Playing a bard without kiting.

[Balur]

I'm thinking of leveling a bard, but I don't want to kite my way to 60. Are bards good at solo melee combat or will I find myself feeling the need to kite at some point?

[Jauna]

Bard melee is crap, you are not super durable.

Even with Slow>self haste>DoTs, it will take you a good while to kill things. It is very possible to do it as such, but by far not the most efficient thing. But soloing in dungeons or other small spaces, good way to go.

You will end up charm kiting, fear kiting, zone disruption kiting, or even single kiting stuff with a drum and maybe a snare at some point.

Or being the hero to every group to come into is another option.

[Hiragawa]

If you don't want to kite, just group. Seriously, bards are great pullers and fantastic utility in groups.

[TeemoOfAstora]

As a bard soloing you'll find your melee fighting capabilities to be underwhelming. At a certain point mob hp will make it so you can't really go toe to toe with the mobs. You'll more often find yourself fear, charm and selos/chant kiting outdoors and that'll prove to be anywhere from 20 to 50 times less efficient than just swarming in the same zone. Indoors you'll charm rot up to a point, but you'll really shine as part of a group. You can do a little bit of everything for a group and a skilled bard will be a valuable addition to any group. If you're set on not swarming grouping will be your path to 60.

You absolutely don't have to kite if you don't want to. That being said, you should give it a try until you get your first successful kite off, just to see what bards can do. I can't say I am fond of kiting much myself, but I still wanted to do at least a few kites in each of the traditional bard kiting zones, as a rite of passage. Some zones I loved (NK, LoIO, OT) and I was there for a few levels, others not so much (EK, FV, BW) and one or two successful kites were plenty. Not to mention that swarming is to some extent practice for PLing, which will also be something you might do (either for plats or for your friends).

Ultimately what you want to do with your bard is entirely up to you, but I'd suggest trying it all, as it's part of the bard's versatility. Why deny yourself part of the experience?

[brecon]

I've thought about writing a comprehensive bard guide. I've leveled two bards to 60 now without any swarm kiting, and Bards are excellent soloers. They can be truly amazing in groups once you learn to play the roles required, but they can also solo very well. As your answer is about soloing, I will address that specifically.

There are a few main ways for a Bard to solo without resorting to swarm kiting. Lull and sneak are your friends, keep engages to singles except where I say otherwise. Sneak pulling is far safer than lull pulling, and use that whenever possible. Being said, get your CHA as high as possible, and stick outdoors where you can run away, or near zonelines whenever possible when lulling to solo.

(1) Pure Melee - this will be your only real option up until the mid 20s. Bards melee almost as well as any other class up to 20, which is when the other hybrids get double attack. You can use Selos to gain some distance and use Regen song, and keep attacking til the mob is dead. Avoid anything that can root and this is pretty safe.

(2) Mez/ Melee - This tactic relies on using your single target mez. Bascially, you melee until you are low hp, then keep the mob mezzed while you regen hp. You want to avoid using dots in order to mez lock the mob as needed. This is a slow way for a Bard to kill, but it is useful up until 60 if you are fighting a mob in a dungeon where there is no room to move around. I use it for some named camps. Once you know how much DPS the mob does to you per 4 ticks, you can add some dots in for the first few rounds.

(3) Charming: This is where Bards solo very well, starting when you get your first charm spell (~level 26?). You charm just like an enchanter, but with the caveat that charms only last 18 seconds. It is best to use an outdoor zone, on mobs that cannot root you. Charm one mob and send it at the others: while the mob is attacking the other mob, keep up on yourself Selos, and twist in either HP regen, chants on the other mob, or perhaps a mez on an additional target.

The way charming works on P99 is that your target, when charm breaks, still is aggroed on you but has effectively zero hate. If you charm the target you were dotting before, and send that target on your former charmed pet, it will instantly start attacking your charmed pet. Dotting while charming is really important once you hit your 40s and your charm spell starts costing mana: it makes encounters shorter, which means less charms and less mana spent. It is also useful to get an SS bracer or better Ragefire arms, and ds both pets, the additional damage is substantial over a fight.

To get full xp, you need to break your pet before you kill one of them. There are a few ways to make that easier to accomplish without taking hits: the main one is snare one of the mobs. If the mobs run at low hp, once the unsnared pets gets far enough from the snared pet, both will stop trying to attack you and you can kill them leisurely. Charming as a Bard takes some practice to do well.

(4) Fear kiting
This is easy once you get fear and selo's constant chain. Find your target. If it is solo, mez it. Then cast snare and fear. After this is done, start killing it. You have two additional songs you can cast dependably. What I usually do is melee attack until I can proc tash, while only playing snare and fear (get an orb of tishan, it makes fear kiting much more reliable), and then switch to snare, fear, and two chants with a drum - I find I do more damage with two chants and a drum than by meleeing, and it doesn't require you to be in pbaoe range except when you refresh your fear spell.

You can solo any mob you can fear as a Bard, and casters are your prime target: lower hp and you can usually get a fear off before any spell casts anyway. Also, the pbaoe radius on fear is larger than the melee range of most mobs, so if it is snared, you can usually get a fear off without taking a hit or mezzing it.

(5) chant kiting
This requires you to have snare, seloes, and some of your chants. It's simple: just snare the mob and use DPS chants. You do less damage than fear kiting. When fear kiting, your dots do full damage: when you snare only, the dots do 2/3 damage. Sometimes when I'm feeling lazy or just finishing off a mob (or if I'm low hp and don't want to get close for a fear), I'll chant instead of fear kiting.

Chant-kiting is also very effective for xp groups. As the puller, you just pull the mob with snare, and move around chanting until it dies. It works well in COM arena, for instance.

Conclusion:
Bards can solo a lot of ways. I just listed 5, and there are some more that I forgot. Also, there are many tricks and caveats, and things change somewhat when you get your epic or some high damage proc weapons. But Bards are great in groups, solo well outside groups, and are great at farming any gear solo if the mob either (1) does not summon, or (2) is fearable.

[falkun]

Cobzar hit the nail on the head. Try it all, but bard solo that is not PBAOE kiting usually ends up chant/snare traditional kiting or fear kiting with either melee or chants. You don't want mobs hitting you, you cannot take a hit like a tank and you cannot deliver them like a monk/rogue. But grouping should be the mainstay of a non-PBAOE bard.

[brecon]

To follow up -
(1) Bards are a utility class. Because of this utility they can solo effectively, in the ways that I described above. By charming to solo kill, you solo almost as fast as any other charm class in an outdoor zone, and just as safely as a druid. It does require many more key strokes however. You can charm solo all the way to 60 outdoors, and it's even easier with Velious.

(2) Also because of this utility, you can duo with almost any other class - and in duo, you will gain xp faster than solo. Bards can duo by aggro kiting (with a melee pounding on the mob), by fear kiting, by helping an enchanter, druid or necro manage charm breaks, by increasing mana regen and doing dot damage to a rooted mob, etc. Literally, a bard can duo with any class and make that class better. This is different from an enchanter, who cannot duo well with a rogue, or a warrior who cannot duo well with a wizard.

(3) Full groups are great - and bards that level by aoe kiting are not as adept at working in a full groups as a Bard that comes up soloing, duoing, and generally using more spells. But Bards can solo just fine while waiting for a group in any zone.

(4) Yes, you can aoe kite up to 60, then be a raid bard and play resists or kite fear...but you don't scratch the surface of the class. There are lots of great challenges that a Bard can do solo, which is why I keep coming back to the class. So I wish you good luck with the journey! Here, again, is a small list of things I would keep in mind:

A. Prioritize mobility - this means soloing in outdoor zones whenever possible, getting the best drum possible, keeping up SOW when you can as a backup to selos fading, and getting high MR to resist roots and snares.

B. When I gear, I prioritize MR > Dex up to ~110 > Cha >HP > CR and FR > AC. People can argue about this list. By prioritizing MR, you also get a leg ahead when you start raiding and need MR to resist old world and kunark dragon fears. I hate carrying around extra gear, and I don't see a need for a bard to have a MR and a PVE/stat and HP set that are divverent.

C. If you keep leveling or have money, worn Regen like a Fungi is great for a bard - it allows you to take a hit or two and not have to play a regen song. For charming, you will inevitably take a few hits, as well as when you CC. Some clerics don't heal Bards up the way they would an Enchanter, and I always insist if I'm CCing that they keep me above 80%.

D. Carry a few pumice - in case you get rooted or snared while soloing, a pumice can dispell the root and save your life.

E. Get a peggy cloak - selos song of travel is more trouble than it's worth. Selos and a levi buff is infintely better.

F. Orb of Tishan is required gear, as is the best drum you can afford. Proc weapons with DD or Stun effects can be useful for kiting.

[Hiragawa]

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

By charming to solo kill, you solo almost as fast as any other charm class in an outdoor zone, and just as safely as a druid.

Longtime bard here, I'd just like to comment on that one point and say that we can Charm -safer- than a druid. Not having to rely on mana really, really gives us the edge up there. Not to mention being able to fire off Bardspeed to get away from a bad batch much quicker than a druid before trying to recover it.

But yeah Balur, listen to Brecon. At the end of the day, you should get used to every tactic we have in our box. It's a really big box, and being able to do some of our solo things on the fly can really save a group.

[Troxx]

Once you get to 60 depending on your instruments you can twist 50 to low 60s dps in dots (3x drum 1x brass 2x string aoe) dots while keeping things slowed 35% and a regen song up.

Not super useful for leveling at 60 but is good for farming seafuries or other lower level cash camps indoor and outdoor. It's not super viable for killing things that give xp other than low light blues and greens.

[xenodon]

How on earth do you play a bard to 60 times 2 without getting CT? Is there melody for bars on p99?