Ryzom

Greetings
Recently I left for the mainland, I play a Zorai but was lucky enough to get escorted to Pyr where some people I know have started also. I have no problem with the mainland or the fact its goals are a little diffrent, A game that works to the community is a+++ for me.
The problem is I left the Isle a little earlier than intended to help with guild founding and I am playing a caster. I do not want to go healing although obviously it is a very important support skill.
When i am in a group no problems, I can nuke and heal and just have to not be stupid to survive.
Solo play is another matter, everything level 30+ seems to eat me too easily. I have seen the words resist and interrupt way too often and am feeeling very disheartened. I am not one to quit and this is NOT a whine about caster classes and light armor.
But I have level 40 off magic and about 680 hp from light armor and the ranger set on my top, bottom and shoulders.. Am I doing something wrong?. I have recently used fear 3 and that is helping to an extent but I am finding that anything 'my level' ie 30-50 is killing me more often than not. THe only things i am ok with are level 20-30 and lower, like the capryni.
Do I just have a misconception about my abilities and need to be in pure group play? or is there something pretty obvious i am overlooking here, maybe in the stanzas?
As a note I have hardly modded my spells as there seems very little point, all i have done is made a quick cast low range fear spell, as to be honest with the others (cold and acid 4) you want the damage don't you?
The issue I think is not my damage output as when it works it is good, it is my ability to survive i think.. ( i have the con and metabolism bonuses as soon as I can get them), I want to avoid heavier armor because of malus and in truth it is not right for my 'character'. I am just rather stumped and unsure of how to progress as this problem obviously has a knock on to my exploration, harvesting and subsequently my crafting.

If you can comment with any advice I would appreciate it.. If you want to abuse me then do not worry I can easily go out for that so save your time and go play Warcraft... Thanks to any that help and to you all for reading this.

hello Crooky..

well soloing is a lot about finding the right mob to hunt for your level... mobs of the same class (say, 1* yellow) can have very different hp and resist. as a basic rule, it is a good strategy to stay away from social mobs and those who have a lot of hp like Mekotubs... hunting plants or birds might be a good idea.

it might also be your equipment is not too good.. is it player crafted? good amps can make a lot of difference!

a look in that thread:
http://www.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23876
reveals the names of a lot of ppl who will gladly provide all kind of nice equipment, well worth a try

Glo

Cast time is the killer when you're solo. The aim is to have the critter drop at your feet. Edit all your nuke spells to remove the time credits except for a pull spell with no range and max time credit. You'll need several other nukes with increasing range credits and swap spells as the critter gets close to you.

Your ranger armor is also slowing your spells down, so consider swaping it out for light or even leave that piece off if you don't have anything to replace it.

If you don't have the highest level frosty/icy amp from the island, upgrade your amp.

Experiment to see what works for you, but do experiment. Mob speed, resists and hp are key when soloing. Don't neglect carnivores, they have less HP.

Don't get too upset as your skills are about equal to mine...a little better in pure number even, BUT....I have increased my stats so I have high hitpoints and ..well...everything. I also spent a lot of my points on spell improvements..the STANZA makes or breaks your skill.
There is so many variations you cannot rely on the 'skill lvl' alone.

And WELCOME

"Fear" can be used quite effectively while soloing and many people add it as an enchantment on their amps (instant cast). Raising your HP pool by using hp bonus enhanced Armour and Jewels, or by melee or harvest, is also advisable.

Its possible to level elemental magic completely solo, I met someone in Void today who was level 180 elemental and only levelled that skill solo when he could log for a small length of time.

As has been said, you need to do alot of testing with the mobs you are going to hunt. You will learn that some mobs are virtually never hunted for xp, due to having huge hitpoints for example, and others of the same level are much easier to kill.

Also check your equipment is as close to the best you can use as possible, and that goes for the quality you can wield as well as the stats on the actual items themselves.

Thirldy make sure you have all the relevant upgrades from the trainers....if youre soloing then your max hp is going to be very important, along with your max sap if your casting magic. You may want to play with your spell stanzas to use your stats more effectively.

Ive read a few posts over the last few months saying that its extremely hard to solo in ryzom in comparison to other mmos, this being my first mmo i wouldnt know, but i never really had a problem when I started out, but then maybe thats because I was expecting to be eaten by anything that moved

Thanks for the various advices.
I shall try a combination of most of it, including a review of my equipment and spell set ups...
Also may try to purchase the slow spell variants..
One other question is there anyway to affect an opponents resistance to you spells? maybe a rot type affect, I imagine that it would be affliction based....

Thanks again See you in Atys, prolly as I run from some beastie or another

1- Blame the Island
2- Buy a melee weapon
3- Try to lvl in group as much as possible...

1-Blame the island:
Don't get me wrong, I tried Sialn for a week and I loved it, it is really great but is not fully representative of the mainlands: at lvl 27 melee I was storming across cratchas fields and killing one every 5 seconds from one side of the field to the other...
That is MUCH too easier compared to the actual game which is very tough at lower levels, so the island may give the impression that it is easy to solo the game when in fact it is not...

2- Buy a weapon:
In order to have more potential to solo, make sure u work your melee at least to same level as your elemental magic: will give you more HP and allow you to cast longer when mob is in contact. As well, will give you access to Melee Prot Aura and speed which are very very useful for mages as well.
Concerning the armur, make sure you have highest light armur for your lvl for mage and HP boosted only: will allow you to use HP credits and you Sap pool will not decrease too fast...

3- Find a group
As much as you can, try to lvl in group or guild: if you fight the rights mobs in group (melee or elem), you might get up to 3k xp per kill and you will lvl faster.
A well balanced group (heal, melee, elem..) will aloow you to chain kill mobs and to go closer to lvl 100 where everything becomes much easier (still not as easy as Silan but you may die less after)....

Good luck

@resistances of Mobs

Many animals have inherent resistances to certain spells. Kipees for example are immune to Acid (as are most Kitin). Capryinies can not be rooted, Kizoar not put to sleep and so forth...
And it´s not always wisest to fight the one MOB that gives the highest XP.
More often than not the MOB will kill you, just because he´s stronger than you.
Stick to MOBS that give for example 1,5K XP, kill to of them in a Minute, instead of one 3K MOB in three Minutes and you´ll be fine

Acridiel

At low levels of magic, you might be better off just farming mobs that you can do one-shot kills on.. the individual xp may absolutely suck, but think of it in terms of xp-per-spell-cast, and 700 xp for a capryni may just be faster xp than 2100 for a kipee that takes 5 shots to kill..

but most important... GET DECENT AMPS !!