I have an SK. Loving it. Just hit lvl 70. I was going to go ahead to get 75 and then get my 1.5 to start. How exactly does the swarming work and what AA specifically do I need to get done to begin doing this? Thanks for all your wonderful information!!!
Lots of info on http://www.evilgamer.net/forums/ Just do a search and don't post asking about swarming, it may not be received well. A google search will come up with posts from that site as well.
It works by being so powerful vs certain mobs that healing generated from riposting their attacks exceeds the incoming damage. Mortal Coil, Spell casting Reinforcement, defensives and anything that increases riposte damage should be maxxed. You'll probably want to be level 80 with 2.0.
SK swarming Ranger headshotting and Mage beam kiteing should have never been alowd to continue over the last few years. They have caused so much damage to the game its insane this hasnt been fixed yet. Fixing this should be top priority .
Dreneth did a nice breakdown. Pull train, turn 180 degrees, pop Vilify, and riposte it all to death, I let my pet finish off anything that doesn't die right away to finishing blow. Test the waters by starting small and find out what you can handle comfortably before pushing it. Don't forget about AAs like Steadfast Will. When you start pulling riskier trains a stun can be what derails it.
One thing to keep in mind while swarming is that a lot of videos will show the player finding a corner, this is a good idea, but if you think you can pull all the mobs, get in a corner and just let it do its thing, then you will die most likely. You need to get used to strafing with the mouse and being in third person often to keep yourself from getting trapped with mobs behind you. One misstep could spell your death very quickly.
Make sure you have the required AA and gear to survive tanking your target swarm mob with just ripostes, you must have sufficient defensive proc style healing to end the fight at 100%. For SK's these abilities come mainly in the form of passive AA. For other classes you can get the buff Shining Armor from clerics -- this gives you a defensive heal proc, which can be boosted with healing AA (so classes with healing AA, like sk, pal, rng, etc.. will benefit much more from it than other classes). If you can in this way kill a moderate sized pull of mobs without outside help or casting spells, then you should be able to do it with any number of mobs (with the amount of mobs in a swarm, outside help would kill the helper and spell casting yourself is nearly impossible, aside from near instant spells/clicks/aa, like for example SK epic). Then: 1) Get instance "The Price of Knowledge" in field of scale 2) Zone in, buff up as you won't be able to do so later. Pop lesson if you feel like it. 3) Run around, start aggroing mobs -- don't wait to get hit, your train will grow bigger by itself as you run through the hallways with dozens of mobs following you. 4) After aggroing 50-100 mobs, zone starts to lag, reducing the risk of getting caught and hit to near 0. 5) When tired of pulling or when buffs are in danger of running out or lag gets too much, find a nice corner and make sure mobs donot get behind you. Wait until they die, while keeping all the mobs in front of you. Use fast casting abilities in emergencies, but if you survived the test pull without casting, you should survive this too. 6) Repeat -- it should be possible to squeeze 3-4 pulls like this in 30 minutes. Don't wait for repop, just get a fresh instance.
