So How do you Solo?

[roderick]

I'm just curious how folks out there are playing solo. Whether it be rep or quest grinding, a 0/49/12 paladin is just horrible for playing alone in PVE (PVP too from what I hear). I have guildies help me out when I can but I'm wondering if anyone has learned any tricks to improve our damage output when soloing? Has anyone done the math on the most efficient use of our seals and judgments against a single equal level non-elite mob?

This probably isn't right but I tend to:

Prep:
Ret Aura
Blessing of Wisdom
Righteous Fury

Fight:
SoCr
JoCr
SoV
(wait for 5)
JoV
SoR
JoR (and repeat)

I'll use +dam trinkets and the like but things die insanely slow. Also, I pretty much have to stop to drink / eat after a couple kills. I can switch to BoM but then I tend to run out of mana even faster (though things die faster). This is making questing tedious but I need the cash. Anyone figured out combos that work well as a prot pally to limit our awful solo skills? It is awfully depressing to 4-man SLab as a MT, feel good, and then plink away at quest mobs.

I know all about the "AoE grinding" but when you are doing a quest, 80% of the time you don't have mobs in the form you need to make the AoE technique viable.

Cheers,

Roderick

[Promdates]

To be honest, I don't anymore. I've been spending most of my time in 5 mans or heroics. If not, I'm leveling up my warlock to be my farmbot.

[Tybalt]

Unfortunately, there really is nothing you can do. I leveled 60-70 as full prot, and the only thing that helped was to stack as much stamina, int and spell damage as possible.

Your seal rotation is pretty much what I used, but I would pop rank 1 holy shield for the mitigation.

As a gimmick, you can build a camp fire and fight on top of it to proc reckoning left and right.

-Ty

[Aergis]

single equal level non-elite mob?

Why fight one at a time? For the most part, you can kill as many as you can survive in the same time it takes to kill one.

For farming / rep grinding, I like pulling a crapton, using rank 1 consecrate and holy shield with a shieldspike shield, ret aura, BoSanc, and judging light / sealing wis or viceversa. I can handle 10 or 11 max of the lvl 68-69 Death's Might guys in blades edge, about 2 mins to kill them all. I'd be hard pressed to kill one of them in 12 seconds.

Also helps to lower dodge and increase base block rating, since HS / redoubt will almost always be down with this many mobs. Dodging just makes the fight longer, so I run with about 19% dodge, 28% block while farming this way. Increasing block value helps reduce damage dramatically as well, once you get to the point you're blocking the full value of their hits.

[Promdates]

i thought they changed that campfire thing? if they didn't.. i know what i'm doing for boss fights now.

[Barter]

i thought they changed that campfire thing? if they didn't.. i know what i'm doing for boss fights now.

it procs from ironforge fires so i guess they didn't

[Everlight]

Player-made fires don't hurt you, afaik...

Probably to stop people griefing afks

[Promdates]

bah, there goes that idea.

edit: just tested it out in lower city, and it doesn't hurt

[Everlight]

For 1v1 soloing, I usually go full spellpower gear, Ret aura, Blessing of Wisdom against elementals, Sanctuary against melee, and swing with Seal of Vengeance and Rank 1 consecrate. Holy Shield against melee, judge spam on elementals.

[QuantumDelta]

Frostbolt rank 13.. :<

[Anaro]

In my experience, SoV doesn't do damage quickly enough and doesn't benefit enough from reckoning to use on non-elite mobs. Typically, by the time you've got 5 stacks, they're nearly dead. So I just run SoR pretty much all the time.

When I was levelling, I hated drinking, or more importantly, I hated buying water, and since my main is a mage, I never feel right asking mages for some. The things I used to help offset the mana drain was to stop spamming judgments everytime they're on cooldown, judge wisdom initially, use BoW if needed. And there are a couple items in Zangar that help immensely if you do the quests. I can't access WoWhead from work, but one is the Essence Infused Mushroom (simple 200 mana back whenever you kill something, while AoE grinding, this is nice), and there's an item you can get to conjure food that gives mana/health back, so I'd keep that around. The second part doesn't really help you not stop and drink as much, but it will make it less costly.

Generally though, if you get a good size group on you, JoW on whatever you're targetting and keep up SoR, I didn't really have any problems with drinking. For example, the item to conjure food/water has a 12 hour cooldown, and produces 10, I never ran out, so on average I used maybe 2 per hour.

The other thing I *always* did while I was levelling (prot from 19-70) that I haven't seen mentioned much was what I called making a 'mana post.' The idea is the same as a cat scratching a post, I'd pick 1 mob, preferrably a dual wielder with a fair amount of health, equip the fastest weapon I could find, and I'd JoW, SoW, autoattack it to death(or full mana, which usually comes first), heal when/if you need to. It's not always fast, but it will always work, and then you can jump right back into a series of 5 mob pulls.

I hope that helps.

-Anaro

PS 29-49, without dieing once, 29-60 without dieing once outside of an instance. Solo'd as many elites as I could, Mor'Ladim at 31, etc. Prot rules.

[Sabindeus]

The other thing I *always* did while I was levelling (prot from 19-70) that I haven't seen mentioned much was what I called making a 'mana post.' The idea is the same as a cat scratching a post, I'd pick 1 mob, preferrably a dual wielder with a fair amount of health, equip the fastest weapon I could find, and I'd JoW, SoW, autoattack it to death(or full mana, which usually comes first), heal when/if you need to. It's not always fast, but it will always work, and then you can jump right back into a series of 5 mob pulls.

Why would you do this instead of drinking?

[ulushnar]

I stack up on Spell damage and just JoW as my opener followed by SoV/JoV. If I can, i'll pull a few mobs at once and use Consecrate and HS to wear em down. Dunno if it's efficent, but it's certainly fun

[dern]

I enjoy Death's Door as well,

I'll wear my spell damage gear (which includes some shammy gear, if I ever get chain lightning look out) and grab around 6 mobs while I mounted, dismount toss a sheild, AW, excorcism, consecrates, trinkets, hly sheild, etc.

they're undead and do physical damage . . . it is fun seeing how many you can kill without healing/bubbling

do another group or drink up and continue. . . or pick up one and mana up . . .my advice play to your strengths pick out mobs that do physical damage, hit quickly if possible, stand around in groups, and drop something valuable (motes, signets, armaments, etc.) I learned this farming mana draining mobs . . .. felt like an idiot after an hour of it. . . just get the gold for what you want by selling something of value (marks/armaments in case of Death's Door)

note I don't generally take more than 5 or 6 as I just don't even bother judging and outlasting, I just kill them quickly for fun. For me, it's the least annoying way to grind, but better grab some water from a friendly mage or you'll drink all your profits =D

[Daedallus]

I stack up on Spell damage and just JoW as my opener followed by SoV/JoV. If I can, i'll pull a few mobs at once and use Consecrate and HS to wear em down. Dunno if it's efficent, but it's certainly fun

fun being the operative word. the best thing is people stopping to watch / wait for you to die .. actually, i prefer them to wait for me to die. i always seem to come accross the good samaritan that figures i'm in need of saving from the pack of mobs. invariably i've pulled pack much too large, and hes going to die when i BoP to heal.

as for the mana post... its about the same time length as drinking, but doesn't cost anything. and besides, as soon as you mana up, you can walk into another pack of mobs and never have any downtime. i went entire hours without leaving combat during the grind from 60-70.