I could see spade being useful when you have to kill 2 mobs. Its still going to be mostly suckass though.

Solo war beyond 55 is rough...very rough. With Truncheon, Fungi, and a Reaver you can duo with cleric / druid / necro without burning out their mana bars. Big +1 for Gnome self haste.

My war was more geared but with just a druid or cleric was able to clear all the nameds at Frenzy / CE / whatever the hell spawns above frenzy in velk at 57-59...and that was without spell haste.

SolB would yield better results with a duo. Work your way through BnB --> LDCs --> Freeti Trash.

But yeah, unfortunately if you want anything better you need to raid for a Dain axe. Best bang-for-buck in the game.

You also take more dmg with spade as mobs won’t run. I usually lead with truncheon then if no procs by like 60% I’d switch to a better 2h.

i solod all of 59 with fungi, trunch, double blood points on 2x 6:40 timer blue cons. wasnt too bad.

I solo’d a lot as well up to 60 and some at 60 to get back raid xp. Wasn’t great but it wasn’t too bad with a backpack full of bandages and a Truncheon. After a while I skipped blood points altogether. Fights lasted longer compared to better weapons and the heal procs didn’t cover the difference in fight length and off set the increased damage received.

~20 delay is really fast too, which isn’t insignificant riposte damage taken.

Once you hit 57 I’d agree to maximize dps vs using shitty blood-points bind wound can do a lot of the heavy lifting(you can do this together with bp heal).

I found blood points to be terrible compared to using a spade and then a narandis lance. I would consistently end up with more hp just killing the thing faster.
Trunch is amazing though, trunch +fungi you can solo velks fine from 56-60

If you have low dex don't even buy a tod
It's actual garbage

Thanks everyone for all the great advice, I appreciate it.

I'm definitely noting that ripostes are starting to become an issue, both incoming and outgoing. I'd prefer to go 2-hander since it just seems like a better option for soloing. I'd be giving up some really nice stats though, so I'm wondering how I can best use the proceeds from selling the weapons.

This is my magelo (I removed the weapons to make stats easier to read). After purchasing a ToD, 2x bloodpoints, and maybe a Reaver or Spade, I will have 160k remaining. How would you spend that to upgrade the character?

Edit: I should mention again that I don't raid, just can't commit that time. It would have to be EC purchases, but that could include things like SS MQs.

Cobalt BP is an easy win. It heals 2x faster than a Fungi out of combat. Only like 10k and resellable.