52 Bard looking to solo a bit

[Macc]

Any decent spots you bards have to share that does not involve swarming? I would swarm BW but I hate that place and my ping stops me quite a bit.

So if anyone has any suggestions be it charm killing or a slower spot that nets some decent drops or pp I am game.

Thank you in advance.

[brecon]

With recent changes to mob MR, charm killing is going to get you killed pretty fast in any tight spaces. You don't want to charm entrance of KC or Ice Giants in Everfrost anymore, you'll just eat deaths. Honestly i'd hold off until they fix the MR issues.

[Velerin]

in before old school bard yells that swarming does not equal AE kiting

[Kekephee]

52 is a tricky level if you want to solo. You're pretty much limited to fear-kiting Ravs in Dreadlands unless you want to go to EJ/TT and kill pathers or ghosts in a fort for not very great exp but at least they're not camped all the time. When you've got a couple of levels under your belt you can go fear-kite in Skyfire, but it's really not even great exp and it gets pretty rough with resists, adds, and those goddamn chromadracs.

Why no grouping in KC? Get a Hands group, pull zone trash like a madman, extreme

[zanderklocke]

in before old school bard yells that swarming does not equal AE kiting

Heh.

[Clark]

in before old school bard yells that swarming does not equal AE kiting

:)

[Troxx]

With recent changes to mob MR, charm killing is going to get you killed pretty fast in any tight spaces. You don't want to charm entrance of KC or Ice Giants in Everfrost anymore, you'll just eat deaths. Honestly i'd hold off until they fix the MR issues.

Not really true at all. Charming resists rates are still favorable enough that it's not really any more or less risky from a resist standpoint - you just have the static risk of choosing to kite those tight quarters to begin with. I simply opt not to charm in tight quarters. The risk isn't worth it. DL has a good number of DBs up until 54 - even then at 54 the ravishings and occasional rager, petrified and voracious brute are still dark blue. BW is also good for this - lots more dark blues and wide open spaces. If it isn't camped - giant fort makes for chain pulls of dark blues up until 55 and there are some safe spots near the ramp with few roamers.

I did just did a lot of charming from 50 to now 2/3 through 54.

My approach was:

-pull 2
-charm one and sick on other
-load 3 dots on pets target
-self selos
-wait 3-6 seconds for charm to break
-immediately charm my target and sick it on my old pet
-having just come out of charm, it will immediately turn and start hitting new pet
-repeat above steps until both are at or below 20%
-dot both down and pull again

If you really want to get fancy you can start slowing the target who's dying slower to make sure they both end up fairly low at the same time. On p99 where social aggro is borked, this is the most reliable way of reproducing (as best you can here) the original intent of swarming ... let the mobs do the damage for you. It's slower than real swarm kiting as it exists on live, but it's a hell of a lot faster than fear dot kiting, simple single target kiting (without fear) or fear melee kiting. With fear kiting you basically have your own dps and nothing else. With the above method you have the sum total dps of double whatever you're fighting (duking it out) on top of your 3 best dots. Most of the dot ticks will be firing on a non-moving mob (they're standing still beating each other ugly).

AoE dot kiting unfortunately is still the fastest way. I swore off aoe dot kiting at 48 and leveled halfway through 54 in groups and soloing more traditionally. Until this weekend - 12 hours lfg over 3 days and I said fuck it and took a stab at BW. I don't bother with 2 dots, so the kill took a long time, but > 30 dmg a tick on 50 mobs ends up being ...

1.5k-2k damage a tick

Still the fastest way to xp :(

With as long as the kill took (and with as much cramping I had in my wrist at the end of it), I'd prefer to duo with another bard and have them relax and play the level 48 dot after I get an aggro lead with the level 18 dot. Kill more than twice as fast and less cramp pain.

Still though - hard to argue with 8-9% of level 54 for about 30 minutes worth of work.

[brecon]

So, all the information that Troxx about to charm solo is good. The only thing I would add to it is that the first round you don't dot - instead, use your SS bracer to DS your pet. On the first charm break, charm the other pet, sic it on your old pet, then DS your new pet. At this point feel free to dot. It doesn't seem like a lot, but a ~10DS quadded is basically another song dot for the duration of the kill.

Being said, I used to do this all the time in the entrance to KC for the xp bonus while waiting on groups, and that has become suicide. If you do it in a big open area where you can run (like DL, or BW, or even Seafuries in OOT) then you'll eventally get charms to stick for sure. But other moves like being able to predictably land a mez or a snare when you need to create some space are not as effective as they were before.

[Troxx]

At 54 the ds is 9 per hit. 2 dots that can be cast in bracer click time with a sharkskin drum ends up giving you about 360dmg total. While it is likely that your mobs will each be hit the 38-40 times it takes to break even, what I don't know is if effective 'damage done' for yourself is reset after each charm break. I always kill my last pet first just in case but if your damage done isn't reset - the dots are attributed to you vs your pets damage and may give you that buffer you need so pet doesn't eat up xp.