The other day in a hole group I was simultaneously chain pulling with SS helm eye of zom, cc'ing my own pulls, twisting in haste, replenishment, and slow, switching out lute and flute for harder mezzes, and even charming here and there as well. Filming my hands would have been hilarious. Felt like I was playing a piano. I turned that group into an efficient meat grinder of exp though. zero downtime.
I hate having to switch around hotbars, so here's what i do. I have all my songs on my hotbar 1-8. The bottom two slots (9,10) are my primary and secondary weapon. Then I keep a bag opened next to those hotkeys with all my instruments so I can easily swap out instruments and weapons easily using my mouse.
Depending on what i'm doing, i often times have both hands on the keyboard. WASD movement with my left hand, with easy access to hotkeys 1 (mez) 2, 3, 4 (mana/haste/slow), and tab for targeting. Right hand stays nears the numpad for higher hotkeys (7 charm, 8 ae slow for example), f9 if I need to change views and using the oldschool arrows for movement if twisting takes up too much of my left hand. Being able to move back and forth between twisting and moving with each hand, and the mouse for that matter, is a pretty key skill. After playing for a while you'll also start to feel the "rhythm" of your songs, for lack of a better term, so your hands will instinctively learn the timing between songs and move accordingly.
if your idea of playing a bard is just 1, 22, 33, 44, 11, etc. then you're probably a shitty bard.
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