Bard melee

[Snaggles]

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

I don't want to say Highkeep Nobles are camped 24/7, but they've been camped pretty much every time I've logged into my Druid to grind the jail guards. Not sure how they fare plat-wise, but they are apparently very high exp for a solo player at 50ish.

It’s probably a coin toss. HK is dead compared to the old days. Not many places to find. Blue con with 2k hps for a mid 50’s solo grind.

Bards are good too on a 15’ish min repop. Can’t split them with harmony but once staggered those are easy to keep up with.

[Loadsamoney]

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

It’s probably a coin toss. HK is dead compared to the old days. Not many places to find. Blue con with 2k hps for a mid 50’s solo grind.

Bards are good too on a 15’ish min repop. Can’t split them with harmony but once staggered those are easy to keep up with.

I like Hole entrance. Don't think the earth elementals guarding the entrance or just inside before the pit are camped that often. Decent ZEM, low HP, fairly decent plat with Loam Encrusted armor and granite/speckled shards to vendor.

[Bardp1999]

Rangers with Epic are pretty nasty, they can 50% slow mobs and thier root seems very reliable. Well geared Rangers are one of my favorite partners on any of my chars (monk/shaman/necro).

Bards... ehhhh... from what I read just roll Ranger. Bards can be great but its not because you're meleeing

[Trelaboon]

My Bard is only level 50, but I have a blast with him. All the different play styles really mix it up and can make basically any area fun. Being able to swarm, fear kite, charm kill/kite. Being able to pull at light speed, melee in groups or play a more caster role. I have so much fun dungeon crawling for exp.

Bards are fun because they’re so diverse and every time I log in I can do something different if I want. If I wanted to just be a dual weild melee class with utility, I’d go with the ranger though like others said.

[Toxigen]

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

I like Hole entrance. Don't think the earth elementals guarding the entrance or just inside before the pit are camped that often. Decent ZEM, low HP, fairly decent plat with Loam Encrusted armor and granite/speckled shards to vendor.

til a named pops

[Veleria]

I am 59 on my bard currently and I have very some high-end melee gear. Melee is an option but it's not particularly optimal. I mostly do it for fun. the best strategy is to charm one monster than have it fight another similar monster and use your abilities to keep them even in health. for pure melee, you will find yourself stuck fighting very low-level monsters since we lack double attack and some defensive skills we are less effective. I use a combination of slowing the mob to reduce incoming damage and hasting myself when I melee but it's not as good as a pure melee class. THe bright side is while we take a bit more damage if you swap to a lute in between fights we can recover faster than other melee classes for the next one.

[Motsu]

As a 60 bard with no raid gear, I can fear/kite kill Yeldema in ~11 minutes, I'd imagine it takes a necro 8 for comparison. Not to mention, no downtime on bard, also I can selo speed and say pull Gafala before the necro was even back to full mana. So yes, fear kiting on bard, is completely viable and one way out of many that a bard can solo and make money.

[busted]

Obviously bards melee won't be as great as other classes that are pure melee with double attack but it's still a viable way of killing and even leveling up. "Battle barding" is a thing and its quite fun.

Aside: Bards damage tables appear to be incorrect right now and should get fixed via https://project1999.com/forums/showt...36#post3607736

[jolanar]

If you are twinked fighting in melee is very effective through 40 or 45. Self haste, regen, slow more than make up for lack of double attack. Melee fear kiting is also an option. Grab the werewolf illusion for spell haste to free up a song slot. I have 0 doubts you couldn't push a melee bard to 60 following the same routes that other solo melee follow.

The thing is, it's just going to be significantly slower than other options. But if you are having fun who cares.

Untwinked... probably a waste of time past level 17.

[Moppelchen]

I soloed using fear kiting on my bard up into my 50s. Bard was my first char on green and I managed to save up enough plat for Breath of Harmony and Guardian's Mace by around lvl 40, so then melee dps wasn't too bad. Got my first haste item at 46 at my first Sky raid.

As to pure melee dps at the high-end (i.e. Nature's Melody + Epic with Avatar proc and 41% worn haste), think I parsed around 40dps when I checked (if I remember correctly) without any disc.
So if you add angstlich's, poist dot and slow/dot you can put out decent dps, but definitely not achievable solo or in a small guild.