Was that shit really lag?  Our kiter on the second try said he was watching the shadowfiends, and they were far away from him when he died, and I believe him.

Backstory for those that are wondering:  Pugged out about 5 spots in a ToD, two failures.  Both times the initial kiter died almost instantly.  We made a valiant effort anyway, once even rezzing all 7-8 people that were dead and starting to beat him down again, but still the kiters got creamed and we wound up wiping.

Anyway, just curious if you guys thought it was really lag.  Or was it a fail of a different sort?  (kiters the first time were pug, second time was guild)

Ink,

I assume you are directing this at those who were in your group last night and I wasn't there, but:

Kiting ToD the last 2-3 weeks has been brutal IMO.

I've been in a good number of ToD's where lag in part 2 has caused the kiter to go down for no apparent reason.  I was in one last night where we failed the first run due to lag on the primary and backup kiter.  Second run was fine. 

Part 3 is equally dicey, as well.  Seen lag spikes cause more than one horoth tank's demise.

Inkblack wrote on Jan 14^th, 2011 at 11:35am:


I was in the 2nd run on stainer.

I don't know what went wrong. I just heal and make obnoxious comments.

Arkat wrote on Jan 14^th, 2011 at 11:56am:

Oh, it was two kiters -- one was assigned as a backup in case the first one gets waxed.  Which was pretty much instantaneously, which may be why you thought both went at once.

The second run we did a melee because he's done it successfully quite a bit.  I can't really figure out why he did it other than sprint boost -- I thought with as many healer types as we had a blade barrier as you suggested would have been the way to go.  He did get their aggro, did get the turned, but thought they were far away when he got run over.  The backup's stone was all the way in the back, not sure what happened to him.

All around fail.  Just want to get it fixed.   

Was on my monk Smallmans Syndrome, last night and seen you guys grouping as we went in for our second crack at TOD, (wiped on PT 2 on first try, from most definite serious Lag, nailed Kiter almost instantaneously, in saying that we almost pulled off a save but failed) second time around seemed a lil laggy but we got a pretty sweet complete. Lag in there last night was definately a KILLER.
When you see guys standing running on the spot on walkways in PT1 jailer/judge fight for what seems like 20-30s u know you are in the shit, hehe...

1.  Never jump, it slows you down if you have featherfall.  Which most people and dont think about.  Exception, FVS for obvious reasons.

2.  Anyone with a bow and quick movement speed can kite.

3.  FVS and clerics can do the run easily enough, they just do the same thing as a caster.

4.  Noobs cant do it, noobs suck, dont have noobs do it.

5.  May of just been your guildies shitty day, we all have em, except me. Not that I will admit to anyways.

Epoch wrote on Jan 15^th, 2011 at 4:55am:

Isnt it best when ur kiting to jump and cast your fw as to not slow down?

Breaken wrote on Jan 15^th, 2011 at 6:53pm:


Yes, but FF will slow you down if you do jump. That was his point.

Breaken wrote on Jan 16^th, 2011 at 12:13am:



...but but but my Regalia is dead sexy. 

Our first wixard did a poor job of self-buffing for one.  The most obvious clue was a total lack of fireshield.  With decent gear and red fireshield (and other cold damage reducing buffs) running you can easily survive an oh shit encounter with a shadow taking around 80-100 points or so a tic of cold damage.  I cannot comment on the first encounter's lag as I was busy making Neth die faster.  I'm guessing lag had some part to play but lack of preperation certainly did not help the case.

That arcane got shown the door after run 1.  After 10 mins or so of failing to find a suitable replacement arcane we grabbed Stainer on his healer to offer up to the lag gods. We had a melee with sprint boost do the kiting, with cleric back-up running bladebarriers to run if that plan failed.  Our melee lag-froze and died instantly(as reported on vent) and the cleric got stuck doing a tribute to Michael Jackson 50 feet from the throne area, and summarily eaten by shadows.  In retrospect I believe the FvS may have been a better back-up kiter choice.  We opted for the cleric with monk levels because he was in our vent channel and could relay info a tiny bit faster.

On the second run when things went south, I got a good running start from the throne when the kiters died.  I lagged out on the other end of the room and died. 

It's been my experience insofar that kiting through a laggy instance is comparable to healing in a laggy instance.  You simply anticipate where you are going to be and react accordingly.

Both times I've been fortunate enough to prevent a wipe in pugs groups in that raid it's been laggy instances.  Even in a rubber band situation, you know that you are going to be stuck in the frying pan.  As soon as you see the kiter's health start to drop, it's renew fireshield time.  blade barrier at the flash before the skull shows up when they die.  Then get off of the freaking stage quickly.  Run, wingjump, turn a corner, run some more... with anticipated self heals cast when needed.  The hard part is getting a freaking true resurrection off without getting bent over by the shadows breathing down your neck.  Pick the other healer in the party, or someone who you know has a res clickie to get up someone else who can res.  I've messed up the timing of that on a couple of occasions and gotten off the spell, but died doing so.

Kinda like healing a fucked up shroud.  It's been over a second or two and the red bars haven't moved...  better catch up quickly before you watch the entire melee group wipe.

Frankly, the way people talked about kiting in that raid I was scared to death to even try it.  Then I got stuck main kiting in a party with a newb arcane.  My .02cents is that it's not as bad as it's made out to be...

Inkblack wrote on Jan 16^th, 2011 at 11:03am:

Yeah, he was just scared of having two monks in the party.

Strakeln wrote on Jan 16^th, 2011 at 11:41am:


Which is silly. I guarantee my Monk and Strak's Monk could take the place of just about any other melees in those two runs.