Solo questions -

Been watching videos of players soloing and hoping for advice...pretty random questions! Having gotten destroyed in Ravensmoor (not even able to get to lich), The Rise - I can take out the archers and the warriors but when Lich comes down from throne he brings so many adds I get destroyed, Phoenix destroyed me so fast it probably got an achievement off me....

1. These fire mages, are they socketed for attunement or fire warding?
2. The dragons...some seem to dis-engage and fly / burn me....what is the best way to both keep them grounded and/or get them to land again?
3. From easiest to hardest, would you agree: Yellow (Barrens), Red (Blackblade), Orange (The Rise), Black (Blackblade), Ancient yellow (Barrens). Which ones and where am I missing?
4. I know dragons can be in random encounters, where else may I find one?
5. I assume fire mages are specialized in fire, what is their secondary? Life? Anything?
6. For healing - the most effective healing - would it be wand+wand or wand+ankh? Can one do ankh+ankh?
7. Are these solo mages using Spellbinders Stance or something else? (I cannot tell from the videos).

Thank you!!!!

 

1. don't know
2. Fight with a sword and run in a circle around them, do not stop engaging or they will fly up. If they fly, use the time to rebuff, then make sure you have some speed boost to dodge the fireball
3. You are missing the Boreas Colossus dragon, I forgot what type it is, used to be super easy. Also there is a three dragon spawn in Grundvald Shardfall, you cannot solo...well maybe Mac can, but they are pretty tough.
4. don't know
5. don't know
6. When I was a spec healer I used either two wands or wand/shield, my shield build had me in chain armor as it was intended that I would be taking some agro. But usually two really tricked out wands.
7. don't know

 

From the 2 Fire Mages in my guild, They run sun spec as their 2nd spec (For the int buff which becomes both stronger and gives a spell crit bonus.)
They dont use spell binders stance as it requires standing still, if they do use a stance it would bne defensive. They also socket for attunement as warding reduces their attunement, and they want as high attunement as possible.

as for the random encounters dragon, look for stag encounters.

 

1. Attunement mostly. possibly fire warding for chest for heavy incoming fire dmg encounters.
2. keeping their back to a wall can force them to stay melee range. Tricky thing to learn though.
3. White is in there with orange.
4. You're missing the Fall (white) and the triple dragons in shardfalls near barrens.
5. Life is the best.
6. For pure healing ankh + ankh is best. But its terrible for dmg bc you lack the wand enchants and mw. So for balance always double wands.
7. Prolly not. Fire goes really well with kiting making spell binders stance kinda pointless. I use defensive or no stance.

 

I don't think that sourcery warding items actually work. I had a full set of warding gear, tried fighting Xavara with and without that gear and saw no difference in the damage I recieved. I did see a difference in damage between using Douse (for the +20 resist) and not using it though.

 

I wish we knew. I just tried Riei again. I actually got him down to about half health during one fight, but bosses + light armor still = dead quick, even at level 100. I'd consider making some warding gear for him (and dragons) but all signs still point to warding gems not working. There's a video of somebody doing it with light armor/ranged this release, but that guy is 10 levels above me. So, maybe in a year when I hit 110.

 

Don't forget you can Group with people using LFG to do this content earlier. The Solo stuff is the top players in the game that are skilled and it's there to show virtuosity, not everyone is going to be capable of that.

I mean I love Galaga and I've been playing it since 1983, but there are people out there than are better at it than I ever will be. Same with SoTa. Respect to those players.

 

Grouping doesn't really interest me that much. I'm aware that bosses are supposed to be group content; that's why I don't complain (well, too much, anyway) about not being able to solo stuff. It's a goal to achieve, though. Of course, I'm kinda shooting myself in the foot by going light armor. But I like to dream the impossible dream.

 

If you got Riei halfway down you can get it the rest of the way down!

If you're going to dream the impossible dream, you have to stick with it! And adapt! Make the changes, keep training!

 

Or wait another ten levels.

 

@Xkhan @Vero sets up Solo training times. He is awesome at the mechanics. I would suggest taking to him directly.

 

Armaleon already given you a great reply, but I add something

Easiest dragon is the red one in Grunvald barrens, second place there is Young Yellow in Blackblade Mountain but he usualy runs around with an ancient one so you should engage just the young, then you have Black Dragon which randomly spawns in Southern Grunvald Barrens, Orange Dragon in The rise and White dragon in The Fall, then you have the 3 dragons in Grunvald Shardfall which are easy if taken 1 by 1, but a bit harder if you engage 3 togheter. At the end hardest dragons to kill are Ancient Yellow in Blackblade mountain and Clockwork dragons in Blood Bay and Krul.
If I am not wrong you can find purple dragons in Hidden Vale's random encounters.

About the rest, usualy fire mages run with 2x fire attunement wands or wand + shield with full fire attunement gear, or maybe life chest and rest fire. Also using double wand is better than double ankhs, for 3 reasons, with 2 hard maple wands you have 22% more spell dmg, and ankhs give you more fizzle and more chance to consume reagents, so no great for pve solo. Having fire+life is great for fire mage pve but for killing dragon I would suggest you to use sword, I think it's the fastest way to do it.

For pve you should always run with defensive stance as a mage

 

What i have found as a fire mage is that it's the best at killing alot of targets. If you want to kill 30 elves at once go fire however for "bosses" you can use fire but i find melee way easier so i picked up some blades. If your going to kill a dragon as fire you need to stack Juxtapose with Douse to make Evaporate then you will be able to do some damage and it takes forever. My advice is just level some Blades, Archery or Polearms it doesn't take too long and then when you want to kill a dragon swap gear and go kill a dragon if you grinding XP and need to kill 30 targets go fire. My main spec is Fire/Life and this works for me.