EQ:Quint Kiting  

Quint Kiting is effectively an upgraded form of Quad Kiting, taking advantage of new druid area-of-effect spells which were introduced starting at level 91.

These spells are able to strike FIVE monsters at the same time. 

The Plan

The goal of Quint Kiting is for a druid to earn unparalleled experience solo. Usually with Lesson of the Devoted running I can earn 28-30 AA's killing 15-18 dark blue to yellow mobs in 8-15 minutes. In terms of regular experience, that's about 12% of Level 100. While there may be classes that can do better than that, I don't know of any---not without any outside assistance.

Minimum Requirements

The Quint Kiting druid needs to be at least 97 to have all 4 of the necessary AOE nukes. They have recast timers of 12 seconds so having all 4 means you can chain-cast since one spell icon is "up" at all times. Success then depends on how many mobs you pull, their average HPs, your success in landing our nukes, your own mana pool and how many points you've invested in relevant alternate abilities. I won't go into too much detail here about AA choices but it should be obvious that you want to max out as much as possible your damage enhancement, critical frequency and mana regeneration abilities. Studying the AA info in-game and on druid forums like this one should point the way.

UPDATE: They get expensive but you can also improve the dps of your aoe nukes by buying FOCUS AA's for the fire and cold class aoe's. The focus are called Focus: Heliacal Pyre and Focus: Windborne Chill. Each of the 6 levels gets more expensive topping out at 100 AA's for level 6 (!!!) but the final two levels (costing 100 AA's EACH) cause the focus to work also on the post-105 versions of these spells. They raise base damage 2% per level, capping out at 10%, which considering the multiplier effect of hitting multiple mobs, along with the other focus and crit effects, is a HUGE improvement to the druid's damage output. At 110, assuming you have at least 15k AA's (and at 110 that's the least you should have) I'd suggest devoting ALL the AA's you earn to these two focus AA's until they're maxed. That's assuming, of course, that quint-kiting is a big part of your gameplay.

You may ask if the aoe nukes "only" hit 5 mobs at a time, why is "how many mobs you pull" important? Aha! The key to Quint Kiting success is you want to be pulling way MORE than just 5 mobs---at least after you've practiced a bit. Because once you're comfortable with the process you want to pull as many mobs as you can kill with your mana pool. For a druid with 90k mana, that's 15-18 mobs. The reason is efficiency. You want to have that many mobs in the pack you're kiting so that as mobs die you can keep casting on 5 mobs at once. This is also because if you've enabled limited duration damage and crit enhancement buffs on yourself, some with fairly long recast timers, you don't want to waste even a second of their effects. 

Buffs

In terms of "buffing up" before battle, obviously get the best buffs you can find. You WILL absolutely need the highest mana regen possible so generously tip a friendly enchanter! In point of fact, you don't really NEED HPenhancement or even HP regen for this because you should not ever be getting HIT. But in case of unexpected problems like lag where you could take a hit, it never hurts to raise your HPs! Oh you should also get a spell haste buff from a cleric.

Spell Lineup
(Get highest ranks you can, obviously)

4 aoe nukes:
Heliacal Fire
Frosthowl Chill
Heliacal Flare
Lunar Chill

As you level up you can swap in these new higher-damage spells:

Heliacal Pyre (101)
Windborne Chill (102)
Heliacal Eruption (106)
Frostreave Chill (107)

EQ devs have blown hot and cold on supporting quad- and quint-kiting over the years, meaning sometimes they've raised the level cap and NOT introduced higher versions of such spells. This effectively shuts down druid ability to perform this strategy since the dps of the spells is no longer sufficient. Fortunately, it's now a viable strat right thru level 110 due to the intro of these new spells.

3 DOTs for situational use:
Chill of the Visionary
Nature's Withering Wrath
Horde of Multilids

5 utility spells:
Wildspark Aura, to enhance fire damage (I plan to test if Circle of Power clicky is a better aura to use)
Twincast, for obvious reasons
Vivification, for quick heal if I'm dumb enough to get hit and actually survive the encounter
Katabatic Roar, fast-cast nuke for finishing off a mob
Vinelash Assault, root/snare, only for emergency use

Hot Buttons

Storm Strike: mana-free nuke, cast it whenever "up". With max AA's it regularly crits for over 130k. 
Banestrike: also mana-free but the druid has to have killed a lot of the mob type before it becomes available. Does 12k damage every time.
Shared Camo: instant invis
Entrap: your bread-and-butter fast-cast long-lasting UNRESISTABLE snare spell, with no recast timer. Much better to use the AA than the spell or a clicky version
Veil of Underbrush: druid "fade"
Exodus: in case of disaster!!
Improved Twincast: the AA version of Twincast

Nature's Fury: enhances damage at higher mana cost
Intensity of the Resolute: Veterans AA which increases both nuke power and crit frequency
First Spire of Nature: increases crit frequency
Nature's Behest: clicky from raid armor BP, such as Gelid Lifewalker Tunic. Adds 4k to nukes while active 

The above 4 nuke/crit enhancers all stack. I still have to test further if there is a "cap" which they hit collectively which would argue for NOT casting them all together. 

Spirit of the Black Wolf
Group Spirit of the Black Wolf
Both the above provide increased chance of crits and lower mana costs for spell casts.

Fabled Ring of Immobilization: any root clicky is nice to have available for finishing off mobs or rooting an unexpected add.

Hidden Communion of the Cheetah: this AA provides "super-speed" plus invis. I keep both this and Shared Camo available because of Cheetah's 30-sec recast timer.

Location, Location, Location

To Quint Kite, just like for Quad Kite, you want the following:

1. An outdoor zone or an indoor zone with plenty of running space. Go outdoors whenever possible!

2. A good population of non-summoning mobs---preferably with no casters. Casters mess up your kite and can root you! Even though caster mobs usually have considerably fewer HPs than tank types, it's just not worth the headache.

3. The mobs all being the same type so they run at the same speed. A mix of dark blue, white and yellow is ideal. Reds are doable if they're just above yellow for you, but they can be very resistant. Light blue is OK if you're learning the technique, have a small mana pool or you have a mix of LB and DB. Remember the goal here is max XP! (Although this technique can work extremely well with LB and green mobs if your interest is in pharming drops.)

4. Animals to be preferred. This is because most animals are amiable to druids and if you concentrate your pull on one species no other species will add, even if you run right over them, as long as you don't foolishly aggro them by casting your aoe at the wrong time. (More on this shortly.)

5. An area without a named spawn spot, although it's possible to avoid aggroing nameds. Just makes life easier if you don't have to.

6. An area where your kiting won't interfere with the play of other players. Aside from the obvious danger of possibly training a group accidentally, druid kiting has also had a reputation at times of killing more than one player's "fair share" of mobs. While arguments can be made on both sides of this issue, Norrath is an enormous world with plenty of mobs to kill so I suggest finding a "camp" where the chance of bothering other players is nil.

So what are suitable zones? Here are some suggestions:

East Wastes: Zeixshi-Kar's Awakening: coldain dwarf camps, and the giant fort; also manticores in SW
Chelsith Reborn: gators and turtles on the beach
Grelleth's Palace: I haven't tried but it's got open spaces and apparently suitable mobs
Plane of Shadow: outside, constructs, bats and beetles, maybe others
Shard's Landing: since lots of animals and all packed together in isolated areas, ideal if the zone isn't crowded, which is more the case now than before
Valley of King Xorbb: bears, snakes and whirlwinds
Evantil, the Vile Oak: this should be the best, what with huge wide open spaces and tons of non-summoning snareable mobs. But it's actually TOO big, the mobs are way far apart and they're well-mixed so you're likely to get a pack with varying run speeds. Altho still worth a try since the layout is custom-built for kiting.
Ethernere Tainted West Karana: there's a great spot where you can pull trees and stumps and they all run the same speed. Keep an eye out for Roon who paths thru there. Actually lots of other mobs can be quinted, including bandits, cultists, lions, crows and more as long as you can find running room. There are also a couple of instances with similar mob spawns with lower density if you want privacy.
105 to 110 Lceanium Yeti's Bonus EXP from the loot for the Quest Yammering Yeti. There are a LOT of yeti's, btw. Did you find the little sunken circular area with another dozen? Not to mention the yeti caves must have at least 20+ more, although pulling them would indeed be somewhat challenging. Seriously 2,3 or even 4 kiters could work here if they're smart about their kiting routes. Recently I found you can drag a pack of yeti's to the wall area of the city. It's a great flat stretch of ground with no local mobs and it enables very easy kiting on a straight line along the wall. .

Found that sarnak type mobs in Frontier Mountains (EOK) are quintable altho this zone isn't ideal because it's hard to find good flat running room with no obstacles. Here I tend to pull exactly 5 so I can get the quint done as fast as possible. There is another type of yeti here which I haven't tried. The goblin mobs, some at least, have a spin-stun effect which is "unhelpful." The good news is with LotD running a quint of 5 yields about 13-14 AA's in less than 10 minutes at 110, which isn't bad since AA's come a lot slower at 110.
Burned Woods looks very unpromising despite the huge amount of flat running room. Mobs are far too spread out. Giants have a boulder toss kind of instant proc when you tag them which is very damaging. There are a few wandering sarnaks which can be root-rotted easily but quinting them is too inefficient since you have to run all over to get a 5-pack. Plus if you get too far out of range aggro'd mobs will lose interest and stop following. Nothing good about Burned Woods...

There are others and I encourage others to add their experiences and suggestions.

How To Do It!

Ok you found your camp! For demonstration purposes, let's consider one of the coldain camps in East Wastes: Zeixshi-Kar's Awakening. There are two camps, one in the NE and one in the NW. Both camps have about 12 static mob spawns of which 1 can spawn as a named. The NE camp has one caster, a missionary (cleric.) This zone is great because it's wide open, the mobs are mostly in camps and there is very little to block line of sight. But around both camps there are Amygdalan and spider mobs which are aggressive so you do need to watch your back.

Tag any one of the mobs using Entrap or Storm Strike. Run around the rest of them rounding up your pack of 12 or so. Once you've aggro'd everything from the camp, cycle through the mobs Entrapping them. I like to pull all the mobs before I start slowing down their runspeed, especially in camps where I might have to run a long way to get all the mobs. But each to his own.

If a named is up in either camp you won't get 12 mobs without aggroing the named. They both summon and can't be rooted or snared. In that case I pull as many as I can without pissing off the named, then Entrap all the mobs I've pull. Finally when I aggro the named, I run a distance and then cast Veil of the Underbrush to clear all aggro. The snared mobs won't path back but the named will. This technique requires some practice and its implementation varies from camp to camp. Same goes if I aggro an add I don't want, particularly if it's a summoner.

Ok, once you have your pack of 12 mobs following you run around them in circles, in classic druid Quad Kiting style, until they're packed pretty tightly. Now it's time to let 'er rip!

Cast Wildspark Aura and Black Wolf and then Nature's Fury, Intensity of the Resolute, First Spire and the BP clicky. Then I test range and line of sight by casting Storm Strike. Once that spell lands I cast Twincast and cut loose with the aoe nukes. Even if you are at extreme casting range you're going to have to run backwards once or twice to get 5 casts off before the Twincast drop buffs. Twincast only lasts for 21 seconds so you have to time this tightly to maximize its effect. I use Twincast before Improved Twincast because in a LONG session I might get a chance to recast Twincast.

Once Twincast fades, pop Improved Twincast. The whole time be sure to cast Storm Strike and Banestrike (if it works on the mob type... if it doesn't now it will eventually if you keep Quinting these mobs!) whenever they're available. 

As I mentioned the NE camp has one caster, a cleric. He will stop to cast regularly. You should resist his casts but he will always end up outside the pack. One caster isn't a big problem. Usually I ignore him until he runs low on mana and then he stops casting as often and ends up close or in the pack and takes the aoe damage. Another option is to stack all 3 dots on him and keep them up. The dots alone, stacked repeatedly on the same mob, will kill him pretty quickly. However if you get more than 1 caster, you might want to reconsider your pull... and your camp... as eventually this mix will slow down your XP and also risk your health!

Depending on your camp you might want to keep instant Camo up between casts. You can always bind its hot key to one of your movement keys. 

Keep an eye on your Extended Target window and when you see a mob coming close to dying, stop long enough to cast Lesson of the Devoted, or an XP potion if you have one. 

When your target mob dies, just pick another one and keep going. Here's where some care is required. If you cast one of those aoe's on a pack of mobs, a random 5 get picked as the aoe target. These 5 stay the same as long as you don't change your target mob. But when one dies, or if you change your target mob, new mobs are selected (apparently randomly, although it might be the mobs closest to the mobs already in the aoe target list). If you happen to be kiting the pack over a non-aggro mob of another type, it could get picked up into the aoe list. This can be just annoying (you need to Entrap the add and include it in your kite) or potentially disastrous. If the mob is a summoner, all it takes is as little as 2% damage and you find yourself summoned into a pack of a dozen mobs. Loading, please wait...

Be sure to notice when Black Wolf fades and then pop Group Black Wolf.

Depending on various factors, your mana pool, your AA's, your success rate at landing spells, at some point you will find yourself running low on mana and down to only a few live mobs. At this point various options present themselves. If you're really low on mana and doubt you can finish them all off, you might want to target the mob with the lowest HPs left and concentrate on killing it with your mana-free Storm Strike and maybe adding DOTs, which are generally more mana-efficient than nukes, especially aoe nukes. You can also decide to bail out by clearing aggro with Veil or egressing. Don't forget you want to go back and loot your kills. While I usually take it as a point of pride to finish off my Quint Kite, keep in mind if you have LoTD or an XP potion running, you might be a lot better off to gate out, sit in PoK till your AA timers reset and come back for another round. (One good reason to set one of your bind points near your camp, if you know it's going to be one you'll be going back to a lot.) I know players who keep an alt logged out at the campsite and use them to loot, in order to preserve every of their Lesson or potion.

2019 UPDATE

Quint Kiting still works even in the newest xpacs as long as you can find non-summoning snareable mobs in suitable open areas. I've been liking yetis in Lceanium and sarnak mobs in Frontier Mountains. Yetis go LB at 105 but sarnaks stay DB to 110. I've been levelling a "backup" druid from 105 on the sarnaks and here's what I've seen with LotD running:

9-10 sarnaks at 105: 17% of a level per quint
at 106: 15%
at 107: 12%
at 108: 07%
at 109: 05%

The XP per quint drops but you acquire new spells as you level up and this speeds up the quints a lot. At 105 I was getting 4-5 quints per LotD; at 108 I'm doing about 6. As I've said above, I doubt there is any other class that can level this fast entirely solo.

What's also interesting is some of these sarnaks are SKs so they stop to harm-touch. My druid resists it every time and the stop is very short. But it's long enough that it appears to reset the 5 mobs that are subject to the aoe dd spell. Which means basically I end up hitting all 9 or 10 mobs during the quint. At first I thought they had changed the way these spells work. But I tested them again on yetis, that are all warrior mobs and nothing had changed there. On the sarnaks I don't consider this a bad thing since basically it's as if your aoe's can hit 10 mobs at a time. Assuming a big enough mana pool, this speeds up the process since you're damaging every mob while your dps is higher due to your activated burn aa's and foci.

Note that quint-kiting also yields huge amounts of AAXP. At 105 I was getting about 30 aa's per 9-10 mob quint. This drops a lot as you level up. A case may be made to stay at 105 or 106 (or 107, when you get the highest aoe nuke) and just pharm AA's for a long time because they're easiest to earn in big amounts at these levels. But IMO level trumps AA's; I'm a firm believer in always shooting to max level asap.

by Sippin, druid of Firionia Vie server