There is no such thing as "unable to rank solo". Thanks to item search, it's easy to get a very nice nonlim -AC set. If you're a mage, you stack up insane AC.
And never ever forget free bless/armor on healers pre 11.
If you're a mage, you get 5 rank by initial quests, then you get armor spell which, combined with healer's armor, makes you fucking invincible. This way you get 11 rank easy as cake, then you wear insane -100 armor set with the help of item search and go on till 20s.
As for the PK. One of my recent characters had an easy routine - he just died to whomever was trying to pk him and continued ranking. I think that resulted in only 3 deaths during rocketing from 1 to 51. If you're not obsessed with not dying - you're totally fine, none new one multikills these days. If you're obsessed with not dying - most likely you're experienced enough to powerrank even a snail with AIDS.
