How to kite and cast/attack in full circles?

[loren9109]

I don't think I ever learned how to kite efficiently and it's been bothering me for a long time.

My problem is when I keep mouselook off I can't side-strafe, but when I keep mouse look on it gets difficult to taget and/or use some clickies and spells with mouse. Therefore I have to rely on mostly the first 5 slots of my main hotbar. Even so I still feel clumsy when kiting; after about 2/3 or 3/4 cycle I usually have to return to normal mode (with my back facing the target) and readjust my mouse and my direction. I think I also tend to lose my target on the mob from time to time.

What should I do to kite better? Any advice appreciated...

[Jingwei]

You can hotkey ctrl + number and alt + number onto different hotbars, which gives you access to more stuff while keeping your hand on wasd. You can also map spare mouse buttons (like the back button) and the 'r' key to stuff.

With more memorization, you can also hotkey hotbar swaps, so you can swap through 4 or five hotbars and then use the 1-5 places on them.

[smeggy1384]

I hold down the right mouse button to use mouselook when i need to strafe and kite, rather than using the on/off hotkey. Not sure if that would help on needing to use things on different hotbars though.

[Jaid314]

I hold down the right mouse button to use mouselook when i need to strafe and kite, rather than using the on/off hotkey. Not sure if that would help on needing to use things on different hotbars though.

same here. any time you need mouselook mode, just hold down right click. you may at first have problems with accidentally using things, but you'll adapt much quicker i suspect than having to turn it off and on via keyboard.

[scoobmx]

I have the opposite - mouselook always on and right click to bring up cursor. Youll find this better for kiting and targeting in general

[Fefnir_2011]

I kite with mouse look on. I have one full hotbar mapped to 1-6 then FGHE, then shift+ the same keys for a second hotbar. How many things do you really have to access in the heat of battle? How many can you stand to put on a hotbar close enough to the center of the screen that you can just get out of mouselook to swap gear/cast a symbol/drink a curse pot? It can also help if you spend some time walking backwards in non combat situations. That and getting used to using the mini-map over the viewport to guide the way to kite helps, I've found.

[loren9109]

Thanks for the suggestions!

Actually I've been using right click to keep mouselook mode on, and I have hotkeys with ctrl+ and shift+ (I swapped shieldblock command to alt). However I find it inconvenient to strafe and use a two-keyed command at the same time. I have F, Z and C for hotkeys too, but still often find myself stopping to use other commands.

In this video for example the caster is constantly running in circles and spamming SLAs (or other spells?). I wish I could kite like that...

(Oh and Scoob your method is really interesting... I tried a bit just now; not yet used to it but I think it's worth some practice.)

[Four20]

. . .but when I keep mouse look on it gets difficult to taget and/or use some clickies and spells with mouse. . .

there lies the problem. kiting efficiently is what you're trying to do/learn. . .but you're clicking. you should be practicing your muscle memory to not click at ALL. everything you use(in theory) should be bound to a key. that can get out of hand with clickies and all. but when it matters i dont think a clickie is efficient in general.

some people think this is too hard to do. but it really is just muscle memory. start small, binding 1 or 2 keys at a time and playing a LOT in order to get your reflexes to use those new keys.

some people take it a step further and instead of using WADS to move they use ESFD. giving them more keys to bind and easier access to the middle of your generic hotbar(aka easier to hit keys like 5 and 6).

but like i said. practice practice practice. i suggest doing the 1-2 keys at a time so that you're not overwhelmed during the learning curve. it'll take a while but it's 100% more efficient

[scoobmx]

Thanks for the suggestions!

Actually I've been using right click to keep mouselook mode on, and I have hotkeys with ctrl+ and shift+ (I swapped shieldblock command to alt). However I find it inconvenient to strafe and use a two-keyed command at the same time. I have F, Z and C for hotkeys too, but still often find myself stopping to use other commands.

In this video for example the caster is constantly running in circles and spamming SLAs (or other spells?). I wish I could kite like that...

(Oh and Scoob your method is really interesting... I tried a bit just now; not yet used to it but I think it's worth some practice.)

The caster in that video is me, if you can see the toon name in the pary list and match it to my sig . The spells spammed are SLAs, DOTs, elemental curse, disintegrate, reconstruct, spellpoint saving clicky which i held right mouse and clicked to use (while holding right mouse, strafe left/right becomes turn l/r, at least in the FPS default control scheme), and wind dance. I have modifier keys shift, ctrl, alt, mouse4 and mouse5

[fco-karatekid]

...It can also help if you spend some time walking backwards in non combat situations. That and getting used to using the mini-map over the viewport to guide the way to kite helps, I've found.

So I had a ton of Rocket Arena experience in the Quake games before DDO, but still ahd issues with circle-strafing in DDO. Two things I did were: 1) THIS^ (ran around the marketplace backwards when going to sell loot or auction, etc) and 2) messed around with the mouse settings (sens, acceleration, and smoothing) until I got it to where I could control the arc of the circle strafe correctly EDIT: circle around the entrance to the Subterrane until you get it). Now I play with a thumb trackball, which makes circle strafing SIGNIFICANTLY easier; so YMMV.

[sirgog]

I keep my most important kiting spells bound to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Shift and one of those, or Control and one of those. 'DDO classic' keybinds.

Left hand is on W most of the time (move forward) and handles slow, methodical turning, strafing, as well as casting spells. Right hand is on the mouse, aiming spells and handling quick turning when needed.

[svinja]

Bind your spells to QRTFGCVX12345 and alt/ctrl + some of those. I don't bind my clickies to keys, I don't have to use clickies nearly often enough for that to be necessary. But I do bind nearly every non-buff spell. When I do need to click something in the middle of a fight, I release the right mouse button (mouselook), and keep moving with the keyboard for a moment while I click the icon, not being turned towards the enemy for a second is not really a big deal.

[garlor]

You can hotkey ctrl + number and alt + number onto different hotbars, which gives you access to more stuff while keeping your hand on wasd. You can also map spare mouse buttons (like the back button) and the 'r' key to stuff.

With more memorization, you can also hotkey hotbar swaps, so you can swap through 4 or five hotbars and then use the 1-5 places on them.

the absolute problem with this is that when you change a key binding for a toon you change it for all the account ( and prolly all the accounts you play on that computer ), so unless that is your only toon it must be made with extreme caution

[Xeraphim]

My Mouselook is left click (same button as clicking a hotbar). I use SLA's/Abilities/Clickables by Hotkey only while kiting. Right click is Attack, naturally. It works extremely well.

My solution (which is quite common among those that play in the top 1%): Find a favorite hotbar. Load it up with your favorite blasty spells or whatever. Now, assign buttons near WASD that fit with those kinds of effects. Find another hotbar. Do the same with that one. If you have capped a blaster, you may want to load up a 3rd.

I have mapped ` 1 2 3 4 5 6 CapsLock LShift LCtrl LAlt C V X F R T G B F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 as hotkeys with those farthest from WASD being the least used. Tab and Z retain their default mappings of Target Nearest/Next Enemy and Examine. Select next interactable is V; Rune Arm is CapsLock, Use is LCtrl, Lalt and LShift are combat/attack abilities (main Monk combo buttons, Arti BB and Insightful Strikes, Savant SLAs, etc) and the rest are respective to the class I play (e.g. I like to use T for Power Attack on the melees, Search on the Arti, FireWall/AcidRain/IceStorm on the Savants and Blade Barrier on the cleric/fvs).

With a scheme like this under your fingers, you should almost never have to take your finger off the Mouselook button in combat until it's prudent/beneficial to do so.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I play almost entirely with the keyboard.

I have the number pad keys bound to common attacks/spells.

I use both the arrow keys and wasd/qe keys to move. Use tab and auto attack. space is jump. z is attack.

practice, practice, practice.

[sweez]

Boils down to two things:

1.) using mouselook almost exclusively, and mapping important spells/abilities to 1-5 keys, and learning to swap hotbars quickly (becomes muscle memory after enough usage, much harder to learn if you play a lot of alts with different hotbar setups), and/or use alt-hotkeys and additional mouse buttons for stuff that you use (semi)often but can't find room on 1-5 keys
2.) getting in sync with your spell durations and cooldown timers. Once you get those to a subconscious level, you can easily do additional stuff (like going out of mouselook and clicking on different hotbars, using 6-0 keys, calling guildies/party members noobs in chat while kiting) in the dead time where you're waiting for cooldowns to refresh

It can get a bit tricky, especially with all the current 'not facing XX' and lag issues, but it comes with practice, and brings a whole new dimension of fun to your gameplay.

[MRMechMan]

Wimp! Stand and deliver!

I have to think about it actually as it's pretty natural...I think I toggle mouselook on and off quite a bit (right clicking or not) and use 1-5 keys, as a few other people said. I tend to run backwards a lot, particularly if BB kiting around the edge of the ring.

[MRMechMan]

2.) getting in sync with your spell durations and cooldown timers. Once you get those to a subconscious level, you can easily do additional stuff (like going out of mouselook and clicking on different hotbars, using 6-0 keys, calling guildies/party members noobs in chat while kiting) in the dead time where you're waiting for cooldowns to refresh

And yea, this is huge. I lost DOTs way more often when they first came out with the spells, now not so much. Having certain orders of what you spam spells in really helps, too.

The number of times I look up and check my 3min clickies and see it counting down 3---2----1----refreshed!!!! is borderline uncanny

Knowing when to shieldblock and tank is also important, particularly if fvs. Even moreso if torc/concop. And also if the melees are whining about it

[fco-karatekid]

the absolute problem with this is that when you change a key binding for a toon you change it for all the account ( and prolly all the accounts you play on that computer ), so unless that is your only toon it must be made with extreme caution

I ran into this problem around Nov/Dec and solved it. Before I type this: those of you who are altoholic may find this to be a lot of effort - but I think it was worth it for my three mains.

I bound a buncha junk across three characters, and after a while found myself unable to remember the bindings across them when I had switched over.

I came up with a mnemonic binding schema where I drew parallels among their abilities. I bound those similar skills/spells/actions.

Since that made little sense, here's an example.

On my Ranger AA, I have "K" bound to animal empathy. On my Bardling, it's bound to "hypnotism", on my pure monk, it's bound to Ku Kan Do. Similar action== same button.

On Ranger, Cure Serious is ctrl 7, Cure Moderate is on ctrl 9; cure light is on /. On my Bardling, who hasn't yet gotten cure serious, cure moderate is on ctrl7 and cure light is on /. In all cases, healing pots is 7 (If i make a mistake, at LEAST I get some healing out of it). The commonality is the highest healing spell you have at a given level is on ctrl-7

Across ALL characters, power attack is ctrl = (I rebound from default, obviously). On characters that have IPS, that's bound to =.

A moderately-used unique/specialized skill EDIT - (with moderate cooldown) like True Strike on the characterrs with AA, quivering palm on the monk, dunno yet on the bard went to the ` (lower case version of tilde). Frequently-used or iconic skills like manyshot, stunning blow/fist were bound to 1 across all characters.

Hope this helps. It really gave me a better way to remember what's bound to what across characters.

[t0r012]

I like to remap letter keys to hot bars and stay in mouse look.
since that is an account wide change I try and keep things as standardized as possible across the toons.

~ is a light heal on any of my toons that have self heal and cure pots on those that don't (its kukando for my monk but she is special)

Q is a mod heal for those that have healing and CC for those that don't (stunning blow/trip)

R is Holy $#!^ I need a big heal in a hurry max/emp/quic Heal or recon

V is haste either in pots or spell

G is AoE damage for casters FW/BB

H is Holy $#!^ I need damage in a hurry max&emp AoE spell

all weapons sets are on hot #3 mapped to Alt+ 1-5 for easy switiching with alt~ being a ranged weapon for every toon
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edit'oh
forgot to add I mapped mouselook to scroll wheel click (not roll , click) for easy swap change when I need it.