Duo with a Monk - which class

[Iceyhot]

- Bard speed for travel
- Hymn of Restoration with a lute to kill downtimes (regen)
- Single pull ability with lull if monk feels lazy for breaking camps
- Haste and battle stats for group
- snares / slight melee slows on monsters
- fear song + snare for fear kiting at 25(I think?)
- Bard can dispell dots
- Charm and Mez on fights with adds

As long as you don't single pull something that 2 of you can't kill with regen on, you should be fine. Once you hit 25 and can do fear kiting it gets easier.

Total experience output ought to be about equal to a shaman. You won't be able to kill higher level monsters like you can with a shaman, but your downtime will be less and your kill rate faster so it about evens out. Personally with charm and mez, I think its a whole lot safer too.. Worst case, turn on the bard juice and take off if you're outside.

Generally before 25...
Pull monster -
Battle Stats / Haste / Regen snare just before monster starts running

Post 25 fear kite
snare / fear / haste
Post 25 normal
Snare + Melee Slow / Haste / Regen / random song (damage shield, absorbtion etc

Hard to say what would be more desirable in a group... I think its a wash, but lots of people swear by Shaman. My main issue with shammy's is the huge down time until much later in there career. Bard brings mana song, regens, haste, slows, snares, fears, mezzes, charms, runspeed and a few more tricks (damage shields, corpse location etc) It's a difficult class to play, but a good bard is a great thing and there isn't much a bard can't do.