Is a bard wrong for me?

[RPGrandPa]

Played the game on launch, never raided much at all and played a Cleric back then. Was thinking of trying a Bard since I am returning brand new on Green. Never played one, but they seem like a lot of fun. I played on live at launch but only made it to 25-30'ish I forget.

My biggest fear is being main puller. I don't know enough about the game to effectively be a puller lol I would not even know how if I had to do dungeons and lord raids would be murder since I've never raided.

So my questions are:
1) I figure I'll be soloing for most of my leveling life but at 40+ if I find groups, what will be my roll in the group?

2) For raiding what would be my role? I've heard Bards are mostly song bots on raids, is this true?

I basically want to see if playing a Bard (for me) is a mistake or not. Sure, over a long time of playing I'm sure I would learn but that's way down the road.

[Toxigen]

a well played bard is a thing of beauty

highest actions per minute class in the game when played at a high level

if you're not a tryhard, id play something else

[RPGrandPa]

a well played bard is a thing of beauty

highest actions per minute class in the game when played at a high level

if you're not a tryhard, id play something else

explain further please.

As far as me being an elitist, nah I ain't bout that. Its a game, I wanna have fun but at same time I'd like to play halfway decent. And respectfully you did not answer any of my questions.

[Surpent]

explain further please.

As far as me being an elitist, nah I ain't bout that. Its a game, I wanna have fun but at same time I'd like to play halfway decent. And respectfully you did not answer any of my questions.

Bard is jack of all trades and can do everything. That is cc, heal, dps, charm, ect. If you plan on sitting there playing mana song, try another class.

Watch a couple youtube videos, play the class a few levels and see if you like.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

explain further please.

As far as me being an elitist, nah I ain't bout that. Its a game, I wanna have fun but at same time I'd like to play halfway decent. And respectfully you did not answer any of my questions.

Bards take more effort than most other classes because you need to play multiple songs at the same time if you want to be at your best. You aren't simply playing one song and autoattacking. The way bards play multiple songs requires a lot of key pressing to maintain, more-so than other classes.

To answer your specific questions:

1. Depends on the group. You could be asked to pull if you are the best candidate, as bards have tools like lull. You could just be a mana/hp bot too if the group has the critical roles covered already.

2. Bards do things in raids besides playing mana song. If there is a fear raid going on, the bards are going to be kiting trash mobs around the zone, as a simple example.

Since you don't want to be a puller, you should pick a class that isn't a normal candidate for pulling. Cleric and Rogue are probably the least likely to be pullers in any given scenario. Wizards and Mages are not usually pullers either, but Mages can be asked to do DA trains in raids. Wizards can pull too with tools like Flux Staff.

Mage or Wizard would be my suggestions, since you already tried a Cleric, and it seems like you want to do some soloing. Rogues are generally the worst solo class.

[RPGrandPa]

Bard is jack of all trades and can do everything. That is cc, heal, dps, charm, ect. If you plan on sitting there playing mana song, try another class.

Watch a couple youtube videos, play the class a few levels and see if you like.

I was not trying to find a LAZY class lol I was just curious how complex or easy they were and what was expected from a Bard in groups/raids.

[bcbrown]

Bards are neither simple nor easy. You have to juggle whether you’re using melee or instruments, and since each song only lasts 3 or 4 ticks, you frequently have to decide which of two good options is better for the moment.

You can group all the way through while leveling if you wish, and I recommend doing that at least one level out of ten so you know how to group effectively. I personally think the sweet spot with bards is in duos or trios. Sometimes you can stay back and just twist mana/health regen. You can take over cc if there’s no enchanter, keeping up to three mobs mezzed. Charming is a great way to contribute dps and cc at the same time. Pulling is one of the strengths of bards, but up now till 48 I’ve only had four or five sessions where I was primarily pulling.

At higher levels in grouping it seems like the two best roles a hard can fill is either just pumping mana or pulling. That’s part of why I like duos and trios, where you have more roles you can fill. Raiding sounds like it’s mostly afk manasong, but I’ve never raided.

If you roll a bard, definitely spend levels 15-17 in crushbone throne room, where you can aoe mez and keep everything locked down. You can check out my bard thread to see more of my experiences leveling my bard.

[Keebz]

Raiding on bards is mostly a lot of running in circles kiting trash for hours and pumping mana. Group DA comes in handy sometimes as well. Lastly, there's racing for FTEs, which is not for everyone, but bards are excellent at.

Depending on the player and raid zone, a bard can basically be a bot or a play maker.

[Ripqozko]

Raiding on bards is mostly a lot of running in circles kiting trash for hours and pumping mana. Group DA comes in handy sometimes as well. Lastly, there's racing for FTEs, which is not for everyone, but bards are excellent at.

Depending on the player and raid zone, a bard can basically be a bot or a play maker.

Except most racing for fte is sow speed only so ranger wins

[Keebz]

Eh, most races SoW speed? Kael and Sleeper's I guess. Sev too (but who cares).

When limited to sow speed, Ranger is good if you have LoS to max range shoot something (MOTG comes to mind), but there's not a lot of those. They also get Bind Sight and can WS their train to buy 18s, which is solid.

On the other hand, bards get better run speed in VP, planes, non-sev/tal kunark targets, get bind sight, get DA, get Deftdance (like WS), get illusion spells to change size (hfl/gnome, barb is huge) and moreover can cast said illusions while mid-race to fit through/over obstacles (kael races come to mind).

Bards are solidly S tier racers. Rangers B+. A Windstriker FTE is pure hype, though.

[Wakanda]

IDK if bards are necessarily always going to be the puller. When I play my cleric I get a little heated if the bard is pulling instead of sitting next to me playing mana song at all times 😹 in my experience though I don’t think most groups you are going to encounter are going to be super cutthroat and will understand you are new to pulling or new to certain zones. My last couple of groups have had rogue pullers even though we had a monk in the group 😹 they were just having fun.

[Toxigen]

highly doubt the op is ever going to be racing in VP lol

to go back to op: if ya gotta ask, then bard may not be for you

necro can do a lot in a group without trying too hard...and they're very capable solo

might be a better pick for ya

[Lowako]

Played the game on launch, never raided much at all and played a Cleric back then. Was thinking of trying a Bard since I am returning brand new on Green. Never played one, but they seem like a lot of fun. I played on live at launch but only made it to 25-30'ish I forget.

My biggest fear is being main puller. I don't know enough about the game to effectively be a puller lol I would not even know how if I had to do dungeons and lord raids would be murder since I've never raided.

So my questions are:
1) I figure I'll be soloing for most of my leveling life but at 40+ if I find groups, what will be my roll in the group?

2) For raiding what would be my role? I've heard Bards are mostly song bots on raids, is this true?

I basically want to see if playing a Bard (for me) is a mistake or not. Sure, over a long time of playing I'm sure I would learn but that's way down the road.

1.) in groups you will primarily be pulling and/or CC and buffing the group with your songs when you do land in camp. given that bards are a highly versatile class your role will tend to shift slightly depending on context, namely the zone you're in and group makeup.

if you know enough about the game to understand the concept of a puller roll existing then you likely understand enough about the game to fill the role. keep a steady flow of bad guys in the camp without overwhelming your group. how do you accomplish this? use the bajillion tools bards have available - running fast, snare, pacify, mez, charm - experiment and use your best judgement to find what tools work best for a situation. they all accomplish the same goal of limiting the number of bad guys your group has to fight.

if lack of knowledge of zone layout / mob placement is what has you scared those are both things you'll learn very quickly. maps exist and if you have enough navigation skills to not get lost on your way to the bathroom at a friends house you'll probably be okay.

2.) depends entirely on the zone/encounter/context/are you the first bard there - sometimes you'll be kiting a whole zone, sometimes you assist in pulling, sometimes you just stand next to the clerics behind a wall and press 1 2 2 2 on repeat until you question where you went wrong in life.

honestly tho if you're new i wouldn't be concerned with how any class plays in raids because raiding is so vastly different from the rest of the game it borders on being its own separate mini-game. pretty much every class has responsibilities that range from "guy who is barely indistinguishable from someone who's AFK" and "guy who is responsible for carrying the 65 of the 70 players present"

[dajudge]

Bard is by far one of the most fun classes in the game. Soloing is a blast, especially for solo leveling. That is if you like twisting songs and running in circles with 25 mobs. You can also charm kite, it's slower leveling but doable.

Do you like dungeon crawling? There's a few zones in which a bard is capable of this but summoning mobs make it a bit trickier. Most likely you'll be grouping up in those zones.

As for raiding your utility is by far the largest asset you bring. Clerics want you in their group, rogues want you in their group and your raid leader will want you kiting adds/Bard DA's and ability to bind sight and gather raid knowledge to relay for engages.

In an ideal world you level up 4 bards, one perma VP parked, one for ToV/CoV factioned content, One for fear portal and the final bard for VS engages. That's the sweatiest of dreams.

[WarpathEQ]

Played the game on launch, never raided much at all and played a Cleric back then. Was thinking of trying a Bard since I am returning brand new on Green. Never played one, but they seem like a lot of fun. I played on live at launch but only made it to 25-30'ish I forget.

My biggest fear is being main puller. I don't know enough about the game to effectively be a puller lol I would not even know how if I had to do dungeons and lord raids would be murder since I've never raided.

So my questions are:
1) I figure I'll be soloing for most of my leveling life but at 40+ if I find groups, what will be my roll in the group?

2) For raiding what would be my role? I've heard Bards are mostly song bots on raids, is this true?

I basically want to see if playing a Bard (for me) is a mistake or not. Sure, over a long time of playing I'm sure I would learn but that's way down the road.

Bard is a jack of all trades and a master of few (fastest run speed, highest resist buffs, and critical unique debuffs), my favorite class in the game as evidenced by 50% of my toons being bards (3/6). The best part about bard is you can do a little of everything and you can provide value in any situation, but that also means people will look to you when something is needed and expect you to step up.

Bard is a class that can group or solo at any level 1-60 which is nice that you can pick and choose when and how you want to level your toon. Fear kiting, Charm kiting and (my least favorite) swarm kiting are all viable and efficient soloing tactics for a bard.

1) At 40+ its rare that you would be the puller, I find that is usually requested of a bard at lower levels (1-40) where pulling most often falls on whoever is the best player in the group regardless of class. You will be the person that makes everyone in the group the best version of themselves. What you will do will vary based on the make up of the group. More melee heavy groups will benefit more from things like haste where casters will want mana song, you may need to be the one that is slowing the mobs or you may need to assist with crowd control when multiple mobs come in with the pull. You'll end up with a staple of go-to songs that you use most often but you'll also find yourself making adjustments for each group or camp that you're in.

2) For raiding, similar to grouping, bard roles can be extremely dynamic. At the lowest level/simplest form of raiding, bards group with the clerics and run mana song while often assisting the slow team by landing OOS on the target (this is likely what raiding will be like the first month or 2). At the highest form a bard can be one of the most important raiders in the guild helping secure FTEs on high valued targets, establishing large zone wide kites to expedite kills, making raid saving heads up plays to get unexpected mobs out of camp, and DAing the entire group to avoid vicious AoEs just to name a few key things bards are known for doing at a high level.

IMO the right class for you is the one you enjoy playing the most. That's what will encourage you to stick with the game and see your character through to the end game while materializing high level skills that.

If you do choose bard working on being the best you can at twisting songs will be one of the simplest yet most valuable things you can do. Inherently everything a bard does lasts a very short duration so bards benefit from landing as many songs as they can before the first song duration ends, and then repeating those songs over and over (known as twisting) to maximize the amount of song effects you can maintain through a fight. A low quality bard might only be using 1-2 songs at a time whereas the best bards in the game are capable of keeping up 5, 6, sometimes even 7 (with item effects) songs at a time which can make an absolutely massive difference in the outcome at any level.

[Toxigen]

A standard 4 twist with CC abilities at the ready is totally fine and nobody will ever know the difference.

If OP doesn't like the sound of having to constantly press buttons, then bard isn't the choice.

[sajbert]

Bard doesn't have to pull much, rarely any advanced stuff either. In raids you mosty just twist songs, that's it. In groups you just afk-sing or twist. You can do amazing shit or sit on your arse, depending on your ability but expectation is low.

You can solo or group to 60, swarm for fastest leveling in the game if you want.

Epic is hard but not impossible.

You miss nothing starting a bard today instead of classic, other than maybe the gnome mask which almost no one has or ever will, it's nifty but that's about it.

Only downside with a bard would be no real ability to solo big cash camps and no ability to gate or port. Not sure if a VP-keyed veeshan bard who hasn't killed any relevant dragons could hammer to OT and travel to VP and sing the mobs to non-KOS to access the portals there for access to sky, freeport and swamp of no hope. Then if you are ToV bound you could get around the world quite well.

[Vivitron]

Only downside with a bard would be no real ability to solo big cash camps and no ability to gate or port. Not sure if a VP-keyed veeshan bard who hasn't killed any relevant dragons could hammer to OT and travel to VP and sing the mobs to non-KOS to access the portals there for access to sky, freeport and swamp of no hope. Then if you are ToV bound you could get around the world quite well.

An interesting idea. If you drop the non-kos idea, the question becomes whether you can eyeball through any of the locked doors without catching aggro. I think you might be able to get through PD (Sky) but probably not Druushk. For Swamp, I think it would be easier to run directly from Overthere even if you could get through Xygoz.

[Ripqozko]

Eh, most races SoW speed? Kael and Sleeper's I guess. Sev too (but who cares).

When limited to sow speed, Ranger is good if you have LoS to max range shoot something (MOTG comes to mind), but there's not a lot of those. They also get Bind Sight and can WS their train to buy 18s, which is solid.

On the other hand, bards get better run speed in VP, planes, non-sev/tal kunark targets, get bind sight, get DA, get Deftdance (like WS), get illusion spells to change size (hfl/gnome, barb is huge) and moreover can cast said illusions while mid-race to fit through/over obstacles (kael races come to mind).

Bards are solidly S tier racers. Rangers B+. A Windstriker FTE is pure hype, though.

they said for FTE races, there isnt any on blue in VP, all the ones that matter are sow run speed, kael, sev, dain, ST etc. idk what green does just sayin

[Vivitron]

they said for FTE races, there isnt any on blue in VP, all the ones that matter are sow run speed, kael, sev, dain, ST etc. idk what green does just sayin

SoW-only really isn't an issue except when it pairs up with one of the bards disadvantages (mostly no bow -- which does ruin bards for part of your list). I wouldn't get too heart set on running a particular race on a particular character; who knows when the raid rules will change either entirely or on some small detail giving a different class an advantage. Both bard and ranger toolkits give them a pretty good chance of staying usable on multiple races imo.

Unrelated to your point, but when VP dragons are unraced pulling them is a nice opportunity for bards to get out of camp. PoG and Fear are other good places where you can run around even if you didn't sock for fte.

[Surpent]

IDK if bards are necessarily always going to be the puller. When I play my cleric I get a little heated if the bard is pulling instead of sitting next to me playing mana song at all times 😹 in my experience though I don’t think most groups you are going to encounter are going to be super cutthroat and will understand you are new to pulling or new to certain zones. My last couple of groups have had rogue pullers even though we had a monk in the group 😹 they were just having fun.

Until you play with a bard pulling with a ss helm while sitting in camp singing spells. I never played a bard, but they're an insane class to be grouped with the right person playing them.

[Toxigen]

Until you play with a bard pulling with a ss helm while sitting in camp singing spells. I never played a bard, but they're an insane class to be grouped with the right person playing them.

ding ding ding

a bard w/o eye helm isn't really a bard

[Videri]

Played the game on launch, never raided much at all and played a Cleric back then. Was thinking of trying a Bard since I am returning brand new on Green. Never played one, but they seem like a lot of fun. I played on live at launch but only made it to 25-30'ish I forget.

My biggest fear is being main puller. I don't know enough about the game to effectively be a puller lol I would not even know how if I had to do dungeons and lord raids would be murder since I've never raided.

So my questions are:
1) I figure I'll be soloing for most of my leveling life but at 40+ if I find groups, what will be my roll in the group?

2) For raiding what would be my role? I've heard Bards are mostly song bots on raids, is this true?

I basically want to see if playing a Bard (for me) is a mistake or not. Sure, over a long time of playing I'm sure I would learn but that's way down the road.

OP, you can totally play bard. You don't have to do all the things people in this thread are describing. You don't have to be some kind of Jimmy Neutron meganerd bard.

1) Crowd control. Level 15 mez, later replaced by level 28 mez, and level 27 charm spell. You can turn a 3- or 4- mob cluster**** into a nice chunk of exp for your group by neutralizing enemies, or even weaponizing them. And what's better than neutralizing adds? Never having adds in the first place thanks to level 8 Kelin's Lugubrious Lament. Two enemies next to each other? Lull Mob A, pull Mob B.

2) Certain raids you kite (attract mobs without getting hit, then run in a circle for many minutes while your guildmates kill stuff). Certain raids, you "bump" (use your Deftdance discipline to parry all attacks from the front). But most raids, such as Halls of Testing or Kael Arena or even Vindi, you just manasong the clerics (and necros).

If you're not up for all the fancy stuff and different methods of soloing and feats of high-APM nerd glory, that's fine, your bard is still powerful.

Be sure to set a "cycle through nearby NPCs" button. And I also like to set a "target nearest NPC" button. You can do this in Options (Alt-O) > Keys.

[Ripqozko]

OP, you can totally play bard. You don't have to do all the things people in this thread are describing. You don't have to be some kind of Jimmy Neutron meganerd bard.

1) Crowd control. Level 15 mez, later replaced by level 28 mez, and level 27 charm spell. You can turn a 3- or 4- mob cluster**** into a nice chunk of exp for your group by neutralizing enemies, or even weaponizing them. And what's better than neutralizing adds? Never having adds in the first place thanks to level 8 Kelin's Lugubrious Lament. Two enemies next to each other? Lull Mob A, pull Mob B.

2) Certain raids you kite (attract mobs without getting hit, then run in a circle for many minutes while your guildmates kill stuff). Certain raids, you "bump" (use your Deftdance discipline to parry all attacks from the front). But most raids, such as Halls of Testing or Kael Arena or even Vindi, you just manasong the clerics (and necros).

If you're not up for all the fancy stuff and different methods of soloing and feats of high-APM nerd glory, that's fine, your bard is still powerful.

Be sure to set a "cycle through nearby NPCs" button. And I also like to set a "target nearest NPC" button. You can do this in Options (Alt-O) > Keys.

OP you dont have to be this hardcore, you can just put cantana on your bar and AFK, you dont need 10 apm to play a bard. Certain raids only require you to sing mana and afk.

[Vivitron]

Not sure if a VP-keyed veeshan bard who hasn't killed any relevant dragons could hammer to OT and travel to VP and sing the mobs to non-KOS to access the portals there for access to sky, freeport and swamp of no hope. Then if you are ToV bound you could get around the world quite well.
An interesting idea. If you drop the non-kos idea, the question becomes whether you can eyeball through any of the locked doors without catching aggro. I think you might be able to get through PD (Sky) but probably not Druushk. For Swamp, I think it would be easier to run directly from Overthere even if you could get through Xygoz.
Follow up, I did get through pd on my kos bard. Full disclosure though, the first attempt I got in a bad spot between a couple see invis roamers, aggrod, and had to train away and cycle camp. I learned how to avoid that particular aggro, but given the PITA a corpse run would be I expect to continue to prefer dial a ports.

[Morningbreath]

OP, you can totally play bard. You don't have to do all the things people in this thread are describing. You don't have to be some kind of Jimmy Neutron meganerd bard.

1) Crowd control. Level 15 mez, later replaced by level 28 mez, and level 27 charm spell. You can turn a 3- or 4- mob cluster**** into a nice chunk of exp for your group by neutralizing enemies, or even weaponizing them. And what's better than neutralizing adds? Never having adds in the first place thanks to level 8 Kelin's Lugubrious Lament. Two enemies next to each other? Lull Mob A, pull Mob B..

Yeah I want a bard single-pulling, snaring, mezzing, etc rather than patting themselves on the back for frantically twisting songs like a misguided tryhard.

Just relax and adapt your songs to help the group work better.

[Toxigen]

Bare minimum:

- Keep lute on.

- Keep cantana up 100%, even if pulling without eye helm (you have lots of time after a cast).

- Pull based on the strength of your group. Don't trickle single mobs slowly into a competent team and don't bring a big pack of nasties into a group that can't handle it. You should be working on the next pull as soon as there is only 1 mob left in camp, or before if you know you have some distance to cover. Have the next set of mobs coming in as they're finishing up that last mob. Flow / efficiency is what separates good pullers from bad ones.... always be managing multiple mobs but not being overwhelmed...thats the sweet spot.

- CC on pull...see above. Charm is amazing in a situation where your temporary pet can hold aggro on another mob while the group handles the roots / tank pickup / etc. You're essentially doing 2 mobs worth of DPS in that small window of getting the pull under control.

- Identify what else your group needs and twist accordingly, but not if its going to sacrifice efficiency in any of the above.

- Nivs is good. Breath of Harmony is moar gud. Singing Steel Helm is amazing and should be in your inventory by level 44 for when you ding 45.

Bards that try to melee without doing the above efficiently are terrible bards, melee really should be saved for when you get your epic which for 90%+ of bards is essentially never. I've seen maybe 4 bards in all my years be able to melee while twisting / swapping / pulling / CC / etc. It takes a true autist to do that.

Also remember: a capable necro and bard can heal most normal XP groups. Just because you don't have a cleric / shaman / druid doesn't mean you can't keep going.

[Jimjam]

Really good post, Toxigen.

[bcbrown]

How do you use the SS helm for pulling? I know it spawns an eyeball and your sight gets bound to it, but do you then face pull with it? Something draws aggro, hits it for a damage, then the eye poofs and the mob runs back to you? You can't cast lull/snare/etc based on the eye's location, can you?

[Toxigen]

How do you use the SS helm for pulling? I know it spawns an eyeball and your sight gets bound to it, but do you then face pull with it? Something draws aggro, hits it for a damage, then the eye poofs and the mob runs back to you? You can't cast lull/snare/etc based on the eye's location, can you?

yeah...its a little risky if you dont have dangerous spots broken up and your group is lacking enc aoe mez in places with casters...

but for normal everyday pulling, it allows you to keep twisting in group and run off with the eye and body aggro...i like to move up after eye dies and get LoS on a target and then as soon as its in range start casting and run back to the group...stuff is getting CC'd before they even arrive to your mates its great

its really nice once you have aoe snare, can just yolo pull like a madman and handle w/e comes to camp

definitely not for exploring, but when you have an established camp and know every mob spawn by heart its great

edit: bards that dont move while casting trying to juggle CC are really bad...even a little circle kite will cut down on dmg taken by a metric shit-ton

id say bards require the most situational awareness of any class to play well...by far

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1155754690 (not me but a very good bard player here on p99) - showcases you can do a LOT in tight spaces

[bcbrown]

bards that dont move while casting trying to juggle CC are really bad...even a little circle kite will cut down on dmg taken by a metric shit-ton

id say bards require the most situational awareness of any class to play well...by far

I'd still only consider myself a mediocre-to-decent bard, so hearing everyone discuss what's good or bad barding has been super helpful in getting better. I will say that playing a bard has made me much better at grouping on my other toons. Whenever I get around to rolling an enchanter I think it's going to feel like easy mode.



https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1155754690 (not me but a very good bard player here on p99) - showcases you can do a LOT in tight spaces

lmao I've watched that video a couple times now to study how he uses the aoe snare. I just hit 54 and have been excited to start using it. I still don't get how he's able to avoid getting hit while casting pbaoe songs, but I think it's just gonna be a lot more practice to get the timing and range down.

[Toxigen]

I'd still only consider myself a mediocre-to-decent bard, so hearing everyone discuss what's good or bad barding has been super helpful in getting better. I will say that playing a bard has made me much better at grouping on my other toons. Whenever I get around to rolling an enchanter I think it's going to feel like easy mode.




lmao I've watched that video a couple times now to study how he uses the aoe snare. I just hit 54 and have been excited to start using it. I still don't get how he's able to avoid getting hit while casting pbaoe songs, but I think it's just gonna be a lot more practice to get the timing and range down.

oh yeah enchanter is going to be a cinch after bard, just cant recover HP after a mistake / bad rng so gotta be prepared

range is just practice...once it clicks you're set