Soloing to 20 Tricks

[burners]

Just some thoughts about soloing up to 20.



Up to 15 or so just do quests. Seriously, I'd barely left the city at 15. You need to stay organised to minimise running around. There are a couple of good quest sites/lists out there. Rewards, money and XP all really add up from low level quests.



Most classes seem to be able to solo OK. I'm a Summoner who are pretty good at it if you keep your pet upgraded (anything under adept 1 is pretty useless).



The single biggest disadvantage to soloing is that you tend to fight "solo" mobs. These give less XP (no encounter bonus) and very rarely drop chests. This puts you at a huge disadvantage to groups who are getting better XP and better loot (although grouping has other disadvantages). Once you get to the high teens XP off solo mobs slows to a trickle, I mean really slow you can barely see the XP bar move.



The solution to this is to avoid solo mobs. Avoid them like the plague. The time to XP to loot just isn't worth it. Instead go after group mobs.



Group mobs tend to come in groups of three or four normal enemies, two single arrow up (^) enemies or one double arrow up enemy (^^). Of these I try for the single ^^ ones wherever possible. They're tough fights, but a single enemy is much easier to handle, and especially ecape from. Because they're so tough I try to stick to greens. I can solo blue ^^'s but they take a lot out of me and hlaf the time I endup running away.



Non aggresive targets are nice, but most of the group mobs tend to be aggresive once you get out of the city. So you need to look for places with somewhere safe to pull to and/or easy to zone/escape from.



Things I've spent time hunting while soloing (Qeynos side)



Skeletons on the island north of the city

Dankfur Gnolls on the island north of the lighthouse

Small Life Leeches near the entrance to Stormhold

The tough deer in the woods behind the Claymore statue



I find the experience still comes at a reasonable speed. However, one of the downsides is that these fights take a lot out of me and I have a fair bit of downtime. Nothing like EQ1! but I can't fight continuously. Don't forget good food and drink though. High level food and drink gives a huge regen boost to power and health. It's really worth the money.