I'm a terrible solo thief, help.

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I'm a terrible solo thief, help.

Postby harik » Wed Jun 27, 2012 8:06 pm

I've gotten to 3x40 entirely on the back of groups, but whenever I try to solo I lose more XP than I gain.

Solo, I run -7.1 +14+15(+14stabdam). I still have VK gear on me.
Code: Select all
<light>       Orb of Wrath                                 -0.0 AC +1 HIT +4 STAB_DAMAGE
<finger>      a heavy iron ring                            -0.4 AC     
<finger2>     a man's diamond ring                         -0.0 AC +2 HIT
<neck>        zebra hide cloak of the fashion lords        -0.5 +3 HP     
<neck2>       a silex collar                               -0.6 AC                     
<body>        a suit of glowing, diamond-encrusted platemail-2.4 AC -8 MANA +10 HP +1 CHA
<head>        a prison guard helmet                        -1.1 AC +2 HIT -1 SAVES
<legs>        dwarvish greaves                             -1.4 AC +1 CON +1 MV_REGEN
<feet>        black orcskin boots                          -0.5 AC +5 MOVE
<hands>       a pair of onyx and diamond-studded gauntlets -0.2 +1 HIT +1 DAM           
<arms>        sleeves of molten lava                       -0.5 AC +1 DAM +10 STAB DAM
<shield>      shield of the black rose                     -1.1 AC
<about>       a grey robe                                  -0.5 400 container
<waist>       belt of the damned                           -0.4 AC -15 HP
<wrist>       a crystal bracelet                           -0.0 AC +1 DAM
<wrist2>      a black opal bracelet                        -0.0 AC +1 DAM +4 STABDAM
<wielded>     Rogue's Dagger                               -0 AC 3D4 DIE +2 HIT +3 DAM +1 MAX_STR
<low>         a jing-jit disk                              -0.5 AC +1 STR               

Your levels: Th: 40 Wa: 40 Cl: 40 Ma: 36 Dr: 22 Ne: 20 Ba: 13 Mo: 11
Str: 19[17], Int: 16[16], Wis: 13[13], Dex: 18[18], Con: 18[17]

I can't one-shot the stuff in skeep so I get pretty badly slaughtered in there. It takes 2 runs to get the skels/elite wights and I can't even think about doing anything else in there.

So... what areas should I try to learn, and what EQ should I go after? I have -8.4 AC gear, but that's not enough of a difference to help with thick mobs and kills most of my +dam/+stabdam to switch to it. Look at this scrub wearing a zebra-hide cloak while nearing 4x40!

I'm really bad at this, help.
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Re: I'm a terrible solo thief, help.

Postby Fire » Thu Jun 28, 2012 6:24 am

When I was running Templeton on s3 (3x40 th/wa/ma) I used to run Xanth, Kozakura, Infirmary, the Island Maze, and Infernite miners. Also, there are some awesome stab areas on Lyme now.
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Re: I'm a terrible solo thief, help.

Postby Dragoth » Thu Jun 28, 2012 6:46 am

Thief class, has one of the most distinct playstyles associated with it.
Quick kills, quick exp, alot of danger.
Expert Thieves hunt down low health, hard-hitting mobiles, this is why your damage output and quickness of your fingers is directly proportional to the amount of exp you could be making.

You have pretty much shot yourself in the foot by choosing warrior as your secondary class, this gives you an advantage in defence (you get gear with low armor class sooner and you have more health), but is ultimately useless, as it gives you nothing in terms of damage output at these levels, it might give you a better max strength cap when you are 8.40, but at the moment it is a serious disadvantage and adds nothing of what would compliment your thief prime playstyle (it adds no skills that help you splork big exp mobs, except for frenzy, but it's pretty low level).
Th/Wa used to be a sensible choice on Sloth 3 as you needed to get 18/100 strength and Th/WA helped you to roll higher strength and get to max damage easier than others, but on sloth 3.2 Th/Wa has pretty much lost it's appeal.

You have two choices, you could either play to your warrior secondary characteristic, gather as much AC as you can and be a thief-warrior type who kills mobs aimed at warriors (fattish that miss alot, just like in shadow keep) OR get 2 more mage levels, get as much mana gear as possible and go for those dangerous thief mobs (demon web, tony's temple, castle todesengel, ebony tower) BUT you will never be a warrior and will always have too little mana to sustain continuous stab-stab-wind (and heal if necessary) runs, so you wont be very good at either of those roles.

If i were you i'd pair up with a mage and try semi-dangerous areas like infirmary, gypsies, crematory, xanth souls and then move on to more dangerous areas as you gain more experience and levels.

As for my suggestions to you, if you arent already doing this : use frenzy skill constantly as it helps your stab damage, use lion chorus constantly as it helps your stab and weapon damage, get as much hitroll as you can, sing brothers in arms and then sing lion chorus, this will temporary give you a boost to hitroll AND damroll, use supplication skill to summon peri, this will give you a +3 hitroll bless-type bonus ( doesnt stack with other bless spells ) and heals you while she has mana (dismiss and summon again when she runs out of mana) and try an area called Kozakura.
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Re: I'm a terrible solo thief, help.

Postby harik » Thu Jun 28, 2012 3:45 pm

Dragoth wrote:You have pretty much shot yourself in the foot by choosing warrior as your secondary class, this gives you an advantage in defence (you get gear with low armor class sooner and you have more health), but is ultimately useless, as it gives you nothing in terms of damage output at these levels,


That's what I was feeling. I got ma37 in chop, and 33ma winds help some but I'm still astoundingly crunchy. And if I hit a warrior-oriented mob I'm dead meat, they're designed around second wind with their bash-spam, I spent 4 rounds basically stunlocked then dead. The advice I got was to dump AC in favor of +hit/+dam items, because I'm way too squishy for AC to matter anyway. If it doesn't die in a stab+wind, I do.

I've been trying some recommended areas, leadin to dweb, derros, sky elves, infirmary - I can splork right down to the fishing landshark, but that's it. If I can sneak past guardian, is there anything else deeper in dweb I should go for?

Infirmary chewed me up and spit me out, I don't have the initial damage for there, and I took something ridiculous like 800dam through sanc in one round.
(Lung patients)
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Re: I'm a terrible solo thief, help.

Postby Dragoth » Thu Jun 28, 2012 5:06 pm

Sloth can be pretty unforgiving when it comes to making good exp while soloing at higher levels and it is oriented at people who know what they are doing.

Newbies used to just solo stuff at 5 mil exp per hour untill 2x40 without knowing anything better and they thought it was fine, but now, with all those 5x40's in chop groups and recent exp boosts to grouping, after seeing 100mil per hour, any sort of exp that you can solo, even if you know what you are doing, will pale in comparison.

It's a shame that it works that way, but it is what it is.

If you still want to solo stuff, your best bet is to learn an area after you have gained a level ( this doesnt stop you from losing a level, but the chances to lose alot of exp are less ), use compare function, stab a mob, look at it and have a recall scroll handy.

We all were newbies once and everyone had to learn the same way, it's not only about asking someone, going somewhere he tells you, stabbing something and getting 100 mil per hour. People spend years playing sloth to learn what they know now and believe me, part of the fun is finding stuff out for yourself.

Class order is a bit different, as it can screw your whole experience if you chose it wrong at the begining, just because you had no clue, and realising that you have chosen a rubbish class order at 3x40, after weeks or months of playing can be a bit unnerving. I honestly wish immortals would offer a once in a lifetime class order change for every person once they reach 2x40+. This would certainly help poor souls like you.

But just to recap:
Learn your class order, see what stats are important and what works for what mobiles and areas, Damage is good, but sometimes it should be mixed with AC or Hitroll or Mana
Learn your areas, see what mobs you can splork and how much damage they do if you cant.
Do not expect a comparable exp rate to what you get in chop or any other groups
Do not be afraid to form small groups of your own to learn areas
Be prepared to die ALOT
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Re: I'm a terrible solo thief, help.

Postby Fire » Thu Jun 28, 2012 7:22 pm

Basically, I wouldn't worry too much about AC just yet. Get as much +dam as you possibly can, the get more. Then get as much +hit as you can... then get more. The name of the game, when soloing with a thief, is to NOT miss when you stab, and for that stab to be as effective as possible. I assume you use poison? Also about dweb, as far as I know the only things that are really worth killing farther than the landshark are the elite driders, but they hit pretty freaking hard too. And lung patients are just ugly lol, I really enjoyed SS stab when I was dragging a caster around with me to blast and to heal my crunchy behind.
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