Charm (swarm) kiting?

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Eattat
Posts: 7

Charm (swarm) kiting?

Post#1 » Fri May 13, 2011 2:16 pm

Just realized how long this post has become, so here's a quick TL;DR version:

I, a 70 bard, want to swarm kite because I've had trouble with "conventional" soloing techniques.
My bot experience has been decent at best because Bard (at least with my current gear) can't tank effectively, or heal a tank bot. - Thus I have decided to kite.
Having trouble finding a decent swarm kite spot - need social mobs in an open area that don't summon.
Do non-custom zones have the server XP modifier?
Any particular reason that PoP seems to be locked down? can't port to any of the zones.
Any ideas on locations? Custom or non-custom are welcome.

***Full Version***

I hit 70 recently on my bard and have been having some trouble soloing.

As far as bots go, I've found that an SK is essentially my best bet, because I can't take the damage and they can (kind of) heal themselves, but in general I have found that there really isn't much that I can do without at least rolling a healer.

I have tried my hand at boxing, and although it is nice, I have been having serious issues with locking up when zoning, and having it happen on two clients is just more trouble than I care to go through (maybe this will change as a fix is found for this issue). The other issue is that I'm not really a huge fan of boxing in the first place - maybe 2 boxing, but certainly not 5-6 boxing.

That being said, for the time being, I've let my bot take a break and have tried some of the bard solo techniques.

Chant kiting is fine; however it's quite slow and I'm limited to 2 mobs at a time, at roughly 4-5 minutes per kill (or 2 kills).

PBAoE kiting sounds fantastic, but I've never tried it and I'm about 97% positive that it will only result in a smelly Eattat-shaped stain on the zone floor.

Charm kiting!

I've been able to do this successfully with one mob at a time - pet vs. one mob. What I would love to get into is swarm kiting - sending my pet against several, let them beat him to a pulp, and I subsequently finish the job. However, I've yet to find a decent (custom) zone to do this in. A few things:

Swarm kiting requires:

Social mobs
Open Area
Mobs that don't summon

Despite the cramped quarters, I tried Icewell Keep and found that charming the guards there results in a bad time because the pet seems to draw no agro whatsoever.

Plane of Storms definitely meets the Open Area criteria, and there are also a large portion of mobs that don't summon. However, in my experience, the only social mobs are giants, who do summon.

Fungus Grove, although indoors, may be a possibility. However, in my experience there on live, a large portion of the mobs there are casters. I have not tried Fungus Grove yet because of what I remember of it from live. Can anyone confirm deny summoning mobs/casters?

Along the same lines, here's a quick side question: Do the non-custom zones (IE the "all" porter zones) offer the custom XP rate of the custom zones?

To be honest, if it means I can solo efficiently, I'll give up the 3x xp - if the "standard" zones don't have the XP modifier.

Any ideas for solo spots in these non-custom zones are welcome also.

One final thing: I tried heading to PoN yesterday because I wanted to try hunting there, and received a message stating that I was too much of a noob to use the portals. I subsequently tried Halls of Honor and received the same message.

Is there something going on with this? Are they keyed zones? Are they set aside for alt-P? PoP was one of my favorite expansions and I would love to be able to hunt there :)

Guldmilla
Posts: 4

Re: Charm (swarm) kiting?

Post#2 » Fri May 13, 2011 4:06 pm

Hi Eattat, seen you around. Love the surname, lol. Dominia and Kaelini are the leaders of my two boxed crews, give me a /wave.

I'm new to Bard myself, trying it out for the first time. I had a long time Bard friend who adventured with me (duo'd in Hate on Live yay!), and he was amazing, so good luck with the class. :mrgreen:

I might be able to help with one of your side questions, but as I mentioned I'm a Bard noob so I can't help with the bigger question in elaborate detail.

I have tried my hand at boxing, and although it is nice, I have been having serious issues with locking up when zoning, and having it happen on two clients is just more trouble than I care to go through (maybe this will change as a fix is found for this issue).


Hmm. I haven't had this issue myself. But just to take a stab at it, which client are you using? Titanium and SoD have had no issues with that for me.

If you're using one of those clients and still have lockups, it might be a bad stick of RAM. I had that issue back in the Velious days. I'd recommend downloading a memory tester program and seeing if that turns up anything.

But as you said, you aren't a huge fan of boxing, but I figured I'd see if that might be an issue.

Good luck with Bard soloing! It's awesome, having seen my friend do a lot of it. It sounds like you have the fundamental strategy down pat.

Eattat
Posts: 7

Re: Charm (swarm) kiting?

Post#3 » Fri May 13, 2011 4:46 pm

Guld,

Thanks for the reply! Glad you like the name :)

Your box names sound familiar also, but I haven't been on the server too long so I'm still learning my way around.

To answer your question, I use the SoD client. To answer it a little more in-depth, I actually created a post here: http://www.thehiddenforest.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6076

That post lists my hardware specs and the issue I've been having in much more detail, but a quick answer is:

I run Windows 7-x64 with:
NVidia GTX 460 - 1GB DDR5
8GB DDR3
Intel i7-920 2.67GHz processor

Until now, I've sort of resolved it to be a routing issue of sorts (possibly even an issue with the fact that I play wirelessly and am losing packets that don't get resent when I try to zone), but I hadn't thought to test my RAM.

Honestly a bit sad, considering I work in IT :)

Another note: I'm not against boxing, and I'd be more than content to 2 box, but I don't think I can create a 6 box and go solo raid content :) I would much rather focus on 1 or 2 characters. That being said, I play(ed) on the Test Server on Live EQ, and I boxed a 90 mage and 85 necro there... had a blast with it.

The zoning issue is pretty much what's preventing me from having the desire to do that at this point.

**EDIT**

Also, as far as bard soloing... I love what I have seen of it. Unfortunately, going from Live which is currently ~ 7 expansions past what we run on THF, I'm a bit lost :) A lot of the zones I'm familiar with from this era are locked down atm (Nightmare, HoH, Disease for instance - unless I'm missing something there) and I just haven't found the place to be yet. I'm sure once I find a place that does work with charm kiting I'll be happy :)

Thanks again for your reply.

User avatar
Grey
Posts: 1101

Re: Charm (swarm) kiting?

Post#4 » Sat May 14, 2011 2:17 am

You will find you have clients lock on zone with this server.
Not much you can really do about it.
Lillu and crew have worked really hard to attempt to fix the issues but its what it is.
Btw how are you liking that video card?
I just picked up the EVGA GeForce GTX460SE and love it.
Looking forward to when I get the rest of the parts to put a new system up.
Just wish I could find another 8800 Ultra, that card still blows away just about every card available

User avatar
Lillu
Posts: 11301
Contact:

Re: Charm (swarm) kiting?

Post#5 » Sat May 14, 2011 9:36 am

Grey wrote:You will find you have clients lock on zone with this server.
Not much you can really do about it.
Lillu and crew have worked really hard to attempt to fix the issues but its what it is.

Well to be a bit more clear about this, some players experience it while the majority doesn't. It's most probably a connectivity issue between the server and some players, it's not something we can fix. Other servers "has" this problem too.

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