Bards belong in my group with mana song stuck ON, thank you. If they CC like a boss AND mana song AND haste dps AND make jokes then I'll never not try to steal them from other groups.

I have found the burynai burrowers in the pit in FoB are squishy and run at <20% health. Been good xp for me from 13-16. Then you can hit up Kurns for a couple levels too

How long is this list of bards that you actively try to steal?

Classified. They're all mine!

on red? 0

At earlier levels i'd rather have a pure DPS but later on you can do stuff like mana song + 3x twitch mana, mez and charm while auto attacking, haste, resists, snare, etc. And the HP regen is noticeable too.

I would mostly agree, but I've also been in many groups that had no healer, next best thing is someone who can speed up health regen between pulls. For example last night I was in Befallen with a monk/sk. Worked out great.

Generally people under estimate the bard heal song. Healers always want mana song while most of the time the heal song will give better results for the team. Of course you can combine them while out of combat...

I just did 13-19 in Kurns on an Ogre Shaman. Groups were readily available and often low on healing, so I imagine that a bard would be welcome.

I'd second that, all the times I ever tried to group in Kurn's we were always lacking some kind of healer.