Good casual, low stress soloing class

[Buns]

Hello everyone,

I am interested in starting a solo character that I can play when I'm not having luck finding a group on my cleric and to make plat, but I'm a pretty casual player

I thought that Enchanter would be a good fit because they're good at soloing and can also get groups, so I level one up to 16. I've found that I'm really not a fan of their soloing style. I'm sure it gets easier as you level up, but if I'm soloing, I'd prefer it to be a little more relaxed. It seemed too chaotic with the constant running, recharming, mem blurring, etc, and it's not a good soloing style if you suddenly have to go afk (since you have a pet that will turn on you at any second).

Is there a more straightforward solo class that I could try? I've been leaning toward Mage since it sounds like you can just set your pet in and heal it occasionally, but all the threads I've read have told people to roll a Necro instead of a mage. Necros seem to have an involved playstyle though with the fear kiting or charming undead and all that. Not sure that's for me. Druid also seems to rely on charming. However, I do like their ports and sow.

So any advice on on what to try? I can't really twink since I've started recently, so I guess keep that in mind when giving advice.

Thanks!

[dannytaki]

Bard. Aoe kiting. Great exp. Easy.

[Daldaen]

AoE kiting... Low stress... Wat?

One wrong move you instantly die and lose 20 minutes of time and a deaths worth of EXP. Not really low stress when any amount of lag or any error is looming over you the entire time you solo like that.

I'd say necro. Fear kiting is a safe relaxed soloing way and you always have FD.

[Juhstin]

Monk, can FD with ease, bind wound, mend.

[Nytch]

Druids can also Root/Rot and Quad it is much slower and less efficient than charming but it would allow you to randomly go AFK as long as your mobs were dead, you could invis/hide and AFK. This will also give you ports and SoW that you wanted.

Same with Shaman but without the ports. Shaman will also get you groups.

[Vexenu]

I'd say Necro as well. The Mage is has a simpler and more straightforward style, but you actually have to stay on your toes more as a Mage while soloing due to your total lack of CC and healing. The Necro is much more forgivable and versatile with all of the Necro tricks they get.

[Kekephee]

AoE kiting... Low stress... Wat?

One wrong move you instantly die and lose 20 minutes of time and a deaths worth of EXP. Not really low stress when any amount of lag or any error is looming over you the entire time you solo like that.

I'd say necro. Fear kiting is a safe relaxed soloing way and you always have FD.


Correct about everything. I quit AE kiting around 30 because "oh god I hear footsteps oh shit oh shit oh shit are they bisecting a radius WHICH DIRECTION ARE THEY COMING FROM" for 15 minutes followed by another 15 minutes of "oh god don't turn too sharply don't turn too sharply DAMN not sharp enough oh god don't turn too sharply DAMN" on top of constant OOC hate where people wished death on me IRL even though I always went out of my way to leave mobs up for everybody else... was no way to live.


My necromancer is level 51 and my entire play style is "go get something, dot it, fear it, sit down to med and play a game of solitaire/chat on facebook."

[Buns]

Thank you for the advice so far. Question about Monk or Shaman though... don't they require pretty extensive twinking to actually be viable solo? That's not really an option for me.

[Kekephee]

Shaman can be pretty good without gear if you're root-rotting, which is a lot easier at later levels when you have roots that actually last/epic that casts a dot for free/whatever but is quite doable at low levels with little effort. Cast poison dot, cast disease dot, cast root, sit, count, recast root before it goes away.

[Juhstin]

Thank you for the advice so far. Question about Monk or Shaman though... don't they require pretty extensive twinking to actually be viable solo? That's not really an option for me.

Not for Monk, generally you'll find free hand me downs through your levels and your fists will easily get you levels until you have money to buy cheap weapons. Monks don't really require twinking but obviously twinking makes them far incredibly easier to level.

Shaman for a first time might be a pain as spell costs are a pita.

[Juhstin]

Not to mention with Monk there isn't too much downtime depending on gear, even with fists on my Iksar I was able to bind wound to 50%, then hit mend to get me near full and sit for last few %, usually mend would be back up by the time I needed it next go round.

[fishingme]

Necro is best if you need to ninja afk, dismiss pet and feign death my second choice would be bard ape kiting, drop absolutely all settings to zero, turn off 32bit quality and make it 16bit, the only lag that will kill you 99% of the time is server lag. The pulls are easy, nothing more fun than selos and throwing daggers for your pulling, high stress for about ten minutes when you're working on damaging mobs but 30 to 40 minutes for the pull and kill will get you two or three levels rather than it taking a day or three to get the equivelent leveling done.

[myriverse]

Warriors.
I'm casual.
I don't stress.
I solo.

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

Paladin. Find a weighted axe and root joust.

Slow as fuck but can be done.

[Uteunayr]

Paladin. Find a weighted axe and root joust.

Slow as fuck but can be done.

Imagining this made me lol. I never thought of this.

[baalzy]

Paladin. Find a weighted axe and root joust.

Slow as fuck but can be done.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Weighted_Axe

Paladins can't use weighted axe. You can snare & root joust as an SK though. Or joust-kite as a warrior with SoW pots/Jboots.

To answer the OP.

Wizard is pretty low stress, root and nuke then wait a while. So is Druid using root rot/snare kite/quad and you can charm level when ya have the time.

Necro is definitely no stress. Fear kiting doesn't involve much at all if you pick the right camps.

Mages, if pet aggro gets fixed, are pretty easy. If aggro gets fixed correctly you'll actually be able to nuke & won't have to rely on pet-chaining as much.

Rangers could be VERY relaxed (and slow) if you don't mind fletching for a few hours every so often. Root & shoot! Once velious hits you can fear kite similar to a SK but with uber weapons that cost a pittance.

[Asap]

Magician is pretty casual/low stress. I solo'd 1-51 with minimal stress and effort.

1. Summon fire pet.
2. Send pet at target.
3. Recall pet once mob is at 5% and/or flees
4. Finish off target with low-level nuke and receive full experience.
5. Repeat steps 1-4.

Just make sure to get your pet focus items

[Swish]

Necro... no gear required really, and super low stress.

Hell, you can just FD when you can't be bothered to pull anything else or need to afk and know you'll live :)

[Kekephee]

I would even go so far as to say if you're going to FD as a necro, prepare to be exceedingly bored after the 20 minute ordeal of the mobs just not losing aggro. Whenever I have to feign in DL on my guy I always wind up more frustrated that they keep coming back to me 20 minutes later than stressed out about having to play. It gets boring waiting for mobs to go away.

[Swish]

I give them a couple of chances to reset, if that doesn't work... just /q to clear it. Further back in the timeline there was none of this nonsense, FD'ers had a good time.

[baalzy]

I would even go so far as to say if you're going to FD as a necro, prepare for a 20 minute ordeal of the mobs just not losing aggro. Whenever I have to feign in DL on my guy I always wind up more frustrated that they keep coming back to me 20 minutes later than stressed out about having to play. It gets boring waiting for mobs to go away.

Get a click-reclaim stick. Stand, click it, re-feign. /q. Come back and start over.

If your pet is already dead, skip to the /q

[Kekephee]

Isn't /q during feign considered an exploit? I seem to remember Sirken making one of his "attention everyone: if you /q in feign death I will hunt you down and ban you" posts

[baalzy]

Isn't /q during feign considered an exploit? I seem to remember Sirken making one of his "attention everyone: if you /q in feign death I will hunt you down and ban you" posts

If thats true, it's incredibly stupid. /q'ing to clear agro as a feign class is as classic as it gets. Almost every guide out there from the classic era talks about needing to do it.

Now, if you're abusing IP-Exemptions or proxies to log into your account to cause an instant-poof that's an entirely different thing.

[Lune]

Isn't /q during feign considered an exploit? I seem to remember Sirken making one of his "attention everyone: if you /q in feign death I will hunt you down and ban you" posts

Pretty sure the only prohibited utilization of /q is using various methods to immediately pull your character out of the game / log back in, like TMO & pals used to do in VP. That's probably what you're thinking of.

[SamwiseRed]

Mage or wiz

[jarshale]

Necro. You could easily get to 20s+ with no gear. Fear kiting requires one or two clicks every couple minutes. Once you can root rot you will never die unless you are retarded.

[webrunner5]

Isn't /q during feign considered an exploit? I seem to remember Sirken making one of his "attention everyone: if you /q in feign death I will hunt you down and ban you" posts

I think it was put in for the Red server. Stops people from just /q when PvP is going on. Same as just pulling the computer plug out of the wall when getting the snot beat out of you lol. :eek:

[Kekephee]

Well don't I feel like an idiot for spending so many hours staring at my little necro sprawled out on the ground when I could have just /q'd and gtfo all this time

[bartly]

Druid by far the most casual friendly class.

Exp wise you can charm solo as fast as a chanter. With the added ease of sow, or later even faster wolf forms and 15 min snare. Means pet breaks are trivial.

Bind anywhere you like. You can always port to a vendor or right to the bank in Rivervale and gate back without even missing a repop.

Camp you wanted is occupied? Port to a new one.

At high level can farm a lot of high end items solo either root rotting or charming.

Druid isn't the most powerful class but it is fairly powerful and very user friendly.

[pharmakos]

necro is definitely the most casual solo class.

pull a mob with your snare Damage-Over-Time spell, send pet and cast Fear, cast another couple DOTs, then sit down and med while you watch the mob die. sometimes you have to cast Fear twice.

and they have Feign Death so if you ever wanna just say "fuck it" and take a break right at that moment.... you can.

[pharmakos]

Paladin. Find a weighted axe and root joust.

Slow as fuck but can be done.

there are no paladin races that can use weighted axe

[Swish]

Isn't /q during feign considered an exploit? I seem to remember Sirken making one of his "attention everyone: if you /q in feign death I will hunt you down and ban you" posts

Why make a rule that's impossible to police effectively? I hope he never said that because every FD class account is going to get a ban :p

[Clark]

AoE kiting... Low stress... Wat?

One wrong move you instantly die and lose 20 minutes of time and a deaths worth of EXP. Not really low stress when any amount of lag or any error is looming over you the entire time you solo like that.

I'd say necro. Fear kiting is a safe relaxed soloing way and you always have FD.

:D

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

there are no paladin races that can use weighted axe

Yes yes I see that now.

Well fuck weighted axes, they suck anyways. Replace with another 2hs beast like arbitors combine great sword.

[Buns]

Thank you guys for all the responses. I really appreciate it.

It seems like most people were suggesting Druid or Necro (well, most people were suggesting Necro, lbh). I think I'm going to try both of them to like level 15, and see which I like more. I'm leaning toward Druid because Halflings are superior to all the other races, and I like being good aligned so I can see more of Norrath.

Necro is less interesting because it seems like from reading other threads that you either choose to be Iksar or regret not being Iksar your entire career, and I hate Iksar. However, it seems like people love soloing on them, so I figure I'll give an Iksar Necro a shot too.

[baalzy]

Thank you guys for all the responses. I really appreciate it.

It seems like most people were suggesting Druid or Necro (well, most people were suggesting Necro, lbh). I think I'm going to try both of them to like level 15, and see which I like more. I'm leaning toward Druid because Halflings are superior to all the other races, and I like being good aligned so I can see more of Norrath.

Necro is less interesting because it seems like from reading other threads that you either choose to be Iksar or regret not being Iksar your entire career, and I hate Iksar. However, it seems like people love soloing on them, so I figure I'll give an Iksar Necro a shot too.

Depending on how far you want to go with you druid (like, career), Wood Elf followers of Tunare are actually the best. Stats don't matter much in the end, however access to infinite mana-free clickies is a pretty damn big advantage that no halfling will ever get.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Warden_Symbol_of_Tunare (4 second cast infinite root, basically a 9th spell gem)
http://wiki.project1999.com/Gloves_of_Earthcrafting_Quest (PL'ers best friend, mana free DS)

As far as the Iksar necro vs Non-Iksar necro, you can overcome the non-iksar deficiencies late game with VP gear (soulwell clicky) + holgresh beads or always having stalking probes with you. I think a gnome necro could also just make/recharge stalking probes on the fly.

[Buns]

Depending on how far you want to go with you druid (like, career), Wood Elf followers of Tunare are actually the best. Stats don't matter much in the end, however access to infinite mana-free clickies is a pretty damn big advantage that no halfling will ever get.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Warden_Symbol_of_Tunare (4 second cast infinite root, basically a 9th spell gem)
http://wiki.project1999.com/Gloves_of_Earthcrafting_Quest (PL'ers best friend, mana free DS)

As far as the Iksar necro vs Non-Iksar necro, you can overcome the non-iksar deficiencies late game with VP gear (soulwell clicky) + holgresh beads or always having stalking probes with you. I think a gnome necro could also just make/recharge stalking probes on the fly.

Ugh, wish the druid guides mentioned this. Oh well, I'm too lazy to restart again, unless you really think it's worth it.

[pharmakos]

the halfling EXP bonus and racial hide/sneak might outweigh those.... its a matter of opinion really

[Juhstin]

Ugh, wish the druid guides mentioned this. Oh well, I'm too lazy to restart again, unless you really think it's worth it.

Being a Hobbit is cool anyways

[baalzy]

5% bonus. Meh. Means nothing especially at 60.

Sneak has some merit, lets you do quests you couldn't otherwise do without needing someone to assist you (invis trick or just charming it).

Wood elves get hide also.

However, being able to nuke a mob down 10hp at a time by spamming root on it for no mana is very lulz worthy. Especially if root rotting & epic'd. Could kill any non-summoning mob for 0 mana given enough time.

[Danth]

Druids and Necromancers are both low-stress classes that solo well once you get to a certain point. That being said they do have their weaknesses--nothing's perfect, after all.

Druids are wretched prior to level 8 and feel pretty mediocre until they reach a level where they can quad (35 or so). Charm-killing is available much earlier but goes against the notion of "low stress." Root-dot-nuke is viable but slow and boring. I don't know about Necromancers in terms of function, but they innately come with the hassle of having to acquire research spells.

Danth

[Bill Tetley]

wizard. quad... afk... quad... afk... cant get any lazier

[sox7d]

wizards the way to go. rough till 28ish then just do a quad.... afk.... do a quad... afk.

I got really good at guitar leveling mine.

[Hollywood]

All classes are difficult, even up into the 20s. Most don't really spread their wings until about level 29+

A lot has been said that is true, in terms of how classes play out however it's not as easy as it sounds.

Necromancer for example, takes a lot of mana to combine pet cast + fear + dot + root + whatever else needs recast. And this is not taking into consieraton resists, fizzles or interrupts.
And that applies to all the casters.

Melee, conversely is less complexity and therefore less stress up front, but leaves you without the tools to reduce stress later, like avoiding death or easier travel methods.

Having said that, for a laid back character I would always suggest a Monk.
Feign death, bind wound, mend, and instill doubt(fear) are all very potent abilities that make all the difference. Additionally, you aren't a slow killing class, things move at a nice pace.

When you are available for grouping, you're both a damage dealer, a puller and in a lot of cases you can double up as a tank. In lower to mid levels, tanks, particularly Warriors are without good tools to hold aggro - and that's with a coordinated group. A monk or two however, can remedy that with their damage output.

All in all it's very versatile, easy to learn, challenging to master and gives you a chance at less stress with meaningful gains.

[Kegir]

All classes are difficult, even up into the 20s. Most don't really spread their wings until about level 29+

A lot has been said that is true, in terms of how classes play out however it's not as easy as it sounds.

Necromancer for example, takes a lot of mana to combine pet cast + fear + dot + root + whatever else needs recast. And this is not taking into consieraton resists, fizzles or interrupts.
And that applies to all the casters.

Melee, conversely is less complexity and therefore less stress up front, but leaves you without the tools to reduce stress later, like avoiding death or easier travel methods.

Having said that, for a laid back character I would always suggest a Monk.
Feign death, bind wound, mend, and instill doubt(fear) are all very potent abilities that make all the difference. Additionally, you aren't a slow killing class, things move at a nice pace.

When you are available for grouping, you're both a damage dealer, a puller and in a lot of cases you can double up as a tank. In lower to mid levels, tanks, particularly Warriors are without good tools to hold aggro - and that's with a coordinated group. A monk or two however, can remedy that with their damage output.

All in all it's very versatile, easy to learn, challenging to master and gives you a chance at less stress with meaningful gains.

I'd say monk being laid back only applies to soloing.

If you are in a group, you are expected to pull. That is not something you can be lazy about.

If OP is considering raiding, the monk role is about the least laid back of all classes.