Question about solo gear (mainly evasion)Follow

What are you planning to solo/duo? XP or high level NMs? And if xp, what level are you?

Edited, Oct 11th 2009 12:08pm by ThiefKiller

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b330/noodles355/Evasion.png
Set 2 is my standard capped-acc TP set, I'd use this on anything EM or below with signet
Set 10 is my Utsu: Ni set, and I also like to use it on moderately harder things DC-EM without signet bonus.
Set 4 is my full eva/ichi set, I use this on anything T+ generally (aswell as casting ichi). I also sometimes swap to it if an easy mob got lucky and took me to 1 shadow when all timers are down, just incase. Likewise, if :Ni timer is up and I have shadows left, I'll switch to set 10 or 2 untill they go down.

I eventually want Denali legs and hands in set 4.

The earrings are suppa/brutal in 2, and musical/novia in 10 and 4. Res of gear should be obvious.

Hope that helps.

Edited, Oct 11th 2009 6:38pm by Noodles

Evasion is to evasion combat skill as Attack is to weapon combat skill.

Evasion is the total evasion that is compared to the mobs accuracy to determine the probability of it hitting you. Evasion is composed of Evasion Skill, plus Agi/2, plus Evasion+ effects from gear, food or job trait bonuses. Not only does thf get the highest skill level (A+ = 276) but they get 4 evasion+ job trait bonuses.

Evasion Skill is there in order to have a "skill up" means of increasing evasion.

Effectively, Evasion +1 would have the same effect as Evasion Skill +1.

^

When Soloing Higher level NM's for gil/gear drops etc. My evasion set looks like this:

Azoth
Blau (Working on ermine's tail or adder jambiya...still deciding on which I want)
Ungur Boomerang (xbow and Blind bolts for things I can land them on...which is a lot with a decent racc set)
Empress Hairpin
Evasion Torque
Elusive Earring X2 (Soon to get JoL Earring)
Scorpion Harness +1
War Gloves +1/Master Caster's Mitts
Breeze ring x2 (Upgrading to wivre +1's soon)
Boxer's Mantle
Scouter's Rope
Crow Hose (Can't seem to find a damned pair of raven hose on my server ><)
Dance Shoes+1


Its a solid set. I'm happy with the results. Still have a few upgrades to make. But with a good evasion set, soloing high level NM's is a lot of fun.

I have to agree with mel on hairpin and rings. You want to keep some dd gear in during solo so the fight length is kept down too. I do use agl rings during shadow casting tho.

I try to use as little evasion as possible in any solo circumstance (IE none tw-EM, little T-VT, more IT, Lots on IT+/things i might tank/ oh crap moments, and back to none for Sim as he doesnt miss anyway). The shorter the fight, the few times I needed to evade.

On a few NMs, no so much anymore but in the past, I would use a evasion/subtle blow/att setup, use attack food, and let the lower acc rate + subtle blow cut down on TP moves that suck.

These days I rarely bust out my evasion gear on thf. During events that I pull hate on, things die before it matters, and I solo rarely, and if i do its on EM- mobs so no evasion needed. If i go to campaign /nin for some reason I would use it there, but /dnc + mkris is such fast exp there.

I do bring it to events I go /drk. In a pinch, thf/drk can actually generate hate, use 2hr, keep hate, then evasion tank some until whatever happens (you lose, real tank takes over, it dies). In full evasion gear you will be suprised how much some big things will miss you.

I've got,
Ermine's (or DPS weapon)
Adder (or DPS)
Ungur Boomerang (or Xbow)
Optical
Evasion Torque
Elusive/Musical Earring
Novia Earring
Antares Harness
Denali Wristbands
Wivre Ring +1 x2 (or Breeze/Nimble+1, or BQ ring)
Boxer's Mantle
Scouter's Rope
Raven Hose
Dance Shoes+1

I find that my accuracy is too low on very high level stuff. Even when I use squid sushi (gives agi for eva, and also gives ranged acc) it's low. But for serious battles, I usually use Carbonara for HP, which doesn't give acc. Some of these pieces are just collector's items (wivre rings usually), but I think WivreMask+1/Emperor's would be another good collector's piece. I say that because of inventory space issues.

Here's your answer, OP:
[Absolutely get a max evasion set. Get the best possible one you can reasonably afford. Do not use it as your main set (or at least full-time set) for lower and mid-range mobs.

Strategy(1): Melee in your normal DPS set & your full evasion set in a combined way in which you find a balance with your utsusemi timers. That is, you don't want timers to be down and to be taking hits, but you don't want huge timer surpluses from excess evading.
Strategy(2): Use a hybrid set that combines DPS and evasion features. Here's an example set: Denali Bonnet, Evasion Torque, Novia Earring, Suppanomimi, Antares Harness, Denali Wristbands, Rajas Ring, Ulthalam's Ring, Boxer's Mantle, Scouter's Rope, Homam Cosciales, Homam Gambieras. Obviously the optimal DPS:Eva ratio varies depending on mob/situation. Play around and find a set that works for what you usually find yourself doing.]

Strategy (1) and (2) are both fine. On lower level mobs, I find myself going with (2), or the hybrid build. On tougher mobs, I find myself doing something like strategy (1). However, in place of the dps build, I use a hybrid subtle blow one; a mix of subtle blow and evasion, specced for tanking (not to be confused with a hybrid subtle blow build specced for dps'ing). This goes back to what thiefkiller said about minimizing his TP feeding. The concept is the same. Main tank in the subtle blow hybrid, and balance in max evasion when you see wise to keep your timers good. In some cases, however, there are some NM's where full-timing a max evasion build is not a choice, but necessary for survival (at least when you don't have sufficient buffs).

Edited, Oct 14th 2009 8:19am by Shamaya

I could not possibly agree with this more.

And I have 4-5 different sets with haste acc evasion mixed in for just such occasions. And it changes if you have mage haste support etc, but this advice in particualr is invaluable.

I see a lot of thvs I know full time pure evasion gear for soling everything. I even had one tell me that they didnt care how long it took, just that they survived. But the longer you drag a fight out, the more opportunities you have to die, especially on a harder mob. And if you are trying ot tank, you just cant do it in pure evasion. YOu need that DoT to help you maintain hate.

Its going to be specific to what you are fighting and what support you have but you definately want to maintain that ballance.

These things become a lot easier when you have a high level NPC and a signal+tactics pearl.