Best solo melee class?

[bcbrown]

Most of the melee classes can solo decently well at least to 50, so I think it comes down to what you mean by "best" and personal preference/playstyle. Rogue is obviously handicapped solo vs grouping and warrior is limited to single-pull camps by the lack of CC, but the rest of the options have decent toolkits for soloing.

Monk is obviously one of the most powerful classes who will be useful in just about any context, but I've heard a couple people say that they didn't enjoy the leveling process late 50s as much as with other melee. Fear kiting with an SK is pretty powerful but I found it to get quite tiresome after a few levels.

Originally Posted by WarpathEQ [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Don't forget clerics, I twinked one with a fungi, VCS, and full velious armor and he could melee tank all the way to 50+ (although a lot more of the DPS comes from spells versus melee at the higher end of that range).

I did this recently and it was some of the most fun I've had in EQ. Mine was significantly less twinked (guard captain's mallet/pwc, 21% haste, Sol Ro armor). Unrest was a ton of fun, and I kept /roleplay on and pretended I was a paladin in groups which gave me a lot of amusement. By around 35-37 though the melee damage dropped off significantly and it felt more like a wizard in plate than a melee class. If you go this route I'd heavily recommend not going dwarf so that you have enough charisma to lull your way around lguk.

Originally Posted by WarpathEQ [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Also if you are doing no twinking or have a very small budget (no fungi, etc) then I would highly recommend bard. Essentially has all the tools of the other classes combined and not really gear dependent at all, can transition away from melee at the higher end (can transition at the low end too I just assume OP wants some hack and slash gameplay).

Bard is fantastic. Just because swarming is so efficient doesn't mean it's the only tool in the belt. It's a lot of fun to hack and slash your way to the mid-late 30s, then charming gives you no-downtime efficient fighting the rest of the way. It's a lot of APM, though, and playsessions of more than a couple hours can be exhausting.

I'd like to make a pitch for Ranger, though. It's a class where you really have to commit to the concept. Along with necros I think it's one of the best roleplaying classes in the game; I absolutely love patrolling W Karana for hill giants and protecting the wildlife. It's not a great dungeon crawler, so you may end up retreading a lot of the same ground from playing the druid, but if you love the Karanas it's a class tailor-made for that area.

It's nice having the option to bow down mobs as a change of pace or while passively regenning health. Fear kiting animals is super easy, if tiresome. Track means you can always find the next mob to kill. Getting access to a cheap 50% slow proc makes a huge difference. And going to Stonebrunt Mountains is really fun.

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

SK's get FD at 30, while Paladins get stun. Fear kiting is better at preventing spellcasting than stun, and FD is easier to use (and less mana intensive) than lulling and rooting, especially if you need to cycle mobs by rooting and camping.

I don't disagree with the overall point but unless you've spent a decent amount of time using your undead lull, FD absolutely sucks when you hit 30. Nothing else uses Abjuration so you're gonna have a low skill. I was getting a dozen fizzles in a row or more which meant I couldn't ever rely on it.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by bcbrown [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I don't disagree with the overall point but unless you've spent a decent amount of time using your undead lull, FD absolutely sucks when you hit 30. Nothing else uses Abjuration so you're gonna have a low skill. I was getting a dozen fizzles in a row or more which meant I couldn't ever rely on it.

You can train abjuration with endure cold at level 15. It's not a big deal, and FD is worth spending the training time.

[Zuranthium]

SK is best because of the fear kiting + feign death package (Bards don't count as melee).

If you don't like chasing around the things you're fighting all day, then Monk.

Rangers are nice versatile option.

I wouldn't bother with Paladin, their kit is going to get nerfed any month now. The fabricated thing of "lulling your way through a dungeon solo" is not something that really works in Classic EQ. Need to rely on the root+camp method to get through groups of NPC's you don't want to fight, and that will also be less reliable than it currently is, since root is supposed to break more frequently.

[Goregasmic]

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I wouldn't bother with Paladin, their kit is going to get nerfed any month now. The fabricated thing of "lulling your way through a dungeon solo" is not something that really works in Classic EQ. Need to rely on the root+camp method to get through groups of NPC's you don't want to fight, and that will also be less reliable than it currently is, since root is supposed to break more frequently.

IIRC so far they said it will make things more difficult for mobs 50+. You can easily get to 60 without ever touching any of those. Yeah that's a sword of damocles hanging over their head but we don't know how it will look like and they can still split a lot of content with root anyway, being plate and having heals.

[Zuranthium]

Originally Posted by Goregasmic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yeah that's a sword of damocles hanging over their head but we don't know how it will look like

Well we do, because the exact classic resist values have been thoroughly confirmed. There isn't any reason why the p99 numbers should be different when they put it in.

Originally Posted by sajbert [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Any melee class can solo except Rogue unless you hate yourself.

Rogue isn't so bad if very twinked TBH. Their -50% attack speed poison can be made solely from vendor ingredients and their breastplate heal at 45 is faster than every other melee class gets.

[Goregasmic]

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well we do, because the exact classic resist values have been thoroughly confirmed. There isn't any reason why the p99 numbers should be different when they put it in.



Rogue isn't so bad if very twinked TBH. Their -50% attack speed poison can be made solely from vendor ingredients and their breastplate heal at 45 is faster than every other melee class gets.

Not a great point because they just made pet tracking unclassic to avoid banning a clear cheater so that's a highly variable guideline.

My bad though, I went back to check the actual dev quotes and I mixed up two of them. They do intend to restore lulls to its classic shitty state. I was telling myself this week I need to go farm shit that needs lulling in case that happens soon so I'll get on that real quick. The day that patch hits a lot of stuff will become a lot more rare.

As for rogues I saw a twink with SS armor and a Horn of hsagra soloing a greening out entrance in KC and it looked painful even with the heal BP. Pretty sure rogues are known to be the worst soloing class overall. If you need mega twink stuff to scrape by, it isn't a good sign.

[Keebz]

Originally Posted by Goregasmic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

they just made pet tracking unclassic

An aside, but still on topic, SKs really caught a stray on this one.

[Snaggles]

Originally Posted by Keebz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

An aside, but still on topic, SKs really caught a stray on this one.

At least they have disease cloud.

[Zuranthium]

Originally Posted by Goregasmic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not a great point because they just made pet tracking unclassic

Pet tracking is not classic in terms of developer intent and the amount of people who knew about it.

Lull sucking is very classic, and that kind of hard data is something they're always going to adhere to when they have the info.

Originally Posted by Snaggles [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

At least they have disease cloud.

It's supposed to be generating more aggro, lol. They implemented the classic nerf to clicky/proc aggro incorrectly and put an aggro cap on all spells instead.

[Vivitron]

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Pet tracking is not classic in terms of developer intent and the amount of people who knew about it.

Lull sucking is very classic, and that kind of hard data is something they're always going to adhere to when they have the info.



It's supposed to be generating more aggro, lol. They implemented the classic nerf to clicky/proc aggro incorrectly and put an aggro cap on all spells instead.

Disease cloud change was from getting rid of good aggro on disease counters. My best reading of the record is that this was probably a change that happened on live after shaman slows were given disease counters, which briefly gave slows double aggro. On live they fixed slow aggro with the disease counter change. Shouldn't be on our timeline; we end before shaman slows get disease counters.