Solid nontwink, exclusively-solo class?

[TrinityTurtle]

Artificer.

-can handle traps/locked things, aside from safety issue trap bonus and perception bonuses self-available.
-good dps.
-self-healable, either with wands/scrolls if fleshy or own spells if wf.
- Force damage line enhancements plus blade barriers equals good things at higher levels.
- can solo that irritating four man quest in necro one for the silver flame favor with a regular hireling, dog, and one gold seal hireling.
- Is not overly gear intensive.

This is just my suggestion, there are a lot of solo builds in multiple classes around.

[Gkar]

WF 18wiz/2 rog.

Traps, self repair, CC, offensive casting, should do fine.

[Inouk]

Lots of good suggestions, though some do require P2P options and all are easier with a toon that can twink, and I get the impression this will be his toon that twinks.

I agree a caster is the easiest option for that. Nothing puts down bosses like an arcane. The added versatility of knock, ddoor, teleport, haste, etc can make many many quests much easier. People are all over the WF arcanes... I have both WF AM and drow PM, and I strongly favor the drow PM (admittedly she's second life with decent gear like torque, demon bracers, shadow robe). Wizards are tight enough on SP that mana efficiency is very important and death aura is many many times more efficient for healing than repair spells. If you are PM you don't need to be WF and can leverage the benefits of a race like drow or human and PM is a better pure killer than AM (get damage SLAs instead of CC SLAs).

But a WF sorc would be very strong. Someone recommended air... not sure I'd go there on a first life WF. Air is VERY dependant on DCs and a first life WF will struggle to get good DCs. Water is a safer bet (or fire and switch to water or earth).

[Kinerd]

Wizards are tight enough on SP that mana efficiency is very important and death aura is many many times more efficient for healing than repair spells.

I hadn't thought of this before, going to run some numbers on it...

Reconstruct is easy, 150 HP * 235 spell power (1 rank and base Potency/Implement) = 352, /44 = a neat 8 HP per SP.

Death Aura has some vagueness on the wiki, but looks like 2d4 + 10 = 15 base HP * 285 spell power (90 from PM and same base) = 42.75, get 84 ticks per Extended cast, so 42.75 * 84 / 34 = 105.6 HP per SP, that's certainly much more efficient.

But! How many of those ticks happen when you have full health? How many times do you need to use a Negative Energy Burst? (32.5 * 4.35 / 53 = 2.7 HP per SP, ouch!) What about the flat 100(ish) SP cost to take form? What about the fact that the WF can buy or loot potions instead of acquiring via collectibles? I think it's an open question which side has more SP efficient healing.

.

With that said, an important factor for wizards is spell penetration, and going PM lets them take Elf race, which can be a considerable advantage for nontwink.

[voodoogroves]

I hadn't thought of this before, going to run some numbers on it...

Reconstruct is easy, 150 HP * 235 spell power (1 rank and base Potency/Implement) = 352, /44 = a neat 8 HP per SP.

Death Aura has some vagueness on the wiki, but looks like 2d4 + 10 = 15 base HP * 285 spell power (90 from PM and same base) = 42.75, get 84 ticks per Extended cast, so 42.75 * 84 / 34 = 105.6 HP per SP, that's certainly much more efficient.

But! How many of those ticks happen when you have full health? How many times do you need to use a Negative Energy Burst? (32.5 * 4.35 / 53 = 2.7 HP per SP, ouch!) What about the flat 100(ish) SP cost to take form? What about the fact that the WF can buy or loot potions instead of acquiring via collectibles? I think it's an open question which side has more SP efficient healing.

.

With that said, an important factor for wizards is spell penetration, and going PM lets them take Elf race, which can be a considerable advantage for nontwink.

Or human, with an extra feat - plus PM doesn't require Mental Toughness, so an additional feat there as well.

[Inouk]

I hadn't thought of this before, going to run some numbers on it...

Reconstruct is easy, 150 HP * 235 spell power (1 rank and base Potency/Implement) = 352, /44 = a neat 8 HP per SP.

Death Aura has some vagueness on the wiki, but looks like 2d4 + 10 = 15 base HP * 285 spell power (90 from PM and same base) = 42.75, get 84 ticks per Extended cast, so 42.75 * 84 / 34 = 105.6 HP per SP, that's certainly much more efficient.

But! How many of those ticks happen when you have full health? How many times do you need to use a Negative Energy Burst? (32.5 * 4.35 / 53 = 2.7 HP per SP, ouch!) What about the flat 100(ish) SP cost to take form? What about the fact that the WF can buy or loot potions instead of acquiring via collectibles? I think it's an open question which side has more SP efficient healing.

.

With that said, an important factor for wizards is spell penetration, and going PM lets them take Elf race, which can be a considerable advantage for nontwink.

Certainly some of it is lost, but far from 90%. Typically you put it up going into a fight and 2 fights later you stand around a few seconds to top up to full from the same spell. I rarely have to burst since the aura + displacement/CC/wail/good movement keep my HP up. And yes, taking form is 100 pts but it's also permanent until rest or death. My personal experience having both a WF AM and a PM is that it's far more mana effecient, but this could be colored by the fact that my PM has epic robe of shadows (which I don't always wear) and demon consort bracers so she has other sources of HP coming in (both have torc).

[Iljushka]

Well I gotta admit the havoc which arcane casters wreak sure is more appealling than scratching one target at a time. And with all the buffs and utility spells they have, these little quality of life improvements..

Of the original classes and builds mentioned, I think bard and paladin are out of the competition.
I tried pure monk for a bit and it was okay (well, from what the lower levels tell about it anyway).
I guess I'll try the wizard next, at least high enough to see how the aura and necro things work together.

Thanks for all the kind advice so far.

[Dendrix]

Bard16 (Virtuoso 2), Rogue2, Fighter2

Enthrall everything. Beat them to death with twin khopeshes.
Get pretty much all traps. Evasion.

[Aashrym]

Well I gotta admit the havoc which arcane casters wreak sure is more appealling than scratching one target at a time. And with all the buffs and utility spells they have, these little quality of life improvements..

Of the original classes and builds mentioned, I think bard and paladin are out of the competition.
I tried pure monk for a bit and it was okay (well, from what the lower levels tell about it anyway).
I guess I'll try the wizard next, at least high enough to see how the aura and necro things work together.

Thanks for all the kind advice so far.

Bards don't need to be out of the equation. All they need is some damage, CC, and self healing.

Where I players struggling with bards is with the attempt to do too much at once instead of focusing on what type of bard to make.

EDIT: I don't think paladins are that bad either, while we're commenting, but they tend to be slower in my experience. They have a high survivability and that makes a difference.

[DrNuegebauer]

A toon you can play for short periods of time for solo fun is a:

1 Barb, 19 Arty.

Barb is for run speed and sprint boost - essential to get you to (and through) the quests you want to do in the quickest time possible.
Arty is for the win/ fun factor. Rush along, drop your huge BB and kite/ pew-pew everything through it. Rinse and repeat.

Should you require healing, no problems! You've either got STACKS of very powerful potion/UMD self healing as a fleshie, or repairs as a WF.
[If you go fleshie, you might as well go H-Elf for the heal amp and rogue dilly for the sneak damage (it adds up nicely with sneak attack)].

You get some surprisingly huge numbers from the pots and scrolls due to the level bonus arty stuff on top of the heal amp (even without being a level 20 arty).

BONUS: you don't need any twink gear except for a rune arm (you get one pretty much every time you finish a quest chain, so not hard to achieve). In the early levels, just deconstruct all your junk and before long you'll be able to craft yourself pretty much anything you need.

[Draxis]

I'm sure it's all been mentioned before, but I'll list from easiest to hardest solo build:

2/18 rog/wiz robot
2/18 rog/art robot
2/18 mnk/fvs or cleric human

Basically you want evasion, a quickened self healing ability, and trapping skills if at all possible. Strive for as many hps as possible (Helps to be a 3rd life TR). And AoE spell dmg of some type.

[Sircowdog]

I have to agree with the arcane choice with 2 rog splash. Whether or not you go archmage with a warforge, or Pale Master with any fleshy, that combo really does have it all.

Evasion avoids a tremendous amount of incoming damage and lets you zerg through traps. You have enough skillpoints to more than cover trapping/UMD as well as maintaining a high concentration and balance, humans especially.

No other build combo have I seen has the versatility to cover as many bases as this. Except for pressure plates or switches, you almost never even need a hireling, and if you're careful and know what to expect, can zerg very well.

The only weakness of the class that I've seen is it's relatively low SP pool. If you're the type of player who enjoys killing every single monster as you go, you'll definitely run out of power or find yourself chugging pots. Rounding up as many enemies as possible before nuking is highly recommended.

[Bart_D]

Agree with arcane suggestions, either warforged or pale master. Since you will be soloing, an evasion splash is tempting but I'm not sure it will be worth the reduced spell points and delayed spells. Also, unless you're VIP you'll be doing N/H/E so you'll probably have 2 runs where you can learn what to watch out for before it really hurts

[Loriac]

I hadn't thought of this before, going to run some numbers on it...

Reconstruct is easy, 150 HP * 235 spell power (1 rank and base Potency/Implement) = 352, /44 = a neat 8 HP per SP.

Death Aura has some vagueness on the wiki, but looks like 2d4 + 10 = 15 base HP * 285 spell power (90 from PM and same base) = 42.75, get 84 ticks per Extended cast, so 42.75 * 84 / 34 = 105.6 HP per SP, that's certainly much more efficient.

But! How many of those ticks happen when you have full health? How many times do you need to use a Negative Energy Burst? (32.5 * 4.35 / 53 = 2.7 HP per SP, ouch!) What about the flat 100(ish) SP cost to take form? What about the fact that the WF can buy or loot potions instead of acquiring via collectibles? I think it's an open question which side has more SP efficient healing.

.

With that said, an important factor for wizards is spell penetration, and going PM lets them take Elf race, which can be a considerable advantage for nontwink.

The second part of your post is correct - the true comparison is between NEB and reconstruct. WF arcanes / artis should only be throwing quickened reconstructs on themselves in emergencies; outside of combat, and often even in combat, the preference should be on scroll healing (and no UMD checks obviously for reconstruct).

Another problem with PM healing is that you can't easily scroll Heal when form is up, meaning it can be difficult to remove stat damage or other conditions. A WF with sufficient UMD doesn't have this problem.

My own experience of PM healing was that at at mid-levels (12-17ish) it felt pretty overpowered, as mobs generally do less damage than your regeneration, with NEB only required rarely. At higher levels though it was easy to burn through SP on NEB if I didn't play carefully. I would guess that if you do have items like the mabar cloak it helps keep that healing viable for longer, but ultimately the reconstruct is a better emergency heal and more sp efficient than NEB.

Having said that, for the purposes of this thread, and if one is looking to solo, then fleshie PM is a very strong choice. I would still favor either a 18/2 WF AM, a pure WF sorc, or a pure WF arti however (I think the arti in particular is very strong at solo'ing, probably stronger than the sorc or the AM, but artis can't match the speed that sorcs can zerg through quests meaning that a lot of forum opinion is biased towards that race/class combo due to veterans who are looking to TR as quickly as possible en-route to completionist).

[Inouk]

The second part of your post is correct - the true comparison is between NEB and reconstruct. WF arcanes / artis should only be throwing quickened reconstructs on themselves in emergencies; outside of combat, and often even in combat, the preference should be on scroll healing (and no UMD checks obviously for reconstruct).

Another problem with PM healing is that you can't easily scroll Heal when form is up, meaning it can be difficult to remove stat damage or other conditions. A WF with sufficient UMD doesn't have this problem.

My own experience of PM healing was that at at mid-levels (12-17ish) it felt pretty overpowered, as mobs generally do less damage than your regeneration, with NEB only required rarely. At higher levels though it was easy to burn through SP on NEB if I didn't play carefully. I would guess that if you do have items like the mabar cloak it helps keep that healing viable for longer, but ultimately the reconstruct is a better emergency heal and more sp efficient than NEB.

Having said that, for the purposes of this thread, and if one is looking to solo, then fleshie PM is a very strong choice. I would still favor either a 18/2 WF AM, a pure WF sorc, or a pure WF arti however (I think the arti in particular is very strong at solo'ing, probably stronger than the sorc or the AM, but artis can't match the speed that sorcs can zerg through quests meaning that a lot of forum opinion is biased towards that race/class combo due to veterans who are looking to TR as quickly as possible en-route to completionist).

I can't argue that WF arti or sorc is the easiest route most likely. Sorc doesn't run out of SP like arti does as easy, but they are also completely reliant on their SP, so if they run out the consequences are much greater. Flip a coin I guess, but sorc is F2P. Either way having someone craft you some 1st level twink gear would go a long way (invulnerability, +0 screaming + bleeding + master craft repeater, etc). Or if you have vet/vetII status then 4th/7th level gear.

[Dolphious]

I'd recomend any of these three:

WF Artificer (either pure or with 2 monk/rogue splash for evasion)
WF sorcerer
Melee focused clonk (2 monk/ rest cleric; make sure to take stunning fist)

All of those offer excellent solo ability with excellent self healing from 1-20+

[tfangel]

Artificer.

-can handle traps/locked things, aside from safety issue trap bonus and perception bonuses self-available.
-good dps.
-self-healable, either with wands/scrolls if fleshy or own spells if wf.
- Force damage line enhancements plus blade barriers equals good things at higher levels.
- can solo that irritating four man quest in necro one for the silver flame favor with a regular hireling, dog, and one gold seal hireling.
- Is not overly gear intensive.

This is just my suggestion, there are a lot of solo builds in multiple classes around.

I agree with this post, i've tried all different ones, and arty just clicks with me for soloing. Took construct essence and can heal myself with spells, (not a fan of warforged, so human) and the summon boost makes any hireling, dog or summon awesome. Flame turret for aoe and aggro, blade barrier for aoe later, and it's all good.

[Singular]

An artificer is like Indiana Jones. You can do everything, disable traps, put out great dps (from levels 1-12, it's almost always a one or two shot on trash), and combine with excellent aoes (flame turret, then blade barrier) plus cc aoe damaging spells (lightning sphere, then tactical detonation). The lack of evasion only hurts very rarely.