Playing a bard without kiting.

[TeemoOfAstora]

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

Uh ... what?

Not true at all. Even outside of swarming very few if any classes can solo faster than a charming bard.

Truths! And particularly so in outside zones where you should be getting hit minimally. I solo'd Coldain rings 1-7 around 50, 51 and I'm sure 8 can be done too, if it weren't such a poopfestival. You can also do some pretty incredible things with fear kiting / charm rotting too. The xp bar moveth solo, even when not swarming (because BW can go fist itself).

That being said, grouping can be challenging/fun in its own way. I recently revisited KC and felt like a true lord of the dance in a group without a chanter/shammie. Sure there was manasong twisted in there (when a group asks you over for manasong and nothing else it gets really boring), but I got to do everything else too (haste, str/dex, slow/snare, regens, charm/mezz). I almost managed to keep everyone alive the entire time too (thanks to clutch roots by my groupmates), but hands train much too strong. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Xaanka]

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

Uh ... what?

Not true at all. Even outside of swarming very few if any classes can solo faster than a charming bard.

Oh yeah charming is good, I only play on red so I'm just not used to it being comparably viable.

[Loke]

I did a lot of the 50+ leveling on my bard doing trios. 3 manning camps that are usually occupied by full groups is great exp. Bard/cleric/warrior and bard/shaman/monk always worked out really well. Soloing with dots or charm works, but i've never seen the appeal of leveling that way. In general I'm not a huge fan of soloing except for a few classes, so if I'm gonna do it I might as well do the most efficient version of it. 3 man groups is the way to go for leveling a bard imo. Better exp than a full group, and with less people it forces everyone in the group to really play their best. Full groups always seem to have one or two slackers.

[Danth]

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

bard/shaman/monk always worked out really well

What did the Bard do in this group to make it work really well? The wife and I (she's a Shaman, I'm a Shadow Knight) have added Bards on occasion but they never really seemed to stack particularly well with our duo. That makes me wonder if you were doing something we weren't.

Danth

[falkun]

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

What did the Bard do in this group to make it work really well? The wife and I (she's a Shaman, I'm a Shadow Knight) have added Bards on occasion but they never really seemed to stack particularly well with our duo. That makes me wonder if you were doing something we weren't.

Danth

Biggest thing would be having the bard chain pull, and add extra HP/mana regen so the shaman can canni more (therefore keep up on heals). The problem your SHM/SHD group has vs. the other combo that SK DPS is vastly inferior to MNK DPS.

[Danth]

I think you may have hit on why Bards haven't, in the past, synergized particularly well with us: We don't normally need or want chain pulls and torpor already covers the healing/shaman mana regen fairly well. Seems like we only ask for a small portion of the Bard's skill set. I asked about Bards because I group with them so infrequently (they seem really rare, outside raids, at high levels) that I figure perhaps I don't know everything they can do. Would be nice to group with 'em more in-game and try out different strategies.

Danth

[thewrush]

He could be snaring and slowing so you two could focus more on damage output. Shaman wouldn't have to keep haste up since the Bard has a song for it. He could charm a pet and add more damage that way as well. SK's have incredible aggro holding capabilities. The shaman could be using excess mana to dot and the Bard would be singing hp/mana regen anyway. On downtime, he could be twisting two mana regen songs that stack(Don't remember which two). The SK and bard could work together to speed up pulls using Lull and FD.

[RDawg816]

They can add a lot with regen and mana alone for less/no downtime. Factor in pulls, cc, snares, charm dps with adds.... it really depends on the camp and how well everyone communicates. I love grouping, but I've found a lot of people are either clueless, lazy, or both...

[Xaanka]

bards actually contribute a fair bit of DPS to root rot groups or duos, around level 40-50 range if you have a decent drum modifier. after a while the bard dots peter out and you become a mana battery/mez/emergency charm again tho.

[Loke]

Yea, it really depended on how lazy the shaman wanted to be. In an ideal situation I mostly just focused on hp/mana regen, atk buffs, charm when doubles, emergency CC on bigger pulls until the shm could root/slow, aggro control in the rare event AE slow was used, and assisting with pulls. It was also sped things up because me and the monk could share tanking/pulling duties. When your puller and your tank are the same person, it can get tricky to chain mobs into camp as quickly as you can with someone who can set up the pull while the tank is still fighting. I actually used to do most of the pulling because lull was often quicker than FD/sneak, and with mez I could park and position mobs so that the shaman could root and debuff before the previous mob had been killed. Basically the monk just had to sit in camp and burn through the mobs I queued up for him so we had no downtime due to waiting on pulls.

It was always different though depending on who I was playing with. When I play my bard I usually let other players set the tone for how the group operates, and then just adapt what I'm doing to best compliment what they're doing. It doesn't always result in the most efficient group, but I always felt like I made more friends and had more fun adapting to others than expecting them to adapt to me.