Third most challenging class to play SSF

[eqravenprince]

After Rogue and Warrior, what is third most challenging class to play SSF?

[Toxigen]

At first I was gonna say Ranger...but it might be paladin.

Definitely not SK. FD / snare kiting too strong.

Either way its going to be far easier than your rogue and war!

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I just responded to your SSF Warrior thread. It seems you made a new thread here though :) Will just move the post over.

At first I was gonna say Ranger...but it might be paladin.

Definitely not SK. FD / snare kiting too strong.

It's between Ranger or Paladin for sure in this list of hybrids. Paladin will work better in dungeons, but Rangers can kite indefinitely in outdoor zones.

None of the remaining classes will be difficult to solo with in the same sense as a Rogue/Warrior. Difficulty now comes down to speed of soloing, diversity of zones/camps the class thrives in, and which drawbacks of the class annoy you the most.

A naked Monk has FD and Mend, which means they are reasonably safe. They will have low AC, HP, and DPS however. You will be FDing fights you cannot finish due to bad RnG where the mob hits you a lot, and you miss a lot.

A naked Shadowknight will finish fights more consistently due to fear kiting and having a pet. The pet augments the Shadowknight's damage a bit better in this scenario because SSF weapons are generally bad. But they will probably be sitting/meditating often due to not having efficient recovery tools like Mend. First 9 levels will be slow due to not having any spells. You'll need to spend time building up your bone chip supply early on, unless you plan on sticking to undead zones.

A naked Ranger will be restricted to outdoor zones generally speaking. They can fear kite animals and bow kite with SoW. They can finish fights consistently, albeit at a slower speed. First 9 levels will be slow due to not having any spells.

A naked Paladin is less restricted than a Cleric zone-wise, as they can use melee for damage instead of undead nukes. You'll need to root + camp mobs on failed lulls, as Paladins do not get Divina Aura until level 55. Running to the zoneline without a speed buff will be more dangerous, but a Paladins increased tankiness may make up for the lack of Divine Aura a bit. First 9 levels will be slow due to not having any spells.

A naked Bard gets a DoT, Speed Buff, HP Regeneration, and Lull by level 8. Things may be a bit slow in the beginning, but you'll be able to consistently finish mobs that other classes could not in the same level range.

A naked Shaman will start off slow, as they will need to root/rot mobs instead of slow tanking them with melee. They start picking up after level 24, when you get regeneration and cannibalize. You'll probably need to quest for a decent weapon like https://wiki.project1999.com/Gatorsmash_Maul to enable slow tanking + meleeing.

A naked Cleric is restricted to undead zones generally speaking. Undead nukes will be your primary source of damage. You'll need to root + camp mobs on failed lulls, or run them to the zoneline without a speed buff. Luckily they have DA at least to make the run a bit safer.

A naked Druid will be restricted to outdoor zones generally speaking. They start off slow until level 14 when you get SoW, your first decent DoT, and your first animal charm. Then you can kill anything that isn't too resistant by kiting it.

A naked Wizard is going to be spending a lot of time meditating after nuking a mob down. Without SoW or JBoots your ability to quad kite will be impaired. I haven't tried quad kiting without SoW/JBoots, but I imagine it isn't great. Perhaps you could snare all of the mobs first when pulling them, but then it will be harder to stack them up on top of each other for AoE damage.

A naked Enchanter starts off slow until level 12, when you get your first charm spell. With a lower mana pool you will run into scenarios where you are out of mana due to fizzles, spell resists, early spell breaks, etc. This will cause you to gate more often to save yourself.

A naked Magician will be slow for the first 4 levels when you don't have a pet. The lack of root means you have camp restrictions. Their pet is powerful by itself, so you'll level quickly at any Magician appropriate camp.

A naked Necromancer gets their first pet spell at level 1. You just need to play a bit more conservatively until level 16 when you get FD. You'll need to spend time building up your bone chip supply early on, unless you plan on sticking to undead zones.

[7thGate]

A naked Wizard is going to be spending a lot of time meditating after nuking a mob down. Without SoW or JBoots your ability to quad kite will be impaired. I haven't tried quad kiting without SoW/JBoots, but I imagine it isn't great. Perhaps you could snare all of the mobs first when pulling them, but then it will be harder to stack them up on top of each other for AoE damage.


I know one of the highest priorities on SSF Wizard is usually traveler's boots. If you camp money camps all the way up, I think you usually hit 5k some time in the late 20's to get the run speed buff to enable quad kiting.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I know one of the highest priorities on SSF Wizard is usually traveler's boots. If you camp money camps all the way up, I think you usually hit 5k some time in the late 20's to get the run speed buff to enable quad kiting.

Ah that is a good point! I forgot about Traveler's Boots. Yeah you may be able to farm enough money to buy them before you get to the level range where you can camp AC.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

For OP specifically I vote Paladin given the three choices. Currently OP has a tendency to level their SSF characters to 40ish and stop, once the grid becomes too tedious.

Ranger gets Snare and Root by 15, which means they can do cheesy strategies earlier on. They get SoW at 30.

Paladin doesn't have Root + Lull until 22, and doesn't get a decent heal until 39.

Rangers in the earlier levels have a better spell kit than Paladins. Once you start getting to level 40+, the Paladin starts to pull ahead.

If OP was planning on leveling to 60, I would say Ranger is hardest. Paladins get good buffs and healing in the later levels. They can lull in dungeons, which means they can camp more good items than a Ranger.

[eqravenprince]

If OP was planning on leveling to 60, I would say Ranger is hardest. Paladins get good buffs and healing in the later levels. They can lull in dungeons, which means they can camp more good items than a Ranger.

I may take my warrior to 60, we shall see. Rogue, it got to the point where I was killing a single level 35 mob every 20 min or so at level 45 which was too tedious to continue my SSF journey with him. Warrior so far has been far easier than Rogue.

[eqravenprince]

I just responded to your SSF Warrior thread. It seems you made a new thread here though :) Will just move the post over.



It's between Ranger or Paladin for sure in this list of hybrids. Paladin will work better in dungeons, but Rangers can kite indefinitely in outdoor zones.

None of the remaining classes will be difficult to solo with in the same sense as a Rogue/Warrior. Difficulty now comes down to speed of soloing, diversity of zones/camps the class thrives in, and which drawbacks of the class annoy you the most.

A naked Monk has FD and Mend, which means they are reasonably safe. They will have low AC, HP, and DPS however. You will be FDing fights you cannot finish due to bad RnG where the mob hits you a lot, and you miss a lot.

A naked Shadowknight will finish fights more consistently due to fear kiting and having a pet. The pet augments the Shadowknight's damage a bit better in this scenario because SSF weapons are generally bad. But they will probably be sitting/meditating often due to not having efficient recovery tools like Mend. First 9 levels will be slow due to not having any spells. You'll need to spend time building up your bone chip supply early on, unless you plan on sticking to undead zones.

A naked Ranger will be restricted to outdoor zones generally speaking. They can fear kite animals and bow kite with SoW. They can finish fights consistently, albeit at a slower speed. First 9 levels will be slow due to not having any spells.

A naked Paladin is less restricted than a Cleric zone-wise, as they can use melee for damage instead of undead nukes. You'll need to root + camp mobs on failed lulls, as Paladins do not get Divina Aura until level 55. Running to the zoneline without a speed buff will be more dangerous, but a Paladins increased tankiness may make up for the lack of Divine Aura a bit. First 9 levels will be slow due to not having any spells.

A naked Bard gets a DoT, Speed Buff, HP Regeneration, and Lull by level 8. Things may be a bit slow in the beginning, but you'll be able to consistently finish mobs that other classes could not in the same level range.

A naked Shaman will start off slow, as they will need to root/rot mobs instead of slow tanking them with melee. They start picking up after level 24, when you get regeneration and cannibalize. You'll probably need to quest for a decent weapon like https://wiki.project1999.com/Gatorsmash_Maul to enable slow tanking + meleeing.

A naked Cleric is restricted to undead zones generally speaking. Undead nukes will be your primary source of damage. You'll need to root + camp mobs on failed lulls, or run them to the zoneline without a speed buff. Luckily they have DA at least to make the run a bit safer.

A naked Druid will be restricted to outdoor zones generally speaking. They start off slow until level 14 when you get SoW, your first decent DoT, and your first animal charm. Then you can kill anything that isn't too resistant by kiting it.

A naked Wizard is going to be spending a lot of time meditating after nuking a mob down. Without SoW or JBoots your ability to quad kite will be impaired. I haven't tried quad kiting without SoW/JBoots, but I imagine it isn't great. Perhaps you could snare all of the mobs first when pulling them, but then it will be harder to stack them up on top of each other for AoE damage.

A naked Enchanter starts off slow until level 12, when you get your first charm spell. With a lower mana pool you will run into scenarios where you are out of mana due to fizzles, spell resists, early spell breaks, etc. This will cause you to gate more often to save yourself.

A naked Magician will be slow for the first 4 levels when you don't have a pet. The lack of root means you have camp restrictions. Their pet is powerful by itself, so you'll level quickly at any Magician appropriate camp.

A naked Necromancer gets their first pet spell at level 1. You just need to play a bit more conservatively until level 16 when you get FD. You'll need to spend time building up your bone chip supply early on, unless you plan on sticking to undead zones.

Yep, wanted to seperate this into it's own post. My SSF warrior will continue on until I retire him. I will probably start on this 3rd most challenging class next or in parallel on blue. Pretty good assessment on all the classes, I considered adding Cleric to the poll, but I feel like there is a pretty good jump in soloability between Cleric and the 3 listed in poll. Honestly I probably could have just done a poll between Ranger and Paladin.

[Troxx]

really beyond warrior and rogue ...

3rd most difficult is hard

Any pure caster (int or priest) has it comparatively easy relative to melee. naked with up to date spells ... not hard
Monks don't need much gear to be effective
Bards? Vendor instruments = power

That leaves ranger, sk, pal

Ranger = probably has it easy with harmony snare and root and bow ... even with crap gear
Sk = snare and fd
Pal= good toolkit but dps is low and ...

For SSF I'd say paladin is the next most challenging.

[Keebz]

Kind of depends on the era. Hybrids are actually easy SSF. I think I'll go Ranger just because they are shitty indoors and start being terrible at face tanking in the 50's. This limits what items / camps you have available to you.

Ranger was actually my starting char and first 50 on Green and I soloed a lot, but I did my leveling before the Velious fixes QoL fixes, so maybe stuff like Panic Animal is enough of a game changer.

SK is definitely a face roll but in classic & kunark the multiplicative exp pen is a real slog, so the argument could be made it's just a lot more grinding depending on the era / race.

Paladin 1-50 is basically a warrior with heals, buffs, lull and root, so like that's pretty good. But I can see low DPS as a big limiting factor, esp. 50+. One day I need to actually play a Paladin.

Is SSF Wizard that good? I personally power leveled mine mostly, but know life is rough if your mana pool sucks. It is super unfun and limited but yes once you're quadding you can auto pilot exp for the most part.

How is SSF Monk? With Kunark it must be fine once you get a decent weapon, but before then it seems kind of terrible. Human Classic life in particular sounds rough. Bandages cost money, you can't bow kite, and looting hurts your AC.

[Troxx]

Kind of depends on the era. Hybrids are actually easy SSF. I think I'll go Ranger just because they are shitty indoors and start being terrible at face tanking in the 50's. This limits what items / camps you have available to you.


I'm actively leveling one ... currently 55. Not SSF by any means but I will say that the easy thing about rangers is you can kill anything you can snare. Bow + cheap arrows (summon, bought or self crafted) puts any dark blue on your menu.

The same can't be said for a paladin that is truly SSF.

DPS is low and for solo and if truly self found for gear - even with a full mana bar to root and back off and heal ... it's gonna be painful.

[Keebz]

I'm actively leveling one ... currently 55. Not SSF by any means but I will say that the easy thing about rangers is you can kill anything you can snare. Bow + cheap arrows (summon, bought or self crafted) puts any dark blue on your menu.

Bow kiting is inevitable for sure, but it's dicey indoors. My biggest gripe with my Ranger was the poor indoor toolkit in general, but outdoors you kind of rule. Curious how 55-60 goes. That's really when face tanking becomes rough. But as I said before Panic Animal is a thing now so maybe that's the ticket.

Meta question in relation to OP's phrasing—what should we consider "most challenging"? Are we just looking at raw time played leveling to 60 as fast as possible? Ease of killing specific mobs? Is loot acquisition or dungeon crawling a factor? Overall "fun" level?

[Rader]

SK's clearly ahead of the three with FD snare and fear on all mobs
Ranger v Paladin is almost a tie, but in the end, ranger heal sucks and animal mobs very few and far between in 50's you are bound to get into a battle where it is close and you stick with it only to get sucky RNGs on your attacks and die; paladin DPS does blow and it will be slow AF but probably just a bit less challenging

[Baldwooky]

Its not ranger, wow.

Solo self found, eh, ever hear of tracking?

As someone that has mained all hybrids, I can tell you uniequivically that SK is far harder than ranger to solo up and way, way harder to self gear. In fact, rangers are one of the best at self gearing.

I love how FD is some OP tool to some of you. Its not, Harmony is a way better tool to a soloist. SK's have literally 1 way to effectively level, and they do it slowly. Rangers can do that same thing all the way to 60, plus about 10 other things.

But the answer is actually Cleric. And I've soloed one before when neccasary. Once you hit the 50s in kunark, mob HP spikes up, and you basically go OOM on a single blue.
No quadding, no mana regen, no nothing but an undead DD and retribution, which isn't mana efficient enough to even kill mid blues.

Paladin has free self healing at 45. They're out.

Its either Cleric or SK.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Its not ranger, wow.

Solo self found, eh, ever hear of tracking?

As someone that has mained all hybrids, I can tell you uniequivically that SK is far harder than ranger to solo up and way, way harder to self gear. In fact, rangers are one of the best at self gearing.

I love how FD is some OP tool to some of you. Its not, Harmony is a way better tool to a soloist. SK's have literally 1 way to effectively level, and they do it slowly. Rangers can do that same thing all the way to 60, plus about 10 other things.

But the answer is actually Cleric. And I've soloed one before when neccasary. Once you hit the 50s in kunark, mob HP spikes up, and you basically go OOM on a single blue.
No quadding, no mana regen, no nothing but an undead DD and retribution, which isn't mana efficient enough to even kill mid blues.

Paladin has free self healing at 45. They're out.

Its either Cleric or SK.

FD is not the sole reason SKs are great at soloing.

For one, SK's get fear kiting. This means they can kill mobs while taking very little damage, constently. Meleeing does more damage than bow kiting, so SK's will be killing faster.

SKs have access to big races like trolls. More stats and extra HP regen right out of the gate.

They get a pet too. It isn't the greatest pet, but the extra damage is more significant when you don't have great weapons.

FD + Snare allows SKs to pull singles just like Harmony, but they can do it indoors as well.

Having both Invis spells (undead and regular) and FD means SK's can bypass more mobs in more areas, including dungeons.

FD is good at saving time, since you don't need to run to the zoneline when you get unintended agro, or lose a fight.

Just about the best weapon any hybrid can get for SSF is https://wiki.project1999.com/Blackened_Alloy_Bastard_Sword , which is dropped in a dungeon. SK's are more effective in dungeons.

I agree Rangers can get some good gear at the very end. They can do Forager cycle in TT for Ceremonial Iksar Chestplate, and they can probably get Swarmcaller from Karnor.

But remember that a Troll/Iksar is already going to have +4 or +7 (depending on level) standing regeneration for free when a Ranger is in the level range to farm a Ceremonial Iksar Chestplate. Fear kiting is already filling the role of slow (Swarmcaller) in the sense of reducing melee damage. A SSF character isn't really in the position to do things like soloing a Cliff Golem, where slow would really be needed.

[eqravenprince]

Meta question in relation to OP's phrasing—what should we consider "most challenging"? Are we just looking at raw time played leveling to 60 as fast as possible? Ease of killing specific mobs? Is loot acquisition or dungeon crawling a factor? Overall "fun" level?

Generally, most challenging is how hard it is to grind exp, find exp giving mobs. Wizard while boring to some is super easy to find and kill exp giving mobs and to do long exp grind sessions. Rogue was very grindy in the sense that I needed money for poisons, I needed to camp various equipment to improve my character enough to solo, and lower HP/AC than say a Warrior meant battles were a lot more close, had to flee sometimes to do fluky random damage done by the NPC. Warrior is not as grindy as Rogue as I'm doing just fine in banded and a Blackened Alloy Bastard Sword, haven't needed to grind for coin as I was able to make banded off coin I got just leveling, haven't really needed to camp for items yet. I suspect Paladin will be similar to Warrior, although more camps will be possible with spells they have. SK, I've done a few to 40+ (not SSF), it was pretty much facetank, throw a dot or two, lifetap, and face tank, never did fearkiting. Ranger, not sure, never leveled one past 20.

[eqravenprince]

the answer is actually Cleric. And I've soloed one before when neccasary. Once you hit the 50s in kunark, mob HP spikes up, and you basically go OOM on a single blue.
No quadding, no mana regen, no nothing but an undead DD and retribution, which isn't mana efficient enough to even kill mid blues.

Paladin has free self healing at 45. They're out.

Its either Cleric or SK.

I thought about adding Cleric to the list, but I played a Wizard to 50 SSF and it was extremely easy. Boring to some yes which I could see how some could see that as a challenging, but it wasn't for me. I just watch a lot of TV or play console games in between pulls.

[Toxigen]

anything w/ root and gate cant be that hard

hard != boring / slow

[Jimjam]

Ranger is fun - skilling up fletching, trying to force a trueshot… making magic arrows to kite the ghoul messenger and get a short sword of morrin. Similar story for an orc impaler. Can use iksar beserker club.

Lots of cool soloaboe gears that make an impact.

[Keebz]

Its not ranger, wow.

Solo self found, eh, ever hear of tracking?

As someone that has mained all hybrids, I can tell you uniequivically that SK is far harder than ranger to solo up and way, way harder to self gear. In fact, rangers are one of the best at self gearing.

I love how FD is some OP tool to some of you. Its not, Harmony is a way better tool to a soloist. SK's have literally 1 way to effectively level, and they do it slowly. Rangers can do that same thing all the way to 60, plus about 10 other things.

...

Paladin has free self healing at 45. They're out.

I have also done both SK and Ranger and find SK much easier, but YMMV. As you pointed out, tracking is definitely nice for picking off outdoor loot. I made my fortune with tracking. That being said pet tracking is also a thing here which has its advantages. I solo'd my peggy cloak on my SK for example.

FWIW, SK has more modes than just feat kiting, though that is a great tool. The attack, tap, attack, etc. is the ole standby, but you can also bow kite just fine with snares, strafing, dots and a pet. There are lower skill caps, but eventually you can get a weighted axe.

Regarding the Paladin free self-healing, presuming you're talking about DW Helm—that drops in crypt in Seb, so you're not getting that.

Ranger on the other hand might be able to cheese Swarmcaller in KC, so that's something.

I might be talking myself into Paladin now, but without having played it beyond the teens I can't say.

[Baldwooky]

Wizards got can solo far easier than clerics solo as soon as they can start quadding. Cleric soloing putters out after 40/45 or so when mob HP gets higher.

Do you know how much faster harmony is vs trying to pull singles with FD?
Its night and day. Sks are basically garbage tier until they can FD. Then proceed to be super mid until 60. They have literally 1 way to solo efficiently.

A ranger could definitely get a Tantors Tusk or Wurmslayer EZ.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Do you know how much faster harmony is vs trying to pull singles with FD?
Its night and day. Sks are basically garbage tier until they can FD. Then proceed to be super mid until 60. They have literally 1 way to solo efficiently.

A ranger could definitely get a Tantors Tusk or Wurmslayer EZ.

Sure, Harmony can be faster at pulling. But bow kiting is slower, and Rangers are going to be facetanking what they aren't bow kiting. Facetanking things on a ranger means downtime recovering HP. Fear kiting saves you on recovery time and kills the mob faster than bow kiting. Both of tese make up for the slower pull.

Wurmslayer isn't better than Swarmcaller, so it isn't too relevant. Just get Swarmcaller from KC. Tantor's Tusk is nice, but very rare, and the process would be extremely slow with bow kiting. I am not sure what you would use Tantor's Tusk on anyway. You basically use bow kiting for anything you couldn't melee, like Tantor, and you would have swarmcaller for mobs that are easy enough to facetank.

[Troxx]

I think you’re underestimating how quickly you can bow kite something dead. Especially when the alternative is a knight (low dps to begin with) with crappy SSF weapon and no worn haste.

Standard vendor arrows, self-made quiver haste, and a self crafted bow along with a SSF very high delay (but otherwise crappy ratio) 2hander to milk that dmg bonus …

Killing with a bow really isn’t that bad.

Have you ever played a SSF melee toon? It’s painful and you have to get by with really crappy gear.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I think you’re underestimating how quickly you can bow kite something dead. Especially when the alternative is a knight (low dps to begin with) with crappy SSF weapon and no worn haste.

Standard vendor arrows, self-made quiver haste, and a self crafted bow along with a SSF very high delay (but otherwise crappy ratio) 2hander to milk that dmg bonus …

Killing with a bow really isn’t that bad.


I am not saying bow kiting is bad. Nor am I saying SSF Ranger is bad. I also think that a Ranger has some advantages at leveling for the first 40 levels or so over Knights, since Rangers get their key spells/skills sooner than Knights. This means they can do cheesy tactics earlier than Knights in outdoor zones, which are fairly common in the lower level range.

That is why I said Paladin is probably the hardest of the 3 hybrids to level for the first 40 levels or so earlier in the thread. They get all of their key spells/skills the latest of the three hybrids, and they don't have fear kiting or bow kiting to cheese mobs early on. Paladins start to really get good once you are in the later levels, when your buffs and heals start to mitigate a lot of damage.

However, the idea: "Harmony can sometimes pull faster, therefore Rangers are better/faster killers" is missing the key components of kill speed and recovery times. If you pull faster but kill/recover slower, then you may not be faster than a Knight at the end of the day when looking at kills per hour or total experience gained. Knights can level in dungeons and outdoor zones equally well. This means you need to take ZEM into account. Even if Rangers can get 2-3 more kills per hour via bow kiting, the Knight may still win out in the end in terms of total experience gained. You are going to get a lot more experience per kill in Sol A vs. an outdoor zone typically speaking, for example.

If you or someone else wants to show DPS numbers and kills per hour numbers showing a Ranger vastly outpacing a Knight, I would be happy to concede the point. I don't think anyone here (including myself) has this data on hand. It's experience and gut feelings talking.

[Vivitron]

A ranger could definitely get a Tantors Tusk or Wurmslayer EZ.

Tantor's Tusk would be a sick SSF weapon. I imagine it would take a lot of arrows to kill him. You would probably need to figure out his spawn mechanism or find him on a quake; I've never seen him sitting up.

[Troxx]

The numbers I can parse aren’t really relevant as I’m not in SSF gear on either my paladin of Ranger. I can say that whatever the gap between my melee and bow dps geared as is, that gap will be a lot smaller on a SSF toon.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Giant_Grub_Digger

-that For a 49 delay weapon for the archery damage bonus
-the same str arrows I’m currently using.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Thunderhoof_Quiver
https://wiki.project1999.com/Runed_Oak_Bow

-33% WR for archery haste
-good magic bow

… both of these items drop off the same centaurs. One is level 20 and the other is level 33-35.

It’s pretty easy to get a decent bow/archery SSF. Much easier than getting the equivalent caliber weapons that you might find for sale for 20-50pp in EC tunnel.

[Troxx]

I guess all I gotta say is this ... once you have done a SSF rogue or warrior no other class comes close to approaching the same difficulty. They are the most gear dependent classes with the least flexibility in what they can accomplish.

-Casters don't really need gear and they all have pretty legit ways of soloing. Cleric gets harder towards the end but still easy compared to the 2 worst.
-Bards need literally nothing but vendor instruments to reach 80% or more their total character power.
-Monks can level in rags and have fists that scale up better than any SSF weapons they might have available for a long time

Of the 3 that remain, debating which one is the worst is going to end up with a lot of different answers and all of them for good reasons. When you get down to it, though, they're gonna get the job done so much more painless than a rog or warrior it's not even funny.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Of the 3 that remain, debating which one is the worst is going to end up with a lot of different answers and all of them for good reasons. When you get down to it, though, they're gonna get the job done so much more painless than a rog or warrior it's not even funny.

Agreed!

[WarpathEQ]

I voted paladin just because the other 2 have options to kill mobs without face tanking them.

[Toxigen]

I voted paladin just because the other 2 have options to kill mobs without face tanking them.

this is the answer

[Cen]

Solo self found rangers can easily solo with a lot of sidework of making arrows, ranger bow kiting is pretty strong on the server, I think paladins are harder

[cd288]

Sure, Harmony can be faster at pulling. But bow kiting is slower, and Rangers are going to be facetanking what they aren't bow kiting. Facetanking things on a ranger means downtime recovering HP. Fear kiting saves you on recovery time and kills the mob faster than bow kiting. Both of tese make up for the slower pull.

Wurmslayer isn't better than Swarmcaller, so it isn't too relevant. Just get Swarmcaller from KC. Tantor's Tusk is nice, but very rare, and the process would be extremely slow with bow kiting. I am not sure what you would use Tantor's Tusk on anyway. You basically use bow kiting for anything you couldn't melee, like Tantor, and you would have swarmcaller for mobs that are easy enough to facetank.

Yeah I agree with this. Pulling speed isn't really relevant. We're talking about downtime in terms of how fast you can kill once you're engaged and how fast you can be 100% and ready to engage another mob once you've killed the first one. SK will generally be higher than Ranger in all of that.

[magnetaress]

Paladin is so ez you ppl r noobz

Ranger is the only correct answer it takes the most effort to actually level.

Ya'll are still thinking about epics and twinks. When this is SSF.

Paladin is the easiest naked warriors cuz of root jousting and uber heals. Also the best ssf quests and items.

[Troxx]

I voted paladin just because the other 2 have options to kill mobs without face tanking them.

Same line of thought I had.

[Rader]

Paladin is so ez you ppl r noobz

Ranger is the only correct answer it takes the most effort to actually level.

Ya'll are still thinking about epics and twinks. When this is SSF.

Paladin is the easiest naked warriors cuz of root jousting and uber heals. Also the best ssf quests and items.

root heal is nice but snare fear is nicer, and FD to boot, also endgame mobs will sometimes exhaust a paladin's mana beyond root heal mechanics and LoH greys out when overused.

[htabdoolb]

Paladin was my first character on live back in the day, and it was painful. Sure, being able to root and heal yourself is nice, but Paladin DPS is low.. very, very low. The lowest of any melee class, especially if you're having to use banded armor and weapons scrounged up solo, furthermore without any haste. It might literally be better to fight only undead and nuke them to pieces, or as close as you can get, before engaging in melee.

I remember struggling with low dps and becoming very frustrated with my original character, and that was with easy access to decent weapons and armor in EC. Without gear purchased from higher level characters..? Man, I dunno.. it would be a slog, that's for sure.

[RobotGraveyard]

Paladin for sure because it is the only of the 3 to not have a snare of any type.

Then SK I think. It's a toss up. I think the utility that the Ranger gets out weigh the tankiness with DPS.

[Gustoo]

No class is hard solo except warrior and rogue.

Monk gets easy. All hybrids have good solo tech

Probably ranger worst but still great. Because paladin can more efficiently self heal and kill dungeons.

But I'd say monk harder than hybrids because less available utility. Even tho.way easier than the war and rog

[Jimjam]

Monk have it so much easier, it is crazy. I have a 52 monk and a 51 warrior I’ve been playing recently. Neither is amazingly well geared (well the monk has epic, but that isn’t so hard) but difference is knight and fay.

[Keebz]

Monk have it so much easier, it is crazy. I have a 52 monk and a 51 warrior I’ve been playing recently. Neither is amazingly well geared (well the monk has epic, but that isn’t so hard) but difference is knight and fay.

Your experience as a 52 epic monk might not be entirely relevant to an ssf discussion... Just sayin.

[magnetaress]

Paladin was my first character on live back in the day, and it was painful. Sure, being able to root and heal yourself is nice, but Paladin DPS is low.. very, very low. The lowest of any melee class, especially if you're having to use banded armor and weapons scrounged up solo, furthermore without any haste. It might literally be better to fight only undead and nuke them to pieces, or as close as you can get, before engaging in melee.

I remember struggling with low dps and becoming very frustrated with my original character, and that was with easy access to decent weapons and armor in EC. Without gear purchased from higher level characters..? Man, I dunno.. it would be a slog, that's for sure.

U can root and meditate too.

Vs higher conning mobs there's some arguments for fear and taps or snare and taps. SKs can xp faster. Palies can in theory kill almost anything that is a blue con if they are patient.

[Troxx]

It depends. Depending on gear level (SSF remember this) and difficulty of the mob I can certainly see situations where a dark blue con can completely exhaust the hp pool and then mana pool of a very low dps character. Fight … back off heal … jump back in … back off and heal etc but you run out of mana before your low dps drops the mob.

However bad we consider knight (paladins chief amongst them) on p99 - now remove all worn haste and your weapon is only as good as you can scrounge up and kill on your own.

SKs have the benefit of their pet dps, dots, taps and fear kiting. That will go a long way.

Rangers can fall back on using their bow - and player crafted bows and arrows (crafted and vendor bought) are sufficient to drop anything really as long as you can snare your target and have room to move around.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

It depends. Depending on gear level (SSF remember this) and difficulty of the mob I can certainly see situations where a dark blue con can completely exhaust the hp pool and then mana pool of a very low dps character. Fight … back off heal … jump back in … back off and heal etc but you run out of mana before your low dps drops the mob.

However bad we consider knight (paladins chief amongst them) on p99 - now remove all worn haste and your weapon is only as good as you can scrounge up and kill on your own.

SKs have the benefit of their pet dps, dots, taps and fear kiting. That will go a long way.

Rangers can fall back on using their bow - and player crafted bows and arrows (crafted and vendor bought) are sufficient to drop anything really as long as you can snare your target and have room to move around.

Agreed.