[Real]

After a bad day at work there is nothing better than coming home and hacking the life out of some poor souls in Random or even better Team Arenas where you can get some of your mates together and use voice communication for co-ordination. One of the things making Random and Team Arenas so much fun for a warrior is the lack of kiting.

A simple little word and one that is used to describe a tactic principally applied to PvP competition. To put it simply the word "kiting" in this context refers to not standing still while an opponent knocks the stuffing out of you.

Kiting is a principle which can be effectively employed by squishies (caster types with 60AL) in order to stay alive and minimise the amount of hurt received from warrior & ranger types hell-bent on either killing or interrupting the caster.

Lets assume at this point that there’s an Axe Warrior coming to hit you the caster. The three options are as follows:
1. stand and fight
2. turn tail and run away from your monks
3. strategically kite

So what’s the difference between these options?

1. standing and fighting can result in a couple of things. Either you have a significant amount of self heal and can keep yourself alive with help from your monk or your monk is busy or unable to outheal the damage being applied which means either you, or both you and the monk die (in this scenario the functionality of a third team member is questioned as they stop mid-battle to res their fallen team mates…if you’re lucky)

2. as someone who’s played as a monk I’ll say there is nothing that annoys me more than having a team mate run away from the battle while being hit. The monk has to make a choice – do you heal the team or follow the individual, the result is usually that the individual is off in a 1 v 1 battle and dies.

3. kiting is essentially running around but can be used in 4v4 particularly well through running small circles (about the size of the inner radar circle) whereby a warrior will follow and will be unable to get as many hits in giving your team mates an opportunity to offer assistance. If you stop the warrior from building quick adrenaline s/he will be less effective on the large damage spikes like eviscerate & executioners strike…just please watch out for bull’s charge.

Kiting Principles:
1. do not run away from the rest of your team
if you’re the monk you need to be able to stay in the healing area of effect, if you’re another caster type you need to stay close enough to your healer/protector to stay alive.

2. evaluate the skills being used by the enemy chasing you
if he’s using a speed boost you may be able to call a team mate with a snare, if he’s using frenzy a damage opportunity has presented itself. Is the warrior carrying snare/knockdown skills?

3. keep an eye on the status of the battle around you
how are your team mates going? Is there any way you can help them to gain the upperhand?

4. identify potential threats/targets in the opposition
like chess it’s a lot easier to win if you’re thinking ahead, your current situation may be keeping yourself alive but your next move will need to be thought of to prioritise targets for when you’re back in the game. Also there isn’t much point running in straight lines or around in circles if there’s an archer or a lightning orb using Elementist on your tail….try using the “Q” and “E” keys located conveniently on your keyboard in order to be able to strafe left and right (it’s common practice in FPS and needs to be used more in Guild Wars).

5. work with your team mates within the team structure
this is a team game and by kiting you’re playing your part in keeping yourself alive however it is up to you to ensure that kiting is the right option. Eg, it may be better to stop and help take down a priority target than to kite. For those who’s team mates are the ones kiting help them out – body block the chasing warrior, snare or lessen his usefulness with blind, cripple, wards etc. Note – warriors get annoyed enough by being blind (they tend to feel impotent when blind and most have healthy egos – including me) that they’ll break off of priority targets to hit the one who’s lessened their effectiveness.

6. use defensive/healing skills when you can
choose your timing – ie, you really don’t want to try a stand-up fight when the warrior has adrenaline worked up or is using attack stances.

7. look for offensive opportunities
a warrior using frenzy is an offensive opportunity, you can call the target and get a quick take down, likewise with healing signet and also when skills like Offering of Blood are being used.

8. study the map and terrain for blockages
there are a lot of pets in the arenas at the moment and these coupled with some of the choke points make it easier to be body blocked. This one comes back to planning ahead.


Kiting against Rangers is so incredibly simple (sorry I had to say it). An archer can only hit you in a straight line, the arrows don’t bend around walls, nor can they magically materialise on the other side of a wall or other obstruction in the scenery.

Just keep something between yourself and the ranger, stand behind a rock and cast as it will only effect line of sight spells/arrows. When the ranger moves to get his shot you do the same and keep the obstruction in place.

The only real trick is to not be body blocked and if you have something available for interruptions fire that off when the ranger is healing (he’s going to use troll unguent sooner or later). If there is no obstacle to hide behind take the high ground, it will at least reduce the amount of damage you’ll receive.

While the idea of kiting is not to make you live forever, it is designed to make you last longer, to stop the team from wasting unnecessary energy. There are reasons and times not to kite but quite often keeping opposition warriors from gaining adrenaline and rangers wasting preparations is advantageous.

It’s not the amount of time played but the skill of the player that will determine the outcome of battle…I read this line when buying the game and after playing for an incredible amount of time I believe this more and more but the time I’ve spent playing has increased my skills in areas like the basics of team play, survivability and I hope this idea will help you too with a PvP essential in Kiting.

Good luck and Have fun.