Are Bards strong enough/sturdy enough to solo in melee combat?

[gladeous]

Why would you mele when you can bring down an enemy faster with target dots and or charm at a safe distance resulting in much less down time.

[Adron]

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

Why would you mele when you can bring down an enemy faster with target dots and or charm at a safe distance resulting in much less down time.

On blue, the 10/18 and 14/24 weapon choices make it faster to melee down something that dot dot dot. I tested with two 10/18's, 34% haste, vs a walrus skin drum. not really that close. recover time is higher, but if you're doing a static spawn spot or two, thats not relevant, only how fast you down it and get the timer going.
So yes, on green, triple dot is faster, so you would. Not on blue with a 2.3 mod drum, at any rate. Reminder: bard dots do 2/3 dmg if target is moving, like anybody else's.

[gladeous]

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

On blue, the 10/18 and 14/24 weapon choices make it faster to melee down something that dot dot dot. I tested with two 10/18's, 34% haste, vs a walrus skin drum. not really that close. recover time is higher, but if you're doing a static spawn spot or two, thats not relevant, only how fast you down it and get the timer going.
So yes, on green, triple dot is faster, so you would. Not on blue with a 2.3 mod drum, at any rate. Reminder: bard dots do 2/3 dmg if target is moving, like anybody else's.

Great. Something to look forward to on green.

[Crede]

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

On blue, the 10/18 and 14/24 weapon choices make it faster to melee down something that dot dot dot. I tested with two 10/18's, 34% haste, vs a walrus skin drum. not really that close. recover time is higher, but if you're doing a static spawn spot or two, thats not relevant, only how fast you down it and get the timer going.
So yes, on green, triple dot is faster, so you would. Not on blue with a 2.3 mod drum, at any rate. Reminder: bard dots do 2/3 dmg if target is moving, like anybody else's.

Bards should be charming while loading up both mobs with dots. Melee is pitiful.

[Loadsamoney]

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

Bards should be charming while loading up both mobs with dots. Melee is pitiful.

On Green I believe this is because Bards are on a crappier melee table than they are on Blue. Their melee parse table got changed either in Kunark or Velious.

[Keebz]

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

On Green I believe this is because Bards are on a crappier melee table than they are on Blue. Their melee parse table got changed either in Kunark or Velious.

It got changed as of Chardok 2.0, the last patch in the timeline. Adron was also using near rather excellent droppable weapons / haste and comparing against a mediocre drum. Also, it didn't sound like fear was used to do full dot damage. That being said, the comparison is valid for blue at this point in the timeline assuming you just want to kill a single spawn as fast as possible (a somewhat contrived situation).

Nonetheless, charm kiting is just fundamentally more powerful than meleeing. Mobs deal way way more damage, and you get to kill two (or more even) mobs at the same time. This is true on green and blue.

[Wallicker]

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

On blue, the 10/18 and 14/24 weapon choices make it faster to melee down something that dot dot dot. I tested with two 10/18's, 34% haste, vs a walrus skin drum. not really that close. recover time is higher, but if you're doing a static spawn spot or two, thats not relevant, only how fast you down it and get the timer going.
So yes, on green, triple dot is faster, so you would. Not on blue with a 2.3 mod drum, at any rate. Reminder: bard dots do 2/3 dmg if target is moving, like anybody else's.

Fear kiting negates this, for example a 46 bard using 3 drum dots snare and fear can kill all 12 BG goblins before repops one at a time, the damage output is greater than splurt and completely mana free to give you idea. If you really wanna be a masochist - buy or farm drums of the beast and lute of the howler, you can swap instrument in for your primary weapon right before tic lands then right back. The most fun thing to do however is equip a dwarven two handed axe go /role and War LFG