Bard stat questions / twink items?

[VincentVolaju]

Was wondering a few things about Bards and was hoping some of you Bard experts on here could help me out with them.

1) First, whats most important stats for a Bard? Ive heard Sta, others say Cha and today someone told me Dex is just as important as Cha?

2) Secondly, how much of said stat is enough? Assuming its Cha, do you treat it like caster's with Int, as in get 200+ of it?

3) Also, is it true that Cha effects your Mez/Enthrall songs, or is it ONLY your Charm?

4) About Bard damage, Ive heard that it's pretty decent, but nothing like Monk/Rog/Warrior because no double attack. If thats true and there damage is just alright, is it worth it to even use weapons in a group? Or should you instead just take an instrument out and sit in the back playing songs?

5) Lastly, if you were going to twink a Bard which items would you try to twink them? Stat items like things with +Sta/Cha/Dex, or HP items like 35hp earrings / HBC / SSB etc.? Also, what twink weapons would be best for Bard, if its even worth twinking them weapons?



Sorry for long post, hopefully some of you will be able to answer of the questions! Thanks!

[maestrom]

1) Your melee damage is negligible so don't really worry about focusing on Str. You won't really be tanking much if at all so you don't really have to worry too much about hps or AC (sta/agi). Bards use INT for mana so Wis is worthless. Int is only kinda useful because only a couple of songs actually use mana (which you won't be using often if at all anyways). Cha is pretty useless too.

Split between Str and Sta. You'll be able to carry a little more and have a few more hps. Not really that important though. you could dump it all into wis and not notice a big different.

3) not sure.

4) It's not decent. Most groups will want you to be attacking anyways though. The big benefit of bards in groups is haste which isn't affected by instrument mods. If you wanna be juggling instruments as well as twisting then go ahead but you'll burn yourself out pretty hard doing that. Stick to attacking and twisting.

5) Depends on your budget. Selos drum/McVaxius's Horn of War are nice for instruments. Also Lute of the Gypsy Princess. Lambent armor is fine. The bard only weapons are easy to come by and cheap.

[Swish]

Levelled a bard to 35 back in classic, never made it out of Lower Guk!

Where stats are concerned, the much used phrase that gets attributed to bards "jack of all trades, master of none" really sums it up. You'll be doing some mezzing (CHA), some melee (STR/DEX), likely taking some hits on multiple pulls/adds (STA/AGI) while twisting songs all over the place.

Your dps generally doesn't tally up as high as a rogue or monk's, and you might find some tanks beating you on dps...so I'd argue (and feel free to shoot me down) that STR/DEX take a back seat to the likes of STA/CHA/AGI. Where you go from there is a matter of preference, being quite the aggro magnet you'll want some survivability but for bard mez/lull/etc don't forget your charisma.

Does CHA have an impact on mez/enthrall? I always thought so (particularly with lulll) but I never managed to prove it with any concrete evidence.

With equipping weapons it depends on the zone, outdoor zones you'll probably find yourself pulling, so not too much weapon action but indoors you'll use them more often - just don't expect to be generating massive numbers, your haste song along with whatever else is being twisted make up your damage through the rest of the melee [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

...hope that's of some help, I'm sure bards of P99 have had a slightly different experience and can recollect with more detail [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[jerus]

Starting stats I went with cha, just because it is supposed to help mez, not sure if it actually does, but like was already said, there is no set stats that make bards awesome.

In groups I put in instrument only when needed really. IE need resists, pop in drum and sing resists, no healer? regen with lute in. drum for selo's in larger zones and such. On general twist i have weapons in though, but i've not done full blown parses and breakdowns of things in p99, taking it much easier than I have on live.

As far as twinking, get Lute of the Gypsy Princess/mistmoore battle drums then get yourself some lambent or something else cheap and start kiting. Honestly no reason to group between 15 and 50 except if you just feel like it. AE kiting will be faster. Even after 50 (up to 54 atm and soloing is still far better).

So as far as twinking goes, spend what you want on it like twinking any melee. If you play it in groups you will play it like a melee, so haste item would be nice, more gear nice. As far as weapons If you have like 2k drop it on sonachie's partisan, then for secondary I'd pick up a sainy's singing dagger/sainy's claw, if you don't have 2k just try to find sainy's peices they are like 200-400ish it seems.

I'm lvl 54 wearing some bronze still, I'm sure i could level just about as fast nekkid, perhaps even faster as i woudln't have to CR (just hit bank to pick up backup instruments).

[nalkin]

1/2) All starting points into sta without a doubt.

3) Mez without any problem with what little cha I have, so no point in wasting initial stat points into it.

4) Luckily most group songs are not instrument modified, so you might as well swing your weapons. But bard dps is awful, not even close to monk/rog/warrior, but probably close to wizard lol.

5) idk

[Slave]

Can't believe this wasn't mentioned: Dexterity is what you want to focus on, as it is the stat that determines how many notes you miss. Apart from that, hp/ac/resists.

[Dravingar]

I'm pretty sure a wizard with tolajump robe and RoA could out DPS a bard, but I'd dump fully into Sta and then rest in cha.

[astuce999]

1) Dexterity is the most important stats, for missed notes.

2) 150 or so dex would be a good number to not miss 3-4 notes in a row.

3) Charisma has zero effect on Mez. Charisma has very very little effect on charm. The only palpable effect charisma has for bards is the aggro check on lull resist.

4) Bard melee damage is abysmal.

5) HP items. Selo's drums, Breath of Harmony, Singing Steel Helm.

cheers!

[Kevlar]

Bard single target damage isn't bad. If all you are doing is trying to burn down a single mob you can put out some decent DPS once you get all your damage chants. True the melee dps itself is abysmal, but I know in POP I could keep up with monks and rogues on single target just by stacking 4 chants along with melee.

Bards shine with aoe dmg though, or swarm kiting. Really no class can compete. I regularly would pull the entire crystal spider/centipede side of HoH and aoe them down, something like 3AA per kite. Helps to have a cleric parked nearby for the occasional lag spike though. Actually once I got most of my planar armor I could survive an occasional stun.

Charm kiting is good too. That is mostly what I did in Luclin era. Swarming all those social centi guys was pretty easy, you just need an instant clicky invis to help break charm when they are at ~5% life then you chant them down quickly and charm another. Get a swarm of 20 or so and you are killing one every 10 seconds or so. Did it with ulthorks in velious and cactus various stuff in kunark.

[falkun]

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

1) First, whats most important stats for a Bard? Ive heard Sta, others say Cha and today someone told me Dex is just as important as Cha?

STR, STA, and DEX are what I would focus on. STR so you can carry plate armor + gear. STA to survive hits, and DEX for the missed notes. I like a STR/STA combo around 100, and then anything left in DEX. That might not be possible with starting points though, so you may rely on some gear. As others have mentioned though, stat points are not huge for a bard though.

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

2) Secondly, how much of said stat is enough? Assuming its Cha, do you treat it like caster's with Int, as in get 200+ of it?

STR around 100 should allow you to carry about everything you need. STA is always good, no matter the number, and I think the same for DEX as I do for STA.

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

3) Also, is it true that Cha effects your Mez/Enthrall songs, or is it ONLY your Charm?

CHA actually has negligible impact on a bard.

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

4) About Bard damage, Ive heard that it's pretty decent, but nothing like Monk/Rog/Warrior because no double attack. If thats true and there damage is just alright, is it worth it to even use weapons in a group? Or should you instead just take an instrument out and sit in the back playing songs?

Bard melee is laughable. Bard single-target-DoT kiting is slow. Bard AE-DoT kiting is the most OP leveling experience in the game. As a bard, you will never kill things quickly, but you can go forever because nothing takes mana and you are faster than everything out there. For most groups, I melee and play haste songs, stepping back when I need to mez 2+ targets. If I'm solo, I'm using instruments only. In raids I typically use group strategy, however I will step back with an instrument for resists or other songs as the situation arises.

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

5) Lastly, if you were going to twink a Bard which items would you try to twink them? Stat items like things with +Sta/Cha/Dex, or HP items like 35hp earrings / HBC / SSB etc.? Also, what twink weapons would be best for Bard, if its even worth twinking them weapons?

Bards are the least gear dependent class in the game. Their preferred method of leveling, PBAoE DoT kiting with the L2 and L18 DoTs, requires amassing packs of mobs so large that if you get hit, you die regardless of HP/STA/AC/AGI. Bard's can't melee down mobs efficiently solo, so weapons are secondary. The only thing a bard can equip that will increase their leveling speed is a good instrument. A drum (percussion) for Selos, a lute (stringed) for L2 PBAoE DoT, and a horn (brass) for L18 PBAoE DoT. Any other gear is just to enhance your e-peen. A nakid bard can solo 5-46 faster than any other class in the game. But toss 10pp for a vendor-bought drum, lute, and horn, and he will level 80% faster.

Bard is a skill class, not a gear class. Our songs always last for a max of 18sec (minus the 2.5min selos), take 3sec to cast, and maintain a max of 5 songs at a time. There is 1 very situational song that requires mana, and none are affected by any stats except the instrument you are wielding. As a bard, those are you limitations, the combos you can pull off within them is astounding and I do not believe any other class can match, but that is personal opinion.

The only gear that will help a bard do more (read: sing more songs), is to get him a BoH and his epic (when they come out). Epic has a good proc and modifies all instrument types, and BoH has an insta-click song to add to the twist.