Help on Switching Instruments when AOE Kiting

[miraculous]

I have been trying to get the AOE kite down which is going fairly well. I am currently using the wasd keys for movement and straifing while tapping the left arrow key to keep turning with my right hand.

When doing this I find that I am having a hard time swapping out instruments.

Does anyone have a recommendation on making this instrument swap using? Do I need to use the mouse to do the instrument swap or can it be done with hotkeys?


Also, during the kiting process when do you want to switch your instruments? Before you start casting the aoe and before selo's? Where does it make sense to make the swaps?



Appreciate all the advice.

[Ele]

Need to use mouse to switch instruments in and out.

As long as you switch the instrument before the song finishes, you are fine.

[RoKnRuiN1]

I don't really understand why you, or the other swappers, swap instruments in the first place. Is pulling a entire zone not enough for you already? You only need the type of instruments that effects your level 18 AoE while soloing. All that extra clicking and rushed movement gives you hand and joint problems and you die more frequently. Selo's is fast enough just singing, you don't need to over work yourself, it's a bard after all. If you are super concerned with it, buy a bloody SoW potion, 100 plat for 10 doses of ensured speed is great when you have a train of angry mobs behind you.

[Num1RecommendedByDentists]

level 2 and 48 songs are based on string, level 18 song is based on brass, so yes if you're any good at kiting you'll be switching instruments

you don't want a drum when doing selo's

[Kekephee]

I don't really understand why you, or the other swappers, swap instruments in the first place. Is pulling a entire zone not enough for you already? You only need the type of instruments that effects your level 18 AoE while soloing. All that extra clicking and rushed movement gives you hand and joint problems and you die more frequently. Selo's is fast enough just singing, you don't need to over work yourself, it's a bard after all. If you are super concerned with it, buy a bloody SoW potion, 100 plat for 10 doses of ensured speed is great when you have a train of angry mobs behind you.


Using the appropriate instrument for your DoT doubles the amount of damage it does. It has nothing to do with running faster.

[Stinkum]

It's impossible to efficiently instrument swap while strafe running.

Just put on a brass but twist in CoD anyway. It won't be double damage but that just means it will maybe take you 1 minute longer to kill a gigantic kite of 50+ mobs than if you were swapping. Who cares?

[RoKnRuiN1]

It's impossible to efficiently instrument swap while strafe running.

Just put on a brass but twist in CoD anyway. It won't be double damage but that just means it will maybe take you 1 minute longer to kill a gigantic kite of 50+ mobs than if you were swapping. Who cares?

This.

Using the level 2 AoE is a risk that I am just not willing to take personally. I am not trying to kill my self with that absurdly short area of effect.

[Stinkum]

Yeah, it's really not worth the risk of twisting in CoD for most players and I would agree with that position.

You have to realize 75% of the time required for an AE kite is just gathering the mobs, not the actual AE'ing them down. So trying to optimize the time to AE them down to the Nth degree of efficiency is just plain silly.

[Silent]

Swapping instruments a piece of cake if you leave inventory room and keep 3-4 bags only. I use a UI(Duxa's hotbar basically) where you can literally just click brass in, hold string in hand until dots landed (i always tap bruscos while swapping in my lute) then do the same thing, keep your horn on your clicker and land a chords lvl 2. I don't understand people saying only use level 18 dot and maybe bruscos inbetween for DD. It really is so simple swapping them in and out even strafe kiting.

Gathering the mobs is like a 5 minute process with selos for a zone wide clear of anything in range of you.

[Kekephee]

When I used to solo aoe kite, I always saw twisting the second dot song in as more of a way to kill time and maybe do a little extra dps than as part of the kite. You've got three ticks of your good dot before you have to cast it again, you're running in a circle, you may as well toss the second one out there. if it lands, super, you've got an extra 30 damage over the next 18 seconds. If not, whatever, it kept you from just sitting there for a while.

[RoKnRuiN1]

Maybe it all just comes to personal preference then. I lock my strafe running and turn with my mouse. If I try to swap anything it makes my circling inconsistent and usually results in a pretty solid death. My buddy on the other hand, just uses Auto-Run and taps his keys to turn his character, which I find absolutely terrible, but he won't do it any other way. I feel like swapping instruments is a complete waste of time, but that's just me.

[Silent]

I just like to kill as fast as possible so they can respawn quicker. Otherwise im stuck sitting there waiting or logout til full repops. On a big big kite I wont risk trying to hit EVERY single target with lvl 2 chords, but i can usually hit most of them np. But like I said, I strafe and use mouse look for when it comes to landing the dots. I play zoomed out first person mode, Depending on what im kiting I generally can see a tiny bit of spell effects(low, opacity 5%) on the edge of my screen as I turn if not sometimes a creatures arm or body.

[Mandalore93]

I don't even use selo's while kiting regular run speed MoBs. But then again I have the luxury of an extremely good internet connection. If you learn how to use Chord's in the newbie area it's rather easy once you graduate. I haven't tried switching instruments though. At my level it doesn't appreciably increase kill rate seeing as the level 18 dot is stronger and needs to be reapplied much more consistently in order to kill all the reds who are resisting me. I hate stragglers.