Solo Act

[Kirk]

As I approach 75 I'm looking for ways to solo better. Any of you have experience with different mage subs? Which is better Red or white? What other alternative subs are good for solo?

[Navia]

I feel WHM makes the best mage sub.
WHM status cures and the ability to do a big cure in a pinch by divine seal + Cure helps tremendously. Getting access to erase would help alot as well. Don't underestimate the usefulness of the autoregen trait over time :p

Mage sub soloing
Mage sub really works best against monsters you can drain mp from with the dagger weaponskill 'energy drain' to feed regen+stoneskin+barspell. Combined with utsusemi you can kill just about anything up to toughs given enough time. Every time divine seal is ready, combine it with your best cure available to fill up your hp. In my late 50s I killed an absurd number of ice/dark elementals this way never having to rest for mp/heal.

I was bored the other day and took on Ifrit for almost 10 minutes as nin/whm. I stayed alive using regen/barfire/stoneskin/utsusemi and a divine seal+cureIII before he 2hr'd me - no other sub would have let me last that long. For maximum suvivability nothing beats WHM.

You should hardly be getting hit so phalanx from RDM can't really be all that useful (low enhancing magic skill as well so less damage mitigated), no divine seal, and you'd be mostly using stoneskin,regen,barspell which is offered by subbing WHM.

Damage subjob - 'kill it before it kills you'
I really like ranger for this one, slugshot on easy/decent spectre/shadow in fei'yin does 1000-1500 damage with just alittle over 100%tp. Combine with a barrage you can bury the monster before it gets a chance to strip your Ni shadows.

Underworld bats 'easy prey' drop even faster due to the damage bonus on flying creatures, but the risk of jetstream is never good. I only kill them off when they spawn between the spectre room spawns because they aggro me still.

I've soloed 'tough/even' robber crabs in kuftal with ranger sub getting up to chain #2, you just need to use jubaku/kurayami/hojo to get the most mileage out of your shadows. Bat cape during normal gun shots, then swap to amemit mantle when I unload my slugshot or barrage.

RNG sub doesn't make sense if you are into just making money, unless you are waiting to snag a NM or killing stuff for keys to get good coffer/chest loot. I don't care about the bullet expenses because the 4 digit ws damage and ability to kill stuff in a hurry makes it thoroughly enjoyable and im getting some xp out of it(and my parry skill is slowly improving but nowhere near the cap -_-)
When i'm 63 i'll experiment with our 'E' rating in bows and see if I can hit the side of a mountain (or at least easy/decent challenge) with a sidewinder as a less expensive way to solo xp/farm with ranger subjob.

NIN/BST
I hear this is one of the best ones out there, I personally can't wait to try this one out when i'm 70 so I can release the pet without having to kill it off. Sounds incredibly useful in ifrits cauldron while hunting for mining points if things turn too ugly even with utsusemi up you can always mijin gakure to avoid xp loss.

[bunta]

That means i have to level whm sub from 1-37 fun fun

[Rekiem]

Well IMO, WHM is best. Divine Seal is awesome to recover your HP but you also get to remove status effect. Another plus is that you have Reraise which is nice incase youre losing a fight against a NM you can use Mijin Gakure and try again(also good to MPK gils farmer fighting Amemet t('-'t ).

The Auto-Regen is nice also. Combined with War Shinobi Gi and Regen, you get a nice little 7HP tick. Rarely ever need to cast Cure if youre hurt. If you have a good enhancing skill, you can use Stoneskin to absorb damage.

Only downside with this sub is that your melee skills drop by alot compared to /WAR. Damage gets really low, fights against EP monsters can take forever.

Problem with NIN is that we can't heal ourself or use Bloody Bolt like THF, WAR, DRK or RNG when we solo. If youre not able to heal yourself, it really suck.

[Madden]

I always use NIN/THF to solo, find it the best option for me anyway.

[Navia]

I suggest maxxing out archery and always having sleep arrows handy. I can solo some neat highlevel stuff with these and even stop casters in their tracks when they try to throw out some highlevel spell on me.
Its pretty funny to do this with /thf and sleep the monster mid fight, then quickly run behind it and sneak attack it in the ass to wake it up :spin: