General kiting strategies & spell rotation

[Sulla]

Old player/new necro here. I'm currently level 67 and am really just now starting to get out there and kite a lot. I just wanted to outline my basic kiting strat and get some advice/opinions on it.

I'm currently soloing the shissar at the greenhouse in katta which are red to me. I pull with snare at max distance, and then begin my DoT rotation. I have 9 DoTs lined up on my spell bar, and I start with the long duration ones and end with the short duration ones. My reasoning is that this gives the long duration DoTs the chance to do the full extent of their damage and not end early. With these mobs in particular, I send in my pet/wake the dead/swarm after about the 4th or 5th cast (this is when I generally have to put some more distance between myself and the mob before continuing on the rotation). I also reapply snare and 4 of the shorter DoTs before the mob dies. Is the long duration first/short duration last strategy something I should do? Or should I put up the short ones first, then the long ones, and the reapply the short ones. . . ?

[Drazzminius]

Welcome to the Necro community!

I used very much the same strat when kiting the Greenhouse. I played with my line up so that by the time I'd landed the last of the DoTs, the first ones were just starting to fall again. Took me some time to get it set up perfectly, but was worth it kiting there.

Good luck!

[Zark]

I did it quite like you. And at 85, if the mob's hp is low enough, i still do it like you: Long duration to short duration.
If i have to repeat few spells, i start with the longest duration fire dot (searing shadows), then 4 short timers (30s fire), then the medium timers (disease, fire, poison) and recast as many of the short timers as i need in order to lay the mobs.
If i need to deal even more damage, after ramp-up from long to short duration i try to keep everything up. Well and on GoM and GoM-upgrade procs of course i cast the level appopriate mana-expensive-high-dps-short-time fire dot.

In Katta Greenhouse my spell setup was more like 2 disease and 1 fire long-timers, 2 poison and 1 fire mid-timers, and 2 fire short-timers (the snakes resisted magic not often but still too often). Every level-up and dot-crit-aa-increase i played around to find an optimized setting so that i could kill as many snakes as possible per lesson.
i used the tank pet to get more distance from bash stuns. But, well, i started kiting in greenhouse without run speed on a fast horse and even now with more than 1k AA i still don't have any swarm pet ability.
If i remember right, i used to send in my (tank) pet after i did about 2k damage with dot ticks, which was after about 2-3 casts.
Welcome to the necro board and happy hunting. :)

[Sulla]

Thanks for the warm welcome and the input guys. Some of the other boards, Bard and SK in particular, seem to have harsh responses to first posts like this from a forum full of bitter old players, so I was a bit unsure of whether to even start posting here. It seems like a nice place, and I look forward to learning from the old necros here.

Some background on my character if anyone cares: I rolled this necro about 2 weeks ago. He is now level 67 with almost 800 AAs. I used my old SK and Bard to PL the necro using the out of group DS method. I know this is probably frowned upon, but I am just trying to save time. Starting as soon as AAs were available, I maxed out every AA and banked 30 at each level before dinging to the next.

Rinse and repeat, and I've pretty much maxed out the PLing those old characters can do, so now I have to actually start playing my necro solo. I don't feel bad about PLing, because now I'm going to probably take longer than most to level and have plenty of time to learn my class. I'm going to continue maxing out all available AAs and banking 30 before moving on to the next level, and do this probably until level 80 or so depending on if I still have my sanity.

Sorry for the wall of text. I tend to get long-winded.

[solithan]

Thats some good PL work there.

You're line up and method is correct.
If I might make a suggestion... I would get in some practice FD splitting and pulling. If you are to ever get into a group these skills might be required of you.

[Sulla]

Thats some good PL work there.

You're line up and method is correct.
If I might make a suggestion... I would get in some practice FD splitting and pulling. If you are to ever get into a group these skills might be required of you.

Thanks. And yeah, I do have some past experience with this. My old main from release through PoP was a Shadowknight. I have fond memories serving as the puller in NToV. :D When I returned the the game a few months ago I rolled a bard and did quite a bit of pulling in groups with him, though pulling is insanely easy as a bard. The finer points of FD pulling/splitting is definitely something I am going to have to relearn get used to again though.