Too many bards?

[necrosaurio]

This morning I was playing in Freeport with my newly re-created bard. After dying a couple of times while kiting (at level 2... gotta love strafing) I did a /who to check who was online and, of about 10 people, there were 10 bards.

Are we going to be overrun by bards (me included)? :P

I guess that most will eventually burn out or have to retire due to RSI, but it was quite impressive.

[Mystro]

Do /who all 55-60 bard

That's the real number on bards on the server, minus /roleplayers. Most people who play a bard will quit after 50 or before. Only the true bards will grind to 60

[fischsemmel]

Nah, the server will definitely not be overrun by bards.

Lots of the bards you might see online are EC mules. Even more of the bards you see online will quit their bard before they get to 55+ (let alone 60). Raids pretty much want/need 1 bard per group. And then even if there are a ton of bards, there still won't be a ton of good bards.

Hell. I love my bard, and I'm not afraid of a grind, and I've still been stuck in 57 for like 2 weeks... and 57 is nothing compared to 59.

[Grozmok]

Why are there so many EC mule bards? I've noticed this too, is it because you can move while encumbered if you're playing Selo's?

But, this server is overrun with dr00dz and monks, mostly.

[Mystro]

Why are there so many EC mule bards? I've noticed this too, is it because you can move while encumbered if you're playing Selo's?

But, this server is overrun with dr00dz and monks, mostly.

Yes, selo's/CoB can let you carry a ton of Plat w/o binding you to the ground

[Versus]

wtb more 60 bards

[Lazortag]

When it comes to Barding, only the strong survive. And boy did I ever survive.

[danceparty]

1-50 in a few weeks solo and unassisted is a pretty appealing way to return to eq after a 10 year break.

personally i re-rolled ranger cause i likes the challenge, and because.......

[Alarti0001]

wtb more 60 bards

[falkun]

Do /who all count 55 60 bard

FTFY. count catches /roleplay and /anon, and the dash would return zero results (basically its a syntax error).

[Paumad]

I got to 60 with one of those, dunno what's wrong with everyone. Barding's easy!

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[Supaskillz]

Bards I think are second only to rangers in the rarest class 50+. I think every raiding guild has bards listed as a high priority on recruiting page. As someone before mentioned, most people use a bard for their mule since selos is really nice when carrying tons of platinum which is likely why you see so many online in the low level ranges.

I suspect people rarely stick it out bards b/c it requires constant pressing of buttons to play one well as others have hinted at in this post. That said they can swarm kite to 50 pretty quick (I think you can find a guide to this on the p99 wiki or somewhere on these forums if you are unfamiliar)

[Slave]

When it comes to Barding, only the strong survive. And boy did I ever survive.

On Blue server.

[Phallax]

Yes, selo's/CoB can let you carry a ton of Plat w/o binding you to the ground

and look pimp as shit at the same time wearing lambent and other rainbow bard armor

[Destan]

Coming back to EverQuest on p99 and choosing a bard main, I have seen a good number of my peers as I've leveled so far. Besides myself, they have all been twinks of varying degrees. This leads me to believe that yes, bards at low levels may be popular at the moment (easy to level while solo, little investment of time for big rewards) but I imagine the higher up you get, the less 'real bards' will be seen.

[webrunner5]

Bards are no fun in a group if you play one well. Twisting 3 songs or more for hours, switching instuments, songs, never being able to type in replys or tells sucks day in day out.

Yeah if you want to sing Healing song and go afk all the time like a lot of them do fine. But to play the hell out of one is a pain in the ass. And running in circles for hours a day solo gets old also. Don't sound fun to me.

[sanluen]

Everyone sees bards kiting 60 mobs and they want to make one. They usually make it to 40ish before they give up. Then bards seem to disappear around 56-57. It's very odd.

[fischsemmel]

Everyone sees bards kiting 60 mobs and they want to make one. They usually make it to 40ish before they give up. Then bards seem to disappear around 56-57. It's very odd.

I don't know why bards would drop off around 40 unless they are trying to group to level and they get tired of twisting. AE xp is absolutely freaking ridiculously stupid in Overthere up to 46 (I'm talking about 2 whole levels from a 60-75 minute pull in the mid-30s).

Xp is still fast in DL or BW after that but you have to be much more careful pulling, and the kill itself starts to take forever unless you use your smaller-range AEs (which makes thing more dangerous).

Then after 54 the xp really slows down compared to how much you lose if you make one small mistake, so that explains why the 55+ bards are so rare I think.

[falkun]

Remember the EXP curve is really stacked towards the end...L60 characters that got deleveled to 54.25 lost 60% of their exp total. Basically, the exp curve is more like a flat line that changes to a brick wall than a "curve".

Another point to put things in perspective: hybrids, at L54 (without racial modifiers), have to earn 80% of the experience a no-mod class (CLR/DRU/SHM) has to earn at L59.

I'm not trying to say it cannot be done, as obviously we have more than a few L60 hybrids out there, but its an amazing feat, and looking at it visually, I have even more respect for those players.

See the attached images for visual representations. Gogo google spreadsheet!

[fischsemmel]

Just imagine the poor iksar/ogre SKs with that race penalty figured into things :(

[Kritimus]

After playing a bard as my main in Live and playing it very well (imo) it has been difficult to come back to EQ and play anything else.

My first two weeks of p99 were spent on a Druid that I was able to get to lvl 7 before becoming bored. I knew what the future would bring, and ports simply were not enough to keep me going.

Week 3 I created a enchanter. CC was the most fun part of playing my bard. However once reaching lvl 8 I started to miss the tools the bard brings to the table.

Being new and having no gear I was a bit worried about playing a bard and dealing with the 40% xp penalty. But here I am sitting at lvl 7 on the bard and loving it! I do not mind the 40% extra xp I have to earn as I am killing at a very nice rate, and I am able to get xp in every single setting. Once I get charm/slow/snare/fear the world is my oyster, and although I may need to get 40% more exp to level, I personally will enjoy the ride.

Everyone knows a good bard can offer SO much to a group, you will not notice the extra bit of xp it takes to level.

I like that with my bard, I can duo with every single class in the game using different strategies. YMMV

[necrosaurio]

After playing a bard as my main in Live and playing it very well (imo) it has been difficult to come back to EQ and play anything else.

My first two weeks of p99 were spent on a Druid that I was able to get to lvl 7 before becoming bored. I knew what the future would bring, and ports simply were not enough to keep me going.

Week 3 I created a enchanter. CC was the most fun part of playing my bard. However once reaching lvl 8 I started to miss the tools the bard brings to the table.

Being new and having no gear I was a bit worried about playing a bard and dealing with the 40% xp penalty. But here I am sitting at lvl 7 on the bard and loving it! I do not mind the 40% extra xp I have to earn as I am killing at a very nice rate, and I am able to get xp in every single setting. Once I get charm/slow/snare/fear the world is my oyster, and although I may need to get 40% more exp to level, I personally will enjoy the ride.

Everyone knows a good bard can offer SO much to a group, you will not notice the extra bit of xp it takes to level.

I like that with my bard, I can duo with every single class in the game using different strategies. YMMV

I agree with you. I have played different chars here and in Live and, for me, there is NOTHING as interesting as a bard. I can melee a bit, cc, buff, charm, pull... of course, here I have to keep pressing keys all the time but you know what? I like it that way! I found that melody really changed the way things were done for bards and made them more "melee with a few spells running all the time" than what they are here.

The exp penalty is a pain but I can always make up for it by aoe kiting a few mobs :)

[Deverell]

AoE kiting is really annoying. It's not terribly hard to do, though you'll occasionally get fucked over by random shit like sneezing during your kite, but it's so dangerous and stressful that you can't do anything else. You pretty much can't even take a sip of your drink or blow your nose, it's 100% concentration for the duration of the kite. Since that time starts to really ramp up towards level 40+, that's when most people drop off. A kite takes a few minutes at level 25, but it can take 20+ minutes at 40. That's a lot of time in which you can't do anything else at all, and any distraction can kill you. It's so different from anything else in EQ because you can usually be tabbed out fully half of the time when playing most other classes. I've died while kiting from stupid shit like coughing fits, trying to scratch my forehead, fucking Windows Update needing to be postponed, anything that forces you to take your eyes off the screen for a few seconds. It also kills your wrist much more than twisting does.

[fischsemmel]

AoE kiting is really annoying. It's not terribly hard to do, though you'll occasionally get fucked over by random shit like sneezing during your kite, but it's so dangerous and stressful that you can't do anything else. You pretty much can't even take a sip of your drink or blow your nose, it's 100% concentration for the duration of the kite. Since that time starts to really ramp up towards level 40+, that's when most people drop off. A kite takes a few minutes at level 25, but it can take 20+ minutes at 40. That's a lot of time in which you can't do anything else at all, and any distraction can kill you. It's so different from anything else in EQ because you can usually be tabbed out fully half of the time when playing most other classes. I've died while kiting from stupid shit like coughing fits, trying to scratch my forehead, fucking Windows Update needing to be postponed, anything that forces you to take your eyes off the screen for a few seconds. It also kills your wrist much more than twisting does.

So let me get this straight.

AE kiting isn't terribly hard, and yet it is dangerous and stressful, demands 100% attention for its entire duration, takes quite a while to do, involves absolutely zero margin for error, and in fact can be unsuccessful just because you need to sneeze or cough while you are trying to kite? And any failure results in the loss of all the time you put into the kite so far plus the time it takes to CR and/or get a rez?

But it isn't terribly hard?


Come on, dude. Even if you're the average american with a 4th-grade reading level. Come on. For real.


There seems to be some issue that the majority of MMO players have with words like "hard" and "skill." You guys refuse to use the words for their real meanings just because you've got some complex about admitting that anything in a video game is difficult or troublesome to accomplish, or that anything in a video game requires a significant level of training and aptitude in order to achieve.

[Deverell]

Get over yourself, narcissist.

[fischsemmel]

Get over yourself, narcissist.

Using a logical fallacy instead of simply starting to use a simple word like "hard" properly is only going to reinforce my belief that I am superior to just about everyone else.

[necrosaurio]

So let me get this straight.

AE kiting isn't terribly hard, and yet it is dangerous and stressful, demands 100% attention for its entire duration, takes quite a while to do, involves absolutely zero margin for error, and in fact can be unsuccessful just because you need to sneeze or cough while you are trying to kite? And any failure results in the loss of all the time you put into the kite so far plus the time it takes to CR and/or get a rez?

But it isn't terribly hard?


Come on, dude. Even if you're the average american with a 4th-grade reading level. Come on. For real.


There seems to be some issue that the majority of MMO players have with words like "hard" and "skill." You guys refuse to use the words for their real meanings just because you've got some complex about admitting that anything in a video game is difficult or troublesome to accomplish, or that anything in a video game requires a significant level of training and aptitude in order to achieve.

I think that it has more to do with using "difficult" instead of "complicated". AOE kiting is not complicated but it's quite difficult to do correctly. Same with classic EQ, it's not that complicated but quite difficult.

[Deverell]

Using a logical fallacy instead of simply starting to use a simple word like "hard" properly is only going to reinforce my belief that I am superior to just about everyone else.

I'm sure you do feel that way, seeing as you apparently make a habit out of targeting random posts for a single word and going on a long-winded, insult-filled rant over it just to bolster your own grandiose sense of self-worth.

AoE-kiting is not complicated. You'll die now and then to random shit outside your power, but it's a very simple and straight-forward task. It certainly isn't hard; it's so simple that you'll frequently find new level 40+ bards who kited their way there in a week or two but have no idea how to play the class.

Do you want people to think it's hard so that you can proclaim yourself skilled for doing it, or is there actually no ulterior motive to your random, uninvited hostility?

[colleekitty]

lol @ this thread

frequently find new level 40+ bards who kited their way there in a week or two but have no idea how to play the class.

I do like this statement. Similarly to monks, I see dozens of clueless twink bards---yet very few skilled, mid to high level players.

WTB more bards out grouping and learning their class, and less fail bards aoe'ing to 40+. Don't get me wrong, aoe'ing a few levels here and there is fine, but make sure you get a decent handle on the class first and max those skills!

[Kritimus]

lol @ this thread



I do like this statement. Similarly to monks, I see dozens of clueless twink bards---yet very few skilled, mid to high level players.

WTB more bards out grouping and learning their class, and less fail bards aoe'ing to 40+. Don't get me wrong, aoe'ing a few levels here and there is fine, but make sure you get a decent handle on the class first and max those skills!

QFT

[nichomachean]

lol @ this thread



I do like this statement. Similarly to monks, I see dozens of clueless twink bards---yet very few skilled, mid to high level players.

WTB more bards out grouping and learning their class, and less fail bards aoe'ing to 40+. Don't get me wrong, aoe'ing a few levels here and there is fine, but make sure you get a decent handle on the class first and max those skills!

^^^

[Yondiloons]

So let me get this straight.

AE kiting isn't terribly hard, and yet it is dangerous and stressful, demands 100% attention for its entire duration, takes quite a while to do, involves absolutely zero margin for error, and in fact can be unsuccessful just because you need to sneeze or cough while you are trying to kite? And any failure results in the loss of all the time you put into the kite so far plus the time it takes to CR and/or get a rez?

But it isn't terribly hard?


Come on, dude. Even if you're the average american with a 4th-grade reading level. Come on. For real.


There seems to be some issue that the majority of MMO players have with words like "hard" and "skill." You guys refuse to use the words for their real meanings just because you've got some complex about admitting that anything in a video game is difficult or troublesome to accomplish, or that anything in a video game requires a significant level of training and aptitude in order to achieve.


LOL, your literally this upset that he used "terribly hard"? your so pathetic its hilarious, keep on crying

[somnia]

Using a logical fallacy instead of simply starting to use a simple word like "hard" properly is only going to reinforce my belief that I am superior to just about everyone else.

I see you're taking lessons from our resident freshman philosopher Alarti0001.

[fischsemmel]

I see you're taking lessons from our resident freshman philosopher Alarti0001.

I took Intro to Logic and Latin I in college. If that doesn't prepare me for sounding intelligent on internet forums, I don't know what will! ;)

[somnia]

I took Intro to Logic and Latin I in college. If that doesn't prepare me for sounding intelligent on internet forums, I don't know what will! ;)

another sig quote, yay

[heyokah]

I'm sure you do feel that way, seeing as you apparently make a habit out of targeting random posts for a single word and going on a long-winded, insult-filled rant over it just to bolster your own grandiose sense of self-worth.

AoE-kiting is not complicated. You'll die now and then to random shit outside your power, but it's a very simple and straight-forward task. It certainly isn't hard; it's so simple that you'll frequently find new level 40+ bards who kited their way there in a week or two but have no idea how to play the class.

Do you want people to think it's hard so that you can proclaim yourself skilled for doing it, or is there actually no ulterior motive to your random, uninvited hostility?

@ fish wtfpwned

[kazroth]

another sig quote, yay

A lack of response to the other previous posters points to a bit of shame in regard to his own post.

I took Psych 101 in college, it's all good, folks! :cool:

[somnia]

A lack of response to the other previous posters points to a bit of shame in regard to his own post.

I took Psych 101 in college, it's all good, folks! :cool:

I nailed my Psych 101 professor in college, it's definitely all good.

[Lazortag]

Wow, this thread kinda got out of hand. If you want Bard advice, just ask the master (me). I'm a self-made Bard, never played one on live, so my talent is all natural (just like my good looks).

[Grozmok]

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm47/28587053/normal_105here_for_the_gang_bang.jpg