Bards?

[kondoor]

So I have come to the conclusion that I need a bard in my group. I have never played a bard because honestly the always seemed way to complex. What are the common songs people use with bards? I am working on the Xegony fight, which prompted me thinking I could really use a bard for the AOE disease cure song. right now I am using mostly song of the orcslayer. What else do I need to know about bards? They have tons of AA's that look important and other abilities I just don't understand. Any advice or pointers to other threads appreciated!

[Lucent]

you can use more than one song at a time.

[Warlgor]

If you have the plat, buy Cantata of Hope Rk. I, Slayer's Destiny Rk. I, Minstrel's Guard Rk. I, and for the fourth song I either use Selo's Rhythm of Speed or Storm Blade as the fourth one (some bard mains out there might have better advice). You can /melody up to four songs and keep them all up constantly.

Also, if you haven't gotten it already, Fading Memories is your best friend. Your best friend.

[Beatboxin]

Really?? Cause as a bard main Warlgor is my best friend!!

What Warl states is all true though without AA interruptions and miss notes will happen I advise you to speak with organ in forest and get 200 inst. skills then when you go afk, afk singing 1 song of an inst. type so that it maxes skill (easy way to max skills afk).

Go for all music AA over deff. and off. and imo go in that order. Exception for fading memories of course, nothing liek running w/e you want np

As for songs Warl is correct but if its resists your looking for sing Psalm of Veeshan its a group song but it does AC, DS, and grp resists. Then you got your baisc lull's/mezz's sello etc.

[Warlgor]

Really?? Cause as a bard main Warlgor is my best friend!!

[Stickybuds]

I'd suggest not using storm blade since it takes up a buff proc slot and the dmg isnt worth it over the other option available for the 4 default buff proc slots.

Id be fine to use if you're not at the buff proc limit already though. I use the AE slow song or war mach of chaos as my 4th song.

Id also suggest doing all your defensive AAs and then AAs like boost stat cap and buff cap 1st. Bards are weak when they are getting started =p

Regards,
Sticky

[kondoor]

Thanks guys, so much help on this forum.

[Mojak]

I recently leveled a bard to 70, got him some songs and some aa's and now he's in t6

I made hotkeys to control his songs. Normally I /melody 3 songs for combat. They are:

Slayer's Destiny Rk. I
Psalm of Veeshan
Storm Blade

I normally run: Warrior, Cleric, Bard, Necro Necro Mage in the "Bard" group.. Storm blade, haste and resists added to the pets are pretty nice.

another hotkey for selo's, but that's rare.. usually only used when heading to that far off Ldon


I'm sure there are things I can do differently, but just starting out Resists are pretty important.. for some reason dragons like to aoe, even though we all know that their wings would block the aoe from behind anyway

Just remember, when fighting a mob/boss that Silences to use just 1 song. IIRC if you sing just 1 song, it cant be silenced.

Another thing I do with my bard, since they are pretty weak and usually get rampaged because I forget to turn off songs, I just leave her with the casters.. range is far enough that the songs hit the tank/melee and all is good.

Fading Memories is huge.

Something else that I do on all my toons for AA's:

1) Innate Run speed (yeah yeah. mock if you will.. but I'm impatient when waiting on my toons to catch up
2) Resistance AA's
3) Class AA's (anything that defines them.. for the bard it will be the singing, Instruments, Song Range etc..)
4) Mystical Attuning et al
5) Defensive AA's and Health AA's/Delay Death



Again.. I'm still learning bard as well, but those are the things I've learned thus far.

did I leave anything out?

[jsre]

Another thing I do with my bard, since they are pretty weak

what is your bard's defense skill? mine tanks pretty well for a non tank..

[Mojak]

My bards defensive skills and stats

Lets see

Defense 163
Dodge 240
Parry 210
Riposte 135


Stats:

HP 15907
MANA 16874
ENDR 16979
AC 2926
ATK 1342

Those are unbuffed from Magelo, Doesn't have Defensive AA's yet etc Haven't even gotten her her t6 gear yet. She has gotten a long way to go before she's worth risking on rampage or close to where Adds spawn. The bard is just too good to waste on a trip to her bind spot