Best for solo pve?

[Fatalis.4368]

What would be a good choice? I was going to do rifle deadeye for the damage but I’m not sure. I’ve researched it for like two weeks but can’t make a choice. I have almost every profession leveled but I pretty much stopped and started another right after hitting 80.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Fatalis.4368

[AliamRationem.5172]

The best overall solo play build for taking on the really tough stuff is probably condi renegade.  But what makes a "good" choice?  Any class with the right build, really.  Popular solo builds are mostly condition-based due to their ability to sacrifice less damage for passive sustain.  Herald, renegade, weaver, tempest, soulbeast, scourge, mirage, daredevil, and firebrand all have excellent condition-based solo builds available that can handle practically anything and deal solid damage in the process.  Even berserker and druid can manage to perform quite well in solo play and still sustain and deal damage.

 

Edit: I personally play condi weaver, which isn't the best but is still plenty strong.  Here's a video clip going up against a rather difficult champion. Condi Weaver Champion Mushroom Queen solo.

Edited August 15, 2021 by AliamRationem.5172

[HokenPWNZ.7628]

staff/staff condi mirage or trailblazer necro

Edited August 15, 2021 by HokenPWNZ.7628

[decease.3215]

Best wait for the new elite.. Currently am aiming at mesmer

[Sikil.9817]

Rifle deadeye has issues. Almost no cleave from range -- only one of the rifle abilities pierces, the others are 1 target and can be blocked by a stray mob wandering in front of the thing you were aiming at. Which is problematic when you want to be mostly hitting the mob you tagged with Deadeye's Mark.

 

It's still pretty good with all the boons and the life gain from Invigorating Precision. I like it better than the dual pistol builds. I wouldn't call it super strong though -- try trailblazer's renegade with tormenting runes; marauder's scrapper with every barrier talent; condi scourge (if you're okay with all the cast times). Or the weaver build that AliamRationem links, which is fun but a bit hard to play well I think, I couldn't get anywhere near the burst damage numbers those videos show off when I tried it.

[LuRkEr.9462]

P/P Deadeye, Shortbow Renegade, Scepter/Torch Scourge are all gods in solo play if built right.

Scourge is probably the best, in trailblazer gear you can solo anything by facetanking it. Renegade is up there as well but has to kite some..

P/P deadeye is nice, its very mobile, heals itself, and gives itself boons. With marauder gear it solo most everything but does require kiting. 

 

Honestly, what class do you like? Anything can become super good in open world (and eventually other contents with right gear)  Metabattle has openworld builds for you to review.

You should play the style you like rather than what you think might be strongest.

Edited August 15, 2021 by LuRkEr.9462

[Farohna.6247]

Renegade is great fun, been running a celestial build, and has been a delightful departure from my beloved soulbeast (which is also fun for solo pve).  Condi renegade would be a very solo friendly build, and can solo the majority of things.  

 

Definitely check out metabattle as others have mentioned for some good builds, and also ask yourself what play style you want.  Like to be a one person show with flashy spells and weapons and some voices in your head, go with a revenant.  Like fleshy pets that chew apart everything, go with a necro.  Single pet that is your buddy or you can merge with, and a variety of weapons, go with a ranger.  You get the idea lol.

[ASP.8093]

So: what do you mean by 'solo PvE?'

 

1. If your Solo PvE is running around doing all of the story, exploration, dailies, material collection, &c. quickly in PvE by yourself, and doing group events opportunistically when you run into them,

Lots and lots of builds will work great. You can pretty much play any class you like, you just need to spend a little bit of time learning the skills/traits and finding a good synergistic build.

 

Since you seemed interested in it, I'll point one out specifically — I've done basically everything except Raids and higher-tier Fractals in this game as Rifle Deadeye. 99% of the time, it's great.

Focus on your DPS with Power/Precision/Ferocity, take a little bit of Marauder gear if you want to be less squishy, use the Invigorating Precision trait for massive self-healing. In addition to Rifle, you'll want two other weapon sets: Shortbow for the exploration mobility and nice group AOE (spamming Cluster Bomb with the initiative regain from M7), */Pistol (maybe Sword/ or Dagger/ so you have some melee capability) for when you want to spam Head Shot with M7 to quickly breakbar certain bosses. With IP and M7, It's a very reliable, easy, and self-sufficient build.

There will be a few situations in HoT where you'll want to call for help on a champion (the infamous Mushroom, mostly, which spams red circles in a tight space and has a small leash range so it'll just reset back to full health if you kite it), but these are also the champs 90%+ of the player base is never even going to TRY to solo, so there will almost always be people in /map chat ready to tag-team it with you.

 

2. If your Solo PvE is doing absolutely *everything* solo, every possible boss and even maybe some Fractals, like you never ever even want to see another player,

Your options are more limited. Condi revenant, as people as suggested here, really is one of the better ones.

 

But! Note that you'll probably want multiple gearsets and a lot of practice. The near-immortality of Trailblazer+Torment Rune Herald/Renegade is a lot of fun, but it also gets boring slow-rolling enemies that would've just exploded instantly if you engaged them with a more straight-DPS-oriented build instead. So afaik most players end up with multiple gear sets and switch over to something like Grieving when they're not looking to facetank a champion for 5 straight minutes. Makes exploration faster and it's much easier to get credit for group events with that second set.

Also, note that while condi-tank builds do tend to have respectable *sustained* DPS on big slow boss encounters, but sometimes you just won't be able to chew through all of the HP on, say, a Legendary Bounty by yourself no matter how well you ace the rotation, whereas that enemy would melt easily (often with you facetanking so other people can freecast) in the alloted kill time if you simply call in 2-3 other players from /map chat.

Edited August 15, 2021 by ASP.8093

[ASP.8093]

1 hour ago, Sikil.9817 said:

Rifle deadeye has issues. Almost no cleave from range -- only one of the rifle abilities pierces, the others are 1 target and can be blocked by a stray mob wandering in front of the thing you were aiming at. Which is problematic when you want to be mostly hitting the mob you tagged with Deadeye's Mark.

 

It's still pretty good with all the boons and the life gain from Invigorating Precision. I like it better than the dual pistol builds. I wouldn't call it super strong though -- try trailblazer's renegade with tormenting runes; marauder's scrapper with every barrier talent; condi scourge (if you're okay with all the cast times). Or the weaver build that AliamRationem links, which is fun but a bit hard to play well I think, I couldn't get anywhere near the burst damage numbers those videos show off when I tried it.

There's kid of a weird cycle you have to get into where you line up the mobs for Skirmisher's Shot spam and then break the line to drop Death's Judgement for the initiative reset. It helps that the 3-4 shots of Skirmisher's you use to get to max Malice will easily kill most adds, though.

 

Also, Shortbow Deadeye (using M7 to power out more Cluster Bombs) is quite viable in more congested situations like the Dragon Bash Arena.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Condi or power renegade is the best, followed closely by scourge and mirage. Renegade is a bit more difficult as you need to manage energy properly, but its not hard once you get used to it. If you just want something really easy but still very effective then play reaper or flamethrower scrapper. Anything else can still be very capable, its just not as easy to solo difficult content. Just play whats fun and you will eventually try everything.

[Antycypator.9874]

Condi Scourge with Trailblazer/Rabid gear and Blood Magic. It's so tanky, that you shouldn't even lose your health. It's easier with minions.

Celestial Firebrand is a mix of power, condi, heal and support in one. Still does decent damage while having a lot of boons and healing. Axe/Torch, Sword/Torch.

Staff Daredevil or Rifle Deadeye, depends on situation, but Invigorating Precision is literally a god mode. Staff is about great AoE cleave, blind and weakness, but Rifle is better for soloing champions. Deadeye has access to boons (Protection, Regeneration, Fury, Might, Vigor), so you don't need any support.

Condi Renegade can be tanky even with full viper's gear, just need Devastation and Battle Scars, but Condi ren has one big issue — lack of condi cleanse in Mallyx/Kalla setup. If you play Corruption/Devastation, your only condi cleanse is Invoke Torment.

[RabbitUp.8294]

Lord Hizen has some god tier solo builds for every profession.

You can't go wrong with any of them.

Edited August 16, 2021 by RabbitUp.8294

[Sunshine.5014]

On 8/15/2021 at 7:40 AM, HokenPWNZ.7628 said:

staff/staff condi mirage or trailblazer necro

 

I have to agree with this. I have both and I can certify they are amazing for solo PvE.

 

Staff Mirage is really good. 10k DPS with just dodge and auto attack. Full bar of boons without playing piano on your keyboard.

 

Trailblazer Scourge is basically immortal. Like, I can solo Champion and not even down to 75% health. Both builds can go Viper if you want more DPS.

 

If I have to pick one between them, I'd pick Staff Mirage though. It's also amazing on World Boss. You stay at 1200 max range, and mostly stay away from all the AoE. The constant dodging and distortion on demand also means you can dodge all the world boss big hits. It's excellent for map completion with portal/blink. Harvesting is great since Mirage dodge doesn't interrupt harvesting either.

[GrayHawk.7560]

On 8/15/2021 at 7:27 PM, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Condi or power renegade is the best, followed closely by scourge and mirage. Renegade is a bit more difficult as you need to manage energy properly, but its not hard once you get used to it. If you just want something really easy but still very effective then play reaper or flamethrower scrapper. Anything else can still be very capable, its just not as easy to solo difficult content. Just play whats fun and you will eventually try everything.

100% agree with the above list

[Zergs.9715]

If you wanna break the game and go full immortal look no further than Power/Condi/Celestial Renegade or Herald.

1. Good health

2. High toughness

3. Lot of AOE cleave

4. INSANE amount of healing from several sources

5. Variety of builds will work with these stats so you're never bored

[Tao.2071]

Personally, for me it's Daredevil thief.  I takes a bit of getting used to but that's what stops it becoming boring. It's exciting to play and once mastered, highly effective.  Plus tons of stealth if you want it, need I say more! 

[Orack.9756]

On 8/15/2021 at 4:40 PM, HokenPWNZ.7628 said:

staff/staff condi mirage or trailblazer necro

+ condi rene, those 3 are braindead easy to solo everything

[Buran.3796]

On 8/16/2021 at 6:34 PM, RabbitUp.8294 said:

Lord Hizen has some god tier solo builds for every profession.

You can't go wrong with any of them.

 Another vote for this. He even made a hierarchy based on the pros and cons of every one of his best solo builds:

 

 

 My vote goes to Rev: you can play either Renegade or Hearld (even core) and go for condi or power specs and will melt almost every content alone while retaining good mobility and very high sustain. In time to kill crushes even burn FB, which is a lot more squishy and much less mobile.

[frareanselm.1925]

trailblazer herald with tormenting runes.

[Genesis.5169]

Necro, its always necro.

Lot of hp.

Alot of healing.

Very easy to play.

Can have minions to tank for you.

 

There is no easier class to pve with.

I don't know what people consistently say mesmer its not exactly a pick up and play class forums gonna get people killed. I have 5 classes Engineer, Guardian, Thief, Mesmer, Elementalist.

 

All of them perform better then mesmer when you know how to play them btw.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Genesis.5169