Terkus the Raid Leader' in Zek.I normally open up with throwing a couple of shurikens or how ever many I can get in whilst they are closing the gap on me.  As soon  as they are within hitting distance I use stun knock down on them followed by debuff.  From then on I try to keep them stunned or knocked down as much as possible whilst I pound on them.  I don't know what Terkus done but he had me down to about 60% before he had even got to within hitting distance.</p><p>It's mostly the mobs that I need for completing certain quests that are giving me trouble. </p>

[ShashLigai]

<p>I have the same problem. There is no way I can solo ^^^ anywhere near my own level. I'm level 49, have mastercrafted imbued armor and weaps and get pasted by the ^^^ heroic rams in Everfrost. They hit so hard i don't have a chance against them, even using hex doll to debuff mitigation and essence to buff strength. My CA's are mostly all adepts. I just came back after 1 year's haitus and only have 16 AA points which I have allocated to several of the monk buffs. </p><p>What level should a monk be able to solo?</p>

[Antas22]

Quick question: Are you using Everburning Flame line? If so, turn that crap off, it hurts more than it helps solo. Also, while I'm a fan of the INT4 ability due to the difficulty of finding +Parry on items, the crits from INT3 are nearly useless for bare handed fighting, which has a pathetic damage spread. Honestly, I've never understood why people recommended it so much to people leveling with STR line. Swap to STR / STA, I guarantee you'll do more DPS, thus increasing your survivability. INT5 is kind of nice solo, but only really realizes it's potential when you have Tsunami to effectively freeze your health below 30% for a few seconds, then mend when it wears off.Also, you have to realize, above 50, you start getting ancient teachings, some of which are very useful skills that help soloing, and around about 65, gear sees a sudden, steep increase in quality. So when you see level 70s saying they solo white ^^^'s, you have to bare in mind these circumstances.

[ShashLigai]

<p>Thanks for the response Antas, and I apologize to the OP if I'm taking this thread in a direction he didn't intend. So from reading in the forum and reviewing your response, it appears that I have my monk specced all wrong. That I should be focusing on STR and DPS instead of AGL and avoidance, and that I should put all my AA points into the Brawler line before I move over to the Monk line and that I should be fighting barehanded until I get to raid level and have access to legendary weaps.</p><p>Well.. then it sounds like I should have rolled up a brawler instead of a monk. </p><p> bleh</p><p> but i think I have a couple of free respecs I can use. I will move stuff around and see if I can't kick some sheeps a..</p>

[Lightfoot]

<cite>Antas@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>Quick question: Are you using Everburning Flame line? If so, turn that crap off, it hurts more than it helps solo. Also, while I'm a fan of the INT4 ability due to the difficulty of finding +Parry on items, the crits from INT3 are nearly useless for bare handed fighting, which has a pathetic damage spread. Honestly, I've never understood why people recommended it so much to people leveling with STR line. Swap to STR / STA, I guarantee you'll do more DPS, thus increasing your survivability. INT5 is kind of nice solo, but only really realizes it's potential when you have Tsunami to effectively freeze your health below 30% for a few seconds, then mend when it wears off.Also, you have to realize, above 50, you start getting ancient teachings, some of which are very useful skills that help soloing, and around about 65, gear sees a sudden, steep increase in quality. So when you see level 70s saying they solo white ^^^'s, you have to bare in mind these circumstances.</blockquote><p>Thank you for the advice.</p><p>No I'm not using Everburning Flame, to be totally honest I'd completely forgotten about that.</p><p>I am surviving by using FD, but am just not killing what I need to kill.</p><p>I'll switch from STR/INT lines to the STR/STA lines and give it a try, I'm assuming that's ok with bare hands.  Do you follow the STA line right to the bottom or just max out a part of it.  Should I put any points into INT at all.</p><p>If I can't get on with it I can always switch back.  <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>Going back to the original question, just what should I be able to take on in the 40's?</p>

[Deathspell]

<cite>ShashLigai wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I have the same problem. There is no way I can solo ^^^ anywhere near my own level.</p></blockquote>Well, ^^^ mobs are not meant to be solo'd. They are designed for groups.Yes, there are classes that can solo yelllow^^^ mobs, but that doesn't mean it's a fact that all other classes should be able to do this at all.And you can can't compare just any ^^^ mob with another either, especially not the nameds, an EoF mob hits like a tentonhammer compared to a similar mob from KoS.Some have more health or power than others. Some are casters, some are melee, it all makes a huge difference.And aside from gear and skill, it also requires quite and amount of luck.

[NeVeRLi]

Right now as a lvl 59 Monk I can solo lvl 55^^^ named and lvl 56^^^ trash. The lower the level the easier the ^^^ are to me.Wearing all mastercrafted gear with adornments and few legendary jewelry pieces, I'm sitting around 6k health and keep my avoidance around 60%.I have all Master 1 and Adept III's.My AA spec is Wis<span class="postbody"> 4/5/5/8/1</span> & Int <span class="postbody">4/5/5/8/1</span> with 1 point in Sta.I had a lvl 60 Monk and had took a break from the game for an extended period of time, I deleted that Monk and made another one and started over. Has been alot fun relearning the class and experiencing the the new content and expansions.I have also jumped on some lvl 51^^^ x2 named before since thats the last level they are green to me, I can only get them down to 90% before I have to FD. PS: The only problem I see the Brawler class having now is the uncontested avoidance.

[Deathspell]

<cite>NeVeRLiFt wrote:</cite><blockquote>Right now as a lvl 59 Monk I can solo lvl 55^^^ named and lvl 56^^^ trash. The lower the level the easier the ^^^ are to me.Wearing all mastercrafted gear with adornments and few legendary jewelry pieces, I'm sitting around 6k health and keep my avoidance around 60%.</blockquote>Seriously, if you wanna compare with other players/skill/gear, you gotta include the name of the mob as well, because again, not all mobs are the same.

[Antas22]

<cite>LightfootII wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite><p>Thank you for the advice.</p><p>No I'm not using Everburning Flame, to be totally honest I'd completely forgotten about that.</p><p>I am surviving by using FD, but am just not killing what I need to kill.</p><p>I'll switch from STR/INT lines to the STR/STA lines and give it a try, I'm assuming that's ok with bare hands.  Do you follow the STA line right to the bottom or just max out a part of it.  Should I put any points into INT at all.</p><p>If I can't get on with it I can always switch back.  <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>Going back to the original question, just what should I be able to take on in the 40's?</p></blockquote>Yes, you would of course fight bare handed with STR/STA. The most important is maxing out the third in each line, taking STA all the way to end is completely optional, depending on if you want the ability. Personally, I think you'd be better off using the two points someplace else, I just can't think of much use for Mantis Leap.Personally, I'd go with 4/4/8/7/2 STR, 4/4/8/8 STA, in the interest of maxing out defensive abilities as well.And what Deathspell said about luck is also true. The nature of avoidance is such that, even with 70%, you can still get hit 3 times in a row. And we get hit hard, because mitigation does not suffer from such randomness. You could get manhandled one fight, FD, heal up, then take the same mob handedly the next.

[Quickblo]

I am also a lv 41 monk... This is my main character and my highest lv one.Some of my equipment will need to be changed at 42 also.But...You should be able to take down 35^^^ mobs.I used to swear by the Str line but in the middle of my 30's switched over to Int/Wis taking both lines to the bottom..Almost all my equipment has adornments, but most importantly I dual wield fabled weapons.Both weapons (one has a nice proc) are fast, both have vampiric adornments. Get a Gnomeland security cloak, its an easy cloak to get with a very nice proc that wards for 200 pts of damage .. it often procs a few times during long fights.Solo and self-buffed my haste is 99. I have 65 aa's. Almost all my skills are masters, with a few adept 3's here and there.I always use Everburning Flame and usually fight in the aggressive stance.Most fights with solo big mobs starts this way:(if the mob is a caster, I will run to it and stun it)Walk like mountain then use an agi hex doll to pullThen either thrown weapons or jolting hand (or cast a miracle) till the mob gets to youcrane sweep to knock down (it has the longest refresh)crane flock is next, while it is pounding away I toss in my stuns and knockdowns.After that its just a matter of pounding away, healing and pound some more till your stuns refresh.Instill Doubt is also helpful and underused, it will give you a few more seconds on your timers while the mob is feared away.. (situational use don't do it where it can find more friends)If the mobs isn't named, remember to use Devistation Fist, I usually use it when my health is below 30% for the crazy crits.Always have Master's Rage active.Also Crane Twirl is always active unless I am in an area where there is a danger of adds.There are many different ways of fighting ....I was happy when I used the Str line, it is great for pounding on stuff...But using Int/Wis, I find that I can clear tons of greens (trash) with Area spells in the Wis line, and stand toe to toe with bigger solo mobs with the Crits from the Int line.The Str line does have its own 20 dps increase for barehands but...Our aggressive stance gives an increase to Crushing not to fists.What this means using the aggressive stance at lv 41 is:Your fists will be at 205/205Your Crushing will be at 230/230So basically your Fists skill level will be at lv 41 (205 divided by 5)Your Crushing sill level will be at lv 46 (230 divided by 5)For fighting Heroics or higher lv mobs you will hit more consistently with a higher weapon skill.There is no right way to play, just have a vision for yourself and go with it..And if you can't solo a 35^^^ just get to lv 42 and then you can .. There is no rush .. I have had my exp turned off since lv 10 or so and love it..Someone had mentioned about the Int line 30% life thing and healers, I have been very lucky, my son plays a Warden, so he just gives me a steady stream of those Healing over time spells and I can stay at 30% forever.Be safe and have fun ...Quickblood