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LearnToSwarmKite

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Teach yourself to Swarm Kite! You can (and hopefully find it useful to) start using this guide at lvl 1

after 20+ years on and off (mostly off) in eq, I decided it was time to learn the bardic ways. Now that my bard is lvl 15 (and ALL grown up!), I think maybe a few notes on the early stages might be helpful. This article started as notes of things I either missed in all the videos I watched or came up with independently - I doubt I've invented any wheels here... but the real value is a) I did it recently b) I've put everything I thought was useful in one place and c) I had no f'ing clue what I was doing when I started.

Contents

How To Use This Guide

This guide assumes

  • You're going to setup a practice bard in WFP as detailed in Practice Swarming and makes specific references to this frequently
  • You have a functional knowledge of EQ/P99 - eg. This guide doesn't explain how to make a macro but rather supplies info on what goes into each macro

The original author's recommended general approach to teaching yourself how to swarm kite

  1. Ideally, read the guide start to finish
  2. Setup a practice bard in WFP per Practice Swarming
  3. Master autostrafe (can do this on any toon)
  4. Setup your practice bard's song macros and command macros and tweak the recommended UI settings
  5. Review the section on swarm mechanics especially Your First Swarm Kite
  6. Practice swarming in WFP on your practice bard
  7.  ???
  8. PROFIT

It's also recommended that you search up and watch some youtube videos - 'p99 bard swarm kite' should get you plenty of hits. Find a couple you like and watch them a couple times as you progress in your mastery of swarm kiting. If you're me, some things won't make sense or seem important until you've reached certain proficiency milestones... You're never too good to learn anything new on a topic

autostrafe

It's a thing. I was lvl 12 before I "discovered" this. It's at the top for a reason

You can map strafe keys, but nothing beats mousing and twisting while you autostrafe. You're probably gonna have to practice turning it on

  1. While right clicking your mouse, hit the forward key and the left-or-right key
  2. While still right clicking and holding down forward+left-or-right, hit enter
  3. Release all the keys and your mouse
  4. If you did it correctly, you're now running at a 45 degree angle off of forward. I have an 80% keyboard - I find it easiest to use the arrow keys to achieve autostrafe. Left-or-Right == you rotate left or you rotate right (won't interrupt casting)
  5. One of your chat windows now thinks you want to type a message and that's bad. You can fix this by
    1. Hitting enter one more time
    2. Equip'ing/unequip'ing something - if you're using duxaui, it's pretty easy to just grab an instrument and then put it back
    3. Anything that will close the message cursor w/o disturbing autostrafe will do
  6. (optional, but recommended as soon as your forever bard is high enough lvl to use instruments) Swap out your drum for the appropriate instrument for your aoe.

Again, you're probably going to have to practice this - you'll eventually be doing it w/upwards of 25 mobs hot on your booty...

With a little practice you'll find you can get anywhere you want to go w/autostrafe engaged

  • You can steer w/your mouse by holding down your right mouse button - it won't break autostrafe
  • Neither will keys mapped to strafe which is super handy for dodging trees, wanderers and the like

Swarm mechanics

Pre-Swarm Preparation

Macros

  • You've got your song macros, commands and settings mapped to something you can reach easily?
  • I have an mmo mouse with 6 thumb buttons, guess where I mapped mine?

Clear off the bottom left (or bottom right depending on which direction you prefer to autostrafe) quadrant of your eq window.

  • You're going to practice keeping your swarm just barely visible in the bottom corner
  • Your lvl 2 aoe has an excitingly small radius of effect - you're going to get to know your swarm up close and personal
  • I couldn't really do that with chat windows and tool bars cluttering up that bottom corner

Prepare yourself physically and mentally to spend 10-20+ minutes running in very tight/controlled circles

  • Stand up for a minute
  • Walk up some stairs
  • Engage your core
  • Engage your glutes
  • Do some jazz hands until you feel your forearms relax

Make this a thing you do before every swarm - You'll thank me, but your neurologist's children won't get to go on that 3rd ski trip this year...

Your First Swarm Kite

Ok, you've got autostrafe turned on right? Maybe do a couple short swarms w/o it so you can really appreciate how much better life is with it

  • If your autostrafe is pulling you left, you're going to circle right via your mouse (or vice versa if your autostrafe is pulling you right)
  • If the mobs get too close, just let go of your mouse's right button and autostrafe will automagically begin increasing the distance between you and your buddies
  • If the mobs aren't on screen/close enough, use your mouse to tighten the circle (move you towards your swarm) you're making w/it (GRADUALLY!!!)

If you've remapped 'a' and 'd' to strafe left and strafe right, you can create/close distance even faster - they don't break autostrafe

Make sure nothing undesirable is on screen if your aoe agro's it (guards and wolves mostly if you're in WFP)

  1. Start singing your aoe dot
  2. Head towards some mobs you want to make dead
    1. You can't really control when your dot is going to land (ok you can time the start of your song and the 1st 'hit' will be right when the song bar finishes ?casting?, I've not found this useful yet, but some bard kiting videos I've watched advocate for it)
    2. Run tight little circles around mobs until they agro/body pull or you see the dot land (mobs will get a little ring of fire around them if the dot hits them)
  3. You won't be able to observe this w/o some fancy camera view work, but as you autostrafe your swarm, the mobs will sort themselves by speed
    1. Your dot is only going to hit the closest/fastest bunch
    2. You'll learn later to only agro mobs of the same speed for your swarm, but not in WFP - it's a crazy free for all, you're gonna have half the dessert on your kiester!
  4. Now that you've got some mobs hating on you properly, it's time to start tightening your circles until you can hold that fastest bunch of mobs just barely in the bottom corner of your screen until you ding 3 (10-20 minutes)
    1. If they fall off screen, the aoe doesn't hit (annoying)
    2. If they get too close, you're gonna take a lot of damage
      1. Even pretty much nekkid at lvl 2, the swarm in WFP probably won't single round you (unless you're also kiting guards)
      2. Your stretch goal is to swarm 2->3 w/o getting hit from mobs already in your swarm
      3. Unless you're unusually well geared/buffed, by lvl 8 if you let a swarm get too close it's pretty much a guaranteed CR
      4. It happens
      5. Get used to it
      6. If it's happening a lot, roll another half elf bard in Freeport and practice some more

If anything goes wrong short of you being dead or you just don't want to swarm anymore, head for EC -- the 3 guards at the entrance to FP can't really deal with 30-40 mobs storming the gates to love on you, and you're not going to make any friends training WFP either

Practice Swarming

Here is one explicit way to practice in a low pressure environment where death is still a possibility - ymmv

  1. Roll a throwaway half elf bard starting in Freeport - put all your points in str, you're not lvl'ing this toon past 3, and the +str really helps get through lvl 1 quickly
  2. Melee your way through lvl 1 in the noob area in WFP (that desert area you run past on your way to EC tunnel)
    1. It takes ~5-10 minutes (hint: if you die at lvl 1 you don't lose xp, but you do come back with full health very close to the guards. If you get below about 70% health, just go attack a guard, loot your corpse, mem your 1 spell and get after it)
    2. Target skellies with weapons and you'll have the 2g7s you'll need at lvl 2 to purchase Chords of Dissonance (bard's first and only aoe dmg song until 18)
  3. As soon as you ding 2, run to the bard guild in NFP (it's conveniently located in the first building you'll encounter in NFP)
    1. Did you save up 2g7s? Great!
    2. Buy your lvl 2 aoe
    3. You're now fully equip'd to swarm kite. It's time to practice.
  4. Back to the noob area in WFP. Get out past the guards and turn on autostrafe and your new aoe. You're swarming!!!!

Repeat steps 1-4 until you can start a swarm having just ding'd 2 and not stop until you ding 3. Just constant mobs on your tuckus the entire time. You'll want to avoid

  • The wolves - they run faster than autostrafe
  • The guards - something or someone seems to always be pulling them out into the noob area
  • The vendor, cactii, walls, etc.

The guards and the vendor don't care for your aoe dot one bit, and if you dot them, they'll kill you (hint: you can turn your aoe dot song off and on at will)

I deleted my practice bard when it hit lvl 3

  • I found it a lot more interesting/exciting/valuable to have imminent death always a real option
  • Once you ding 3, all the lvl 1 mobs are just too low to keep it real
  • If you delete your current low lvl half elf bard and rename a new one the same name, you'll get to keep all your macros across practice bards - I think I went through close to 10 before I felt solid - you're probably better at this than I am

Practice Twisting

You can practice this on your lvl 2 bard as well, BUT This becomes a LOT more important later when you get your 2nd aoe damage song at lvl 18, so maybe don't bother until your real bard gets close to 18, or much much later when you see some other bard twisting songs and killing swarms 2-3x as fast as you are...

To practice twisting on your lvl 2 bard

  1. Set up 2 song macros, both pointing at the same lvl 2 aoe dmg song
  2. Alternate between the 2 macros repeatedly during your swarm AND unequip/equip your sword to simulate swapping out instruments for each song

Notes

  • Your swarm songs are aoe dots that stack and scale with your level. The higher lvl ones will do more damage, but your lower level ones will still significantly speed up your swarm's impending demise
  • Unfortunately, your swarm songs use different instruments, and they do A LOT more damage if you're equip'ing the appropriate instrument when you cast them
  • To maximize your damage output vs. your swarm you're going to need to master alternating casting your top 2 swarm songs (some people can twist 3 or more!) and swapping out your instruments to suit the song you're currently casting. All while 25 level appropriate mobs are chasing you with murderous intent
  • Don't sweat it, this it totally doable, but ... if you're me, you're gonna want to practice in a low stress environment before going at it with your real bard
  • I've found it easiest to just leave the unused musical instrument on my cursor between casts, saves a couple clicks and it'll be in your inventory if you die with it on your cursor. You'll only have your sword on your cursor half the time while practicing, but equip'ing/unequip'ing is the same mechanic you'll use to maximize your dot's damage when twisting
  • Your swarm aoe songs are dots that last 3 ticks after they land so if you time it right you've got 18 seconds to swap instruments and cast your other song before your current dot wears off/needs to be recast, which with a little practice is 12 seconds more than you really need
  • some bards maintain their tight circle around the swarm while twisting, others strafe away while swapping out instruments and then turn back into the swarm while the song is casting, only being in range of the dot landing for the the final half second or so of the song casting. In the latter strategy you're in 'the danger zone' for less time, but you also risk over shooting your turn into the swarm and getting into melee range. YMMV.

Macros

Song Macros

I found it convenient to setup 1 macro for the aoe dot song and 1 to stop singing

Dot Song Macro 

/stopsong

/cast # (where # == the spell slot your aoe dot song is in - I put it at the top in slot 1. ymmv)

Stop Song Macro 

/stopsong

Command Macros

These are non-song casting commands I've found useful enough before/during/after a swarm kite to create macros for

hidecorpses all 

/hidecorpses all
  • ACCIDENTAL AUTO-LOOT (by accidentally right clicking on a dead mob's corpse while circling) IS A GUARANTEED CR
  • when mobs start dropping, click it occasionally so you won't accidentally auto-loot or feel the urge to drift your swarm away from the early dead

hidecorpses none 

/hidecorpses none
use after swarm is dead to reveal the waste you have laid upon the land

hidecorpses looted 

/hidecorpses looted
  • click once just before looting if there's a bunch of trash on your mobs you don't want to loot but also still want the corpse to 'poof' so you can loot the rest of the swarm
  • you can always click /hidecorpses none again to reveal any corpses that haven't rotted yet

afk (while swarming) 

/afk swarming, will get back to you after...
  • you can add a msg to your afk so people sending you tells receive more than just "AFK"
  • WARNING: much like driving a car, texting while swarming is a recipe for a really bad time
    • Judging by comments online from more experienced bards, getting wiped out by a swarm while attempting to respond to /tells is a right of passage
    • You can either learn this the hard way or the easy way... it is NOT the same price.

toggleinspect

I usually just leave toggleinspect set to off, but you can toggle it on/off if that's what you're into, and even make macros for it 

/toggleinspect off
so you won't repeatedly inspect yourself mid-swarm 
/toggleinspect on
so you can creep on people when you're not swarmin

Settings

Some settings I've found useful to tweak in the Options window (alt+o)

disable auto-duck

Disable auto-duck (crouch) while kiting - honestly, why does Auto-duck even exist? The only use I can think of is trying to cram your non-halfling toon into one of those very halfing-sized hobbit holes in Misty Thicket. </rant>

  • alt+o
    • Unclick "Allow Auto-duck" on the General tab (alt+o pops up in the General tab in my client)

tune spell effects

I turned down opacity until I could still see the dots land but no longer worried I was going to have a seizure. For me, that was right around 25%

  • alt+o
    • display tab
      • particles sub-window
        • opacity (slider bar)

Performance Tuning Your Rig For Swarm Kiting

When this article was still a wee baby reddit post, the top voted comment was a joke about zone disruptions, and comments about zone disruptions causing your client to briefly hang while new data loads into RAM from disk were by far the most common comment topic. In short, the struggle can be very real and not imagined.

When your client hangs while it's waiting on new data from disk to load into RAM, it doesn't update the server with your bard's change in location, but the swarm runs server side and does not experience this interruption. The end result being the server thinks you've stopped moving while the swarm continues to move. You'll experience a very slight client freeze, and when it unfreezes, the swarm will be that much closer to your bard. This frequently ends badly for the bard... very badly.

The most commonly cited explanation/cause for zone disruptions is new people zoning into the zone where you are kiting. OT is the poster child for this due to how popular the port hammer is for travel amongst the melee classes and how ideal the zone is for swarm kiting (sans zone disruptions). Swarm kiting a full 25 mobs in a zone like OT, especially when a raid is called/finishing up is definitely not recommended unless you're running eq on a sick rig, and possibly even not then.

If you're experiencing this, there are things you can do to reduce the duration and/or the frequency of these calls to disk

  • swarm in a less frequented zone - this is by far the easiest option and possibly the most effective as well
  • upgrade your hardware
    • motherboards that support fatter PCIe buses and on-board nvme ssd's
    • newer super faster ssd's, especially the ones that use the PCIe bus instead of SATA
  • tune your client
    • Ramdisk - If you have sufficient RAM, you can configure your computer to load the entire ?4GB? of everquest onto a virtual disk running in RAM, and "disk fetches" to RAM aren't really disk fetches are they? Articles specifically detailing the steps necessary to setup your eq client running on a RAM disk exist
    • Tune down your graphics to reduce system load in adjacent areas
      • turn off npc names
      • turn down spell effects
      • turn off local logging (logging causes disk writes which are even slower than disk reads...)

Next Steps and Additional Tips

These aren't things you *have* to know to successfully swarm kite, but they'll make life easier or level set your expectations

Instruments

You won't use instruments on your practice bard in WFP, but once you hit level 5 you'll be able to train percussion which is handy b/c you also get selo's - that selo's. You're going to want a drum asap. At level 8 you can train strings and you're going to want a lute or mandolin asap. Other articles cover upgrading your instruments, and significant improvements over the vendor sold instruments abound and are well worth the investment if you've got the scratch.

Instruments are pretty much the only gear you *really* need to swarm kite. HPS and AC improve survivability and dex reduces missed notes, but if you're on a limited budget your plat will be best invested in instrument upgrades.

Sound

Specifically, the sound of my swarm's footsteps. When I am first learning how to kite a specific mob type, I take note of the volume of the mobs footsteps when my dot hits and when it doesn't. Overtime, I will develop an "ear" for when the mobs are in range of my dots and when they are too far away. It also saves my butt when the mobs footsteps are too loud and I know that if I don't stop turning that very second to gain a little distance, I am about to get smacked.

Building Your Swarm

  • Get Selo's up and equip your drum, swarm building is #Bardlife
  • Patience is the name of the game
  • Prepare to spend as much, if not more time gathering up your swarm than you will actually killing them
  • Do your research - Read up online for where and what to kite
  • You may recall from swarming in WFP that you're only going to kill the fastest mobs in your swarm, so make sure your swarm is all the same speed

credits

This started as a post on reddit's r/project1999. These persons greatly improved the quality and content via their comments and time...

  • u/yorptune
  • u/wigf1
  • u/Laoracc
  • u/fingerBANGwithWANG - literally copy/pasta their response from reddit for the Sound section
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