Guide to AoE Bard Kiting, here on P99.

Jete · #1 08-17-2010, 01:19 AM

We CAN charm kite, just its really bugged right now.

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

Bump it if you care about it!

Toomuch · #2 08-17-2010, 02:14 AM

Some people seem to be complaining a lot about bards... meanwhile I'm loving it. I'm really mastering ae kiting... if you get really good at it, and can find a spot to always be doing it, I don't see how charm kiting could possibly be any better exp. I'm AE kiting aviaks in SK, just dinged 20, I'm strapped for time otherwise I'd be going tons faster. Anyways the point is I always kite at least 5 mobs, and three times today I kited 7 mobs at a time, one time I had 5 yellow aviak rooks and 2 blue darters, this was at level 19, dinged me to 20 on that pull [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]. I'm getting to the point where honestly I rarely get touched anymore.

Warning: Spoiler Alert (imo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.])

Some personal preferences: I'm twisting with the number keys above wasd with my left hand and using the arrow keys with my right hand for movement, ignoring the mouse when I kite. I've also heard of mapping your songs to the right hand numpad and running with wasd. Technically, you can set it up to do both, and switch if your hands are getting tired doing it one way (that's what she said).

Another important (at least in my opinion) note for bards that want to mess around with this: I personally have been only using a lute to kite with (not using a brass instrument), twisting in healsong if I'm at all hurt, and using both chords of dissonance and dennon's disruptive dischord. I have a few reasons why I do this. By using a stringed instrument the hymn heals you for way more and you inevitably take damage here and there. I HATE to die, so I like to heal up nearly to full before I resume damage if I've taken a serious blow. Another reason for the stringed over brass - chords is NEVER resisted, but dennon's seems to get resisted a TON, so amplifying my unresistable damage vs doing more damage if dennon's lands (which it usually does, dont get me wrong)... imo the damage breaks about even. I find it better to just do it with the lute in order to heal faster, but it's of course your call.

Because the dots last long enough, I'm usually twisting something like this: selos, chords, selos, dennon's, selos, hymn, selos, chords, selos, dennon's, selos, hymn... etc. skipping hymn if I'm at full life.

As for specific kite pattern, what's working for me is an oval. Fairly fast on and off with turn key tapping and ever so shortly holding the key down, repeated very fast, WHILE I'm starting my dot song (so as to slightly close the gap between you and your assailants so it lands). Then when I'm playing selos (or hymn), I'm still tapping the turn key pretty quickly, only I'm not holding it down hardly at all, and the interval is just barely lengthened as well. Makes you run a tighter corner to hit them with the dot, and have more space when all you're doing is healing or refreshing selos. It most definitely takes some practice, but this, to me, is the winner out of all the ways.

Hit me up in game (Relent) if you wanna see it in action or wanna chat it up. PS Lf port to toxx for invis song [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

valorborn · #3 08-26-2010, 05:09 PM

Quote:

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

Some people seem to be complaining a lot about bards... meanwhile I'm loving it. I'm really mastering ae kiting... if you get really good at it, and can find a spot to always be doing it, I don't see how charm kiting could possibly be any better exp. I'm AE kiting aviaks in SK, just dinged 20, I'm strapped for time otherwise I'd be going tons faster. Anyways the point is I always kite at least 5 mobs, and three times today I kited 7 mobs at a time, one time I had 5 yellow aviak rooks and 2 blue darters, this was at level 19, dinged me to 20 on that pull [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]. I'm getting to the point where honestly I rarely get touched anymore.

Your post makes me sad, as does the OP's. Saying bard kiting here takes more skill to pull off is one thing but kiting 4-7 mobs as a bard as the standard is lame.
You should be able to kite all the aviaks + all the gnolls at the paw. That's actually why it is called swarm kiting instead of quad kiting like with a dru/shm/wiz.
Fact that you have to pretty much accept getting hit a few times during every pull makes it impossible to swarm kite. Reduces bards into a force to be less reckoned with than a druid for soloing.

Although I think that bards literally less than a shadow of their former glory (good luck EVER soloing Tantor when they launch velious). It is probably for the best in a way as it keeps people from dinging 5 and soloing orc hill. Not that I didn't make a bard as soon as I logged in the first time and promptly leveled up to 5 only to find out that I barely outrun a mob with using Selo's and no drum. I love bards but I am pretty bummed out about this.

Valorborn

Lazortag · #4 08-31-2010, 01:08 AM

I want to make an instructional video of this being done with spectres (because it's a whole different animal from doing it with gnolls/centaurs/etc.), but apparently FRAPS only lets you do 30 second videos? Is there some other better program?

knottyb0y · #5 08-31-2010, 01:10 PM

We need a p1999 bard board. Who seconds that notion?

Difficult class to learn. We must educate ourselves to educate others.

Things like solo techniques
group techniques
raid techniques
where to go for loot and quests. Bards have changed so much on live its really difficult to find valid information anymore. I think more than any other class we need to rebuild our library of knowledge ourselves for this server. Kinda exciting.

Lazortag · #6 08-31-2010, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by knottyb0y [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

We need a p1999 bard board. Who seconds that notion?

Difficult class to learn. We must educate ourselves to educate others.

Things like solo techniques
group techniques
raid techniques
where to go for loot and quests. Bards have changed so much on live its really difficult to find valid information anymore. I think more than any other class we need to rebuild our library of knowledge ourselves for this server. Kinda exciting.

I also want to create a thread on what people who aren't bards should worry about when grouping with them, but I won't do it if it's just going to be drowned in the rest of the server chat topics. Things like when they get mana song, what restrictions they have on their mez/charms, etc.