I use a microscope, a soldering iron and some solder wick. I solder all the pins, not caring if I get solder bridges. Then, I use the solder wick to clean up my work and remove all the bridges.
If I'm doing a finalized board, I will reflow it using a toaster oven.
For prototypes, before I got my hot air rework station, I would use a regular soldering iron with a medium screwdriver tip for 95% of all soldering jobs. The last 5% would be with a very fine point iron tip. A flux pen, solder wick, and a good pair of tweezers are all necessary accessories
I use a bent conical (hook) tip for chip components and SOT's. I use a bevel (hoof) tip of appropriate size to drag solder gull wing leaded devices and a knife tip to drag solder J leaded devices. For larger sizes of chip components, I use a bump tack technique and for smaller ones, a dry tack.