[Marrs]

I am about to start playing and I want to start as an elvaan, I would like to be able to solo from time to time and I was wondering if a WAR/WHM or a MNK/WHM would make that possible, or even work for that matter.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Er, no. Too much downtime and MP reliance with /WHM. Dancer is the subjob you're looking for here when soloing with a melee job.

You'll have to hit 30 first to unlock DNC and unlock your first set of Cavernous Maws, though.

MNK/DNC solos quite well and should satisfy your needs. Take WAR to 18, then MNK to 30 to unlock DNC. You'll have to pass up soloing for a while, but trust me, leveling DNC is worth it.

To further explain why this is better, DNC uses TP instead of MP to cure itself and if there's anything a MNK is good at building up, its TP, so you'll never find yourself short of cures since every hit you make on a mob generates TP. It works with WAR OK, too, but eventually people may want you to sub SAM or NIN on WAR. /DNC is seldom, if ever, debated with MNK.

As for actually picking a job, give them all a fair shake. When you get to 30, make it a point to unlock as many job as possible and see which ones really appeal to you. Reading about them on a forum is all well and good, but you'll never know what really suits you until you've actually played the jobs a bit.

BST, BLU, RDM, THF, NIN and PLD are capable soloists. Many melees are also good soloists with a DNC sub. Even WHMs and SMNs can become good soloists with time, so it ultimately becomes a matter of which subjobs you've leveled and what suits you best.

[Armando]

/WHM sub works wonderfully at low levels, so-so at mid levels and weakly at high levels. Slapping on /WHM on almost any job will allow you to solo up to 30 painlessly (although perhaps a bit slowly in the 20-30 range,) and at that point you can unlock Dancer for when /WHM starts to perform poorly for you.

One warning about /DNC: Since you keep yourself alive with TP, that reduces the number of Weapon Skills you do greatly, which slows down your kill. As long as you can keep going with /WHM with little to no downtime, /WHM should be what you use.

As for picking a job you're gonna stick to all the way to 75, that mainly depends on what you're looking to do (tank, DD, heal, support) and how much of a priority soloing is for you. Every job can solo to a certain degree, but some much better than others. For example, DRG and BST are powerful solo jobs all the way to 75 (although BSTs can have problems getting into parties), while PLD's have great solo endurance at high levels but don't kill quickly enough to make great EXP.