#1
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Bards gear dependence?
Hi everyone. I just started here and was trying to figure out what to play, after thinking about it for a while I decided a bard. I love melee classes, casters do not interest me in the least, and bards offer me a nice bit of melee but still keep a lot of the utility of the casters with lulls, mez, buffs, charms, and Dots.
My questions is about gearing up. Being new I dont have access to anything as of yet and was wondering would my best option be to stick it out and level the bard now or make say a necro or wizzy, sucking it up, and use them to make plat to twink out the bard? I remember on live my bard needed a bit of gear to be decent and im guessing here is not exception. | ||
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#2
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Play what you want from the beginning. Don't get distracted by a slightly more difficult beginning. Why waste the 6+ days played on a mage/necro (Wizards aren't even close in terms of twink/farming ability or raw power, believe me) when you could just spend that playing the class you prefer?
Plus, from probably 10-50 or so you can swarm kite quite easily (Others are posting screenshots of 30+ mobs killed in a single swarm, i've personally killed 25+ even at only level 11-12) and effectively. A Mistmoore battle drum and Gypsy Lute are very cheap to pick up nowadays, although those aren't even an absolute necessity for doing it. If you're a careful, studious player, you can probably level faster than anyone else during that time because of how good swarm kiting is. It's very dangerous if you make mistakes, but that's what practice is for [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] Later on, you can quest your own lambent and know you built your character from the ground up. Much more satisfying... | ||
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#3
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Honestly, if you don't mind the tedium of slow (but steady) kiting, bards can start kiting at a very early level as long as you can get a sow. Later, the kiting efficiency speeds up significantly as you get a 2nd AOE dot for aoe kiting, charms for charm kiting, and single target dots for normal dot kiting.
Consider that bards' melee is NOT effective dps, and you will frequently not want to use it. In raids, you often need to stay near the casters and play manasong, because going into melee range will often put you out of song range for the casters. In groups, you may need to be on crowd control / heal over time duty, in which case you will be busy mezzing mobs every couple ticks as well as twisting in regen songs with your lute equipped. Bard melee dps is less than 1/2 a warrior's dps - maybe 1/3. You make up for it with utility, but I personally lose over half my hp if I try to melee down a level 35ish sand giant. It just becomes more efficient, and arguably more dps, to wear a drum and dot targets if you are interested in dealing damage. Also, if you are going to play a bard, be prepared to deal with extremely tired fingers!
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[60 Bard] Pescador (Half Elf) <Rustle>
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#4
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The only gear a bard needs is their epic, and that won't be attainable for a few months so you have time!
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#5
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Bards are probably the least gear dependent class in the game (in later levels). I played a Bard on live up through PoP and found that unless I was fighting something with an AOE, I could do my job just as effectively naked + instruments as I could with my elemental raid gear on.
Your DPS is negligible once other classes start to get their DPS abilities. Your AC doesn't really matter since you won't be taking melee damage. You don't really need int unless you do a lot of charming which isn't particularly often if you spend most of your time grouped. Some people swear up and down that unless your CHA is capped you're the worst bard on the server but I didn't really notice much of a difference back then. Maybe 2-3 extra resists over the course of an evening. | ||
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#6
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Bards barely need gear at all, beyond instruments (which is funny, considering how much people seem to like buying full sets of Lambent on this server), and the dirt-cheap instruments from vendors are totally acceptable until well beyond the time that you can afford to buy the MM drums/lute.
You will want to get yourself a set of banded (most reasonable AC/WT ratio), and put some starting points into STA, just to give you a little buffer, but most of what you do is largely independent of your stats. | ||
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#7
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So would someone happen to have a list of places to swarm kite and at what level?
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#8
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Deajay's AoE bard leveling location guide:
Do note that I've pretty much done all of these camps AE kiting. I'd love to group more, but soloing is retarded exp, good money, and I don't have to wait for the rest of the "holy trinity" to decide to show up. And yes, it does get MUCH easier at 18 when you get a new AE that isn't teeny-tiny range, but that doesn't mean that it's bad exp prior to 18. As far as HOW to AoE kite, I suggest reading the amazing guides by Hmotzart and Cribanox and then just trying it out and figuring out what works for you. Hmotzart's Hmasterpiece of Hmass AoE Hmurder Cribanox Bard AoE Kiting
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Last edited by falkun; 07-01-2011 at 07:56 AM..
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#10
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is overthere that much better than FV? Having song merchants right there seems like a good deal for the 20-30 crowd.
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