Lets Talk Em, Bard STAAAAAATS!

[astuce999]

Yay, a fun post to answer!

I keep 3 sets of gear. HP/AC (shield optional), pulling/CC (massive cha), and resists (raid).

Charisma is the 2nd most important factor when lulling, the first being your relative level to the mob. So if you're pulling mostly blues, dont really bother, but if going against tougher mobs, that extra charisma is going to be a life saver.

Charisma for charming is barely noticeable, same thing for mez, it's all about relative level.

Dexterity is the 3rd most important factor for missed notes, the first being your instrument skill, and the 2nd being the level of the song. Dexterity comes into play mostly when you're taking melee damage from the mob, it will become akin to a channeling skill for bards. On live it was rumored to affect your dual wield check, but I dont know if it was implemented on p99.

Agility on live was rumored to affect avoidance type skills like dodge and parry, as well as your avoidance AC, but no clue if it has been implemented on p99.

AC makes a difference but only in big numbers, and only on mobs lower level than you. When I put my tank gear on, I gain almost 200AC, and I can tank about 3 frogs in seb (non krup non ilis) before needing to stop to heal. Without that gear, even a light blue sometimes requires me to stop and mez/heal.

cheers!

Astuce

[Karafa]

Do any of you that say Cha is useful even play a high level bard? Cha has no effect on whether your lull, charm, or mez land or stick. Dex will effect song notes missing, but as stated earlier being 60 and having maxed instrument skills make this a moot point. HP > Resists > AC Dex/Sta/Str whatever.

[cs616]

I basically only use my bard to raid, but I go for resists, then HP, then STA, then Dex. Most of the damage a raiding bard is going to be taking will be from AEs, so reducing that is priority #1. HP and STA for obvious reasons. Dex because procing epic as early as possible will help with DPS, especially if in a melee heavy group. I can see the merits of AC in a group situation, but on a raid AC doesn't really do much for a bard.

[Faerie]

I remember this being a seriously heated discussion back in the day on live, and my information may be wrong (going from memory, waaay back when), but what most of you are saying seems wrong to me.

First, wasn't the general consensus among bards that instrument/singing skill level mattered absolutely not at all? I maxed all of mine for the sake of it, but remember that many bards never bothered to because the skillups didn't do anything, beyond the initial skill point. And it was thought that both dex and cha were factors in determining missed notes, though the exact math and importance of either were up for discussion.

Many bards argued that we should stack both dex and cha for this reason, though others (with whom I agreed) countered by saying that missed notes weren't a big deal anyway, because we didn't lose mana for it like casters, and they always happened at the very start of a song so their impact was always hugely minimal (lol); so long as you were fast on the recast.

Cha was also thought to affect the DURATION of charm (more likely for 27 charm to last close to 18 seconds; and 39 to last close to 1 min), but not initial resist rate or anything. Which made cha close to useless for bard charming, because when swarm kiting the charm would need to be broken with invis 90% of the time as it lost hp so quickly. And it has such a short duration anyway, even in pvp having it break really early was never a huge deal because of selo's and stuff.

Cha was also not a factor in determining initial mez resist; that being determined exclusively by NPC level, NPC level in relation to bard level, and MR of NPC. It may have been a factor in average mez duration (don't remember), but I never went for cha gear and never had issues keeping multiples mezzed. I always thought it was funny that equipping a flute did nothing for initial mez resists either, and just increased the amount of mr lost once it landed. The Pied Piper could have just sang, and used his swords to murder those kids. Guess modern bards are just better at multitasking.

I don't remember if it affected lull resists or not. As I never grouped with a monk until 55+, I did the majority of pulling for a bunch of my groups and didn't have tooo many issues (lull seems pretty unreliable here compared to my perhaps spotty memory, but here I'm lulling as a gnome cleric). Vaguely remember something about lull being effectively nerfed in Kunark by increased mr on NPCs, and then improved a ton in Luclin; didn't Thott make a huge whiny post about monks taking over as pullers when bards were originally best at it?

Bard gear always had plenty of cha and dex anyway. If you're epic, extra dex is a big boost for that proc. Also good for pvp procs.

My advice, as an oldschool bard:

Starting stats all sta, or maybe dex if you're big on those procs and down on yourself for small gains with sta. Maybe human bards would want to go dex, but who the hell makes a lame human when you could be elvish? With gear, go mr > other resists > hp > sta > dex > everything else

Stacking mr and other resists for pvp obviously (also raids), and sta before dex because dex is simple to get up as bard. I never felt a need for carrying around different sets of gear for tanking or whatever, because it seemed safer to always be as pvp ready as possible. And when taking on those tough solo mobs, less tankiness just meant longer fights with mez/regen.

[Calabee]

Do any of you that say Cha is useful even play a high level bard?

Played one here for 3 years, one on live for 3 years.

Cha has no effect on whether your lull, charm, or mez land or stick.

u 4 real? go try lulling high lvl shit with say 100 cha, then 150, then 175, you will see the difference.

Dex will effect song notes missing,

Wrong, confirmed by gm's / devs 2-3 years ago how it's BOTH dex and cha.

[Yibz]

Never buy CHA gear specifically to boost CHA. Once get planar, cultural, ragefire gear, you'll have more than enough for lull/mez. You just won't see a dramatic return and you'll wish you had HP gear anyway when you do manage a critical resist. Just focus on HP/STA to begin with then resist gear once you're raid level. I have maybe 6 free inventory slots free at a given time. The rest of my bags are filled with different gear that I change depending on the situation (pulling, tanking, resist encounter, DPS [lo]).

I agree that missed notes shouldn't really matter if you're quick - unless you're one of those shitty bards that hotkeys all their twists.

[Robdukes]

You guys with the missed notes don't matter. I have a feeling the reason you think this way is because it's been so long since you were a low level bard that missed notes constantly. Watch that guy's video on swarming on his level 20 something bard. He misses so much and it sure does look to be annoying him.

I agree missed notes do not matter in a swarm kiting situation, but in a bard playing his ass off to save his skin or his group from wiping? they really do. Hold 4 or 5 mobs in a mez and get 2 or 3 missed notes, your going to start a chain reaction of mobs breaking mez and beating on you.(Numbers not specific there, you get the point though) Every second counts for twisting.

[Yibz]

Originally Posted by Robdukes [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You guys with the missed notes don't matter. I have a feeling the reason you think this way is because it's been so long since you were a low level bard that missed notes constantly. Watch that guy's video on swarming on his level 20 something bard. He misses so much and it sure does look to be annoying him.

I agree missed notes do not matter in a swarm kiting situation, but in a bard playing his ass off to save his skin or his group from wiping? they really do. Hold 4 or 5 mobs in a mez and get 2 or 3 missed notes, your going to start a chain reaction of mobs breaking mez and beating on you.(Numbers not specific there, you get the point though) Every second counts for twisting.

Those are missed notes from low instrument skill level. Most group situations will see you using singing which is easily maxed through normal play. Instrument skills should be maxed too (afk for a couple hours playing a song of each instrument type). In either case, it's hardly worth building a gear set to avoid missed notes.

[Stinkum]

What about for a non-raiding Bard in XP groups? Is HP still > AC?

[Crawdad]

Played a raid-crazy bard from 99-04, just started barding again here recently.

Back in the day, my priorities for gear were:

Resists (Only for AE fights/Raids) > HP > Cha > Dex > Stam > All else.

Wear Plate and don't worry about AC, it'll be on all your gear anyways. In groups, unless you're tanking (usually a bad idea), HP always > AC. The damage you take in groups is going to be a few hits from the mobs you pulled to camp, from casters switching targets to nuke, or from you stealing aggro from your tank (lol). Whichever way it happens, AC isn't going to safe your butt as frequently as having a larger HP pool.

Flowing Thought would be right after HP... if we somehow saw Fading Memories on this server.

Stats I would do 10 Cha/10 Dex/5 Stam, but I like round numbers. Some people swear by starting points in Stam, I personally don't think the abysmal Hp returns on it are as helpful as less missed notes/resists while leveling. You want +HP on your items, not +Stam.

Instrument skills (Singing) definitely matter, and coupled with your latency(/luck) will determine if you're great or mediocre at twisting.