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Difference between revisions of "Deajay's AoE Bard Leveling Location Guide"
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Kiting gets slow from level 4 or 5 until level 8 because monster HP gets quite high relative to the 3 damage your Chords of Dissonance does without a stringed instrument - at this point, maybe do some single-target meleeing or group up. Once you hit 8, kiting becomes viable again. | Kiting gets slow from level 4 or 5 until level 8 because monster HP gets quite high relative to the 3 damage your Chords of Dissonance does without a stringed instrument - at this point, maybe do some single-target meleeing or group up. Once you hit 8, kiting becomes viable again. | ||
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| + | My bank bot did [[Freeport|East Freeport]] newbie area strafe kiting from L1-5. At L1, try to avoid orcs and beetles, but by L3 you can gather pretty much everything in the newbie yard. Since Selo's is not until L5, I got hit a fair bit, so when my HPs got down to ~10%, I'd just take a death to reset the HP bar instead of sitting to regen after kites (pretty sure exp penalty from deaths does not occur until L5). This should work in virtually all bard city newbie yards. | ||
== L7ish == | == L7ish == | ||
Revision as of 12:39, 16 October 2014
Original source [1].
Note: This guide started out as Deajay's personal experience kiting with his bard, but it has since been modified with other people's suggestions (with his consent).
Level 1-7
Starting at level 2, you can kite effectively by strafe-running. The area in Butcherblock Mountains near Kaladim is ideal for this because it has an enormous density of level 1 monsters with the occasional 2-5 monster. Make a few loops through this area and grab up as many monsters as you can (the way to do this pre-Selo's is to just have Chords of Dissonance on auto-loop and strafe-run through the area, using your mouse to slowly turn when necessary). Once you have a good amount, take them to a quiet, relatively flat area to DoT them down - a nice place can be found if you face Kaladim, then follow the wall to the right (i.e. go East), past the merchants. You can afford to get hit a little because the monsters don't have bash yet.
Kiting gets slow from level 4 or 5 until level 8 because monster HP gets quite high relative to the 3 damage your Chords of Dissonance does without a stringed instrument - at this point, maybe do some single-target meleeing or group up. Once you hit 8, kiting becomes viable again.
My bank bot did East Freeport newbie area strafe kiting from L1-5. At L1, try to avoid orcs and beetles, but by L3 you can gather pretty much everything in the newbie yard. Since Selo's is not until L5, I got hit a fair bit, so when my HPs got down to ~10%, I'd just take a death to reset the HP bar instead of sitting to regen after kites (pretty sure exp penalty from deaths does not occur until L5). This should work in virtually all bard city newbie yards.
L7ish
The bandit sister camp in Greater Faydark (location #3)
L8-12ish
The orcs in Lesser Faydark (locations #6 & 11).
From 8 through 11, North Karana is a goldmine of EXP. Get grizzly bears, willowisps, and silvermist wolves. Avoid getting animals from near the druid rings, because the druids there like to SoW them. Also avoid lions, since their run speed is a little faster than other animals', and beetles, because they are a little slower. An added bonus is that you can hand in greater lightstones to the gypsy camp for added EXP and some platinum.
L13-15ish
The derv and orc camps in Southern Ro, lulling the casters and taking them out solo afterward. I usually also went in the desert and grabbed some extra roaming undead/dervs. (locations #3, 5, 6, & 10; although more locations in the southern portion are orc camps. I just found those listed to have fewer/no casters.)
From 12 through 17, East Karana is a great option. Avoid lions, but go for the various wolves, snakes, and gnolls (the gnolls can be found in the southern part of the zone).
From 12 through 19, Field of Bone is also a great option. You can start off with burynai in the pit, then move to the various monsters on the east side of the zone.
L16-19ish
Lake of Ill Omen fields. (I did 17 off the skellies/lower level sarnaks between locations #4, 5, 7 & 9. I did 16-20 off the non-caster wanderers between locations #9 and 13)
L20-26
I did this portion between the Iksar outcast camps in Warsliks Wood and the lower level field portion of The Overthere. (WW locations #B, 9, 10, 11 and OT field between locations #5, 6, 9, 10). OT is off-the-charts exp at this level range. If you can gather up the whole area, you are looking at ~45min/level during this range.
26-28
The EXP really started to slow down in OT, so I headed back to WW and continued on the iksar outcast camps there. Was slower, but I didn't have to spend half my kite gathering up LB mobs.
29-30
I am doing this portion on the Drolvargs in Firiona Vie. I have to admit, this range is by far the most dangerous I've done so far. The drolvargs are larger than most MOBs I've kited so far, and therefore have a larger hitbox, while I still have to be within 35 measurement units to hit them with my 18 dot. I have really perfected my distance/selo's speed, while also dieing much more than I would have liked in this level range. I gather up yellow/blue drolvargs while avoiding froglocks (especially casters) and other red dogs. It's actually not that hard to do. On this map of FV, I gather drolvargs from the area surrounded by points #3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and A on the map, and then I take them back towards the NorthEastern Swamp of No Hope zone line as there are no wanderers back there. I'd recommend only pulling a few until you perfect your skills, as I have gotten stunned and 1-rounded (or even not stunned and one-rounded) more often than I'd like to admit. These dogs can take me to probably 35 or so, but I think I may try to find some MOBs to kite that aren't quite so deadly. The good news is I can sell/bank without zoning.
31-46 (maybe 47)
I went back to OT and started kiting the Western/Southern areas of the zone. Basically any blue-red mob (besides dragoons) between the Outpost, SF, FM, the center valley and location #10 on this map of Overthere is fair game. I do recommend you pull only cockatrices, tigers, and cacti. They all move at the same speed. Rhinos move faster, but selos is much faster and a rhino-only kite would certainly work. Some Sarnaks cast, and I'm moving way too fast to check names to see if I'm about to pull a caster or not. This post shows some kites where I had probably 50+ mobs in my kite (figuring 1-2%/kill, and I know I made 100% of a level for each of those 2 kites). You can make some pretty awesome pulls. I've pulled so many that the dot spam insta-crashed EQ to desktop (creating a crappy CR).
47ish-55+
The Burning Woods. Once you've found where the devs have located it this week, find all the gorillas, skeletons, and hornets you can gather and kite em down. Avoid sarnaks as a lot of them are casters, the wyrms have much larger hit-boxes than everyone else, and also keep an eye out (read: avoid) for the ape "Gullerback" (he summons). Note that I have not AE kited here, but have heard reports from many-a-bard that this is the next step in AE kiting.
Additional Notes
Do note that I've pretty much done all of these camps AE kiting. I'd love to group more, but soloing is retarded exp, good money, and I don't have to wait for the rest of the "holy trinity" to decide to show up. And yes, it does get MUCH easier at 18 when you get a new AE that isn't teeny-tiny range, but that doesn't mean that it's bad exp prior to 18.
As far as HOW to AoE kite, I suggest reading the amazing guides by Hmotzart and Cribanox and then just trying it out and figuring out what works for you:
