In my (not so) humble opinion, opening with bow kiting is humongous waste of time. Here's how I leveled up solo*:
- Check if you need harmony.
- Open with an arrow shot to pull for a 2x + crit maybe. If fighting self buffing casters, do nullify x2 instead.
- Engage mob with melee. Slow mob ASAP.
- Once slow procs, switch to DPS weapon.
- If your HP is about to drop critically low, root the mob.
- Once HP is critical, back off. Drop clicky DoT. Med and fire bow in between ticks. Reroot as needed.
- When hp recovers to 50% or so, repeat 3-6.
To fight like this you need a fungi tunic, swarmcaller / woodsman (or epics). Sky cloak is probably mandatory for mid 50s+ solo.
Decent bow, Tolan's arms,
Tolan's bracer HIGHLY recommended.
Buffs =
Str, Skin, Coat, DS, etc. Optional DS potions. The DS (Coat + Thorns + potion) accounts for a huge chunk of your damage.
Being able to cast chloro along with a fungi is insanely helpful for this also. Regen + DS is what makes this work.
*This obviously won't work for everyone, but I simply can't imagine doing the 50+ grind without epic / fungi / sky cloak. If you have access to this type of gear and more than a little bit of misanthropy, this method will take you to 60 solo.