Hello fellow druids. I have been working on this particular strategy for quite a while now, and I feel it is now ready to be released. I have debated writing this for a while now, especially with the 'druid petition' in its current stages. However, this is the main reason I have decided to go forth with the writing. I am one of those druids that actually *loves* the class. I too have little action at raids, so I have to find other ways to amuse myself.

First off, I would apologize if this is all completely obvious information. I honestly haven't seen any guides for this type of solo'ing... and I've worked out the kinks pretty much by myself. Second apology would be for the length of this guide. I know it's gonna be a biggun, sorry if this bores you.

What is PBAE solo'ing?
You've probably joined a lot of AE groups in the past. The idea is: Player goes and grabs 40 mobs, brings it back to his full group typically consisting of 1-2 enchanters, 1 cleric and several wizards. They group around the enchanters who begin chain AE-stunning. The wizards jump in and nuke the mobs down with their Point Blank Area Effect PBAE spells. Eventually the mobs all die, and the group gets experience for LOTS of kills, in a relatively short period of time.

The problem that WE have with this type of grouping is primarily our lack of good PBAE spells. We basically have... Upheaval. This is the only spell that gives decent damage, and it has a seriously bad mana-damage ratio. Add in the 24 second recast delay and you realize that you don't fit in the average AE group.

What I noticed about these groups however, was the pure dependence on each other. Lose your cleric and you are screwed the minute the enchanters have LOTS of resists. Lose an enchanter and everyone is screwed. Lose a wizard and you may not have enough mana to kill the lot, and that would really piss you off watching 30 mobs at 20% go free.

Druids can do this type of killing... SOLO

What you WANT to see:
http://66.1.253.130/los/vonkaar-pbae/pbae02.jpg

I originally started doing this in the early SoV days. It worked great for harvesting panther skins in WL. The idea was, run around agro'ing every panther in the zone, take them to a relatively safe spot (in WL, the North wall, sorta NE of the lake) then start snaring them. Once all were snared, I would time the casting of Upheaval to hit them all just at maximum range of the 'point-blank'. Panthers were great to test this on, because they A) didn't hit too hard. B) didn't have HUGE attack range. and C) They were all Green mobs.

The idea worked great and I was able to basically keep all of WL clear of Panthers.

I was 'retired' for the first 3 months of Luclin. Still, I would visit all the old guilds' websites, and I saw how huge AE grouping had become. I also noted how The Grey had evolved into a haven for AE groups. Plenty of low hp, low resist mobs that give blue experience. When they nerfed the zone, I knew that this would effectively kill the zone to all but solo'ers. It basically did. Sure, you still see the freak 1 or 2 groups pulling stuff to either zone, but for the most part... it's all Wizards, Druids and Necromancers running the zone.

STFU already, what is the strat?

K... basically, what I have developed was a way to kill many more mobs with a full mana bar then most Druids are used to. My best pull was 31 mobs. My lowest are around 10-12. Average pull is 15-20 mobs. This is of course based on how many people are in the zone, and who is pulling your skeletons.

y example zone is The Grey. I think this would work great on the Laborers in ME. I have a few other ideas as to where this strategy would be great at. For now, we'll stick with The Grey. The best type of mobs are those that corpse camp. The "tormented iksar slave" types in TG are corpse campers. Many of the other mobs in TG are not. The actual KITING takes place in the Northeast corner.

Step 1

Bind nearby. Obvious reason is for easy CR. Second reason is stated soon. For The Grey, I bind in Scarlet Desert, right at The Grey zone line.

Step 2
Get your buffs in order. SoE is almost required here. PoTG+Mask+Bladecoat+RoTG+EB(if needed). I *really* like to have KEI as well. At 625 mana EACH, 1 or 2 missed nukes will seriously put the hurt on your mana pool.

Step 3

Get your swarm. Run around and agro every skeleton you can possibly see. They hang out on the ground, some times in packs. You can stand nearby, swing at them, run past... whatever it takes. Get a LOT. One time, I must have had at LEAST 50 skeletons agro'd on me. (edit... this doesn't mean my actual *kite* was 50'ish... that's just how many I had agro'd on me for this phase...) Surely other mobs will join in the chase, none of them matter. You'll probably trigger a LOT of those annoying wurm traps, don't worry about them either. Just get your swarm of mobs chasing you... UNSNARED. You'll get a pretty good distance ahead of them eventually. Run them up to the North Wall, and when you have sufficient distance to cast, Gate.

Step 4

Clear the stragglers. Zone back into TG and run up to where you left your mob. You'll see ALL of the agro'd skeletons sitting there, dumbfounded. All of the wurms will have depopped, or will be any second. Any golems will have slowly moved away from where you left your swarm. The main annoyance will be the Rockfiends. The *great* thing about them however, is their level. You can't level-pull them, unlike the skeletons. So, just target one of them, and cast something annoying, like drones of doom. You'll have not only the TARGET chasing you, but all the other Rockfiends should be as well.

Run them someplace FAR (I do the NW corner) then gate again. Easy enough way to get your skeletons solo, no?

Step 5

Pull those skeletons!

Zone back into TG and run back to your swarm. For your first time, I wouldn't do more than 12 or so. Basically, you target one, hit ensnare (please don't use 'snare' if you do, quit this guide now) and back off. Count in your head "1". Target the swarm again and ensnare the next... back off. You'll have a few chasing you, but nice and slowly. Just do circles around a few times to pull the snared mobs away, then back to the swarm to grab another. You really want to do this as soon as possible. Snaring 30 mobs takes a LONG time, and you need to remember, your first snared mobs Snare timer is ticking.

Regardless of how many skeletons were in your initial swarm, stop after you have counted your 12th or so skeleton. You don't want to start with a LOT for now.

Step 6

KILL THEY!

This whole thing is dependant on one important skill: Timing. You have to perfectly time the cast-time of Upheaval with when you are anticipating them to be at the max range of the spell. You really can't explain this in words... you just have to try it. If you want to see the range for Upheaval, go to some zone where you have stationary GREEN mobs that you don't mind killing. Blackburrow is one. Walk up to an gnoll, cast upheaval... if it didn't hit, walk a bit forward... try it again. You want the swarm to be grouped up nicely, so that you hit them at max range.

l33t Photoshop skills example:

http://66.1.253.130/los/vonkaar-pbae/max-range.jpg

Green arrows = yes, in range... red x's = no, not in range. Ideally, you wouldn't have any mobs BEHIND you, but it works for example =p.

Do NOT expect to channel your casts off and hit all of them. Even if you DO channel, you won't hit them all. Only a few mobs can hit you at one time, so if they have started beating on you, 4 will be on you, the rest will be warping around you, and you'll see something lame like this:

http://66.1.253.130/los/vonkaar-pbae/too-far.jpg

If you saw this, you screwed up. Either of 2 things happened. First, they got IN range, and MOST of them started warping behind you, thus out of range... OR... they weren't grouped tightly enough, and were mostly 'in-line' to kill you. Those first in line got hit, and the rest were lucky enough, and too far.

THIS is what you would prefer to see:
http://66.1.253.130/los/vonkaar-pbae/ideal.jpg

The WORST thing that can happen is you time it COMPLETELY off. You NEED to get this down perfectly, or you'll waste too much mana to finish them off =/. If you cast it, and the WHOLE mob was too far, you'll spend 625 mana, and get no damage. Nothing hurts worse then seeing: "You begin casting Upheaval..." then nothing. If you even THINK that they'll be too far, duck it at the end, and back off quick. Missing even ONE nuke can make it impossible to finish them, depending on mana pool.

Step 7

Looting...

http://66.1.253.130/los/vonkaar-pbae/carnage.jpg
results in:
http://66.1.253.130/los/vonkaar-pbae/looting.jpg

These were taken a few hours ago. This was a smaller pull I did for the guide. Maybe someday I'll take screenshots of the bigger pulls and the longer, more impressive loot list.

TIPS

ed kiting:
I've heard it called 1/6 med kiting, or step5 medding... this isn't MY strat, so don't accuse me of plagiarism. Basically... medding doesn't require you to be sitting for a full tick. You just need to sit for a full second of the tick. So in each tick, sit for 1, run for 5. Obviously, it's hard to meditate when you have 25 pissed off skeletons chasing you... this could give you a bit of extra mana while waiting between each Upheaval. 24 second recast means 4 ticks of meditation, if you can do it right anyways.

Gear selection
A Druid with a LOT of flowing thought would have a much easier time then I do. At the time of this initial writing, I only have FT1. NO Mental Clarity. My mana regen is typically potg, ft1 and mask yet I usually finish each kite with 1 bubble of mana left. It CAN be done without having AMAZING equipment. Sure, I grab at any chance I can for KEI.. even basic clarity would make a huge difference.

Another thing to consider, is system performance. When I am at home, I'm on my old P3-450 with a 64meg Radeon. Radeon SUCKS for frame rate, and having 20+ skeletons all grouped up really really lags my graphics. This tends to make me get hit a lot more then if I was on a different system. I balance this out by wearing a bit more HP gear then I would wear at a better system. Example, Elysian leggings over ToV. When playing at work, I have system-of-own, so I wear as much mana as I can get ^_^.

issed nukes
If you miss more then 1 or 2 nukes, you may just want to gate out and try again. Take your mob someplace neutral, and gate away. Living and keeping your KEI is always better then death. If you think you can still pull it off, go for it. Don't be surprised if you run out of mana, and the snare timer is clicking. If you are THINKING yer almost outta time, start randomly snaring mobs off yer swarm. As soon as the first snare breaks, target him and resnare. Keep doing this til you stop seeing snares breaking, and resume nuking/medding/whatever.

If you have a huge swarm, channeling all those snares and WINNING may still be worth it. How crappy would it be to have to gate out, leaving 30 mobs at 5% health to be happily killed by that bastard Necromancer that has been spying on you for the past hour? If you had 10 mobs in your swarm, you are OOM, and they are at 50% when your snares start breaking... just gate out. That's not worth it IMHO.

Be Considerate
If you are in a heavily populated zone, waaatch out for other players. YES it is nice to kill 20 mobs at once, SOLO. SURE it looks badass to do something that no other class has ANY chance of doing... still, you'll piss a lot of people off if the zone is empty due to your amazing skills =p. But the MAIN thing to worry about is accidentally killing some other player. I have found that if you run too far away to med up a bit, and there are other players sitting nearby medding, your whole swarm may feel like eating that little gnome on its way to get you. An AFK necromancer liching to 20% doesn't stand much chance against 30 pissed off lvl 45 skeletons.

IN CONCLUSION
I hope this guide will help all the >other< bored druids out there rake in the XP. I average 3 blues per pull. My biggest pull got me a full yellow of experience. Yes... one yellow. I know of NO other class that could possibly do NEAR this. I'm sure if more people do this, we'll see some highly skilled Druid take out 40+ mobs at once. Next time you get looked over for an AE group in Acrylla because of your poor PB spells, smile and gate off to The Grey.

Good luck!

-Vonkaar

(Special thanks to the retired Nizzar for teaching me the 1/6 med kite, and to Abru for giving me post-retirement tips on where this could be done in The Grey.)

edit: hopefully this new pic site will let me host the fuggin pictures *correctly* this time... any suggestions to a *free* webhost would be great =pp

OMG. I'm sure I'll be leaving Malikai corpses littered among a variety of zones until I can get this technique down. Thank you for sharing this guide. Beats the hell out of a single quad on a mana bar.

Even though the mana/dmg ratio is poor, did you do any experimentation with our earlier AOEs in conjunction with upheaval while waiting for upheaval to refresh?

Great guide. :)

I was actually playing around with a similar technique the other day in Misty Thicket.

What level would you recommend trying this at?

Nice Vonkaar. I've tried to figure out a way to quad better or do more than a quad using stuff like Blizzard, Upheaval, etc. but it was too hard to keep the mobs within Blizzards AE even when i did circles around it, and Upheaval just had too long of a reload time.

Your strat sounds worth trying, just seems really dangerous when your talking about 10+ mobs simultaneously hitting you at the same time if you screw up the timing. So i'd say the risk vs reward is pretty balanced considering it sounds like a big pain in the ass in terms of setup, and pretty dangerous in terms of timing the AE. I just hope i dont see a ton of Druids in the Grey now hogging all of the Tormented Skelly's. Might be easier with the Golems since they move so slowly, then again your screwed if they get one of them stuns on you.

Anyways, nice guide :)

Do you have to be lvl 60 to lvl pull the skeletons there?

Anyone know of other zones this could work in?

I messed around with this in The Grey as well. Don't pull static mobs around temple -- they WILL warp on you. Stick to north east corner and the corpse-camping skelly types, as it appears Vonkaar is also doing.

I missed a few skells too often for my taste, so instead I wedged myself against a rock, and timed the PBAE to go off right after three of them meled me. That worked great, even if I got interrupted sometimes, dispite the wedge. The trick there is just not to stick around right after they all get hit -- it turns out that though usually only 3 mobs can hit you in a mele round, ALL of them can hit you in a mele round if you just AEd them, so you will likely die if you stick around after a PBAE on non-stunned mobs.

I killed thirty something, and got loads of exp, but all in all, this is a lot more work than its worth to me. Just pulling 12 or so around temple and quadding them all with the regular 4-mob AE seems better when you measure exp-to-effort.

Part of the reason for the wedging technique was that I was pulling so many skeletons that snares would wear off before I was done, so I just pulled them all and did PBAE with unsnared mobs, which was far less work.

Just want to say I love you for this thread, i got 1 AA lvl in about 3 hours with ur aeing today. not to mention some uber loot as well... Thank you and GOD BLESS YOU! Max pull so far is 28

Chemosh

Edit retard!

I tried this last night. Had about 10 skelly's, and ran oom when they had about 20% of life left. I missed with a few AE's, and i think i can do it, it'll be really close if i landed all full. The tough part is definitely timing. I just pulled like a normal quad, got them as bunched up as possible, and just used Upheaval. Too many people started to show so i switched back to quading.

Its a pain imo, but it can work if you get it down. Having some good regens definitely helps, and next time i do it i plan on regening myself(just had fungi on). I still dont have timing down though, and thats the tough part. Thinking about asking some Druid/Cleric friends to help out and see how that works. Dont see why it wouldnt.

just curious, but why dont Ench's and Wizzy's PBAOE in the Grey?

The Grey really doesn't have that many mobs compared to other AE zones. You can't really do back to back 40+ pulls in the Gray.

WOOT thx alot for the guide:) great xp, have you try taliors in ME ?

Ah ok, thanks )

I started toying with the idea of PBAE kiting around the beginning of Luclin. Yes, it works with toilers, and has he suggests, it takes MUCHO practice.

Toilers have weird pathing... you need to learn where they go. That, and alien hill is usually occupied by a couple others.
A good camp to try this on is the undying iksar camp in the Grey (you will run a good chance of dying if you have little practice).

I'm not positive on the level range of the rocks, but Banishment has worked on them before if you want to go that route in removing that pest. KEI is a must here, the undying iksar frequently number in the low level 50's, and aggro like rocks.

It feels good to successfully pull something like this off, but I must admit it is a pain in the ass and you can expect stress and multiple failures.

Vonkaar:

You are THE druid.

Gonna go try this out now, sounds like alot of fun!

Hmm, I used that on greens before, although not to the scale of 30..and never taking it apart and making it a working strategy...now a question I have is...Which mobs can be killed using this method with lets say 4k mana. I think Grey and Permafrost are a safe bet, although perma would take practise since its very small. Toilers? Wow, thought they have way more hp than you can deal with this way ;)

Zania

May I move this to the Archive?

What about fist of Karana? Thats a NASTY spell and it has some range on it.

Also, you could make life much easier with 2 druids. One druid goes out and hauls in the mobs, the other is waiting there for the smackdown.

Plus you have a backup to heal you if you screw things up

Precision timing, beyond question...:)

This is one that will be moved (or copied) over to the Archives, but I suggest we leave it up for additional comments/refinements/suggestions for a while longer.

torrin, fist of karana is not a pbaoe spell, fist of karana has a limit of 4 targets while upheaval is unlimited targets. Druids who quad use fist of karana if they have it.


I tried this a little after reading the guide, it takes some skill and I'm not quite there yet, but once I do get it down I shouldn't have a problem with with equipment limitations. I have 57 aa points already and decent AC/HP and ft 6, so I'll let you know how decent gear factors into this. All we need now is an ancient PBAOE spell :)

Scir, since you gave me the OK, sorta, I'll move it - but what's wrong with copy and paste? I'll leave it up in both places, just as it is.

You better not train me with your horde of mobs! :) I will be keeping my eye out for shadey druids like you :) Hehehe - J/K - if you do it I want to come watch!

Blazeheliski
Grandmaster of Rallos

ahahahah great strat, I gotta try that... Dunno if it will beat non stop fear kiting with Dire Pet, but it's gotta be fun :)

Bards have been doing this for a while. It's tough. The timing has to be -exact-, that's for sure, and we tend to do it on unsnared mobs (no long lasting snare). I have tried on greens in EJ, and I get pretty beat up doing it, but it sure is fun.

Btw, for those who were curious, here's the stats for up heaval. 35' radius is the same as the bard's longest pbae dot too.





Upheaval
Decrease Hit Points (HP) from 648 (L51) to 718 (L58)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Classes: Clr (L52), Dru (L51)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Skill: Evocation
Allowable Targets: Point Blank AoE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Area Effect Range: 35 feet
Pushes Target Back: 1 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Resistance Check: Magic
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ana Required: 625
Spell Duration: Instant
Casting Time: 5.0 seconds
Spell Recovery: 2.50 seconds
Recast Delay: 24.0 seconds
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spell cast on you: You feel the ground scream and heave.
Spell cast on someone: Soandso is mauled by the moving ground.

Hmmm... that's pretty cool ya'll wanna put it in archive. Kinda an 'honor' I guess =pp. However... is there someplace else I could host the pictures at? I can't guarantee that I'll not accidentally delete them off my little 'free' hosting site, and that'd almost ruin the guide methinks. Plus... sometime around 9am each morning, they say my 'daily bandwidth' is over.

actually, I'm removing this, because it has the potential to ruin the day for a lot of innocent people

The pics were fouled up. Can you check the links?

Bah, I've been doing this for ages, with Winds of Gelid I can kill all the Dogs in GD with one spell.
Been herding them all up, timing the approach of the "pack" and blasting em all in one go, didn't even bother snaring :)

ind you, like the idea gate / corpsecamp strat tho.

The pictures are messed up because the hosting company he's on limits the amount of bandwidth available per day... with the size of those pictures, it probably reaches the limit after a dozen views of this thread.

I have been doing this for a few months to help guildees work their tailoring on the silks. In EK you just wolf and run the zone with auto-attack on. Run up to any spider and hit it to add to the pull. After you have a dozen or so chasing you you run ahead and cast Upheaval. Have to get the timing down so they come in range but dont get enough hits to interupt casting. They all fall over on one cast. Loot and hand out the silks (else half the zone will start trying to beat your guildees to the loot timer). Rinse repeat until a mana break.

BTW - Wizards do this as often as we Quad. Though we do not have the damage output they do, we might be able to get a few druids working together to pull off thier normal solo spots. Or like I have been telling others for a long time, partner with a wiz and watch the exps bar fly.....

Graffë's Wizard Discussion
-------------------------
AE Kiting - pub23.ezboard.com/fgraffe...ationfrm20 (http://pub23.ezboard.com/fgraffeswizardcompilationfrm20)
AE Grouping - pub23.ezboard.com/fgraffe...ationfrm21 (http://pub23.ezboard.com/fgraffeswizardcompilationfrm21)

Too bad clerics dont have a snare. But if you ever consider duoing with this, keep in mind that a 60th cleric has phenomenal PBAOE. Unspoken Word has an extremely long recast but does high 600s for 460 mana, as well as blinds. We also get a high 500s for high 400s mana. This is on top of Upheaval which is a bad ratio compared to the other cleric AoEs. I could probably cast Unspoken word for 650 or so, Then Word of Whateveritis for high 500s then Upheaval. POW!The problem with cleric aoes is they are a much shorter range, but they (with the exception of unspoken word) have a much faster cast time. Not to mention AoE fear ;)

Sounds interesting. But I won't be willing to change m bind point. Getting into PoM to bind again would next to impossible for me.

Would egress work instread of bind/gate? In the grey it takes you close to the ms (I think thats the name) zoneline.

You wonder why everyone hates droods. Enjoy your xp while it last.

> Too bad clerics dont have a snare

Snare not necessary. Snare is just a pain in the butt if you get more than 10 mobs. Kite the stuff around to group it, wedge yourself against a rock, and time the blast to land when the mobs hit you.

Clerics should rock at this, as long as they have sow and decent AC/HP. Mages might want to stick with the elite wizard group set-up.

> You wonder why everyone hates droods

Because people are ignorant and feel the need to complain?

PBAE solo for druids is just a neat trick, which is a pain in the ass to set up. Quadding is still much better for us, imo.

You want something to be jealous about? Go check out the wizard PBAE group that gets four AA points of exp on a good day.

Or, if you feel like it, say "@#%$ it" to the animosity bs and go have fun.

> You wonder why everyone hates droods. Enjoy your xp while it last

Uhhmm, everyone doesn't hate druids. Just because you do, doesn't give you the right to speak for the rest of Norrath.

/em Tatanka wants to make a trade

Here's 10pp for a clue.

Tat

shrug... I quad too... it just depends on how bad I wanna do it. *yes* it definately takes a bit longer then grabbing your 4-12 mobs and kiting with LS. However... IF things go right, you'll not miss any nukes, and they'll all drop at around 7 minutes. Even if you have 30 mobs, all *snared* and such, you can still finish them all off before the 10 minutes are up.

issing AE is what causes this to 'not work'. If you continually have to duck off because you cast too early/late... you are wasting a lot of time. If you miss a full nuke, that's 625 mana LESS then what you started out with. That *may* be too much. It depends on the available mana pool, mana regeneration, and total time needed.

If you have a pretty good spawn up, and little rock-fiends to take care of... it should take less then 3 minutes to get your swarm grouped up, and gate out. 7 minutes after your initial snare, you could very well be wrapping up with your swarm. That's a possible 20-30 mobs... in 10 minutes time. If you did 24 mobs, in 10 minutes... I'd say that's better experience then normal quadding.

This isn't to say 'normal quadding' isn't good. I still do 'normal quadding' more then I PBAE... only because I'm pretty lazy. However, if the zone empties out... I'll usually be up top, clearing the skeletons.

Now as far as wizards... I really don't think a *single* wizard could pbae. If he/she were to try it the way Abru suggests, without snare, they would surely take a lot of hits. Even *greatly* equipped wizards wouldn't have the hp/ac to take too many rounds of melee like that... and you'd basically be taking a BIG risk of melee, each time you ae.

I could be wrong tho. I'd really really be impressed if I saw that.

And finally... anyone have any suggestions to where I could host the pictures? I think it takes a *lot* away from my guide, I just can't afford to pay for hosting, just for 1 post.

very gud vonkaar . I r proud )

OMG, your chat window has 2 columns? or did you just paste 2 on top of eachother? I want a 2 columned chat window

I'd never have enough mana for this at my lvl. I just go to Crushbone and kill all the trains. hehe. Hmmm wonder if this would work in KC. Wait till trains come to zone half dead and finish them off. hehe.

hmm how bout if you just partner with a cleric that has donal's boots , right click upheaval, should make things go fast =)

That is a well written spoiler and will open the doors for some real fun.

The next step might be to research some of the best duos for PBAE experience or even the best groups. I know that an Enchanter + Wizard can set up some real mean AE duos in places like the Sol B or a few caves in Luclin. However, dealing with the interrupts can be tough at times.

It would be nice to read about Druid + Class XYZ.

The problem I would see about 'duo-ing' with *any* class would be agro. Have you ever tried quadding with someone else? 9 outta 10 times, if you are BOTH nuking, you'll have half the crowd chasing you and half chasing your partner. If you can maintain PERFECT synchronicity and basically be hugging on your partners legs the whole time... possible. Regardless, it's a *lot* of trouble and may not be worth it.

aybe if the wizard did his half mana bar with druid snared mobs, then egressed, then a druid came in and finished after wizard zoned back... blah, that's a lot of bs work IMHO.

Donal's boots effect is Tremor... only 122hp and the cast time is like 12 seconds... I used to have a pair on me Cle, so not sure exact cast time... but it's crazy-long.

A cleric that tried to solo with these things and no snare would have a *long* run to get far enough away to cast this, and manage to land them... plus the little damage... that'd be a zone-wide kite that'd take an hour.

However, if that cleric tried the Abru method... unspoken word and other pbae may work... I'm just not sure if it'd be worth taking a huge risk like that... with unsnared mobs and such.

/shrug

> A cleric that tried to solo with these things and no snare would have a *long* run to get far enough away to cast this, and manage to land them... plus the little damage... that'd be a zone-wide kite that'd take an hour

Probably wouldn't work anyway. To account for the long cast time, you'd have to start casting when the mobs were still far away. Probably far enough away to be outside the cast range of the spell.

Just like the Lumi, can't be used on unsnared mobs. Mashing the hotkey until it goes off (mobs in range) barely works with snared mobs =)

Tat

pbae has no cast range... you don't even have to have anything targeted

/em does his best Homer Simpson impression... DOH!

of course, you are correct!

Tat

Your images are now hosted here:

http://66.1.253.130/los/vonkaar-pbae/carnage.jpg
http://66.1.253.130/los/vonkaar-pbae/ideal.jpg
http://66.1.253.130/los/vonkaar-pbae/looting.jpg
http://66.1.253.130/los/vonkaar-pbae/max-range.jpg
http://66.1.253.130/los/vonkaar-pbae/pbae02.jpg
http://66.1.253.130/los/vonkaar-pbae/too-far.jpg

Quadding becomes almost non-stop once you get set up with around 15FT and KEI. Sometime before you get that to happen, any difference that PBAE kiting makes, is made up for by the lower risk of death of normal quadding. (The quadding becomes completely non-stop if you grab your mage twink on a second computer and have him drop rod2 for you while you quad. :p )

Abru,

Stop it!!!!

Every time you post, I drool all over my shirt and have to go change clothes.

2 boxing with a modrod2 mage, FT15, perma-KEI!!

See, there, I did it again!

LOL =)

Tat

"You wonder why everyone hates droods. Enjoy your xp while it last."

Heh, this is envy if i've ever seen it. Why would people hate druids for PBAOE'ing in an isolated area where mobs are plentiful, respawn fast, and rares pop based on mobs killed? Straight up jealousy.

Heh, I am a rogue who read about this at the safehouse, I had to come over and check it out.

I don't hate druid's - kudos for you for finding some fun in your game. This is a very cool sounding strat that makes me wish I had a high enough druid to play around with something liek this. Sounds like fun.

Nice guide too, even this rogue understood )

SD

Why not use AE Snare? After all the skeletons are grouped up after you gate, ae snare would be perfect to pull them all, and would save more mana than normal snares.

Thanks a *lot* Abru. I'm changing those over right now.
And yeah... I still agree with you on quadding over pbae with gear like that. You are getting what? 28 mana-per-tick self-buffed, no? I'd be quadding too =/. I _definately_ think people with THAT kind of mana regen would be better off non stop quadding.


Also...

AE snare doesnt guarantee 10 minutes like ensare does. The entire reason this method works is because of the length of ensnare. Plus... ae snare is limited to 4 targets.

AE snare is 5

it's still not 30 =p

Nice,
Druids get stuck out of raids this is true, this guide is awsome, Somone come up with a nice Necro one now hehe.
This seems like it would work well with Wizard too.

Problem with weezurds is there're much more fragile than dr00ds. One slip, one stun, and hasta la vista baybee. Their snares are also only AE-version, only short-lasting and high mana cost, so they're be reduced to doing the no-snare method.

Hail All,

I was messing around with this tonight and it does work, “timing” for sure is key. It doesn’t take to long to get the timing down, but boy is it frustrating when you’re off.

Fine-tuning a bit I would suggest the following, C3, any of the Druid Mana Regen line (the more the merrier), Aegolism, DMG shield and Regen. I started out doing 7 and seemed to work well.

This is not for the faint at heart. Expect some near death experiences and of course the annoying adds. This can be “very” time consuming and when Ensnare wears off you are presented with yet another challenge.

A true mark of Druidhood when you can pull this off.

Vonkaar!

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cong lazydru =pp

It is done now, thanks again Abru.

Nice strategy, I'm hesitant to try it though in a zone with other people in it =)

.... hi Galiana Elessedil

Looks like they nerfed your strat'.

They did?

worked last night...

Aye they didn't nerf it - It's just a little harder to make the pull with the addition of more worms and boulderling traps. Still quite doable though.

Ruler
(60 Druid, EMarr)

Is this possible without any mana regen at all?

Yes, the point of this is to make the most of your mana when the regenneration of it is in limited supply.

Hail All,

I have a feeling that The Grey has be some what Nerfed. Even with Junk Pulls I can only get about 6 Skels max, followed by 4 Rockfiends, 2 SShar's, 3 Golems and 5000000000000 Xarkas.

ignore the golems and shissar... ignore whatever else is on you besides the skeletons and rockfiends.

Basically... after you have your swarm, REGARDLESS of what else has joined in, you gate out. When you come back, the golems and shissar will be out of the way, or leaving. The wurms will be depopping, leaving only the rockfiends. Dispose of them as before.

The only way I can see them truly 'nerfing' the zone to kiters would be to put a wurm trap every 60 yards or so.

You get no adds / traps of unsnareable feckers or rockfiends if you aggro your skellies run then mash the innate camo key. When / if you trigger a trap the adds wont follow cos yer invis.
Course this only works when you actually get Innate Camo but i can tell you now that its the best thing for soloers i have invested in. It seriously reduces quadding time unless you over pull for the quad but imagane constantly pullin 4 mobs with no adds from anywhere in the grey to be pulled to a nice cosy spot of your choice ;)

Aye, even with Veran't addition of what seems like several more Xakra traps, this method is still quite doable. However, it really isn't worth even trying it without a nice bit of Mana Regen because if you can't keep up with the time, you will end up resnaring your group sometimes multiple times. In total, a pull, a snaring of the group, and the killing of the group takes me ~20-25mins with Potg + Mask of The Hunter + C3 + MC2.

Ruler
60 Druid EMarr

Why snare? :p