EQDiva

Greetings, I've been playing EQ for a few weeks now and have worked my bard up to 28th level. I've tried a bit of AE Kiting without much success, though I'm not sure if that's just my lack of skill and/or changes to EQ. I've read a number of threads to try and get educated on playing a bard including quite a few on Kiting. I still have a few questions, so perhaps I just haven't read the right ones. With charm kiting, how do you break charm? How do you direct your charmed mob to attack someone? How well does reverse-kiting work? A friend with a level 31 Shaman and I have been working FM, though it's been somewhat slow going XP-wise. Is there someplace better we should be tackling? My gear is fairly good for my level thanks to some help from a friend who's been playing for years. I play on Povar and am happy for any tips/advice people feel like sharing. I can twist 3 fairly reliably by hand and still do some melee. I've figured out /melody which helps, but still getting the hang of using that, especially when the songs drop, etc. Just need to do some fine-tuning. I've only got Platinum edition so far, so no bandoleers yet, though hopefully I'll upgrade to Titanium within a few weeks. Any help/suggestions welcome. Thanks!

Well you really should check out the guides section. A quick note is AE or AoE kiting is no more, our DoTs don't affect moving mobs anymore. To break charm you need to cast invis on yourself, that is about the best for sure way to break it. You can also use sneak, but with the fail rate on it, it is not reliable.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll go back and look at the guides some more. All of them in there though are from 2004 or before, based on the posting date. Thanks for the help on how to break charm.

yes, the dates are old on them, but the information for the most part is still valid, except for the AE guides.

An important thing to do is to map a key to "Toggle between last two targets" this is somewhere in the options (Alt-O) under keyboard I think, but it's been a long time since I looked. The popular key is "tab" This way, you can charm a pet, target another mob and tell it to attack (/pet attack) and then tab back to your pet to have him targetted for when charm breaks. That should all be covered in the guides, but directly answers your first questions.

If you can get one, a Goblin Gazughi Ring is instant invis cast, but you do have to wear it. It will work nicely at your level. This is the item I use to break charm when charm/swarm kiting.

I like the invis cloak better, sits in ammo slot and has a fast cast time, almost instant if I remember correctly. I can never remember the name of it, but if you search for me on eqplayers, it should show in my ammo slot.

Jarsh, he'd have to be level 55 to use that cloak. He's 28. Tiny Cloak of Darkest Night has a 1.5 second casting time (which I dont like).

Tiny Cloak of Darkest Night from the Caller Cycle Quest in Fungus Grove. Would have linked it, but Alla's is down atm. yeah you can definately use an invis item like the ring, the cloak or boots of the mosquito. Most of those are hard to find or take a while to get, but have a short cast time which helps make breaking charm easier and more accurate. I haven't gotten either yet, so I usually just end up using Selo's Song of Travel, 3 second cast time like all our other songs and a no instrument invis will break charm as well as any other item. It's not always a completely accurately timed break, but on the other hand I can have the song playing and then duck interrupt it in order to get my pets health as low as possible. If you're going for exp, swarm kiting is probably your best bet, single targeting mobs against each other isn't nearly as fast or efficient. However, if you're looking to take down a named or summoning mob, selo's should work well enough since timing your charm breaks isn't really as much of an issue running a regular kite.

I can have the song playing and then duck interrupt it in order to get my pets health as low as possible.

Ducking won't stop the song from playing though... it will only prevent you from starting a new song.

yeah swarming is great and all but you dont even have our first chant at lvl 28, by lvl 30 when u get fulli's u could twist selo,fulli,and bellow. but honestly get a group and hunt in the hot zones. maybe try pulling a few LDoN, thats were I learned to pull. at lvl 43 or so i was AE kiting spirocs in Timorous Deep, you cant AE kite but i did experiment with swarming them and it can work but the 18 second charm is a little less than useful. not bad if u want to get your feet wet. best swarm kiteing place is Plane of nightmare stalkers and hobgoblins. stalkers at lvl 50 or so and hobs at lvl 64. and the goblin ring is easy to farm solo at lvl 40 or so track is almost a must have. theres a guide on farming it somewhere on this website. good luck

it's going to be easier to learn charm in a few levels, with the chants. it's doable without chants, but could be a frustrating way to learn it.