Best Solo Job

[Saoirse]

Hello all, as stated in the topic, I'm just curious on what the community thinks about solo jobs. As the old saying goes, "shit is situational", so when you put your opinion, please state the following:

1.) What equip set/stat should the job focus on? (Ex: THF and NIN should focus on Eva)

2.) What scenario should the job excels the most? (Ex: BLM/RDM need a large area to kite/sleep, BST may need pets that are charm able... etc)

Or any other points you would like to add, please feel free to state so too.

[Despain]

What level range? Or is it just generic?

[Max™]

Funnily enough, the 2h buff and /Dnc introduced a new, but limited area of soloing specialty.

In area's with Signet especially, but not limited to them, it's hard to kill Ep-Em mobs as fast as a good 2-hander, and have as little downtime.

Was poking around to see if Aquarius was going to pop, Thf/Nin ran by and got a robber aggro, bout the same time I did too. Mine was dead before he hit 75% on his.

Drg can bring the healing rat, Drk can use drains/spikes, Sam can make use of Seigan, War with Retaliation up makes /Dnc look broken.

Over T mobs though, it changes a bit, especially as far as endurance goes.

[Saoirse]

I would like to discuss more against the high level mob

[Max™]

Can you sleep/bind/gravity it? Blm, Sch, and Rdm will excel there.

Is there a good amount of charmable pets, and room to swap between them? Bst, and in some cases /Bst for the win.

Is there room to kite long enough to resummon an avatar? Smn's are notorious for whittling things down chucking Carby's and other avvy's at them.

Does it have blinkable and mitigateable TP moves, and a slow or weak enough melee swing to cripple it with debuffs/utsu/stoneskin/etc? Rdm/Nin will be beastly.

Nin/Dnc, Pld/Nin, Mnk/Nin, Pld/Dnc, Pld/Rdm, Blu/Nin, Dnc/Nin, Sch+Blm+Rdm with whichever appropriate sub, all have been known to solo VT-IT mobs consistently in the right situations.

[Capo]

RDM

[MarkM.]

Well for someone that has Rdm, bst, blu, and working on Nin (71). I would say that if you actually want to merit bst (something that I have not done). Its actually a pretty good solo job for up to toughs if you want to merit Beast Affinity. I was screwing around a month ago in sea, with a Carrie jug, I was able to solo very well with nin sub. The updates they have made for bst recently, have tremendously improved it as one of the best solo jobs. Also, if there is a lot of stuff you can charm, as mentioned earlier, you will definately thrive soloing. Just my opinion.


PS Blu is nice if you like to solo imps.

[Cletis]

pld/SMN [spoiler:3huz4xev]for autorefresh[/spoiler:3huz4xev]

[Mrdude]

It all depends, for survivability, rdm/nin is unbeatable, but it will kill VERY slow. I personally love soloing on ninja, depending on what I'm doing and the type of monsters, /thf or /war, if I had /dnc leveled it would easily beat both for soloing.

Basically, if you're looking to solo T-IT mobs at a decent speed, ninja and thief would most likely be the best choice, depending on the mobs of course (blms and puddings, etc). If you're looking to solo high level nms (Gration, Bune, Genbu etc) you would be best off rdm, but be prepared for hours of kiting.

[Isiolia]

Overall I would say RDM. Mainly because of flexibility. If physical defense is viable, RDM/BLU. If it can be slept, sleep/nuke. You can kite things around with /NIN. It's the most self-sufficient job in the game, if nothing else.

The downside, of course, is that RDM is neither MP efficient, or offensively strong. Depending on your method of solo, it can be very tedious as well. Farming on RDM, for example, gets very old as you recast the same array of buffs every couple minutes or so.


BST can be a great way to solo, however, the job is (severely) hampered by mob availability. Suitable pets have to be around, which is something SE has not always seen to. On top of that, it's one of the worst jobs to have in a competitive situation since killing off the pets you need, or simply waiting for the mob to flash yellow, are ways other players can very quickly ruin your attempt.
It's not as universally strong as RDM, but it can work where few other jobs can. For instance, against mobs that attempt to charm.


Evasion style soloing, IMO, is a better way to go about lighter solos. Rather than reapplying defenses over and over as on RDM, an occasional Utsu cast works. NIN/DNC is great for stuff like that, since you can heal, fix status, enfeeble, and have Ustu and all. Speed is better, and it's less tiresome, at least to me.

Still, it depends on your target.

[Tordall]

Honestly it depends on the zone and why you're soloing.

If it's for Xp, I think the order is Blm -> Sch -> Rdm -> Bst at 75. From about 65-71 Bst (or /bst if bst is already 75) can pretty reliably solo 6k-ish per hour. It starts to go down at 71, which is when blm and sch solo (against actual mobs, not bst pets) starts to pick up. By 75 I think blm and sch can solo for 8k-ish per hour.

If it's for not-quite-HNM hunting like Xoltol, I think rdm/bst is going to be the way to go (again assuming bst is already 75) because a charmed pet can beat on the mob while the rdm Dots and kites it. However that's somewhat dependent on zone since not every zone has something in the DC-EM range to a 75.

For farming, depending on the zone either bst/thf or thf/bst for the highest combination of kill-rate & treasurehunter.

For weaker NMs, Thf b/c you only care about TH kicking in for the one chance at the drop every 1hour+, not about how fast you kill.

[Charismatic]

Wait... you mentioned soloing for XP and you didn't throw BLU or DRG in there? whaddafuxupw/dat?

[Tordall]

Wait... you mentioned soloing for XP and you didn't throw BLU or DRG in there? whaddafuxupw/dat?

I said actual mobs not bst pets...

Good call on Blu. I've seen blus rip through imps, although I have to say that I haven't seen them approach what bst can do until they get to 75 with good gear.

As for drg, I don't think I've seen a drg solo anywhere near approaching what bst can do.

I think I was reliably hitting chain 4-5 by the mid 50's on bst, and had my first chain 4 solo around level 35. I really haven't seen other jobs do much more than solo goblin/tonberry/giggas pets or mow through EP-DC mobs until about level 65.

However, Whm/bst, nin/bst, pld/bst, rdm/bst, blm/bst, bard/bst, blu/bst, sch/bst are all much better soloers than bst/otherjob until level 35 and after 70.

Anyway sans ring, blm & sch should be able to get 8k/hour at 75, rdm can probably get 5-6k/hour, and bst can get 4-5k/hour.

What are the numbers for drg and blu?

What are the rates at lower levels (not off beastmaster pets, anyone can solo those as fast as they spawn).

[Kkel]

A smart, well geared, BLU will crush Imps into Chain 4/5 easily.

A smart, well geared, DRG/Mage will do the same to Sea Puks at the Mamool Ja Staging point.

Obviously the level difference between the mobs with net the DRG less XP overall, but DRG/Mage is easily capable of chaining various flavors of T mobs. I used to solo Aura Pots in Sky on DRG/WHM for Ro'Meave Water. I didn't kill them as fast as say, a 75SMN, but it's still not terribly difficult.

Solo in this game is mostly about picking mobs that play to the strengths of the job you're using.

[Starr]

Noone mentions THF

[LakshmiPuba]

I love BLM, unless you are trying to do Ungur, Seiryu, or long drawn out battles, blm can tear through ITs and VTs easily, and at a pretty constant rate. RDM is nice for the harder fights, and thats about the only time ill use it solo wise.

[rog]

If you're looking to solo high level nms (Gration, Bune, Genbu etc) you would be best off rdm, but be prepared for hours of kiting.

hours? not quite. genbu does take like 2-3 hours. gration is another long fight (1.5-2.5 hours). bune? 30~45 mins. that's about what most nms take for rdm to soro.

bune, ungur, faust, pelican, ix'aern mnk/drk (per rr for drk), amikiri, guivre, charby, rapido (with cermonial daggers), etc. are a few examples that that go down in the 30~60 min range, most within 45 mins.

the onry ones i cna think of that take more then 2 hours, is ash dragon (which isn't possible anymore without someone to kill the bombs), genbu, possibly gration, and most likely byakko/suzy (no clue how long those take), and rapido (can certainly be done in under an hour, but most likely going to take 2+ hours, unless you're really good with those daggers). theres others, but not many.

[Naver]

Avesta

[Seigfried Of Pandy]

DRG/whm,blu,rdm with af2/af1 helm, sanction/sigil refresh and eth earring ftw

ares body too if can

[Thorny]

Rapido doesn't take 2 hours.. poison2 alone kills it in less time than that. Poison/the 3 blm DoTs is 30 min or so, poison only is a bit over an hour, haven't tried with dagger because it's hard to claim recently and before I was worried I wouldn't have enough dmg mitigation to keep utsu/stoneskin always up so i stuck with idling in terra's.

Edit: The best solo job for anything at all hard is RDM hands down, though NIN can solo a lot more than people give it credit for(Voluptuous Vivian, Fenrir, Ancient Goobbue, Steam Cleaner come to mind).