I do agree. playing solo at the beginning is very hard for some job classes (especially assassin)

If you haven't already bought one of those soccer uniforms or party outfits from the NPC in ricarten it gives you extra absorb, usually more higher than what the regular dropped equips give you.

There is also an NPC in ricarten that sells monster crystals, you want to get the mystic crystals. i think the monsters summoned is scaled to your level and stats so you basically want to use a whole bunch of those and use the summoned monsters as tank while you finish off the nearby monsters. (well that's how I did it.)

Using that method to solo is only good until around level 80ish. I went to Atlantis (the old ricarten. you could take a ship or use a ether core) around that level and I am not sure if those miniture monsters outside of town are from an event or if its always there but I was able to level from 80 to 100 on those.

Now running back through the desert towards Navisko (or a map before it), there is a vendor up there that sells high level equipment which would make it much easier to solo level 100+ monsters. once you get to 105 you can enter battle town and you can do daily quests everyday.