EQDiva

Time to adapt... 3 reasonable options for swarm kitting: PoN - River Goblins PoJ - Mauvin Hall PoN - Mephit Cave!!! If you cant do gobos then just delete your character and spare us the time. Mauvin hall and mephits are camps that take quiet a few deaths to learn. Most of our swarmming has been done in large open areas, welcome to close quarter swarm kitting. Where HP is god, resists are a must and the ability to click that ssbp is required. Certainly this goes against what most are used to doing, but since this is a charm upgrade it is certainly time to upgrade our tactics. Mauvin hall is perhaps the best place to start. Keep moving at all times! Every chance you can get click that ssbp, if you cannot heal yourself fast you are as good as dead. Once you have mastered the ability to operate in close combat and avoid damage succesfully you will want to take a trip over the mephit cave (a horse/lizard will get you up to the cave quickly). Yes i know the misery mephits cast. Yes i know some of the misery mephits cant be charmed to. Yes i know you just died and you will probably die again until you learn how to move faster. Normal mephits greatly outnumber the misery mephits. 5 to 1. Normal mephits are always able to be charmed, by now you have already figured out you want to always charm a mephit and send it on a misery mephit asap. If you cant get over 2.5k hp and 150 mr fr cr then this is not the place for you. If you cannot stop dying then go back and die some more, these tactics are an upgrade and its time to adapt. Remember how fast those stalkers started to die once you pulled 6-8 of them? Well this is the same thing, lightning fast kills (minute MAX once worked out), endless supply of mephit bloods which sell quite well and some of the best damn exp anyone has ever seen. Questions? This is a msgboard so ask away.

Yeah I got a question, I swarmed mephits before up top the platform with the nitemares. Is there anyway of getting up there or pulling mehpits without having to go through the gob cave?

Yes, this involves a horse or a lizard. As you head to the hedge there is that small inlet that i use for gobos as it is near impossible to catch a train. All you need to do is move against the edge of the cliff where the rocks in the corner start. Being absolutely against the edge, cast your horse/lizard. The front legs of the horse/lizard are farther then your front body, putting them on the hill. You should be able to just start walking forward now. If you can walk forward drop your horse and try again until you are walking up the cliff.

Nice, I think I will buy the cheapo leezard now heh. I've been doing it the hard way. Tick speed, ssboot lev and hit my cloak for a quick invis then bolt through the caves and when I get out to the platform, just hitting my FM button. I like your way better.

You can charm the spawned boars in the RZ encounter =p

Always did the stalkers in PoN you can do the goblins around the river behind the stalkers off the cliff ? If so wow cool & will try the horsey step trick for mephits. Thanks fellow bards, Deakion

Enjoy the game however you want, but realize one thing: Swarm kiting will only get you so far. Eventually you are going to have to group. For Flags, for Equipment, to see new zones. If you lack the skill to pull, slow, haste, mezz or any other of the myraid things that good bards do, then you are an embarassment to those who DO, and you make it much harder for us, and for those who attempt to try to place bards in groups on raids. The one comment above "if you cant swarm goblins, delete you character" is about the most F'd up thing I have ever seen on this board. Swarm kiting is the least skillful, most boring, least useful, and most tedious way to play a Bard. If ALL you do is swarm, and you cant group your bard, then dont delete the bard. Just dont even try to group unless its with friends. And swarm only solo bards dont make many friends in EQ.

Apart from swarming I use charm for crowd control - it is like a long term mez. It would be nice to have a list of planer (or any) mobs that can (can't) be charmed with each song, rather than having to pay the price of trying to charm an uncharmable.

I finally got the charm and tested it out, here are my personal findings. I took my new song to PoD and pulled everything around Grummus' little house (RCY, LCY and FCY). It took me maybe 20 minutes to kill every mob swarm kiting them. The xp was lousy (about 2.5 blues AA xp). If you are feeling nostalgic about the good old days and want to swarm kite, go for it, but if you want xp group or solo mobs in higher zones. For solo xp you can give Tactics a shot but avoid the Death Knights (if they land snare on you or a couple dots you are pretty much dead) or you can always do the frogs in PoS. I have found that the frogs give you more xp than Tactics (about twice as much). I have yet to solo mobs from the pit though so that xp might be greater. All-in-all I have found that group xp is just as good as solo xp so go make some friends. As far as this song goes I would pick it up, you never can tell when you will need a charm, i.e. soloing mobs for quest pieces, PLing another char etc etc. Remember there are no "useless" bard songs just songs you don't use that much.

Swarm kiting is the least skillful, most boring, least useful, and most tedious way to play a Bard. If ALL you do is swarm, and you cant group your bard, then dont delete the bard. Just dont even try to group unless its with friends. And swarm only solo bards dont make many friends in EQ.

Once again the "Swarm kiting Bards can't group" thing comes back.. This has all be said before and just isn't true.. Swarm kiting has SAVED my groups ass more time then I can count.. Being able to deal with multi mobs without doubt or fear is a BIG asset to a group.. Understanding charm and being able to time it well is a BIG asset to groups.. Learn what songs stack with what spells (grouping Bard) is easy.. I'll put ANY swarming Bard up against ANY grouping Bard doing both solo and group and I'll beat you after a day of killing the group is going to pick that solo Bard.. And if you find yourself in groups that wipe cause of over pulls maybe you should start swarm kiting and learn how to deal with multi-mobs..

I know when I'm pulling multiples in LDoN and know my group is in a decent sized room, I always enter the room and peal right (my preferred swarming direction). I am the only one with aggro at that time and know that I can get one or two mezed away from the party while the MA is gaining aggro on the target, all without me taking a ton of damage and wasting mana to heal me. That and if I do need a heal, even though I'm running around the room, any heal will still land on me. It doesn't always work, but I would never have thought of it if I hadn't spent all my 40s and my early 50s swarm kiting. Sinfonian

Sinfonian thats my point.. The last time I was in The Hole with a group we pulled too much.. I kited the pack off and manage to kill two mobs swarming before my group killed the main mob.. Just cause someone knows how to swarm kite well does NOT mean they can't group.. Anyone who thinks that really needs to take another look at just what a swarm kiter is doing.. It's an extreme version of CC and DPS.. And a good swarm kiter only need a small area to do it in..

The following are tried and true places the 64 bard song is LAW. Gargoyles in PoN, HobGobs in PoN (and all yard trash there too). * Also, Kael! Many people forget about these old dungeons noone seems to do anymore except for occasional raids on vindi, but MOST or the arena mobs are charmable including adjutant and all. Pair that up with a malo tash or something like that though, or else you will run out of mana far too fast. Of course, courtyard mobs in PoD are always fun, but they tend to HT alot if you get a resist. Sebilis is alotta fun too, those juggs make awesome pets }:) just charm one of those bad boys and watch the dps unfold againts his buddy. Also works on myconids but they tend to have very high resists. The bugs in fungus grove turn out a considerable dps and are easily charmed. Chardok raids are so much more fun with a charmed skelly pet with some nice dropped gear... I remimber cleaning house with a skelly equipped with a scion axe and a sarnak shield. :lol Just remember when you are done to break charm and reclaim your items. I do find however that using this song, especially with resists, its a very good idea to get the FT2 aug from EF and the solstice earring if you have the means.... They have saved my manabar and butt countless times. * Kiting the gargs can net you a couple banshees from inside the compound... if that happens fire up your charm on the banshee (Call of the Banshee, coincidence? I think not!) and send it into your entorrage following you and let them kill it for you. Be careful though, if the banshee charm breaks then you will get summoned into that mob of angry fans. Crowd surfing PoN isnt really very smart.

Absolutely no context to discuss this topic, but this statement: Be careful though, if the banshee charm breaks then you will get summoned into that mob of angry fans. CROWD SURFING PON ISNT REALLY VERY SMART. LOL generates the image of the bard being passed along the top of the crowd. Badji

I disagree with the statement that swarm kiting is easy...it may be monotonous but its not easy. You must learn to change targets, juggle instruments, subtely control the agro of mobs, and positioning them, all the while running and casting. If those aren't helpful skills in a group I don't know what is. Try grouping with a bard that never solos and you will often see one that is not situationally aware (key bard skill) and can't change up their twist to incorporate a new song that is appropriate to what is happening to the mob at that moment. This happens frequently to me. Clearly a generalisation but the key bard attribute to me is not even our ability to do many things but the ability to do many things over the course of taking down one mob. In my mind, people that can swarm well make ideal pullers. Many of the same skills apply. Bards that do nothing but group can become very lazy. Having said that I group more than I swarm and will continue to. /ramble off