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Splorf22
06-11-2013, 06:40 PM
So Dramor has reached the vaunted level 47. He's actually still pretty good at this level, but I'm definitely having some problems with a few things.

#1. Multiple mobs absolutely fuck me up. On Loraen this isn't such a big problem because I cast color flux (1.5 second cast time) followed by AE mez. I would regularly ivu pull 3-4 HS south mobs to one of the "safe" spots in HS and kill them without problems. On Dramor my mez is 3 seconds. That just doesn't cut it with multiple hasted mobs on me. As a side note, is it classic that bash interrupts casting even when it doesn't stun? That seems weird and pretty annoying.

#2. Related to #1, how do you recharm stuff? I have a GamTextTrigger that tells me which tick it is, but that's still a 6 second window. I kind of keep casting charm (and recasting it when it gets down to 1.5s or so) but in general I feel it doesn't work that well. Also the 20 mana cost of the new charm really sucks. Or I am just fucked there until FT items?

#3. The bard stacking on resists seems really funny. Guardian Rhythms stacks with the Psalm line so I can boost MR to insane values (even without the drum) but the Psalms don't stack with each other (I guess for damage shield purposes?) but I was hoping I could stack Mystic Shielding with the other ones and I can't (and I don't see why? They don't conflict with anything.

#4. Has anyone ever tried just using a lute rather than weapons? Obviously if you have the epic then whatever, but with a nice 2.5x modifier you could twist a 5-songer Snare/Shield of Songs/Haste/Cantata/Shield of Songs. That's 30hp/tick as well as 2 50 point runes every 2.5 ticks, so 40 points of Rune per tick. Speaking of which does anyone use Shield of Songs? It feels like it might be pretty strong although not stacking with Nivs really sucks.

#5. Am I the only one that uses Syvelian's Dispell? In fact I don't think anyone dispells shit (I certainly haven't on Loraen) but I'm realizing everything in SolB is 30-40% hasted and dispelling that haste makes a huge, huge difference in how badly I get beat up.

#6. Am I the only one that fears all mobs at ~40%? Maybe this doesn't work as well at higher levels? But it seems to be the only reasonable way to kill the Kobold shamans.

#7. Targeting can get so fucking annoying on a bard. The problem is stuff gets slightly pushed into the walls and my client won't tab target. Do you guys have any suggestions?

#8. Do other bards have macros for mez and charm? I tried them but the amount of spam they generated (between missed notes and bashes) was just unholy

Awwalike
06-11-2013, 08:31 PM
try another class heh

lecompte
06-11-2013, 08:48 PM
... Zanderr is in your guild and he has always been really helpful to me.... Send him a tell!

Sarius
06-11-2013, 09:44 PM
#6 have you tried to mez-lock casters versus fearing? It should interrupt and prevent mob from running all over hell. Not sure if it works well on 99, but I used it on live. This was especially huge for gating mobs in Velks and DN.

KotBK
06-11-2013, 10:15 PM
Swarm kite my dude!

Nuggets
06-12-2013, 11:52 AM
I use the Mez/-MR song...pixie strike? to interrupt casters/healing. has worked for me.

However, if you dont cast it until you see the blue heal pixels, it's usually too late and they get the heal off.

Num1RecommendedByDentists
06-13-2013, 01:23 AM
bards can't solo all that well if you're not fear/swarm/chant kiting

low hp, poor defensive skills, no double attack

The Situation
06-13-2013, 08:09 AM
bards can't solo all that well if you're not fear/swarm/chant kiting

low hp, poor defensive skills, no double attack

Your sig fucks with my formatting so I'm blocking you. fyi

falkun
06-13-2013, 08:30 AM
#1: Your PBAOE mez only gets worse with level. The mez is supposed to be less effective on higher level mobs, but the way it was implemented on P99 is that the song gets less effective the higher level the bard caster, not the NPC recipient. I don't agree with this implementation, but do not have any evidence to the contrary. This was done to combat zone-wide mezzing in Fear and more-so KC. Yes, songs (and spells) can be interrupted without actually stunning the player, this is classic. Its the same way PC 'kicks' suddenly start interrupting at L55.

#2: You get a super-human feel for it. I typically get 5 songs in between charms. So where my normal twist is four songs, I charm (song #1), sing 4 more songs, and then recharm. The mob is usually uncharmed for <1 second. This is different than non-mezzing/charming twists, where I just do 4 songs total + click BoH. As for mana intensity of charm, you are still fucked after FT. Classically, FT does not function on bards (http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/retune.php), neither does mana song, clarity, nor medding.

#3: Just learn the quirks. Guardian rhythms stacks with the other resist rhythms, but the AC component of guardian prevents it from stacking with the AC component of Chant of Battle and others. The issue is bard buffs (and debuffs) typically have multiple functions, if one of those functions conflicts, the rest of the buff doesn't work. As an example, we're currently in an era where root and snare do not stack, which sucks for bards whose slow is tied to snare and cannot slow/snare when someone's rooted the mob.

#4: I typically use weapons in a group unless I'm the only melee, then I'll ask the group to root and I'll DoT. I haven't done true parses, but I just feel my melee DPS is about on par with DoT DPS (for solo targets), but if I can't put up full DoTs because I am hasting other groupmembers, I might as well not DoT at all and just melee while buffing the melees.

#5: I do not typically dispel. I feel I don't have the spell slots, but I might reconfigure. (I typically use snare or mez to pull so my two or three pull comes staggered into camp instead of all at once).

#6: Fearing in dungeons is dangerous. You could also chain mez shaman, but then you aren't getting your other songs in.

#7: Click on it with your mouse. Get used to camera angles that maximize your clickability of the camp/kill-zone, even if they make moving slightly more annoying.

#8: I do not announce what I've mezzed/charmed with a macro. I usually pull 2, charm the second that gets to camp and let the tank kill the first. If I pulled 3+, I just manage it quietly. I'm already pressing songs and click-targeting, I don't have time to spam mez messages on songs that fade every 12-18seconds, plus its annoying.

Dalven
06-14-2013, 09:38 AM
1. Stopped using the pbae around the early to mid 40s - as has been said you'll be lucky if it lasts a tick and you'll be getting crazy resists on it. Multiple mobs fucking you up in dungeons is just how it is for bards - you can control 5 or 6 at a push but you won't get any killing done.

2. You get a super-human feel for it. Lol, this is true - the four song rule generally works out until you get the hang of it. Once you're a bit higher level you will barely notice the mana aspect when charming in groups unless you die. Then it sucks as mana takes forever to regen.

3. As Falkun says.

4. Depends on what I'm doing in the group - if we're melee heavy and I end up doing the cc/haste/slow/snare/mana/hp regen/str etc. I will probably swap instruments around with a BoH for the click. More regularly if I'm only picking up some of those functions I'll be using my weapons.

5. Depending on what else I'm doing I'll sometimes swap dispell in if a mob that requires it comes into camp. As with Falkun spell slots are generally a bit precious to use with dispell.

6. Fearing in dungeons isn't something I do - risky stuff.

7. If its in a wall just need to click it. I will usually use the mez push to get it out of the wall for easier targeting next time. The direction you are facing relative to the mob will change the direction of the mez push/pull.

8. I don't have announcements in my casting macros but have them in seperate macros and will hit them the first time I mez or charm so the group knows what I'm doing then will recharm/remez without any further spam.

Splorf22
06-14-2013, 11:22 AM
Thanks for the tips guys!

kaleran
06-14-2013, 05:02 PM
If you ever find yourself in a group with another Bard (it happens....sometimes...) and have decent single pulls/room to operate, don't forget that most/all of the Bards DoT's stack with one-another. All of the single target dots + Chords + Denon's + Selo's Chords of Cessation can all be stacked at once. I never reached 59, but Denon's Bereavement might also mix in there. If you swap instruments, you can do some pretty sick DPS (for a bard). Just have to be careful with those AE's.

It also has the side affect of having all those resist debuffs and slow sticking on the mob.

Your actual questions were covered already in well formatted responses. So think of this as a bonus "TIL"

astuce999
06-17-2013, 04:01 PM
I know a lot of people have answered your questions already, but I thought I might put in my 2 cents as well.

#1. Multiple mobs absolutely fuck me up. On Loraen this isn't such a big problem because I cast color flux (1.5 second cast time) followed by AE mez. I would regularly ivu pull 3-4 HS south mobs to one of the "safe" spots in HS and kill them without problems. On Dramor my mez is 3 seconds. That just doesn't cut it with multiple hasted mobs on me. As a side note, is it classic that bash interrupts casting even when it doesn't stun? That seems weird and pretty annoying.

>>> The advantage of bards is being able to cast on the run, mez park them while pulling them or snare them on the way back so that they don’t come in all at once.

#2. Related to #1, how do you recharm stuff? I have a GamTextTrigger that tells me which tick it is, but that's still a 6 second window. I kind of keep casting charm (and recasting it when it gets down to 1.5s or so) but in general I feel it doesn't work that well. Also the 20 mana cost of the new charm really sucks. Or I am just fucked there until FT items?

Hide works well for me, otherwise it’s all about the feeling.


#3. The bard stacking on resists seems really funny. Guardian Rhythms stacks with the Psalm line so I can boost MR to insane values (even without the drum) but the Psalms don't stack with each other (I guess for damage shield purposes?) but I was hoping I could stack Mystic Shielding with the other ones and I can't (and I don't see why? They don't conflict with anything.

Is Reed’s Spreadsheet still around? The stack blocks is all about the “slot” where the buffs or debuffs take effect, in this case it’s highly likely that it’s the AC buff that occupies the same slot on both songs.

#4. Has anyone ever tried just using a lute rather than weapons? Obviously if you have the epic then whatever, but with a nice 2.5x modifier you could twist a 5-songer Snare/Shield of Songs/Haste/Cantata/Shield of Songs. That's 30hp/tick as well as 2 50 point runes every 2.5 ticks, so 40 points of Rune per tick. Speaking of which does anyone use Shield of Songs? It feels like it might be pretty strong although not stacking with Nivs really sucks.

If BoH didn’t exist the case of Shield of Songs could be made successfully. Fun part of being a bard is that depending on group make up, sometimes it’s better to melee, sometimes it’s better to use instruments. It’s some sort of bell curve, if you’re alone use instruments, if with one melee that has good agro use instrument, if the melee has bad agro, use weapons. With two melees use weapons, but with 3 or more melees use instruments 

#5. Am I the only one that uses Syvelian's Dispell? In fact I don't think anyone dispells shit (I certainly haven't on Loraen) but I'm realizing everything in SolB is 30-40% hasted and dispelling that haste makes a huge, huge difference in how badly I get beat up.

Dispelling haste should be a non-factor since any kind of slow will dictate mob attack speed. Dispelling in general when soloing can work well, you mez the mob and dispel it until it dispels the mez, then you know you’ve gotten all the buffs, but in a group setting it’s tough because of the 1 slot dispel at a time that will either force people to wait to use other debuffs, or more likely will still debuff and then you will dispel them.

#6. Am I the only one that fears all mobs at ~40%? Maybe this doesn't work as well at higher levels? But it seems to be the only reasonable way to kill the Kobold shamans.

Fearing as a bard is an art, and it is a very sharp double-edged sword indoors. You do seem like the type that likes to live on the edge of disaster so I encourage you to try out some stuff. Mez, bellows, bereavement, are also good options if the only goal is to interrupt healers.

#7. Targeting can get so fucking annoying on a bard. The problem is stuff gets slightly pushed into the walls and my client won't tab target. Do you guys have any suggestions?

Clicking, assisting, toggle last 2 targets, /target a_kobold…

#8. Do other bards have macros for mez and charm? I tried them but the amount of spam they generated (between missed notes and bashes) was just unholy

I don’t even have an inc message. I mean I have the macros for all those things, but I never use them, no time for that nonsense.


'Stuce

Cords
06-26-2013, 11:50 PM
I think these are all valid questions, but here is the truth. Dispelling waists time, buffing is great in groups, not so much in swarm kiting, fear kiting, or charm kiting. I never macro my bard in groups, unless the raid requires it. Have fun, you are one of the few classes who can pull a whole zone and live to reap all the exp and loots from it.

Goseals6
06-30-2013, 12:13 PM
Question related to twisting.

1) Can you set up a loop macro for group songs or do you have to manually twist gems on hotkeys

2) After being spoiled with /melody on live is/are there anything like this in game currently or in the works? Yes I'm a lazy bard :P

3) Are bards at the point right now pre-PBAOE nerf where they can swarm kite without having to charm/swarm?

that's all for now. I'm anxious to get back into the mass chaos that is the Bard lol

4) I scrounged up enough money to buy a hand drum only to find out I can't even use it (Secondary only) Do I need to wait until lvl 17 for DW or whats the store on using instruments??

Cords
06-30-2013, 07:20 PM
1) nope, melody came out after POP, I think way after POP to be honest.

2) no to the whole question.. sorry, believe me melody is my jam

3) the nerf came out around 2009 or so, we are good for a LONG time

4) normal drums start working at 5, and all drums are secondary. I thought you could equip the hand drum at level 1 though it doesn't modify until level 5. but I haven't been your level in a while. Don't forget, even though you may get a skill at a certain level, you may need to go train it to 1 for it to start leveling.

Barkingturtle
06-30-2013, 07:28 PM
4) I scrounged up enough money to buy a hand drum only to find out I can't even use it (Secondary only) Do I need to wait until lvl 17 for DW or whats the store on using instruments??

You need to unequip whatever's in your primary. Unless an instrument is listed as primary usable it must be placed in the secondary slot and it takes both hands.

Goseals6
06-30-2013, 11:40 PM
You need to unequip whatever's in your primary. Unless an instrument is listed as primary usable it must be placed in the secondary slot and it takes both hands.

Yeah derp I didn't think of that. Thanks for the replies!

1) nope, melody came out after POP, I think way after POP to be honest.

I meant for a loop /cast gem 1-9 repeats?? I could have swore I remember a /cast gem whatever number then next line /pause 30 or however long it is to cast the song/spell then so on and so forth. I suspect you can just macro one key and set up a list of songs and do it that way? Sorry just trying to keep my hotkeys as clutter free as possible :P

liveitup1216
07-01-2013, 12:15 AM
you can make macros that are /stopcast /cast 1 and so on so you can one touch your songs but thats about it

Goseals6
07-01-2013, 10:28 AM
you can make macros that are /stopcast /cast 1 and so on so you can one touch your songs but thats about it

Thanks! Appreciate the infos

t0lkien
07-05-2013, 08:44 AM
Perhaps I'm missing something, but technically you cannot twist 4 songs, let alone 5. One will always drop at the end with 4. Twisting 5 means two will be dropping at the end of the loop - and it can go bad fast with missed notes/resists. Why would you ever try to twist 5?

Or does the timing work out differently somehow on p99 (which wouldn't be Classic in any sense then)?

Also, why any mention of FT? FT on items came in with Luclin didn't it, and this server is never going there. Was the reference ironic? I'm confused!

And also, you guys make playing a Bard sound so crazy complicated. It's never been that complicated for me - though I've never majored on pulling due to our inability to dump aggro and other player's patchy ability to grab it. Monks do it much better than us IMO. Didn't really group much in Seb though!

Dalven
07-05-2013, 11:25 AM
Perhaps I'm missing something, but technically you cannot twist 4 songs, let alone 5. One will always drop at the end with 4. Twisting 5 means two will be dropping at the end of the loop - and it can go bad fast with missed notes/resists. Why would you ever try to twist 5?

Or does the timing work out differently somehow on p99 (which wouldn't be Classic in any sense then)?

Also, why any mention of FT? FT on items came in with Luclin didn't it, and this server is never going there. Was the reference ironic? I'm confused!

And also, you guys make playing a Bard sound so crazy complicated. It's never been that complicated for me - though I've never majored on pulling due to our inability to dump aggro and other player's patchy ability to grab it. Monks do it much better than us IMO. Didn't really group much in Seb though!

Twisting four songs is totally possible with the minimum of effect loss. Even looking at the basic timings this is possible - each song takes 3 seconds to cast, generally with a 12 second duration. Once getting your first song of you then twist another 3 within the 9 seconds and then recast the first one in the last 3 second window. You'll have the effect drop for 1 or 2 seconds but IMO this is worth it for a 12 second effect of a fourth song.

What further mitigates this is that some songs, such as regen, have their effect applied on the server tick, which is every 6 seconds. Its difficult to time/know the server tick exactly but more often than not your heal song will drop in between ticks and you will have it back up before it makes the buff check. As long as it is back up before it makes this check its as if the song was never down. If you take into account that a lot of your offensive songs (snare/dots) last for 18 seconds it makes it easy to do a 4 or 5 twist depending on the scenario. The once you can use the Breath of Harmony clicky effect it gets even easier.

Missed notes and resists are just par for the course - you work around it and tank for a few seconds if it happens during cc - you can usually regen yourself up rather than needing a heal. This is why you get to wear plate - you'll be taking hits whether you like it or not as a bard. There isn't much you do as a bard when twisting that the group won't miss for a few seconds while you sort out any resists with the exception of CC, which can sometimes be on a knife edge with 4 or 5 mobs to control.

Agro dumping isn't essential for pulling - what makes bards such skilled pullers is the ability to control the incoming mobs. Between using lull, mez, charm and snare you have much greater control over the number, pace and rate of mobs incoming to the group. I use projectiles or proximity to pull so any agro that you have is usually minimal and any tank can pull it off you easily enough. Sure if you get a critical resist things are going to get hairy pretty quickly but you have a wide variety of tools at your disposal to ensure you aren't dumping 5 mobs on your group all at once.

I'm by no means an expert on monks and have never played on so the following is pretty much just an educated guess on my part. The problem monks have pulling in dungeons is that a caster NPC will usually start to cast as its first action or after taking a couple of steps which can be bad when they FD. As far as I understand it FD doesn't clear agro the way it used to and can take much longer. Beyond FD monks have little ability to split mobs.

t0lkien
07-05-2013, 06:42 PM
My point about a song dropping though - some songs are useless unless they are up all the time. If a mob aoe lands on the tick the resist song was down because I was trying to get a bit more AC/Haste/Regen onto my group, there was no point in having it up at all. It's risky and inelegant to twist songs that are dropping continually IMO. The effect you point out about server ticks just makes it all the more inexact. We never really know when this is until it ticks - despite the tools that help us guess. Mix in lag with this - both yours and others' - (I'm on a constant 250ms which is not bad compared to the 500ms+ I had on live) and it's a total crap shoot.

My experience has been it's better in the long run to have 3 songs up permanently and surely, than to be guessing with four. My UI says the song icon is up, but the server says otherwise when that AOE lands = trouble. Actually, I've wiped to those exact situations more than once enough times to resolve to keep a solid three songs up (not including BoH clicky). Not criticizing others to go for the four or five, but it's risky, and that needs to be understood by other classes who get the idea 4 songs is the minimum a "good" bard should be singing. I had this conversation constantly on live:

"So and so had four songs up all the time".
"No, he didn't actually, one was dropping at the end of the loop continually. You just didn't notice or it didn't show on your UI. On the server it was dropping. It's simple math - 12/(3+time between keypresses) < 4, and that doesn't account for resists or missed notes and lag. With those you can be stretching to keep even three up without something dropping when RNG goes bad."
"Good bards can do four."
"*sigh*".

Re. aggro dumping, with high damaging mobs I've found it counter-productive to be the puller if I have a tank who can't grab aggro. Body pulling can be terribly inexact (I've run over mobs and stood on top of them and still not gained aggro on p99, while the mob 5m away immediately aggros - something is definitely different to live), so it's usually necessary to land a Bellows or something. I've also been hammered into paste multiple times because my group couldn't regain aggro no matter what they did after I've done that. In the end it was more efficient for the tank to pull. The caveat is that this usually hasn't happened with SKs and Paladins.

Not to dispute your comments on pulling, because as I said, I've never majored on it and only once or twice done it in raids, and always outdoors. I would however say that FD is *the* premium tool for splitting mobs. The proof of that was that in Velious, every single raid I went on had a monk puller. Past Luclin I never once saw a Bard pull for a raid either (though my raiding diminished a lot before I quit). Actually the proof for that was Thott's constant whining ;)

astuce999
07-05-2013, 07:57 PM
On a raid with lag it's better to sing 3 if on resist duty (2 rythms with drums + another).

On a raid when not on resist duty, you can still manage 4 songs no problem.

Only when in groups or soloing should the 5 song twist become relevant, I've posted about it on p99 multiple times. It has to do with what Dalven was talking about.

About your math, songs aren't 12 second duration. Songs are 12.1 to 17.9 second duration, depending on the server tick. This important difference gives plenty of room for a stable 4 song twist.

Astuce

t0lkien
07-05-2013, 08:33 PM
I'm sorry, but years of playing on live show this not to be true for me. I can never keep four songs up reliably and have never seen another Bard do it either. This is easy to show if you stand somewhere and just twist four songs that have icons. One will inevitably start dropping (they'll rotate naturally). If it's different on p99... well it's different. On live that's how it was. I'll test this on p99 now for confirmation. Hang tight.


Yep confirmed as the same on p99 for me. A four song twist has icons dropping. You guys are either theory crafting and not observing it ingame, or my ping is making the difference (though I can't see how that's true as it's consistent), or there is some other factor at work that I'm not aware of. I don't know what to else to say...

Here's a challenge though - keep up a four song twist reliably over a minute or two and post the fraps video.

Robdukes
07-05-2013, 09:18 PM
You probably already know this seeing as your a high level bard but for those who don't yet. The song will take effect if you turn it off and start the next when the cast bar is at the final 5-8% (rough estimate). When I'm doing the 4 song twist I never let the cast bar go all the way to the end before clicking off. If you do then you get the dropped song often. Only time I get a dropped song is when either the cast bar vanishes or I get a missed note. Also If my hand starts cramping up after many hours.

It might even be as high as 10% left on the cast bar. I just have a sense for it now so I can't say for sure.

t0lkien
07-05-2013, 09:41 PM
Fraps or it didn't happen ;)

Seriously, I don't believe you guys. Thott didn't either by the way (http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/powercurves.php):

The reason that bards can do decent damage around level 50 even with the flat curve is that the songs themselves limit a bard prior to level 46. Before 46 a bard doesn't have 3 decent damage songs to sing, so damage is limited to just 2/3 of what it could be based on the curve. So the curve increases in max possible damage output with a more normal shape due to when the songs become available. Yet a bard is surely singing three songs, a decent bard is at least, prior to 46, so switching from 2 to 3 damage songs isn't an increase in damage, it's trading something else the bard was singing for damage. It increases the speed, not the efficiency, of damage the bard can do. And thus the graphed curve is accurate, and it's flat.

I.E. Three songs is the standard full twist. And as I said, that is proveable just by standing there and twisting 4 icon songs. Show me the video of a solid four song twist over a few minutes, or honestly, it's all theorycrafting.

You probably already know this seeing as your a high level bard but for those who don't yet. The song will take effect if you turn it off and start the next when the cast bar is at the final 5-8% (rough estimate). When I'm doing the 4 song twist I never let the cast bar go all the way to the end before clicking off. If you do then you get the dropped song often. Only time I get a dropped song is when either the cast bar vanishes or I get a missed note. Also If my hand starts cramping up after many hours.

It might even be as high as 10% left on the cast bar. I just have a sense for it now so I can't say for sure.

P.S. This is not true either. Kiting Bards already know this, but for me, I have to wait a bit after the cast bar has gone to full and disappeared to be certain that the song has hit - in the case of kiting, Selos particularly. I have died several times because the cast bar finished (it's client side) but the song had not hit ingame, and I started the twist on my AoE song. Selos timed out, I lost runspeed, and died a horrible though rapid death. The only way to get around this is to wait until the particle effect shows in game (effects are triggered server-side) to be certain a song has hit.

That's great design by the way, as it forces you to watch the onscreen action and not play the UI.

Robdukes
07-05-2013, 10:04 PM
It may not be true when your kiting a bunch of mobs around and have lag issues but I do it all the time. I'll log on now and investigate.

Robdukes
07-05-2013, 10:15 PM
After some investigation I suppose It's not true. I guess I'm just good at clicking it off at the exact end of the bar. The split second that a song drops when you miss the exact end of the bar is only a big deal if the 4th song is a vital one..like guardian rhythms. When I fear kite with chain..fear...drum dot 1....drum dot 2. When I get back to chain its not dropped. So a 4 song twist is really reliant upon which songs your playing.

Goseals6
07-05-2013, 11:14 PM
I'm sorry, but years of playing on live show this not to be true for me. I can never keep four songs up reliably and have never seen another Bard do it either. This is easy to show if you stand somewhere and just twist four songs that have icons. One will inevitably start dropping (they'll rotate naturally). If it's different on p99... well it's different. On live that's how it was. I'll test this on p99 now for confirmation. Hang tight.


Yep confirmed as the same on p99 for me. A four song twist has icons dropping. You guys are either theory crafting and not observing it ingame, or my ping is making the difference (though I can't see how that's true as it's consistent), or there is some other factor at work that I'm not aware of. I don't know what to else to say...

Here's a challenge though - keep up a four song twist reliably over a minute or two and post the fraps video.


I wouldn't suggest using fraps to video anything especially a monster kite. Xsplit then stream it if you can handle the bandwidth.

Also, it's possible you can twist four songs if you set up the stop cast macro and only push two buttons instead of four. However, taking latency into consideration, it's possible that even with using that method, your songs will fall off with a fraction of a second difference.

In my opinion, twisting more than 3 really puts yourself at risk if selo's drops. You're pretty much hosed if it happens, or unless you keep a stack of sow potions.(wait are those on the p99 server?)

t0lkien
07-05-2013, 11:26 PM
Guys, no offense, but it's all just forum spam until we see a video. I'm saying it's not possible, even with a perfect ping (by not possible I mean the songs will all drop briefly, and that's even if the ping is perfect and there are no resists/missed notes). Please prove me wrong though. My experience and testing hold this to be true.

Rhambuk
07-06-2013, 12:07 AM
ive played a bard casually and i can keep 4 up at once. not for 2 minutes straight and without some song loss but it is possible to have 4 at once.

didnt read all f it so im sure to have missed something. i dont have nor know to run fraps. ha now ill get trained ksd and ninja looted because people know i dot fraps :p

t0lkien
07-06-2013, 12:46 AM
You can have six or more song effects up at one time for an instant. That's not the point. The issue is maintaining a stable four song twist. Come on, this isn't rocket science. I'm saying a permanent stable four song twist is not possible without continual song drop i.e. It's not possible.

Dalven
07-06-2013, 01:39 AM
On a raid with lag it's better to sing 3 if on resist duty (2 rythms with drums + another).

On a raid when not on resist duty, you can still manage 4 songs no problem.

Only when in groups or soloing should the 5 song twist become relevant, I've posted about it on p99 multiple times. It has to do with what Dalven was talking about.

About your math, songs aren't 12 second duration. Songs are 12.1 to 17.9 second duration, depending on the server tick. This important difference gives plenty of room for a stable 4 song twist.

Astuce

As you say there's no point messing about with 4 songs on raids - as t0lkien points out a 3 song twist is the only way to guarantee no drops. I've never really had a good grip of the math of it but from personal experience I've always found four or five songs works for me in groups.

My point about a song dropping though - some songs are useless unless they are up all the time. If a mob aoe lands on the tick the resist song was down because I was trying to get a bit more AC/Haste/Regen onto my group, there was no point in having it up at all. It's risky and inelegant to twist songs that are dropping continually IMO. The effect you point out about server ticks just makes it all the more inexact. We never really know when this is until it ticks - despite the tools that help us guess. Mix in lag with this - both yours and others' - (I'm on a constant 250ms which is not bad compared to the 500ms+ I had on live) and it's a total crap shoot.

Like I say I've never really been into the math but Astuce makes a good post here (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107805) and there's some further discussion in that thread on different ways bards on the server twist 4 songs. For me the momentary drop in effect is worth getting a whole extra song in. Its a fair point someone might get nuked if it hits in the time the effect is down but these things can happen and in my experience chances of it are fairly low. Hopefully you or someone else will be doing interrupts anyway.

Re. aggro dumping, with high damaging mobs I've found it counter-productive to be the puller if I have a tank who can't grab aggro. Body pulling can be terribly inexact (I've run over mobs and stood on top of them and still not gained aggro on p99, while the mob 5m away immediately aggros - something is definitely different to live), so it's usually necessary to land a Bellows or something. I've also been hammered into paste multiple times because my group couldn't regain aggro no matter what they did after I've done that. In the end it was more efficient for the tank to pull. The caveat is that this usually hasn't happened with SKs and Paladins.

Not to dispute your comments on pulling, because as I said, I've never majored on it and only once or twice done it in raids, and always outdoors. I would however say that FD is *the* premium tool for splitting mobs. The proof of that was that in Velious, every single raid I went on had a monk puller. Past Luclin I never once saw a Bard pull for a raid either (though my raiding diminished a lot before I quit). Actually the proof for that was Thott's constant whining

I should emphasise that when I'm talking about playing a bard I'm talking about it from a grouping perspective. I don't have much experience Velious or onwards but bard pulling effectiveness post Velious isn't relevant here, although they got Fading Memories to level the playing field in PoP didn't they?

I've played with and seen some great monks in action pulling on raids and in dungeons but I'll maintain for places with a ton of casters and tight clusters the monk will want the bard out there pulling. Ultimately I think bards have a better range of pulling tools and can be more flexible in a group situation when it comes to pulls. Dumping agro is only one method of pulling effectively - bards can split mobs just as effectively in a group scenario.

I've found that pulling with projectiles generates a minimum amount of agro and have never had issues with tanks pulling it off me. Using charm to bring in mobs is another option - once you break the charm the mobs agro list is reset and a tank can pick up the mob with ease. There are numerous ways to overcome this problem and in most cases it won't be one as long as you're not pulling with snare.

Thott as a high level bard and in charge of an uber EQ guild was probably more concerned with bard pulling at a raid level, where the focus was definitely put on FD pulling, because he was likely sick of having to sing resist songs at all the raids.

I'm sorry, but years of playing on live show this not to be true for me. I can never keep four songs up reliably and have never seen another Bard do it either. This is easy to show if you stand somewhere and just twist four songs that have icons. One will inevitably start dropping (they'll rotate naturally). If it's different on p99... well it's different. On live that's how it was. I'll test this on p99 now for confirmation. Hang tight.
Yep confirmed as the same on p99 for me. A four song twist has icons dropping. You guys are either theory crafting and not observing it ingame, or my ping is making the difference (though I can't see how that's true as it's consistent), or there is some other factor at work that I'm not aware of. I don't know what to else to say...

Here's a challenge though - keep up a four song twist reliably over a minute or two and post the fraps video.

No one is saying that you can sing four songs without the icons and effects dropping. I'm arguing that the effects dropping for a marginal period of time doesn't matter. As I've said the chances of a momentarily lost effect causing a wipe are pretty slim - this obviously isn't the case for mez/snare but this is easily mitigated by paying attention.

Seriously, I don't believe you guys. Thott didn't either by the way (http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/powercurves.php):

Quote:
The reason that bards can do decent damage around level 50 even with the flat curve is that the songs themselves limit a bard prior to level 46. Before 46 a bard doesn't have 3 decent damage songs to sing, so damage is limited to just 2/3 of what it could be based on the curve. So the curve increases in max possible damage output with a more normal shape due to when the songs become available. Yet a bard is surely singing three songs, a decent bard is at least, prior to 46, so switching from 2 to 3 damage songs isn't an increase in damage, it's trading something else the bard was singing for damage. It increases the speed, not the efficiency, of damage the bard can do. And thus the graphed curve is accurate, and it's flat.

I.E. Three songs is the standard full twist. And as I said, that is proveable just by standing there and twisting 4 icon songs. Show me the video of a solid four song twist over a few minutes, or honestly, it's all theorycrafting.


That quote is taken out of context of that article to be fair. In it he's talking about the power of bards relative to increasing level was crap compared to other classes and complaining about it. He mentions the 3 song twist as being standard while giving an example relating to this, which is probably just arbitrary. I don't see any discussion about the relative benefits of twisting 3 songs vs 4 songs.

People were having this same discussion back in 2001.

This guy (http://web.archive.org/web/20010606031606/http://users.erols.com/gww6e/eq/HOWTO-twist-bard-songs.html) thought the idea of twisting 4 songs was dumb but acknowledged that people did it. This other guy (http://web.archive.org/web/20010414213752/http://www.eqdiva.com/guides/guide1.asp) kinda liked the idea and goes into it in a bit of depth.

Cords
07-06-2013, 08:11 AM
I think the 3 song vs 4 song twist is kind of funny. If your doing your rotations right 4 songs is no issue. Song one will be flashing when you get back around to it, and your already casting it again, by the time it drops off you have your song back up, and your continue down the line, never really loosing any of your four songs. Now granted it is much easier in a group because your already running at least 3 songs before a pull, in a fight you throw auto attack on, and start running your song rotation. I hot bar my 4 fight songs and it makes it smother, because your not clicking all the time. Raids is standard practice 3 songs. but I think this has been said more then once in this discussion

SirAlvarex
07-06-2013, 10:49 AM
Mathematically 5 songs is doable (4 songs + BoH). I haven't played much lately, but when I grouped I'd throw up Regen/Clarity/Haste/Snare+BoH routinely. Snare would never drop because it's a detriment, and regen / haste would only sometimes drop if I got lazy or distracted.

If you are doing non-benificial songs, you can do 5 songs straight up. I do fear+snare+3dots all the time. If you're real good, you can do 6 songs at once, which would be 3 AE's dots + 3 single target dots for some nice DPS (with instrument swapping). Same goes for Mez. It's easy to keep 5 non-resist happy mobs locked down indefinitely.

But if I need to keep 3 songs up all the time, for like resistance fights, I only twist those 3 songs (with BoH since no epic) to ensure there are no dropoffs of coverage.

Goseals6
07-06-2013, 11:27 AM
so after much failure on kiting orcs in kelethin, I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible. Hit boxes are so wonky that if you pull more than 2, you're screwed and they stun you. Plus 40% exp penalty. Yah woo go bards. /rant off

t0lkien
07-06-2013, 06:58 PM
No one is saying that you can sing four songs without the icons and effects dropping. I'm arguing that the effects dropping for a marginal period of time doesn't matter.

Yep, and that's my only point. For sure, twisting four or more is a play choice. I'm not standing on my soap box and casting forth some sort of Bard morality about it, I'm just underscoring that a permanent 3 song twist is the best we can ever do without songs dropping. Thank-you for getting it Dalven!

It's important that this is the reality, and that it's recognised so we do don't get posts confusing people with misinformation, untried theory crafting, and erroneous anecdote that....


I think the 3 song vs 4 song twist is kind of funny. If your doing your rotations right 4 songs is no issue. Song one will be flashing when you get back around to it, and your already casting it again, by the time it drops off you have your song back up, and your continue down the line, never really loosing any of your four songs. Now granted it is much easier in a group because your already running at least 3 songs before a pull, in a fight you throw auto attack on, and start running your song rotation. I hot bar my 4 fight songs and it makes it smother, because your not clicking all the time. Raids is standard practice 3 songs. but I think this has been said more then once in this discussion

What? No wait we just spent two pages dis...

Mathematically 5 songs is doable (4 songs + BoH). I haven't played much lately, but when I grouped I'd throw up Regen/Clarity/Haste/Snare+BoH routinely. Snare would never drop because it's a detriment, and regen / haste would only sometimes drop if I got lazy or distracted.

If you are doing non-benificial songs, you can do 5 songs straight up. I do fear+snare+3dots all the time. If you're real good, you can do 6 songs at once, which would be 3 AE's dots + 3 single target dots for some nice DPS (with instrument swapping). Same goes for Mez. It's easy to keep 5 non-resist happy mobs locked down indefinitely.

But if I need to keep 3 songs up all the time, for like resistance fights, I only twist those 3 songs (with BoH since no epic) to ensure there are no dropoffs of coverage.


*sigh*

t0lkien
07-06-2013, 08:34 PM
Like I say I've never really been into the math but Astuce makes a good post here (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107805) and there's some further discussion in that thread on different ways bards on the server twist 4 songs.

I'm calling theorycrafting on this stuff. I don't see it in experience. It's telling there was no discussion about this on live back in the day - and those guys then were *serious* min/maxers. Bards were parsed to within an inch of existence.


That quote is taken out of context of that article to be fair. In it he's talking about the power of bards relative to increasing level was crap compared to other classes and complaining about it. He mentions the 3 song twist as being standard while giving an example relating to this, which is probably just arbitrary. I don't see any discussion about the relative benefits of twisting 3 songs vs 4 songs.

Haha I knew someone was going to say this. You miss the point - it's proof that 3 songs was understood as the minimum twist. The context is not relevant, only the thinking behind what is being said.

As I said though, I know you get it, and the choice to twist more than 3 is situational. The important point is that songs will drop, and that should be understood. The thing I'm trying to mitigate here is the silliness that goes on when people start expecting Bards to twist 4 songs, and "five if you're really good HYUK!"

SirAlvarex
07-06-2013, 08:42 PM
What? No wait we just spent two pages dis...
*sigh*

Well, you spent two pages saying it wasn't possible, then trying it yourself with your own methods and finding it not possible. You aren't considering all of our though songs in the equation.

Mathematics:
Each song has a cast time of ~3 seconds
Each Beneficial Duration song lasts between 12 and 18 seconds, depending on where the song was cast in regards to the server tick.

12/3 = 4, so mathematically he maximum number of songs you can play at any one point is 4, since that's the hard minimum. If you can automate the process so there's no lag, then you have 4 beneficial durationsongs that are only broken up by missed-note garbage.

However the example I gave presented two different songs types: Non-buffs (clarity song) and detrimentals. Clarity buff doesn't have a timer, it's just flat mana. The Snare is a detriment, and those have a duration lasting between 18 and 24 seconds. So, by switching out two duration beneficial songs, we now only have the probility of a song dropping every 4 cycles, and those would be the Haste or the Regen.

Both of those songs wouldn't be seen as huge detriment to the group if they drop for a few seconds, so it isn't a horrible situation. If you are twisting resists? Then yeah, you probably want to keep it safe.

If you switch out more of those songs for the detriments, then you run into why bard fear kiting works. Since the minimum duration on the detrimental songsis 18s, that means you can at max have 18/3 == 6 detrimental songsrunning at a time. Since there isn't a grace period with the detrimental songs, it's advisable to only run 5 at a time to take into account server ticks.

So yes, it is possible to twist 4 songs at once, hell even 5. If you are wanting to just twist beneficial duration songs, then you won't have much luck. Even when I had it going with two macros using stopsong, I'd still get a drop of a quarter of a second every other cast due to innate UI lag.

You can test it yourself with the following macros:
Macro1:
/stopsong
/pause 28, /cast 1
/stopsong
/pause 28, /cast 2

Macro2:
/stopsong
/pause 28, /cast 3
/stopsong
/pause 28, /cast 4

Spamming those two macros still leaves you with about a second of wasted time for letting the client cast the next song. If stopsong were instantanious then the above macros would allow for seamless twisting of 4 beneficial duration songs.

But the question was how many songs you can twist at once, and if you are including our entire bevy of songs then yes, the most you can twist is 5 + BoH (or any clickable bard song).

As with all things Bard, this isn't a cut and dry example of "give me a hardline guide on how to do something!" The amount of songs you can twist at any given point is entirely determined by the situation that you are presented with, and augmented by the skill of the player involved.

So I guess what you are wanting is a breakdown like this?
How many songs can I keep up if I am responsible for resists?
3. One of either our two "3 resist type" drum resists or of our 5 "single resist" singing songs, Guardian Rhythms, and any other beneficial song (typically Cantata).

How many mobs can I keep mezzed at once?
5. Any more than that and you'll run into big mistakes with resists. Subtract one/two if you want to Charm safely.

How many songs can I play if I am soloing and don't need the buffs?
5. Fear + Snare + 3 Drum Dots work great. Still a go-to even with Epic.

If I'm in a group, how many can I keep up if I'm not CC and this isn't a resist fight?
4, depending on your situation. If the only beneficial song you need to keep up is Regen (or additionally haste), then you can run a Snare+Regen+Clarity+Haste setup where the only drop is in Regen/Haste, and that only impedes on the group a tiny bit considering the benefits from snare/clarity being added to the mix. You can switch out snare with Mez, Charm, or any other detrimental song as needed. Or in an all-caster group drop Haste for double dose of Clarity. Or a triple dose by dropping Snare.

So I guess you want to hear that yes, you are in fact correct that it is unrealistic to keep 4 beneficial duration songs up and going for an entire fight that lasts longer than 24 seconds (the amount of time needed for the songs to drop on the second pass). But not all of our songs are constrained to the same timers, so the answer isn't cut and dry. Some setups can be very successful with twisting 5 songs.

SirAlvarex
07-06-2013, 08:44 PM
As I said though, I know you get it, and the choice to twist more than 3 is situational. The important point is that songs will drop, and that should be understood.

Damnit, I wish I would have saw that you understood the situational part before writing up that piece of a reply. Ohwell.

t0lkien
07-06-2013, 09:11 PM
Mathematics:
Each song has a cast time of ~3 seconds
Each Beneficial Duration song lasts between 12 and 18 seconds, depending on where the song was cast in regards to the server tick.

12/3 = 4, so mathematically he maximum number of songs you can play at any one point is 4, since that's the hard minimum. If you can automate the process so there's no lag, then you have 4 beneficial durationsongs that are only broken up by missed-note garbage.... etc

This is what I'm disputing. It's theorycrafting, not practical experience. Songs are listed as lasting 3 ticks - all our songs btw, including detrimental songs (barring Clarity), and that is my experience with them both grouping and kiting. I understand the theory behind the variance, but it doesn't hold up on the server when you actually play. As I said, if you can produce a video showing otherwise, awesome. I'm not being arrogant about this, just calling it for what it is. I can't reproduce what you're saying - this after literal years of twisting. You get an innate feel for the timing of things after even a short time twisting. This variance just doesn't happen, and was never discussed during live (as far as I'm aware). I'm not spouting things to argue, I've played a Bard for years. Show me a video and I'll recant.

But yes, the 4 song buff thing is the main point. Non-Bards are not going to care nor understand about the rest. It's Secret Bard Business.

The reason this matters is because things become "true" just by repetition. Then you get the situation where if some ass in game doesn't see four icons in his buff bar, he accuses a Bard of being crap or lazy. This happened to me many times on live. I had people telling me if you don't have 5 songs up you're a bad Bard yadda yadda. So I did all the research and got the facts and argued back, and just like in this thread with part time Bards saying all sorts of anecdotal nonsense, when it's tried it doesn't hold up. No kidding, because it's patently wrong.

Remember when Bards were blamed for aggroing all of Hate just by singing any song at all? Yeah, same deal. I was forbidden from singing during Hate raids for months because of that pariticular bit of bullshit, and blamed for raid wipes caused by some other player's stupidity. It gets old fast.

That is all :)

SirAlvarex
07-06-2013, 10:04 PM
Have you tried fear kiting? It wouldn't be possible to do with all 5 songs if it weren't for the fact that all detrimental songs are on a minimum 18s duration. It's also why all of our DoTs hit 3 times, since the server ticks every 6 seconds.

You'd have to find the bug report, but I think it was 2 years ago the beneficials also lived by the 3-tick rule. Meaning they lasted 18 seconds and it *was* possible to keep up 4-5 songs without a drop. But they changed it, because someone found evidence of a song only lasting 12-18 seconds, and the "3-tick" idea came from people noticing the high-end duration of songs.

That nerf made the next day of circle kiting reaaaal fun.

Found the bug report on the nerf: http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=57246

t0lkien
07-06-2013, 10:22 PM
I only fear kited with melee from behind, I didn't DoT. I didn't see the point when it's safer to circle kite with DoTs, Selos never being "resisted" like Fear could be. As a result I was fearing and snaring, so wouldn't notice a dropped duration if it occurred. This was on Live though, not on p99.

However as I said, this variance theory never surfaced on Live. If it's a reality on p99, it's not "classic". I haven't noticed it, but then my experience here is much less than on Live.

SirAlvarex
07-06-2013, 10:38 PM
The DPS from the 3 DoTs is insanely better. Against non-high resist mobs (of which should be easy to find near max level) you'll do over 30 DPS with Selo`s Drums. I haven't parsed out using melee weapons, but the mobs definitely die faster.

---

I decided to continue my tests, and found this interesting.

I never really noticed with the healing spells their duration, but constantly with Cantata I am getting the following reaction.

-1 - start casting Cantata
0 - server tick, health raises 3
2 - Cantata fires, stop singing
6 - regen for 15
12 - regen for 15
18 - regen for 15, buff immediately ends

So in other words, it lasts just the duration of the 3 ticks no matter what. For spells like our regen songs, that's fine because we only get the benefit on the server ticks anyway. The rest of the buffs tho don't have such a defined cutoff. So if you were to just twist Regens/Mana for a caster group, then you'd be perfectly fine doing Cantata+4 mana twists (15-18s cast time) to maximize your regen capabilities for the casters.

t0lkien
07-06-2013, 10:53 PM
Isn't that bug post pointing out the extended duration of fear and the DoTs is a bug? Fear lasting 10 ticks is insane, and obviously not as intended. Naturally that would work better, but it's not "classic" :)

Selo's DoT kiting allowed me to land all DoT's *just* before or after having to recast Selos, though if I remember I'd cycled through the DoT's, using two each time to make sure Selo's never dropped. That would put 3 DoTs on the mob every second tick, with two otherwise. Much better to miss one tick of a DoT then get hammered from Selo's dropping. Often mobs were resistant to one of the DoT's too, so I never lost much by it being cycled out. I graduated to this over reverse fear kiting as soon as I got my third DoT at 46.

Which brings me back to the original point really - it's safer to play the inside of timers, than push for a "perfect" result which is rarely going to happen, especially where something critical like Selos or resists are involved. The lost time/XP from a death way overbalances anything gained from sneaking in that extra tick of song.

SirAlvarex
07-06-2013, 11:15 PM
I don't remember fear lasting that long, but the DoT's use to tick off 4 times sometimes. Actually it was 4 times *most* of the time.

astuce999
07-07-2013, 03:33 AM
5 song twist + BoH click.

All 3 dots hit every single time, mob doesnt break fear or snare at any point, only time I get hit is a riposte.

http://youtu.be/00IG22ip5bA

t0lkien
07-07-2013, 06:43 AM
Are you doing a straight twist (1,2,3,4,5... etc.) or is Fear lasting the (bugged) 10 ticks it was before? If you're doing a straight 1 for 1 twist, then all the songs are still one tick longer than they should be as noted here: http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=57246&page=4

In which case, this is a bug, and not like live *shrug*. I forget we're working with a different code base than on live. Either way, good job.

astuce999
07-07-2013, 10:44 AM
Strait twist; song 1, song 2, song 3, song 4, BoH click, song 5... repeat.

Fear only lasts up to 17.9 seconds like it should, and can break early on tougher mobs.

Songs are not lasting longer than they should, it's just that there's no wearing off message on detrimental songs, and as long as they are reapplied before the next time the server ticks there is no loss in efficiency.

cheers

t0lkien
07-07-2013, 02:49 PM
Here's the thing though - it absolutely was not like this on live during Velious. No-one on live could hold down 5 songs, ever. No-one could hold down four without one dropping briefly. There are issues with the EMu implementation of this which have been pointed out in other threads and other discussions on other boards. The anecdotal evidence of that is that conversations like this about song persistence variance never occurred on Concert Hall, EQDiva, or The Safehouse that I ever read. If it was a factor, Thott and others would have been all over it and it would have been common knowledge. There was lots of discussion about server ticks, but nothing that suggested a mechanic that would allow 5 songs to be held down. That *may* have been because by far most of the conversation centered on group and raid mechanics. They do do five songs easily now on live, but everything has changed so direct comparisons aren't valid.

It's moot though really I guess. Whatever is different in the EMu implementation is foundational and isn't going to change. The game still feels pretty darn close to what I remember in all other respects.

Cords
07-07-2013, 04:48 PM
I have to think at this point that you never played Everquest when kunark came out. I played eq from day one, as a bard. I never had problems on Morell Thrule pre Kunark, and post kunark pulling 4 songs twists without drop off's. Drop offs start at 5 song twists.

That said your right, there is nothing that can be done to change this.

Dalven
07-07-2013, 04:55 PM
Whether or not it was possible on live, people were certainly discussing it.

People were having this same discussion back in 2001.

This guy (http://web.archive.org/web/20010606031606/http://users.erols.com/gww6e/eq/HOWTO-twist-bard-songs.html) thought the idea of twisting 4 songs was dumb but acknowledged that people did it. This other guy (http://web.archive.org/web/20010414213752/http://www.eqdiva.com/guides/guide1.asp) kinda liked the idea and goes into it in a bit of depth.

Seems this is an age old argument amongst bards.

t0lkien
07-07-2013, 08:25 PM
I have to think at this point that you never played Everquest when kunark came out. I played eq from day one, as a bard. I never had problems on Morell Thrule pre Kunark, and post kunark pulling 4 songs twists without drop off's. Drop offs start at 5 song twists.

That said your right, there is nothing that can be done to change this.

No, you're right. I joined just after Velious shipped. However that would hardly have made any difference. I know some people claimed four songs, but if we're talking beneficial songs as has been shown, sorry I call shenanigans. Detrimental songs, yep, I concede it's possible here (though I find that weird, had never heard of it on live pre-Luclin, and this despite playing the forums as hard as I played the game). Beneficial songs - it's not possible even here without drop offs beyond the second twist.

I also totally concede that the small drop off is not necessarily a concern in non-critical situations. I only wanted to establish the truth that there are dropoffs, and this is hard-coded and has nothing to do with skill, ping, or CPU power (as no matter what anyone does they are never going to get a net song change of 0s).

@Dalven I read those (I skimmed the last, but am pretty sure I read it when it was on EQDiva), and that's the merest anecdotal mention without any hard data or testing. The hardcore parse-monsters that lived for stuff like that on Safehouse and TCH never once visited it that I saw, and that's because it was understood the limitations of pushing the twist. If exploiting the server tick to gain an effective ~6s on song duration had been an understood reality it would have been required knowledge and discussed constantly, and outlined in painful chart filled detail in all the guides.

Anyway, here we are on p99, and it is what it is. Thanks for the discussion by the way. It's been a good one for me.