What happened to Bards?

[branamil]

Because it's a 25 year old game so busting your ass to level 5% faster isn't worth it.

Bard melee is a tickle without epic and not worth the instrument multiplier loss.

It's not worth it to give yourself carpal tunnel just so an obese 45 year old group mate can relive their nostalgia harder and parasite off your effort.

This isn't an FPS. It's a casual role playing game. Hope this helps

[Gloomlord]

There is a bad Bard epidemic on Green. The vast majority I have seen do not even twist 3 songs on instruments.

If you can't even do that, you might as well not even be playing the class.

[tadkins]

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

If your bard uses its melee weapons without a instrument bonus at lower levels, that can be fine too but they need to select very specific songs to get the most out of that, namely singing only songs. Most other songs become insanely weak when you don't have the instrument. Big examples being Hymn of Resto and Chords of Diss.

At level 6, having a bard twisting just those two songs will far out damage the offset of picking up their single melee weapon.

Really, a lot of the time instruments straight up double songs effects as long as you have the correct type, and don't use the percent gains.

I don't usually use bad language on the forum too often, but I think I once read someone in the not too distant past saying "any bard that melee's is a shitter, unless they have their epic" and I think that's actually a pretty accurate statement.

I honestly never knew that. Always gave up on my attempts at bard around level 8 or so since I never really knew how to level them.

So I can face tank things just using an instrument and those two songs? Might give bard another shot at some point with those pointers.

The reason you guys might be seeing "bad bards" is because bard is a tough and sometimes obscure class to play, and not everyone's going to know how to do everything they can do.

[Ooloo]

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

Because it's a 25 year old game so busting your ass to level 5% faster isn't worth it.

Busting your ass over *brand new* games doesn't make you any less of a huge nerd sorry.

It's always strange when people bring up the old age of the game they are ostensibly still addicted to. If anything it's a credit to the game that people still play it.

[unsunghero]

The advent of dual monitors and smart phones definitely makes it easier to be distracted nowadays

Reminds me of how bards worked on live when I was playing. Never saw anyone actually playing a bard. There were in-game song sequence macros…you just put 3 songs on there, and put the bard box on autofollow. My 3rd F2P account bard was even named Songbox or something. Every once in a while he’d autofollow too close to a mob and get one shot

[Cen]

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

I honestly never knew that. Always gave up on my attempts at bard around level 8 or so since I never really knew how to level them.

So I can face tank things just using an instrument and those two songs? Might give bard another shot at some point with those pointers.

The reason you guys might be seeing "bad bards" is because bard is a tough and sometimes obscure class to play, and not everyone's going to know how to do everything they can do.

If you twist those two songs, you can kill things easily. Eventually, you'll naturally start to kite things with the AOE damage song, and then become the army of bards who realize you can avoid being hit and kite.. a lot of things ;p

Swarming doesn't make you a bad bard as some would say, it just makes you a kiter. Like a wizard or druid does kind of. Still have to learn good group techniques.

[Vivitron]

I don't usually find swapping in a prime hand instrument while meleeing much more demanding than swapping in the correct instrument for each song, so I might as well get the free ~30dps from meleeing now that I have them.

It's a real bummer that they're as hard to get as they are, but there are a lot of song effects which don't benefit from instrument mods:

* Slow
* Haste
* Mez (except its mr debuff)
* Charm (except its mr debuff)
* SS helm eyeball for pulling
* Mana Regen
* Single target snare
* Fear

For xp group songs that mostly leaves to instruments hp regen, dots, and ae snare. I found in a typical group I would come out ahead by meleeing even before prime hand instruments, and just a Lute of the Howler is enough to make it an easy choice in most player tanked groups. Suppose a twist along the lines of slow (no instrument) / haste (no instrument) / mana regen (lute of howler swap) / dot (lute of howler swap), with pulling and crowd control taking priority over the twist -- but also meleeing while sending out an eyeball and usually while mezzing or charming too.

[Varja]

I remember playing my 60 Bard on blue, there was never a single second of downtime. Twisting 4 songs with 0 downtime from the time I entered the group until I left. If I'm not pulling, as soon as combat ends my mana songs are in rotation, during combat I'm twisting everything I can to be as useful as possible. Mez, charm, slows, dots, mana, haste, everything depending on the group comp. Sometimes having to sit to swap out different things repeatedly on the fly depending on the situation. My favorite times as a bard are when something has happened, such as a train, so I wait for everything to get into range and AoE slow them to pull aggro and kite them so everyone in the area can pummel them in the back and clean up the mess. Can't count how many times I did this in KC. That zone is amazing. Despite the cramped areas, I'd literally pull the entire front end and everything on the bridge and swarm them all down. Often inviting melee in the entrance that were LFG and let them backstab and beat down the pack. Hands down favorite class in the game, unmated versatility.

[Ennewi]

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

If you twist those two songs, you can kill things easily. Eventually, you'll naturally start to kite things with the AOE damage song, and then become the army of bards who realize you can avoid being hit and kite.. a lot of things ;p

Swarming doesn't make you a bad bard as some would say, it just makes you a kiter. Like a wizard or druid does kind of. Still have to learn good group techniques.

To this point, it does help to have kited at least some levels if planning to raid, specifically when it comes to Plane of Fear.

[Cecily]

Then you have some virtuosos using 5+ songs/procs in a rogue raid group who need to go back to the cleric group and play mana song like good bots. My issue with this is your relentless I'm doing something overfills my buff bar and screws up my buff order, when really I just need you to + my atk and let me forget you're there.