Rain Kiting, the Solo Wizard

Soloing as a Wizard can be as straightforward as root-nuke or run-stun-nuke, or whatever other combination you put together, but if you want the most bang for the mana-buck, you need to use your AEs.

PBAoEs can hit 6 targets. Nice mana efficiency and great for farming greens, but higher level mobs will shred through your silk armor before you can get your first nuke off. Targeted AEs can hit 3 mobs, better mana/dmg efficiency, but nothing to write home about. What gets interesting is that Rainspells on SoD actually work; Live allowed 4 hits total, but rains on SoD can hit 2 targets for 3 waves, or a total of 6 hits! In terms of raw mana efficiency AND practicality, rains can't be beaten.

While you can root-rain-stun on a single mob, and that may be marginally more mana efficient than root-run-nuke, using a more heavily rain-based strategy with two mobs maxes your dmg/mana. So how do you get two mobs to stand in one place, nearly on top of each other, while all three waves land? Snare kiting while circling, of course! As a wizard, you can't do this until you get your first AE snare at level 29.

Is it risky? Yes. Will you die a lot? Probably; even after you get the hang of it, the margin for error is Small. At higher levels, one slip up can get you single-rounded down to 50% of health. Toss in the inevitable short stun or two from a mob smacking on your backside, running into your own rain, or snaring yourself, and you'll be pounded into a grease spot in no time. Once you get the timing mastered, there's no better way to spend the mana while you /lfg.

If there are any other rain kiters out there that are interested in grouping, /tell chagi!

Rain Kiting

Basic, 2 Melee Mobs

For the imagination impaired: 1-cast rain, 2-half ellipse, 3-circle

You need to be able to circle and herd the mobs into a tight hit-box. Snare one, run out snare the second, draw them into a V (I'm a bigger fan of going fast, so stand in center and wait for snared mobs to converge, then split to a very short V) and circle them. Run out (get your timing/distance right!), cast your AE Snare. If you get resists, run in the back towards and past the snared mob with the unsnared mob in chase (I try to time it so the second AE snare resnares the already snared mob) and do it again. If you are working mobs that take too long to kill before you snare, remember that SoD doesn't used a fixed order on targets like Live, so if you get a hit and a resist, followed by a resist and a hit, it may be the same mob that resisted twice, even though they report in different order!

After your mobs are snared, run out and cast rain; after the cast completes, run in a half ellipse to the distant side of your mobs, then run back in tight circles. This should keep them pinned in the rain location. Getting a handle on this is the most difficult part of rain kiting.

Easy pickings of melee-only mobs is viable in (off the top of my head): Northern Badlands, Eastern Badlands, Southern Badlands, Wyvernfang Coast, East Freeport, West Freeport (space near gallows), Red Sun Peaks, Great Divide, and even in the back of Lair of Paw (takes some skill to maneuver and manage adds there). At higher levels, you should be able to easily rainkite the animals and melee plague mobs in Western Plaguelands and Eastern Plaguelands. As I recall, you can do two frenzied on a single bar of 3500ish mana, two puma are possible with around 3300, and all the rest are easily done with much less mana than that. This makes Mesklin's quest efficiently soloable.

Hitbox/Geometry

Some NPCs, like Giants of different sorts, have a huge hitbox, and you just won't be able to run circles around them effectively. In other cases, try to kite in flat spaces. Rains have a z-coordinate, so trying to pin 3-waves onto a hillside or slope might result in a lot of misses. Likewise, mobs with a high z-loc (like Griffons) might create problems if kited in pairs with mobs that have a different heights.

2+ Mobs and Adds

If you are working a camp that has multiple spawns or you get adds, go ahead and snare them all (or root and re-root the extras). If you snare them all, rain waves (like all AEs) will hit in random order unlike on Live (as noted above), so the waves will tend to distribute across all three mobs. This can create a timing problem, but it's quite manageable (see below)Lair of Paw in the a liodreth archpaw/The High Paw camp - tight space, but still easily done with the advantage of having 5 named camps in a close area, though the place tends to be perma-farmed (all within SoD policy, of course, as only a very few certain zones have acknowledged camps) who will walk right over you to drop The High Paw and other named, even if you've been clearing archpaw PHs.

Timing 20%

When kiting more than one mob, partial/full resists as well as crits will likely result in a situation where one mob reaches the 20% hp threshold before the other(s). When this happens, its run speed drops and you get a separation, busting your kite. You can do one of two things: nuke the over 20% mob down to under 20%, then recircle the mobs and finish your kite, or run out a distance, then double-back, so that the two mobs walking at different speeds covering different distances intersect at the same location right as you land a rain. The timing on the latter can be tough, and I'm sure it sounds confusing, but once you get it and really get a feel for the timing of your casts and mob run speed, it's pretty easy to do (and won't cost you precious time on your snare).

Mixed Caster and Melee Mobs

If you are dealing with a camp that has random caster placeholders, like the a desert orc seer in Northern Wastes of Tarhyl, load up your stuns, big single nukes, and root. Lock down the melee mobs with root, and stun-nuke-stun the casters into dust, reload your rain (if needed) and get to work! The key when you're able to pull two melee mobs in these mixed camps is to mix in a single nuke or two (if needed) to burn one mob down slightly before the other. This allows you to split repops if you get a caster first (as burning down 2 casters can be a bit risky in some zones).

Force Wand Wizard Starfall is a must have for the insta-stun.
Mixed caster/melee camps: Eastern Wastelands orc fort, Northern Wastes of Tarhyl for Darksun Master Headbands.

Spells and Gear

Means of Snaring

At lvl 29:Spell: Bonds of Force, improved lvl 51:Spell: Yinazra's Spectral Shackles. Would speak for Druids, but I never played one on SoD.

Root or Evac

Until you get the hang of it, it's easy to mis-time the distance required to cast Snare and you'll inevitably snare yourself. Keeping root or evac (I prefer root) loaded is a good safety precaution. Once you root them, spin and run, run through/past the mob, or strafe, since trying to back away from the mob while you're snared will take too long.

Runes/Resists

Insurance for the times you will invariable brush up against your rain hit-box, not to mention the rain bug (where if a mob dies prior to the second wave, the rain retargets to you!). At 34-57, Steelskin. At 58, Manasink. Also use lvl 44 Spell: Elemental Armor when raining fire/ice and the shield line Spell: Shield of the Magi for MR. Wizard Starfall, Circlet of Force is also a good rune option. Anything to take the edge off will help. Curative Familiar is also helpful.

Casting Speed Increment

You need all you can get. Shorter casts = more room to maneuver, especially in indoor zones.

Rain Spell!

Enough said. Also have a good nuke for finishing or deliberately staggering finishes, a 5 mana nuke, root, and snare. I always have harvest loaded, which leaves two slots. Abscond/evac and a rune or stun are good choices.

Two-boxing and Grouping

"But I thought kiting was for soloers?" With the nice XP group bonus (members 3-6 are free dps), rain kiting groups with other rain classes can be deadly efficient. Make sure the kiter takes lead aggro with snare and a rain, otherwise it'll bust the kite. The group should be prepared for this possibility until they settle into a groove. A /gs social, like /gs cast now!, and /cast (rain#) from the lead kiter can cue others to start casting their rains. Besides making sure everyone is on the hate list before casting (a simple fly by with snared mobs will suffice), timing is the most difficult part here, but I've done it 2-boxing quite easily. It'll take a few kills for a group to get into a groove so that the rains stack in the same loc, or close enough. If players don't get frustrated and /disband, the rewards of figuring the timing out can be well worth it. Use of socials-based hot-button casting is key in making timing predictable.

One extra circle by the kiter will ensure 3rd waves from late casters hit. If you're two boxing, all you have to do after locking aggro on the lead kiter, is run your kiter near your second toon, cast your kiter's rain, flip to your alt, cast second rain, flip back to kiter and start running circles immediately upon cast finish. Wait for emotes on three waves to land from both kiter and alt, then repeat.