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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 4930202" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, yeah, solos suffer from the fact that status effects just nerf the whole encounter, and that's basically what you want to focus on negating. You just have to give solos some status effect breaking goodies of some kind. It isn't a big deal at lower levels, but once you get up into paragon, and especially if you have a really optimizing or at least tactically savvy group, things can get difficult.Still, good encounter design can take care of a fair part of it. Make the battlefield such that it isn't easy for the party to close with the enemy or if they do that they have to accept some kind of disadvantage. Then make the solo capable of controlling the pace and flow of the battle to some extent. An ability to create minions is one way that has worked fairly well. Just having good mobility helps too. Or a power that can make the solo very hard to engage for a period of time (like the black dragon's cloud of darkness). A solo that can split in two is another tactic which can both remove status effects and provide a tactical advantage. There are a lot of ways to do it. I think the best solo fights are indeed not really solo fights though. Make the BBEG a bit lower level and add in some other real monsters that are synergistic with it. That both adds to the tactical options and complexity and also helps avoid those grindy endings that can happen when you have nothing but a big solo monster with high defenses and hit points. You can try some weird combinations too. Like a solo that has a couple of pet Cockatrice. They're kind of a low level monster but one with a fairly nasty SOD aspect to them. They aren't likely to be deadly to a level 11 party, but there is always that nasty little chance they'll create a major problem if they aren't dealt with swiftly, and unlike minions they aren't likely to just get popped en-masse at the start of the fight. Level them up a couple levels if they're really too weak to matter. Another nice one are a few respawning undead like say some deathlock wights or even just undead that can suck life to heal themselves like battle wights. Those type monsters can be hard to ignore and can effectively distract a party from gang-stomping the BBEG for a few rounds.</blockquote>

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