EQDiva

In addition to jumping .. you can "side-slip" while running .. this is also faster than a straight line ... odd huh? To slide slip --- hold the (either shift or ctl) ctl key down and use the arrows .. this will "slide" you back and forth .. allowing you to "slip" away from the persuing mob :)

My question is, that once you break charm, and you charm another, how do you find the one thats low on life, so you can get exp? Low life aggro magically take care of this? As I see it now, I'll end up getting all of them down to 10% or lower, and then use AE songs to finish them all off. :D

Target your pet just before you break charm. That way it is there on target to be killed. /shrug. It's that easy. Tamb 62 Bard of Lanys

So what do you do when db mobs start to be resistant to your charm? I'm 53, no charm in sight until 64, and can no longer charm all db mobs?

I'm assuming your question is not what do you do when a charmable mob (52 or lower) resists charm, because the answer is charm them again, maybe hitting them with a magic reducer if it's really hard, to save mana. I'm guessing your question is what do you do when that rat you just tried to charm in your swarm in PoD is level 53 and uncharmable. What I do is tablock that mob, and make him my pet's target until he's 20% or less then chant kite him down. It very well could take 5 or 6 pets before he's 20% or lower, but that's ok. What the real pain is, is when you have 2 or 3 uncharmables in a swarm. At that point, you have a few options after killing as many as possible the pet target way: - Take the 20 min or so to chant kite them to death, remembering the last one will turn and run at 10%ish, regening immeditately to 40% (PoD sucks like that). - Train them with you to go round up more mobs to swarm and use as pets against them (hard to do sometimes if you have to skirt around reds to pull). - Jet to zone, knowing that with selos you can outrun them. Just make sure to call your trains. Lastly, if you find you are swarming a bunch of dark blues that are uncharmable, you are swarming the wrong mobs. All the established swarmkiting areas have areas of nearly all charmable mobs. Hope that helps, Sinfonian

So you target your pet right before you break charm. However, when charm breaks, you have to target another mob to charm to start beating on the one that is low. So just targetting your pet before you break doesn't work. As I assume when you break your charm, they bolt for you in a clump, selecting another for charm isn't difficult, its selecting again the one low on life when they are in this clump. I'm sure its something that I'm missing, as swarm kiting obviously works, but I just can't seem to figure it out. :p

It is very simple actually... Before you break the charm, make sure you have your pet targeted. *side note* pressing TAB will alternate between targeting yourself and your last target. If you are like me, you have insta-click invis to break charm exactly when you want. So when I want to break the charm, I make sure I have my pet targeted (/target pet or F1 twice), then I hit F1 to target myself, click my clicky invis to invis myself and break the charm. Then I simply press TAB to get my last target which was my pet. Then I load up all my dots on it, and let it die... then you get that nice little yellow message... You have gained experience! I swear they put crack in that yellow message. Hope that helps! Oh, also I find instant click invis is invaluable when swarm kiting. There are no missed notes, no switching instruments, no not having your drums out... If you'd like a little hint on a place where anyone over lvl 30 with track can easily farm for a insta-click invis... you might wanna check out LOIO... and perhaps even look for something called a Sarnak Courier... maybe even look for him over near the windmill area... *looks around* you didn't hear that secret from me.

Ahh.. so you kill the one low on life with dots, rather than sticking another pet on it. I was always under the impression that you killed the one low on life with another pet. Maybe thats a variation of swarm kiting that some "ubah bard #112" was able to do. I don't know. hehe. :lol

Ok, I will go as far to write a full swarming guide here, as I am rather bored atm. First, the song line up: Selos (2.5 min one) Chant of Disease Chant of Poison Chant of Fire Chant of Ice 39 Charm Shari's Sonorous Clouding (invis) Cantana of Replinishment (gotta heal sometimes) Clicky Mask for Infravision Clicky boots for Lev Second, area: PoD, mixture of charmable and uncharmable mobs. Plus lots of druids that think it best to run over uninvis'd rather than call a camp check from zone....I think I kill more druids here than flies, lol. I click on lev, then tick selos, then I follow the right side of the land-mass, picking up flies and others, then I lev across to the other 2 islands of Tachian flies, and such, and pick up all them too. Usual pull here consists of 20+ mobs that hit for 150+......can you say ouch! I make 2 laps around the stone in the usual swarming area, mashing the "target nearest NPC" button till I find a rat or other mob I know I cannot charm. Then I find a fly and keep the rat tab-buffered (I remapped the fixed tab-store back to the tab button). Now I have a rat (cannot charm) and a fly (can charm) that I can switch between with a hit of the tab button. Charm the fly, hit tab about halfway thru the charm, so I can send the fly on the rat as soon as charm lands, seeing as it charm the target I had when I started to cast charm, rather than the one I have when it lands. Now here is the hard part.... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Training the pet 101: Due to a number of patched over the last few months, a charmed pet doesnt pull as much aggro as it used to. This is easily accomplished by "training" you pet. Once you charm a pet and have it attack another, you will have 2 things fighting each other, and the rest usually chase you, especially if you have as many as I usually pull. When you have 4 or 5 mobs, they usually all attack the pet, and training is not necessary. When they all fail to attack your pet, you make a quick loop, and run past your pet and the mob its fighting, and loop behind them, so the rest that are chasing you have to pass over your pet before they get to you. When they get to your pet, they will stop, and begin to beat your pet to a pulp, this is when you start casting invis, and clicking the invis over and over till you feel that your pet will be between 10% and 20% health when invis gets done casting. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now you have a uncharmable mob tab and an ex-pet both tab buffered, tab to the pet if you dont already have it targeted, then I click a kick of selos, then chants 1-4 to drop it fast, and click selos again just before it dies. Once its dead, I loop big to space mobs so I can loot if it has something, or I prepare for the next mob. Next mob I tab back to the uncharmable, then target nearest and get a fly, if I get another uncharmable, I tab back to the first one, and try again, doesnt take too long, flies are usually the closest as they are a lil faster. Charm fly, send on the uncharmable. Repeat all above steps. Once the uncharmable (usually a rat) gets to 25% I break charm on my pet, tab to the rat, and chant it down. Since there is more than 1 thing after me, social aggro sets in, and it never turns to run. I then target the next uncharmable to tab-buffer it if there is one. If there is, I repeat the above until all uncharmables are dead. Once I get down to 3 or 4 flies left, I chant the uncharmables down one by one, leaving 3 or 4 flies at all times. This almost never happens, as there is usually more than enough flies to kill the uncharmable ones down to 25% health for easier chanting. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is some very important things I learned/tips for ALL players, not just those new to swarming: 1) Never let your pet kill the mob you sic'd him on, as this takes away exp from you. 2) Never let the target of your pet get to 25% or lower, cause it will turn and run, and kick in the 2000HP per tick PoP regen. 3) KNOW how to work your swarm to maximum benifit: Send charmables on uncharmables, send pet on [b]same[/b] target till that target is down to 25%, rather than charming the last pet's target, or send new pets on random targets. This effectively gets you 5 charms for the price of 4.....by the time you send 4 pets on the same target, that target is low enough to chant, rather than needing to be charmed. 4) Know how to finish off your swarm. Take notes, Sinfonian: When you get down to 3 or 4 things left, vary up targets and pets till you end up with 2 and ONLY 2 things at preferably 50% health or less, but NOT less than 25%, since 1 will run from the other when it gets to less than 20% or so...and you DON'T want runners. Now you have 2 things, both chasing you, tab buffer each of them, and run a line of dots across one, then tab, and hit the other with 4 dots, and switch back...when it gets low, alternate 3 then 2 then 1 dot. The goal is to have them both die on the same tic, so neither one runs from you. This takes a little practice, but I can actually dot 2 things to death, alternating between them in the same time or less time than doing them one at a time. When you have both die at the exact same time, you dont have to have any need to mem snare, nor do you have to use it. If you do one at a time, you go from a 4-chant twist to a 2-3 chant twist, since you need to twist snare (often resisted in PoP). I often find a young bat to follow me around, and give "moral-support" to my chant-kite victims in PoN to prevent runners. Runners = trouble. 5) If you arent below 75% health, dont click SS BP or Regen song....it generates aggro, and makes more things follow you rather than your pet. AA Regen skills help lots, and doesnt generate extra aggro (to my knowlage).

Well done Myst ... thanks :D

Wow, thats a damn awsome guide. Just a few questions now though.. 1. Can this be done at earlier levels and woudl you recommend any spots for this to be done. Kinda to practice, and hopefully get good exp before you move to the stuff in PoP that hits for a ton. 2. I suppose you run far enough away to cast the dots? Its not mentioned but I assume during all of this your constantly running? I know it may seem obvious, but not to some. :) 3. Probably the biggest that I'm not aware of, is the tab functions. I know that hitting tab will target yourself, and then hitting it again will go back to your previous target, but how do you get multiple things tab buffered? This is probably the biggest thing that I'm confused about. :| Thanks again for the guide, definatly awsome.

1. Can this be done at earlier levels and woudl you recommend any spots for this to be done. Kinda to practice, and hopefully get good exp before you move to the stuff in PoP that hits for a ton.

Yes, but I recommend using sow potions until level 49, as the 18 second selos is only useful for traveling, not for hunting. Also, having at least 2 single-target chants is a must...I know that Fulfils is level 30, but killing something even from 20% of its health it VERY tedious w/o at least 2 dots, and isnt really very fast until you have all 4 chants, fire, ice, disease and poison. Fufils does very little damage per tick, and is only useful at later levels for chant-kiting 'immune' mobs like fire-immune stuff in skyfire, or cold-immune stuff in velious.

2. I suppose you run far enough away to cast the dots? Its not mentioned but I assume during all of this your constantly running? I know it may seem obvious, but not to some.

Check the song listing. The AoE dots are [b]not[/b] the ones you use, its the single target 'chants'. They have a 200 unit range, which is VERY far, plenty far enough to stay out of melee range and thensome of every mob in the game. Yes, you are always running, tho I will say run in ANY shape of loop OTHER than a circle. For some reason, things 'warp' to you when you run while always turning. I recommend a square or triangle, that way the things chasing you only change directions 3 or 4 times, rather than hundreds of times, as every time a mob that chases you changes direction, it has a chance to warp, and end up right on top of you, which sux when that first hit stuns you, and the rest of the swarm then catches you and beats you silly.

3. Probably the biggest that I'm not aware of, is the tab functions. I know that hitting tab will target yourself, and then hitting it again will go back to your previous target, but how do you get multiple things tab buffered? This is probably the biggest thing that I'm confused about.

They recently added a new way to tab-store mobs, I'm not sure what key they made the new one, but its not tab. To use the tab key as it is default, you target a mob, then hit tab, then target another, to get back to the first mob, you hit escape, then F1 to target yourself, then hit tab, and you get the first mob back. I suggest remapping the NEW tab function to the tab key, as it is much more useful. The new function will switch between your last 2 targets with each press of the key, so target mob1, then target mob2, hit the 'tab' key, and you get mob1 back again, hit it again and you get mob2, and so on and so on. Will switch between any 2 targets, mob, pc, npc, or yourself, its nice. I recommend going into the keyboard options, and finding the original function that is assigned to the tab key, selecting and removing it, as its rather useless, then finding the new function, and mapping it to the tab key. I think if you go into keyboard area under options, and pull down the drop-down menu, and select 'show all' or what ever it is, its at the bottom of the list, since it was added recently. As I am at 'work' atm, I cant look it up and get the precise names of the functions you want to remap, but it should be pretty easy to figure out if you know a little of how to remap keys. If you have problems, just un-do what you did, and send me a tell, I am on the Saryrn server, so its a regular tell if you on that server, otherwise type: " [b];tell Saryrn.Mystaviant yackety-smackety[/b] " and I can walk you through mapping it. The default function of the tab key is not the one I use to change, its the new 'tab' buffer, which I remapped to the tab key. Back to the first question...Bards are probably the ONLY class in the game that changes DRASTICALLY every few levels of the game.

Ahh.. well that explains it. I'm only level 30 at the time, so charm kiting is a bit off until I get a longer lasting selo's, but this information will definatly be useful. I plan on being to 49 very very soon. :D Anyway, I'm sure we'll be talking in game, just for the heck of it, as you seem like a knowledgeable, and nice guy. Thanks again for info , and talk to you later!

K I know it is prob mentioned somewhere on the board but what lvl would you recommend swarming flies in PoD? I am currently 50 and found that travel in TD is TDious (sorry bad pun) so not really interested in raptors. I have a bard friend show me swarming but that was on the werewolf things in PoN. Think PoN is a bit outside my skills atm.

Minimum of 51, as thats when the earring of the soltace starts to give you extra mana. You need at least FT1 to swarm there, as you would otherwise go oom halfway thru a pull, and end up with lots to chant down, not fun. Also, until 54 or so, you will get a lot more resists. Perfect PoD fly swarming: Level 55 2.4 Mod flute or better FT1 or better I would not ding higher than 57 or 58 there unless you have a plan to get flagged, as the AA exp slows a bunch there after 58. I am currently 1% from 58, doing 100% AA till I find a copy of Dreams of Ayonae and chorus of replenishment. AA is 2% per kill and up, with an average of 1 AA point per hour or so non-stop. That is with decent mana regen tho, as I am never oom.