Bard AoE kiting How-to & Screenshots

[Calibix]

Originally Posted by t0lkien [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The margin for error on this is pretty darn small. I don't know if it's because of 200+ ping that I have, but I get hit a lot. I tend not to kite more than a few at a time, and at this point they're all blue.

Those of you who are directing things with a mouse, how do you twist? With the extra fingers on your left hand?

Granted I use a slightly different keyboard layout that most people, but basically yes. I strafe run right, and mouse turn left. That leaves my ring and pinky free to twist with, or if I was going the other way, it would leave my index finger free.

For anyone learning swarming, I can give some pretty good advice as I just went through the same learning phase, and have become pretty proficient. My best pull that I counted was 104 mobs in OT (no rhinos).

1) Settings are they number one thing that will get you killed. I ate so many deaths before I found this out. Shadows off, DoT message's turned off are musts. Turning Sky off, lowering clip plane, and turning off npc name's a big help. Particles a lot of people will turn off, I leave them on low density because it doesn't noticeably affect my FPS, and it really helps me with finding the range on the swarm with Denon's Disruptive Discord and setting up the other DoT's.

2) Better safe than sorry, kind of. At some point, your going to pull enough mobs that if you let them catch you, you will die. You need to make a decision when you hit that point. You can pull less mobs and be ok with messing up once, regening, and continuing. Or you can pull an absurd amount of mobs knowing if you mess up you are dead, but you can pull an unlimited amount of mobs. If your in the 35-45 range in OT lets say with 60+ mobs, don't get greedy going for the lvl 2 DoT every time. Spamming the lvl 18 dot with brass on alone is a pretty quick kill as it is, and most of your time will be spent on the pull anyways. And the pull doesn't matter when you die, and now are actually losing time and XP.

3) Practice makes perfect. I can't comment for tap turning, but when your ready to try swarming, try some test pulls on the mobs you want to kill. Just 2-3 so you can see that your hitting them all. The thing to look for is how tight you can turn because of the difference in mob hitboxes. Remember anything that you can outrun with strafe run can be kited without sow or selo's. I honestly don't know how people swarm with runspeed buffs /shrug. I was quite surprised to find that the lvl 48 DoT's range, though according to the wiki the same as the lvl 18, actually falls somewhere in between the range of the lvl 2 and lvl 18. Glad I didn't find that out with 20 Raptors on my ass.

4) Don't hold down right click when mouse turning. It will probably get you killed. Mouse turn is really funky where its kind of slow, but really sensitive. It's easy to turn almost directly around into the swarm, especially when your kind of laggy due to the swarm as it is. Also, it feels like it slows my strafe run when I hold it down, so just little repeated clicks. Make /hidecorpse all and /hidecorpse off macros in an easy to reach spot so you don't stop to loot on accident.

5) Be prepared. Be courteous. Save yourself the trouble and bind somewhere close. Keep some extra drums in the bank and plat to buy a rez if needed. Sow pots for if your doing low HP with a partner because its one less thing you have to twist. You are entitled to every mob you can reliably kill in an outdoor zone that you have agro on (ie most of them), but you don't have to be a dick about it either. I try to avoid pulling where a group is, call when I have to abandon a swarm etc. People will still complain about swarming no matter what you do, but no need to give them any ammo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]