Soloing?

[Mojo]

Ok, can someone clarify for me what the point of the "Solo" setting on quests is?

There's a mission (I don't recall the title, it's in the market, where you go down into a sewer to recover something...) that I took the other day.

The missions starts by pitting you against a barrage of invisible baby glass spiders. Overwhelmed by them, I decided to use the nearby trap to my advantage, cast protection from acid and waded in. Ok, fine. The spiders kept spawning and ran in through the acid. One or two reached me, so I carried on past the trap.

On the other side of the trap, I was told to defeat (Scourge, I think) a giant glass spider and his cronies.

Moving past him, I came to an intersection with more invisible baby spiders. After fighting them, it's a giant wolf spider (the name escapes me). Turn the lever, and go back to the entrance where a door will be open.

Back at the door, there's six invisible bandits. I defeat them using many charms, then move on. Four more bandits await. Defeating them, I move on through a door into a large room with many levels and bridges.

In this room are four Warforged characters (at least one Barbarian and I think at least two Men-at-Arms). I'm supposed to defeat these four characters.

The barbarian charged, and I cast lightning bolt (which did about an eighth of his health). Before I could retreat, I was hit by arrows (or some ranged weapon, not sure what), and killed before I could cast anything else.


I was playing a Wizard, L5. The mission is listed at L4. I was playing on Solo. Does this sound like solo content to anyone? I mean, the only reason I didn't run out of mana was because of the repeated deaths and runs to the inn.

So, what's "Solo" supposed to mean if not that a mission is possible for solo characters?

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

The 'solo' option was added before dungeon scaling - it allowed the devs to manually scale the hitpoints and abilities of the mobs within a dungeon to a lower level that was 'suitable for soloing'.

Now that normal is pretty much the 'solo difficulty' - the need for it is waning. There are, however, some quests that are simply unsoloable (without a hireling) due to switches or puzzles that require two or more people - these quests will typically not have a solo button.

I recommend you try on normal rather than solo, you will earn more XP and the difficulty with only one person in (assuming you're running at quest level or one higher) will be just fine.

Garth

[Arianrhod]

Some dungeons have both a "solo" setting and an "Extreme Challenge" warning label. In most cases, especially for players unfamiliar with the quest, the "Extreme Challenge" warning is the more important of the 2. Yes, the solo setting is easier than the "Normal" setting, but it's still a nasty surprise for anyone new to the quest.

[DoctorBadWolf]

Was it Proof Is In The Poison?

That one can be pretty rough.

Just pay attention to the Extreme Challenge warning, and remember that some classes are more of a challenge to solo with than others.

[Qzipoun]

Was it Proof Is In The Poison?

Swiped signet.

That quest would be somewhat of a challenge if you're a squishy running it for the first time.

[Angelus_dead]

In this room are four Warforged characters (at least one Barbarian and I think at least two Men-at-Arms). I'm supposed to defeat these four characters.

Not really. You don't have to fight them at all.

The barbarian charged, and I cast lightning bolt (which did about an eighth of his health). Before I could retreat, I was hit by arrows (or some ranged weapon, not sure what), and killed before I could cast anything else.

The actual problem is that you're making serious mistakes in the choice of tactics. Lightning Bolt is simply a bad choice for a level 5 caster. Hitpoint damage is not really where a caster's power comes from. They're not blastomancers.

Blame for that can possibly be pushed onto the developers, for not giving you enough introductory material to select a good list of spells.

But in addition, there is a specific flaw in the design of that quest: The shrine is located too far back, much past the point it would really be needed. By the time you reach the shrine you're already on the downhill slope to finish.

[DoctorBadWolf]

Swiped signet.

That quest would be somewhat of a challenge if you're a squishy running it for the first time.

Ah. Yeah, that one can be tough if you're new, or haven't ever run it.

[Mojo]

Not really. You don't have to fight them at all.


The actual problem is that you're making serious mistakes in the choice of tactics. Lightning Bolt is simply a bad choice for a level 5 caster. Hitpoint damage is not really where a caster's power comes from. They're not blastomancers.

Blame for that can possibly be pushed onto the developers, for not giving you enough introductory material to select a good list of spells.

But in addition, there is a specific flaw in the design of that quest: The shrine is located too far back, much past the point it would really be needed. By the time you reach the shrine you're already on the downhill slope to finish.

Well, it popped up as an objective, to defeat the Warforged. I ddin't look, but it might have been optional. Either way, I'm not sure how I would have got by them...

As for spell selection, I usually go with a mix of utility spells, a charm and a couple of offensive spells. That way I should be able to handle whatever I meet with some ability. As it was, I thought perhaps Lightning Bolt might be a good weapon against Warforged (as opposed to Magic Missile, my other offensive spell), as they're artificial lifeforms (the electricity might disrupt them? I don't know, it made some sense to me...).

My problem is that I'm still thinking D&D rather than DDO. I don't know how many times I've been swamped by a gang of kobolds that shrugged off my fireball (in D&D, kobolds are 1/2 hit die, meaning a maximum of 4 hit points - an average L5 fireball will do 17ish points of damage. Even if they saved, they would all be killed. Not so, in DDO).


(EDIT: Oh, and I checked the name of the quest, it's "The Swiped Signet" - a L3 mission.)

[Revord]

Your main problem: Using a wizard solo. Unless you are absolutely sure of the quest (ie you did it before with another character) I wouldnt go solo with a wizard.

One of the things I remember from waaaayyy back when I played pnp in the 70s was that the wizards were really cool, and had a lot of cool spells and stuff, but, needed someone to keep the monsters off them. No armor, very few hit points, but a lot of potential for doing damage when its time to put the smack down on someone. When you first create your character, the creation screen shows that the solo ability of the wizard is difficult. That would be the first clue right there tbh. What I have done, ( I have a level 4 wiz) is bring a cleric hireling. You cant do the solo, but youll get the favor, and the xp, and all the loot. The class its self is physically weak. But that is to balance and offset the fact that there are some pretty powerful spells available even at level 1. I can tell you that scorching ray, burning hands, and Niacs cold ray (for the critters that are susceptible to cold) are my main offensive spells. Web works good against kobolds while my hireling and party members hack and slash against the mobs. Just my 2 bits worth.