The difference is other classes are at 90% to 99% effectiveness without doing that stuff. A bard is at like 50% to 75% effectiveness. Which gets back to the point I was making originally, Bards are not for everyone and require a level of play that is far beyond the requirements of other classes to perform at a level that doesn't make them the worse class to have in a group.

Bards are pretty easy as long as you are paying attention. Keeping 4-5 songs up at once is pretty chill.

I don't know about that, battle bandaging is basically an extra fungi tunic at high level.

Likewise, playing 2-3 songs and then ramping up the intensity at shit/fan moments is a lot more than 50% effectiveness.

Clearly we disagree on this point, feel free to blacklist all bards that don't spin 4/5 songs while switching instruments and pulling with eyes.

I'm happy to play with people who only go at 50% potential; it's a binge game and people often play hours at a time. It's best not to burn out so you have the focus to spare when it counts.

Hymn, all of psalms(mystic/cooling for additional hp or DS), snare/slow, haste, charm, mez, lull, fear, mana can all be used at maximum potential with a lute equipped.

Selos/resists/debuffs/dots/lull/fear/charm/mana/snare/slow all work with a drum.

Legit in most situations you aren’t swapping instruments in a group your doing either a lute or drum package of songs. If anything you might do 3 drum songs then swap lute in for hymn pulse.

What the hell are you people doing swapping instruments every song lol?

When I mention there are diminished returns on the benefits of songs after the first two, I'm not talking about having their best instrument modifier (though you make a good point on that later in your post)… I'm sure as an experience bard you know what I mean, that when you are singing a bunch of buffs on the group, a couple of them will have a much greater impact (say adding a fungi to each group member or pumping up mana) compared to adding a couple of extra AC or Str to a melee.

As such, if you are singing the two most effective songs out of the four, although you are only singing 50% of the songs, you will be performing at much greater than 50%
efficiency. Some songs are more equal than others!

I hope I'm being clear; I'm not condoning lazy play, I'm just trying to be realistic about the diminished return on invested work, and questioning the convention that an involved class, infamous for causing physical an mental stress, should be played at over 90% for several hours at a time.

Twisting isn’t really the problem. It’s doing that plus everything else (chain pulling, cc, instrument swapping, melee), with classics additional limitations, that seems problematic. Again I wasn’t around for just the original game on Blue, but from what I’ve seen in other posts it seems like some of these limitations are being applied for the first time with Green.

Old school bards pretty much just played the manasong and fapped as far as I recall.

Bard meleeing in classic... /shows door

I always double tapped, and while I aimed to have 4 songs up, between skips and such 3 were most often ended up being the norm for me. What is crazy, is that I always remember tab targeting. No idea why! I remember CCing in KC with mad pulls and having no problems. But that was Kunark. But who knows maybe I just moved around to mez the next target before and after Kunark. I started in 99, and stopped playing right around when AAs came out.

Along with double tapping, I remember swapping instruments sometimes, like lute for heal song when we were low on heals with melee weapons. I do not recall hotbars being limiting. Also I know at that time there were no melody macros, it was all by hand. I remember always having either an instrument or a weapon on my cursor, and swapping out as needed or swapping drum with lute etc. The one thing I didn't like, is people would get genuinely mad with me for not returning tells and chatting. I would respond with a quick "twisting!" But wow, how they would really get offended by this! lol

I would have loved to play a bard here, but I loathe pulling (dungeons and castles), and it seems here bards are pullers. I just have no sense of direction, and maybe in beastly groups that would be optimal bringing 500 mobs as I played whackamole with turns and tunnels finding my way back, but more often may be definitive death haha.

Double click songs, pull and park for group, lute and regen for downtime.

Always have Regen/mana up, haste, slow/snare, sometimes DS. Typically always had Mez or Charm on bar, along with Selos, the DD song for pulling, Lull and 3 twisting songs.

The big difference I noticed when I started Blue, I looked down on instrument only bards pretty hard; I did some instrument swapping, but I was mostly sub-optimally meleeing :D

Also, falling asleep in xp group with mana song on was a good way to get plvled.