Cykophrog wrote:
Hi guys... here's something you may find odd but I am an Inquisitor and I solo like 90% of my gametime. (I happen to play odd hours and hate level-grinding so finding quest/HQ/instance groups is about all the grouping I do)
I've found I can solo really well, although you have to not mind spending 3-4 minutes on heroics occasionally. But with the right combination of spells and gear I can solo blue heroic encounters, and even give blue heroic nameds a good run for their money (currently about 4 for 9 on heroic blue named fights). Disclaimer: I level really slow so I spend lots of cash on gear and spells, all gear is Legendary / Fabled (except for like 2 really high wis treasured items) and all spells are Adp3, M1, or M2. If you don't have this kind of gear/spells you may not do as well solo'ing.
http://patch.everquest2.com:7010/patch/eq2/motd/en/updates_test.html had some changes to our cleric INT line that I hate. The 100% casting time reduction on the INT mastery AA is down to 50% so I'm not even gunna bother with the INT line at all anymore. If you want good solo'ing abilities go with the STA line. You can max out the critical melee at 100% crit chance (12.5% per rank x 8 ranks) and with a big maul you can do insane damage since a crit damage is (Max +1 to Max x 2) With a weapon like the Blackscale Maul you do 562-1122 per hit (8 sec swing) now the 8 sec swing throws a lot of folks off but I say Its not a bad thing at all. Because you can cast between swings. Swing, cast 2 spells, swing, cast 2 spells....
And that's not counting our self buffs to DPS and Haste.
DPS: Yaulp 20% + Aura (T6) 26%
Haste: Yaulp 20% + Zealotry (T5) 46%
Double attack: Yaulp 20%
Totals: DPS 46%, Haste 66%, DA 20%
Put that together with a Blackscale Maul that does 100% crit chance and you have a LOT of extra damage to help you solo (although we'll still be far from a DPS class)
Fighting:
Scout / Fighter / Animal / Golem / etc... non-caster
Pull with the Repentance Line instead of Vengence in my opinion. Many many mobs I fight I see usually either open up the fight with a CA or use one in the first few seconds. 2nd spell should be Vengence followed by the Mitigation Debuff (Sentence, etc.). Then hit your HO and use both DoTs (mental and flame). If you do it right you can keep this up forever and even do an HO + 2 Smites between the DoT's running down. Heal as nessessary and keep both vengence and repentance spells up, keep the Mit Debuff up also, although I've found I usually kill the mob before it runs down (1min 2 sec)
Casters:
2 options here, fast and slow
Slow: Much safer, and allows the oppurtunity to run away. You do the Imprison lockdown, or the Stifle lockdown.
Imprison lockdown. Hit imprison, debuff with vengence and Mit Debuff, hit with DoTs. Make sure Imprison's recast is back b4 you do attack spells (not long just 6 sec recast timer). Takes a while but you eventually whittle them down with the DoTs and if they happen to break and run into melee the vengence adds a bit of damage b4 you can lock them back down.
Stifle Lockdown: Just run your smite line (DD + 3 sec stifle) and DO NOT autoattack. The smite's total cycle time is 4 seconds ( 2 casting, 2 recast ) and it has a 3 second stifle effect so long as you dont do further damage. Very very few spells in the game have a casting time of 1 second or less so you'll only really be facing the mobs auto attack damage. Do NOT do any other types of spells other then the Smite and the Mitigation Debuff so as not to break the stifle-lockdown effect. If you go low on heal because of autoattack damage, then chain your next smite with your reactive heal (2 sec casting) then back to the smite (this adds only 1 second to the chain due to the recovery timers coming into effect when you chain spells) but the 5 second cycle for that one time should not be enough to cause the mob to cast more then 1 2 second casting time spell. Make sure that if the mob is a healer that around 60% hp or so you keep the mob constantly under heresy.
Fast: Do everything the same as against a fighter/scout mob except you don't bother with Repentance line, keep Heresy lockdown on the healer once hp is 60% or less. Works find agianst healers but you'll find you take lots LOTS more damage from mage-types. In a PVP setting (duel) I ALWAYS do the slow method vs a mage and it works fine. Against a pet-mage just Imprison lock the pet and keep your distance and stifle-lock the mage, you can keep both up quite well but takes a bit of balancing.
Multi-mob encounters:
1) Burn down the healer (obvious but doesn't get done as often as it should) we dont' have the DPS to contend with the little healing dude constantly bringing his buddies hp back up. Keep him locked down with heresy and burn him down with Smite and DoT's as fast as possible. Use the Litany line liberally on encounters of 3 or more mobs (it becomes very efficient at 3+ targets on a damage to mana ratio) at 2 targets you can also use it but it becomes slightly less efficient then a smite at that point. At 25-50% hp (depending on how fast you're brining the mob down) make sure to cast your Heretic's Line for the damage-on-death burst. This is your most efficient multi-mob damage spell, and its even worthwhile doing on the 2nd to last mob when only 2 are left in the encounter (my Heretic's Doom does almost twice the damage as a Smite and for about 1/2 the mana)
Hope this helps guys.
Message Edited by Cykophrog on 04-21-200602:07 PM