f13.net forums - Solo update #27 testing

Update 27 went live last week. I spent some (a lot) time over a long weekend testing it out. I was able to put in quite a bit of time since I took a couple days of vacation (Thursday through Monday) and the wife is in Italy with her mother so I got to spend some bachelor time not wearing pants and playing video games. I also played around a little bit with the new tradeskill tasks.

I tested the solo play with a couple different characters. In general leveling while solo is MUCH faster. I would say about a 100% increase in exp rate. Solo'ing is almost the equivalent of an average pick up group at this point (given of course the average pick up group tends to waste a bit of time in getting started and usually contains at least one clueless idiot.) You can still gain better exp in a well put together group of people who know what they are doing.

Test #1 - 45 Illusionist - 100% vitality*
Illusionist isn't the best DPS class in the game but they are a fair solo'er especially with a nicely upgraded pet (I have the Master level). I spent some time harvesting and hunting/questing in Sinking Sands this weekend. Casual soloing at level 45 will net probably around a level every 1.5 to 2 hours. That includes time spent questing and harvesting. I did spend a little bit of time just focused grinding and it seems you can probably do about a level per hour if you really focus. Hunting level 46 groups of 3 triple down arrow mobs nets about 1.5% exp per group kill. If you only play with vitality you probably have about 8-10 hours/week of play time in an Illusionist.

The Illusionist also wasn't the best test case seeing as I was hunting yellow mobs. The major changes came in the exp rate of blues and greens.

Test #2 - 34 Necro - No vitality
Only spent a little bit of time with the necro since I had very little vitality. I VERY quickly burned through the 12% or so vitality I had and then I killed a few solo single arrow down blue orcs and it took about 3 kills per 1% when I was out of vitality. Necro's and Conjurors have always leveled fast and they will now level even faster.

Test #3 - 70 Swashbuckler - AA Grinding
I spent only a few minutes checking out 2 spots where I usually harvest and kill a few mobs. Before this update the kills were incidental and would only happen when I needed to clear something to harvest a node. The AA exp gain was neglible regardless of killing blue or green mobs. The first spot I tested was near level 59/60 mobs. 59's give no exp at all. 60's are the lowest exp giving mob available at level 70 and even after the update give minimal exp, at best it was 1% AA exp every 15-20 kills of no arrow solo mobs.

The second spot was killing blue, no-arrow, solo 65/66 mobs. Before the update I would get 1% AA exp roughly every 12-15 kills. These now give 1% AA every 4-5 kills. Quite an increase in exp gain.

Test #4 - 33 Wizard
Next test I took the wizard to Zek for more orc killing. In full disclosure this char is twinked to high hell and has most of his damage spells at master level as well as all rare armor and jewelry. Focused grinding against blue, one-down-arrow mobs, I burned through about 80% of a level in a little more than a half hour. At that rate I would have burned through 100% vitality in about 2 - 2.5 hours.

Test #5 - 22 Mystic
Healers suck solo. This update didn't change that. Soloing with a healer is just plain boring. Although now you do level a bit faster. For my test I focused on blue/green mobs. It took a bit over 1 hour per level and I'm now at level 24. That was focused grinding with no questing or harvesting. At higher levels (40+) I imagine soloing will be way too painful for many people to bother with soloing a healer. This is probably the main reason there are constant cries of "Group Looking for Healer!" at almost all level ranges.

Test #6 - 25 Guardian
Guardians were another painful solo class. They could kill ok but it just took forever as they have minimal DPS. I decided to focus on the same mobs the 22 Mystic had been fighting in Thundering Steppes. These were fairly deep green mobs raning from level 19-23. Surprisingly I managed almost a full level in less than an hour. The bonus of the guardian is that mobs that low level can barely hit you so you can constantly kill and pull without ever stopping. It still takes a bit longer to kill each mob but with no downtime it's reasonable.

Test #7 - 12 Monk
I'm not sure if it's because of the changes, just been a while since I leveled a char in the teens, the monk class itself, or some combination of those but this char leveled amazingly fast. In general this char is not upgraded, he has mostly apprentice 1 combat arts with a few Adept 1's. I did give him decent treasured level weapons but nothing the average person couldn't afford to buy off the broker. The main issue with this character was that I just burned through vitality too fast. I averaged around a level every 30 minutes with a combination of questing (caves) and then just hunting in Antonica, he's currently sitting at level 18 where I ran out of vitality for the second time.

Tradeskill tasks
I also spent a couple hours trying out the new tradeskill tasks. In short they are amazing for status, good for leveling a tradeskiller, and average for making money. I only did the difficult level, rush orders. Those give you 8 minutes to do 6 pristine combines of 2 different items. You are rewarded for item cost after the first 3, then you get a different item, you are awarded again for item cost after 3 more, followed by a turn in for your profit. I first started testing with my woodworker. At level 70 I was getting about 6g per task in profit along with 9000 status. I was able to finish each task with between 1 - 2 minutes to spare.

I then switched to my 70 Carpenter once I remembered the buff advantage carpenters have over all other tradeskills (possible bug but been there forever). I threw out my services to a guild that wanted status and got invited into a guild of only 2 other accounts (max guild status earned). With the carpenter I was able to finish the task with 3-4 minutes to spare, earning the same 6g & 9000 status. These also earned approx. 7% guild status for the guild I joined (at level 14 guild level). This was a bit ridiculous all around. Every 5 minutes I was able to earn 6g, 8800 - 9000 status, and 7% GL status. Take that out to an hour and that's 70g (meh), 100,000 status and 80% of a guild level each and every hour per character. I have no problem with the profit in coin as that's probably right around what a level 70 would earn while hunting but the status is way too high.

* Vitality for those who don't know gives a double exp bonus until you run out. It regens at about the rate of 10% per day while offline.