All the Bard with none of the carpal tunnel?

[thebeasttt]

Any vet Bards have some keybind/macro/setup suggestions for playing a group Bard without damaging your wrist lol? Is it even possible to play this class well without severe hand fatigue? Thanks

[Lorian]

Put the keyboard in your lap, not sure macros are that great as you want to adapt your twist cycle to the situation. Also switch between index finger and your thumb for twisting. I did a 3 hour raid this weekend and managed to keep 4 songs up most of the time without too much pain.

[Jogar]

Automation is your friend - find some way to automate keypresses of the song twisting, and a means to easily stop the automation for when you have to manually take over when the situation requires it.

[Jauna]

Is it even possible to play this class well without severe hand fatigue?

No, my thumb gets tired after about 3-4 hours of grouping then I notice myself to start slipping. If I am the puller I tend to twist less and can go on longer than that.

http://i.imgur.com/xxq3qEO.jpg

For regularly played songs I have in slots 1-4. Alt casting is key for me.
Alt 1 to start singing slot 1
Alt 2 to stop singing, 2 again to start singing slot 2
Alt 3 to stop singing, 3 again to start singing slot 3
Alt 4 to stop singing, 4 again to start singing slot 4
Alt 1, Alt 2(dont take your thumb off Alt) 2, Alt 3 3, Alt 4 4, Alt 1 1, repeat. This method may be bad depending on how big/where your alt key is. Your results my vary

Hotkeys 3 and 4 are Lull and Mez. To apply Mez I drop Alt 4, then Alt 3 if two targets need mezzing and so on. Even though I keep Charm up on my spell list and hotbar I rarely use it because a random break in charm can lead to a bash, missed songs and the need to recharm it or remez it

Shift 2 brings up hotbar 2, for weapon/instrument changes and other misc utility stuff like masks, clickies and other rarely used stuff

[Crawdad]

If you have a mouse with buttons you can save yourself some pain and bind your standard /stopsong and /cast # macro to them for some easy twisting.

On live we used a keystroke program to punch the buttons for us....permissible on live as long as you didn't leave your computer, but I think its outlawed here.

Besides those two "options" I don't believe there is an easy way to Bard on p99. No pain no gain.

For regularly played songs I have in slots 1-4. Alt casting is key for me.
Alt 1 to start singing slot 1
Alt 2 to stop singing, 2 again to start singing slot 2
Alt 3 to stop singing, 3 again to start singing slot 3
Alt 4 to stop singing, 4 again to start singing slot 4
Alt 1, Alt 2(dont take your thumb off Alt) 2, Alt 3 3, Alt 4 4, Alt 1 1, repeat. This method may be bad depending on how big/where your alt key is. Your results my vary

For int/wis casters Alt casting is fine, but when out barding I've noticed it lags/delays, and you'll drop down to 3-4 songs up rather than 4-5 (YMMV). I do use it for quick access to CC songs (always at the top) though.

Since nobody has posted it yet:

/stopsong
/cast 1

One for every spell gem. I use different pages for different songs for keys 1-5, 6-10 remaining hotkeys are for instrument/gear swapping. Spell gem 1=Always mez, Spell 2=Always charm.. I'll post a screenshot later if this confuses anyone.

[Jauna]

For int/wis casters Alt casting is fine, but when out barding I've noticed it lags/delays, and you'll drop down to 3-4 songs up rather than 4-5 (YMMV). I do use it for quick access to CC songs (always at the top) though.

I keep 4 songs up just fine alt casting, the fabled 5th is Breath of Harmony or Epic

[Xaanka]

bind movement to ESDF for more available keys next to your movement

bind songs to wrtgbvcxzaq keys, re bind useless shit like /sit /stand that you don't need as it gets in your way.

thank me later

[Troxx]

For me 1-8 are

/stopsong
/cast #

0 is stopsong alone

9 is BOH click for easy 0-9 click rolling.

The trick is to keep your hand and wrist in a neutral position and relaxed. Aoe kiting is more cumbersome and I recommend taking breaks between pulls. For routine play if you keep your wrist relaxed its just 1 button press every 3 seconds ... Which really isn't that bad. Compared to modern eq (live) and other modern computer games - boarding on p99 doesn't really require that many keystrokes per unit time.

Stay relaxed and it'll be fine. If you crinch up your hand, yeah it'll hurt.

[Udabut]

Logitech or Razor mouse with buttons on side. I use a Logitech with 16 programmable buttons on the side. Can click away with just your thumb, then I mapped E,S,D and F for forward, left, back, and right. Do not have to worry about wrist at all.

[TeemoOfAstora]

The macros for stopping and casting every slot are an absolute must and will save you a lot of trouble. What I'll also do is move the songs macros around so at any given time i'm cycling through the 1-5 keys on my keyboard by rotating through some arrangement of the songs i want to blast depending on the situation. I also have the 6 slot bound to one of my mouse buttons (along with inventory and open all bags).

Here's a screenshot of what I use for my barding these days with songs 1, 2, 8, 4, 3, 6 being the ones i most readily swapped around while slinking about live side gukbot, sausage fingering all over the keyboard enough to take a screenshot for no reason.

http://i.imgur.com/7aAPYe3.jpg?1

the UI I'm using is a customized version of Leewong's blue UI (https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156209). It's been modified so the player window displays surname properly and all the stats have been made bigger/moved around.

my strafe keys are bound to click track and forage respectively as i move around.
on page 2 of hotbar 3 Forage is replaced with sense heading and the range attack has
/loc in it for when i'm taking the firepot room in TD =^.^=

the 1 - 8 buttons do the standard song macro so for example 5 has in it:
/stopsong
/cast 5

I keep the top two inventory slots for instrument/weapon swapping. I've linked those slots as well as the primary and secondary slots to hotbar 3 to enable me to do this without opening up the inventory. The tinkerers bag with my weapons (and a bunch of alternative gear) opens right next to the hotbar 3.

[thebeasttt]

Wow lots of great advice! Thanks a bunch

[Murri]

Wow is all of this actually legal here? All I do is tap 12,23,34,41 or tap 2 and click the song with random breath of harmony clicks to keep it up. You are all cheaters!!! I'd recommend setting you keyboard/mouse/monitor/chair correctly to reduce fatigue. Maybe stretch your wrist? I personally have zero fatigue with my current setup. It's just tapping a few buttons so you shouldn't have fatigue unless your setup really strains your wrist. Posture can help too.

[-Catherin-]

it's all about proper ergo

[Swish]

It started with a bard...

http://i.imgur.com/b9sPFJB.gif?1

[Xaanka]

http://i.imgur.com/HGKWgVW.gif

[Porky]

I have a razer naga with the 12 buttons on the side and cast all my spells/songs from there. i only have to move my thumb to do it and i barely have to move it at all.

[Cecily]

My good friend had carpal tunnels from playing his bard. Ending up quitting it for a rogue. When i was trying to convince him not to retire the bard, the advice I got from veteran bard guildie in TMO who had also felt the carpals coming on suggested a razor 8 button mouse. Really cut the strain from the class.

Good luck with your ergonomics. I was developing it from tradeskilling and it sucked.