Bard Instrument Modifiers

[Thulack]

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

Thanks for all the replies. I just hit 24 on my bard and would love a McVaxius Horn of War. So if anyone wants to throw me 10k-15k to buy one. I will give you my thanks and some sacs of sap off of stuff in OT :P

In all seriousness the posts have really helped in looking for gear. Please keep them coming.

what you need to do is find someone who wants to AFK level with you. Could charge them to level up with you and when you get to like 45 will have plenty of plat for gear.

[Manticmuse]

What's the chance a filthy casual could land a Maestro lute via paying for loot rights? Does that even happen?

[Robdukes]

Im a filthy casual and I have a 7 string lute. From full circles 2nd maestro kill. Was the only bard for both kills, got mace first time and lute second time.

Birchfingers 55 Troubadour
Unguilded currently no time to play

[Kekephee]

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

What's the chance a filthy casual could land a Maestro lute via paying for loot rights? Does that even happen?

It depends on your luck. There are bards in my guild who have been killing Maestros for years who still don't have that lute because as far as I know he's only dropped two for us in... uh... let's just say, maybe seven months. One of them rotted because I was the only bard who logged in but my guy was still at the Seb zonein from a Trak raid the day before, and the other one I got a few weeks later because Deajay was super nice and passed on it for me because I'd tracked the mob for 6 hours that day (and, maybe also because he felt bad for me because I had watched a Maestro lute rot in guild chat a few weeks prior and was devastated)


The point being, it's entirely possible that there are bards in guilds that have only killed Maestro one time who have the lute, but there are also people like Deajay and apparently Zander who have been on this box for years and years and undoubtedly killed dozens of Maestros who still don't have it because it's a shockingly rare drop for being pretty much the only actual (non-quest) item this guy drops that's any good.

[Kekephee]

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

Thanks for all the replies. I just hit 24 on my bard and would love a McVaxius Horn of War. So if anyone wants to throw me 10k-15k to buy one. I will give you my thanks and some sacs of sap off of stuff in OT :P

In all seriousness the posts have really helped in looking for gear. Please keep them coming.

I mean, here's the thing- at level 24 you don't really need the best instruments in the game. I had my vendor instruments until I was in my 30s or 40s. I think I got my hands on the mistmoore lute and drums when I was around 35, and I think my friend Whitebird gave me a McVaxius horn when I was like 42. I had a vendor flute until I got the sky flute.

Certainly the modifiers help, but in a group setting the difference between a 180 and 230% increase in your healing song is, if you think about it, not much. You're upping the regen from like 20 to like 22 at that level. Not a huge deal. And the same goes for all the rest of your songs; at low levels, the numbers you're working with are so low it's really not a gamebreaker.


If you're levelling by doing AE kites, my experience was yes, having McVaxius horn made a big difference in terms of wow, my dot is doing 73 instead of 68 damage, which is a small improvement except that improvement is being applied to like a hundred mobs and it's happening like 50 times! But if you think about it, that basically just means you have to run in a circle for two or three fewer casts of your song. It helps, but ultimately, whatever. Run in a circle and spam your macro for a little longer and use the money to buy yourself some mystic koada'dal. You'll see more improvement in your quality of Bard-Life from fewer instances of having your lulls resisted and a whole room full of mobs comes and puts sex in your mouth because your CHA is higher and your AC is better.

[Robdukes]

One cool thing to do is the quest for Nostrolos Tambourine. I did it in the high 20s. You can get most of them easily enough. For the tougher ones get a high level friend or two or do like I did and message high levels you see in the zone that drops the coin and ask if it drops if you can buy it. They will give it to you most of the time. And you might make some more friends along the way. Its a 22 modifier like the sharkskin drum If I remember correctly. The only difference is it has some stats. A bit of INT I think and the other cool thing is the look. It looks like a Tambourine in your hand. Plus you get the satisfaction of questing for your badass instrument. I still rock mine at 55.


Birchfingers 55 Troubadour
Unguilded currently no time to play

[Kekephee]

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

One cool thing to do is the quest for Nostrolos Tambourine. I did it in the high 20s. You can get most of them easily enough. For the tougher ones get a high level friend or two or do like I did and message high levels you see in the zone that drops the coin and ask if it drops if you can buy it. They will give it to you most of the time. And you might make some more friends along the way. Its a 22 modifier like the sharkskin drum If I remember correctly. The only difference is it has some stats. A bit of INT I think and the other cool thing is the look. It looks like a Tambourine in your hand. Plus you get the satisfaction of questing for your badass instrument. I still rock mine at 55.

This is all absolutely correct, but at 24 it'll be tricky to do the quest. However, here's the thing, just like with the lambent quests, my experience is you can start getting the pieces just by grouping in the places the pieces drop. It's amazingly easy to just look up the quest, see that "oh, for Lambent BP I need a piece from Lguk and a piece from Mistmoore; I'm high enough for the Mistmoore camp, so I'll put a group together and hang out there, get the piece while I'm getting exp, and by the time I get the piece, hey look at that, I'm now high enough to group in the Lguk bedroom so I can get the other piece. Wow, hey, now I have a lambent bp and I'm also high enough to go to Kaesora and camp in the library so I can get that particular coin for my nostrolo tambourine! Well that worked out nicely"


I didn't really know or care about the nostrolo tambourine until I was like 54 so I wound up having to solo a lot of the quest pieces. I had a couple banked in case I ever decided to do the quest, ones I'd stumbled on in the process of exping with my friends in Kaesora and foraging in EJ, but hadn't really looked into it. It wasn't hard, but I definitely found myself wishing I had gotten more of them, what's the word, incidentally just by happening to group in places.