Bard swarming ruins classic experience.

[zanderklocke]

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

I've tried swarm kiting on this server and social mobs don't properly assist onto your charmed pet. The only time they do is when your pet goes under 20% and gets low HP aggro.

The only reason they wouldn't assist in classic is if you previously charmed the mob (1 charm was sufficient aggro for them to ignore your new pet and chase you) or if you had DoT'd them once or twice.

The one way I've seen swarming sort of work is if you charm a mob and send it into one mob in a train. It'll pull one mob out of the train and start attacking it; the mob will leave the train as long as you don't have too much aggro on it from a snare or another high aggro song. If you run the train back over that mob you charmed, all the mobs on the same faction as the mob you sent your charmed pet after will then attack your charmed mob.

I'm guessing this isn't how it worked in classic?

[Daldaen]

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

The one way I've seen swarming sort of work is if you charm a mob and send it into one mob in a train. It'll pull one mob out of the train and start attacking it; the mob will leave the train as long as you don't have too much aggro on it from a snare or another high aggro song. If you run the train back over that mob you charmed, all the mobs on the same faction as the mob you sent your charmed pet after will then attack your charmed mob.

I'm guessing this isn't how it worked in classic?

This may be a factor of the "3 second delay" mobs have on aggro. So when a freshly spawned mob enters the world, there is a small delay where it will not aggro anyone. This is noticeable when you turn in your pearl to Ragefire and he goes KoS.

Possibly the mobs consider a charmed mob, freshly spawned? And they won't proxy aggro it for 3 seconds. Or it's something else entirely.

But yea, it didn't require a second loop around during classic. It would immediately swap over to your mob the second your pet hit any social mob in your pack.

[Juryiel]

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

This may be a factor of the "3 second delay" mobs have on aggro. So when a freshly spawned mob enters the world, there is a small delay where it will not aggro anyone. This is noticeable when you turn in your pearl to Ragefire and he goes KoS.

Possibly the mobs consider a charmed mob, freshly spawned? And they won't proxy aggro it for 3 seconds. Or it's something else entirely.

But yea, it didn't require a second loop around during classic. It would immediately swap over to your mob the second your pet hit any social mob in your pack.

Agro checks seem to be temporally sparse in general. This is very noticeable running around with selo's well-within mob agro range but mobs don't agro because I run through too quickly (I assume). Sometimes when building up a kite of non-social mobs I have to stand next to a blue mob for several seconds before it decides to agro me.

Also yeah it's clear that cutting down bard damage on mobs would just make bards kite for longer, and kite more mobs at once. Contrary to popular opinion there are enough bards out there who only take 15-20 mobs. If you cut their damage in half they'd just take 30-40 mobs for longer periods of time. No exp loss to them, but exp loss to others in zone.

If you really want to nerf the AE kite the only way would be things like limiting the number of targets the dot can hit. But devs probably don't want to introduce non-classic stuff like this.

[Daldaen]

From: "Robert Carnevali"
To: <EQSongAnalysis@home.com>
Subject: Song02
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 00:23:23 -0500

As a level 17 bard, I've gotten, and still get, great experience from Chords
of Dissonance. It is an excellent kiting song if done properly. The
technique I use can be a bit dangerous, but the experience gain is
worthwhile.

Against most mobs, using Accelerando will gradually take you out of range of
the mob. The trick is to run in a circle. Setting yourself to autorun, and
hitting the left or right key every second or so will keep you running in a
cirle, and if done properly, the mob will be within range for your songs.
Here's the sequence of songs I use: Accelerando, Chords, Bellow,
Accelerando, Bellow, Bellow, repeat. The whole time I'm doing this, I have
my lute equipped. Half of the time, the mob is under the effects of Chords,
and adding the Bellows in really stacks up the damage. Using this technique,
I can easily kite several yellow mobs simultaneously. Also, I've made a
fortune kiting 3, 4, or 5 wisps at a clip and then selling the lightstones.
I've tried to kite multiple red mobs, but it is extremely risky. If you get
too close and one red mob stuns you, having his 2 or 3 red buddies pounding
on you can be lethal. If you're stunned too long, and Accelerando wears off,
you have to hope that you don't get stunned again while you fire it up. And
if your health drops too low, the time it takes to equip that drum for the
extra speed guarantees you'll be using Lyssa's Locating Lyric to find your
corpse.

The kiting technique is especially good against slower-moving creatures like
mummies and zombies. These can be outrun without the use of Accelerando.
Your full effort can be put into twisting Chords and Bellows, and the mobs
drop pretty quickly. It's really underestimated how much damage Chords can
do with a lute when you can keep the mob under its effect for the duration
of a fight.

Confirmed, extremely classic to AOE kite. Though 70-80 mob trains, less classic. You may thank better Internet connections and UIs for that.

[Daldaen]

All DoTs decrease by 33% when a mob is mobile. Fleeing/stationary mobs take full damage.

That was removed before PoP. But it was from classic until it was removed.

I'm saying bard AE songs shouldn't be special and avoid that 33% cut in efficiency when the mob is moving. AE songs not doing damage on a moving mob was something else entirely (that was LoY)

[Atmas]

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

All DoTs decrease by 33% when a mob is mobile. Fleeing/stationary mobs take full damage.

That was removed before PoP. But it was from classic until it was removed.

I'm saying bard AE songs shouldn't be special and avoid that 33% cut in efficiency when the mob is moving. AE songs not doing damage on a moving mob was something else entirely (that was LoY)

Unfortunately, that probably wouldn't stop bards. They would just tie up mobs longer.

[Daldaen]

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

Unfortunately, that probably wouldn't stop bards. They would just tie up mobs longer.

Only really care about classic :/. So if it ties them up longer, then that's classic.

But I'd be very surprised if the AE DoTs were the only ones that bypasses the 1/3rd moving penalty. Then again, bard songs were coded by aliens so who knows.

[Tewaz]

AoE'd cougars in Velious running backwards like a boss in 2001. Confirmed classic.

[iruinedyourday]

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

All DoTs decrease by 33% when a mob is mobile. Fleeing/stationary mobs take full damage.

That was removed before PoP. But it was from classic until it was removed.

BUT it wasn't in first rev of classic, I remember when SoE added it becuse everyone used to qq about Druids being OP because of them discovering kiteing and it was Soe's solution to make it less powerful [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

My roommate was one of those people, always QQ and throwing his hands up in the air every time he saw a druid.. also druids were like notorious Player killers (we played on rallos zek) so it made us hate them even more, getting free xp, alone and able to be jerks to people and kill them when they are lowhp in a group.

Xblit Shouts: Dont group with Azzure he is a PK!
Azzure shouts: lol thanks for DWboots, I kite solo thx la~

[dankzilla]

I am a BARD and I am free TO RUN AS FAST AS I PLEASE! Hear me roar, for I will run as many circles around the Overthere as I desire.