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#1
11-11-2013, 12:26 PM
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Druid Charm Kiting Guide for 14-32
http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...d.php?t=127216
Video with commentary added Feb 2014: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvcJQ34pCNc I'll be referencing the above thread now and then, which was sort of the launching point for this as well as the constant queries I get as to how I'm leveling so fast on my characters. On top of that, I learned a few things from respondees to the enchanter thread I wouldn't have learned otherwise, so maybe the same will happen here. Here goes! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------SETUP Target Audience This thread will be focusing on naked, low-level druids, with low funds Sometimes understanding the use of a single spell can completely change the way you play a class, perhaps in this thread you'll get a chance to learn something about druids you never knew. One obvious benefit to kiting as a druid is that just as charm kiting becomes an option, so does SoW which means jboots aren't a concern and survivability is really high. Imo, the only time you'll die charming on a druid is when you were taking unnecessary risks as running is always an option in outdoor zones. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------SETUP ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------SPELLS and SKILLS Spells My personal mem order of spells goes something like this. 1 - Snare/Ensnare 2 - Root 3 - Animal Fear (Panic/Terrorize) 4 - Charm Animal 5 - Stinging Swarm 6 - SoW 7 - Nuke or a higher version of Stinging Swarm 8 - OPEN (Pet haste optional) Obviously 5, 6, 7, and 8 are just personal preference. 1-4 are the essentials as well as one damage spell and invis/hide. Pet Macros Why? -- Personal preference and greater control, if you like just use the pet window, at the minimum I create 4 buttons pATK /pet attack pFOL /pet follow me pSTAY /pet sit down /pet guard here pSTOP /pet back off Strafing [Note: taken from enchanter charm guide, not required with SoW but will enhance SoW for emergencies] Why? -- Appears to increase run speed by exploiting hit boxes, significant boost that will cause you to outrun the majority of (all?) non-sowed mobs. How? --Hold Right-Click and walk forward while holding either the left or right turn key, this will cause you to travel in an angular fashion and will save you any of those times you end up in the middle of no where without SoW and a passing yellow/red con agros you out of no where. It is also useful in charming. --An alternative is to bind the sidestep keys and hold that key in combination with forward, removing the need to hold Right-Click. Getting Full Exp Now, this server has a built in component to pets which essentially says if they do over half the damage then you get less exp. And its much less, rumored to be -75%? I'm not too concerned with the details but I know that with minor modifications to your strategy you can toss that aside and get full exp anyway, so that is what we will be focusing on! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------SPELLS and SKILLS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------STARTING THE FIGHT Starting the Fight Pre-Fight: Choosing a pet Reasons to choose a low pet, pet focus One place that druid differs from enchanter is their ability to use fear quite casually in combination with snare. If anything goes wrong, it goes wrong quite slowly giving the druid plenty of time to cast and solve the problem at hand. Therefore since we'll want a pet that we can keep charmed for a long time, it is often smarter to charm a low blue, light blue, or in some situations even a green, haste it up, then go find an enemy. Druids pet haste is amazing.. just by casting this spell on your newly acquired low pet you are increasing its attack speed and stats drastically. This is anecdotal as I'm writing this quickly but I've seen a green con gnaw through a red con at dramatic speeds. Upgrade that green to a blue or a high blue and its as if you have an even/yellow con charmed. BEWARE when charm breaks, as your new super-best-friend is your new super-bitey-friend, that haste doesn't drop with charm! Snare is your best friend here! Yet more reasons, enemy focus An oddity that a druid can make great gain of, is how low of a resist check snare and animal fear have. I can't tell you how many times I've successfully feared or snared a red con out of necessity and had it land on the first try. While this is not typical (I'd expect 2-4 casts on a red for snare and 1-2 for fear from personal experience) it is the case often enough that maintaining snare+fear on a even, yellow, low-red con mob is easy enough that your held charmed blue/low-blue will dominate it over the duration of the fight while taking ZERO damage as the enemy is busy fleeing. Ok I've got it, let's fight for full exp! 1. Find an outdoor area or any dungeon that allows you to create distance between yourself and mobs via pathing or strafing. 2. Choose a pet. 3. Stand at max casting range and snare your pet. 4. JUST before snare finishes casting, exploit server latency and begin to strafe the opposite direction, the spell will still land. 5a. You should be able to quite casually cast Charm as the mob will be approaching slowly 5b. To avoid interrupts when casting after running, its a good idea to do a 90° turn or hold right click and twitch the camera back and forth just before casting, experiment is key just like with step 5a. 6. Your pet is charmed, depending on the zone bring it with you or tell it to stay and go find an enemy. 7. Pull with snare at max range, strafe to camp, attack with pet. --NOTE [only applies if you don't plan to fear]: You may need to run a few circles around your fight if your pet is still snared, if you allow them to walk straight the enemy will soon OOR your pet's melee. Run a few circles til your pet taunts the enemy and you can sit and med 8. I recommend simply letting the pet beat on the enemy until it gains agro as snare is much safer than root (fixed duration, lasts longer, can't be broken by nukes) 9. Maintain snare throughout the fight, letting it wear off a few times to figure out how often you need to cast it is fine. Don't waste mana, you're naked! 10. Med as much as possible, sitting at max range 11. At this point one of three things will happen A: The pet will win B: The pet will lose C: Something goes wrong ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------STARTING THE FIGHT ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------FINISHING THE FIGHT Finishing/Continuing the Fight A: The pet will win (this is ideal if pet vs enemy is a low pet vs a high mob and you're reusing the buffed pet after) 12. Likely you will be fighting an animal which will flee, call your pet off but tell it to stay far from you. hide/invis and fear your own pet, now finish the enemy, get full exp and med. when your pet returns, recharm it. the fearing isn't too necessary as you could just recharm, but fearing often gives the druid time to med and recover mana without worry as fear rarely breaks early, unlike charm 13. Carry on with your pet into a new fight! B: The pet will lose (this is ideal if pet vs enemy is a close fight) 12. If fighting an animal enemy, fear it and let the now <20% pet beat on it while it runs. when the enemy reaches an equally low amount, you're going to want to break charm, now you get credit for two kills! and after the fact there is nothing more to deal with, med up and repeat! C: Something goes wrong 12a. I treat animal fear like mez, (with snare if I've been having problems with social agro on fear). Fear and forget, sometimes things go wrong but in the areas I hunt its typically fine to follow this practice. With the low mana cost of fear and the duration (especially at 19), I've found that I can gain a significant portion of mana back with each fear duration which makes mob juggling quite handy 12b. Mostly its improvisation here. You know your class, you know your spells. If things go wrong you can and should run, but if you have 10-20% mana and over half hp, chances are you can still turn the tide. With experience it becomes simple to determine what is a waste of time and what is worth pursuing. Sometimes you just read the tea-leaves and see that even though you're 90% mana and full hp this charm isn't worth pursuing and it'd be better to just reset asap. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------FINISHING THE FIGHT ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------But where do I fight? 14-22 I'd recommend East Karana This map shows you where I prefer to hunt. The red circle near GoKX is the best place to fear kite without any social agro. The other red circles are locations of guards you can flee to if things go badly. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] 22-32 I'd go with Lake of Ill Omen [Note: Tigeresses, tigers, AND grimalkins all con KOS but none KOS or assist, its excellent] This map shows you my preference here. The red circle being my stomping ground with tigeresses, tigers, and grimalkins. The blue circle being a valley off to the side where no skeletons, iksars, or goblins patrol. (If you fight around the windmill you'll get a lot of skeleton surprises..) And the green circles are other places I've noticed good pets roaming but I never really hunted there. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] After 32 I'd go to OT, you can actually leave and go to OT at 30 but you'll be dodging yellow and red cons left and right. Same story at 32 but a bit less sever and you'll have an easier time finding pets. By level 34 (if you're a twink) you can look into quadding but many druids prefer to continue charming as its more active, engaging, faster, and takes less mana/downtime. If you're not a twink I'd look into doing some ports for cash and picking up 6 wis rings, 3 wis earrings, 7 wis masks, a few other cheapie +1/2 wis items and trying it around level 36/38 if quadding is your thing. Else, charm on in OT until the upper 40s! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------But where do I fight? I made so many changes to the other guide that I'm submitting this one a little rougher so I can edit as any comments come in and refine it from there. --end
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Blue : Bookmedder, Unkiller, Being, Useful, Stembolt, Computer
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Last edited by myxomatosii; 02-08-2014 at 04:01 PM..
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#3
11-11-2013, 02:14 PM
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#5
11-11-2013, 03:17 PM
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Strafing also has an innate speed to it and so it will bypass encumbrance somewhat.
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Yumyums Inmahtumtums - 59 Shaman Lemonspoon Icebeaner - 52 Enchanter Yumyums Inmahtumtums - 60 Enchanter | ||
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#6
11-14-2013, 04:56 PM
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Using your guide right now. At 23 I did griffienes in NK for a while. I would charm a lb/blue griffawn and send it after the yellow and red griffienes. I was able to snare and fear them. The biggest issue was finding them. If anyone has spawn locations, that would be great.
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#7
11-14-2013, 07:19 PM
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Leave those lowbie mobs behind! Anyways the highest mobs in the zone as far as I know are the crag spiders over near the highpass ramp, not sure what they con at 23 but I don't think animal spells work on them unfortunately.
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Blue : Bookmedder, Unkiller, Being, Useful, Stembolt, Computer
Green : Pending | |||
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#8
11-26-2013, 06:18 AM
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Not quite sure how you mean naked low lvl druids with low funds.
I have been trying to perform this for some time now and it keeps failing miserably. I know I am doing something wrong. SO I get a pet(go with lb for full duration), sick pet on mob(going after db to max xp since if I go after lb I may as well just root rot a DB anyway lol) Fight gets going down, mob drops to about 50% before I snare(to prevent taking threat from pet. Charm breaks, fear*resist*, fear*resist*, fear*resist* oh shi- run. End up just snare kitting/dotting 2 mobs down because I can only barely stop to recast snare every now and then. Then I am oom and root rotting still ends up being more efficient. Even on a LB I get maybe 2.5 mins of charm, can't get charm to stick for more than 20-30 seconds on a DB, white mobs almost always resist. LVL 15 with 127 wis(I think 410-420 mana but not exactly sure)btw and snare only lasting 1 minute is making this a P.I.T.A. Is druid charm also cha based? could've sworn it wasn't but if it is than my Halfling 50 cha is what is making this suck.
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Last edited by Seredoc; 11-26-2013 at 06:36 AM..
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#9
11-26-2013, 10:04 AM
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If charm breaks early, just re-charm. It shouldn't be necessary to snare your pet, though you might find it helpful, but it is very useful to keep the enemy monster snared at all times. If you start by snaring the enemy monster, your pet should still be able to get aggro in time to take a lot of damage before the enemy monster is low HP, assuming the enemy monster is at least a little higher level than your pet. Also, not sure why you're fearing in the situation you described. Fear can be useful if your enemy monster is an animal and your pet is taking too much damage, as an alternative to holding aggro with flame lick, but it gives you less control. CHA should not be an issue. I kited fine on a basically naked halfling.
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#10
11-27-2013, 04:16 AM
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Basically the big thing throwing me under the bus is the lack of long duration charm. I will try a few different zones to see if it is just bad luck.
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