New level 10 bard, taking on roles i did not expect!

[Rhayne05]

Good morning!
I've been playing for the last 2 or so weeks, got my Half Elf bard to level 10 and have been lucky enough to have a few charity gear pieces thrown to me by wonderful vet players.

As i love to group, thats where i spend most of my time. However, ever since my first party, people usually ask me to tank (no war/sk/pal in party) even when i'm wearing a few cloth pieces and am pretty darn squishy. Perhaps the Axe and Shield and the few Bronze armor i have gives them the wrong idea? I do let people know that this is my first character and absolutely no where close to a twink.

Through this i have found out that Chords of Dissonance is actually a pretty good AoE Taunt. in fact if i pull with it i can keep the mob on me if i refresh in my rotation. Regardless, I feel like i put an unnecessary strain on healers and they probably don't like it.

it's also very hard to twist 3+ songs while tanking, as i get bashed and stunned all the time. Whenever i miss a song or have to continue my rotation without refreshing a certain song immediately, i feel like my group is probably thinking "Gee what a terrible bard".

So perhaps my question is this. What should i expect people to expect me to do in groups? Pulling is obvious, I can handle that, although I'm going to need tons of throwing daggers/shurikens [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] XP is my main concern, but if the tanking keeps up, I may need to look into gear as well. Any comments or feedback? Thanks everyone!

Still having a blast [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

-Airren the Bard

[mr_jon3s]

Pulling and crowd control are what make great bards. I remember grouping with this one bard in sol b who pulled, mezed, charmed, and twisted songs.

[Estu]

Bards are good tanks because they can hold aggro excellently and can wear plate. You're not gonna have as high defensive skills or HP as actual tank classes, but if you have extra money kicking around, it wouldn't hurt to buy some tanking gear. Most of the time, though, if people invite a bard to a group they are not inviting that bard for tanking; they are inviting the bard for pulling, CC, haste/slows, mana song, etc.

[Rhayne05]

Appears to just be the fact that Tanks are a bit hard to come by at low levels, and I've got some plate. I can understand that. As I've just started here and managed to save up 27pp in the bank and a Dwarven Ringmail Tunic I'd like to sell, extra money would be nice but isn't really an option at the moment [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Tenlaar]

The most important thing is that if you start planning for it now and buy your upgrades accordingly, when you get to high levels you absolutely can tank anything short of raid mobs. I started tanking for groups in both The Hole and Seb at level 53.

People will be amazed when you are tanking a mob, charming a second for DPS, CCing adds and keeping at least the regen going. Throw in resists or mana song as able.

HP>STA>resists should be your gear focus.