Bard Group: When to hangup the sword and pick up the lute?

[Cwall 146.0]

there are very rare situations where i would prefer to use a melee weapon over an instrument unless you have access to epic and higher end velious weapons

[Darguth]

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

I would say 34ish..you get your first cantana, can twist that with various other tools depending on group make up..

You can twist haste, mana chant, psalm, catanan and throw a dot here and there if your groups DPS is solid etc..

The thing about bard is play it to the situation. Probably the most versatile class in everquest.

Fairly n00b question but does Chant of Clarity's mana regen stack with Cantana's?

[cor3nth]

Never give up the sword, the best bards dual wield with Jonathan's song playing. No need to twist songs.

[Troxx]

It depends entirely on the group and what is going on.

Between fights the lute ALWAYS comes out. Cantana Nivs and a double mana pulse adds up. With a good lute that adds almost 45hp and 17 mana per tick (averaged over the 4 song twist) to the entire group - regen that stacks with all other gear and buffs. If the extra hp from Nivs (5 before string mod) isn't needed it's cantana plus mana pulses it averages out to around 30hp a tick with 19-20 mana a tick to the whole group.

Unless the healing isn't beneficial I usually keep instruments as bards contribution really is better by focusing on the song aspect. With good weapons at 60 out dps is still bad ... really bad. Trying to shuffle mezzes/targets while maintaining melee generally results in lost opportunities to do something more useful.

If the group really is chugging on autopilot, I'll melee with standard regen rolling along with haste, buffs, slows, snares etc. For mundane groups and mindless grinding, more isn't required.

Bards add the most to their groups in ways other than directly damaging the enemy. This isn't to say we can't do great damage - it's just not the most helpful thing. I can load enough and maintain enough dots to average 72dps plus my pitiful melee. Granted this leaves no room in cast cycle for any mana, regen, haste, resists, mezzes, slows, snares ,or melee buffs. In a good hard charging group though - we will as a team be better off if I focus on those things.

Especially at low levels, bard healing potential is peerless. A good lute and hymn of restoration is like giving the whole group an extra fungi. At high levels - 3 fungis with just 2 songs. Bards lack burst heal, but played well you can negate any and all healer downtime and let them just use the efficient stuff healing emergencies and only the tank infrequently.

[Sadiki]

Oh boy, this thread actually has a full page worth of discussion suggesting playing nothing but DoTs in groups.

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

Fairly n00b question but does Chant of Clarity's mana regen stack with Cantana's?

If you mean Chorus of Clarity, yes. It has no buff icon and merely gives a burst of mana whenever it hits. This makes it ideal to twist Cantana-Chorus-Chorus-Chorus in downtime if your healer is low on mana. However, the range on Chorus is rather small, and so it is usually fairly useless in combat unless you're fighting on top of your casters.. which is a wonderful way to get them hit every time they sit down between casts.

[Troxx]

I don't think anybody suggested playing nothing but dots. I suggested the exact opposite - simply pointing out that at 60 you can stack 72dps on dots alone. The point was that the bard doing their dots alone would be robbing the group of valuable input much more potent than the simple dps they might add from dots.

As for the other posters, I think their point is that bard dps is bad enough that in a strictly dps role they'd be better using their drums than meleeing - and they are right. 3 chants at 130 damage a tick is over 20 dps - better than bards are going to consistently melee for. Those chants last for 4 tics giving you time to work in 2 other support songs (regen/haste or regen/meleebuffs). I would still argue there are other more valuable songs to have loaded in your bar. Mine is already always full with the following in groups:

Regen primary
Snare/slow
Mez
Charm
Haste
Melee buff
Mana pulse

Those are always up with few exceptions - leaving room for just one other song.

At 60 that usually is the 1 minute slow with dot component and I frequently add unresistable resist debuff for harder content subbed in somewhere.

There's no room on my cast bar for single target chants.

Bards are mobile armored casters with terrible melee damage and very unique skills. We are the WD40 that makes the whole group run smoother by making others better and assisting or managing support tasks - our weapons in harder content aren't really relevant unless you have epic. The only exception is breath of harmony allowing us to access another 5th fairly decent song (not modded) to a standard 4 song twist.

[Pyrion]

There are scenarios when *just* playing dots is totally ok. If the group has for example already plenty of healing and a chanter and just lacks dps, then just playing dots maybe the best you can do.

Another example is when you duo with any class that likes to root/rot. A bard can be very valuable in such a duo as we do compete to have the best dots in game, and all of them don't use any mana... so you can pull the next mob without needing any rest. The other class would just need enough mana to root. Did that a few times, was very productive.

[Troxx]

Oh yeah. Bard + other root/rot caster duos are quite potent. Bard just dots and tosses regen song for nonstop killing.

[Darguth]

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

If you mean Chorus of Clarity, yes. It has no buff icon and merely gives a burst of mana whenever it hits. This makes it ideal to twist Cantana-Chorus-Chorus-Chorus in downtime if your healer is low on mana. However, the range on Chorus is rather small, and so it is usually fairly useless in combat unless you're fighting on top of your casters.. which is a wonderful way to get them hit every time they sit down between casts.

Thanks for the clarification, I didn't know how Chorus of Clarity worked (my bard is only 18 and never played one on Live).

[mefdinkins]

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

Between fights the lute ALWAYS comes out. Cantana Nivs and a double mana pulse adds up. With a good lute that adds almost 45hp and 17 mana per tick (averaged over the 4 song twist) to the entire group - regen that stacks with all other gear and buffs. If the extra hp from Nivs (5 before string mod) isn't needed it's cantana plus mana pulses it averages out to around 30hp a tick with 19-20 mana a tick to the whole group.

I think lute is worth it for the HP alone but still, I thought lute didn't impact mana regen?