Bard Tanking?
 

Under what circumstances can (and should) bards adequately tank late game?

I’m learning more about my class as I become a geriatric bard (almost level 59). I’ve group EXPed the entire time. I’m not a swarmer. I did a lot of tanking up to 40 but now that I’m much later in the lifecycle I never do it anymore, unless I’m soloing. Even then I try to avoid it since I’m a wimp.

I’ve read that sometimes bards can out-tank rangers, and I’ve some some respectable ranger tanking in my day.

So near 60, when can and should a bard adequately tank? What group comps make it appealing? What activities, camps, etc? Can you provide some ideas for itemization for doing so?

A good bard tanking situation would be essentially holding aggro for rogues to back stab or stand in as a psuedo knight tank, lots of snap aggro just not going to be the best mitigation. But better than your cleric , casters or rogues taking it on the face and not be able to med or back stab

Nothing beats a bard in a bad raid / group pull situation, when you can lock ae aggro and then frontal disc to buy everyone ~10 secs to time (and sing DA song after for clerics if you're grouped and 60).

If you're 50+ with decent gear (think like Thurg gear), you can tank KC, seb, etc easily.

Any class can tank any sub 60 NPC once Turgur's lands. I bet a good Shaman could keep a Wizard tank up vs a slowed L55 icy servant, let alone a Bard. Everyone is so overgeared at this point that mobs under 60 just aren't challenging.

The good news is that the tanking Bard is giving the cleric +30% mana, so even if he's taking 30% more damage per second it's basically a wash. If not every mob is slowed, the Bard will likely come out ahead.

The bad news is that the tanking Bard isn't pulling (yeah, I know about the SS hat, but still) and is constantly tabbing around for mez/charm which makes it difficult to assist.

Why don't you just try it and find out?

The point of bard tanking 50+ is min/max xp (in a regular group, pulling / killing in dungeon) or if you're desperate. Ive elaborated on this before, but with just bard slow and enough DPS, you dont need a shaman to slow. Bonus is that mobs come in pre-slowed without the initial wait for shaman slow mob DPS.