a bandit  

Hi everyone. Im working on my faction for the priests of life and need to turn in as many bandit shashs as i can. What zone drops the most if i dont want to go skipping around all of norrath?

I was playing my 15 Druid in WK this evening, and as I was medding by Guard Tower 2 I saw a female bandit who conned light blue. Oddly, she was at 43% health. I checked 'who" but nobody else was in the zone, so I figured I'd take a crack at the chick. After hitting her with Stinging Swarm, I ran in the opposite direction. She pursued, but gave up the ghost after about thirty seconds. I went back and looted some change and a bandit sash. No idea how she'd gotten injured, though!

Ah the bandits in the planes of Karana – preying on the innocent folks that make that long trek from east to west (or visa versa). Of course, now with the Plane of Knowledge most of the travelers for the bandits to pick on have moved on, and completely skip the planes, leaving the bandits with no fun. Fear not, for the bandits are still some of the most enjoyable mobs to fight in Norrath, hence I wager they will still see action (though it may be them that become the prey)!

Enough banter... it holds true that if you are in your teens and are bored stiff of dervish cutthroats, bandits is where it’s at. They have quite a few camps in the western planes of Karana, and each has its own different strategy. Slaying them gives good faction, the bandit sashes you collect give even better faction and experience (if you are good aligned), and the reward for the sashes makes these folks MUCH more desirable to hunt then their distant cousins in the east.

This particular post deals with the camp just west of the farm where the bandits try to pass themselves off as part of the Miller family. Obviously the strategy used is a bit strange, but this is why I’m sharing it with you, in the hopes that you too will hand the bandits in Karana (not of Karana) some well-deserved justice! Besides, it can also get you thinking of different (and fun) ways of handling these pesky bandits.

One night my sister and I decided to do some hunting in the planes of Karana and pay a visit to the bandits that were said to be stealing, pillaging, and overall abusing poor travelers and farmers in the area. I, being a Shaman, buffed us up for the fights ahead and we went to battle. The first few pulls were fine. We started with the bandits that spawn at the base of the hill, just west of the small farm. However, once we moved to the farm the problems started.

We had two male casters, and two farmers. We had just reached 14th level, and did not want to continue with dervs. We talked our strategy out, knowing that casters are always an undercon (especially ones that chain-cast and seem to have an unlimited mana pool – just have to love old world casters). We decide to root one and pull one away, then when we were done we would take the second one.

Long story short: root one, we get the half-elf, and a wandering add, and the green farmers. My sister, a warrior, taunts the half-elf away, and (of course) he promptly begins to nuke for 37 damage almost every 3 seconds. Meanwhile the “add” and farmer will just not leave me alone, no matter how much she tries to taunt them (with the exception of root I haven’t even cast yet). As my sister is getting low I have to get a heal out and hope I can with these mobs on me. I get the heal out, but root brakes on the other half-elf and their hate for me is strong... 3 nukes later I’m dead. DONG - This is all in less than a minute by the way.

We come back and decide to leave the half-elves alone and go to the camp just west, up the hill. The spawn was staggered because of previous mishap with a fellow adventurer. Unfortunately when we pull we have two pops aggro on us and now we have 4 bandits. Felled one, two, DING; wait... what’s this? Two half-elf wanderers had aggroed on us... DONG.

Came back... killed a female druid who was nice enough not to chain cast and DING. This time there was only one half-elf bandit at the main camp. “Ah,” I thought to myself... “revenge.” Warrior pulled and she was getting nuked to death, waited till she was low (in hindsight I should have waited till she was below 25%) and I healed. Half-elf rooted her and attacked me. DONG

<sigh> By this time after 2 re-dings and 3 deaths you’d think I’d just give up, but I was having too much fun! We didn’t have a “calm” spell and these blasted half-elves would land every cast, even with a fire resist buff. We knew we had to stay away from them... so to the old think tank. Here’s the strange strategy that worked – the rest of the night we owned that camp and almost every other camp around that area.

When I came back the camp was full and there were two half-elves in the middle. Our original goal was for me to pull ‘em all and with SoW I’d be able to zone them, that way it may have split the camp, but what happened next was just beautiful (and fun). Being a shaman, I’m suicidal; low health, death... bah, it’s all part of the job – pulling the whole camp was just something fun to do.

I rooted one caster and then began to run, my sister stayed behind to watch the camp. Strange... the other one didn’t follow. Root broke and still the other half-elf didn’t follow (I was a pretty good distance away by then). I F9ed to find out nothing was following me. I turned around and look... hmm... “all the non-casters seem to be following me... I wonder.” I poisoned one then ran. To my surprise it took them to 55%.

I had 5 or 6 following me that first time and I basically kited every single one, poisoning them one by one. I would use the druid strategy of running, sitting, running, sitting, DoT, run, sit... you get the picture. I know a shaman is not known to kite, but that night, I was kiting bandits. DING. I took down the whole non-caster camp like that the first time.

Not wanting to leave my warrior friend out, I came back. By that time we had almost a full camp again. So I rooted pulled the whole camp and had her follow me. I softened them up a bit then had her finish them off. I’ve never seen bandits fall so quickly! We did it a third time and this time I ran in circles and had her pick them off with arrows. Again, they fell quickly.

There are obviously many variations of this, but... if you aren’t a harmony/calm caster (or a caster at all) the solution is simple: pull the whole camp! The half-elves will not follow, and the melee’s are easy to take care of. Even without SoW you can outrun the bandits by some distance if you have the head start. By the way, she has full banded and is not twinked, and I have some rendocite with bear-skin boots, again, non-twinked. It was fun to find a challenging camp and find a solution to it.

It’s not always muscle that wins, but the brains (and bandits definitely lack in that department).

A few notes to fellow shaman (though I’m sure you already know this). Slow is THE spell. After casting slow the bandit’s damage was almost nill and that saved my mana to DoT them since I didn’t need to heal. The bandits went down no time.

Also, a general related note on bandits... they are strange! Aggro management was normal on the melee, and I could usually time when to heal/cast and when not to. The male casters however... ugh. To show you how strange they were. Without me casting a spell yet, having the warrior pull, they would root her and go after me. I wasn’t sitting, I wasn’t too close (when compared to other casters), I wasn’t casting; nothing! I was simply waiting to DoT/heal after she built up enough hate. The strangest part was, after they would root her and blast me to a crisp they would turn around, pass right by her and go back to their camp! And she had been taunting, slamming, kicking, bashing, and slashing them! I’m telling you... they had something for me and this has to be one of the strangest aggro behaviors I’ve ever seen.

As a side note, I would also like to know what SOE (Verant back then) was thinking when they created these mana-loaded abominations. Half-Elf wizards? I was always wondering how druids could have fire damage shields – but no, they also have cold based direct damage, so it seems they are indeed wizards. Hmm... I know there is a variable that returns the race of an NPC, but is there a variable for class as well?

Anyway, my experiences – overall a fun experience, and in my opinion, one of the things that makes EverQuest so much fun.

Tramaus Voronadil – Order of Marr

From the current (LoY, Feb 24) patch message:

"Fixed an issue with some level 10 NPCs in the Karanas having about 400 times the hit points that they should."

These bandits can be farmed for faction (e.g. if you need to improve Circle of Unseen Hands faction in order to buy from Crow). I've done that a few times, and recently noticed that there are new bandits that have far far more HP's than the usual and what's appropriate for the level range and area. They're only on the male blue-green pants + green tunic bandits (half elves?). They're casters that cast root and DD's. They have HP's appropriate to lvl 35-40+ mobs -> around 2-3K HP's.

These bandits seem to appear in all the larger spawns (farms, camps). I've seen 2 spawn together by the farms. The other bandits + brigands + farmers seem to be around their previous level (maybe slightly tougher than before?).

Not sure about their level, because they're all green to me.

Based on my experience, the WK bandits can be broken down as follows:

Half-elf bandits (male and female) are always casters, typically druids who root and nuke like there's no tomorrow. They usually have damage shields and other buffs on and heal and buff all other bandit types as needed.

Humans and Barbarians (male and female) are always tanks. They frequently have a damage shield up that has been put on them by a caster bandit. Pulling them away from their spawn point before a caster shows up is usually a good idea, especially the two who block the road leading to NK as there is a bandit camp off to one side of the road and casters walk over from time to time to heal and buff the ones on the road and to help with any fighting that may be going on. Pulling these two away from their spawn point is a definite must, as the casters seem to have no set schedule when they walk over.

Brigands (male and female). A few levels higher than bandits but similar overall. Usually Barbarians (the only ones I've seen) but I have been told of human ones but can't verify this. These are always tanks and seem to fight a bit harder than you would expect for their con (good thing most of them fight bare handed). These guys WILL aggro if a nearby bandit or fellow brigand (or farmer bandit) is attacked and they sometimes wander the zone the same as the bandits and will aggro on lower levels if they pass in range of you the same way the bandits will.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Guards will NOT help you if a bandit or brigand is kicking your *** and you pull a train to them. With these guys it's fight, zone, feign death or die.

All bandit types will definitely aggro to anybody who cons them at light blue to red, so give them a wide berth if you see one and aren't ready for a fight.

Also, be aware when kiting in WK, where you are in relation to known bandit locations. It really sucks to be a lowbie kiting lions for skins and seeing a fire or lightning effect cascading around you because you wandered into range of a caster type.

Edited, Sun Jan 19 20:07:49 2003

well i was going to kill some of these with my lv 12 dwarf rogue(diety in bristebane), but to my suprise, they conned ally to me! anyone have any idea what faction these are on?( the ones in gfay)

Nailed one while on my way to Kurn's Tower.. Not too hard at 23.. lol..

hi iam a lv10 halfelf is it a good idea 2 group with my lv 14 friend hes a ranger

I found two female barbarian bandits in the grassy area above the the coastal peak, near marauder cave. nuked em, got a faction hit.

turn in the sashes to Chesgard to get some nice faction hits/exp/gold/item