peal's heals – a swtor blog


catch me if you can: sorcerer kiting rehash
January 11, 2012, 12:00 am
Filed under: gameplay, strategy | Tags: , ,

I’m going to do my best to avoid spoilers, here. But I have to be honest, for fighting a lot of the big bad guys in my Inquisitor class missions I ended up kiting. I’m sure I’ll still get pwned the first time I try PvP, but one thing at a time.

1. Can not stress this enough: know the world around you. There may or may not be catwalks specifically designed for you to Overload people off of. IE, you hit the button and the “congrats you killed this dude” cutscene is loading before the body hits the ground. The developers have given us a world to play in, and I mean the word play in the most traditional (and enjoyable) sense. Play in the whole world. We’re supposed to.

While I’m annoyed that line of sight is so finicky out in the world when I’m trying to hit that droid behind the thing, it’s sure handy when you’re on the receiving end. Pillars and corners and nooks and ramps! My new title should be Peal The Pillar-Humper. Forcewalking is so passe.

2. Interrupting: socially acceptable once you’re Sith. Most elites have one or two abilities you wanna interrupt. We have three ways to frustrate the big bad dudes: Jolt, Overload, and Electrocute. I’ve found that if the big bad dude tries to heal, that healing should be interrupted first. But occasionally they’ll have an attack that just hurts too much if they can finish casting.

Even with three interrupts there may not be full coverage. But I’ve found leading with Jolt and using Electrocute second (long cooldown, using it early in the fight to squeeze in a second or third use) will make sure Jolt is up for the third. And the fourth? Overload. Once you get a feel for the timing of the big bad dude’s cooldowns, you’ll know when to either let him get close to you or when to run in.

That is, if you’re not using Overload to throw people off stairs and around corners. Some planning may be in order. Overload can be finicky as an interrupt. If you cast it too late the big bad dude will finish the cast before he goes flying and sometimes he won’t get interrupted.

3. Kiting: It’s not just for healers who can’t nuke. Sometimes you just need a second to let that hot heal you back up, an ability to come off cooldown, or the Static Barrier debuff to wear off. You don’t need to kite the whole fight to make use of the breathing space afforded by making the environment your slave. You can kite/use LoS at the pull to avoid the patrol (though keep your minion in check). Or kite to get enough Force to finish the mob off. Or duck behind a corner to get all the mobs into one neat little pack so you can Force Storm them to pieces.

Am I the only one who gets a kick out of the way weak targets writhe while caught in my wrath? This Light Side thing is a ruse.


1 Comment so far
Leave a comment

[…] on ya, well, you probably don’t want to just stand there and take it. You want to kite and kite some more and when they do catch up, dole out stuns as needed to buy space and hot-ticking time. Oh, and once […]

Pingback by the operative healer’s warzone survival guide « peal's heals – a swtor blog




Leave a comment