Which class for Dungeon Crawl focus?

[Legidias]

I have played extensive bard. Yes, you can do dungeons on bard. No, it is not very effective or efficient.

Besides the above kiting methods, bards (sub 50 dungeons) can so just dot snare a mob up a corridor, mez it for a split sec in between dot and get past mob, and then dot snare down corridor again. Rinse and repeat. The corridor can be as short as you want as long as it gives you a little time to run past mob back and forth on mez (note that mez length will only be like 1-2 seconds due to dot).

Charm kiting is viable, but can take a long time depending. Sometimes mobs can be found in pairs, but much more often in groups of 3+. Of course, ideally you could lull one and kill the other 2, but then that leaves the third one.

You can either kill the first two, and then corridor kite the third, or do a rotating charm kite (in case lull fails or you want to kill all 3 together in cases where you dont have room to corridor kite). To rotate charm, you basically mez one, and charm other mob + dot final one. When charm breaks, you will want to charm the dott'd mob, mez your previous charm pet and sic your new pet on the previously mezzed mob and dot that one. Rinse and repeat.

You can do up to your mez limit with this, but danger grows if you get stunned and miss a mez / charm. I used to do this in LGuk camping DE mask / belt for money. You can corridor kite most of the way down there with a little bit of charm kiting. Then doing the room itself you have to basically kill all 3 with charm since you dont have room to dot kite.

[kruptcy]

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

I used to do this in LGuk camping DE mask / belt for money.

You soloed ass/sup when the mobs were dark blue to you?

[Legidias]

At 52 yeah. Sometimes the fight would end with me <20% health, but surprisingly I only died once. Stupid bastards took like 16+ hours total before a mask dropped.

[Tecmos Deception]

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

I played my EC mule Dramor quite a bit solo in dungeons up to 52 (KC/CoM, but also SolB). If you think about it a tick, everyone and their brother can solo a fungi monk to 60 and Bards stack up reasonably:

Bards get max defense skill, slow song, and regeneration song which is basically a second fungi. Dramor was still getting pasted at 50 or so, but he was in Lambent not Dwarf armor and IIRC Bard defensive skills also got a boost with Velious. Bards can also fear-kite the last 30% or so and take no damage at all while regenerating. I'd say the Bard is actually ahead of the monk here.

Bard weapon ratios are actually quite good, and they can supplement their damage with song/ss bracer damage shields and chants. If we guesstimate 20 dps melee, 8 dps damage shield, and 15 dps from two chants, that's a solid 45 or so. Way ahead of the soloing Paladin videos, and not all that far behind a Monk.

Monks can FD, but Bards can mez and heal up. I would guess that a Bard could kill anything <=55 with enough patience. I would definitely hesitate to lull rooms of 3-4 on a Bard unless I could zip to the zoneline, though.

And we haven't even talked about Charm; basically everything you said about distance from the mob applies to Bards, and they can even run away while recharming.

The biggest weakness of Bards is that they get zero HP buffs: no shielding, no runes, etc. So you can go down pretty fast. Fortunately there are a lot of epic clerics on P99 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

TLDR: Enchanters are better, but Bards can definitely solo in dungeons.

I think my focus here is on the subject of the thread. "Dungeon Crawl focus." It doesn't say "which classes can XP in a dungeon?" or I'd agree bard should be in the running, as well as others. "Dungeon Crawl focus" suggests more, in my mind, than just being able to pick off a mob or two in the one safest spot of a dungeon to be able to XP on them. Bards can't really do more than that, and they especially can't do it all the way from 1-60 like a chanter or necro could, which is why I wrote them off in the specific context of this thread.

[Crede]

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

Edit - screw you though, because now I want to try to play a bard from 1-60 soloing in dungeons like I did with Noman, and I already don't have enough time in the day! But really I doubt it's possible in a real way. Being able to kill stuff in a dungeon with charm isn't quite the same thing as "solo dungeon crawl" imo. A bard seems like it'd be too reliant on a semblance of open space to make it work, something that is lacking in a lot of dungeons, and doesn't seem to have the tools you'd need to turn a sour situation back to good when things inevitably go bad. If people think enchanters live on a razor's edge, I can only imagine trying to crawl through any dungeon that's not blackburrow, crushbone, city of mist, karnors-type dungeons. I may be overstating a shaman's solo dungeon crawl ability pre-50, but I don't think I understated a bard's by saying they're not really a solo dungeon crawl class.

It's extremely possible. And I also have a 60 enchanter. Bard's can crawl, although I'll admit you probably want a fungi. But that's not that big of a deal in this current economy. In my 30s I was giggling like a little school girl crawling Dalnir when nobody, not even enchanters, were bothering going into those depths solo. I saw your video on Noman in Dalnir, was much easier on bard. Is a necro in an undead dungeon or enc more powerful with dungeon solo 50+? Yea probably, but I've had way more fun on bard testing the limits.

If you do a 1-60 dungeon bard, I'll be sure to watch some of the videos.

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

I have played extensive bard. Yes, you can do dungeons on bard. No, it is not very effective or efficient.

Respectfully, you're wrong. No offense but you're either not doing it right, or just don't have the skill level.

[Octopath]

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

Shadow knight, I picked SK first and foremost for the dungeon crawling aspect, being able to regroup through FD, invis and IVU while at the same time doing the damage yourself, snaring to prevent fleeing mobs, life stealing to survive. Very item dependent though, having a thurg BP with clicky heal really changed the game and even more with fungi.
Combine it with a druid and DS pots and you got some nice dps going!

This sounds exciting! What lvl are you and if don't mind me asking, what are some dungeons that you have done some crawling? Thanks

[kruptcy]

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

At 52 yeah. Sometimes the fight would end with me <20% health, but surprisingly I only died once. Stupid bastards took like 16+ hours total before a mask dropped.

Ass / sup as a camp greens out at 45, but i guess that's nitpicky.

I'd love to see videos of bards crawling through dungeons at an appropriate level.

[Pyrion]

Can't talk about high levels, but my 30 bard is soloing in paw pretty easily. Charm solo in dungeons is totally viable on a bard even in tight spaces. Sure, you will get hit a bit while recharming, but you do have plate... and you can play heal song in between charms. If you get good with timing you can even anticipate the exact moment to recharm, minimizing or eliminating "getting hit" time.

This might get impossible or very hard at higher levels. At 30 it's totally viable and pretty easy.

[Tethler]

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

Can't talk about high levels, but my 30 bard is soloing in paw pretty easily. Charm solo in dungeons is totally viable on a bard even in tight spaces. Sure, you will get hit a bit while recharming, but you do have plate... and you can play heal song in between charms. If you get good with timing you can even anticipate the exact moment to recharm, minimizing or eliminating "getting hit" time.

This might get impossible or very hard at higher levels. At 30 it's totally viable and pretty easy.

Bard charming is great until the lower level charm hits it's level cap (mobs up to level 37) and you're forced to use the higher charm that costs mana. You can solo a good chunk of mobs after that, but then need to change tactics for an hour while your mana slowly regens.