[Wiseman40]

I was discussing in another thread all of the melee jobs. In my thread I made it clear that I party most of the time, but enjoy spending some time soloing easy prey (and occasional DC) for a little extra experience (sometimes I just like to be alone). I don't plan on leveling this way, I just enjoy it.

Someone mentioend ninja in a list of jobs that can solo. *shrug* I knew they were hard to hit, and had moderate damage. I hadn't given them much thought though until that comment. I currently have mnk and war leveled to 20. I know that war is really the only subjob option for parties, since I need to hold hate. I was thinking, though....

Could I use monk as a sub for nin when soloing? Would this make it pretty easy to take on those easy prey without much downtime? At high levels this could really be it!

[neighbortaru]

no, if you are going to solo with NIN, use /whm. it is far more useful (status cures, healing, etc)

[Wiseman40]

whm? I can use medicine for status cures, or even avoid enemies that use such effects. I think that with such high evasion, dodge, counter and utsusemi I wouldn't need to heal quite so often. Remember I'm only fighting easy prey.

[Caspian]

The fact is you will take damage and you need to be able to cure it. If you want to blow that much money on meds and stuff (in addition to powders etc.) then go for it, but it would be much easier to sub whm and have it all for free. You could get away with /mnk soloing for the first 10-15 maybe even 20 lvl's, but its going to start to get much harder, mobs have a LOT more health the higher up you go and eventually they're going to slip in some damage here and there. You'll decrease your own downtime by subbing whm.

[neighbortaru]

meds are expensive. you will be using expensive ninja tools as is, why spend more money than necessary on fighting easy prey?

evasion and shadows will help immensely, but AOE will go right through that. dodge and counter won't help much there. you will need to heal and it's much easier to heal the MP from a /whm sub than all your HP from /mnk. less resting = less downtime = more XP

remember Easy Prey is not exactly easy

[bikkebakke]

Originally Posted by Wiseman40

whm? I can use medicine for status cures, or even avoid enemies that use such effects. I think that with such high evasion, dodge, counter and utsusemi I wouldn't need to heal quite so often. Remember I'm only fighting easy prey.

NIN is already a really expensive job. Buying meds will just add to this expenses a great deal. Unless you buy gil or have gil coming out of your ears, you will have a hell of a time keeping up with the expenses.

[Wiseman40]

I don't ever want to buy gil... I don't approve of it.... But the only effects that I was planning on buying meds for were poison... which is just antidote... which is inexpensive.

Ninja is expensive I know, but gil is for spending, right?

Anyway, I may level whm for this purpose, but I'm going to see how nin/war and nin/mnk can perform in solo situations. The amount of difficulty people are attributing to easy prey is beginning to frustrate me. I know that level 20 is not very high, but at that level easy prey is still easy. It bothers me that SE would call something easy prey when it can kill you. The description should scale more properly, and be specific to various jobs (as in a whm will see more things as being tough than a bst).

Either way, I'm not all that concerned with downtime. I use that time to do other things like play the guitar, read a book, read fora, watch movies, etc.

Thanks anyway

[neighbortaru]

It bothers me that SE would call something easy prey when it can kill you.

that's the key statement right there. very often, EP will kill you. Heck, i've even been killed by too weaks.

[Omni]

when i solo, i tend to use 1 of 2 subjobs. war or thf.

my reason for war is that it gives me a lot of dmg boost. from str/atk bonuses to double attack to beserk, warcry. the logic being, the faster i can kill the mob, the less chances it has to dmg me.

for thf, i use this mainly for the 2 evasion bonus traits you get w/ thf sub. the evasion bonus at 30 is quite nice. i usually use this when fighting a mob that is EM-T but only if im alone.

if you have a partner in crime (ie: your wife in this case) that is a healer of sorts, a nin + rdm/whm/brd/smn can duo many many things out there.

also, being aware of what the mob is capable of is key as ninja. a mob that drops aoes a lot, like weapons, isnt the ideal mob to solo on. but say if you have access to crabs, beetles, various beastmen, etc, these are all great mobs for nin to take on almost effortlessly.

[neighbortaru]

well, there you go, from the horse's mouth

[Armando]

Problem is, you can only counter successful hits. You can't counter with shadows up. The whole point of NIN is to keep shadows up at all times. The problem with NIN soloing is abilities that damage through shadows or take them down, and status ailments that hinder your ability to use shadows or kill your enemy. The only thing MNK sub is really offering is HP Bonus and Dodge. You can already overkill Evasion if you really wanted to. WHM offers the ability to heal that damage and the ability to remove those status ailments. Instead of meds you can just buy juices, which are very cheap, and because you avoid most damage, you don't rely on your MP pool, which means you only have to use juices sporadically so you don't have to rest. It's not only more efficient, but also cheaper even if you use juices.

[Alauna]

Originally Posted by Armando

Instead of meds you can just buy juices, which are very cheap, and because you avoid most damage, you don't rely on your MP pool, which means you only have to use juices sporadically so you don't have to rest. It's not only more efficient, but also cheaper even if you use juices.

Inventory space is the key. A fully stocked ninja has very little "free space" to stack up meds (anitdote, Hi-pots, echo drop [you do have echo drops... right? I silenced ninja is a dead ninja!] and any other 'status meds' you want to carry). Tool bags will take up a lot of space, even more so at lower lvls where you may not have access to the higher level gobbie bag quests.

Take it from a RDM. Inventory space is a high priced reality.

[bikkebakke]

Inventory space is a high priced reality.

LOL, yeah, the first gobbie quest alone will set you back near 20k

[Caspian]

Just wait for 6 (thats the number I think, whatever the last one is), its a measily 1m+.
If you really want to try with /mnk or /war, then thats your decision. We can't stop you. You may enjoy it, but be aware that it will be incredibly difficult and you will most likely die....a lot.
I do have a question. If you want 3k xp a day, and realize that you may at best get 500xp/hr. You realize you're spending 6 hours soloing, on top of atelast 2 or 3 more pt'ing.....and you're married? Hell, my friends get pissed off at me if I play this game during a time when we could be hanging out or going to the bar or something. You have a VERY understanding wife, as well as get no sleep if you're playing 10+ hours a day, plus work, plus wife time.

[Wiseman40]

Yes Caspian. I have a very understanding wife - but the 3k solo experience per day thing would only be on weekends.

In order to do that, though, it would need to theoretically be available daily...