In which I post screenshots, videos and ramble about my scripts and botting in general. This will probably resemble a blog more than a typical screenshot thread.
Mother of Scarabs Lair
or, How to lure big on low levels
The Mother of Scarabs Lair is likely the best place for exping a mage in the low hundreds, and it's even possible to make a small profit at the same time if you're willing to leave town with lots of free capacity. This does of course lead to shorter hunts and makes it take longer to use up your stamina, but if you're limited by stamina rather than time it's worth it in my opinion. My best peak exp so far is 450k/h, on level 113. That's without hasting in the spawn and without using my ultimate. However, I had to block monsters to get that, which isn't quite safe at my level. I feel perfectly safe tanking ~5 Ancients Scarabs, but if I get surrounded things get really dangerous. When I run the script using settings that I consider safe for my level I normally peak around 420-430k/h.
My highest exp peak so far, without any form of bonus of course.
Luckily you easily lure in a very hardcore way without any danger of getting surrounded. When I lure I wait every now and then so that I don't run away from the monsters. During these waits I avoid getting surrounded by counting both the number of very close monsters, and the number of walkable squares around me. A second high risk activity is looting. To lure constantly you have to loot while you're luring and while you're killing. In order to avoid getting surrounded while looting I've added a config parameter called "Loot against" where you get to configure how many creatures you feel safe blocking. If there's more (dangerous) creatures that that on the screen I disable the looter until things are looking safer. Finally, I also run the script with a distance targeting stance. Most of the time the the script is luring (at least if you configure it like I do), but on rare occasions the targeter actually gets to decide how to move the character and I'm not yet strong enough to use a melee stance during those moments.
Having recently switched over from Xenobot, I feel like Windbot's targeter is complete and utter trash. Both bots have their strengths and weaknesses, and the targeter in my opinion one of Windbot's weakest points. It does not acquire new targets while looting, it has no lure mode for acquiring new targets while luring (lure waypoints are paladin bullshit) and it randomly decides to kill creatures in melee range while ignoring monsters unless trapped (which wastes stamina). The first points I work around by running a lua persistent that acquires new targets if it does not currently have one (it also checks some other conditions). The second condition I plan to work around by running a persistent that disables targeting outside of spawn, unless the stand time is too high. However, I haven't gotten around to that yet, plus it also has a drawback in that if you actually do get trapped it will take some seconds for it to realize so.
Different luring options for different level ranges.
The script also has some features that allow you to hunt in a less hardcore way. It's possible to run a dynamic lurer that lures until X targets are on the screen, similar to how Xenobot's built in lurer works. I peaked just slightly over 300k/h when used the dynamic lurer with a lure amount of 2 or 3.
Fat special areas can be a death trap when running a dynamic lurer, unless you can tell whether you're inside one or not that is.
For optimal kiting I use a lot of special areas -- both to prevent you from accidentally luring, and to remove sharp corners where you risk getting surrounded (I now see that I missed a spot close to the top of the screenshot, to the left of Area22 -- there should be another 1sqm special area covering the corner there). In total there's 162 areas in the spawn. However, some of the areas are quite fat and if you stop luring inside an area the bot just stands still. To that end I wrote a function that checks if you're currently inside, or X squares away from a special area. For this reason I also prevent you from disabling the lurer. However, it is possible to run the script with the lure amount set to 1.
Let's end with some level-ups from two different 5 hour sessions: