Playing bard in group

[Troxx]

Jauna is a trash poster.

Always has been.

Always will be.

Jauna is what happens when you combine drugs, crippling depression, borderline personally disorder, and marginal intelligence with a dash of self-destructive narcissism.

[Troxx]

Bards in a group?

After level 45 it’s really simple. Know your song book. Understand your group. Balance the songs you sing to match the needs of your group. You can tank, pull, heal, cc and support very well if needed. You can often do more than one of these jobs effectively at the same time.

Most importantly? Put your fucking weapons away. Unless you have epic, having weapons equipped is pointless 99% of the time. You add exponentially more umph to your group with instruments. I’ve got a 60 bard. Melee dps even with goodnworn haste is garbage unless you have epic + high end raid gear. Even with epic + raid weapon your personal dps is bad, but at least with epic you have a killer proc and 1.8 mod to singing and all other instruments rolled into one.

Time spent pretending you can melee dps is better spent on situational awareness ... or literally anything else.

[Jauna]

For those of you advocating putting weapons away, just reroll into an enchanter and get out of the bard class because at least then you wont be corrupting the next generation of bards with terrible terrible terrible advice and trains of thought.

[Troxx]

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

For those of you advocating putting weapons away, just reroll into an enchanter and get out of the bard class because at least then you wont be corrupting the next generation of bards with terrible terrible terrible advice and trains of thought.

/facepalm

Have you ever parsed bard melee dps?

[Duik]

Trains.
That's Gold.

[Wallicker]

Lol at you think weapons(pre-epic) > instruments still. I’d love to see you duo with any class so that your deficiencies aren’t covered up by the rest of the group. Try once with weapons then try again with instruments then get back to me.

[Troxx]

With a standard 3 song twist (cantata/nivs/mcvaxius)

Pre-epic Weapons (12-15 melee dps)
19 hp per tick to all
12 mana per tick to all
31 str
22 attack
8 dmg shield

+ a 4th song of your choice


————————
————————

With instruments:

46hp a tick to all
12 mana a tick to all
68 str
44 attack
17 dmg shield

Plus whatever 4th song you want to include 10% stacking haste (requires instrument), occlusion debuff on standby (requires instrument), mezzes that last an extra tick (bonus with wind use).

Many options for the 4th slot either require instrument (stacking haste + attack 60) or likewise get big buffs.

——————————
——————————

I don’t think any sane group would opt for the bard to swing his or her weapons for that leet 12-15 melee dps. The alternative more than doubles the real power a bard brings to the group. 27 extra regen? That’s nearly 2 extra fungis to everyone which keeps things rolling smoothly. If the group did need the bard to dps ... well with instruments you can stack 50 dps easily with chants; up to 74 if you toss in the pbaoe dots.

Bards are mobile armored casters with lots of utility and buffing potential. Bards are not melee dps. Once epic is in the equation everything changes, but even then it’s not the bards melee dps that matters; it’s the proc on epic paired with a 180% mod to all songs sung seamlessly (vs 210-260% mod with a real instrument). Even then, the talented epic bard I grouped with over the weekend in DN was barely breaking 20dps most fights.

[Ennewi]

A bard not equipping instruments is worse than a knight not equipping their shield while tanking. It's only done well if any of the classes have their epic or something very epic-like to compensate for the loss.

Looking through old screenshots, all of the bards in groups 35+ are swapping between different instruments and occasionally adding in a nivs sword click. My bard alt only has crap ratio claw weapons bagged for fashionquest and one equally bad dmg/dly weapon with tash proc. Spare platinum has gone a lot farther when spent on upgrading instruments so group benefits accumulate faster, and then armor/hp gear for survivability. With a few exceptions, weapons on a bard are just hood ornaments/vanity plates; instruments enhance what's under the hood.

[Zipity]

Shield of song is also affected lute... with regen + shield of song + rondo + slow you will anger the cleric in your group
Bc they will have to nuke instead of heal on regular group content

[branamil]

PSA

Bards please stop charming unless you have an invis ring. It's annoying as fuck to wait 20 Seconds to attack and it's just not worth it. It also means your group can't debuff it while its waiting. Just mez for the love of god.