Bard's not able to swarm kite here?

[Jeice]

I keep hearing that bards do not have the ability on this server as they did in live to effectively swarm / charm kite a number of mobs at once for solo xp due to some sort of agro issue a charmed pet has. If anyone can respond with an answer to my question that would be great, sort of determines if I am going to continue this character or dump it for something else.

[Evalina]

I dunno but a guy in SK was doing it today..and seemed to be doing it well. He had four Tcshesm Gnolls, 5 Avaiaks Avos/harriers, 4 centaurs and some other adds like lions. His friend said in /ooc that he was getting amazing exp. I thought he was training everyone so I was rather rude to him lol.

[Lanvaren]

From what I gather, Charm kiting doesn't work here, because unlike live (or at least, live in CLASSIC) all aggro that a charmed pet has generated will be transferred to you upon charm breaking..

So for example, you body pull 20 mobs, you've essentially generated no threat. Your charmed pet does damage to one of the mobs, and generates social/assist threat ON THE WHOLE ZERG and gets a beatdown. You release the pet and finish it off, rinse & repeat.

That's how charm swarm kiting should work. However, here, after charm breaks, all of the threat that it generated is transferred to you, so you can not rinse & repeat. I believe this is was a change they did at some point on live and has yet to be reverted on P99.



Also, the standard "pull mobs and PBAOE" swarm kiting method (likely what you see in south karana) is a little tougher to pull off here, as mobs move faster here than on live (on purpose) as well as have the ability to attack further and our PBAOEs have been reduced in range. On live, you could do this to almost any melee mob in the game, but it's really really hard to pull off with certain mobs here.


Hope that helps. There are some other threads you can read on this, such as:
"Summary of Bard Issues" (http://project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3745)
"Guide to AoE Bard Kiting, here on P99. (http://project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=11506)

[Jeice]

thanks for the info, looks like its time to reroll.

[Arkis]

Great post Lanvaren.

Going to add this well written bug report by Jete in regard to bard charming:

http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=11990

Please contribute anything you can, maybe we can get our swarm kiting back on this server!

Don't need to reroll, bards are still a work in progress IMO, who knows it could be back.

[nalkin]

lan is the man

[Lazortag]

thanks for the info, looks like its time to reroll.

while it would be super cool to be able to swarm kite, Bards are still a very fun and flexible class to play, and can adapt to many different play styles. You shouldn't reroll.

Also, something I've noticed: it's possible to charm kite two mobs (assuming you're able to run fast, either with SoW or selo's playing) by doing the following:

1-get two mobs
2-charm one of them and have it attack/taunt the other
3-once charm breaks, charm the mob that was being attacked (not the one that was just charmed) and have it attack the mob you charmed first
4-if you let your new charmed pet beat on the other guy for a few seconds, it doesn't take long at all for it to regain aggro, so at this point: repeat step two once charm breaks again

This might be easier to do with SoW if charm doesn't last as long if you don't have it playing (I know that charm will recast if you don't start playing another song, but I'm not sure if playing a song (such as selo's) actually reduces the length of the unbroken charm) - otherwise just cast selo's and outrun the aggressive mob after charm breaks.

If anyone knows more about this method go ahead and post. I find it weird because it's so easy to lose aggro on the mob you charmed first, when I thought charm generated insane amounts of aggro. Anyways, whatever.

[Jeice]

thanks for the responses. I posted on the bug forum hopeing they will take this issue seriously and that we can get out class back to the way we enjoyed playing it!

[Gwence]

only idiots play bards

[Edgetiq]

I dunno but a guy in SK was doing it today..and seemed to be doing it well. He had four Tcshesm Gnolls, 5 Avaiaks Avos/harriers, 4 centaurs and some other adds like lions. His friend said in /ooc that he was getting amazing exp. I thought he was training everyone so I was rather rude to him lol.

While I'm killing Gnomes a bard is right next to me swarm kiting in SFM. I thought he was training too but he killed them all I have no idea what songs he was twisting (other than Selo's)

[Tseng]

thanks for the info, looks like its time to reroll.

Don't lose your bard-on

[fugazi]

Don't lose your bard-on

Without swarm kiting, we're just mana-regen bots ;(

[Lazortag]

only idiots play bards

Without swarm kiting, we're just mana-regen bots ;(

Noobs.

[guineapig]

Groups love bards!

[Gwence]

Noobs.

you're a noob

[Cribanox]

please search for my guide to swarm kiting here on p99. It's very possible to kite as many mobs as you want to and kill them all at the same pace.

[Arkis]

I think some people in this thread don't know what swarm kiting means:

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/EverQuest/Strategies/Swarm_Kiting

There is a difference between AOE kiting and swarm kiting! Just wanted to get that out there. Some people seem to have AOE kiting confused with swarm kiting.