And all of the below are just my opinion.

1. For gear identifying, and this may be a day late and a copper short (HA!), but playing a good-aligned mage will allow you to request items from good-aligned mobs that are higher level than you and then ID them.

2. Sure, you may be in your mid-20s and unable to kill mobs in the mid-20s to ID their gear...but there's still some pretty good gear on lower level mobs that you can use. And if you take notes (or have a good memory), this knowlege will help later characters. So when you make it to the mid-30s and are killing mobs for gear in the mid-20s, you'll find out what you were missing...but you'll still have that knowledge for later use.

3. There aren't a whole lot of high-level mobs with uber-gear that can be soloed by a Hero character...but of the three classes out there that I think are the best at doing this, invoker is one of them. The point is, at hero, invokers are very, very, very powerful. You pay for this power (to a certain extent) by being less powerful than others at the lower ranks.

4. For PK, invokers have the ability to exploit some racial vulnerabilities through their wide arsenal of spells. Fighting an arial? Bust out your lightning bolt. Fighting a felar? Lay down some fireballs on his ass. Fighting a fire giant? Cone of cold (yes, I know you don't have that yet) or iceneedles...ouch! Fighting a human...well, that's going to depend a lot more on his class. However, you can translate this to fighting mobs. For the same reason folks love to rank on elves (iron vulnerability), invokers do really well ranking on (or just killing to ID gear) mobs that have racial elemental vulnerabilities.

5. If you can't exploit a racial vulnerability, don't fight warriors at low levels. I say again: don't fight warriors at low levels! They will easily outmelee you in the mid 20s, probably using a weapon you aren't familiar with and therefore have a lot of trouble parrying. Classes that only have two or three attacks per round...those you'll have a better chance against.

Remember, not every class is good against every other class at every level. This is intentional. But every dog has his day, and invokers are no exception. It can be done. I had a level 14 assassin character of mine sent packing by a level 15 invoker, and I was the one who initiated combat. And I've had heros spanked, I mean *spanked*, by high-level invokers. Stick with it, you'll be rewarded.

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends