Conky's Bard Soloing Guide

General AE Kiting Tips

Bards are great soloers pre-42 with AE Kiting. You can realistically start AE kiting at level 2 with CoD and strafe running (running forward with strafe key pressed for extra speed). It is ideal when AE kiting to kill mobs with xp hand-in drops because this will drastically boost your xp rate.

When AE kiting you must realize that larger mobs usually have a larger hit radius than smaller mobs. This is why giant spiders are difficult, and giants are next to impossible to AE kite. In addition, the CoD song has a smaller hit radius than the DDD song. Finally, only kite pure melee mobs as casters will hurt you with their dds and dots, root you, and generally disrupt your kiting effectiveness. Finally, try to kite mobs that run the same speed to make things much much easier on yourself. This includes being wary of any shaman type mobs (oracles, seers, etc...) that may have SoW'd surrounding pure melee mobs.

Specific AE Kiting Methodology

Basically you want to round up 6 mobs using Selos and your drum and get them in a single tight group by circling them a couple times. Next, switch to your lute and start your kite. This is extremely hard to explain in text, but basically you run in oval formations around your mobs starting the song when you enter one end of an oval and letting it hit as you exit. Otherwise, you can strafe in one direction so you are running sideways away from the mobs, then you strafe run forward to form an 80 degree angle. Something like ( /_____ [mobs] ). Try to have Restoration and Selos on at all time as your beneficial songs. If you get hit (and you will get hit lots at first) you can heal up by kiting your mobs at a far distance with Resto playing.

At level 18 you will get DDD, which you should be using in combination with CoD. You should put your Secondary Equipment Slot, and 1 or 2 empty inventory slots on your Hotkey Bar to allow for quick instrument changing on the fly. Ideally you should switch to a lute, hit your mobs with CoD, switch to horn, hit your mobs with DDD, then rinse and repeat.

I made a quick and dirty video of this at AE Kite Example. The 5th second to the 33rd second are basically what I'm talking about.

Important Levels for AE Kiting

Level 2: You can learn Chords of Dissonance

Level 5: You can learn Percussive Instruments and Selos

Level 8: You can learn Stringed Instruments (CoD will do twice the damage)!

Level 18: You can learn Brass Instruments and DDD giving you a second AE dot.

Suggested Areas for Leveling

Level 1:
Stick to even cons or blue and melee everything until
1) you are at least level two and
2) you have enough money for your level two song.

Level 2-5:
Try kiting beetles in either North Newport or Centaur Hills. Keep Beetle Pincers for a North Newport xp hand in(Guardsman Burke at the Gate). You can supplement your kites with any other lowbie mobs until level 4 if necessary.

Level 5:
At this point get the quest from Mandy at the Newport Bard Guild. Completing this quest will give you a Mastercrafted drum, lute, and horn.

Level 5-9:
Kite gnolls outside of Blackburrow in Centaur Hills (nice hand-in xp) or the surrounding wolves when the gnolls are down.

Level 9-14:
Kite in Western Badlands. There is a bandit camp of 6 (bandit heads for NNP or SNP(night) turn-in), a gnoll camp of 6 (keep 2 gnoll balm, destroy fangs), and a gnoll camp of 3, as well as surrounding lions and spiders, if that isn't enough. These can all be found in the southeastern point of the zone. You can also hit the other bandit camp in the mountains by the merchants if you want. You could also kite beetles, scorpions, mummies, and orcs in Southern Wastes of Tarhyl.

Level 14-22:
Kite in Northern Badlands. Your main targets are lion cubs (paws), lions (lion skins), and spiders (tarsus) for xp hand-ins at the Stone Bridge (Scott). It is a good idea to supplement your kites with decaying corpses or bandits in order to reduce the time it takes to gather 6 mobs in this large sparsely populated zone. You can throw in young griffons at 18 but they make the kite longer; however, they have nice cash drops along with claws and feathers worth about 6pp each.

Level 23-27:
Liodreths in Southern Badlands (heads and paws for xp hand-in at the Stone Bridge) and whatever still gives you xp in Northern Badlands. Young griffons are still nice kites but stay away from "griffons" because those kites take so long.

Level 27-31:
Eastern Badlands beetles, Plaguewind Gnoll Fur for xp hand-in at the Stone Bridge in NBL, and lions. Bitter Leaf also drops off random mobs for xp hand-in but they are lore so you can only have one to hand in at a time.

Level 32-36:
Spiders, Panthers, and Goblins in Heartland Plateau. If you decide to join the Blackscale order you will have a TON of faction/money handins.

Level 36-42:
You can continue to AE kite DB cons in Eastern Badlands or the large number of DB cons in HL.

*** At 42 you get your Disease Chant to go with your Flame Chant and should switch to Chant Kiting ***

General Chant Kiting Tips

Chant Kiting is extremely simple. I suggest having Selos and either Aria's (levitation in hilly or watery areas) or Resto playing as your beneficial songs. You should always be using your drum and have your two best chants cycling as your detrimental songs. For maximum efficiency you should chant kite 2 mobs at any given time. To make targeting easier have a key that toggles between your two last targets. To do this press Alt+O, then choose the Keyboard tab, then choose the Target tab, then bind an easy to reach key to "Toggle last two targets". Then on your kite all you have to do is cast DoT#1 on Target#1, then Dot#2 on Target#1, and then click on the second mob you want to kite. Next you cast DoT#1 on Target#2, then Dot#2 on Target#2, and then you press your toggle key. From then on you cast both dots then toggle cast both dots then toggle, until one of them is dead. At that point you can either grab another mob or finish of the 2nd mob and loot.

Suggested Areas for Leveling

Level 42-45:
The goblins in Lake Starfall are a good start and are rarely camped. They are on the big island to the west of the MoP island. There are two other spots to the Southwest at which 2 goblins spawn if you need extra mobs to kite.

Level 45-56:
The best place for chant kiting at these levels is the spectre camp in Goblinskull Mountains. If you belong to the Blackscale Order you can kite the Silver Crown Guards when you are waiting for the spectres to respawn. If the spectres are camped, show some courtesy and go elsewhere... You could possibly kite the wyverns of Wyvernfang Coast, the goblins in Lake Starfall until they turn LB, or the Wraiths in SBL, NBL, EBL, and WBL. You could also kite the giants in Obsidian Shard Mountains or the Ice Giants in Everfrost but these are essentially permacamped.

Level 54-65:
You have the option starting around level 54 to start chant kiting mobs in the Plaguelands. At first, I would stick to spiders, snakes, pumas, and scorpions for the quest hand-in at the tunnel. Next, you can tackle the plagued worshippers; however, be aware that these mobs have a lot more HPs than anything you've kited so far. Also, stay away from the plagued worshipper priests! There are plenty of other kiting options at this level range such as spiders in Darklands, Wyrms and Giants in the Great Divide, skeletons in Freeport, and spiders and kobolds in Sorcerer's Lab (you need to strafe run and have Run3 in AAs). There are probably many more places that I haven't found.

--Conky 00:28, 4 Aug 2007 (PDT)