Tips for Soloing QWZ Dailies

pwestolemyname

So, this has been coming up quite a lot recently, how solo-friendly the QWZ is. Of course, the mission descriptions recommend 2, and I recommend 3 for EZ steamrolling (if you coordinate and stay together), BUT I know that some people are obstinate soloists and then other people just don't always have the opportunity to gather a group quickly. So, I thought it would be cool to put together a list of tips to help the less experienced soloists out. I'll start with mine, others can add more. Note that this is NOT a place to say "git gud n00b" or "soloists are lame" or anything like that. Just real tips for making life easier in the purple zone. These tips can include strategies (take out this guy first) or build tweaks (always good to have a stun) or whatever.

I'm not really going to talk about build or gear, other than to say, don't take all garbage powers and junk gear. Sure, take a few garbage powers for theme, or to enhance the difficulty, but not ALL of them. If you don't know what are garbage powers, post your questions in the builds forum and people will surely help you out. For gear, just some of that gear that drops from the level 40 quest lines will do, and nice secondaries can be had for a few G in the AH.

But my tip is this, get you some nice devices to help you along your way. I recommend Psionic Accelerator (everyone's doing it), Ice Grenade and Archer's Memory. The Archer's Memory may be tough to get because it is an event item, so you can substitute Empowered Dragon Staff instead. The good thing about these is that none of them need to be farmed. Psionic Accelerator and Ice Grenade are both bought from the Drifter. Sometimes the Empowered Dragon Staff can be had for a few G on the AH (other times, it's expensive), not sure where it is sold from normally, but look around, you can find it. If not, there are other devices around with similar stats. Look around at the various devices in the stores and AH and you might find others that work even better for you.

The idea here is to do a little clearing from 100 feet before you go launching in on them, while also having a little bit of battlefield control. With these 3, you can usually clean off or mostly clean off the henchbeings and take a good bite out of the higher level mobs. The Paralyze on Psi Acc slows them down a bit, as does the root on Ice Nade.

For my CC/DPSer, who is both moderately squishy and not very good at damage, the addition of these 3 items made the missions go from just under impossible (sometimes impossible) to relatively smooth. I still have to be careful, but it took a fairly mediocre build from nearly impossible to doable with effort.

Hopefully, we will get some other good suggestions in here.

aesica

My personal recommendation is pretty simple:

• Find some way to work Invulnerability into your builds if you're freeform, no matter what role your character is made for.

You can still use your favorite offensive or support passive for group content, but think of Invulnerability as that thing you put on when you decide to go soloing the harder stuff to make it bearable. It really does make the content go from "jesus christ I need help because I keep getting splattered" to "this is actually manageable."

Advice for specific packs, assuming you have Invulnerability and thus can soak hits decently while blocking:

• A good way to open against any group is to either mass-CC if you have one, but if not, 1-shotting the strongest thing you can is best, even if it's just a henchman.
• Horrors: Pick off the weak ones, then the medium ones, then finish with the strong ones. Overall, they can deal a lot of damage as a group, so anything you can kill quickly, you should. The cultists are the ones who shield everything else. They also have a charged attack that knocks you back a fair distance. Block it because you don't want to land in another pack of crap.
• Nightmare Demolisher: Pretty boring and tedious. Block his attacks, stick in counterattacks when you can. Try not to let him knock you into another pack of things.
• Elder Worms: Always target Followers first. Kill them in the opener if you can, because they heal for a ton and it really sucks when a nearby Sorcerer shields them first. Next, target Sorcerers since they are the ones that put the annoying shield on everything else. You can try to either block/heal until the shield drops, then burn them down, or if you're feeling frisky, burn down the shield, followed by the offending Sorcerer.
• Substantiators: Minimize the damage dealt by that god-awful triple-worm summon they do by 1) anticipating and blocking to prevent the stun/drag portion, and 2) range or line-of-sight the worms to avoid getting mowed down. They'll first show as 3 glowy orbs on the ground, so if you see those, run away. Do this as quickly as possible (Teleport is great) or if you must, turtle-walk your way out of range with block.
• Destroids: Unless you're melee, try to stay out of melee range with Trooper Bots since they use Rifle Butt, a melee stun. Block any Chest Beams you see charging up early to manage the knockback, since for whatever reason, blocking takes a second or two to properly bestow its knockback protection which is utterly retarded. Getting knocked into another pack by this can be fatal.
• Annihilator Bots: You'll generally want to block right after engaging. One of the first things they'll do is use their nasty energy drain, usually followed by a rocket punch...thing that knocks you back. Their friends will probably blow their Chest Beams during this time, too. After that, you should be free to wreck them and their sidekicks, since all of their knockbacks will be expended for the moment. Also note that the energy drain messes with block by sometimes switching it off for no apparent reason. If you're taking huge chunks of damage while "blocking," make sure you're actually still blocking.

Other useful abilities:

• Teleport: Great for getting away in a pinch. This also acts as a sort of lesser stealth, allowing you to sneak around more easily, or gives you time to select your opening target more carefully.
• Self healing: Conviction and Bountiful Chi Resurgence are both great. Lifedrain (and its clones) are also handy. Resurgence is a great emergency button and Rebirth will save your stars (and time) if a pull goes unexpectedly pear-shaped.
• Ebon Void, Force Shield, Telekinetic Shield: All 3 have advantages with useful lingering bonuses that play well with Invulnerability.
• AoE CC, such as Mental Storm or Grasping Shadows. I especially like Grasping Shadows for its Devouring Darkness advantage.

​​

pantagruel01

aesica said:

Also note that the energy drain messes with block by sometimes switching it off for no apparent reason.

It's got a reason, though somewhat nonsensical -- if it's already reduced your energy to zero, you can't activate any powers, even ones that cost zero, such as blocking.

spinnytop

Shameless self promotion: http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/championsonline#/discussion/1207307/videos-of-various-characters-soloing-the-q-zone

So what you'll notice in the videos ( and more so as I post more ):

Burst Damage!

• i.e. having an attack that does a whole lot of damage all at once.
• It allows you to immediately remove one or more enemies from the fight which can remove some of the more troublesome mobs - the best example of this is in the worm area. The ability to wipe out a Sorcerer, Substantiator, or the little ones that heal can be the difference between a drawn out fight and a quick assassination
• Healing mobs put out a lot of healing and can potentially out-heal your dps; the solution is to 100-0 them in one attack.
• Burst damage is great for evasive playstyles.

Movement is useful

• If you're squishy then you can benefit greatly from running away after a volley of attacks.
• The key is making sure to start moving soon enough - if you wait too long then you'll just die while running away.
• Get out of range or behind some cover and recover your health, then get back in there and quickly put out another volley of attacks.
• With some good use of ring-around-the-rosy with nearby terrain you can even get the group of npcs to split up which will allow opportunities to take them on in smaller groups or even one on one.
• Having bursty damage for this works great.
• This works with both ranged and melee toons - it's a bit more demanding on melee toons, but they generally do more damage and faster bursts so it works out.
• Special Tip: If you see a Substantiater casting his mind worm ability ( hands raised to the sky ) and you know you can't stop him, start moving right away and don't stop until you see the worms appear - then keep moving until you're out of their range. That's that problem solved!
• NOTE: Be aware of surrounding groups of NPCs. If you run into one of them by accident, just keep running and let everything reset.

Stuns, Knocks, Interrupts and Placates are useful

• Holds, Interrupts and Knocks can all be used to interrupt NPCs when they are doing those annoying things you hate them for. Substantiater about to summon mind worms? Use one of these wonderful effects to stop it from doing that.
• Paralyze and Sleep can be used to help manage the amount of damage coming at you by taking some of the bigger damage dealers out of the fight momentarily.
• They can also be used to force an NPC to stay behind when you kite the rest of the group away.
• Knocks can also be used to scatter the group. Send several NPCs flying off into the distance and they're out of your hair for a bit. You can even knock every part of the group all over the place and then pick one to follow - this provides you with a nicely scattered out group, just be careful you don't follow an NPC off into another group.
• Placates such as Smoke Grenade or Ego Placate can similarly be used to keep enemies off your back for a few seconds.
• These tactics can buy you the time you need to put out some good damage.

Kill Order

• It's important to have a plan in mind when you pull a group of mobs. Diving in and hoping it works out is generally a bad idea, and even tankier builds will end up having a longer battle because of it.
• The actual kill order will depend on your build and the composition of the target group. You'll need to experiment some with various strategies to figure out exactly what works for your character.
• For example if you're approaching a worm group and they have a Sorcerer and a Follower, and you have enough damage to one-shot the Sorcerer then that should be your first target. However, if you can't reliably one shot them then it makes more sense to go after the Follower since they'll just heal whatever damage you do manage to do before the Sorcerer bubbles everyone. Starting out by Holding or Knocking the Sorcerer can work as well since it will potentially prevent that annoying bubble.
• The worms are generally the most complicated group in the zone with the most top priority targets: Sorcerers, Substantiaters, and Followers - in that order depending on what you can one shot first. Past the initial pull the order becomes Followers, Sorcerers, Substantiaters.

Flight

• Flight is still useable in the Q-Zone. However, you'll want to be able to get rid of the NPCs that cast Gravity as fast as possible - preferably one-shot them at the start of the fight. If you can't do this due to low damage output then it's best to start the fight on the ground.
• The mobs that cast Gravity are generally the biggest one in the group: Annihilator Bots, Saw Tooth, High Annelid, Substantiator, Unstable Brute, Nightmare Demolisher, Dark Disciple, Qliphitic Acolyte, and Soul Torturer.
• I might have missed some on that list but those are the ones I remember being able to fly around unharrassed after I killed them.

THE GOLDEN RULE

• Always stick to your theme!
• If you feel like it.

​​

chaosdrgnz43

Tips I can give are:

1) When Annihilator Bots do their energy drain, just Block. Keep blocking until they finish their animation
2) For Elder Worms, Kill Followers first. Those buggers are mighty annoying. Also, always try to stun/interrupt Subjugator's summon.
3) If you're using vehicles, get Incendiary Round and/or Gravity Pulse. Use Incendiary rounds quickly and fly out of their range (not too far since they might reset). When going back in, try to stick to the ground because they will use gravity on you. Sticking to the ground will save you from fall dmg. When Gravity expires, you can fly away again quickly.
4) If you have Sentinel mastery, try getting Primus Spark Shield and try to aoe stun as many mobs with your powers/devices. You get heals when they try to attack you. It sorta works like a mini-Regen.
5) Always have a healing power/device/advantage. Survivability goes a long way in these fights.

sterga

Debuffs and Controls.

Challenge is available on almost everything. If you want to use this character in content where they won't be a tank, don't put it on your main power. Disorient also reduces enemy damage to you. Fear is another damage debuff. Howl can fear, Challenge, snare, and/or knock down.

The Sorcery tree now has plenty of powers with debuffs. Hex of Suffering can be clicked at the beginning of a fight. In fact, you could do an entire build with DoTs.

Brimstone with Aftershock can do AoE, is quick, knocks down, apply Challenge, and apply Clinging Flames which can be used with Absorb Heat for healing. Pyre + Backdraft + Challenge or Flashfire + Sweltering Heat + Challenge can do similar.

Thunderclap is a great AoE stun that comes with Challenge and can proc Sentinel Mastery.

My laser sword character starts a fight with Particle Wave (Bad Footing+Challenge) and Particle Smash (R2+Null Value). Disorient, Challenge, stun, particle damage debuff, knock down all at the beginning of the fight.

I could go on, but there are powers everywhere that can apply nice crowd controls and debuffs.

Background Healing

The Rush of Battle is nice for farming the Warzone. 5/10/15% of my HP over 5s when I kill an enemy? Woo! You can get purple def/utility secondaries that give 338 flat health. They're only 15scr each and also have 20 con each. That's an easy ~1k HP for more Rush. Just make sure to kill a weak enemy early on in the fight.

If you use Invuln and need more HP, slipping into tank role doesn't hurt your damage, but gives you more HP.

Elixir is amazing if you can afford one.

Everlasting Light and Mend aren't really that good. Maybe if you have a decent amount of bonus healing or Pre, but on a non support / healer build, pretty 'meh'.

Powers

My favorite power to use is Sword Cyclone since I can easily move over to the mob I want to kill first while still doing damage. Epidemic is also good for this reason. Mob pathing in CO is kinda rubbish, so stuff like this helps. Tab targeting is also sad, so not needing to deal with that is nice.

Vortex Chains can probably work. You get a small HoT and knock, but the damage isn't that good and you can't move around while swinging.

Voodoo Doll shield lets you reflect some damage while blocking. Something you'll probably end up doing often. Parry also has some damage reflection. Electric Shield/Electric Vengeance can do damage while blocking but requires high energy equilibrium and uses energy when you do damage. Plus, it's 3 flipping points for that.

Gear

These aren't required, just nice to have.

OnSlaught Gloves of the Defender. You get a small shield based on how much damage you do.
OnSlaught Gloves of Lots of Flat HP. It gives you as much HP as the Justice Primary Defense gear does. (~553 HP)

Both of these also let you slot a r5 enhancement mod. Yes, they're tedious to get, but not hard.​​

nepht

For DPS I have actually found Q-zone easier with range.

kamokami

My tip is to bulldoze everyone with a vehicle with incend rounds + plasma beam

decorumfriends

Question for sterga:

Why the heavy emphasis on Challenge? You're solo, keeping their aggro is kind of a moot point.

spinnytop

decorumfriends said:

Question for sterga:

Why the heavy emphasis on Challenge? You're solo, keeping their aggro is kind of a moot point.

Challenge applies a small damage penalty on targets, causing them to deal a little bit less damage. I personally wouldn't bother with it unless it's part of a suite of damage reduction debuffs that can be applied quickly and liberally and your character is already somewhat tanky.

decorumfriends

Ah, I did not know that. Thanks!

sterga

decorumfriends wrote: »

Question for sterga:

Why the heavy emphasis on Challenge? You're solo, keeping their aggro is kind of a moot point.

Not really heavy emphasis, it's just a super easy and cheap (only 1pt) to get damage debuff. Stuff like disorient and fear aren't so widely available. Taking less damage is something people don't tend to think about when mitigating damage, but is still helpful. More useful than Illuminate or Everlasting light on a non support toon.​​

pwestolemyname

Excellent tips, all!

aesica

For damage reduction, I like to use void shift + emerging nightmares. For just a quick tap with a 3 sec (base) cooldown and minimal energy cost, I can make everything near the target instantly deal less damage and it gets me in range quickly for melee, or even for ranged if I'm using AoE and want things clustered together.

Challenge has the drawback of extra threat, which doesn't matter solo, but might be a pain in group content unless you plan on tanking in some capacity.​​

sterga

aesica wrote: »

Challenge has the drawback of extra threat, which doesn't matter solo, but might be a pain in group content unless you plan on tanking in some capacity.

"If you want to use this character in content where they won't be a tank, don't put it on your main power."

A proper tank should be able to hold aggro against someone that just has Challenge. And, in most content, a character that can solo the Warzone can probably be the tank.​​

spinnytop

sterga said:

And, in most content, a character that can solo the Warzone can probably be the tank.​​

I haven't posted a video yet of a character that could feasibly tank anything o3o soon tho.

avianos

You guys forget the most useful Devices that help soloing Qzone dailies A LOT

The damage resistance consumables from Hermes Vendor are incredible, of course you do need hermes tokens to buy them first but they worth it

Using the Ego Resistance device makes the Worms dailies really pleasant
of course different mobs will have different types of damage, buts they are extremly helpful​​

aesica

sterga wrote: »

aesica wrote: »

Challenge has the drawback of extra threat, which doesn't matter solo, but might be a pain in group content unless you plan on tanking in some capacity.

"If you want to use this character in content where they won't be a tank, don't put it on your main power."

A proper tank should be able to hold aggro against someone that just has Challenge. And, in most content, a character that can solo the Warzone can probably be the tank.

If they follow the advice of most of us here and take good defensive abilities, then yeah, that's probably true. If they follow the advice of a certain obnoxious individual who keeps making random videos, then probably not since hit-and-run cheese only goes so far.

Also, "proper" tanks seem to be pretty rare outside endgame content. Part of the reason why I always build defensive passives and loads of self-healing into my characters is because I got sick of always dying due to aggro, despite there being 2 dudes in the group with a shield icon by their name.​​

pwestolemyname

avianos said:

You guys forget the most useful Devices that help soloing Qzone dailies A LOT



The damage resistance consumables from Hermes Vendor are incredible, of course you do need hermes tokens to buy them first but they worth it



Using the Ego Resistance device makes the Worms dailies really pleasant

of course different mobs will have different types of damage, buts they are extremly helpful​​

Good tip. I use the crushing ones when I roll the Onslaught Behemoth (or whatever that big big guy is called).

spinnytop

aesica said:

If they follow the advice of a certain obnoxious individual who keeps making random videos, then probably not since hit-and-run cheese only goes so far.

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/championsonline#/discussion/1207307/videos-of-various-characters-soloing-the-q-zone/p1

The faster you move, the further you go

pwestolemyname

spinnytop said:

aesica said:

If they follow the advice of a certain obnoxious individual who keeps making random videos, then probably not since hit-and-run cheese only goes so far.

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/championsonline#/discussion/1207307/videos-of-various-characters-soloing-the-q-zone/p1

The faster you move, the further you go

Thanks for the shoutout in your thread! LOL and I see my name in your video! Woot!

jaazaniah1

I wish we had a "Hero Creator" for vehicles (hint, hint ) I'm curious what types of vehicles, mods and weapons people are using for QZ. I have a Night Warrior build who needs lots of SCR and I want to try the vehicle method of farming now (I can brute force the dailies with my main).