Soloing Yellows at 70?!?

[BadboFV]

The other day I went off hunting with a friend of mine.  He took me to go after these big polar bears in one of the newer zones (which one escapes me at the moment).  He's a level 70 necro, and I'm a 65 BST.  After a while I take a break, and as I watch him running around kiting the bears solo, I ask him what color they are to him.  He tells me they're yellow and he'd die in two hits if they touch him.

Now he's a very well-equipped necro (not ultra-raid gear), but I haven't even gone solo after a white mob since around level 30 or so (with rather average equipment).  I wouldn't even think of taking on a yellow by myself.

It got me thinking, though.  Is it just me?  Or is there some hunting tactic I'm not aware of that would allow a (probably better equipped than me) Beastlord to solo in this manner?  I mean, I realize that necros are supposed to be the best solo class, but being able to continuously solo the light-to-dark blue stuff I go after and continuously taking down yellow mobs seems like a huge imbalance to me.  Am I missing something here?

[Nusa]

Beastlords CAN kite, but we're horribly inefficient at it compared to necro's. If you're going to try, teach yourself how on blues before you anything really nasty.

Two basic approaches to kiting:
a) you hold aggro with nukes/dots and run away from the mob with your pet chewing on his tail (turn off pet taunt). At full speed, unless you can get a pet-snare to land. Traditional kiting, what you see most people doing.

b) Load up Flash of Light to blind the mob. So long as you stay out of melee range, it acts pretty much like a fear spell. Nuke/dot the mob. Reblind the mob when it starts running toward you. The beastlord version of fear-kiting.

[Inphared]

The mobs just don't summon. You could techincally solo them just the same, but it would take a lot longer. It's not really overpowering imo.

Oh, and the zone was Icefall Glacier I think.

[BadboFV]

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, Icefall Glacier does ring a bell.  I think you might be right, Inphared.

I didn't mean to imply that it's overpowering in a class-balancing sense, if that's what you mean.  I was mostly looking for input on techniques along the lines of Nusa's comments.  At the moment when I'm soloing I pretty much just walk up to a mob,try to slow it, try to weaken it, and proceed to repeatedly bonk it on the head while my gator (or whatever you call that thing nowadays) chews on it from behind.  Every once in a while I'll back off, attempt to reapply spells and then jump back in.  I used to occasionally send in the pet and play cleric, but that hasn't seemed to be very effective for several levels now.

I'm going to try practicing the methods in Nusa's post and see how that goes.  Lately, I have been trying get a better handle on playing my class - in both solo and group - so even just to having new techniques to break up the grind would be nice.  Especially if it helps soloing some slightly higher mobs than I am at the moment.

[Sanois]

I have Kited those same bears in Icefall and it takes a long time to kill one.  It is not worth the time and effort to try.  I get far better experience doing things like Murks in WoS.

[Gutterr]

The pathing in Atiki is super buggy.  Try kiting there.

[Gunzak]

I used to play a Necro and I used to kite reds all the time as long as they didn't summon.  As long as your hate from dots is higher then your pets hate then the mob will continue after you.  Necros can do it much better using darkness and several mana efficient dots with much better resist checks.  The only negative was if the mobs snare was resisted and they stunned me before I could recast i would die rather quickly since my HP as a Necro was never as high as a Beastlord.

Necros also have huge mana regen.  With lich running a Necro will regen well over 100 mana a tick.  If they can regain over 1000 mana every minute while still killing and we are getting around 300 then they can kill higher con mobs faster.  They also get Spell Casting Mastery which has the potential to lower the cost of all spells cast and it works with Mana Preservation.  If Lich lowers their hit points enough then can just tap or leach a mob to gain their hp back.

Necros also have a wider number of pets then us.  Warrior, Monk and Rogue pets.  A rogue pet that is constantly backstabbing a mob will do quite a bit of dps.

Personally I prefer my Beastlord over my Necro and would rather kill blues fast and with little risk then yellows slow and with higher risk.

[Bumkus]

At level 75 with every DoT loaded, I hit around 250dps.  Bear might add 50dps, but I have to gimp it down pretty bad if I have snare proc loaded.  I also use Spirit of Flame/Snow because they actually reduce hate, as opposed to our pet stun procs which generate extra hate.

When snare lands, I'll also sneak up close to pop mobs with 30 sec recast Rake and Jagged Claws, because they work just outside of mob melee range.

I'll also hit with Bite of Empress Poison Nuke because it helps hold aggro.

Basically this lets me take down 100K hp mobs in around 5 minutes, but it drains a 10K mana pool down to nothing.  So you need to do a full med before repeat.

So you are looking at 8-10 minutes per mob, if you go the kiting route.  This is pretty horribly inefficient, so I would only bother with kiting for specific quest mobs.

[jitathab]

Ok im 75 not 65, but can kite if have to, done quads, but they take for ever.

Agro is king, you must keep a lot of agro on you, Bite and slow is superb for this, and of course pet taunt off.
Slopes give space, in Icefall there is a long slope up to the deeper zones, kite up and down it, not accross. You can move faster than mobs can in one direction! In TBS there are a few ridges without mobs that slope, these are superb and long. Can med at the end of each.
Dont use dots, Bite is better, plus it leaves room to load heals and so on.
Tank, tank the mobs for around 30-40 of your health, this will get the most HP's off fast, and build agro.
BE or BATM pet is a good tank on pull.
HAve a backup warder ready fully buffed in your pocket.
Try and pick on caster mobs, you can mellee these much easier, and if you have good resists they do little damage.

IF you can get access to Pland of Fire and get to 70, you will just love Castle 1. IMO it was the best solo point for bsts ever.

[Bumkus]

You can solo Bears in Icefall at 65 jitathab?  that is impressive.  How long does it take to drop one?

[Gunzak]

Yeah C1 in PoF is sweat solo exp.  This character isn't flagged yet but will be soon.  I have been leading open pop raids on FV with the goal of getting a raid force EP + Fire flagged.  So far we have done Grummus x2, Maneatic Behemoth, Aerin Dar, Carpin and Hedge x2.  This weekend we are doing Terris Thule, Bertoxulous, Agnar, Tallon Zek and Vallon Zek.  I hope to hit Rallos and Sol Ro in under 4 weeks.

In the meantime I am soloing in WoS on murks, db at 70, and getting 8% a kill AA on them.  When I see named up I kill them too.  I have done several named so far and only had 1 death from bad luck.

[BadboFV]

So I think I can answer my own question about this now.  The difference in power between a 65 and a 70 is huge, both in actual and in relative terms.  There are better items available, the pets are much stronger - especially when properly equipped.  At the rate I'm going now, by the time I hit 70 I expect I will find more than enough places to get the same experience, at the same rate or better.

So, in short, BSTs rock.  Problem solved.  :-D