I know a lot of people have answered your questions already, but I thought I might put in my 2 cents as well.
#1. Multiple mobs absolutely fuck me up. On Loraen this isn't such a big problem because I cast color flux (1.5 second cast time) followed by AE mez. I would regularly ivu pull 3-4 HS south mobs to one of the "safe" spots in HS and kill them without problems. On Dramor my mez is 3 seconds. That just doesn't cut it with multiple hasted mobs on me. As a side note, is it classic that bash interrupts casting even when it doesn't stun? That seems weird and pretty annoying.
>>> The advantage of bards is being able to cast on the run, mez park them while pulling them or snare them on the way back so that they don’t come in all at once.
#2. Related to #1, how do you recharm stuff? I have a GamTextTrigger that tells me which tick it is, but that's still a 6 second window. I kind of keep casting charm (and recasting it when it gets down to 1.5s or so) but in general I feel it doesn't work that well. Also the 20 mana cost of the new charm really sucks. Or I am just fucked there until FT items?
Hide works well for me, otherwise it’s all about the feeling.
#3. The bard stacking on resists seems really funny. Guardian Rhythms stacks with the Psalm line so I can boost MR to insane values (even without the drum) but the Psalms don't stack with each other (I guess for damage shield purposes?) but I was hoping I could stack Mystic Shielding with the other ones and I can't (and I don't see why? They don't conflict with anything.
Is Reed’s Spreadsheet still around? The stack blocks is all about the “slot” where the buffs or debuffs take effect, in this case it’s highly likely that it’s the AC buff that occupies the same slot on both songs.
#4. Has anyone ever tried just using a lute rather than weapons? Obviously if you have the epic then whatever, but with a nice 2.5x modifier you could twist a 5-songer Snare/Shield of Songs/Haste/Cantata/Shield of Songs. That's 30hp/tick as well as 2 50 point runes every 2.5 ticks, so 40 points of Rune per tick. Speaking of which does anyone use Shield of Songs? It feels like it might be pretty strong although not stacking with Nivs really sucks.
If BoH didn’t exist the case of Shield of Songs could be made successfully. Fun part of being a bard is that depending on group make up, sometimes it’s better to melee, sometimes it’s better to use instruments. It’s some sort of bell curve, if you’re alone use instruments, if with one melee that has good agro use instrument, if the melee has bad agro, use weapons. With two melees use weapons, but with 3 or more melees use instruments
#5. Am I the only one that uses Syvelian's Dispell? In fact I don't think anyone dispells shit (I certainly haven't on Loraen) but I'm realizing everything in SolB is 30-40% hasted and dispelling that haste makes a huge, huge difference in how badly I get beat up.
Dispelling haste should be a non-factor since any kind of slow will dictate mob attack speed. Dispelling in general when soloing can work well, you mez the mob and dispel it until it dispels the mez, then you know you’ve gotten all the buffs, but in a group setting it’s tough because of the 1 slot dispel at a time that will either force people to wait to use other debuffs, or more likely will still debuff and then you will dispel them.
#6. Am I the only one that fears all mobs at ~40%? Maybe this doesn't work as well at higher levels? But it seems to be the only reasonable way to kill the Kobold shamans.
Fearing as a bard is an art, and it is a very sharp double-edged sword indoors. You do seem like the type that likes to live on the edge of disaster so I encourage you to try out some stuff. Mez, bellows, bereavement, are also good options if the only goal is to interrupt healers.
#7. Targeting can get so fucking annoying on a bard. The problem is stuff gets slightly pushed into the walls and my client won't tab target. Do you guys have any suggestions?
Clicking, assisting, toggle last 2 targets, /target a_kobold…
#8. Do other bards have macros for mez and charm? I tried them but the amount of spam they generated (between missed notes and bashes) was just unholy
I don’t even have an inc message. I mean I have the macros for all those things, but I never use them, no time for that nonsense.
'Stuce
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