Words to Know - "Kiting"

This is a term I've heard used often in Let's Plays, and I thought it would be a good word to kick off this segment (whose title is a work in progress, I promise). When you're watching someone demonstrate this technique on a stream or video like I did it's not hard to puzzle out what they're talking about, but out of context it could be a bit confusing.

Perhaps unsurprisingly Dictionary.com has no gaming-relevant definition for Kiting. Urban Dictionary however, defines it as:

“In an MMORPG, you can grab a mob's attention and keep walking away from it which pulls it along. Not unlike a kite”

So essentially what you're trying to do is make sure the enemy stays close enough that you can hit it, but keep it at enough of a distance so that it can't damage you in return. Depending on the game you could employ snares or traps to help keep your opponent at a distance. Spells which affect enemy speed or cause them to panic like ice or fire could also be effective.

Your goal could be to whittle their health down on your own over time, or simply grab their attention long enough to lead them into a trap or ambush, or away from an imperilled teammate.

This technique needn’t be limited to MMO's or co-op games, it can be a valuable tactic even in single player. In games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim which lacks deep combat mechanics Kiting can be used to take down more powerful enemies over time, though you'll probably have more luck with ground based foes. Don't expect it to work on Dragons.

So that was entry #1 of Words to Know, which hopefully will have a better name soon. This was my first post on Shock and Pause directly inspired by my mantra of “Learning about games by teaching about games”. I've got a lot of ideas for other posts and regular segments, and I'm excited to get them organized and ready for people to see. 

In future posts this is where I'll link to other stuff I've written on the blog for people to check out, but since there isn’t much of that here yet anybody reading this very early post should check out Car Boys by Polygon.