Kiting?

[kertinker]

How to kite? No, I know, there are a dozen guides out there saying to run at a monster, then run back once you provoked its attack, then run at it again and hit it. But how exactly do you do that, with your physical computer equipment?

I tried clicking them to attack, then clicking away to dodge back, then clicking to attack again, but I kept missing and the character would run past them without attacking. Or dodging back way too far before I could get the cursor hovered over the monster again. Or pausing to chop a tree I accidentally clicked on. To say nothing of monsters like pigs, who move when you're trying to click them.

So, I tried directional keys, and had... slightly better luck. Is there a key you like to put auto-attack on, so you're not holding it while trying to press multiple direction keys with the same hand? Left... control or something? That makes fighting with a mouse difficult... assuming you're an idiot like me who learned to use a mouse left-handed.

Additionally, directional keys are much less convenient than a joystick, because you can only move at 45 degree angles without a lot of swerving, and only at 90 degree angles, if you don't want to hold down two keys at once. I mean, I ended up thinking to myself, "Okay, hold left, while infrequently tapping up to travel left and slightly up, until there, time to dodge! Now hold down... wait, was that hold down and tap right, or hold right and... wait no, I was supposed to hit auto-attack and... dammit it hit me again!"

Of course I don't have a joystick. Must this be rectified? (Is using a joystick even possible, with the PC version?)

 

[Mr.Mulk]

Kiting is a delicate process that varies depending a lot on the enemy.

However, generally you want to kite by using animation breaks via WASD and clicking/pressing f to agro onto an enemy. It can be a little tricky but with practice it'll give you the best results. Different enemies have certain kiting "counts" which require learning and practicing to figure out however many hits you can get it before running away.

Try to avoid moving camera while fighting, unless absolutely necessary for visual spacing. It can be very hard to fight an enemy while viewing just the vertical axis (fighting straight up and down).

Be aware, if you use animation breaks in kiting, when you transfer over to DS you'll have a difficult time fighting initially, it has no animation breaks for attacks.

[csc_unit]

I don't play with a mouse. The trackpad of my Mac is pretty good and I only use it to take and move stuff from my inventory. When I want to pick up item from the ground, I go near it and press "spacebar". I move my character around with "WASD". There is a key for attack ("F") and for force attack ("ctrlLeft") ; I have changed attack ("F") for "J".

So when I fight I approach the mob and attack it with "J" and control with "WASD". Change weapon (or cane) with the numeral shortcuts("1" and "2"), which I changed for "U" and "O". Force attack button is useful when attacking friendly mobs or structures. Although you still need to click on those ones with the mouse (trackpad).

There is more to it, but thats my basics.

But yeah, I don't think anybody uses the mouse for kiting. I personally can't image doing that because of what you discovered.

[kertinker]

49 minutes ago, Mr.Mulk said:

Different enemies have certain kiting "counts"

The tutorials are very clear on that. Once you've counted though, moving at precise moments in precise directions is still very tricky.

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Try to avoid moving camera while fighting, unless absolutely necessary for visual spacing. It can be very hard to fight an enemy while viewing just the vertical axis (fighting straight up and down).

Or if they're at a 45 degree angle, because then you have to push two keys at once to approach and run away. My concern is when they're approaching at a 30 degree angle, or a 67 degree angle or something, because even if you have time, there's no camera angle where fighting left to right! There's also the issue of obstacles. Spider's coming at you from the left, and... then they're behind a tree.

And if the mob then circles around to come back, now you have to adjust your camera again, to whatever new angle of approach they're using. Or do you just... run away until they're forced to correct their course to chasing you left to right? To say nothing about a group of mobs.

After dodging an attack, do you just hold auto-attack to run back in whatever direction it is, or do you push directional keys to run at the enemy, then press auto-attack when close enough to hit them?

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if you use animation breaks in kiting

I'm not sure what animation breaks are... I just wait until they start to bite before turning away.

1 hour ago, csc_unit said:

I don't think anybody uses the mouse for kiting. I personally can't image doing that because of what you discovered.

Oh good, so it wasn't just me. Some people say you should move with mouse clicks (letting you view the map briefly while still moving), but then go on to say nothing about how you should switch to the keyboard to engage an enemy.

57 minutes ago, csc_unit said:

control with "WASD". Change weapon (or cane) with the numeral shortcuts("1" and "2"), which I changed for "U" and "O".

You didn't mention why you changed your shortcuts. My guess is it's easier to fight if you can keep the one hand on the directional keys, and then select the weapon or cane with your other hand? And you hold down or press 'J' with your other hand, along with the weapon selection?

WASD never appealed to me, since it doesn't use the index finger or thumb. I honestly do best with choosing keys so left = index, up = middle, right = ring, down = thumb. And I'm usually picking direction keys on the right, like... literally up/down/left/right

[Rellimarual]

I kite with the F key & the mouse because I never learned to use WASD. That’s why I’m so bad at kiting!

[disies]

I kite with F and WASD keys but yesterday I saw a video where someone used SPACE instead of F. He basically switched F with SPACE. Which is actually a bit easier because you can use your three fingers on WASD and the thumb for SPACE. I am thinking to change it too and will need some time to get used to it. Because I noticed I have troubles in kiting properly because I can't switch between keys fast enough to make it clean kiting all the way through. I also switch between weapons (Hambat most of the time and Walking cane) and since I missclick a lot if I switch with another key (1 for example) I hover over the first slot with my mouse cursor and just right click it when I go back a bit.

[csc_unit]

About the angle of attack, with time you should get more confortable with playing with the camera. So without even noticing you are always switching angle to get more suitable view of what you are doing. For me, most of fighting is done from the side to side.

2 hours ago, kertinker said:

You didn't mention why you changed your shortcuts. My guess is it's easier to fight if you can keep the one hand on the directional keys, and then select the weapon or cane with your other hand? And you hold down or press 'J' with your other hand, along with the weapon selection?

Exactly it yes. Left hand is on WASD and left thumb on "spacebar"(and "Q" "E" for the camera). The right hand it for my trackpad, fighting "J" and my quick swap shortcuts.

If you are used to move your character with your right hand then... Idk, can't help you lol

In the end tho imo, the more you can let go of the mouse, the better it should be.

[TemporaryMan]

32 minutes ago, csc_unit said:

If you are used to move your character with your right hand then... Idk, can't help you lol

I replaced WASD with the arrow keys.  Only drawback is I don't do quick swap shortcuts at all.

[Korlie]

Using the mouse period for kiting is just objectively going to be a problem because it requires more effort to function with it when you have to specifically click on your enemy to attack and specifically click on the ground to move. So if anything gets in your way at any point it messes things up and if you missclick at any point it messes things up. When you use the keys, your actions are immediate and all you need to do is press them.

Having things not be immediate, not only because you need to actually move the cursor to perform your actions but you also need to do it accurately is going to make it very hard to kite anything then requires good reactions like Pigmen, Merm or groups of Spiders. Even if you became really good it would still be more challenging because it requires more physical effort and time to move a mouse then press a key.

If you even just use the keys for either attacking or dodging and do the other thing with the mouse it will make things easier since you can dedicate the mouse to one thing instead of having to move it back and forth between clicking on enemies and clicking on the ground.

 

Either way though using the mouse is going to make things more difficult yeah. With the mouse, everytime you perform an action you have to go through the physical process of moving the cursor which takes time, and you have to aim it which means it all depends on you not making an error. With the keys there is none of that you just press one and immediately you are doing the thing.

[csc_unit]

 

47 minutes ago, Korlie said:

With the mouse, everytime you perform an action you have to go through the physical process of moving the cursor which takes time

I wish there was a key for mounting and unmounting my tamed boof. 

Trackpad/Boof users will understand.

What? I'm the only one?

ok...

[Bluckles]

5 hours ago, kertinker said:

I tried clicking them to attack, then clicking away to dodge back, then clicking to attack again, but I kept missing and the character would run past them without attacking. Or dodging back way too far before I could get the cursor hovered over the monster again. Or pausing to chop a tree I accidentally clicked on. To say nothing of monsters like pigs, who move when you're trying to click them.

Clicking. Clicking sucks. I only use it to be lazy or move long distances. Hold f to hit hostile mobs and ctrl+f to hit friendlies, walls, stuff you normally wouldn't hit etc.

Dodging. Basically just move away in a straight line when you see the attack animation start. Some mobs move while attacking and it's hard or impossible to dodge them. 

[DatShadowJK]

Some mobs have a different amount of hits before you gotta run away

Some, like the beary boi, need you to dodge his attack after his AoE without hitting

Some are just unkiteable

Remember thats just as important than the controls.

Also just use Ctrl+F while running away (Using WASD) like everyone has stated

[kertinker]

3 hours ago, Bluckles said:

Dodging. Basically just move away in a straight line when you see the attack animation start. Some mobs move while attacking and it's hard or impossible to dodge them. 

Yes, but how do you move away? Imagine for instance they're coming at you from up and slightly to the right. Would you sort of push the down key and slightly tap the left key? If you rotated your camera, they still wouldn't be directly to the right of you, but is there a way to make that work?

Or do you just lead them along until they're directly to the left or right of you, before engaging? Then you can just hit left or right to move away. That's kind of what I'm thinking is necessary, though I have seen people kiting mobs at weird angles...

2 hours ago, DatShadowJK said:

Also just use Ctrl+F while running away (Using WASD) like everyone has stated

You mean use Ctrl+F instead of using WASD directional keys to reverse your course and return to the monster? Only using WASD to move away and dodge?

6 hours ago, csc_unit said:

If you are used to move your character with your right hand then... Idk, can't help you lol

No, it's easy. You just have all those attack and force attack mapped to keys on your left hand, then your right hand can move your character. But I'm already using a left-handed mouse, so it's probably a good idea to avoid directional keys on the right, and figure some sort of arrangement of keys on the left to move around. WEFX, ASDF or something.

What would be really nice is a joystick, so I could get the character to move at precisely the angle I needed them to go.

[DatShadowJK]

46 minutes ago, kertinker said:

You mean use Ctrl+F instead of using WASD directional keys to reverse your course and return to the monster? Only using WASD to move away and dodge?

You betcha

[kertinker]

2 hours ago, DatShadowJK said:

You betcha

Thanks, I'm glad that works. With butterflies you actually have to run all the way to them, before trying to auto-attack. I think that can be true of aggressive mobs that kite? I know if a pigman starts to run away, players have about as much chance of hitting it on the cooldown as they do hitting a butterfly by just holding Ctrl+F.

[Bluckles]

16 hours ago, kertinker said:

Yes, but how do you move away? Imagine for instance they're coming at you from up and slightly to the right. Would you sort of push the down key and slightly tap the left key? If you rotated your camera, they still wouldn't be directly to the right of you, but is there a way to make that work?

1

Just positioning and rotation of the camera. If they aren't directly in front of you it's not going to be a huge issue. Remember failed kiting can be a result of lag, turn lag compensation off to see if it's you or the lag. 

[dread3ddie]

19 hours ago, kertinker said:

Yes, but how do you move away? Imagine for instance they're coming at you from up and slightly to the right. [...]

Or do you just lead them along until they're directly to the left or right of you, before engaging?

I would answer yes to the latter. Actually, for some fights a part of the strategy is placing and positioning. Some mobs are a bit faster, thus aggroing them and have them to follow you into a road/cobblestone will make kiting easier as your char can move faster. With that in mind, once you get the hang of each mob's behavior you can easily prepare before the fight to pick your surroundings (with some exceptions and limitations of course - e.g. Dragonfly, Toadstool, etc).

As mentioned before, I find it optimal to kite in a single direction. This way, WASD + F becomes pretty much A + F (left / right fight) or S + F (up / down fight). The movement keys move you away in a straight direction, while F (or whatever your attack key is) move you in the very opposite direction back to the mob while also triggering a new attack.

One other thing I have yet to master is to get each mob's timing precisely right - when you get to dodge and get back at attacking, having the mob to stand still and not move (chase you) at all, that makes the fight way easier as you don't have to compensate / adjust for the mob's locomotion. But again that's something that only comes with practice (per mob!).

As a last resource, if you don't mind mods you can try disabling click to walk as it would cancel any clicks "on the ground", making it harder to "walk past" your target. I personally would advise against using the mouse to either attack or dodge during a fight as getting the hang of the keys are way more accurate and quick in response. Use the mouse to switch items in the inventory if you have a hard time to use the inventory hotkeys (1, 2, 3, ...)

[kertinker]

Alright, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you everyone! Looking at kiting videos I do see that they're subtly leading the enemies to kite from the side. The bosses, at least. I certainly won't use the mouse to fight, and will try to practice something like the following strategy:

1. find a nearby road (choose battle arena carefully)
2. rotate the camera so the road is left-to-right
3. lead them to the road
4. edge left, until they're on the road to the right
5. hold auto-attack
6. hold left (A) once you provoke their attack, as little as possible
7. hold auto-attack again, hitting them until their cooldown timer's expired
8. repeat steps 6-7 until they are dead
9. if run out of road, circle around, then mirror steps 4-8

That would work for anything except mobs that kite like pigmen, and multiple mobs at once, like three hounds. For the former, if step 6 is not as precise as possible, they'll start running, and you have to go back to step 3, so tanking might be easier. For the latter, it's possible to lead them in circles to sync their attack animations, or if you can outrun them, generally there will be a single straggler chasing you after they all start deaggroing. Unless they're hounds, in which case tooth traps, beefalo, tentacles, bee mines, killer bee biomes, rabbit hutches, lure plants, players who are slower than you, and rock lobsters are better strategies than actually trying to fight the damn things.

I might practice up-down kiting, just for emergencies when rotating the camera's too risky, but vertical kiting messes with isometric perspective as the sprites can overlap vertically, so it's hard to gauge when my character's beside an enemy.