Dear Devs: Solo Observations From A Humble Monk

[Creeper]

Hello Dear Devs! Since it seems that you are trying to make the game more solo friendly (and have done a terrific job!), I have some troubles and suggestions I would like to share with you from the perspective of my pure class monk, since they are “VERY GOOD” at soloing.

I know there are some people reading this that will be violently outraged. Let me stop you please. I know you think that DDO is a group game. That is fine. I respect your opinion. It is my suspicion however that the Devs might not agree with you and actually may intend to make solo play more viable. That being said, I hope you will refrain from saying things like; “DDO IS A GROUP GAME! GET OVER IT OMFGZ!!!”
Thank you.

1. Monks have to wear robes. Robes get damaged very easily, more so when soloing because you are those monster’s only target.

My suggestion: Please give monks item defense or scale down item damage when soloing.

2. I have no ranged ability at all - at least not any that work. Ten-Thousand Stars sucks. Shuriken are not common enough to ever acquire a working set of returning ones.

My suggestion: Make returning shuriken appear more often for monk end rewards and make ten-thousand stars give a significant damage bonus per level, like unarmed.

3. Air Elementals are a monks worst enemy, which is probably true of any class. When you create a mob that is so frustrating to fight that it makes you want to quit the game, something may need to be…. adjusted?

My suggestion: On saving vs. Air Elementals you should not be thrown backward. This is a huge pain for melee in that it doesn’t matter if you save or not, might as well get thrown down. Another suggestion: Don’t allow them to spam knockdown! How about making an - oh I don’t know - half a second delay even?
Or perhaps make the air elemental unable to knock you back and down when paralyzed?

4. Self-Healing end bosses are sometimes impossible for an equal level melee to solo. You can’t put out enough damage. Something really should be done about this IF you want melee to be able to solo these quests within their own level range. There are several high-level quests that are a breeze to solo until the end boss - he just won’t die. It is frustrating.

My suggestion: Scale down fast healing in solo quests if you want them to be viable solo options for melee.

Thank you for your time.

[eowilson]

Good post. I strongly agree with points 2 and 4.