How Did Old School Bards Do It?

[ChooChoo Train]

Hymn, all of psalms(mystic/cooling for additional hp or DS), snare/slow, haste, charm, mez, lull, fear, mana can all be used at maximum potential with a lute equipped.

Selos/resists/debuffs/dots/lull/fear/charm/mana/snare/slow all work with a drum.

Legit in most situations you aren’t swapping instruments in a group your doing either a lute or drum package of songs. If anything you might do 3 drum songs then swap lute in for hymn pulse.

What the hell are you people doing swapping instruments every song lol?

[Jimjam]

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

Hymn, all of psalms(mystic/cooling for additional hp or DS), snare/slow, haste, charm, mez, lull, fear, mana can all be used at maximum potential with a lute equipped.

When I mention there are diminished returns on the benefits of songs after the first two, I'm not talking about having their best instrument modifier (though you make a good point on that later in your post)… I'm sure as an experience bard you know what I mean, that when you are singing a bunch of buffs on the group, a couple of them will have a much greater impact (say adding a fungi to each group member or pumping up mana) compared to adding a couple of extra AC or Str to a melee.

As such, if you are singing the two most effective songs out of the four, although you are only singing 50% of the songs, you will be performing at much greater than 50%
efficiency. Some songs are more equal than others!

I hope I'm being clear; I'm not condoning lazy play, I'm just trying to be realistic about the diminished return on invested work, and questioning the convention that an involved class, infamous for causing physical an mental stress, should be played at over 90% for several hours at a time.