Bard Help

[Ahris]

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

Hi! As a person who has never even reached cap, much less touched a bard how would I go about playing a bard?
Any helpful low level quests? I plan on going Human. Any gear I should go for? How would I go about making macros and the like?

Think of yourself as a mage more than a fighter, even though you can melee, most of the time you can often deal more damage using instrments while also being able to heal yourself and the group at the same time.

Be versatile and adapt your songs to the group you're in; If you don't need to heal and you have someone else doing crowd control you can whip out your weapons and stick to singing but if you lack a healer and get adds you might as well use your lute and do AoE damage, Healing and group haste for example, you'll get aggro from the add but your healing compensates for it long enough for the tank to take over once the main target is dead and by then you will have worn down its health a bit. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The songs you typically twist changes with your levels but keep in mind that all songs increase in power with your skills and only a few (Charm and mez) are ever outgrown. By lvl 50 even your lvl 1 song will be super powerful. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
There are many ways to play a bard so the best thing to do is to learn what the songs do and change them according to what is needed for the moment and how you prefer to play, you can be a ranged or close range DPS guy if you want or a backline buffer/pocket healer, it's all up to you. You will mostly be the one who decides what the group really needs from you so it's good to know what other classes do and spot what they need help doing (Because many people don't play their class like a pro).

Almost all songs can be sung without instruments but by playing their associated instrument (if they have one) they will become twice as powerful.

While you will have many soloing options, what bards really do best is boosting the power of any group.

I've never used macros, i have five songs hotslotted for twisting and an assist button in the sixth slot. You typically twist three songs but you will need to change a song sometimes so the other two are to change to an alternatice sequence; You might for example need to mez an add suddenly or stop doing AoE damage if you have an enchanter mezzing, this way you can easily do that without interrupting the other songs.

You don't really need any special gear except protective gear since bards get slapped around a lot but the stats you want to increase are CHA and DEX, up toa point in the early game you will also want to build STR to be able to wear heavy armor.
When it comes to weapons you will never deal much melee damage so personally i primarily use weapons with debuff procs, keep in mind though that your songs are already generating tons of aggro so you have to learn to manage it unlesss you have a good tank. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Something worth to remember is since you are mostly actively buffing the whole group, if anyone gets attacked you automatically end up on the mob's hatelist. So if a sand giant hits your mage you will be next so get selo's up and zone it, preferably take the mage with you. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Vizax_Xaziv]

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

Think of yourself as a mage more than a fighter, even though you can melee, most of the time you can often deal more damage using instrments while also being able to heal yourself and the group at the same time.

Learned this as my Bard increased in levels. Sure, when you're in the lower levels your Bard melee will help the group kills things MUCH faster. Once you're around the mid-30s though, you'll be far better off using instruments. For example you Lute+Hymn is absurd amounts of HP regen. Your Drums+Rhythm can make your tank resist 80% of all enemy spells in a place like Mistmoore.

Especially right now, when Clarity isn't in game yet, saving your healers mana will increase your group's killing speed FAR more than your Bard melee DPS will.

It's also a helluva lot easier on your fingers (instead of constantly swapping weapons/instruments in/out)

[roj1]

we permit download links to the Quran? holy sh1t

[k9quaint]

When the GMs ban Hazek, could they pls post the video?
Thanks.

[Dreenk317]

Wait.... someone is writing scripts to twist bard songs?!?! Wow.... if you cant play the class without cheating..... dont....

[Hazek]

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

I DONT LIKE CLASSIC EQ BUT I WANT TO PLAY CLASSIC EQ PLS MAKE IT INTO WOW FOR ME TY

False interpretation. Both extremes of "ultra classic" and "too many updates" are bad. The best approach is to keep it as classic as possible but still fix obvious problems like the meditate button or no inherent stopsong. But that requires a smart and reasonable dev with the vision to know when he's going too far. Not that i'm implying anything about the current devs, sincerely, because I understand why they maintain the ultra classic attitude despite that not being best.

[this user was banned]

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

False interpretation. Both extremes of "ultra classic" and "too many updates" are bad. The best approach is to keep it as classic as possible but still fix obvious problems like the meditate button or no inherent stopsong. But that requires a smart and reasonable dev with the vision to know when he's going too far. Not that i'm implying anything about the current devs, sincerely, because I understand why they maintain the ultra classic attitude despite that not being best.

They only seem to make non classic changes for serious game breaking things like stopping the ability to recharge the lifetap hoops. This project has never been about selectively streamlining everquest, it's been about trying to reproduce the game as it was experienced many years ago.

If you don't agree then you might want to try another server.

[Hazek]

Originally Posted by this user was banned [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

They only seem to make non classic changes for serious game breaking things like stopping the ability to recharge the lifetap hoops. This project has never been about selectively streamlining everquest, it's been about trying to reproduce the game as it was experienced many years ago.

If you don't agree then you might want to try another server.

Woosh. "Streamlining Everquest" is not what I was saying at all. That's one of the extremes i'm against.

[this user was banned]

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

Woosh. "Streamlining Everquest" is not what I was saying at all. That's one of the extremes i'm against.

changing something because it's just pointless and annoying" as you stated is by definition streamlining

[Hazek]

Originally Posted by this user was banned [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

changing something because it's just pointless and annoying" as you stated is by definition streamlining

Subjective semantics.

Fixing something that has no purpose in the game that negatively effects it with zero benefits is not the same as adding a feature like group finder, which is closer to the vague definition of "streamlining".