New Bard Guide

[Eugee]

I'm 54 and can safely fear kite a geonid with all three dots on it, so I disagree. Ordinarily I charm-kite them obviously (as they have so many HP) but when doing a shaman and geonid, you don't play games to keep their health even--you just keep that shaman charmed and attacking (instead of casting on you).

Once one of them is down the other frequently has 40% health, and with 3 dots you'll only knock off 2-3% per tick, meaning you'll be there awhile, even with fear.

1. Mez.
2. snare/fear
3. Play dot 1 & dot 2
4. Snare/fear
5. Play dot 3 & dot 1
6. Snare/Fear
7. Play dot 2 & dot 3

See what I mean? You're only twisting 4 songs for the fear kite, but you rotate through your dots. Most of the time (like 95% of the time) you'll see three dot ticks.

Note that this is if you are worried about the 5th song dropping.

I just play snare/fear/dot/dot/dot usually. If there is *any* trouble in the twist, then I just skip the last dot, picking up that dot first on the next cycle.

On my hotkeys it's 1-MR DOT, 2-FR DOT, 3-CR DOT, 4-AE Fear, 5-Snare/Slow. (6 is ALWAYS speed/or lull indoors, 7 is ALWAYS charm, 8 is ALWAYS mez) I have 6 7 8 mapped to W R T respectively as well, and Shift R & T are charm/mez with chat announcements.

So from me, my keypresses go 5... 4... 3... 2..*fizzle* 2... 5... 4... 1... 3... 2... 5... 4.. *fizzle* 4... 3... 2... 5... 4... you get the idea. Note that even with a dropped song you have a 50/50 chance that it will be snare or fear. If snare drops, you have 6 seconds till the next tick when fear will drop. Just keep playing and you're fine. If you know you're behind on the twist and snare *doesn't* drop, then just move outside of melee range as you reapply fear just in case it drops early.

I've been 5-twisting fear kites since I hit 46 and got my third dot, and I play with 100-150ms pings, up to 200 at worst. It's quite doable, and at my level it's the difference between 128/tic and 171/tic. That's a big difference when killing a geonid! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I like the guide, lot of good information, thanks for writing it.