As I stated before, tanking is very necessary at higher lvl's!!!

I do pretty good as a tank, with any character (no robe chars)

We hit 5 Ep's no prob. My avg was low ~ 460.

My stats:
40 str
~ 115 dex
77 int
89 vita

I had some bonuses with gear on Int + Vita.

No joke, rarely did I get hit even on 9 waves

e - This was on Samu early this morning in a full group.
But yes, you need gear...

This post was edited by James84 on Oct 11 2010 04:53pm

You've played this before, I can tell....
Yes, I am wearing a 55 chain (I know, I know) with 58 dex. I went for the stats but people are saying that dexterity is now THE SH*T, and all.

Might test this out with monk...



Well.. I am monk... so life/defense have to be taken into consideration



No ee for my monk robe... 21dex/21int atm... and not really wanting to give up 42 stats reducing Heal / Dmg / Crit Defense (cast/melee)
____________

Well... some things for me to take into consideration now... like trying caster monk
____________



Hmmm... that should work solo'ing then right?
Go find out...

This post was edited by izParagonzi on Oct 11 2010 04:59pm

I did... and it was easy... I've done solo ~ 55 ~ 65 ~ 71
Never had problems, with similar and even less into, Int and Vita.
Hell I even solo'd and got ep's with my HH, and I was still doing fine

I'll add this time that my 55 armor is a Med with over 200 ee. But I doubt that alone does the big diff.
Many ppl own similar armors

Drops are definitely a problem. If prof gain is slow, and drops are only good in groups, there is almost no way to increase your characters strength playing solo.

I know this wasnt part of your question, but on a somewhat related note, I find solo catas more boring than old arena

I always stayed away from catas since I wanted to gain prof, but I always wished I could cata solo. I even built sets of gear around at least getting maze quest done until I found out you needed a group for it anyway.

Now that I've experienced catas more, I feel like its nothing but a digital whack-a-mole game. Arena was nothing special either, but I feel like being able to see how many kills in a row I got and trying to adjust my gear/stats to extend this while increasing my overall kill speed was kind of entertaining. With catas, the kill chain is gone so its all about speed. Before anyone says to quit, I already did. Just sticking around the forums in hopes of future updates being made that I might possibly enjoy. No need to ruin another topic with that conversation again anyway

Edit - I didnt have a problem soloing at high level. But my gear was pretty good. 200EE scale, best in game club, mediocre charm. I was also using a high dex build since I hadnt rerolled from before the update

This post was edited by KakeWalk on Oct 11 2010 06:17pm

Soloing is impossible imo. You will always run a huge risk of instantly dying unless you back and forth in the same spot, and even then you never know your first move may be an EP.

Drops are garbage if you try to solo so now you gotta get lucky that something even drops, and then win the roll making it even harder to build up gear.

Prof are now essentially useless considering most mobs die in a hit or 2 anyway if you have decent gear.

The update had great potential with the increased drops, non breaking groups and team wells, but got destroyed due to removal of arena/well.

Course if you disagree to hard paul will just throw you a 10% so I'm not saying anything more

Well... I think you explained it here.
1. Your stats as HH makes a little difference
2. Your EE scale ensures better defense than robed character
3. Your melee gear is good to damage more effectively
4. You will not need heals much as you kill faster and shrines effectively
5. Your life is around 1/3 more than my Monk

@KakeWalk
Understand alot of those issues... seems like they will never be resolved...
One thing I have not seen mentioned about solo now compared to previosly...
Arena = 1% to 2% full experience gained per monster
Cata (undated) = 0.50% to 1% full experience gained per monster
... I am not even sure if solo'ing now is as fast

@Koldhearted
It is not impossible, just harder and longer for average geared individuals.
__________

Oh well... keep up the conversation... I am hoping to find equal grounds to this new update.

Well... interesting run today...

Solo was semi safe for today.
Group was a bit of a disaster... 4 deaths in total... cast delay played havoc...

Oh well...

Notes:

Old Solo system with MCC... around 34+ monsters you kill and get 1 level
New Solo system without MCC... around 100+ monsters you have to kill before you gain 1 level

And people say it is faster? interesting concept.

Where I saw 12 minute levels while soloing in the arena, I'm seeing 8 minute levels now.

I was seeing 4min level ssoloing arena now im seeing 7minute levels.