Advice for reasonably easy to obtain melee/bard'ish gear?

[Frudrura]

It has been a long time since I started fresh. The last time I did it on blue, I played a necromancer and it was easier to level without much gear since I am not as dependent on gear.

I have rolled a bard. I can swarm kite in areas where it seems to work out well. I would like to try and get some basic gear, including a melee weapon or two.

My plan at the moment is to get some Lightstones to make some plat, and then I will see if I can find someone that can make me a set of banded, or in the mean time I might just buy a set of Leather armor from a merchant (this is most likely for now).

As I probably won't be able to make plat for a while (level 7), are there any easy noob quests that can be recommended to get a weapon? Or maybe some things that aren't too difficult to obtain with a group in a dungeon? I just don't have a lot of knowledge of playing ungeared while being non-caster.

[SamwiseRed]

just keep leveling up. i got to 60 basically wearing crafted and using CoM weapons as a warrior. bards need even less. just get a drum and lute and its GG.

[Super Hater]

Here is a Bard guide...


https://youtu.be/EyoutEHpPAU

[Xaanka]

All you need to get level 55 is a hand drum, horn and maybe some ac/hp rings. The more levels you have the easier it is to make plat. Every hour you waste farming lightstones is an hour you could have spent getting EXP to get you closer to farming actual plat. After level 18 bards hardly need weapons, at best you will do necro pet levels of dps in melee. A bard's strength is pretty much determined by his resists, hitpoints, and how good his drum (and to an extent lute) is.

Swarm kite to 55. Buy the best drum & horn you can afford, noting that you can sell the horn afterward. OT -> FV -> OT -> DL -> BW. Spend any plat you can on the best HP/AC rings you can afford and any cheap resist gear.

When you hit 50ish, self farm:
Field of Bone flute
Bloodstained Mantle (or buy for like 100p)
RBF (or buy for like 350p)
Goblin Skull Earring
Iksar Ceremonial Breastplate (duo with rogue or dps)
Sarnak Emblazoned Tabard
Bracer of the Hidden
Pegasus Cloak (may be easier to duo)
Jboots (may be easier to do at lower levels due to less pvp)
Wurm-Scale Coat (mid 50s+ duo with a 60 rogue)
i think bard can solo EoE too? maybe?

And spend plat on, in order of priority:
Best drum you can afford. <<If you are poor, group in MM and then do the kunark 210% drum quest or something>>
MM Lute
Jewelcrafter MR bacers, neck
Sainy's Claw
Kylong boots
SSB
Mithril legs
Mithril arms
.. and all the rest of your MR pieces
.. and then weapons
.. and then finally, stat pieces (slots with str/dex but no real hp/resist gains)

[Xaanka]

you can also self farm the 18% haste belt from hangman while you're farming your iksar bp.. each iksar mask is also enough plat to buy a resist piece or two.. once you have a little gear and get your skills trained up (wind instrument etc) post swarming you can farm resist jewelry and such in a day or two by grouping.

If you're new to red catch me in game and I'll give you a couple gems so you have a little breathing room with buying songs and maybe grab a starter weapon to get to 18 with. If you level swarming, you will not make enough plat to support buying even your own songs as you level. However once you're high level and have snare song, you can sell PL to people for their alts and make a lot of platinum quickly.

[Qtip]

Once lvl 18, charge people to sit in your group for free afk power lvls.

[Frudrura]

Okay thanks very much for the replies.

Once I get 18 I might make a post on the red trading forum to see if anyone is interested in the afk PL. I think that is a good idea and I can start picking up some the essential bard pieces.

[Super Hater]

It has been a long time since I started fresh. The last time I did it on blue, I played a necromancer and it was easier to level without much gear since I am not as dependent on gear.

I have rolled a bard. I can swarm kite in areas where it seems to work out well. I would like to try and get some basic gear, including a melee weapon or two.

My plan at the moment is to get some Lightstones to make some plat, and then I will see if I can find someone that can make me a set of banded, or in the mean time I might just buy a set of Leather armor from a merchant (this is most likely for now).

As I probably won't be able to make plat for a while (level 7), are there any easy noob quests that can be recommended to get a weapon? Or maybe some things that aren't too difficult to obtain with a group in a dungeon? I just don't have a lot of knowledge of playing ungeared while being non-caster.

Make a female toon. Seduce, then beg a 4+ year veteran for gear. You'll probably get a CoF or something from one of these thirsties.

[Swish]

Make a female toon. Seduce, then beg a 4+ year veteran for gear. You'll probably get a CoF or something from one of these thirsties.

lol...female wood elf, go with the blond hair.

[Zaral]

Hit up NK at level 8 and swarm kite (with a lute) wisps there till 14.

I did so on my bard from 10-14 and made around 250pp while getting great exp by turning in the greater lightstones to the gypsy.

That was enough to cover spells for awhile. By the time I needed spells again, I made enough swarm kiting in FV 30+ for the rest.

[Malevz]

My advice would be listen to Xaanka, pretty much everything you need to know is right there.

[Frudrura]

Okay some time has passed. I did NK -> OT -> Lake of Ill Omen -> FV -> Burning wood. I am level 53 right now. I want to take a break from swarm kiting and also since I have the new level 53 mez spell I may try grouping.

I was looking at doing the forager/hunter cycle in Trakanon's Teeth. I am going to be doing it solo as far as I can tell right now. It looks like Ffroaak, Harbringer Josk, Hierophant Ixyl, Harbinger Dronik, Keeper Lasnik and Keeper Sepsis would be kind of a pain in the ass to kill, I haven't tried it yet. Those mobs are either Wizard, Necromancer, or Shaman. Since my melee output and tanking ability is shit (also I am kind of wondering what would be a good way to raise my defense skill since I did exclusively swarm kiting to level and also some charm kiting of giants in rathe), my theory at this point is to grab the mob, run them to a wall and charm warrior mobs near by to throw at the mob I am trying to kill until it dies.

I am a bit wary because of the caster mobs like a wizard. I only have around 1.3k hp and one Ice comet and a little fuck up and Harbinger Dronik can more or less 1 shot me. I think if I were to try and kill this mob, I would charm Harbinger Dronik and send him in on mobs and just try to land my charm just as the previous charm is fading.

Also, I haven't really seen using a wind instrument help with casting charm, should I use it anyways?

Thanks