New Bard Guide

[brecon]

Hey all,

I wrote a new Bard guide on the wiki. I found the other guides a bit wanting. This is a first draft, so feedback welcome!

http://wiki.project1999.com/Thrasos%27_Bard_Guide

[serjordanmormont]

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

Hey all,

I wrote a new Bard guide on the wiki. I found the other guides a bit wanting. This is a first draft, so feedback welcome!

http://wiki.project1999.com/Thrasos%27_Bard_Guide

Thanks man.

I have a bunch of nice gear for a bard collecting dust so I was thinking of rolling one to put it to use.

Gonna follow this for sure.

[Jence]

Near the bottom of the guide you posted epic being 1.6 modifier. Needs corrections as it is 1.8, just friendly heads up.

[Nixtar]

Nice work! Very nice to see a bard guide which isn't focused solely on swarm kiting.

[Eugee]

In the description of pulling/aggro you put "if you pulled x2 you would get x1 and x2" when you meant to say "x1 and x3". Nice read so far.

[Eugee]

Note on fear kiting: setting aside 3.5 seconds per song, you can squeeze 5 songs into 18 seconds if you don't fizzle any, allowing you to play snare-fear-dot-dot-dot. But any missed notes means you skip the last dot.

BUT our dot actually hits FOUR times. So you can play snare-fear-dot1-dot2, snare-fear-dot3-dot1, snare-fear-dot2-dot3, and keep three dots rolling as well as have a cushion to keep the fear kite going. Worst case, one dot will drop for a single tick.

[Cochonou]

Does the flute really enhance faction song? I barely noticed any change in faction gain with or without flute

[brecon]

Thanks for the comments, I've updated to correct the epic modifier and the pulling typo.

Re: Fear kiting. I just find it unsafe to twist 5x songs and really avoid damage....especially when I start fear kiting mobs that bash. With casters its okay. One or two fizzles and suddenly you're taking a hit. My 'normal' twist is:
(1) mez the mob
(2) snare and fear
(3) equip tash orb, just keep snare, fear and MR dot up until tash lands
(4) switch to drum, twist MR and FR dot, snare and fear. If I am low hp, I will only do one dot and twist in hp regen
For this reason I prefer to wear a fungi when barding, so I can passively regen while I fear kite / pull / etc.

Re: Faction modifier on flutes: I'm not certain. It should, but there are some bug reports that indicate that it does not. I have never bothered to get anything but a vendor flute. I must have done 30 sky raids and never got the stupid primary flute to drop for me from the giant parrot.

[Eugee]

Oh! That reminds me, you mentioned you'll get an intuition for when charm is going to break. While I agree with you, there's a much better timer than your gut.

3 song pulses.

So I'm charming a pair of wyverns in CS... I charm one, send it on the other, play speed song, and back up to sit down (2 mana/tic instead of one, and charm that works on them uses mana). Then just count the "you feel faster" messages. After three, charm is typically breaking on the next tick.

Anyway, if you're twisting between charms, just remember you'll typically get 4 songs played between charms.

Normally when I'm charm kiting, I always charm the pet that's winning, hitting it with a dot or two before recharming, so that it's losing some extra HP. Ideally when the charm fighting stops, both are under 20%, so I snare one, and when they get apart they both start fleeing. Now chant them down at your leisure.

But sometimes I've got a pet that's just a beast, and a target rich environment (like a bulthark, with mega hp and dmg, who chews up the wyverns). So I snare a wyvern 3-4 times before I charm the bulthork and send him in.

Then I play speed/snare/speed/snare... now toggle back to the bulthork who's charm is about to break--start precasting--break/charm/sic--speed/snare/speed/snare, repeat. When the wyvern is almost dead, mez or snare the bulthork, dot up the wyvern (3 dots will kill it from 19%), then go get another one.

Did I mention how much I love bard charm?

[brecon]

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

Oh! That reminds me, you mentioned you'll get an intuition for when charm is going to break. While I agree with you, there's a much better timer than your gut.

3 song pulses.

I normally time it this way - after I charm I'll run Selos, Dot1, Dot2, then start charming again to lock up the new mob.

Problem is based on the number of fizzles, lag and the server tick sometimes you need extra time. I restart charm 50% of the way through the charm cast usually if my charm hasn't broken yet.

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

Dex is a bad choice for stat allocation on a bard. And so is str and cha :/

Dex and cha help with missed notes for sure, but they don't impact a bard the same as they would a caster. Missed notes happen instantly and don't waste any mana. You're saving fractions of a second each time. Plus bard gear is full of dex and cha so getting over 100 in both just happens naturally with a few pieces of gear.

Besides the missed notes, cha really only helps with lull on a bard. Maybe charm duration is impacted too, but when it maxes out at one minute or whatever it's not a big help regardless.

Always go all in with sta when making a bard.

Also going sta is a 100hp difference at level 60. HP probably most important stat after resists, and 100hp is equivalent to a piece of high end raid gear.

You're thinking with an end-game raider, Kunark + Velious mentality. If you are a Bard trying to do solo artist challenges or pulling for groups 40-50 in bad gear, the stamina won't save your life as often as reduced crit resists from lulls or from mez resists (both which check to Cha, not just charm and duration)

If you are a solo bard you might also want dex to get quick procs on Orb of Tishan or to stack DD procs. Also, if you are trying to twist 5 songs while soloing, fizzles ARE a big deal.

If you are a true newbie, you might not want to suffer being permanently overweight from level 1-50, so some STR points may make your life more enjoyable.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying that the question of which is the 'best' allocation of stat points for a bard is very open to how you plan to play, and not everyone plans stat allocations around raiding. The only wrong answers are wisdom, intelligence, and AGI if it pushes you over 85.