Good guide to SK swarm kiting?

[Artemus]

Anyone know a real good Swarm Kiting for Dummies type of guide? Evil gamer talks about it a lot but there is no single guide.

TIA.

 

[Rooster]

There is a lot of information over on evilgamer about the AA to buy etc.

As for zones, there is a lot of that too.

What level/AA/Gear are you in?

Or are you looking for general tips?

 

[RageATM0998]

First off, it's not kiting. You get a big pile of mobs and stand up to fight it toe to toe. The heals you leech from ripostes make up for the damage you take. You start out with your epic, and the goal is to get mortal coil procs running off kill shots by the time your epic fades.

Because most of your damage while swarming comes from ripostes, you want to use the weapon with the highest damage possible, even if it's not necessarily your best ratio weapon (though typically it probably is).

For spells, you will mainly be running DoTs to help add some damage while you're taking your swarm down. Don't bother using anything with a cast timer, as the amount of damage (and thus healing) that you lose during the cast time isn't worth whatever spell you're casting. Plus, with so many mobs attacking you, you'll likely get interrupted anyway.

As far as AAs, the most important ones are mortal coil and spell casting reinforcement (to increase the duration of your epic / mortal coil). After that, anything that adds to your melee damage or defense is good. DoT damage is also helpful, though this should be secondary to the aforementioned AAs.

Find somewhere with a lot of light blue mobs and some good corners you can wedge yourself in. Start small, and work your way up until you get the feel for how many mobs you can handle at a time. Eventually, you'll be pulling trains so big that the zone lags. One tip - Cast your epic before your train gets to the corner where you're fighting them. Once they're beating on you, it can be hard to get it off, even with as quick as the cast time is. The extra 2-3 seconds of epic time isn't worth the death from getting interrupted.

 

[SiegeTank]

I'm just starting to get into swarm-kiting as my SK levels up. What about suitable buffs from other toons? I'm guessing you don't want the mobs slowed but I'm thinking of buffs like the cleric viral reverse DS? I've used that when my druid swarms low level mobs for pharming and PLing a low level alt and it spreads very very fast. Any reason NOT to use that? Any other buffs worth having if available other than the obvious HP, AC and regen buffs?

 

[saar]

shammy buffs minus the proc slow and cleric shining makes it almost trivial at lvl 90 swarming in fm the mobs hit for under 2k and shining heal for more. chanter haste is nice cause of the extra attack chance other then that reverse ds can get bad real quick, specially in zones that have more then one lvl the ds will aggro mobs above that z plane.

 

[Zemetor]

One very important thing is to have Extended Enhancement active. Since Mortal Coil (MC) is a beneficial spell, it is affected by Extended Enhancement. Thus MC will have a longer duration if Extended Enhancement is active. I use Extended Enhancement from my personal tributes.

 

[SiegeTank]

shammy buffs minus the proc slow and cleric shining makes it almost trivial at lvl 90 swarming in fm the mobs hit for under 2k and shining heal for more. chanter haste is nice cause of the extra attack chance other then that reverse ds can get bad real quick, specially in zones that have more then one lvl the ds will aggro mobs above that z plane.

I don't get the comment on the DS... u saying the viral nature will spread even to mobs not in the original pack pulled? I didn't think the range was that big on how far it spread.

 

[RageATM0998]

One very important thing is to have Extended Enhancement active. Since Mortal Coil (MC) is a beneficial spell, it is affected by Extended Enhancement. Thus MC will have a longer duration if Extended Enhancement is active. I use Extended Enhancement from my personal tributes.

Don't bother. This is just a waste of tribute. The only extension that affects your epic click and Mortal Coil duration is the Spell Casting Reinforcement AA line. Both worn focus effects and tribute (which counts as a worn effect) do not extend these buffs.

 

[Borneal]

You want to be well buffed but you don't really want any other characters casting while you are mid pull. Most of the mobs are proximity aggroed as you round up your swarm. Then the only damage they take is from ripostes. So its very easy for anybody else in group to pull agro of a lot of mobs if they cast.

Starting out use a zone with nice solid corners to get in. Once you get the hang of it you can open field swarm just have to get very good at fighting from horseback or constantly nudging forward to fight being pushed back. Your attack range and the mobs attack range are larger than your riposte range. So you can see your hitting a mob and think your safe but actually be outside riposte range and go down quick from lack of heals if getting pushed.

Kaesora Library is one of the best once you learn the good corners. At level 100 a lot of mobs drop out of light blue unless you are at the bottom of the pit making it a bit more challenging to get a mortal coil proc. I still used the zone to level up the evolving helm.

 

[saar]

the viral reverse ds seems to ignore z axis, so in fm you pull the field and corner tank near the elevators and it will start pulling mobs from the second floor, this happened to me lots of times before just dropping it off.

 

[Nicedreamsbt]

I like to save my epic for emergency situations. I would start out killing one or two guys to get mc to proc and than gather up a big group of guys. Find my corner and use my instant cast dots to get mc to proc again and save epic for a emergency. My mc last two and a half min I think so you have some time. The range can kill you sometimes waiting for a mc to proc. I also like to use my disc to help with the dmg on the initial pull tell mobs start to drop. But the goal is to kill and not use all your mana. Using shrink is a good idea also. I would use my shaman and a cleric merc to buff myself.

 

[Dealings]

use my instant cast dots to get mc to proc again

what does dotting have to do w it?

just trying to kill faster I assume?

 

[[40oz]]

use my instant cast dots to get mc to proc again

what does dotting have to do w it?

just trying to kill faster I assume?

Mortal Coil procs on non-trivial mob deaths. The faster you get the first few down to get that initial proc, the better. After that, I tend to beat all of them down to low health so that when the residue wears off, I can kill several quickly for another proc.

 

[Rooster]

I like to save my epic for emergency situations. I would start out killing one or two guys to get mc to proc and than gather up a big group of guys. Find my corner and use my instant cast dots to get mc to proc again and save epic for a emergency. My mc last two and a half min I think so you have some time. The range can kill you sometimes waiting for a mc to proc. I also like to use my disc to help with the dmg on the initial pull tell mobs start to drop. But the goal is to kill and not use all your mana. Using shrink is a good idea also. I would use my shaman and a cleric merc to buff myself.

You will get much better exp if you pull a larger pull to begin with and use epic and your discs from the get go. By the time your epic and discs fade you'll have MC procced and several mobs at lowish HP.

If you can pull a 'big group' and kill a few mobs for another MC proc in less than 2.5mins your not pulling enough mobs

Not to mention if you have the hastened AA by the time you kill the swarm/loot and get the next pull done your discs will be refreshed.

Smaller pulls kinda of defeat the purpose.

 

[Artemus]

So let's see if I got it right.

* Buff up massively, use a high damage 2hander.
* Pull a shitload of light blues, reverse pin in the corner.
* Pop the epic and Defy
* Use the instacast dots like Perfidious Blight and Insidious Audacity
* Rinse, repeat with each mob, keep using the dots to make MC pop
* Don't use a cleric merc to avoid agro, right?

I tried a few times. I held up great for a bit, then poof, I just dropped. Not sure what happened there. It might be the mobs are too much. I've been pulling ogres in Tosk. Might have to go for something easier. I have a 94 sk with about 6600 ac

 

[aspire2008]

Nope not exactly.

Once the mobs are cornered, you need to pop epic followed by Visage of Death (make sure you have all hastened ranks done too), then make sure that last few mobs are light blue or db at end so mortal coil can fire, and get a 2nd pull going asap because timer on mortal coil is counting down.

I usually loot all mobs after my 2nd pull, and by then VoD has refreshed on timer (I think its either 10 or 12 mins, can't recall of top of my head).

 

[RageATM0998]

by then VoD has refreshed on timer (I think its either 10 or 12 mins, can't recall of top of my head).

Currently 12 minutes if you have the hastened AA maxed out.

 

[hawthorne]

So let's see if I got it right.

* Buff up massively, use a high damage 2hander.
* Pull a shitload of light blues, reverse pin in the corner.
* Pop the epic and Defy
* Use the instacast dots like Perfidious Blight and Insidious Audacity
* Rinse, repeat with each mob, keep using the dots to make MC pop
* Don't use a cleric merc to avoid agro, right?

I tried a few times. I held up great for a bit, then poof, I just dropped. Not sure what happened there. It might be the mobs are too much. I've been pulling ogres in Tosk. Might have to go for something easier. I have a 94 sk with about 6600 ac

Use Harmshield when pulling to help prevent summons.
I use my taps, especially Bond, to keep myself topped off if MC is taking a while to proc.
If you are not handling the ogres, start with a smaller pull. Make sure you have your defensives maxed for your level, it helps.
Also, Double Riposte. Remember, you are killing the majority of the mobs with riposte damage, so anything that adds to or helps with that is a plus.
Also, make sure you have auto attack on. I have been halfway through a pull, wondering why it was so hard to keep myself up, and then I noticed I wasn't attacking. Doh moment but it happens when you are trying to do so many things in a short period of time.

 

[Villageidiot]

Correct me if i'm wrong but i thought MC wouldn't proc off of something that died from a spell?

So casting a bunch at the end of a fight could be a bad idea or having a ton of dots.

 

[hawthorne]

It's credit for a successful (re: XP giving) kill. Doesn't specify melee.

http://eq.magelo.com/spell/21770
eq:Mortal Coil :: Wiki :: EverQuest :: ZAM