A ranger has the strength to solo entire game with ease.

[HCTwinJava]

Perhaps like most, I thought a melee warrior was the only class capable of solo'ing through the entire game at all 3 difficulty levels, until I actually solo'ed a ranged char.

My thrower solo'ed through the entire game at the mercenary difficulty level. She assembled a party for going through the game at the veteran level, so that she could complete most of their quests. She got rid of all the NPCs at the end of the veteran level and started on the elite level again as a pure solo char. No NPCs will be hired any more until after she defeats the end-game boss on this difficulty level. Pets are never used in combat/questing. Most of them are pack mules, intended for holding some stuff for my protagonist. She's now halfway through act2. She has not died once on elite level yet. (by dying/death, I mean either falling unconcious or turned into a tombstone).


On paper, this char does very low listed damage - about 150-350 at level 70. This game just doesn't seem to have any good weapon for her. In my old party, Eva at level 40(!) had a listed damage range of 4xx-8xx (with average = ~700) - that's what I hope my solo thrower will be able to get when ascending to the endgame temple on elite.


In actual gameplay, however, my thrower can take out enemies almost as fast as any of my full parties. This is partly because the game scales down when your party size is lowered from 4, 5 or 6 to just 1. It's also because she can do a lot of damage not obvious on paper. for example, she can deal out 10k damage with the take aim power in 1 hit. In a few seconds of normal attacking, her power can be ready for use again. She does about 1.5 throws per second, can take out 2 enemies at the exact same time by attacking at just 1 of them.


I can't explain this, but this is true: She started to thrug off virtually all elemental damage (fire/ice/light) at about level 35, and started to shrug off physical damages (melee/ranged) from most enemies at about level 65. Right now, most of the time, only special attacks from a very few types of monsters (minics excluded!), and huge brutal attacks from bosses and minibosses can still hurt her.

I think it'll be just a matter of time for her to finish off the elite level with ease. As long as I don't make a big mistake, she'll probably stay conscious forever - well, if I do make a mistake, any summoned crystal ball can still turn her into a tombstone, just as it did her earlier at the merc level.

[cdhotfire]

Have you heard of range resistant monsters?

[HCTwinJava]

[QUOTE=cdhotfire]Have you heard of range resistant monsters?[/QUOTE]
there are melee/mage resistant monsters too.
who cares?