Intro & Some Noob Questions

[Seducio]

Originally Posted by dhill89 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Hey all, just started up playing on green after playing on blue several years back. Really looking to being part of the community 😌 I had a few questions hopefully someone can help out w/:

1. what are the most active zones for grouping/leveling from lvl ~5-20ish? Kinda tough soloing out there

2. what's the best way to make some $$ at low levels for basic gear?

3. what's a good custom UI skin?

4. is there a way to have a second hotbar?

<3 thank you, if anyone wants to group up my char's name is Sluntee, lvl 6 bard currently

Highly recommend checking out Loramin's p99 wiki site.

Here are three guides found there that help answer your early hunting questions:

Per-Level_Hunting_Guide

Platinum_Making_guide_for_low_or_new_players

Ultimate_Leveling_While_Making_Money_Guide

Good luck!

[Troxx]

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

Really poor advice IMO. Melee is a great tool for a bard and extremely important to skill up when you're at low level. I've leveled up multiple bards on classic live and again on P99. Really the only point I've found where the math actually leads you to higher dps/faster kills without melee is at the very high end when you just simply can't take any hits. 50+ is when I put away the weapons and pull out the drums to solo 50-60 via charm/ drum dot kiting. In the mid range the DPS boost from instruments is lower than the DPS boost from swinging your arms (melee doesn't reduce your ability to twist songs, just slightly modifies the effects of applicable songs). Ultimately you are likely mixing both swapping instruments and weapons in and out constantly through battles if you're a truly great bard.

Additionally some fights just require melee like if you're going to solo some of the mobs for your epic. I also often times bust out the melee on raid targets as well. Atleast when you're raiding in a guild where you actually matter and you're not just some mana pump bot that stands there mostly useless.

Disagree. My first main here was bard and to 60. It’s been a long while since I’ve played him so I don’t recall the exact levels where you get your dots/charms … but bard melee dps is just plain bad. It’s ok until 20s to maybe 30 but it takes a nose dive. Once you get your first charm, that is by far the best dps/kill rate apart from swarm kiting. For single target dps 40s and onward you will do more with stacking your dots with instruments than you would with melee weapons. For groups, your most valuable contribution starting the moment you get it is hymn of restoration with a lute.

Keep your skills capped. Melee at low levels when benefits exist and the melee discrepancy remains small.

When I see a bard constantly meleeing 40+ and NEVER bagging their weapons for instruments, one of 2 things happens:

1. I politely inform them and help coach them to play a hard better. They listen and adjust play style accordingly. Everyone profits and fun times are had (current and future).

2. I politely inform them and they make no changes. Mental note taken to avoid grouping/playing with them moving forward.

Bards are heavily armored mobile casters beyond level 20-30. Pretending you’re helping by hitting things with lower skill caps and lack of double attack is just bad.

Everything changes, of course, if and when they get epic. That proc is just really nice and it’s an all-type instrument.

[dhill89]

thanks for the info all! I really appreciate the help

[Toxigen]

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

Really poor advice IMO. Melee is a great tool for a bard and extremely important to skill up when you're at low level. I've leveled up multiple bards on classic live and again on P99. Really the only point I've found where the math actually leads you to higher dps/faster kills without melee is at the very high end when you just simply can't take any hits. 50+ is when I put away the weapons and pull out the drums to solo 50-60 via charm/ drum dot kiting. In the mid range the DPS boost from instruments is lower than the DPS boost from swinging your arms (melee doesn't reduce your ability to twist songs, just slightly modifies the effects of applicable songs). Ultimately you are likely mixing both swapping instruments and weapons in and out constantly through battles if you're a truly great bard.

Additionally some fights just require melee like if you're going to solo some of the mobs for your epic. I also often times bust out the melee on raid targets as well. Atleast when you're raiding in a guild where you actually matter and you're not just some mana pump bot that stands there mostly useless.

All of this is wrong. I stopped taking you seriously when you said instruments only slightly modify the effect of applicable songs.

Increasing the effect of songs by 1.8 - 2.6x multiplier is slight? mkay

OP should get a Lute of the Gypsy Princess, Mistmoore Battle Drums, and store bought horn/flute and he is good to go. Will be far more effective than worrying about weapons, even more so if he is in a group which will likely be his path.

Thanks for playing.

[WarpathEQ]

Since math is hard let's do some for you. I find the biggest miss when people are thinking about damage is ticks versus seconds. 1 tick is 6 seconds so when comparing your melee DPS (you can find a DPS calculator that makes this pretty easy for your specific character) to your damage from songs you have to either multiply your melee damage by 6 or divide your song damage by 6.

At level 46 is when you have all 3 drum dots: Fufil's, chant of frost, and chant of flame. At that point they do 64 damage per tick with no instrument (16+24+24). At best someone that is a new character could probably obtain a walrus skin drum with a 23 modifier aka 230% of the effect. The first 100% is the original 64 damage per tick that you can get with melee weapons on so you're really adding 130% or an additional 83.2 damage per tick (divided by 6 gets to 13.86 dps extra). At that level you're easily putting out 20+ DPS with melee damage (over 120 per tick). My actual number was 22.67dps at that point, with 2 weapons that combined cost less than the drum. So you're leaving a lot of damage on the table by saying a bard shouldn't melee.

The math simply does not improve your DPS by using instruments over melee, the reason bards switch off melee is you get to a point at higher levels (50+) where you just simply can't live through the fight to melee the mob. The factual reality of math is playing one haste song without an instrument gets you more additional DPS than adding an instrument and twisting all 3 dots. Additionally it frees up songs in your twist to use for more effective things like haste, charm (as Troxx pointed out charmed pet DPS is the highest in the game, better than any character can create on their own), slow, fear, healing, and a variety of other songs that you can now twist that create more utility and DPS than dotting with instruments.

Ultimately using melee doesn't prevent you from using instruments either. If you're good and find an efficient system to do it you can have an instrument equipped when the song effect hits and melee equipped in between to achieve the highest level of DPS.

And if someone tries to tell you that your highest and best use as a bard is to sit in a group playing regen song with your lute on....politely ask them to delete their character and find a different class. That is an absolute pitiful waste of what is arguably the most versitle class in all of EQ.

[Seducio]

Originally Posted by dhill89 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

thanks for the info all! I really appreciate the help

Any updates on your progress dhill? What level is your character these days.

[dhill89]

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

Any updates on your progress dhill? What level is your character these days.

ty for asking! I'm at level 13 now and having a blast. Haven't had a chance to play much this week but hoping to get some more levels in this weekend 😌 I'm really enjoying bard, going to try some solo kiting after watching a video.

if anyone wants to group up add me! sluntee on green.

[Seducio]

I don't think I have anyone in that level range, but when I pop in over the weekend I'll look for your name and if you are on I can swing by for some higher level buffs that'll make your next hour or so of hunting better.

[WarpathEQ]

Highly recommend the throne room in Crushbone from 15-20. At 15 you get an AOE mez song and everything in the zone is low enough level that it works. One of the most OP moments for an early level bard. Grab a few folks and hack down all the toughest mobs in the zone one at a time for great exp and you can sell the belts/shoulderpads for some extra platinum to start getting some funds for gear & instrument upgrades.