Kiting

[roces9]

<p>Ive been trying to make Troubador Kiting work for a long time and it has never quite worked out, but now that I have Selos AAs maxed out I think I have it down.</p><p>This plan works especially well for doing Barren Sky writs. Pick the writs from your home town  2 for Blacktalon observers then 1 for defenders and 1 for visionaries then head to the Guardian Isle in BS. Right when you land on Guardian all of the mobs you need will path right back and forth in front of the landing platform but will never attack you as long as you are on or behind it. Because mobs wont attack you on the platform, it is HOME BASE for kiting. Remember that.</p><p>You can run whatever buff scheme you want really but I've found Self, power, health, str/sta and Aria's to work really well. Make sure you have Selos on with maxed out with in combat run speed. It's a little tricky to get a single pull, but just watch the mobs path and get a feeling for their timing then BODY PULL one to the landing platform. If you use a spell or an arrow you'll get 3 or 4 (especially on the first mob) Watch you back for pathers and against the wall is a group encounter that could add if youre not carefull. Bring the mob to the Landing Platform and Mez it.</p><p>Once you have the mob mezzed on the platfor, get a little bit back from it, start Lucky Break and then hit it with your Silence Shot(Guviena's Overpowering Ovation) and then snare (Guviena's Apathetic Chant) it to start the HO. Hit him with Shrill, then Kians, and your other debuffs while you make circles around the paltform at a distance far enough to not get hit by the mob, but close enough to not pull a pather or the group encounter against the wall. </p><p>Some times, if youre not watching carefully, you can run right off the island's edge, but don't worry. You have enough time to evac out before you fall to your death. </p><p>Continue to kite the mob around the landing platform hitting it with your bow if you can afford the arrows and you can even hit it with Alins (aoe) while your kiting because that will not get interupted. Once the snare wears off, procede to melee it untill snare refreshes when you start Lucky Break, and do the whole thing over again. You can put a good chunk into the mob before it ever hits you and snare has a fairly quick refresh so you do not have to take hits for all that long.</p><p>There are some flaws, Pathers often respawn on your back and add, but thats what Mez is for. Remember these are 64 ^ mobs which I would have trouble soloing at 66-67 but could drop almost half their HP with one round of kiting while taking almost no damage. Also the plan is not set in stone, once you clear out all of the close by mobs you have to move further away from the platform to find something to pull. Those guys you can Silence, Snare, Dot and kite all the way down the edge of the island to the platform. There shouldn't be adds or repops (for a few minutes) assuming you cleared to get all the way down there. </p><p>I know this is just one little mirco-area where you can kite, but I have found it very effective for banging out a few writs and having alot of fun. Let me know what you think</p>

[Tantamount]

<p>I took a few tips from your mail and found them very helpful even though I am 10 levels below you. Actually I am grateful for ANY information on kiting, cos I'm ashamed to say it is an area that I haven't fully explored yet as a Troub. In fact I only really began to enjoy my Troub when we got Mez at 50. Wow, what a difference that made! Why on earth didn't we have something like that before. It would have made the slog worthwhile!</p><p>So I am really getting to grips now with what I can do with my Troub. I still need some advice though. Can someone explain to me what these ACTUALLY  do:</p><p>Stun</p><p>Stifle</p><p>Snare</p><p>Root </p><p>Mez</p><p>I mean I know Mez completely shuts down the MOB and he can't do nada, and that Snare slows it by up to 50% but how do Stun, Stifle and Root work? I still use Cheap Shot a lot BTW even at my level.</p><p>Another thing: to effectively kite you need to circle the MOB to avoid other adds, right? But how do I circle effectively? I keep one finger on forward arrow and another on sideways but I only make small circles. I find it difficult to make a wider circle withour stopping and starting to see what direction to go in. Is there an art to this?</p><p>Any more tips/advice/info on kiting gratefully received!</p>

[Antryg Mistrose]

Mezz - roots target in place, prevents it from autoattacking, or using spells/combat arts.  Duration is not (normally guaranteed), and is broken by any direct hostile action - ie if one of a group, you must target it directly to break mez (or have landed a DoT - damage over time spell on it prior to the mezz landing).  Only enchanters can affect epics, and them for short durations Stun - as for mezz, but set (shorter) duration and unbreakable Daze -  mob can move around and cast spells/combat arts, but not autoattack Stifle - mob can autoattack and move around, but not cast spells/combat arts Interrupt - fuzzier on this, acts I think to stop a mob casting a spell/combat art, if you catch them during casting. Knockdown - also fuzzy - guess it interrupts the mob and stops it autoattacking momentarily (has nice animations anyway) Root - prevents the mob moving.  It can still autoattack (if you get too close), and cast spells/combat arts.  Break check on damage. Snare - As for Slow I think.  Slows down the mobs movement speed, so they don't get into range for autoattacks as fast.  Break check on damage Don't really have anything to add on kiting.  Not something I've played with.  I have set one yellow heroic on another with charm, and tried to survive with Snare and Mezz when they both turn on you, so not the world's best soloing troub <img src="/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Tantamount]

Antryg Mistrose wrote: <blockquote>Mezz - roots target in place, prevents it from autoattacking, or using spells/combat arts.  Duration is not (normally guaranteed), and is broken by any direct hostile action - ie if one of a group, you must target it directly to break mez (or have landed a DoT - damage over time spell on it prior to the mezz landing).  Only enchanters can affect epics, and them for short durations Stun - as for mezz, but set (shorter) duration and unbreakable Daze -  mob can move around and cast spells/combat arts, but not autoattack Stifle - mob can autoattack and move around, but not cast spells/combat arts Interrupt - fuzzier on this, acts I think to stop a mob casting a spell/combat art, if you catch them during casting. Knockdown - also fuzzy - guess it interrupts the mob and stops it autoattacking momentarily (has nice animations anyway) Root - prevents the mob moving.  It can still autoattack (if you get too close), and cast spells/combat arts.  Break check on damage. Snare - As for Slow I think.  Slows down the mobs movement speed, so they don't get into range for autoattacks as fast.  Break check on damage Don't really have anything to add on kiting.  Not something I've played with.  I have set one yellow heroic on another with charm, and tried to survive with Snare and Mezz when they both turn on you, so not the world's best soloing troub <img src="/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote><p>Thanks for the info. Some good advice here!</p>

[aelder~]

<p>The OP offers a description of how to "snare" kite in a manner that was similar to what most bards did to solo hard content in EQ1.  It required a moderate amount of room and you would run circles, often with multiple mobs, while damaging them but avoiding damage to yourself--it had the downside of making your fingers bleed from twisting the same keys repetitively and high punishment for failure.</p><p>I think kiting (imagine running with a kite trailing behind you that, in this case, is the mob rather than a contraption of string, sticks, and paper) is somewhat rare in eq2 as room is often limited, there aren't very good ways to control/damage mutliple mobs, and much of our run speed drops in combat (which it did not in EQ).</p><p>The more typical pattern is body pull (if necessary to avoid social aggro), mezz once away from other mobs.  When mez is refreshed or about to, jester yourself, snare the mob, break mezz with either Shrill or Eli's+Shrill (depending on if you have resonance distance AA and can risk getting hit a time or two), mezz again.  Back off and wait for snare to refresh before repeating.</p><p>It doesn't take that much space, you can do it in a line back and forth, running past to mob after it is mezzed.  Since I often break with Eli's (longer cast than shrill, so use it first) I have found it helpful to back up while casting Shrill and also to make mezz into a macro where one line reads /autoattack 0.  This stops your meleeing so that if the mob gets too close to you and you mezz it on top of you, you won't then bollocks up your good work by waking it with autoattack--leaving you scurrying around trying to survive while mezz refreshes.</p><p>When mezz kiting I will typically run: HP regen, Daelis, Defense, Aria, and Raxxyl's.  My thinking is these things help me survive if the mob does get to smack me around.  Further I wil typically put on a shield and all the gear appropriate to the type of damage done by the mob (why do I feel like its always crush?).  Some folks may remove proc gear and not run Aria because they don't want a proc on the snare to wake the mob instead of shrill.  I don't worry about this though unless I am doing something really hairy that may one-shot me.</p><p>Happy hunting,</p>

[roces9]

Tantamount wrote: <blockquote><p>Another thing: to effectively kite you need to circle the MOB to avoid other adds, right? But how do I circle effectively? I keep one finger on forward arrow and another on sideways but I only make small circles. I find it difficult to make a wider circle withour stopping and starting to see what direction to go in. Is there an art to this?</p><p>Any more tips/advice/info on kiting gratefully received!</p></blockquote><p> Tantamount, like the other posters have said it is usually hard to find a place with enough space to make circles big enough to avoid being hit. That is why I suggest this scheme specifically for Barren Sky right on the landing pad for the Guardian island. Add a meter or two to the diameter of the landing pad (its a big circle) and youll have the perfect amout of space to avoid being hit. Also the island is designed so that mobs will not add on you if you are on or behind the platform which makes it a very safe spot. </p><p>Also kiting is usually done while running backwards. I cannot give you the exact game mechanics, but when you are engaged in combat (auto attack or ranged attack) then you can runn backwards (assuming a WASD setup) by pressing S and A or D depending on which direction you want to circle. If you take yourself out of combat (I think, someone please correct me) that you will turn around when you press backwards. </p><p> Hope this helps and please lets get some more info on this kind of stuff.</p>

[Aprio]

aelder~ wrote: <blockquote><p>The OP offers a description of how to "snare" kite in a manner that was similar to what most bards did to solo hard content in EQ1.  It required a moderate amount of room and you would run circles, often with multiple mobs, while damaging them but avoiding damage to yourself--it had the downside of making your fingers bleed from twisting the same keys repetitively and high punishment for failure.</p><p>I think kiting (imagine running with a kite trailing behind you that, in this case, is the mob rather than a contraption of string, sticks, and paper) is somewhat rare in eq2 as room is often limited, there aren't very good ways to control/damage mutliple mobs, and much of our run speed drops in combat (which it did not in EQ).</p><p>The more typical pattern is body pull (if necessary to avoid social aggro), mezz once away from other mobs.  When mez is refreshed or about to, jester yourself, snare the mob, break mezz with either Shrill or Eli's+Shrill (depending on if you have resonance distance AA and can risk getting hit a time or two), mezz again.  Back off and wait for snare to refresh before repeating.</p><p>It doesn't take that much space, you can do it in a line back and forth, running past to mob after it is mezzed.  Since I often break with Eli's (longer cast than shrill, so use it first) I have found it helpful to back up while casting Shrill and also to make mezz into a macro where one line reads /autoattack 0.  This stops your meleeing so that if the mob gets too close to you and you mezz it on top of you, you won't then bollocks up your good work by waking it with autoattack--leaving you scurrying around trying to survive while mezz refreshes.</p><p>When mezz kiting I will typically run: HP regen, Daelis, Defense, Aria, and Raxxyl's.  My thinking is these things help me survive if the mob does get to smack me around.  Further I wil typically put on a shield and all the gear appropriate to the type of damage done by the mob (why do I feel like its always crush?).  Some folks may remove proc gear and not run Aria because they don't want a proc on the snare to wake the mob instead of shrill.  I don't worry about this though unless I am doing something really hairy that may one-shot me.</p><p>Happy hunting,</p></blockquote> Thanks! My aspiring Troubadour was wonder why people said it gets easier to solo once you hit 50 and now I know why, sounds like it takes a while to kill 1 mob though, am I right in assuming that?

[Novusod]

I prefer mez locking to kiting. Mez locking is very simple. Just melee the mob with everything you got until you are about half health. Then stop auto attack and pop the mez. If the mob resists you will still have plenty of health to hit mez a few more times. When you have the mob mezed just keep recasting your mez on it every 15 seconds until your health is back up to full. When your life is full break mez with whatever combo you feel like and melee the mob until you are at half health again and repeat with mezzing. It is very boring and very slow but it gets job done and is reletively safe against all blue, while, and yellow con single up mobs and even green tripple ups.

[Antryg Mistrose]

/agree It takes forever to kill one mob - when you are talking yellow ^^^ heroics, then again we are in a pretty small group that can kill them at all. On solo single mobs (best to practice on) you don't take any damage and don't need sword/board. I'm busy levelling my SK in tinkering.  Next would be troubador as I can see a very nice tactic: Charm a mob Set it on a 2nd When charm breaks memwipe (hence the tinkering) the charmed mob and mezz the 2nd Rinse and repeat (I'm thinking the gargoyles on the steps of Castle Mistmoore - spend a while there waiting for raids)