Solo or Duo toon

[Driakos]

I also got the '10 free days' invite from a friend and am joining him on a server that I currently have a 29 Mage and 24 Rogue on. Played enough rogue to happily have that cover, but this was the only Mage I have ever played.

I was going Arcane/Fire when I quit... way back when. Still a viable spec? Or is frost better for someone who will end up soloing a lot?

Frost is easier to solo, especially once you get the elemental (you can ping pong unrootable supermobs).  Arcane/Fire is plenty viable though.  You will kill things much faster, but just have to drink more often.  Mage was the easiest class for me to level with strangely. 

[Nebu]

I'm enjoying my undead rogue.  It's a nice change from the CoH burnout.  I'm not sure if I'll make it past the 10 day free trial, but it's a nice diversion for now.   Level 10 and climbing.

[Morat20]

I also got the '10 free days' invite from a friend and am joining him on a server that I currently have a 29 Mage and 24 Rogue on. Played enough rogue to happily have that cover, but this was the only Mage I have ever played.

I was going Arcane/Fire when I quit... way back when. Still a viable spec? Or is frost better for someone who will end up soloing a lot?

Full Frost is what the Baby Jesus plays.

The mage specs are all pretty good. I happen to enjoy full frost, as it's a damn fun spec. Once you get Ice Barrier, soloing becomes really easy.

[Morfiend]

as decent dagger drops are pretty rare in the low-levels.

I guess that would be a problem if daggers where any good for leveling with.

 :-D

[Morat20]

as decent dagger drops are pretty rare in the low-levels.

I guess that would be a problem if daggers where any good for leveling with.

 :-D

See, this is why I'm not a min-maxer. I'm a rogue. I fucking use daggers. That's just how it is. And if I have to find some off the Auction House, enchant them with Crusader, and mail them to my rogue, well -- that's what I'll do. :)

[Jayce]

Frost has crap until about level 25-30. When you get frostbite and shatter and all that cool stuff, it becomes a lot more viable, but the fire tree has more good stuff to put together one at a time.  I recommend fire to 30, then frost to 70.

[HaemishM]

Why wouldn't a rogue use daggers? Don't you have to use daggers to do backstab?

[Salamok]

Why wouldn't a rogue use daggers? Don't you have to use daggers to do backstab?

yes but you don't need them for eviscerate and some other attacks.  personally i think going the ambush/backstab/dagger route is the most fun.

edit: oops maybe I meant sinister strike, either way it's one of those point builder type of instant attacks.  been awhile since I have played my rogue maybe i'll pick him up again since they made leveling faster.

[Morat20]

Frost has crap until about level 25-30. When you get frostbite and shatter and all that cool stuff, it becomes a lot more viable, but the fire tree has more good stuff to put together one at a time.  I recommend fire to 30, then frost to 70.

Yeah, that is true. It wasn't too bad.

Two frost mages grouping, stacking Winter's Chill and slow effects, is an absolute blast. I ripped through Scarlet Monastary with another frost mage -- we were just slaughtering stuff that should have been a lot harder at that level. Two sheeps, a few seconds for the tank to get aggro, then ice bolts. If we get aggro, no big -- he's slowed, and we can always ice block or frost nova.

Really smooth run.

[Morfiend]

Why wouldn't a rogue use daggers? Don't you have to use daggers to do backstab?

Because the mechanics behind backstab make it a much slower killing method when it comes to fighting mobs. In order to land a backstab you must be behind your opponent, and you cant "out twitch" a mob to get behind them, which means you have to use Kidney Shot (20 second cooldown) or Gouge. But gouge breaks on damage, making it so you cant use your best damage poison (deadly) and your most damaging finishing move (rupture). Now its not a big deal about the poison and rupture, but its still a much slower way to kill stuff.

Right now the only dagger build that excels at anything is Mutilate for PVP (and that is debatable). For all other aspects of the game, swords are superior.

[Typhon]

For me, the most painful to solo at the 1-20 range was the Warrior (starts annoying weak).  Most boring was the Paladin.

[HaemishM]

Why wouldn't a rogue use daggers? Don't you have to use daggers to do backstab?

Because the mechanics behind backstab make it a much slower killing method when it comes to fighting mobs. In order to land a backstab you must be behind your opponent, and you cant "out twitch" a mob to get behind them, which means you have to use Kidney Shot (20 second cooldown) or Gouge. But gouge breaks on damage, making it so you cant use your best damage poison (deadly) and your most damaging finishing move (rupture). Now its not a big deal about the poison and rupture, but its still a much slower way to kill stuff.

Right now the only dagger build that excels at anything is Mutilate for PVP (and that is debatable). For all other aspects of the game, swords are superior.

On the 2 rogues I've leveled (only up to about 32 or so), I used daggers and swords. Daggers for the backstab ability, swords for most other things. I got real good at stunning a mob, then twitching around for a backstab. I've no idea if it was more or less efficient than other methods, but it made the combat much more interesting for me. I was constantly trying to move around the mob to get at its back.

[Baldrake]

I've been playing a new human warrior, and finding no probs at all soloing. (Nearing level 40, so still early days.) I can take on a couple of yellows simultaneously or a single orange.

I had a really hard time soloing my mage, though. I still have a hard time understanding what the point of a mage is. They may be glass, but they ain't no cannon. But that's another discussion.

[murdoc]

I changed my mage spec to full Frost, and I gotta admit, I really miss the big damage and range of the Fireball opening shot, clearcasting, and my uniterruptable Arcane Missile.

[bhodi]

I had a really hard time soloing my mage, though.

Er, what? Then you were the wrong spec. Go full fire with 10 arcane for clearcasting. No, you can't really deal with more than two mobs very easily, but you can destroy yellows and oranges. Fireball fireball scorch (or fireball), nova to freeze them, back up, fireball scorch scorch (or fireblast). Forget AoE farming, not really worthwhile now. You can grind just as fast as any other character, if you're into that sort of thing.

Just looking at the trees now, however, I see they boned mages a bit.. sorry about that, you used to be able to get all the way to PoM, arcane meditation, and clearcasting with few points... It's still probably viable, but not as easy to do burst damage with the instacast pyroclast.

[Jayce]

I couldn't stand frost when I first respecced to it, but I stuck with it, and now I love it.  (Context: I respecced around 30 and kept it till 70).

It's a very different playstyle, more about control than about big damage.  Once you realize that, it gets easier.  Some general advice:

Open with frostbolt.
Nova, back up, frostbolt more.
Poor man's frost nova:  cone of cold, turn and blink.   You get almost as much time as if you'd nova'd them.
Stack your crit gear, because between shatter and frostbite, you already have an increased chance to crit fairly often.  It turns out that even without the gear to back it, much of your damage comes from your frequent crits against frozen targets.
Get all the damage increasing talents, of course.

When you get your water elemental, it's even better.  You can bind the elemental's frost nova to a key and presto, now you have two frost nova cooldowns.  Also, the elemental does nearly as much damage as you do, so you get at least a 1.5 - 1.75 increase to damage.  It can also take a few hits so you have an aggro sponge.  Don't forget ice barrier! It's love.  Use cold snap and multiply the above by two.

[murdoc]

I couldn't stand frost when I first respecced to it, but I stuck with it, and now I love it.  (Context: I respecced around 30 and kept it till 70).

It's a very different playstyle, more about control than about big damage.  Once you realize that, it gets easier.  Some general advice:

Open with frostbolt.
Nova, back up, frostbolt more.
Poor man's frost nova:  cone of cold, turn and blink.   You get almost as much time as if you'd nova'd them.
Stack your crit gear, because between shatter and frostbite, you already have an increased chance to crit fairly often.  It turns out that even without the gear to back it, much of your damage comes from your frequent crits against frozen targets.
Get all the damage increasing talents, of course.

When you get your water elemental, it's even better.  You can bind the elemental's frost nova to a key and presto, now you have two frost nova cooldowns.  Also, the elemental does nearly as much damage as you do, so you get at least a 1.5 - 1.75 increase to damage.  It can also take a few hits so you have an aggro sponge.  Don't forget ice barrier! It's love.  Use cold snap and multiply the above by two.

Beauty, thanks!

[Chenghiz]

Frost is great for soloing elites way before you should be able to.

[Ironwood]

So is a hunter.

[Nebu]

OK.  With the advice here I've made an undead rogue and a dranai hunter.  Both seem interesting for now.  My next question is: What crafting is worthwhile?  My rogue decided to go with tailor/enchanting and my hunter with herbs/alchemy.  Did I screw up?  It appears to me that with drops, armor and weapons would be silly to make.  I enjoy crafting as a diversion, so any advice would be helpful. 

[Righ]

If you have no support on the server (first character, nobody giving you some spare gold) then tailor is handy because its a quick route to more bag space, which results in faster income and less trips to the vendor. Enchanter works well with tailor, and its useful to be able to disenchant all the useless BoP gear that you'll get (as well as the greens you make with tailor that you cant sell for what they are worth) and then sell the excess junk you don't use for leveling. Everything else is largely pointless unless you just enjoy grinding it up - you are better off gathering raw materials and putting them up for sale on the auction house and then using the money to buy the lower level potions and gear. People pay over the odds for the lowbie materials so that they can quickly increase an alt's trade skills, and then when they make the stuff, they sell that at a loss slightly above vendor pricing. As a result, on an established server, its almost always better to sell materials and take two collecting skills (mining+skinning or herbs+skinning usually) at least until your character is well established and it is trivial to drop one collecting skill and level a trade skill.

[Nebu]

That makes great sense.  Thanks Righ.

[Morat20]

OK.  With the advice here I've made an undead rogue and a dranai hunter.  Both seem interesting for now.  My next question is: What crafting is worthwhile?  My rogue decided to go with tailor/enchanting and my hunter with herbs/alchemy.  Did I screw up?  It appears to me that with drops, armor and weapons would be silly to make.  I enjoy crafting as a diversion, so any advice would be helpful. 

For the Hunter, take mining/herbalism or herbalism/skinning or mining/skinning -- just sell stacks of stuff on the AH.

Later on, when you're mid-40s or so, I'd drop one of them and either pick up something else. I'd avoid engineering -- it's nice making your own ammo, but not that nice (and you can only make bullets). Otherwise, engineering bites. Tailoring for a hunter is pretty useless. Leatherworking is okay, since a lot of the upper-level patterns (at least pre-60, I haven't seen the post-60 patterns) are mail, but I've heard bitching about leatherworking. Jewelcrafting is nice in that, with mining, you'd have a TON of gems and you can make your own stuff for sockets later (and some decent rings and such). I'd basically do mining/another gathering until 40s or 50s, and then drop the other gathering for jewelcrafting.

Enchanting is always a good skill if you have the money and are higher level, especially since you can grind it out pretty easily by farming cheap greens from low-level instances).

For the rogue, though -- I've found herbalism/alchemy to be a decent combo. Not sure why you'd chose tailoring, other than for cheap bags.

[bhodi]

Admittedly, I stopped playing not long after TBC came out...

However, I found taking harvesting skills and selling the materials on the AH nets you far more money than you would save by taking and skilling up tailoring, then crafting your bags for free. You're only going to need 6 or so bags, and the difference between materials and the end product is low (or nothing, if you beg people to craft for you).

[Phred]

OK.  With the advice here I've made an undead rogue and a dranai hunter.  Both seem interesting for now.  My next question is: What crafting is worthwhile?  My rogue decided to go with tailor/enchanting and my hunter with herbs/alchemy.  Did I screw up?  It appears to me that with drops, armor and weapons would be silly to make.  I enjoy crafting as a diversion, so any advice would be helpful. 

Personally, I think rogues make the best miners in the game. Stealth in  to mines past all the agro mobs, sap to put one to sleep while you mine. What could be better than that? Also, IMO, hunters should skin. No annoying radar to watch other than your various tracks which dont stack with the mineral/plant track spells, unlimitted materials, plus the ability to solo it so you aren't constantly slowing down your group while you stop to skin. Druids as others have mentioned previously are unsurpassed as herbalists so 3 characters can keep an unlimited number of alts busy crafting.

As to turning a profit, every time I skill up another alt I discover another niche that isn't being filled. My blacksmith was making good money with thorium whisper knives, which I couldnt keep up with the demand of in the ah. My mage who I'm raising in tailoring for the soulfrost armor is making out quite nicely with netherweave gloves atm.

[Jayce]

The downside to enchanting is that you don't get the cash from the greens and blues you'd ordinarily vendor or AH, whether they be drops or quest rewards.  Tailoring downside is not as bad - just that you need all the cloth drops you get and can't AH them.

I agree wholeheartedly with the opinions here about making your first character a gatherer.  The one possible exception is mining/jewelcrafting.  You can prospect some of the ore and sell others, and those figurines that increase your health or mana are nice in a pinch.  It's also the new shiney, which is always fun.

However if you're all about leveling speed, you can't beat skinning.  No need to go out of your way to gather.

[Nebu]

For the rogue, though -- I've found herbalism/alchemy to be a decent combo. Not sure why you'd chose tailoring, other than for cheap bags.

The guy that I play with told me that enchanting was a good way to make money and that tailoring offers me ways to both enchant/disenchant the stuff that I make.  I'm guessing that this was bad advice? 

Can I respec my crafting or should I just suck it up?  Would it be faster to just delete these toons (now level 22 rogue and level 12 hunter) and start over again?

Sorry for the noob questions.  I have hardly played since the beta and I've forgotten about 90% of the game... I guess that's why I'm having fun with it again.

[HaemishM]

You can respec crafting. Enchanting will make money... eventually. But it's hugely expensive at first.

[Fordel]

Alch/Herb has yet to let me down as being useful for my characters and being able to generate cash on demand. If potions are cheap, sell the raw mats, if the mats are cheap, turn them into potions to sell.


People only need so many epic axes, everyone always needs more mana potions.


It's also the least soul sucking of all the crafts I find. Thing's like enchanting and eng and smithing reach points where you are pumping hundreds and even thousands of GP into skill ups, where Alch, the skill ups come easy and you can use/sell them as you level it up.

[ajax34i]

I've levelled up with no help on an old server where the economy was all about L70 stuff...  tailoring in that situation will cost you money, I think.  Instead of using the cloth, sell it; wool goes for 2g a stack, and mageweave and up is also nice profits.  People are trying to level up tailoring, especially priests, to get the Mooncloth stuff for end-game gear, and they pay out their nose.  Sell the cloth mats, don't use them.

Low level mining is also decent; most people pick herbalism, and so copper, tin, iron sell ok.  Then mining becomes somewhat of a pain to raise.

In my opinion the professions have changed so that you now take them for the max skill recipes that you get from various factions, nice stuff that either sells well or is on par with purple drops.  So what happens is people get to 70, grind up faction, and then suddenly decide, hey, I want to switch to this and that.  Tailoring, Enchanting, Jewelcrafting, Alchemy.  So they need lots of low level mats to level up those tradeskills.  You can make a killing with the gathering skills.

[Morat20]

The guy that I play with told me that enchanting was a good way to make money and that tailoring offers me ways to both enchant/disenchant the stuff that I make.  I'm guessing that this was bad advice? 

No, it works. You can do the same with any crafting, though -- tailoring's generally used because the mats for tailoring comes from drops as well. So you grind up, say, a bunch of cheap greens using the linen you got, then DE them all and sell the dust (or use it).

Enchanter is simply a rough choice, period, for a starting character.

Tailor/enchanter is GREAT for a priest, a mage, or a warlock. You make yourself tons of decent gear, in addition to free bags (which are decently sellable) and you can always supplement your mats by melting grinding stuff.

But for your first character, it's a hard one. My tailor/enchanter (as well as my tailor/engineer) live off the phat lootz of my main. I "grinding" low-level enchanting by soloing Deadmines with my level (at that time) 40 or so and just mailing all the green drops and linen/wool to my alts.

Enchanting rarely makes money -- at least on my server -- although generally you can break even since people will simply bring their own mats, and often tip.

Your best bet, honestly, is simply to double up on gathering for awhile. You'll sell tons of mats to high-level characters regrinding professions or grinding their alts, and later you can just drop one and pick up something interesting.

Enchanting REALLY hampers you money wise.

Can I respec my crafting or should I just suck it up?  Would it be faster to just delete these toons (now level 22 rogue and level 12 hunter) and start over again?

You can respec crafting. You just lose anything you've gotten in it (so if you were, say, 150 enchanting and dropped it for mining, you'd be at 0 mining. When you later dropped mining to go back to enchanting, you'd be at 0 enchanting. Plus you forget any learned schematics you knew).

I'd drop tailoring/enchanting from your rogue and focus on mining/herbalism/skinning (pick two!). Herbalism and mining are good ones on my server, but you can always check prices at the AH for the basics. You really do make a LOT of money after awhile, and it becomes easy later to drop one and start leveling up something new.

[Merusk]

For the rogue, though -- I've found herbalism/alchemy to be a decent combo. Not sure why you'd chose tailoring, other than for cheap bags.

The guy that I play with told me that enchanting was a good way to make money and that tailoring offers me ways to both enchant/disenchant the stuff that I make.  I'm guessing that this was bad advice? 

Can I respec my crafting or should I just suck it up?  Would it be faster to just delete these toons (now level 22 rogue and level 12 hunter) and start over again?

Sorry for the noob questions.  I have hardly played since the beta and I've forgotten about 90% of the game... I guess that's why I'm having fun with it again.

Nah, it's true you can make money enchanting and if you're going to level it up while leveling, then tailoring IS the best companion for it.   - However - low-level enchants aren't wanted. Even twinks can have L60 or (after level 35) L70 uber enchants on their stuff.  Anything other than a twink isn't typically paying for enchants, since the bonuses granted are too small for the expense & length of time you use the equipment.

  The money in enchanting comes from:
 1) Selling Low-level mats to people who hit 70 and are respeccing a crafting prof, and powering-through to 375. 
 2) Doing those enchants at 70 after you've got the rep/ dungeon grinding done to get the high-demand enchants.

As a rogue, you won't use any of the tailored items for anything other than disenchanting and selling-off the mats... so if you make it to 70, you'd drop it for something else anyway.  Jayce points out that you'd lose-out on selling the cloth that - as ajax points out - can make some serious cash for you because of clothies respeccing to get the nice tailoring armor at level 70. (Seriously, most of the player-made stuff is better than any of the dungeon drops, so that gives you the bonus of not having to run dungeons/ pvp grind anywhere near as long)

I think Fordel's got it right about alch/ herb.  I did it on my shammy and it was great.  You can't always sell everything you make while leveling-up, but that just means you use it.  Not as much fun since they changed it so you can't have 8 potions on you at one time, but it's still nice to have a mini stam/ agi/ str/ whatever boost available whenever you want it.. not to mention an unlimited supply of cheap health potions.

[Nebu]

Update:  I started an undead rogue and leveled it to about 22.  I got tired of brown and looking at the zombie toon and rerolled a gnome.  I'm almost going to hit level 40 and find that I'm enjoying the class enough to have subbed to the game and bought the BC expansion.  I find that the class is very strong solo and that it's relatively easy to do orange quests as long as I keep my poisons and weapons upgraded.  I've been sword/dagger spec almost the entire time playing the toon as more of a berserker dual weilder than as a sneak and it seems to suit me.  Should I consider mace or hand weapons at all?

On the crafting front (I like crafting), I have been doing herbalism/alchemy as the pots really help me solo with less downtime.  An agi boost + def potion combined with heals and/or stun followed by a quick bandage really does wonders against mobs that are +3/+4 levels above me.  The only trouble I'm running into at this stage is keeping my weapons current.  Money is always tight (even at level 40 I have about 10gp) and buying weapons off of the AH is more than I can afford.  I've never had anything but gray/green weapons but seem to be fine. 

I only made it to about level 30 in beta and I must confess that while I hate a few things (the look of the toons, the general mentality of the user base, the limited dungeon play available for a solo), I'm starting to warm up to this game.  The world is well crafted. The humor is subtle.  The play seems very smooth.  While DAoC will always be my favorite mmo, this game does have a pretty polished pve experience. 

[Arrrgh]

You can start saving up honor points and buy the arena season one weapons for honor points when the next patch hits. If you hit 70 anyway.

Mace vs sword vs fist is much debated. Until 70 just use the best you have laying around.

[ShenMolo]

Do you have your mount yet? At level 40 with only 10g you either are very very poor or just bought your mount. It costs 100g.

Some general tips on getting cash:

Be a seller, not a buyer. Try not to buy anything on the AH at all. Get new equipment by doing quests or through drops in instances or from mobs.

Farm herbs and sell them on the AH. The lowbie ores sell great on the AH, I would be surprised if the same wasn't true for herbs.

I'm sorry I can't answer your questions about rogue talents.