Seems Bards are now Uber due to Swarm Kiting and I still dont know what it is! Is it an AOE attack or Aggro Kiting with Charmed Mobs or....


Any Info would be great and Thanks!

is where a bard gathers up a bunch (4+) of mobs, outruns them with selos (song that makes bards the fastest class), charms one, has it attack one of the other mobs in the swarm, and all the mobs attack the charmed one.

Once the charmed one is low on hp (around 20%) the bard breaks charm with invis, and uses chants (200 range DoT's) to kill the mob and get full xp.

It’s a foul technique Bards use to kill mobs for XP. They agro as many mobs as they can find 10+ if they can find them, then charm one of them. The remaining mobs will beat the charmed mob to a bloody pulp. Right before it dies, the Bard will invis to break charm and use a DoT to finish off the former pet. Rinse repeat. The more in the swarm the better as it equals fast kills. Bad for Druids and Wizards because the Bards aren’t actually cycling the mobs he’s swarming, but instead using them to kill his victim. I admit I admire watching it done even though I detest the practice.

Druids at certain levels are able to PBAoE kite as well. This is when a druid kills 10+ mobs at the same time. It requires a bit more skill then bard swarm kiting but it's as close as we can get to killing the same number of mobs as bards do.

Not to be outdone, skilled bards developed their own PBAoE style kites. And began killing more than 100 mobs at a time. This, of course, was nerfed.

Swarm kiting is teh debil!

Err, umm. Anyway.

One thing worth noting: an active swarm only has, at best, proximity aggro on the bard. If you try to "help" the bard by healing them, snaring some mobs, etc., they will more than likely all turn on you and kill you.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Not to be outdone, skilled bards developed their own PBAoE style kites. And began killing more than 100 mobs at a time. This, of course, was nerfed.[/quote]

That is simply PBAE kiting, not swarm kiting. Swarming is defined as using charm and assist aggro to kill your pet quickly.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>they will more than likely all turn on you and kill you[/quote]

Then the bard will send you a /tell cursing at you for disrupting his mobs... then he'll send another /tell laughing that you died. Then he'll resume kiting and kill the rest :)

Why would they kill you? A kiting druid worth his or her salt can kite 12 or so mobs at once. The druid equivalent to swarm kiting is multi-kiting. You don't a particular area to multi-kite, since you just pick up wanderers and adds as you go and add them to the pack. With sufficient FT and MP, you can keep going and going and going in one never-ending quad-kite as long as there are mobs. I did about 52 mobs in one hour this way one time (of course, no one else was in ME at the time, so no competition). At one point, I had about 20 or so toilers, wolves, and worms in the pack.

For that matter, a druid can swarm kite using charm as well. More difficult because of the long time to cast charm, but you can snare everything. And you have to make sure you have charmable mobs in your pack (such as wolves in ME).

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> Why would they kill you? A kiting druid worth his or her salt can kite 12 or so mobs at once.[/quote]
Yeah? Excellent. I have great respect for other classes who kite and yet have to stop to cast.

Before passing level 60, I was able to gain proximity aggro to every non-malarian island fly in PoD and swarm them all. Proximity aggro on such low level mobs is harder to get now, though, so I mostly just solo in HoH now, one very boring mob at a time.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>For that matter, a druid can swarm kite using charm as well. More difficult because of the long time to cast charm, but you can snare everything. And you have to make sure you have charmable mobs in your pack (such as wolves in ME).[/quote]
Casting anything on the other mobs will screw up the assist aggro which swarming depends on. The mobs will chase <em>you</em> instead of beating on your pet.

<strong>Casting anything on the other mobs will screw up the assist aggro which swarming depends on. The mobs will chase you instead of beating on your pet.</strong>

Good point. Just as well I stay with the former version, then....:)

My only problem with this, is some people tend to do it in areas where people are already holding down camps. One bard comes in and scoops up 10 mobs...respawn timers don't start until their dead. Then they like to kite them around you to show off. When they're in trouble they wait for you to sit down, and THEN kite them right over you.

But I've had druids do things just as bad on other characters. DSP in the caves. I was clearly standing in the first opening waiting on a spawn, a druid comes in and sits down. I told him I was camping this particular room. Says nothing, does nothing. Hopper spawns and aggro's him because he's sitting. If I had sat down too, I would have been contesting the spawn, if I took it from him, I would have been ks'ing.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Druids at certain levels are able to PBAoE kite as well. This is when a druid kills 10+ mobs at the same time. It requires a bit more skill then bard swarm kiting but it's as close as we can get to killing the same number of mobs as bards do.
Not to be outdone, skilled bards developed their own PBAoE style kites. And began killing more than 100 mobs at a time. This, of course, was nerfed.
[/quote]

And there was much rejoicing.

/em waves small flag from behind hill, cheering "Yay"

"...and his peni..."


Opps, Worry, sorry 'bout that.

/smile





[sorry MP thing]

Seen bards Swarming 25-30 mobs in Fire, getting 6aap per kite. Was sick seeing him calling out ding every couple of ticks.

Are people still doing regular old AE groups? Used to hear friends saying they were doing AE groups vs 20+ monsters at one time. I thought that was crazy until I heard about bards.

%Brave Sir Robin ran away,
Bravely ran away, away!
When danger reared it's ugly head,
he bravely turned his tail and fled.. %

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Seen bards Swarming 25-30 mobs in Fire[/quote]

Had no idea that there were mobs in Plane of Fire that were 57- in level.

6% for a solo per kill is doable by any solo class (network groups up to 12% per with bonus). It is just the case that for a bard that is 63- in level can charm up to a level 51 mob and kill with such swift efficiency (save the pathetic mana regen) that they get exp hand over fist. Swarming is not necessarily looked upon by all bards as a good thing (though how can one person technically speak for a community, so this is more of my view point), personally, I wish they would nerf the hell out of it and raise the limit on our charm (such as make the range 25 feet, so it becomes a CC tool rather than an exp tool). Swarming at 64+ raises the charm cap to 57, but there are fewer camps that contain these mobs in the concentration that they want (ie 10+ mobs)

Where the true problem exists is when the person behind the computer is an immature idiot, or just an inconsiderate idiot all together. They will kite in crowded zones, pull mobs from other camps, train over people, etc etc. They are the equivalent of when you hear people say dr00ds, though I have not heard what the bard equivalent is actually titled, other than @#%$ or @#%$, or similar.

Just keep in mind that not all bards are like that. :)

"I was clearly standing in the first opening waiting on a spawn, a druid comes in and sits down. I told him I was camping this particular room. Says nothing, does nothing. Hopper spawns and aggro's him because he's sitting. If I had sat down too, I would have been contesting the spawn, if I took it from him, I would have been ks'ing"

KSing? Only in the eyes of a lawyer ;)

Tat

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Had no idea that there were mobs in Plane of Fire that were 57- in level.[/quote]

Bards don't use charm/chant kiting in PoFire. They use PBAoE kiting. On a clear day (no named) a bard can PBAoE kite The Field of Gib. Not just one or ten mobs in the Field of Gib ... The whole place! Everything that moves, dies.

We used to have low AA knights or clerics group with our bards during off hours and PL them. Our bards laugh at us when we tout off obout getting an AA every 30mins grouping at first castle.

Of course, this was nerfed. Now, bards can only kite 10 mobs at a time. Which roughly equates to 3 AA's every 30mins in PoFire. None of our bards do this anymore by the bye. I think after the novelty wore off, they went back to drinking heavily while singing some ditty about Fennin Ro.

I thought bard charm took a bunch of mana and that bard had crappy mana regen, so how do they keep a mob charmed long enough to do decent damage? Forgive my ignorance, never played a bard before, so my understanding is limited to second-hand info. :)

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Seen bards Swarming 25-30 mobs in Fire, getting 6aap per kite. Was sick seeing him calling out ding every couple of ticks. [/quote]

Ah, ok Kineada, this above quote is what led me to that question. I thought they were refering to swarm kiting not PBAoE kiting, my bad.

As for the question you have mendan, it basically looks like this:

Charm takes 90 mana and that charm lasts either 10 seconds (just the random early break, maybe 30% of the time) or goes to about full duration. With pop mobs and a large swarm you only need a charm that lasts about 12-15 seconds before you have to break it or lose the pet.

So, to use the flies on the island straight out in the PoD, it would go like this:

Load gems as follows:
dot
dot
dot
DA
selos
heal
charm
invis if you do not have it dot if you have a click

you run around the fly islands till you get every one you can get on you, do this with healing playing, then run them all to the front of the island so you will get no unwanted guests. Now, you need to do a lap or two to adjust the swarm pattern so they are not all over the place, they will actually all clump together and then you are set.

Target a mob (btw, you are in 3rd person view) and charm it, F8 and and pet attack. Then, since you have like 20-30 mobs, break it almost immediately, the ex pet will have about 5%-20% life, dot it till it is dead.

For a typical bard with an FT earring and say level 60, they have a regen rate of about 3 natural (may be 4)+ 1 FT. Additionally, they just used about 5-7% of the mana pool, assuming they did not miss a note (costs about 3% if you do). Repeat that till you are about out of mana.

Ok, so lets say the bard ran through about 90% of thier mana, they will target a rat (or an above 51 mob) and dot kite that till dead. Now they have mana to do another charm, repeat charm kill till oom again, then dot kite, repeat adnausium.

If you keep the swarms smaller some will do btw 5-10 mobs and when they are all dead sit on the island front and wait 15-20 min to regen to full (or longer if the pool is bigger).

I have swarm kited in the past, I did it when I was level 60, I was bored very fast. If I would solo I typically dot kite and do one mob at a time, actually, many many times at the GY of PoV killing a malaria (so if I die it is not gonna attack anyone).

That in a nutshell is swarm kiting.

The reason some said that if you interfere with a swarm you will die is that pathing sometimes will cause you to have to react fast to get away from the swarm. Swarm kiting is VERY lose aggro on the mobs, even getting too close to see what is up can get them on you, but most are smart enough to stay clear if they are going to where a bard is already (as opposed to the bard training them to you). As a bard if I see a bard swarming I am staying way clear, or invis'ing past them. I have seen many a rude bard swarming on Luclin, I hate the reputation they are giving the pleasant bards (from my view point).

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Druids at certain levels are able to PBAoE kite as well.[/quote]
Ok So now that you explained swarm kiting..whats PBAoE? If its something druids can do I'm interested in making sure mine can do it, and being new to this game I need to ask :p

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Ok So now that you explained swarm kiting..whats PBAoE?[/quote]

Credit where credit is due...

pub149.ezboard.com/fthedr...D=88.topic (http://pub149.ezboard.com/fthedruidsgrovefrm18.showMessage?topicID=88.topic)

by the way, the fix for swarm kiting broke swarm pets, like shamans spirit call, and mages host of the elements... mobs now insta-gate sometimes if to many pets are around.

Ok, now I see, thanks for the info. I forgot that the charmed mob would have so many attackers to deal with and that it's hp would drop that rapidly.

swarm kiting is easily done with druids in several places, one example of late would be the ravenous nightstalker camp (ww in PoN)
I usually pull with charm (one on the rock pulls all 6, fastest way) then let the mobs beat on him while I snare one and have him walk towards me, as my pets at 15 life, I innate invis and charm the snared one (which is over by the dead tree while my first pet was by the rock, so there's a long gap)
Then I send pet in to kill a live one, usually the closest and kite the others in a circle on my pet till they aggro him, only one left should be my former pet and sometimes the former pet's main attackee, which I simply root on my new pet. I usually just nuke my old pet or send in my new pet to finish depending on laziness/mana.

PBAE is just Point Blank Area Effect.

Those are the AE spells that you have to be very close to use. Several classes get them. Generally not the safest spells to use, but they do have their places just like the other ones. You could group with this buy haveing everyone load theirs up. Someone has to volunteer to pull and take some hits though. I would take a cleric and let them use their PBAE spells just to have a res and some higher hp buffs available. The main thing is just that everyone knows what the heck is going on before hand, and basically understands what to do. Puller brings the mobs, stands there, and everyone starts casting like crazy.

I remember doing this with whatever that first lightening ae we get is. In Karana, the bandit camps...full druid group :) fun times. Good xp, got bandit sashes for more xp and faction in qeynos, and money from drops and sash turn ins.

This is the first I have heard about this technique as well. But I believe it means Point Blank Area of Effect (PBAoE). It would involve using the earthquake line of spells. Timing this evolution would be interesting to say the least :)

<em>Timing this evolution would be interesting to say the least</em>

Understatement.