Melee vs instrument for bard

[digitz80]

For non-epic bards, what are your opinions on Melee vs just twisting songs with instrument modifiers and not bothering with melee?

Personally, it seems better to just go with songs, as bard melee is pretty crappy. Twisting dots with drum equipped is more damage if dps is really needed. Maybe if I had some really good weapons or something..

[Tupakk]

Your going to want both. A group bard is mister utility. Somethings the group will need mana and you be sticking being the battery so mana dot dot mana inject RnR... Other times people will ask you to melee/pull your going to want a BoH and Symphonic Saber to mitigate aggro and have good dex. Plus melee songs VoV -Atk SnareSlow Niv

[brecon]

As a Bard your DPS contribution is a secondary objective. Your primary objective is to make the group kill more efficiently. Whatever DPS you can add is helpful, but not if it reduces the overall DPS and downtime of the group.

I agree that you do more individual DPS most of the time by twisting 3x chants with a Drum than if you Melee. But most likely you will be doing something else...either Pulling, CCing, Slowing or Hasteing, or helping with healer mana by playing HP/Mana regen and Runes to mitigate damage on the tank.

So it really depends on the group and how you guys are doing, but my rule of thumb is:
(1) If pulling outdoors: keep a drum equipped
(2) If pulling indoors: keep a Lute equipped
(3) If CCing multiple mobs, keep a Lute equipped to play Runes and HP/Mana regen between Mez/Charm refreshes
(4) If slowing/hasteing, I most likely keep melee weapons up. Sometimes if tank aggro is bad and I'm pulling aggro from slow song, I'll pull out a Lute and just keep distance.
(5) If your group has a dedicated CC (enchanter or bard), a haste (Shaman, Bard or Enchanter), a Slower (shaman, bard or enchanter) and a puller (whatever), and the healer is fine on mana...then I would probably melee and twist chants and a ds. But that sort of scenario rarely comes about.

On occasion, as a bard, you find that there's not a really essential song in your twist at a given moment. The problem there is, do you really have room on your spellbar to keep up enough chants to make chant-dps worthwhile? Even if I'm just doing DPS, I ALWAYS keep up Mez, Charm and Snare in case things go badly, I always keep up hp/mana regen, and if I'm outdoors I ALWAYS keep up Selos. That only leaves 3 'swap slots', and normally I have something more useful to put in one or two of those slots than a chant.

[lowner411]

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

As a Bard your DPS contribution is a secondary objective. Your primary objective is to make the group kill more efficiently. Whatever DPS you can add is helpful, but not if it reduces the overall DPS and downtime of the group.

I agree that you do more individual DPS most of the time by twisting 3x chants with a Drum than if you Melee. But most likely you will be doing something else...either Pulling, CCing, Slowing or Hasteing, or helping with healer mana by playing HP/Mana regen and Runes to mitigate damage on the tank.

So it really depends on the group and how you guys are doing, but my rule of thumb is:
(1) If pulling outdoors: keep a drum equipped
(2) If pulling indoors: keep a Lute equipped
(3) If CCing multiple mobs, keep a Lute equipped to play Runes and HP/Mana regen between Mez/Charm refreshes
(4) If slowing/hasteing, I most likely keep melee weapons up. Sometimes if tank aggro is bad and I'm pulling aggro from slow song, I'll pull out a Lute and just keep distance.
(5) If your group has a dedicated CC (enchanter or bard), a haste (Shaman, Bard or Enchanter), a Slower (shaman, bard or enchanter) and a puller (whatever), and the healer is fine on mana...then I would probably melee and twist chants and a ds. But that sort of scenario rarely comes about.

On occasion, as a bard, you find that there's not a really essential song in your twist at a given moment. The problem there is, do you really have room on your spellbar to keep up enough chants to make chant-dps worthwhile? Even if I'm just doing DPS, I ALWAYS keep up Mez, Charm and Snare in case things go badly, I always keep up hp/mana regen, and if I'm outdoors I ALWAYS keep up Selos. That only leaves 3 'swap slots', and normally I have something more useful to put in one or two of those slots than a chant.

I agree with everything Brecon said. If you are in a pickup group for a long time, you might find your role changing as people take afk breaks and as the group composition changes. I usually keep haste, slow/snare, heal, and selo's up, so that leaves spaces for charm, mez, mana, fear, or whatever shielding is needed.

[indiscriminate_hater]

There are very few situations where you are going to want to use non-epic weapons for melee. The DPS is just too dismal to justify using weapons. Even if you have to be the tank, you're better off swapping instruments to twist dots and aggro-generating songs.

At 60 with decent instruments you can be twisting 6 dots (Angstlich's Assonance last a minute) for over 350 damage per tick. No way you can hit close to that even with great weapons and full haste.

[Tecmos Deception]

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

At 60 with decent instruments you can be twisting 6 dots (Angstlich's Assonance last a minute) for over 350 damage per tick. No way you can hit close to that even with great weapons and full haste.

Looks like the 6 dots you're talking about do about 170 per tick without instrument modifiers, right?

Epic puts that at over 300 per tick, plus you'd be meleeing with epic + whatever offhand. A bard is going to melee for more than 10 dps against any enemy that he can land 6 chants on, right? Plus then you'd be proccing epic and perhaps offhand too.


Can a bard actually do that many chants without having like 5x as much aggro as the tank though? Lol. Or are you assuming the bard will be twisting 6 chants and kiting cause he'll have aggro? Do 60 bards often kitetank with chants against stuff that doesn't summon? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[indiscriminate_hater]

Maybe if you're rocking epic and a VP/NTOV weapon with a 160DD procs and 255 dex it'll be worth it. Twisting dots along with that would be pretty damn good

[Cillaz]

I noticed around level 40 mele started to suffer and by 45 I sold my FBSS and bought walrus skin drums and am very glad I did. I use boh/css for weapons and see no need to change them til epic as mele isn't that important now I'm in the 50's. Instruments are better most times. Only situation I still mele in is if I'm tanking, other than that I rarely use weapons anymore.

[brecon]

If you're tanking you should probably use a Lute anyway. More than doubling Rune song + HP Regen probably more important to a full group than your DPS output if you're the only one that can tank, and aggro won't be a problem regardless.

The only real 'reason' to use weapons 40+, realistically is to (1) proc weapon effects, (2) push mobs to prevent gate or CH, or (3) Mez/Melee mobs in dungeons that you don't have room to fear kite.

Someone might argue that fear kiting with epic MH + worn haste + chants/dots is more damage than drums of the beast MH....but I'd be surprised. Again, the 'reason' you melee is when your group doesn't need you to be enhancing your songs with an instrument effect.

[brecon]

A bard will never, in practice, run those dots in a group situation bc the highest damage dot is an AOE that'll ruin CC..and it includes a snare so it will probably pull aggro off the tank. I think what he is describing is more for solo fear kiting scenarios or trash killing.

Also I doubt you could keep 5 dots up without losing them to server ticks, even 4 sometimes has one drop off...but it could be my connection I suppose.