Bard Kiting 2013

[Fromp]

Despite reading numerous bard kiting related posts I can't help but realise most date back to 2010.

Since hitting 18 I have been trying to kite down elephants and Aviaks in South Karana, I am not sure if I am doing anything wrong but 70% of the time I am out of range of being able to hit the mobs with either Denons Disruptive Chord or Chords of Disonance.

If I began to tighten my circles I normally find myself being stunned by my small train which results in me having to resort to widening my circle and playing Hymn of Restoration until I am at an acceptable %age to try and land my DoT's again.

At the time of writing this post, a pull of 10 mobs takes me approximately 35minutes to down which in regards to many other bards seems very poor.

Could anybody offer me some tips - I currently use the WSAD keys to move and use my mouse to manipulate my song twisting and instrument swaps.



Tryndal - 18th lvl Bard.

[odiecat99]

I had trouble also. it has a lot to do with lag .

[SamwiseRed]

make sure horn equiped, use lvl 18 dot only until you are good with that one. only do aviaks, leave elephants alone for now. its easier to learn if you have the same mob type. other than that its just practice, i never played a bard before p99 and i picked it up in a day. too easy.

[Ephirith]

Diagonal movement may help... you hold forward and strafe simultaneously, while adjusting heading with mouse look (other people use turn keys too I think). Many mobs have trouble hitting you while you are moving diagonally, which helps you get into close range w/o dying. It takes a bit of practice to get it tuned properly. You also want to avoid mobs with huge hitboxes, which may include elephants.

High latency and framerate skips can make this more difficult

[Fromp]

Thank-you all for your help I shall try this.

What should I bind strafe to?

[Emphase]

what Ephirith said, and kiting all of the same mobs does help a bunch..if you pick up multiple mob types you'll end up hitting some with a dot and others will miss, or you might even get hit.

[Fromp]

looks like you were all right strafing is the key just took out my first 15 aviaks

[jerok88]

Some mobs have larger hit boxes. All the cats I've kited have, and I'm assuming elephants do too. If you are pulling the mobs together, next time you get hit, look at what mob hit you first; if it was only elephants first, stop pulling them together.

I tend to only use my larger AoE spell because it has greater room for error. You only kill 60% as fast as if you used both, but you don't have to switch instruments or get quite as close. And when you are kiting 50 mobs it still is ridiculously fast leveling, so don't feel pressured into using both if you don't want to.

[quido]

avoid the elephants, large and small

[Lazortag]

Diagonal movement may help... you hold forward and strafe simultaneously, while adjusting heading with mouse look (other people use turn keys too I think). Many mobs have trouble hitting you while you are moving diagonally, which helps you get into close range w/o dying. It takes a bit of practice to get it tuned properly. You also want to avoid mobs with huge hitboxes, which may include elephants.

High latency and framerate skips can make this more difficult

Honestly I find this method is better if you're lagging since you're not looking at the mobs the whole time. Kiting in circles is tedious and prone to error, but strafe kiting is super easy and you don't even need selo's to do it.

[Grahm]

Honestly I find this method is better if you're lagging since you're not looking at the mobs the whole time. Kiting in circles is tedious and prone to error, but strafe kiting is super easy and you don't even need selo's to do it.

Another thing that makes it 100000000000x easier, always get a SoW or buy sow potions. Dont have to twist selos into the mix. Only use lvl 18 dot, just delete the level 2 AoE its worthless.

[falkun]

Not much about bard kiting has changed since 2010.
Hmotzart has a good guide on how to AE kite using the strafe method:
http://wiki.project1999.org/Hmotzart%27s_Hmasterpiece_of_Hmass_AoE_Hmurder

I, personally, used the circles method and got REALLY good at tapping my turn keys, metronomes don't have anything on my consistent beat. But its not for everyone, and I could only do it for so long before my finger literally started cramping. As for where to AoE kite, I wrote up my experiences leveling to the late 40s: http://wiki.project1999.org/Deajay%27s_AoE_Bard_Leveling_Location_Guide

[Bardalicious]

Another thing that makes it 100000000000x easier, always get a SoW or buy sow potions. Dont have to twist selos into the mix. Only use lvl 18 dot, just delete the level 2 AoE its worthless.


Chords has the same range with only slightly lower damage. And if I recall correctly, it has a negative resist modifier whereas Denon's does not. It is also string based, which means less swapping instruments mid-kite should you need to twist in regen for health. Don't discredit it quite so easily.

The most valuable piece of advice to take from this thread is to not kite a ton of different mob types. Some will run faster than others. Some will be able to hit you from farther distances. Learn which have smaller hit boxes and stick to them.

When you hit 27, if you're still having a difficult time of learning the AE kite, give charm kiting a go instead. Example: you gather up 10 wolves by proximity aggro (without hitting them with songs to eliminate any hate being generated), you charm one and send it after any of the others in the pack. They all turn on the charm pet. You invis yourself to break charm when your pet is near death and then finish it off for xp. Rinse and repeat. The key here of course is gathering mob types that will social aggro your pet when it attacks something. This becomes much easier when you have your first Chant targeted DoT to finish off the pet. And taking the time to camp a clicky invis ring from loio to break charm at will is definitely worth it.

Patience and practice my friend! You'll get there.

[fugazi]

It's been years since I did it on my bard here, but I'd heed the words of Lazortag. I myself kited in circles - well, I ran straight forward until I needed to refresh the DoTs - and the sleightest error could be your downfall.

Get some SoW pots, try to get as much HP and AC gear as you can and start practicing. I first tried it out on greens and then moved on to blues, building up bigger and bigger swarms as I got more confident in my abilities. I honestly grabbed whatever mob I could in the Karana's and kill em all.

And, if you happen to be rich enough for a Goblin Gawhatever ring for clicky invis vs animals (that happens to break charm), you can try out charm kiting as described above. But whatever you do, keep some SoW pots on you and bum some HP buffs whenever you can!

[Droog007]

...I tend to only use my larger AoE spell because it has greater room for error. You only kill 60% as fast as if you used both, but you don't have to switch instruments or get quite as close...

In my experience, swapping in the lute to play Chords of Dissonance yields zero increased damage. Subsequent ticks of Denon's do unmodified damage. Am I doing something wrong? I am using lute from MM and storebought horn - someone using a better horn would do even less damage this way... wouldn't they?

Denon's should be the bread and butter, so I stick with the horn once I'm in my pattern. Unmodified Chords is icing on the cake when I'm feeling brave (full health, low latency, low packet loss, wrist not on fire).

Also, in my experience: the elephants are un-kiteable with AE dots.

[fugazi]

Do you refresh the song without the right instrument equipped? I can't remember this being the case, but mind you, that was some 2 years ago.

[Splorf22]

I mostly did circle kiting as i could never really figure out the strafe kiting.

Chords definitely has a smaller range than Denons. When I was doing well I would get cocky and throw Chords in there, but after a few minutes I would always screw up - its a very small margin for error. I'd just get a horn, take it easy, and do Denons.

Kiting is much easier at ~20 because you can kill them all within 2 minutes or so (well I had McVaxius' Horn which helped). At L35 its a bit more annoying because its 5-6 minutes which means if you finish 75% of your kites at 20 that number is down to 50% at 35.

Some mobs just have bigger hitboxes. I tried kiting crocs in Oasis and it was just impossible. At 18 you should go to the NE section of OT. Fantastic XP.

[Spudsy]

My advice:

Basically you should be running in circles by strafe running away from the circle, if the mobs are to your right you are running straight and left while mouse turning towards the mobs in a smooth circle. Turning more will tighten the circle and bring them closer to you, turning less will widen your circle and put space between you and them. When you start out you can basically run safe wide circles and choke it down slowly until your pulse hits then widen it out, etc... it's not a race at first just feel it out. However, you have to always be strafing, which will make you run away basically as fast as possible and will allow you to get closer without getting hit.

Take your camera, zoom it all the way out and look from directly above your character... you want the pack of mobs to JUST be visible in the lower corner of your screen (left or right, whichever side the circle center is)... that's the range of your dot.

Get Jboots or sow or whatever, just for consistency sake, being able to focus on your dots the whole time and getting an extra refresh attempt.

Don't kite elephants. They have a larger attack range and will indeed kill you from roughly max dot range. You can gather up basically everything else. Get the aviaks, horse people (watch out for the names, one or two of them run faster), gnolls, etc. Whenever you go to a new zone you can check the range on everything individually, but typically humanoids are always safe... I think the only thing you'll want to kite that is incompatible with most mobs in zone is Rhinos in OT.

[Droog007]

... I tried kiting crocs in Oasis and it was just impossible...

I also went to Oasis after commons and got my ass munched by crocs - it's just not happening. Orcs worked ok as long as you avoided the clerics. If you're feeling really ballsy, round of a pack of rogues (e.g. Dervish Cutthroats)...

[Wankertank]

I also went to Oasis after commons and got my ass munched by crocs - it's just not happening. Orcs worked ok as long as you avoided the clerics. If you're feeling really ballsy, round of a pack of rogues (e.g. Dervish Cutthroats)...

Who can show me the how the f you even kite in Unrest yard??? I keep trying to round up mobs but just keep getting crushed trying to get them together. FWIW I use the strafe method (which I believe leads to smaller circles and the fact you don't need to twist Selo's to do it).