Playing a bard without kiting.

[Balur]

I'm thinking of leveling a bard, but I don't want to kite my way to 60. Are bards good at solo melee combat or will I find myself feeling the need to kite at some point?

[Jauna]

Bard melee is crap, you are not super durable.

Even with Slow>self haste>DoTs, it will take you a good while to kill things. It is very possible to do it as such, but by far not the most efficient thing. But soloing in dungeons or other small spaces, good way to go.

You will end up charm kiting, fear kiting, zone disruption kiting, or even single kiting stuff with a drum and maybe a snare at some point.

Or being the hero to every group to come into is another option.

[Hiragawa]

If you don't want to kite, just group. Seriously, bards are great pullers and fantastic utility in groups.

[TeemoOfAstora]

As a bard soloing you'll find your melee fighting capabilities to be underwhelming. At a certain point mob hp will make it so you can't really go toe to toe with the mobs. You'll more often find yourself fear, charm and selos/chant kiting outdoors and that'll prove to be anywhere from 20 to 50 times less efficient than just swarming in the same zone. Indoors you'll charm rot up to a point, but you'll really shine as part of a group. You can do a little bit of everything for a group and a skilled bard will be a valuable addition to any group. If you're set on not swarming grouping will be your path to 60.

You absolutely don't have to kite if you don't want to. That being said, you should give it a try until you get your first successful kite off, just to see what bards can do. I can't say I am fond of kiting much myself, but I still wanted to do at least a few kites in each of the traditional bard kiting zones, as a rite of passage. Some zones I loved (NK, LoIO, OT) and I was there for a few levels, others not so much (EK, FV, BW) and one or two successful kites were plenty. Not to mention that swarming is to some extent practice for PLing, which will also be something you might do (either for plats or for your friends).

Ultimately what you want to do with your bard is entirely up to you, but I'd suggest trying it all, as it's part of the bard's versatility. Why deny yourself part of the experience?

[brecon]

I've thought about writing a comprehensive bard guide. I've leveled two bards to 60 now without any swarm kiting, and Bards are excellent soloers. They can be truly amazing in groups once you learn to play the roles required, but they can also solo very well. As your answer is about soloing, I will address that specifically.

There are a few main ways for a Bard to solo without resorting to swarm kiting. Lull and sneak are your friends, keep engages to singles except where I say otherwise. Sneak pulling is far safer than lull pulling, and use that whenever possible. Being said, get your CHA as high as possible, and stick outdoors where you can run away, or near zonelines whenever possible when lulling to solo.

(1) Pure Melee - this will be your only real option up until the mid 20s. Bards melee almost as well as any other class up to 20, which is when the other hybrids get double attack. You can use Selos to gain some distance and use Regen song, and keep attacking til the mob is dead. Avoid anything that can root and this is pretty safe.

(2) Mez/ Melee - This tactic relies on using your single target mez. Bascially, you melee until you are low hp, then keep the mob mezzed while you regen hp. You want to avoid using dots in order to mez lock the mob as needed. This is a slow way for a Bard to kill, but it is useful up until 60 if you are fighting a mob in a dungeon where there is no room to move around. I use it for some named camps. Once you know how much DPS the mob does to you per 4 ticks, you can add some dots in for the first few rounds.

(3) Charming: This is where Bards solo very well, starting when you get your first charm spell (~level 26?). You charm just like an enchanter, but with the caveat that charms only last 18 seconds. It is best to use an outdoor zone, on mobs that cannot root you. Charm one mob and send it at the others: while the mob is attacking the other mob, keep up on yourself Selos, and twist in either HP regen, chants on the other mob, or perhaps a mez on an additional target.

The way charming works on P99 is that your target, when charm breaks, still is aggroed on you but has effectively zero hate. If you charm the target you were dotting before, and send that target on your former charmed pet, it will instantly start attacking your charmed pet. Dotting while charming is really important once you hit your 40s and your charm spell starts costing mana: it makes encounters shorter, which means less charms and less mana spent. It is also useful to get an SS bracer or better Ragefire arms, and ds both pets, the additional damage is substantial over a fight.

To get full xp, you need to break your pet before you kill one of them. There are a few ways to make that easier to accomplish without taking hits: the main one is snare one of the mobs. If the mobs run at low hp, once the unsnared pets gets far enough from the snared pet, both will stop trying to attack you and you can kill them leisurely. Charming as a Bard takes some practice to do well.

(4) Fear kiting
This is easy once you get fear and selo's constant chain. Find your target. If it is solo, mez it. Then cast snare and fear. After this is done, start killing it. You have two additional songs you can cast dependably. What I usually do is melee attack until I can proc tash, while only playing snare and fear (get an orb of tishan, it makes fear kiting much more reliable), and then switch to snare, fear, and two chants with a drum - I find I do more damage with two chants and a drum than by meleeing, and it doesn't require you to be in pbaoe range except when you refresh your fear spell.

You can solo any mob you can fear as a Bard, and casters are your prime target: lower hp and you can usually get a fear off before any spell casts anyway. Also, the pbaoe radius on fear is larger than the melee range of most mobs, so if it is snared, you can usually get a fear off without taking a hit or mezzing it.

(5) chant kiting
This requires you to have snare, seloes, and some of your chants. It's simple: just snare the mob and use DPS chants. You do less damage than fear kiting. When fear kiting, your dots do full damage: when you snare only, the dots do 2/3 damage. Sometimes when I'm feeling lazy or just finishing off a mob (or if I'm low hp and don't want to get close for a fear), I'll chant instead of fear kiting.

Chant-kiting is also very effective for xp groups. As the puller, you just pull the mob with snare, and move around chanting until it dies. It works well in COM arena, for instance.

Conclusion:
Bards can solo a lot of ways. I just listed 5, and there are some more that I forgot. Also, there are many tricks and caveats, and things change somewhat when you get your epic or some high damage proc weapons. But Bards are great in groups, solo well outside groups, and are great at farming any gear solo if the mob either (1) does not summon, or (2) is fearable.

[falkun]

Cobzar hit the nail on the head. Try it all, but bard solo that is not PBAOE kiting usually ends up chant/snare traditional kiting or fear kiting with either melee or chants. You don't want mobs hitting you, you cannot take a hit like a tank and you cannot deliver them like a monk/rogue. But grouping should be the mainstay of a non-PBAOE bard.

[brecon]

To follow up -
(1) Bards are a utility class. Because of this utility they can solo effectively, in the ways that I described above. By charming to solo kill, you solo almost as fast as any other charm class in an outdoor zone, and just as safely as a druid. It does require many more key strokes however. You can charm solo all the way to 60 outdoors, and it's even easier with Velious.

(2) Also because of this utility, you can duo with almost any other class - and in duo, you will gain xp faster than solo. Bards can duo by aggro kiting (with a melee pounding on the mob), by fear kiting, by helping an enchanter, druid or necro manage charm breaks, by increasing mana regen and doing dot damage to a rooted mob, etc. Literally, a bard can duo with any class and make that class better. This is different from an enchanter, who cannot duo well with a rogue, or a warrior who cannot duo well with a wizard.

(3) Full groups are great - and bards that level by aoe kiting are not as adept at working in a full groups as a Bard that comes up soloing, duoing, and generally using more spells. But Bards can solo just fine while waiting for a group in any zone.

(4) Yes, you can aoe kite up to 60, then be a raid bard and play resists or kite fear...but you don't scratch the surface of the class. There are lots of great challenges that a Bard can do solo, which is why I keep coming back to the class. So I wish you good luck with the journey! Here, again, is a small list of things I would keep in mind:

A. Prioritize mobility - this means soloing in outdoor zones whenever possible, getting the best drum possible, keeping up SOW when you can as a backup to selos fading, and getting high MR to resist roots and snares.

B. When I gear, I prioritize MR > Dex up to ~110 > Cha >HP > CR and FR > AC. People can argue about this list. By prioritizing MR, you also get a leg ahead when you start raiding and need MR to resist old world and kunark dragon fears. I hate carrying around extra gear, and I don't see a need for a bard to have a MR and a PVE/stat and HP set that are divverent.

C. If you keep leveling or have money, worn Regen like a Fungi is great for a bard - it allows you to take a hit or two and not have to play a regen song. For charming, you will inevitably take a few hits, as well as when you CC. Some clerics don't heal Bards up the way they would an Enchanter, and I always insist if I'm CCing that they keep me above 80%.

D. Carry a few pumice - in case you get rooted or snared while soloing, a pumice can dispell the root and save your life.

E. Get a peggy cloak - selos song of travel is more trouble than it's worth. Selos and a levi buff is infintely better.

F. Orb of Tishan is required gear, as is the best drum you can afford. Proc weapons with DD or Stun effects can be useful for kiting.

[Hiragawa]

By charming to solo kill, you solo almost as fast as any other charm class in an outdoor zone, and just as safely as a druid.

Longtime bard here, I'd just like to comment on that one point and say that we can Charm -safer- than a druid. Not having to rely on mana really, really gives us the edge up there. Not to mention being able to fire off Bardspeed to get away from a bad batch much quicker than a druid before trying to recover it.

But yeah Balur, listen to Brecon. At the end of the day, you should get used to every tactic we have in our box. It's a really big box, and being able to do some of our solo things on the fly can really save a group.

[Troxx]

Once you get to 60 depending on your instruments you can twist 50 to low 60s dps in dots (3x drum 1x brass 2x string aoe) dots while keeping things slowed 35% and a regen song up.

Not super useful for leveling at 60 but is good for farming seafuries or other lower level cash camps indoor and outdoor. It's not super viable for killing things that give xp other than low light blues and greens.

[xenodon]

How on earth do you play a bard to 60 times 2 without getting CT? Is there melody for bars on p99?

[thewrush]

Xenodon,

Creating macro's that let you twist songs with 1 button press instead of 2. That can be easily done by:

/stop
/cast 1 - 8

Also I would like to add by keeping songs you know you're going to twist frequently in the 1,2,3,4 spell gem slots. I also devised another way of organizing songs on the spell bar. My macro's for pushing 1,2,3,4 were spells located in 5,6,7,8 slots but I kept them in the hotbar 1,2,3,4 slots. This way I could alt cast and keep all my buttons like this without having to stretch to push 5,6,7,8. For example:

Hotbar
1 = Anthem De Arms (spell gem slot #5)
2 = Hymn of Restoration (#6)
3 = Jonthan's Whistling Warsong (#7)
4 = Kelin's Lucid Lullaby (#8)

(1) alt + 1 = Selo's Accelerando
(2) alt + 2 = Kelin's Lugubrious Lament
(3) alt + 3 = Guardian Rhythms
(4) alt + 4 = Shauri's Sonorous Clouding
(5) Anthem De Arms
(6) Hymn of Restoration
(7) Jonthan's Whistling Warsong
(8) Kelin's Lucid Lullaby

For the alt + # songs you have to hit them twice... but to me it is better than stretching to hit 5,6,7,8 once. This also creates less macro's on the hotbar if that matters.

Hope this makes sense.

[gildor]

Barding in EQ is no different than managing cooldowns on any other melee class in modern mmos :) lots of button mashing at the right time

[Stepper]

So I am doing the same thing. I however AE'd the 35 hell level, and am looking to AE 45 as well when I get there.

Bards are a lot of fun in groups when there is no enchanter, and definitely wanted in that case. When a group has an enchanter, which happens pretty frequently, you might not be in high demand, and find yourself doing sub par DPS. But you do bring awesome buffs.

If the group has no enchanter or shaman, you're king. I haven't received any tells asking me if I want to group like I have on tanks or clerics in the past.

I will say, that if you want to group with a bard in the hot spots like Mistmoore and City of Mist, you should definitely have an alt, because you might be waiting for a while to get into a group. I'm personally leveling a druid to stick into Dial a Port eventually.

[Troxx]

Barding in EQ is no different than managing cooldowns on any other melee class in modern mmos :) lots of button mashing at the right time

Exactly.

1-8 for me macros are:

/stopsong
/cast #

9 is Breath of harmony click

0 is just a simple /stopsong

To be honest, the only time I developed wrist pain or hand fatigue was prior to level 42 when i was holding my hand/wrist at awkward angles strafe running and aoe dotting things dead. For general play purposes, you're doing any standard movements and clicking a button every 3 seconds. When you compare that to playing almost ANY class on live EQ (in the modern era with dozens or a hundred or more discs, abilities, aa's and cooldowns) that is a lot fewer keystrokes per unit time.

Once you have intelligent hotkeys set up, playing a bard on p99 shouldn't give you carpal tunnel syndrome.

(2) Also because of this utility, you can duo with almost any other class - and in duo, you will gain xp faster than solo.

I disagree about the 'faster' part. All the way up to 60, after velious launched I could put down 10 mostly dark blue (some high greens) every 15 minutes for the better part of 2-3 hours before I ran out of mana and had to med up. Alternately could put down 6 dark blues and maintain mana. That's between a mob ever 80 seconds and a mob every 130 seconds right in the sweet spot of xp. To this day, I don't know of any other class that can maintain that kind of kill speed and xp over time other than necros (even then that kill speed might be pushing it). Enchanters and necros can solo harder content indoors and have a lot more options. Bards are limited to a few outdoor zones and camps that will take you all the way to 60 (and if they're camped you're out of luck).

Bards will get more xp solo than duo if they know what to do and where to do it. Duoing does open up a lot more areas, and they duo well with most all other classes.

Bards are a lot of fun in groups when there is no enchanter, and definitely wanted in that case. When a group has an enchanter, which happens pretty frequently, you might not be in high demand, and find yourself doing sub par DPS. But you do bring awesome buffs.

If you know what to do, there's plenty a bard can be doing in the group alongside an enchanter. With quick assistance with charm breaks, this also allows the enchanter to go nuts with a hasted/charmed pet. Between group regens (both hp and mana - not a trivial contribution in and of itself), assistance with charm breaks and crowd control, pulling, and buffs - a bard brings a lot more to the table than just our crappy dps.

It really is a great class. Most bards I've grouped with on other characters are adequate and round out a group nicely. Every now and then I'll group with a really good one and it just makes all groups that much better and more efficient.

[Tann]

Bards are a lot of fun in groups when there is no enchanter, and definitely wanted in that case. When a group has an enchanter, which happens pretty frequently, you might not be in high demand, and find yourself doing sub par DPS. But you do bring awesome buffs.

If the group has no enchanter or shaman, you're king. I haven't received any tells asking me if I want to group like I have on tanks or clerics in the past.

Some of the best groups I had on live had myself (bard) and BOTH a shaman and enchanter. Of course it was different back then and not all about min/max hogwash.

[Xaanka]

I'm thinking of leveling a bard, but I don't want to kite my way to 60. Are bards good at solo melee combat or will I find myself feeling the need to kite at some point?

I decided to level one of my bards without doing a single swarm kite. Grouping should be your bread and butter whenever possible. You are a good group class and things always go smoothly when you're around, whether it be from regen and mana songs, or clutch mez's and charms saving the day.

You can fit into just about any group and fill a variety of niches: pulling, mana/hp battery, haste, dot's, mez, charms, tanking until 50+, etc etc. If there isn't an enchanter or a monk around, you can fill the niche. use that to your advantage when you're lfg.

You will never be efficient with soloing, but you can duo pretty well with some classes. For instance, rogues can't solo either, but a bard can quickly pull in an outdoor zone and fear kite a mob while the rogue quickly kills it with backstabs. Good way to exp while you're waiting for people and filling groups, but you should always try to group when possible. Might be a little bit better of a strategy on red than blue, because you can be fear kiting while finding a group with the global chat channel that blue doesn't have.

[Troxx]

You will never be efficient with soloing...

Uh ... what?

Not true at all. Even outside of swarming very few if any classes can solo faster than a charming bard.

[falkun]

Bards are a lot of fun in groups when there is no enchanter, and definitely wanted in that case. When a group has an enchanter, which happens pretty frequently, you might not be in high demand, and find yourself doing sub par DPS. But you do bring awesome buffs.

Bards pair FANTASTICALLY with shaman and enchanter. If you have an ENC in your group, ALWAYS pull 2-4 mobs. This makes leveling even easier prior to SS helm trivializing pulling at L45. If you have a shaman, then you can pawn off haste and slow to him. I hate having to be puller, CCer, debuffer, and buffer in the same group. I love being able to pawn off at least one of those tasks to a shaman and/or enc. Allows me to be better at the other jobs I'm still doing. Until you get into certain raid situations, the bard should almost always be the puller, and that's not a job you'll ever pawn off to ENCs or SHMs.

[TeemoOfAstora]

Uh ... what?

Not true at all. Even outside of swarming very few if any classes can solo faster than a charming bard.

Truths! And particularly so in outside zones where you should be getting hit minimally. I solo'd Coldain rings 1-7 around 50, 51 and I'm sure 8 can be done too, if it weren't such a poopfestival. You can also do some pretty incredible things with fear kiting / charm rotting too. The xp bar moveth solo, even when not swarming (because BW can go fist itself).

That being said, grouping can be challenging/fun in its own way. I recently revisited KC and felt like a true lord of the dance in a group without a chanter/shammie. Sure there was manasong twisted in there (when a group asks you over for manasong and nothing else it gets really boring), but I got to do everything else too (haste, str/dex, slow/snare, regens, charm/mezz). I almost managed to keep everyone alive the entire time too (thanks to clutch roots by my groupmates), but hands train much too strong. :(

[Xaanka]

Uh ... what?

Not true at all. Even outside of swarming very few if any classes can solo faster than a charming bard.

Oh yeah charming is good, I only play on red so I'm just not used to it being comparably viable.

[Loke]

I did a lot of the 50+ leveling on my bard doing trios. 3 manning camps that are usually occupied by full groups is great exp. Bard/cleric/warrior and bard/shaman/monk always worked out really well. Soloing with dots or charm works, but i've never seen the appeal of leveling that way. In general I'm not a huge fan of soloing except for a few classes, so if I'm gonna do it I might as well do the most efficient version of it. 3 man groups is the way to go for leveling a bard imo. Better exp than a full group, and with less people it forces everyone in the group to really play their best. Full groups always seem to have one or two slackers.

[Danth]

bard/shaman/monk always worked out really well

What did the Bard do in this group to make it work really well? The wife and I (she's a Shaman, I'm a Shadow Knight) have added Bards on occasion but they never really seemed to stack particularly well with our duo. That makes me wonder if you were doing something we weren't.

Danth

[thewrush]

He could be snaring and slowing so you two could focus more on damage output. Shaman wouldn't have to keep haste up since the Bard has a song for it. He could charm a pet and add more damage that way as well. SK's have incredible aggro holding capabilities. The shaman could be using excess mana to dot and the Bard would be singing hp/mana regen anyway. On downtime, he could be twisting two mana regen songs that stack(Don't remember which two). The SK and bard could work together to speed up pulls using Lull and FD.

[RDawg816]

They can add a lot with regen and mana alone for less/no downtime. Factor in pulls, cc, snares, charm dps with adds.... it really depends on the camp and how well everyone communicates. I love grouping, but I've found a lot of people are either clueless, lazy, or both...

[Xaanka]

bards actually contribute a fair bit of DPS to root rot groups or duos, around level 40-50 range if you have a decent drum modifier. after a while the bard dots peter out and you become a mana battery/mez/emergency charm again tho.

[Loke]

Yea, it really depended on how lazy the shaman wanted to be. In an ideal situation I mostly just focused on hp/mana regen, atk buffs, charm when doubles, emergency CC on bigger pulls until the shm could root/slow, aggro control in the rare event AE slow was used, and assisting with pulls. It was also sped things up because me and the monk could share tanking/pulling duties. When your puller and your tank are the same person, it can get tricky to chain mobs into camp as quickly as you can with someone who can set up the pull while the tank is still fighting. I actually used to do most of the pulling because lull was often quicker than FD/sneak, and with mez I could park and position mobs so that the shaman could root and debuff before the previous mob had been killed. Basically the monk just had to sit in camp and burn through the mobs I queued up for him so we had no downtime due to waiting on pulls.

It was always different though depending on who I was playing with. When I play my bard I usually let other players set the tone for how the group operates, and then just adapt what I'm doing to best compliment what they're doing. It doesn't always result in the most efficient group, but I always felt like I made more friends and had more fun adapting to others than expecting them to adapt to me.

[RDawg816]

That's what a good bard does. Make the group as good as it can be. ....Not swarm 40 mobs. :)

[falkun]

What did the Bard do in this group to make it work really well? The wife and I (she's a Shaman, I'm a Shadow Knight) have added Bards on occasion but they never really seemed to stack particularly well with our duo. That makes me wonder if you were doing something we weren't.

Danth

Biggest thing would be having the bard chain pull, and add extra HP/mana regen so the shaman can canni more (therefore keep up on heals). The problem your SHM/SHD group has vs. the other combo that SK DPS is vastly inferior to MNK DPS.

[Danth]

I think you may have hit on why Bards haven't, in the past, synergized particularly well with us: We don't normally need or want chain pulls and torpor already covers the healing/shaman mana regen fairly well. Seems like we only ask for a small portion of the Bard's skill set. I asked about Bards because I group with them so infrequently (they seem really rare, outside raids, at high levels) that I figure perhaps I don't know everything they can do. Would be nice to group with 'em more in-game and try out different strategies.

Danth

[thewrush]

I intend to play my alt Bard for grouping and no high end raids(no time for that BS). Currently 20 and slowing getting there. I have played one previously so I'm familiar with their group utility and not how to run in circles playing 1 song. In fact I leveled my bard on live through grouping/soloing. Didn't know what swarming even was.

[Vexenu]

The "Bard melee is horrendous" meme is a little overblown in my experience, at least below level 45 or so and with modest twinking. Bard weapons have very nice ratios and are fairly cheap (BoH 10/18 and Guardian's Mace 14/24). STR gear is also cheap and abundant (i.e. Crystal Chitin Gauntlets, Hero bracers are +30 STR alone) and makes a noticeable difference when meleeing. Then to top it off, you can self-haste and slow the mob you're fighting. It's very easy to level a Bard into the 40s this way. You won't confuse yourself for a Monk or Rogue, but your self-haste, mob slow and great weapon ratios go further than a lot of people think toward closing that gap.

[Tann]

The "Bard melee is horrendous" meme is a little overblown in my experience, at least below level 45 or so and with modest twinking. Bard weapons have very nice ratios and are fairly cheap (BoH 10/18 and Guardian's Mace 14/24). STR gear is also cheap and abundant (i.e. Crystal Chitin Gauntlets, Hero bracers are +30 STR alone).

That's at least 5kpp though, not really "cheap" for the average player. More realistic, especially for newer players wanting to play a bard, options would be like a set of banded, HP rings, a sainys claw (6/19) and a sionachie's parisan (9/19).

Which is still entirely doable with haste, slow, and OP regen songs up. Regardless of how little DPS bards put out its still more efficient (no downtime) then another solo melee class unless their really twinked.

[Eugee]

Charm Kiting:
Required songs: charm, speed, snare, chants
Charm a mob and sic it on another. Play speed and wait. When charm breaks charm the OTHER mob, sit it on the first. Play speed and repeat. When they both get so low that one flees, snare it and chant it down as the other charm breaks. Now finish the other mob off.

Fear Kiting:
Songs: snare, fear, chants, haste(optional)
Pull a mob to a good area, snare it, fear it, and apply DPS. Normal mobs can be feared from just outside melee range with practice. For bigger mobs just run in and take the hit to get them feared. If you only have 2 chants, then play snare-fear-haste-chant-chant while meleeing for max dps. If you have 3 chants, just use your drum and play snare-fear-chant-chant-chant. if you snag a resist or miss too many notes in the cycle, skip something to keep fear on the mob.

Snare Kiting:
songs: snare & chants
Once you get your third chant and you're feeling lazy, you can just snare and chant. It's only 2/3 damage but it works and it's completely safe.

That's how I solo-duo @ 48.

There's pretty much always a way for someone to duo with that. Anyone who does more DPS than you is a prime candidate to kill whatever you are fear-kiting.

[thewrush]

I'd also like to add:

Charm Swarming:
Required songs: charm, selo's, invis, chants
Basically if you are in an area with a bunch of similar mobs you charm one from the pack and send it to fight the rest of the pack. They destroy your charmed pets HP so fast you break invis and then finish it off with selo's and chants. Rinse and repeat. Make sure to not do anything to any other mobs except aggro by proximity or mob assist. Not sure how relevant this strategy is on this server but it worked decently for me on live during the PoP era. I'm aware charms cost mana so it may not work out great. I used this strat at the werewolf camp in Plane of Nightmare. Best charm break item for this is Goblin Gazughi ring.

[Eugee]

I'd also like to add:

Charm Swarming:
Required songs: charm, selo's, invis, chants
Basically if you are in an area with a bunch of similar mobs you charm one from the pack and send it to fight the rest of the pack. They destroy your charmed pets HP so fast you break invis and then finish it off with selo's and chants. Rinse and repeat. Make sure to not do anything to any other mobs except aggro by proximity or mob assist. Not sure how relevant this strategy is on this server but it worked decently for me on live during the PoP era. I'm aware charms cost mana so it may not work out great. I used this strat at the werewolf camp in Plane of Nightmare. Best charm break item for this is Goblin Gazughi ring.

When charm breaks all aggro the pet built up is passed on to you on P1999 servers. So you can do this once, but then whatever the pet was hitting is now glued to you and not the rest of the pack. Your next charm target has to be the mob you're pet was previously on or the pack won't stick to the next charm. Even then it's hit and miss. Charm-swarming does not work well on P1999 for this reason.

EDIT: And back in the PoP days *this* was called swarm kiting on my server. Everyone called the PBAE kiting that's so popular now "suicide kiting" due to the extreme risk. I heard someone call it ZD-kiting recently (zone disruption) and it's a pretty apt name. :P

[jolanar]

How on earth do you play a bard to 60 times 2 without getting CT? Is there melody for bars on p99?

Keybinding instead of mouse clicking.

[Eugee]

Keybinding instead of mouse clicking.

/agree

I have buttons for:
/pause 0, /stopcast
/pause 0, /cast #

For each of my song slots. Every 3 seconds I push one of them. In WoW/SWTOR/Wildstar/Neverwinter/EveryOtherMMO you push a key every 1.5 seconds.

[thewrush]

How does pause 0 help? And I also agree that bards aren't a whole lot of key pressing. It is about the same compared to Rogue or Monk. Monks have a few special attacks to hit every so often and Rogues constantly have to position behind mobs and hit backstab and evade. With bard you keep your hand relaxed and go through the chain. The key is keeping your wrists relaxed and using a special mouse with a bunch of buttons.

[Frudrura]

Bard is subpar to a lot of classes when you are grouping to level up. If a group wants CC/Mana regen, Enchanter is the better option. If they want a puller, there are better options than Bard. You are basically patchwork for a group that is lacking if for whatever reason there isn't an Enchanter or whatever other class LFG that the group needs.

The only thing Bard really does well is resist songs, but that is more for raiding end-game. Everything else they do, there are classes that do it way better, especially if you compare Bard to Enchanter. Bard is basically a useless class. The only things Bards do well is powerlevel. The best possible group make-up for leveling won't include a Bard. You could just throw in another Enchanter and charm a pet for more dps and so more xp.

Maybe if you are super decked out and have epic and all that, Bard is half-way decent. The problem is, are you going to be super decked out and have epic? Usually that doesn't happen until the very end of leveling, until then, you are basically second, third, etc.., last choice for a group if they can't find better.

You can still have fun but it seems like more than likely, a group will want you for CC/Mana regen, and Enchanter is superior in every way.

Good luck with the Bard

[RDawg816]

Good bards are awesome in groups. I grab one every chance I can. They can also keep a group alive a lot longer than any other class. They can fill several roles at once. They make every group better and they can fill any role, even swapping roles mid-fight. If you think otherwise, you've probably never grouped with a good bard.

[Tenlaar]

Everything else they do, there are classes that do it way better, especially if you compare Bard to Enchanter. Bard is basically a useless class.

I can't tell if you're a troll or just have no idea what you're talking about...

[IzHaN80]

I been playing bard solo/group and now these pasts few levels from 40 to 47 so far i been AoE kiting. My thoughts on the class. Very powerful, if not to say, overpowered PvE toon. Brings HELLA LOT to a group. You also have wide array of options to overcome almost any challenge due to your skills being spammable (at least 99% of them) without using any resource at all.

If you solo, Charm is your best friend, along dots, and of course, meleeing stuff when needed, but as other mentioned, your melee is subpar compared to other classes, due to the fact that we don't get double attack (and is very noticiable) plus our weapons aren't very deadly at all, not great ratios at all. Anyways due to your insane array of options, like i said earlier, you can face every challenge, and barely have any cooldown at all due to insane HP chant regen, kite ability with selos, fear/snare combo that makes necros jelly of your spammable aoe snare/fear that costs no mana at all.

In groups, this is where you shine. Insane HP Regen, haste group buffs, resists buffs, mana regen that stacks with Cs. You bring also very nice CC to the table if needed. My favorite one is to slow+snare mobs then pull off fear, makes your DPS (specially if you got a rogue) love you, and your healers because you're saving them to have to use any mana at all. You can also aoe mezz in urgent cases and keep the group alive. Single mezz that lasts longer, Charm. Definately the bard is a very self-sufficient class you will love in every aspect. It feels very satisfying =)

[IzHaN80]

I can't tell if you're a troll or just have no idea what you're talking about...

He must be a troll or have no clue at all of what he is talking about. I solo way better on a Bard than an enchanter, despite the fact that we don't have 'perma' Charm.