I've only been on P99 a few days, but I've been using strafing successfully when I need to without problem. However, if I'm already low enough health to slow me down, there isn't much of a point other than to maybe get another 2 or 3 feet away from where you would otherwise die.

For example, I was using this at level 2 and 3 to train the vengeful soloist (or maybe it was composer) to the guards in Everfrost Peaks so they don't come up behind me when i'm dealing with bears and such. As long as I survive the one or two initial hits and don't get stunned, it works fine.

My question is, would this be seen as exploiting pathing? This one is kind of a grey area, and I'd rather just stop doing it if it is frowned upon.

Technically, druid kiting is an exploit. Don't worry about it.

I read this post, and my response is composed of relevant data.

I havent done any type of testing on P99 - but on Live this DID work.

I think some of you are confusing "outrunning" the mob (IE: Gaining distance on them), with the reality of what happened and why it did work.

I haven't played EQ since early POP, and really haven't used this on live since newb days, but here's basically what happened:

There's a algorithmic function that server side code uses to close the distance between you and mobs. This was based on your client side last reported position to the server, and the mobs last reported position to the client.

If you ran in a straight line, the function worked properly and the mob would close the distance (because most were faster that players slightly), and keep hitting you.

If you used the "Strafe" trick, which basically meant you were operating at a constantly updating diagonal, the function didn't know how to get the mob to you. Because of the way the mob movement code worked, it moved on one axis, then the other, not on diagonals. If you strafed, then stopped, the mob would walk on one axis, then the other in a straight line to you, but as long as you kept strafing, the server side code couldn't decide quick enough that the mob could hit you, before it needed to update again. Literally you could strafe all the way across the Karanas with a mob on your heals and not get hit. There were exceptions to this of course. If the mob was faster than normal mob movement speed, if you were slowed down in some way, or the z-axis came into play. IE: You started to head up a hill, and the mob continued through it (yes it happened).

This however didn't work on all mobs, nor in all zones, and if you stopped for even a millisecond, the mob was close enough to start hitting you again.

The way you described it is how it works on this server for most people. However there's a large population (probably most vista users) who have a technical issue that slows their runspeed. There's an easy fix but since it's not really mentioned in the startup guide and affects a lot of people, it's gotten to be a fairly annoying problem and so you see a lot of people complaining about it publicly more than you see them complaining about other bugs.

link the fix then smarty pants and then we can close this stupid thread

Is the fix wineq2? Because they fail to send regristration email to an rl friend of mine, so he cant use it :(