A Ranger..Tries To Fly A Kite And Gets Butt KickedFollow

And so another season dawned for our young Ranger adventurer. He was most relieved to be back at home with his little flock after spending much time away from his leafey haven of Surefall Glades as he had been a killin' and a lootin' down at the Paludal Caverns. There he had admired the fabulous stalagtite and stalagmite structures and the cool crystal waters of the lake. He regularly sent postcards back to Mrs Ruts detailing how busy his days were meeting new friends and slaughtering these funny folk called Recondite Bandits!! who had this funny way of wanting to send him to the bottom of the lake everytime he approached them. Ruts figured they must be some odd ball environmental group wanting to help the flaura and fauna and wanted Ruts to do an underwater survey.

Alas after many bodies and lots of loot our Rut's didn't have much to show for it. The problem was the local casino and bar in the nearby town that just seemed to have this magical allure for our hero which basically meant him losing his money either at the acorn table or up the nearest wall. Giving Mrs Ruts some convaluted story about all his money being tied up with a time share deal he made with some enchanter bloke he met, Rut's realised he had to find some funds quick so to stave off Mrs Rut's litagtion that would surely follow if she found out.

Luckily his experienced level meant he could do something he had heard about called "fearkiting" but for ages Rut's looked everywhere for box, Dragon, Froglock kites at the local Bazaar but could not find any. It wasn't until Rut's got into a drunken game of "who can shove the most thistles up ones nose without sneezing" did one of the participants tell Ruts fearkiting actually meant. After spending the next half a day picking spines from the inside of his nose cavity, Ruts armed with his trusty wep's he toddled off to Everfrost to look for that Wooly Mammoth.

Wasn't long before Rut's came across the first lumbering beast and thought to himself this is gonna be a piece of cake........

The next thing he was aware of, was himself having a dark yellow stain appearing on his left brown chitin legging as he convorted at speed across the tundra with THREE!! very pissed of running carpets that really wanted to make a new delicacy of Ranger Jam across the floor with his corpse. As the peals of laughter of fellow travellers rang in his ears a sudden thought flashed in his mind!! Money making scheme!! if I had a piece of coal I could stick it somewhere which is tweaking soooo much I could produce a diamond from the pressure!!

After nursing his wounds back in the safety of the POK Rut's offered this prayer up to the Great God of Forums,

"How can you effectively fearkite? Is it a case of casting snare or grasping roots first and then panic animal or the other way around? I was able to send one mammoth running away slowed but when I attacked it's big hairy butt, it first deposited it's stomach contents upon me and then turned around so the pointy bits were facing me and so could do damage. If snare/roots are cast 1st then the animal attacks and I cant seem to send it running away"

Any help would be appreciated, your bow twanging prancing Ranger Boy Rut's.

P.S. If there are any timeshare get quick rich schemes out there please show me a sign!! Ta

snare first, fear second. fear kiting sends the mob off in the opposite direction from you so make sure there arent any other mobs that will add in the direction the mob will run. once snared you should be able to get a fear off easily enuf. once its feared just run up and whack it or whatever else you ranger types do. not sure how long the fear will last so its prolly best if you refear occasionally while it runs away. get a sow before you start and you should be able to survive if you get adds.

Set up a hot-key to cast snare, pause just long enough to recover, then cast fear. Once you have this hot-key timed correctly, it's just a matter of getting just at the edge of casting range before hitting your Kite key.

Never fear before snaring. You end up chaing the mob all over the place trying to get your snare to land.

Oh, one alternative (for rangers) is to arrow kite. Make sure you are SOWed first. Snare the mob, then root him. Plug him full of arrows. When the root breaks, run away and root him again. Alternatively, once he's snared, you can run all over creation backwards plugging him full of arrows (while facing him).

That's pretty much it - snare, fear, kill. Add in a DoT for flavor. What I like to do, is snare then kite around, adding DoTS and shooting my bow, to soften the mob up a bit before fearing. You're at the perfect stage to hunt in Stonebrunt. Just stay in the forested region, tracking down cats and the occasional panda cub. The beauty of this zone is that you can easily get a minor haste belt solo by 30, while you're exp'ing.

Personally I think it is better to learn how to do normal kiting well first.

Aside from the issues (already mentioned) with training and learning how to use your spells effectively, there is quite a lot of knowlege to be gained about how pathing works and certain types of animals behave.

Rangers are actually the ultimate fear kiters in animal zones, because they get all the essential and useful skills and spells to make it effective. Tracking, snare, SoW, levitation, archery, strong melee, plus nukes and DoT's leave nothing lacking.

Key is to learn how to use these in combination and in the right place at the right time.

I began to learn the craft in my teens and early twenties, kiting beetles and griffawns in North Karana, then moved on to Centaurs in South Karana. What I learned there made the move to Stonebrunt much less painful I am sure.

Although it becomes dreadfully boring it is a craft well worth learning thoroughly as it will teach you some important tactics that will make you a valuable group member at higher levels.

And practice makes perfect as they say.

My tips are;

First, know the layout and peculiarities of your location.

Know the characteristics of the mobs in the area, particularly faction and aggro radius.

Pick out your "kill zone" - do this with some care, think about pathing, proximity of other mobs and your escape plan among other things.

My technique was to always (well nearly always) open with snare, begin to kite the mob back to your chosen kill zone, DoT, fire off as many arrows as possible, or nuke it or both (depending on mana, and arrow supply).

When you get to your predesignated spot (you have to work this out with trial and error to begin with) cast fear. Chase the mob and melee from behind untill fear drops.

Then kite it back to your start point again, I would always refresh the DoT(s) while kiting back and you may need to be ready to refresh snare.

Cast fear again and repeat. After a while of doing this you will get a feel for mana usage versus kill rate and down time. But with a decent mana pool and the right focus items you can keep this up for a very long time.

This way you are kiting the mob back and forth in one small area, eliminating the risk of adds or losing the mob. When you get it down well, you can do this in a very small area and you will learn that you can actually determine the direction the mob will run when you fear it. You can also do it so that you never get hit (except for a string of fizzles or striking a random high resist mob).

When you get SoW and Levitation it becomes a much easier technique to use, in fact if you learn how to do it well, before you get SoW, once you have SoW it becomes very easy and is the one method where a ranger can take down red mobs safely and repeatedly.

PS... The times I didn't open with snare was when I wanted to get a mob back to my chosen kill zone quickly, usualy to avoid aggroing another mob that I knew would wander along soon, (or when there was some bloody druid in the area hunting the same mobs ) In this case I would usually hit it with an arrow, and bow kite it back to where I wanted it before casting snare. DoT when you are out of arrows.



Edited, Thu Feb 12 19:18:47 2004 by Iluien