Bard Melee -vs- Instrument Question

[GardylooGubbins]

I need some help. I'm reading a lot on the forums about how bard melee is terrible, and I shouldn't be doing it post 30 or so. I currently have a level 30 bard, and have been mostly soloing via fear kite. I know how to swarm kite but don't enjoy it and honestly feel bad monopolizing a zone. I haven't really tried charming yet.

My question is, if I wanted to still do methods like fear kiting, should I just be using dots with instruments instead of melee? What would the song rotation look like at my level? Just Consonant Chain, Screech, and Fufil's?

*Edit, just tried the rotation listed above with instruments only and with melee. Melee was much faster. What am I missing?

[Vivitron]

I would try chain/screech/fufil's/denons disruptive discord/chords of dissonance. Try it with instruments and then try it meleeing and compare. Also try melee swapping chords for jonthans.

Remember to test again when you get more tools. The other drum dots will be a big boost to your dotting and, later, prime hand instruments will be a big boost to your melee. You can click in a prime hand instrument right as the song lands without taking off your offhand, then click your prime hand weapon back in. The lute of the howler's right click is a big melee buff, and opens up the option of meleeing while still getting the instrument mod on string songs. E.g. you could snare/fear/59dot/48dot/2dot.

On the rare occasion I fear kite at 60 I usually do snare/fear/3x drum dots, meleeing but putting in the prime hand drum as the dots land, occasionally dropping a drum dot to re-up the minute long 60 horn dot.

Charm killing is fun. The basic method is charm one, dot up the other and selos if outdoors, regens if indoors. When the charm breaks, charm the one you just dotted and repeat. Start outdoors on melee mobs to get the hang of it. Once you're good at it, indoors works if you stick to the lower level range of blue cons. Keep snare/fear in mind as an option to finish them, especially if you move on to casters.

[Snaggles]

Reverse kiting with three chants might be a bit slower than melee later on if you have good gear and a lute of the howler for the buff. It’s way easier though since often your dps is affected by ranging swings (pathing, ping etc).

In the early levels you are probably best swarming or reverse-kite melee. Charming is really efficient later and how I got to 60. It’s slower than swarming but you also tend to learn more functional skills. Unless you want to breeze to 60 for another raid character to park taking a bit more time is seldom a bad thing.

In the end most classes only have a couple ways to solo. A bard has a handful of them. Just do what works for you. If you dislike the method or need to use a different one situationally, it’s nice that is an option.

[busted]

Preface: If you have the pp, you can do the following.

Primary instruments are what you are after.

- https://wiki.project1999.com/Lute_of_the_Howler
- https://wiki.project1999.com/Drums_of_the_Beast
- https://wiki.project1999.com/Efreeti_War_Horn
- (alt https://wiki.project1999.com/Singing_Short_Sword)

With primary instruments, you can melee and swap in the instrument right before the song lands for maximum benefit.

This way you get melee DPS (which can be pretty ok with decent weapons) and max dot damage. This is the way.

For fear-kiting, grab a pair of https://wiki.project1999.com/Singing_Steel_Greaves to free up a song slot and fear away.

[wuanahto]

instrument only if you are lazy or have carpel tunnel/arthritis. regular groups and leveling up if you are sitting back with an instrument giving people 15 str instead of 10 str you are a wasted slot.

if you are in a raid situation and your group needs resists, yeah you will be instrumenting
if you are in a raid situation and you are in the caster/healer group, yeah you will be instrumenting

jack of all trades class, you will never be just doing one single thing all the time. unless your raid leader hates you or views you as disposable

[Ennewi]

instrument only if you are lazy or have carpel tunnel/arthritis. regular groups and leveling up if you are sitting back with an instrument giving people 15 str instead of 10 str you are a wasted slot.

Instrument mods do so much more than that. If pulling, there won't really be any time to linger within melee range; you can however get a drum dot off while running out of camp to gather the next pull. It is possible to juggle weapons and instruments but as others have said, primaries are required.

[Trelaboon]

My question is, if I wanted to still do methods like fear kiting, should I just be using dots with instruments instead of melee? What would the song rotation look like at my level? Just Consonant Chain, Screech, and Fufil's?

*Edit, just tried the rotation listed above with instruments only and with melee. Melee was much faster. What am I missing?

I just started playing on Green fairly recently and my first character was a Bard, which naturally was untwinked. Once you’re high enough level to have all 3 drum dots, the fastest way to kill is just snaring, then range kiting using your 3 drum dots and Dennon’s. If you were to have a Lute of the Howler, it would make more sense to melee, since you wouldn’t need to twist in a haste to make it worth it.

Worth noting that dots and snare/fear all have a long enough duration you can pretty easily hold down 5 songs. They all say “3 ticks” on the Wiki, but both snare and fear seem to last long enough to keep both up 100% of the time twisting 5 songs, as opposed to other songs being able to normally hold up 4. So to answer your rotation question, I’d do Snare>Fear>Fufil’s>Chords>Dennon’s, then meleeing as well. You could swap out Chords to twist in Jonthan’s instead for the 35% haste, which will fall off for just a second usually by the time you recast it, but it will be up the majority of the time. When using songs like fear and snare, you’re hurting yourself not twisting in an additional 3 songs

There are definitely much more seasoned Bards to ask than me, but as someone who has leveled one recently with zero twink gear, this was what was most effective for me.

[Ennewi]

If pulling, there won't really be any time to linger within melee range

One caveat to this—if eye pulling, you could feasibly position into melee range on the current target during the brief delay when eyeball summon takes hold and can be sent out. Would just have to aggro mobs with eye before the current target dies, otherwise would be dependent on group to bring the next target to you, unless tanking but aggro from songs isn't anywhere near as snappy as before. If/when that gets reverted, it would be possible to blanket AE snare/slow and have DPS attack the next mezzed target so it makes a beeline for you. Then just turn auto-attack on while continuing to navigate eyeball around. Lots of micromanaging but such is bard life.

[Vivitron]

One caveat to this—if eye pulling, you could feasibly position into melee range on the current target during the brief delay when eyeball summon takes hold and can be sent out.

You can melee and position during the 8 second helm cast. Got to love the bard ability to use clickies while moving.

[Ennewi]

You can melee and position during the 8 second helm cast. Got to love the bard ability to use clickies while moving.

Aye, just something I avoid out of habit since getting aggro/riposted has a decent chance of interrupting it. But yeah, clicking on the run. How did that get left in? Most of the time bard doesn't even have to rely on emergency wc cap/instant gate pots; velium vapors work fine enough unless somehow unable to get out of melee range.

[Alarria]

Regarding monopolizing zones, you really aren't at 30. That's a perfect time to go to FV and swarm the drolvarg near Swamp of No Hope zone line. There are SO many out there, you can grab 25 and there would probably be 50 more wandering. Save your fangs for 45! Turn them all in and get a ton of exp into the hell level.

After that, I picked up a pair of Singing Steel gloves and went to Lake of Ill Omen. With snare+ fear and 3 drum dots, you can easily fear kite the bloodgills and kill all of them (like 16?) before respawns. Went to 51 in like 2 days doing that. I personally felt that 3 drum dots was much better fear kiting than melee, but my weapons were a Breath of Harmony and a Crystalline Short Sword, so not the best.