Cordelia Minster (North Karana)

[Phallax]

On live I use to grind Cordelia Minster in NK and Vhalen Nostrolo in SK for exp. Was a good single mob to grind some EXP from at your own pace. Neither one of these bards on live ever casted(cant say if Vhalen is havnt started grinding him yet) and Cordelia currently is. Its not a huge problem but its also not accurate

[Phallax]

Vhalen is also casting. Couldnt check the charm hes using but he is casting Fufil's Curtailing Chant. Which is not listed in Lucy NPC spell usage. Also if you read through the Vhalen Nostrolo link on Allakhazam youll see people talking about hes an easy camp because he doesnt cast.

Bards are good to kill for only 1 purpose unless you are an evil race (kill all u want) when leveled and need exp to keep the level. they are the EASIEST mob for its level as they use meele and none of the songs,believe me if they used the songs they wouldnt be camped half as often. from his Beastiary link

http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=3323

[Garik]

Yeah. I used to camp vhalen like it was my job back in the day. never cast shit, but sure did like to drop those mandolins

[Gorroth]

The 3 high level bards in Highhold Keep also cast; high-level spells, including mez and charm mind you, making them impossible to kill as a solo or duo when they were actually decent exp on live.

[nilbog]

Can anyone provide me a date for when bard npcs started casting? Links or patch notes.

[Phallax]

Can anyone provide me a date for when bard npcs started casting? Links or patch notes.

I can search for this, but I honestly have no clue, they never did while I played.

[Gorroth]

Not as good as patch notes but... Here are a few links to Allakhazam's bestiary.

Scorn Banshee, currently identified as a bard on P99 as it casts bard spells:

current (http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=1589) / archive (http://web.archive.org/web/20010605025704/eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=1589)

a scorn banshee
Undead
Screenshot
Uploaded July 24th, 2007
Warrior

Implying that it did not cast spells.


Adding 3 NPC bards in High Keep:

Starr Dreamspinner (http://web.archive.org/web/20020308183249/eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=1670) / Storm Dragonchaser (http://web.archive.org/web/20020319085821/eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=1671) / Isabella Cellus (http://web.archive.org/web/20020319091349/eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=1662)

...i see her hunted all the time and its about time for me to hunt her too hehe.

...I have seen people kill her before and was wondering if a lvl 45 warrior could take her on? and i was wondering what she dropped.

Currently it is not possible for a solo/duo to kill these three NPCs and simply not worth the trouble for a trio to hunt them for experience. They definitely did not cast any spells like they do on P99, making them act like pushover warrior mobs.

On one hand, it's nice to see bard NPCs having spells, makes the world more consistent. On the other hand, NPCs that were previously hunted for exp or fun are not worth the trouble on P99.

[jettoki]

Can anyone provide me a date for when bard npcs started casting? Links or patch notes.

Closest thing I could find is a thread from 2004 on the official forums confirming that there are no bard mobs in the game. http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=54088

I played a Necromancer in 2001 and killed mostly bards from 16-34. I can confirm that they never once used a bard song, even though they always dropped instruments. I killed so many that I got warmly faction in Mistmoore. :cool:

[Phallax]

Good finds, I couldnt dig up anything in any patch history provided by Allakhazam.

[Jify]

Can anyone provide me a date for when bard npcs started casting? Links or patch notes.

I thought we made bards cast because they should have in classic? I guess that's not true to classic then.. but ya... Bard NPCs were just warriors with caster HP.

:(

[Atern]

Couple things I've noticed...

Isabella Cellus is supposed to wander the halls, stopping periodically. Her path takes her through the room with the 2 nobles.

Storm Dragonchaser and Star DreamSpinner are doing some whacked out stuff. I'm not quite sure what, but it looks like that are essentially dispelling my pet. Even with a fully buffed and focused 49 earth pet, after about 5 seconds it's gone. They should be casting spells, but not dispelling pets.

The most recent experience i've had with these NPCs outside of P99 is the EQMac server Al'Kabor. The above is how these NPCs act on Al'Kabor, which has all expansions up to PoP.

[Atern]

Also, all the nobles and Isabella are on what looks like 6 minute spawn timers, and that is correct. The bards should be on the longer timer (24 min?) but I haven't been able to verify that they are on the 24 min cycle yet since i can't kill them. Captain Boshinko should be a 6 min spawn timer as well, but it looks like he's on the 24 min cycle.

[JackFlash]

I just dinged 29 on my wiz and went to solo Vhalen. On live I used him to solo up to 40ish. I do not remember him casting anything ever.

The way he is now I can't even get past his charm song. I'll see if I can dig up any info but I used him to level my wizard during kunark and maybe even into velious.

http://web.archive.org/web/20011225040912/eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=3323

Faction with Bards/Vhalen By: Faern
Posted @ Sun, Aug 6th 8:57 AM 2000 Score: Decent[2.50]
1) Killing WK Bandits does NOT raise faction with bards.
2) 3 Kills of Vhalen and I am KOS to Bards everywhere. (Quite a Pain)
3) His spawn rate is 6 minutes.
4) His Loc is closer to -200, -200.
5) I reiterate, the faction hits and repercussions are HORRENDOUS.

[JackFlash]

I looked through the entire patch history and can't find anything about changing bards to cast. I killed Vhalen many many times on live and he never casted.

I also never remember being casted on by other bards that would agro me in various cities. Maybe bard NPC's didn't ever sing songs?

[Barthorn]

bards NPCs never casted anything until sometime after velious, maybe during PoP era

[Itchybottom]

To my knowledge, bards have never sung songs on live period. With the exception of Maestro, who casted, not sang his deadly lifetap. None of the classic bards did, that's for sure. Even during PoP, not as much as a peep from the bards I killed. They had really low HP, not so great resists, and usually only punched making them a tad less dangerous than similar level NPC. I loved kiting them on my druid, and later on my wizard twink because they were easy targets, and usually fast repop (due to the Going Postal quest) with the exception of Travis Two Tone, which was a 20 minute re-pop (There was a bard in the Barbarian village in West Karana, that made a good replacement, as well as the bard in Rivervale.)

NPC bards can't sing songs (http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=7099&page=1&howmany=50#msg101012588078138)

[mmiles8]

^ What Itchybottom said.

I posted a theory here (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showpost.php?p=99194&postcount=3) as to why Bards work here but didn't on live.

I guess it will come down to personal opinion (and whether you're trying to level up on bards) as to whether it's "Grats to the devs on outdoing live!" or "Boo it's not classic!"

Since they never worked in any era, the classic argument is a little moot. Bards, like boats, were something no one ever cared enough to fix, not broken by design. It adds a bit of posterity that they do work here.

[jeffd]

Can anyone provide me a date for when bard npcs started casting? Links or patch notes.

bard npcs never used spells, which was common knowledge to every druid/mage/necro and is why the bard npcs were such coveted soloing spots.

if they ever did start casting, it wasn't until well after POP.

Bards, like boats, were something no one ever cared enough to fix, not broken by design. It adds a bit of posterity that they do work here.

if that's your argument, then other fixes need to be implemented, such as halflings having their +5% exp bonus removed and given to humans. the devs have stated clearly and shown through precedent that they want to keep it as close to classic as possible, "broken" or not.

[mmiles8]

What someone else thinks of what I think is low on my list of things to care about in a given day.
But, if you're going to quote something I've said, please don't crop the most relevant portion to make a strawman of it.

[jeffd]

butthurt e-thuggery

you don't understand the difference between someone disagreeing with you and a personal attack. also, getting defensive (ie, emotionally invested) sort of ruins the tough guy act. now hurry and reply again to prove that you don't care what people think of you.

as for the topic:
August 2000 (http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=3323&page=1&howmany=50#msg16041): Bards... are the EASIEST mob for its level as they use meele and none of the songs,believe me if they used the songs they wouldnt be camped half as often.

May 2002 (http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=2193&page=1&howmany=50#msg102141308311766): a level 21-24 sk can solo him lol hes a wuss because verant doesnt make their bards use spells

September 2005 (http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=2193&page=1&howmany=50#msg11275329009493): killed him he uses no spell that i know of

also, on all the bard beastiary pages (http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/faction.html?faction=38) (listed under "NPCs you kill to lower the faction), the bards using spells is never mentioned once.

[JackFlash]

So it seems we've cleared up the fact that bards didn't cast in classic. Is this an easy fix? This was a big part of my leveling plan :P

[Itchybottom]

Yeah it's an easy fix. Just drop the spells from the NPCs.

[nilbog]

Fixed the bards earlier today. It will be in the patch notes.

Pending update:
-Bard NPCs will no longer sing songs.

[JackFlash]

Thanks a bunch man. Heading to SK for some good ol' fashion bard slaying!