Is a bard wrong for me?

[WarpathEQ]

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

Played the game on launch, never raided much at all and played a Cleric back then. Was thinking of trying a Bard since I am returning brand new on Green. Never played one, but they seem like a lot of fun. I played on live at launch but only made it to 25-30'ish I forget.

My biggest fear is being main puller. I don't know enough about the game to effectively be a puller lol I would not even know how if I had to do dungeons and lord raids would be murder since I've never raided.

So my questions are:
1) I figure I'll be soloing for most of my leveling life but at 40+ if I find groups, what will be my roll in the group?

2) For raiding what would be my role? I've heard Bards are mostly song bots on raids, is this true?

I basically want to see if playing a Bard (for me) is a mistake or not. Sure, over a long time of playing I'm sure I would learn but that's way down the road.

Bard is a jack of all trades and a master of few (fastest run speed, highest resist buffs, and critical unique debuffs), my favorite class in the game as evidenced by 50% of my toons being bards (3/6). The best part about bard is you can do a little of everything and you can provide value in any situation, but that also means people will look to you when something is needed and expect you to step up.

Bard is a class that can group or solo at any level 1-60 which is nice that you can pick and choose when and how you want to level your toon. Fear kiting, Charm kiting and (my least favorite) swarm kiting are all viable and efficient soloing tactics for a bard.

1) At 40+ its rare that you would be the puller, I find that is usually requested of a bard at lower levels (1-40) where pulling most often falls on whoever is the best player in the group regardless of class. You will be the person that makes everyone in the group the best version of themselves. What you will do will vary based on the make up of the group. More melee heavy groups will benefit more from things like haste where casters will want mana song, you may need to be the one that is slowing the mobs or you may need to assist with crowd control when multiple mobs come in with the pull. You'll end up with a staple of go-to songs that you use most often but you'll also find yourself making adjustments for each group or camp that you're in.

2) For raiding, similar to grouping, bard roles can be extremely dynamic. At the lowest level/simplest form of raiding, bards group with the clerics and run mana song while often assisting the slow team by landing OOS on the target (this is likely what raiding will be like the first month or 2). At the highest form a bard can be one of the most important raiders in the guild helping secure FTEs on high valued targets, establishing large zone wide kites to expedite kills, making raid saving heads up plays to get unexpected mobs out of camp, and DAing the entire group to avoid vicious AoEs just to name a few key things bards are known for doing at a high level.

IMO the right class for you is the one you enjoy playing the most. That's what will encourage you to stick with the game and see your character through to the end game while materializing high level skills that.

If you do choose bard working on being the best you can at twisting songs will be one of the simplest yet most valuable things you can do. Inherently everything a bard does lasts a very short duration so bards benefit from landing as many songs as they can before the first song duration ends, and then repeating those songs over and over (known as twisting) to maximize the amount of song effects you can maintain through a fight. A low quality bard might only be using 1-2 songs at a time whereas the best bards in the game are capable of keeping up 5, 6, sometimes even 7 (with item effects) songs at a time which can make an absolutely massive difference in the outcome at any level.