Best "Solo" Job CombinationFollow

Due to my fairly erratic playtimes, and the fact I live in Australia, I often find myself playing solo in Vana'diel. As a Scholar, that means a lot of Sleep->Nuke->Sleep tactics, as we're fairly squishy when it comes to harder hitting enemies. As a result, I find myself sitting with a whole lot of original content sitting uncompleted (Zilart, CoP, WotG, ToAU, etc), and really want to try to do something about it.

So, I thought perhaps it's time I start looking back at some other jobs. Waaaaay back when the level cap was 75, Rdm/Nin was generally accepted to be the best soloing job combination, with a number of videos demonstrating the massive staying power the job has both through Utsusemi and defensive spells, as well as the ability to essentially bore the mob to death through the use of DoT spells and a large poker (degen, sabre, call it what you will ^^).

However, times have changed. Abyssea rules supreme for quick levelling, Voidwatch has turned up with some super hard hitting bad guys, the level cap has now hit 99, and we've got some new jobs (with some new ones still to come).

So, for someone who actually enjoys being able to do things solo and really wants to finish all the old content in the game (i.e., pre-Abyssea) without needing to get a group together, what should I be looking at? With all the new jug pets, should I be levelling Beastmaster? Is Red Mage/Ninja still the best for older content? Has Dancer taken some of the spotlight? With Abyssea and GoV providing easy ways for people to level quickly, getting the right job to the level cap won't be as difficult as it once was.

I'm not worried if the job isn't Abyssea or Voidwatch friendly at this point. I've always preferred mage jobs and I imagine I'll end up getting White Mage to 99 to participate in that content when I'm ready, but I really want to do something about completing all the old content, but not need to get some people together to do it.

DNC can outlast most anything that can't one-shot it. I was tearing stuff up at 90 cap on it, until I realized that next to none of the old world content was worth the rewards to justify the time.

Yeah, I know, I'm just sayin'. You could prolly DNC solo almost all of the story except for a few parts that specifically require magic damage.

If what you're fighting even hits hard enough to warrant the use of Utsusemi, sure. Personally if it's not hitting me for triple digits, I don't even bother with it.

The Double Attack trait from /WAR sub is negated by Saber Dance, so that somewhat limits the usefulness of that sub for "Too Weak" content -- all you'd get out of it is Berserk for the most part.

I soloed the majority of my older storylines on either WHM or SCH. With the higher level cap and access to stronger support jobs, it's a lot easier to survive now than it ever has been, especially in older content.

That said, if you truly want a strong solo job, definitely look into levelling Dancer. It's arguably the best solo job in the game at the moment, next to BST, but without the hassle of needing jug pets.

If you don't mind me asking, which sub did you normally use to do that? I tend to sub Red Mage for native access to some of the sleep spells (not that that matters in straight up nuking I suppose as you'd already have Addendum Black up) as well as Phalanx and Convert, but some of the fights tend to get a bit hairy even with all our defensive magic. The Naana Mihgo fight in A Moogle Kupo de Eat (sp?) for example is one I just could not solo as a Scholar (realise that's "newer" older content, but still ^^). If there's a better sub to be using, I'm all for it since I still love playing my Scholar as I said earlier.

I've solo'd all of CoP, WotG, and two nations' worth of missions on BST. I also did most of ToAU, except for the final few missions which I duo'd with a friend because he needed them as well. Fairly confident ToAU can be solo'd by BST up until the final fight, where you'll need some form of magic damage to counter your physical damage in order to make some of the final fight not immune to physical damage.

Edited, Jul 17th 2012 7:36am by Altair

Puppetmaster is a great option for soloing just about anything but keeping NPCs alive. If a dancer can solo it there's a high chance a pup can too. Pups also offer the added benefit of being able to solo anything a sch can using their tactics as well. Pup's can now also handle magic dealing enemies with a much higher success rate then dancer thanks to shell and Phalanx.

Bst is a solid option but there one mission on the bastok line of WoTG that might prove to be to much of a cock block to bsts. Maybe a severely well geared bst could get by it before timing out. But there's a battle where you fight a shape shifter, only damage that matters is damaging him in his true form. After you kill one of his forms he only stays in his true form for a limit time. sometime switching less then 5 seconds. You need to lay on as much damage as possible during this form or else he will just continue to change forms until you time out.

Merited axe might be enough to get by, it's been awhile since I have done that mission so it's hard to gauge. That's the only thing that I can see being a problem.

Oh man... Now I want to drag a SCH friend up to the Throne Room mission fight (which was tough back when it was just released at 75cap) just to sit back and watch.

But yeah, PUP and DNC are both great solo jobs. DNC is pretty hard to kill with big self-cures, Violent Flourish stun, and /NIN shadows. PUP has the ability to use a cure-spamming automaton and solid DD, lots of flexibility in subjobs (I use /WAR /NIN /DNC /THF depending on situation) plus is a little more flexible in that you can go all-in with a DD puppet if the situation calls for it.

DNC is probably cheaper (no need to buy automaton attachments) and easier to skill up (dagger/evasion as opposed to PUP needing to skill up the automaton), so that may be a consideration.

NIN is also quite a good soloist, with 4-5 shadow Utsusemi: Ni, /DNC for cures. Nice benefit of being able to get a ton of red procs if you're interested in solo Abyssea key item farming. And it fits nicely into a lot of parties as a tank/DD.




Edited, Jul 18th 2012 1:50pm by Anza

So, basically level every job to 99 and you should be good OP!

I know it's annoying to pay that for a low level item, but think about it this way: if you can get 700k faster than the time/gil it takes you to raise your Norg fame enough for the quest, then farming the gil is the best way. If not... Well, all the days I spent farming Yagudo beads in Giddeus was a pretty miserable experience, so good luck ;_;

I really do need to remember to think of it in those terms I suppose. I've got 200k cruor kicking about, if I buy up on Chocobo Blinkers (think that's the item) I'll probably have almost enough right there to get them, and that's going to be considerably easier that getting a mule to Norg (let alone farming the necklaces, although I do that on my main and send them across so it's not so bad).

Edit:
Picked it up for 550k instead of 700k. Looks like there's a mini fire sale going on on Utsusemi:Ichi, however now I have the scroll at least! Thanks for the reminder TaimMeich.

Edited, Jul 21st 2012 2:16am by Drusenija

BLU has a lot of options for solo. For the most part, you use it on things you want to melee and which are susceptible to stun. BLU enfeebles (stun included) are pretty crucial to your survival. If they don't land, a pure evasion job like Dancer might be better.

Dual wielding wind-magian swords is a big deal on anything that isn't fodder. The extra 50 evasion goes a long way towards keeping you alive. (As much as I hate taking off my Almace, there are times where you just need the evasion to stay in the fight.) You can further enhance your evasion with Spiral Spin (acc down) and Auroral Drape (blind, -60 acc). These two stack and push your evasion through the roof... but outside of abyssea it's a little tricky to feed yourself enough MP to stack Drape for long. It only lasts a minute and costs a hefty amount of MP.

BLU also shines on anything with relatively low HP. Sky trigger NMs, for instance. (Despot, Ullikummi, etc). Some of them have rather nasty attacks, but they only have 10-15,000~ hp. A good CA-Efflux Requiescat -> Quad. Continuum can deal 10,000 damage in one skillchain. BLU has some of the best spike damage around (on a cooldown), so anything that doesn't have a lot of HP will go down before it can hurt you.

BLU can be used for kite solos, but you don't see it often these days, presumably because RDM is all-around better at the role and leveling a new job is a small task. Crimson Cuisses, Regurgitation, Disseverment for poison, maybe throw in some Cannonball or Everyone's Grudge for extra damage.... it gets the job done if that's your thing. Most people would use a more traditional mage for kiting, though, and kiting has mostly been replaced with pet-spam for mobs too dangerous to melee.