Bards?
 

Yes or no? Let's talk about it.

I recall seeing an article a decade ago where Verant stated to the public, the two biggest mistakes they ever made in EQ were:

1) Complete Heal

2) Bards.

I dig groovy tunes.

Nothing wrong with Bards overall. It is you can't take over a whole zone and not piss off a ton of people. Neither can Pl'ers do it either. But it does seem to be getting out of hand lately.

I actually recall that article. It was made right around the time that FoH (Or I think it was them) kicked out that math spreadsheet showing how Shaman were the best healer in the game due to broken Slow mechanics. It caught a lot of attention and Verant stepped up and said something like "Slow mechanics we can adjust as needed, if we feel something is broken. Things that are far more difficult to resolve are the directions we took with Complete Heal as a spell, and Bards as a class."

I'm paraphrasing but I swear that's fairly close to what was included in the official forum reply to the Shaman math thing.

I played a Bard to max level in Velious (no epic, too lazy) by either solely grouping or abusing broken Fear pathing in certain zones while solo. I'd never do it again because song twisting sucks eggs.

I don't have a problem with bards in general. If they can mass aoe kite power to them. I do wish they would use common sense though. Don't go to the highest populated areas and swarm kite. Leave the noobs alone and let us level in peace! The other problem is when a bard swarm kites near a high traffic area. Just the other day I seen a bard swarm kiting at the druid rings in Dreadlands. Not smart. Has disaster written all over it!

So while I don't mind bards in general...I must clarify. I don't mind bards as long as they aren't stupid. Don't be grabbing up a bunch of named spawns that people camp and keep that spawn busy for an hour while you run around in circles. Go somewhere nobody likes to go.

I am a bard, and I have issues with bards sometimes. There seems to be a proliferation of bards around recently that have no idea how to play their class and constantly train people, or rip mobs off with poor low HP kiting tactics. I should stress, however, that the problem is not the class - it's the player.

A competent bard is perfectly capable of levelling at stupidly awesome speeds while respecting other players' camps and not training anyone.

The main problem I see is that most of the people leveling these bards will just shelve them once they get them 50+ or use them for power leveling only. I have yet to run into any real problems with them yet. But I could see how they bother some folks.

QFT.

I like you Tacite because there's been a few times I've seen you in FM and you do an OOC beforehand asking who is at the giant fort and if you can pull from it. Respect to others like that is a big factor and gets noticed among us normies levelling the good ol' fashioned way.

I'd like to point out that the large majority of these bard zones (OT, DL, SK) are attractive to other players because of their single pulls and ample room to maneuvre/cc/park. With steady pulls and a good team, you can get experience that is as good or better than high ZEM dungeons. Add to the fact that most of the good ZEM dungeons are check valves (1 way in, 1 out) with 10x the risk of death and a million miles from a cleric and well.... You see where I'm going with this. Death is the ultimate xp and time killer.

The long and short of it is, these zones are huge and with a little respect to other players, can be managed and played as intended.

Shove a mandolin where the sun don't shine.