Bards in Kunark

[astuce999]

The goal of this thread is to analyze the new songs and abilities that bards gain in Kunark. I'm just going to get the ball rolling, hopefully more people add some stuff and then it can be transferred to the wiki page.

Highlights!

Best Songs:

Largo's Absonant Binding (lvl 51)

Right off the bat as the bard dings 51, he gets to purchase this badass song. It is a very nice snare + slow + agi debuff + ac debuff all in one. This song was still in my line up well into DoDH (as in many expansions later). The only downside to this song is that since it has a snare component, it didn't work on many raid bosses because of their immunity to runspeed changes. A must have. Once epic is released, this song becomes even more powerful as the AC debuff, AGI debuff, and snare components get modified by singing and epic counts as a singing instrument (slow portion remains unaffected).

Selo's Song of Travel (lvl 51)

Lots of fun pulling tricks with this outdoors as well as ease of travel into unfriendly areas. This song kills groupmates (lost of levitate) and their pets (invis) a lot though, so it's mainly for solo travel.

Cantata of Replenishment (lvl 55)

This is the first of many hp/mana songs that became a staple of a bard's line up. This is a string based song, but be aware that only the HP regen component will be modified by equipping a lute, the mana component will remain the same. The downtime bard will be expected to twist lvl 32 mana song 3 times and this song once every 4 song cycle for optimal mana regen.

Song of Highsun (lvl 56)

The infamous gate song! This song returns a mob to its spawnpoint, and also has a dispell component. Once they implement "mobs stop chasing after XXX distance" this becomes a decent pulling tool. This is also a great way to figure out where a named spawns, or if you already know where a named spawn, it's a great way to figure out what is the placeholder. There is also a trick with summoning mobs and this song to get behind locked doors, but can be fairly risky as well.

McVaxius Rousing Rondo (lvl 57)

This is a song that they ended up copying over and over throughout the expansions and for good reason. Str, haste, atk, and damage shield all in one! It is a brass based song and is one of the main reasons bards get to claim a spot in the melee dps group of a raid. The str, atk, and DS component are all modifiable with the brass instrument (haste component is not).

Niv’s Harmonic (lvl 58)

This singing based AC song will solidify a bard’s spot in the Main Tank group of a raid. Once the epic comes out it becomes even better as it is modifiable.

Kazumi’s Note of Preservation (lvl 60)

The group Divine Aura song. This is a new staple in the bard bag of tricks. It will rarely be used in a group to help save the group as it usually creates more confusion than anything. But in the hands of a capable bard it can create some nifty pulls and death-defying stunts!

Angstlich’s Assonance (lvl 60)

Although the slow portion will never be affected by equipping a brass instrument, it will increase the power of the dot. This is one of the first songs that has a longer duration (10 ticks!).

Abilities:

Bards gain Parry at lvl 53, and Riposte at lvl 58 to marginally help combat survivability, they still tank worse than a silk caster though.

Items:

My three favorite kunark era droppable bard items are the Singing Steel Breastplate (10 sec cast 100 point self heal, no cooldown), the Singing Steel Helm (Eye of Zomm, infinite charges, tons of tricks with this), and Breath of Harmony (insta click Melody of Preservation is awesome on a 10.19 weapon to boot).

Cheers!

[DevGrousis]

GREAT post! we need more like this for the other classes [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Lazortag]

Hey astuce. Thanks for this post. A couple questions:

Largo's Absonant Binding (lvl 51)

Right off the bat as the bard dings 51, he gets to purchase this badass song. It is a very nice snare + slow + agi debuff + ac debuff all in one. This song was still in my line up well into DoDH (as in many expansions later). The only downside to this song is that since it has a snare component, it didn't work on many raid bosses because of their immunity to runspeed changes. A must have. Once epic is released, this song becomes even more powerful as the AC debuff, AGI debuff, and snare components get modified by singing and epic counts as a singing instrument (slow portion remains unaffected).

I'm guessing this adds huge amounts of aggro? Did you use it often in groups regardless of the fact that it could pull aggro off of the tank?

Niv’s Harmonic (lvl 58)

This singing based AC song will solidify a bard’s spot in the Main Tank group of a raid. Once the epic comes out it becomes even better as it is modifiable.

According to Crys it adds 24 AC. Is it really that good? It seems like Guardian Rhythms with selo's drums would be even better. I think I'd prefer using the Rune song over this.

[jtaddei]

If i remember corretly song of travel was awful for travelling through areas with mobs that saw through invis. The song will drop all benefits if you take melee or spell damage. Leaving you running at sub selos speed. Selos is still the best song to travel with.

Edit: singing steel helm + bind sight song give the bard a great ability to see deep into a lot of dungeons... Then again so does leaving a corpse under a spawn then hitting corpse locate song + bind sight - but that was doable in classic though.

[astuce999]

Originally Posted by Lazortag [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Hey astuce. Thanks for this post. A couple questions:



I'm guessing this adds huge amounts of aggro? Did you use it often in groups regardless of the fact that it could pull aggro off of the tank?



According to Crys it adds 24 AC. Is it really that good? It seems like Guardian Rhythms with selo's drums would be even better. I think I'd prefer using the Rune song over this.

I don't remember playing Largo's all that much before the major bard aggro nerf (and I can't even find evidence of when this nerf happened either, but I suck at searching). On beta right now it's huge aggro, but I can't test to see if it's more than slow aggro, because of the stacking conflict atm.

24 AC is nothing to sneeze at, it's almost an extra shield of words, and of course, when epics come out, it ends up being 43, and with puretone it is 67. I do see your point about guardian rythm though, and of course in a lot of situations it's going to be better to play that. It's just nice to have other options sometimes, and this song provides that.

cheers!

[Dungeonjustin]

I would have to say that after playing about 4 bards to level 60+, including on Sullon Zek server, bards make quite adequate tanks well into the 60s nearly anywhere you care to roam. Which is lucky, because in general, nothing, nothing, nothing in the game can out-aggro a bard.

However, there are several weaknesses inherent in Classic and Kunark bards that only begin to dissipate in Velious. The lack of Flowing Thought items alone will mean that you cannot possibly solo your epic when that might otherwise be the case.

With the advent of Flowing Thought, charm kiting opens up in a big way and can be used successfully for long periods which is necessary to get items like the Amygdalan Tail from Plane of Fear for your epic if soloing.

Not to mention the much greater MR, AC, and HPs you'll have due to gear... there are so many good items in Kunark that every non-int-caster class is going to be enormously improved. Can't wait!!

[Dr4z3r]

Originally Posted by astuce999 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Cantata of Replenishment (lvl 55)

This is the first of many hp/mana songs that became a staple of a bard's line up. This is a string based song, but be aware that only the HP regen component will be modified by equipping a lute, the mana component will remain the same. The downtime bard will be expected to twist lvl 32 mana song 3 times and this song once every 4 song cycle for optimal mana regen.

Is it confirmed that Cassindra's is pulse-based on P99? The only resource I have to go on is Alla (so basically nothing at all), on which it says it is per tick.

[Messianic]

This is an awesome thread for non-bards too, because many of us who haven't played one past their teens have absolutely no clue about the options bards have - we just know they rock.

Thanks! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[astuce999]

Originally Posted by Dr4z3r [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Is it confirmed that Cassindra's is pulse-based on P99? The only resource I have to go on is Alla (so basically nothing at all), on which it says it is per tick.

Currently on beta Uthgaard has returned it to its original classic form, which is pulse based with no duration, and no icon, just a message "your mind clears". I haven't gotten my bard to 55 yet to get the other mana song (I've been testing 8 different toons back and forth) to confirm that it stacks, but I'm very confident that it will.

cheers!