Soloing: The Good and the Bad.

Soloing has always been quite a spectacle. With the right gear, the right mob and a mountain of patience there are a huge number of kills that can be had by the right players. The reasons to solo mobs are pretty simple, all the drops go to one person, it is a better test of skill than doing it with more people and some of them can only be done with a certain gear requirement that other people you know may not meet. Additionally, some solo's just can't be done with more than one person because it would mess with the strategy, cause too many TP moves, or risk someone getting too close to a melee attack.

There are also a few reasons why soloing isn't such a great idea. The first issue with soloing is that though you can keep all the drops, you can't usually solo things that have decent drops on THF so you don't get access to TH. While some people consider soloing to be the pinnacle of skill, other people view it as casting DoT's and running with movement speed. While the concentration skills needed may be high, some question the actual player skill involved. This can be further seen with some of the new solo's that are happening with VNM mobs. I find it hard to buy that casting a spell and then moving one pace to abuse bad mob pathing is a real test of skill at all. The other problem with that is that the ToS pretty clearly states that abusing terrain is a no-no, and while I personally don't think anyone is going to get in trouble for it, I also thought that the Salvage dupers weren't going to get punished either. It is obviously not the same circumstance, not even close, but SE does have a penchant for punishing people and has proved they don't mind swinging the banhammer when they feel it is necessary. Finally, there is the issue of cock-blocking. Solo's obviously take a long time, and in some places, they can hold mobs for unreasonably long amounts of time. A good soloer tends to do their soloing in a time that usually doesn't effect most people (for example, I am pretty sure Kaeko avoids trying to do his stuff in any region's prime times), but in the end if you are soloing a mob, especially a mob that could be defeated quickly by a larger group of people and you are making them wait, then you are going to end up looking like a dick. It does beg the question of soloing though. If you are soloing to test things out and for the challenge then I can see that, but if you soloing because you are anti-social or don't have friends to help you, then you may be proving my point.

As you can probably tell, while I am not strictly against soloing difficult NMs, I don't really understand the motivation to do so after the first test of skill. I think the cons far outweigh any kind of benefit in the case of VNMs. If you do it right, then it really isn't a problem, but for every conscientious soloer out there, there are 5 that are willing to take an hour and a half to kill Krabkatoa or 2 hours to do a simple Limbus zone while people are waiting.

<a href="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Solo.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Solo.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 250px;" /></a>Soloing has always been quite a spectacle. With the right gear, the right mob and a mountain of patience there are a huge number of kills that can be had by the right players. The reasons to solo mobs are pretty simple, all the drops go to one person, it is a better test of skill than doing it with more people and some of them can only be done with a certain gear requirement that other people you know may not meet. Additionally, some solo's just can't be done with more than one person because it would mess with the strategy, cause too many TP moves, or risk someone getting too close to a melee attack. <br /><br />There are also a few reasons why soloing isn't such a great idea. The first issue with soloing is that though you can keep all the drops, you can't usually solo things that have decent drops on THF so you don't get access to TH. While some people consider soloing to be the pinnacle of skill, other people view it as casting DoT's and running with movement speed. While the concentration skills needed may be high, some question the actual player skill involved. This can be further seen with some of the new solo's that are happening with VNM mobs. I find it hard to buy that casting a spell and then moving one pace to abuse bad mob pathing is a real test of skill at all. The other problem with that is that the ToS pretty clearly states that abusing terrain is a no-no, and while I personally don't think anyone is going to get in trouble for it, I also thought that the Salvage dupers weren't going to get punished either. It is obviously not the same circumstance, not even close, but SE does have a penchant for punishing people and has proved they don't mind swinging the banhammer when they feel it is necessary. Finally, there is the issue of cock-blocking. Solo's obviously take a long time, and in some places, they can hold mobs for unreasonably long amounts of time. A good soloer tends to do their soloing in a time that usually doesn't effect most people (for example, I am pretty sure Kaeko avoids trying to do his stuff in any region's prime times), but in the end if you are soloing a mob, especially a mob that could be defeated quickly by a larger group of people and you are making them wait, then you are going to end up looking like a dick. It does beg the question of soloing though. If you are soloing to test things out and for the challenge then I can see that, but if you soloing because you are anti-social or don't have friends to help you, then you may be proving my point.<br /><br />As you can probably tell, while I am not strictly against soloing difficult NMs, I don't really understand the motivation to do so after the first test of skill. I think the cons far outweigh any kind of benefit in the case of VNMs. If you do it right, then it really isn't a problem, but for every conscientious soloer out there, there are 5 that are willing to take an hour and a half to kill Krabkatoa or 2 hours to do a simple Limbus zone while people are waiting.