Hunting Vissidal Isle

Vissidal Isle is one of the best places for melees to hunt and is home to some of the best loot-carrying monsters around. Although there are more dangerous places around, the monsters of Vissidal can tear you apart in short order if you aren't prepared.

Before you can hunt Vissidal, you will need to complete a fairly long flagging process. Check out the quest guide for details.

Know Thyself

The first step in being able to fight on Vissidal is to know your own abilities and limitations.

Are you a mage, melee, or archer? What and how you hunt on Vissidal 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.

Get Equipped

Your character's stats will go a long way in determining how effective you will be on Vissidal, but you can help yourself out by bringing along the right gear.

High AL Armor. Everything on Vissidal hits hard, so you will need high AL armor (400+ preferably) no matter how you plan to hunt. If your melee D is above 500, you can get away with swapping in lower AL armor for armor with majors, but ideally your Major armor will be 400+ to begin with.
Rending Weapons. Slashing or Piercing is enough to get by on Vissidal. Your absolute best choice is probably a Red Runed Silveran weapon. Not only are these either pierce or slash rending, but they also have CS/CB properties and good stats. I've compared a fully tinkered slash rending axe against a Red Runed on Vissidal and I prefer Red Runed. If you are planning on killing the Golems, you will need a Lightning render too.
Regal Runed Weapons. Everything on Vissidal has health scores measured in the thousands. To be effective (especially against Gold monsters), you will need to be able to Imperil. I have good Life Magic with my melee, but I absorb way too much damage when I try to use a wand during combat, so I prefer to use the cast-on-strike property of a Regal Runed weapon.
Consumables. Moarsmen and Sharks burn a lot of stamina and you don't want to run out. Dispel Gems can also be invaluable while running across the landscape.

Naturally, Augmentations are always nice to have too, but aren't necessary. Critical Protection can be especially helpful against the devestating fiery breath criticals from Grimy Moarsmen.

Know Thy Enemy

Vissidal's spawns are somewhat limited in variety, but certain critters are more conducive to different styles of combat. The main species are Shallows Sharks, Moarsmen, Golems, Remorans, and Niffisses. For the most part, everything except the Golems and the monsters nearest the portal spawn in packs. The farther to the east and the farther inland you get, the denser the spawns are and the more dangerous the creatures.

Sharks (Shredders and Gorgers): These little guys hit very hard and very fast. If you don't have a shield or exceptional melee defense, you don't want a piece of these monsters. They are weakest to piercing damage, which they also deal out. Slashing works fairly well too if you don't have a piercing attack.
Moarsmen (Grimy, Mucky, Scummy): Vissidal Moarsmen can be absolutely devestating, even more so than the Sharks. Although the sub species are similar in many ways, the Grimy (brownish) Moarsmen have an incredibly strong fire breath attack. All Moarsmen have an acid melee attack and a fire breath attack, but the Mucky (green) and Scummy (purple) Moarsmen aren't nearly as dangerous. Always kill Brown, then Green, then Purple. Frost or Slash damage works best against these.
Golems (Wave, Aqueous): These watery golems are quite weak to lightning damage and are worth over 1M XP each. Mages will find them easier to dispatch. They cast frost and acid spells, including vulns, which can make fighting a spawn of Moarsmen particularly unpleasant. The golems are only found near the beach on the western part of the island.
Remorans (Sand Stalker, Raker, Sea Raptor): Remorans aren't fun. They have more health than your average Vissidal critter and they have potent melee and magical abilities. They war and vuln with physical spells and multi-strike for the same types of physical damage. Slashing damage works very well. They are also fickle and will run away readily. Or they might follow you across the whole island...
Niffisses (Benek, Astis): If you aren't a mage, don't bother with the Niffisses. They have very good armor ratings and will take you practically forever to take down without using war magic. They war and vuln with slashing and fire attacks and debuff with creature magic too. They have a very large radius of awareness, so give them a wide berth. If you do feel obligated to kill one, use slashing damage.

In addition to these basic creature types, Golden versions of everything but the golems appear randomly. Golds have roughly twice as much health as its normal counterpart and provide twice as much XP for killing them. The real benefit to Golds, and the reason why you should seek them out whenever possible, is that they drop incredible loot. Additionally, each Gold monster drops a trophy that is worth even more XP. When you turn trophy in, you will get a title (Servant of The Deep) and XP. Sharks and Moarsmen trophies are worth 6.5M each, Niffis tenticles are worth 8.7M, and Remoran eggs are worth 11.4M. (Those rewards are actually %XP rewards, so if you are below 150, you will get less than the max for them.)

In order to turn your trophies in, you will need journey to The Deep, an NPC located in the middle of the island at 77.8N, 67.1E. The run is not easy and The Deep is usually surrounded by lots of spawns. The Deep itself is located inside a cave structure at those coordinates. Whatever you do, DO NOT attack anything while you are inside the cave. You will bring the whole monster world crashing down around your head. Hand in your trophies and you will receive your XP and a title token for each trophy. While you are there, you should greet the four human NPCs surrounding The Deep's cave. They offer you 4 kill tasks - Shallows Gorgers, Mucky Moarsmen, Remoran Sea Raptors, and Benek Niffisses. Since you'll probably be hunting these creatures anyway, you might as well cash in on the extra XP while you are at it.

Combat

Vissidal combat depends on your melee defense and your life magic. If you have good melee defense, then you'll be going toe to toe with large packs of monsters, primarily Sharks and Moarsmen. Leave the other creatures alone as much as you can. Killing the stray Sea Raptor for the kill task is OK, but taking on big spawns of Remorans isn't a good idea. Try to imperil as many as you can on the way in, then switch to your render and kill whatever you imperilled. Remember, when fighting Moarsmen, kill the brown ones first, then green, then purple. I don't bother trying to imperil Moarsmen that are already attacking me - their armor isn't that great, so they go down fairly quickly. Remorans who you aren't currently fighting will likely run off before you get a chance to switch to them, so don't bother trying to imperil them either. The only creature I try to imperil in combat are Sharks. I prefer using a Regal Runed weapon so I don't soak up too much damage from not having a shield or good melee D mod. If your life magic isn't that strong, I still recommend casting Imperil to lure the creature you want close to you. You might even land, who knows.

If your melee defense is poor, then you are going to have to adopt a different strategy. Your best XP source will be the Golems, which only spawn in the western part of the island, near the beaches. If you are a mage, you can also take on Niffisses if you like, but those spawn mainly in the middle parts of the island where the large packs of Moarsmen live, so you will need to be careful. Alternately, you can perch and kill things from the safety of a tall rock. Just be sure the rock is indeed tall enough!