Bard Question

[iruinedyourday]

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

When you say 50-55 burning woods. Is 55 really where it stops ?

no it stops like after 3 or 4 pulls at 50 when you decide that its just not worth it to bard kite anymore because fuck burning woods.

[indiscriminate_hater]

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

no it stops like after 3 or 4 pulls at 50 when you decide that its just not worth it to bard kite anymore because fuck burning woods.

eh it ain't too bad. sarnak fortress area is legit because it's huge and flat, you just gotta avoid roamers. i kind of preferred the extra challenge, it kept it from getting too boring

[Juryiel]

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

no it stops like after 3 or 4 pulls at 50 when you decide that its just not worth it to bard kite anymore because fuck burning woods.

This.

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

eh it ain't too bad. sarnak fortress area is legit because it's huge and flat, you just gotta avoid roamers. i kind of preferred the extra challenge, it kept it from getting too boring

It's not the terrain or the roamers, at that point mobs have enough HPs to where rhythmically tapping 'turn right' for that long without a break becomes a serious annoyance to me (though, I did my 3 kites at 46 so maybe the 48 dot makes things better). I'll probably still do it every so often, but nowhere near as often as I've AoE kited other levels for hours on end.

[Daldaen]

Adding in a PBAEer in BW may be worthwhile just to speed up kites and reduce the time you're tap turning. There is also the perk if the person you're teaming up with is a 50 cleric who can Rez you should you explode.

[iruinedyourday]

for me its the horrible humm of those wasps... the 45 minuet kite gather.. the 20 minuet dps kite...

...

...I just threw up a little sorry.

rofl respect to the lvl 60 bard.

But - I would not mind duoing with a 54 bard in BW... The solo circle kite was just the worst for me personally.

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

Adding in a PBAEer in BW may be worthwhile just to speed up kites and reduce the time you're tap turning. There is also the perk if the person you're teaming up with is a 50 cleric who can Rez you should you explode.

true dat

[Destron]

I kited to 50. Then grouped to 60. I did mix in some kiting post 50 but for the most part I was grouping.

If you kite to 60, no one is going to know you. You aren't going to have any connections, which help when finding a group.

The bard group game is a ton of fun, don't miss out on that.

[Kekephee]

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

Just be courteous man. Stay away from areas that people are clearly set up at or pulling from. And tell them they're welcome to pull from your swarm if mobs are scarce.

This. The only way you're NOT going to bring down the hate upon yourself is if you go out of your way not to be a dick. And even then, people will still just assume shit. I always pulled micro-pulls, never more than like 15 or 20 mobs at a time, from the dumbest BFE parts of zones where no one went, and I still got hate tells because people are sheep who see other people hate bards and think that's what everyone does. Hell, even at 60, every single time I ever go into OT or FV without pulling a single mob, 100% of the time I always get a tell from someone shrieking about how I'm taking all the mobs and I need to get out and let other people exp. Then when I tell them I'm not even pulling anything, they get all paranoid and accuse me of lying.

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

When you say 50-55 burning woods. Is 55 really where it stops ?

It gets to be more trouble than it's worth. After 55 most of the stuff in BW is going to be green, and since the mobs take forever to die and have huge hit boxes, there are tons of casters everywhere that you have to deal with, it's just a huge hassle for a ton of green mobs. You can still do it all the way to 60, but eventually it gets to a point where you may as well just be grouping. And well before that point even comes, you have learned to hate AE kiting with every ounce of your being, because you can only spend so many hours running in circles clicking a macro and periodically lagging and dying instantly before it begins to take a toll on your mind.

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

There are very few zones bards can AE kite due to mob Runspeed, amount of open space, size of mob hitboxs a and prevalence of casters.

18-24 East Karana
18-25 Overthere
25-30 South Karana
30-50 Overthere
50-55 Burning Woods

99% of all complaining occurs in Overthere. The thing those people neglect to mention is a the Sarnak casters, tigers and rhinos the bards don't pull. Plus... OT is really a kiter zone if you're grouping there, you should try another zone.

Add FoB, FV, Nro, NK, and Oasis in there as less-common but entirely possible bard kiting areas. If you're really good you can also do it in WW, but I gave up on that pretty quickly myself because there are no open spaces and it was too much hassle to dodge trees. Also I kept getting lost. You'll have to really watch yourself in FoB, Nro, and Oasis, because there are so many low-level toons grinding there, and especially in Nro there are so few mobs. People will be very easily upset.

[tanknspank]

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

Add FoB, FV, Nro, NK, and Oasis in there as less-common but entirely possible bard kiting areas. If you're really good you can also do it in WW, but I gave up on that pretty quickly myself because there are no open spaces and it was too much hassle to dodge trees. Also I kept getting lost. You'll have to really watch yourself in FoB, Nro, and Oasis, because there are so many low-level toons grinding there, and especially in Nro there are so few mobs. People will be very easily upset.

Any suggestions for pre-18 levels that won't step on people's toes? I have a little bard I did kobolds in SF (at a very very late hour when noone was in the zone) with. Not a char I play often, but sometimes bard AE kiting is a welcome change of pace from grouping / charming / rotting with my other chars.

[Getsmurfed]

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

I kited to 50. Then grouped to 60. I did mix in some kiting post 50 but for the most part I was grouping.

If you kite to 60, no one is going to know you. You aren't going to have any connections, which help when finding a group.

Verified, 60 bard here as well, my first EQ char to 60 and first time EVER playing EQ has been here on my bard. It's going to be hard to find groups unless you make your own, or if you've got an active guild. But once you get in with the current "crowd" of people in the area you'll find groups easier. Mix it up and get XP the way you want to. If you spend all your time LFG and not getting groups, or if you spend all your time kiting you're going to want to quit either way. The hybrid penalty isn't too bad 50-54 but once you get into 55 and beyond it really starts to hurt. Find another bard to kite with and you'll be golden. I levelled with Jete and in about 12 hrs of kiting we banged out nearly 60% of 59-60 for him. I got into HS west and grinded for about 12 hrs on Sat, then 6-8hrs on Sunday and got 59-60 in 2 days.

EDIT: Granted when I was doing HS west with a group I had it stacked with 3-4 dps and a healer. I was tanking / pulling / ccing all myself which greatly sped up the process. I don't want to think how many completed clears we had =x

[Kekephee]

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

Any suggestions for pre-18 levels that won't step on people's toes? I have a little bard I did kobolds in SF (at a very very late hour when noone was in the zone) with. Not a char I play often, but sometimes bard AE kiting is a welcome change of pace from grouping / charming / rotting with my other chars.

If you want to AE kite pre-18, with the caveat that pre-18 AE kiting is its own entirely different animal because the pre-18 PBAOE has a shorter range than the 18 one (so it's a lot harder) you can pretty much do it in any of the noob zones other than Innothule because there's always big open space in all of them. Misty Thicket would be good. Both Commons are good. Like I said, Nro and Oasis. If it were me, I would do FoB until like...10? I think you can actually do FoB into your teens but I don't really know. Or, if you don't want to go all the way out there, Steamfont until around 8-10 and move to EC, EC until around 12 and move to Nro, Nro until around 15 or 16 and move to Oasis, Oasis until around 18-20 and move to SK, SK until around 28-30 and move to LOIO for just a couple levels, then to OT, and from there your options are pretty much limited to OT-DL-BW with slight deviation.


There's overlap between zones, which is good. Too many people in SK, you move to LOIO for a while. Too many people in LOIO, try a little OT. You don't always have to pull 100 mobs. You can do pulls with 8 mobs and that's still twice as good as quadding. People think a zone is shut out to them because there's only 15 mobs up that con black to them so they have to move to the next zone where there's 100 yellows, then they get pissy because some other bard is taking those 100 yellows. You have to understand that every other bard on this server is now your brother, but they are also competition, your enemy, your anathema, and you're better off avoiding them by finding someplace where they aren't than crashing into them and arguing and training each other over that sweet, sweet OT cornucopia.