Dark Isle Hunting

Dark Isle is the best place for outdoor solo hunting.  It's no picnic either, but once you understand how to fight there, your mortality rate shouldn't be too high.

Know Thyself

• Are you a mage, melee, or archer?  What you hunt on Dark Isle will depend greatly on your primary mode of attack. 
• Do you have melee defense and if so, is it specialized?  If your buffed melee defense is below 500, then you will have to adopt different tactics than if it is maxed out and specialized. 
• How about your Magic Defense?  There really isn't much you can do to make up for low magic defense aside from being willing to heal more often. 
• How well can you control your character?  Can you jump well?  Are you good at dodging war spells, even up close?

Know Thy Enemy

Dark Isle has a very distinctive spawn selection.  There are a total of 5 species types and two variants per species for a grand total of 10 spawns you may encounter.  The two species variants are basically identical except that the weaker version spawns on the beach and the stronger versions spawn inland.  The five species types are:

• Shadows (Degenerate and Depraved):  Top of the line Mage food.  Reasonable magic D, but high melee and missile D, plus occasional shields.  Weak physical attacks, but potent magic casters.  They magic yield and vuln / war all damage types except bludgeoning, acid, and fire.  Weakest to fire, especially from a Shadowfire Wand.
• Mukkirs (Degenerate and Depraved):  Good hunting for most characters.  Moderate defenses but strong attackers.  Strong, multi-striking acid melee damage plus acid and slashing vuln / war combos.  Their magic attack skills are low enough that you will resist frequently with maxed (but not spec'd) magic defense.  Weakest to physical attack types (piercing, slashing, bludgeoning), especially from Mukkir Slaying weapons.
• Undead Ruschk (Shambling and Sodden):  Intended for Melees.  Very strong magic defense.  Strong frost melee and missile attacks, no magic.  Be careful if you took a frost vuln from a Shadow!  Weakest to fire, especially from an Undead Slaying weapon.
• Remorans (Corsairs and Horrid):  Intended for Archers.  Particularly annoying creatures who vuln, war, and debuff.  Strong multi-striking physical attacks and hard-to-resist magic.  Notoriously fickle too - tend to run off after a few attacks or will follow you for miles down the beach.  Weakest to slashing attacks. 
• Sleeches (Parfal and Listris):  Supposedly mage monsters, but to be avoided like the plague.  They chain-cast acid vulns and wars like it's going out of style.  Fairly weak acid melee attacks, but multi-strike ability can get tiresome.  Don't expect to resist their magic.  Weakest to bludgeoning, but should be avoided instead of engaged.

Each monster spawn will begin as four monsters of the same species in a small grouping, hopefully well enough away from other spawn clusters to allow you to fight one group at a time.  Upon its death, one of the four creatures will summon a boss monster and at least one more of the lesser species to join in the fight.  It is impossible to know which of the four creatures will summon the boss.  The non-boss creatures have relatively low health - somewhere around 600 HP, depending on species.  Note that the inland versions have more health.  The bosses typically have around 10,000 health, again with the inland having more and the beach versions having less.  Every boss carries a trophy that you will need to loot when the boss goes down.  Be aware that any creature that spawned at the same time as the boss will also die when the boss dies, but the rest of the spawn will not.  Given the relatively low health, you should take out the spawn before going after the boss.

Get Equipped

Performing well on Dark Isle will depend greatly on your own ability as a player, but there are various pieces of equipment that will make yourself more effective.

• High AL Armor, preferably with Majors.  Everything, with the possible exception of Shadows, hit very hard and you will not evade every melee attack.  Fighting in armor below a base AL of 400 is inadvisable.  If you're wealthy or lucky enough, your armor will have majors on it too.  Do your best to wear majors to buff your primary attack (War Magic, Sword, Bow, etc) as well as the attributes that govern it.  Wearing a major to buff your primary defenses (Melee and Magic D) is in your best interest too.  If you have the slots, Major Wards can make the difference between life and death too.
• Rending Weapons, preferably with Slayer gems.  If you plan on fighting Mukkirs and Ruschk, then you should complete the Killing Grael and Fiun Lunnum quests, respectively.  The slayer gems from those quests will increase your damage output and that's never a bad thing.
• Runed Weapons.  Unless you have Life Magic specialized and you started with 100 focus and self, your best bet for landing imperils on boss monsters is the Regal Runed Weapons (the 120+ wield purple ones).  Even so, be prepared to be resisted, especially by the Ruschk.
• Shadowfire Wand.  Melees and archers shouldn't bother with the Shadows, so this is a mage-only item.  The slayer property on the Shadowfire wand is strong enough that you should be able to take down the Shadow bosses in 5 or 6 war spells.

Other more optional items include:

• Armor Rending, Critical Strike, or Crippling Blow weapons, preferrably with Slayer gems.  If you can cast reliably on the boss monsters, then you should cast a vulnerability (in addition to Imperil if you are a melee or mage) and switch away from your rending weapon.  I personally have a Crippling Blow Mukkir Slaying wand and have done roughly 6500 damage to a Mukkir Hellion with one shot before.  It doesn't happen often, but every little bit helps.
• Magic Absorbing Shields.  Melees should strongly consider bringing along a magic absorbing shield, preferably either Isin Dule's shield or the Shield of Perfect Light.  Both have AL and can be buffed, so you'll be able to deal with melee and magic attacks better.
• Dispel Gems.  You will take a lot of debuffs and even if you can dispel yourself, there will be times when you feel like you need to pop a gem and purge your debuffs immediately.  Be judicious or you will run out in a hurry!
• Tusker Fists, Flame Chain.  If you are a mage, expand your spellbook.  Tusker Fists (from Bobo) can clear an entire spawn in two shots (if you are willing to duke it out with the survivors).  Flame Chain (from Drudge Fort) is a much stronger fire attack that you should be able to use well when starting a fight with a Shadow spawn.
• Augmentations.  Critical Protection may save your life if you like to fight up close and personal.  When you die (and you will die), Clutch of the Miser and Enduring Enchantment will make death much more tolerable.

Last, but not least, you will need to set one of your lifestones to the Dark Isle Lifestone.  There are only two portals that go to Dark Isle and neither of them are tieable.  You really don't want to be running to those portals every time you die, so use one of your lifestone ties.

Combat

Melee combat tactics are basically the same as they are everywhere else in Dereth.  Find a relatively calm spot and lure your target to you.  Melee Defense will make your life easier, but your shield will allow even those with weak melee defense to survive.  Just remember what monsters are the easiest for you to kill.  Switching between a high AL shield for Ruschk and a magic absorbing shield for Mukkirs would be a good idea.

If you are not a melee, then there is one thing that will affect how you fight on Dark Isle, and that's whether or not your melee defense buffs past 500.  If it does, then you'll be able to go toe to toe with pretty much everything on the island and not take too much damage from melee attacks.  Hopefully your wands or bows are tinkered for extra melee defense.  If your melee defense is not so great, then you will need to switch attack styles to perching.  The beach region of Dark Isle has a great many rocks scattered about and fortunately they make great perching spots.  Pick a rock with a good view of your targets, hopefully not too far away but not so close that you will take damage before you can jump up.  Shift jump up onto the rock and then rain down the destruction.  Monsters tend to be fickle, so if they can't hit you, they will run away after some time.  Try your best to kill the monsters right by your rock so that the boss monster spawns near you.  Having him nearby will speed up the process because otherwise he will end up running back and forth a lot and it will be hard to land your attacks while he is moving. 

The perching method works well against most monsters, but be careful of a few things.  First off, the rock can protect you against attacks, but it isn't perfect.  Tall monsters (Remorans especially) can occasionally reach you on a lower rock.  Magic or missile attacks from range can hit you too, so be watching for them.  Bolt spells from monsters at the base of the rock usually hit the rock, but arc spells will hit you.  Sleeches are fond of arcs, giving you one more reason never to fight them.  Second, the rock limits your movement.  It is much harder to dodge war spells from the top of the rock than it is from the ground.  For that reason, I usually fight Shadows on the ground, where I have more freedom to slide cast.  Last, but not least, make sure you are using arcing attacks instead of line of sight attacks.  As I mentioned, the rock usually protects you from bolt spells from the base of the rock.  The reverse is true as well, so use arc war spells and the arcing attack mode for bows. 

Rewards

The XP you earn from killing monsters on Dark Isle (even the bosses) is quite low.  The vast majority (like 80%) comes from the trophies the boss monsters drop.  Each boss monster species drops a different trophy, but they can be grouped into two types, again based on whether you killed a beach or inland monster.  Beach species drop trophies that are worth 13,000,000 XP a piece, whereas inland species' trophies are worth 16,700,000 XP each.  In order to receive your XP, you must decide which of the three NPCs you want to assist.  Each of the three are close to the Lifestone and are far from spawns.  Queen Elysa's NPC is named Kitana Oazaka and is located in a tent by the Lifestone, at 84.7N, 58.7E.  King Varicci's NPC is Francois di Terli, who is camped out by the portal to Vissidal Isle at 85.2N, 57.6E.  The final NPC is the Dark Isle Deep, who is in a structure like the Vissidal Deep at roughly 85.5N, 57.1E.  Each NPC gives you the same XP reward, but each offers a different style of Relic Armor if you turn in enough trophies.  I personally like to hang on to at least one Dark Isle trophy to get rid of my vitae.

Relic Armor

When you have turned in 100 trophies to a particular NPC, you will receive one piece of Relic Armor.  There are five total pieces for each set and which piece you receive is random, meaning that you will likely get doubles before you complete a suit.  Queen Elysa's NPC gives Noble Relic Armor, King Varicci's NPC offers Relic Alduressa Armor, and The Deep hands out Ancient Relic Armor.  Each piece is AL 440 and has several potent spells.  The real reason for wearing a Relic suit is that it is a set, meaning that it casts additional spells for each piece you are wearing.  Wearing a second piece adds an additional minor cantrip, a third makes that minor into a major, a fourth adds a second major, and the fifth makes the first bonus spell into an epic cantrip, which raises that skill by 20 points.  Ancient Relic will add Epic Focus and Major Willpower, Relic Alduressa adds Epic Strength and Major Endurance, and Noble Relic adds Epic Coordination and Major Quickness.  Here are the stats for each piece: