DRG Soloing 60+

[Sanguine]

Here's a little bit of information for those that want to see how well DRGs can solo higher up. I believe that contrary to most suspicions, DRG soloing 60+ is in fact rather viable as opposed to well.....useless ^_^

Note: I don't recommend soloing between the levels of 20 to 60. However anything outside of that I believe is worthwhile. Here is my experience as a Level 62 Dragoon soloing. The reason you can solo 60+ is because of the Drachen Armet which allows your wyvern to heal you (for around 200) if you are below 50% HP and you cast a spell (any spell is fine).

Here is my Equipment when soloing:
Main : Grand Knight's Lance
Head : Drachen Armet
Body : Carapace Armor
Hand : Carapace Gauntlets
Neck : Coral Gorget
Earrings : 2 Spike Earrings
Rings : 2 Phalanx Rings
Legs : Drachen Brais
Feet : Drachen Greaves

My Subjob : Black Mage (Level 31)
Food : Meat Mithkabobs

Targets:
Robber Crabs (Con as Decent, Even, Tough)

Locations: Kuftal Tunnel, The Boyahda Tree, Cape Terrigan

Kuftal Tunnel Crabs seem to be the easiest out of all of these locations. I personally chose The Boyahda Tree because the Treasure Coffers were more accessible than the Kuftal area giving me more bang for my buck ^_^

Basically the gist of the fight goes like this. Pull with Poison, High Jump it first, then Jump it and then proceed to poke it to death with your toothpick. Throw in a Penta Thrust as soon as you can to maintain hate.

Using Poison (5 MP, very low cooldown) I was able to heal myself (Wyvern Heal 200 HP Heal) enough not only to kill Toughs (High end toughs that result in 200 exp per kill) but I was also able to Chain up to #2 (Have only done 1 so far but haven't had much time to experiment).

After each fight on average, I would spend around 50-60 mana healing myself. As a 62 DRG/31 BLM I had 130ish mana. So how could I have done Chain #2 you say? Simple: Using Aspir ^_^

Each Fight I was able to suck up more than I used, however the Timing is a little tricky and you *will get interrupted* if you don't time it right. Basically the cooldown between 1st crab hit and the 2nd is JUST enough for Aspir to go through. So if you time it correctly not only do you get your mana back but you also get a free heal (assuming your HP is below 50% which 99% of the time it is).

Oh and one last obvious thing, don't ever lose hate to your Wyvern, your wyvern can't take all that many hits and if you have to rest to get him back to full hp, you're going to be losing out on chains.

Funny thing today was when I was in The Boyahda Tree there was a 62 BST that was hunting the same stuff that I was and we were pretty much neck and neck on how fast we could kill our mobs and move onto the next one. The first time he saw me he even asked "Daijoobu?" thinking I had accidentally agro'ed a Robber Crab. Anyway, soloing is definitely more satisfying than sitting around waiting for a PT right? ^_^

[Weezingpipes]

That is pretty nifty. I heard DRG can solo quite well post 60 but I haven't tried mage sub jobs yet. What % HP does the Carapace armor effects go off? Some of the effects are pretty solid but wasn't sure how often they work. I might be more partial to WHM sub to have stuff like status cures and protect but I suppose the way this soloing is done you don't really have the MP to burn on high cost spells.

Good read none the less.

[Saint_Sebastian]

Why BLM?

Why not sub DRK? although you get lower mana pool, you can prolly bump it up to 100 or so with swap MP - HP items. plus, you get +dmg passive ability , aspir, wyvern will do att breath when you do ws for extra dmg, and you can heal yourself too, just not as much.

[Sanguine]

Level 63 now, had a chance to play a few hours of solo last night. On average I made around 1800 exp per hour which is about the same as in a bad-moderate group.

As to why you don't sub a DRK, because with a DRK you can only heal when you're below 1/3 HP with the Drachen Armet (previously 1/4) whereas if you sub a mage sub you can heal when you're below 1/2. This is a significant difference and seriously cuts down on your chances of death:

Example:
Robber Crab special attack : Big Scissors
This attack does around 150-200 DMG when it hits. At level 63 I have 1092 HP which equates me being able to heal myself when I'm below 546 HP. Now, you're not going to be able to heal yourself every time at exactly 546 HP. Around 450 HP is reasonable. See how much leeway you need to survive when each hit does 90 dmg (Critical 180) and a potential Big Scissors could 1 hit KO you if you could only heal below 364 (1/3 x 1092) and get interrupted by bad timing?

Hey, bad timing on your heal and double crits do happen. And you really don't want to die and lose 3200 exp mm'kay? ^_^

[Saint_Sebastian]

is BLM the best sub to solo with though?

how bout RDM? it has poison too with other stuffs that u prolly wont use but can be useful at some times. I guess the only missing thing is aspir, warp and mana conserve from BLM.

is aspir reliable to drain mp? considering the magic skill is low at sub.

[Saint_Sebastian]

is BLM the best sub to solo with though?

how bout RDM? it has poison too with other stuffs that u prolly wont use but can be useful at some times. I guess the only missing thing is aspir, warp and mana conserve from BLM.

is aspir reliable to drain mp? considering the magic skill is low at sub.

[Feday]

After each fight on average, I would spend around 50-60 mana healing myself. As a 62 DRG/31 BLM I had 130ish mana. So how could I have done Chain #2 you say? Simple: Using Aspir ^_^

Each Fight I was able to suck up more than I used, however the Timing is a little tricky and you *will get interrupted* if you don't time it right. Basically the cooldown between 1st crab hit and the 2nd is JUST enough for Aspir to go through. So if you time it correctly not only do you get your mana back but you also get a free heal (assuming your HP is below 50% which 99% of the time it is).

from this im thinking that, ya aspir is crucial to being able to do chain 2's and 1800xp per hour.

[Viev]

why not rdm or whm subs and drink juice? Get blink, stoneskin, and phalanx (if you were lvl 66).

[Weezingpipes]

I think given your current MP pool at that level say with a RDM sub and the cost of Phalanx, it doesn't add up to being as useful to BLM really since the MP pool is higher, Aspir seems pretty nifty to be able to chain more consistantly. The carapace armor seems a decent choice for soloing in this fashion because they are latent effects, which if I recall one of the pieces mentioned adds a nice chunk of def and atk when the effect goes off. I was thinking WHM might be better to have assorted status cures, but isn't how the wyvern breaths with a mage job works like if you are over 50% hp the breath is a status cure, correct?

[Zihn]

This was at Lv.62/31 DRG/RDM

[Skelington]

Mmmhmmm... I can solo just fine as a level 32 if I want, though the lack of the Drachen Armet makes it harder >.<

I solo Bogies and stuff when I am bored. I wear Chicken Armor and use a Royal Squire's Halberd with two balance rings and a Bastokan Subligar.