Enchanter vs Bard

[Troxx]

For raw cc, in most cases enchanters will win handily.

In a direct dps comparison, a charming enchanter will always win.

Best not to directly compare. On my bard I've pulled off steady CC on 5-15 mobs continuously for over a half hour while the monk kept chain pulling anything and everything he could find up (God bless lv 54 aoe string snare) - ench can't do that. In the right circumstances, we shine with CC if you know what you're doing. At other points we are more than sufficient.

Bards are just different and how well they do depends a lot on skill. Many bards are terrible, and most of the rest are mediocre.

At the high end, I can feed mana faster than an enchanter, heal everyone in the group for 50/tick, tank content pretty easily, cc like a beast in some scenarios and adequately enough to get the job done in most other situations. Pulling is a cinch.

But ...

An ench with pet will always out-dps me.
An enchanter will give better and more reliable haste.
An enchanter will give (I'd argue) BETTER crowd control most of the time.
A mediocre ench will do more for a group than a mediocre bard.


The nice thing is, bard and ench actually complement each other nicely - especially if the chanter is charming.

[Loke]

Enchanter and Bard are the two classes I've played a lot recently and I'd say it ultimately comes down to your play style and what youre doing. In a normal situation, I find Bards to be the more fun class because over all I think the bard is the more difficult class, so in a boring exp grind or farm group it makes me more engaged in what I'm doing. I played a Bard before I picked up Enchanter and I distinctly remember thinking that playing the enchanter was a lot like playing a bard, but on easy mode. AE stuns and mez enable you to temporarily hit the pause button in "oh shit" situations. On the Bard, I felt like I always had to be hyper-aware and have contingency plans prepared for when things went south, where in contrast the enchanter let me just kind of play things by ear (to some extent, obviously having a contingency plan is always preferable).

I think in small group and solo settings the enchanter is unquestionably the stronger class. Even a bad, lazy enchanter can drastically improve a group, where as a bard actually needs to be good at the their class to really make people realize how useful they can be. A bard also needs to know more about other classes than most characters since they need to be able to readily determine what role they should play in the group. An enchanter can join any group, toss out mana buffs and haste, charm a pet, and be golden. A bard on the other hand needs to decide which songs would make the largest impact to the group set up, and determine what duties they can ignore since someone else in the group is more suited for that task.

I think I'd rather raid on my bard, but since I just play casually now I end up playing the chanter a lot more. If I were leveling I'd play the bard if I wanted to group, and the enchanter if I wanted to solo/duo. I would definitely suggest that anyone who loves their bard give chanter a try. Both were classes that never appealed to me, but are now my favorite (along with monk). Both will probably always be in high demand raiding, so if that is what you want to do, either will be fine.

[Loke]

Double post apparently.

[thufir]

Bards are awesome. Remember they can charm for 18 second stints themselves, which makes it easy to kill the charmed pet when you're done with it. And AoE mez is a lifesaver with a bad pull. We call it "bard insurance". (Yes, it keeps working past level 25 mobs, no matter what the wiki tells you.) They can tank for awhile, too. I look at bards as the tank/enchanter hybrid that isn't. Also, the clarity songs stack with normal clarity.

There's no "better" here. Really, you can't go wrong with both a bard and an enchanter.

[Tupakk]

If your using your AOE Mez past mistmoore then you are a brave soul.

[iruinedyourday]

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

If your using your AOE Mez past mistmoore then you are a brave soul.

aoe mez is the best!

level 57+ its basically the most op thing on the market.

I mean you might even get to a point where you replace your level 4 mez with aoe mez and just give zero fucks because you want more spell gems avail.

also aoe slow for shaman basically makes all enchanters go [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] in group situations because their CC suddenly feels worthless.

[Loke]

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

aoe mez is the best!

level 57+ its basically the most op thing on the market.

I mean you might even get to a point where you replace your level 4 mez with aoe mez and just give zero fucks because you want more spell gems avail.

also aoe slow for shaman basically makes all enchanters go [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] in group situations because their CC suddenly feels worthless.

I think he was talking about bard AoE mez, not chanter. Chanter AoE mez is indeed the best, it is almost always my number 1 spell gem and I rarely use any other mez. I havent really used Bard AoE mez since the early Kunark nerf, so not sure if it is still worthless, but I'm pretty sure it isn't ridiculously OP like it used to be.

Edit: I think the reason the wiki claims it doesnt work as well 25+ is because it used to work amazingly well 25+, and in contrast it is a far cry from what it used to be. Bards used to be able to lock down entire end game zones, and unless things have changed, they definitely can't anymore. It might still be situationally useful now, especially at lower levels, but I highly doubt many 50+ bards are using it with any regularity.

[thufir]

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

I think he was talking about bard AoE mez, not chanter. Chanter AoE mez is indeed the best, it is almost always my number 1 spell gem and I rarely use any other mez. I havent really used Bard AoE mez since the early Kunark nerf, so not sure if it is still worthless, but I'm pretty sure it isn't ridiculously OP like it used to be.

Edit: I think the reason the wiki claims it doesnt work as well 25+ is because it used to work amazingly well 25+, and in contrast it is a far cry from what it used to be. Bards used to be able to lock down entire end game zones, and unless things have changed, they definitely can't anymore. It might still be situationally useful now, especially at lower levels, but I highly doubt many 50+ bards are using it with any regularity.

Seems to work fine on 30+ mobs. In my experience it gets resisted about as often as any chanter mez, single target or group. It's irritating for it to get resisted once out of six mobs and then get bashed out of the song, sure; I think this is where people get agitated about it. But it definitely works.

[iruinedyourday]

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

I think he was talking about bard AoE mez, not chanter. Chanter AoE mez is indeed the best, it is almost always my number 1 spell gem and I rarely use any other mez. I havent really used Bard AoE mez since the early Kunark nerf, so not sure if it is still worthless, but I'm pretty sure it isn't ridiculously OP like it used to be.

Edit: I think the reason the wiki claims it doesnt work as well 25+ is because it used to work amazingly well 25+, and in contrast it is a far cry from what it used to be. Bards used to be able to lock down entire end game zones, and unless things have changed, they definitely can't anymore. It might still be situationally useful now, especially at lower levels, but I highly doubt many 50+ bards are using it with any regularity.

ah yes my bad heh!

[nhdjoseywales]

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

I think he was talking about bard AoE mez, not chanter. Chanter AoE mez is indeed the best, it is almost always my number 1 spell gem and I rarely use any other mez. I havent really used Bard AoE mez since the early Kunark nerf, so not sure if it is still worthless, but I'm pretty sure it isn't ridiculously OP like it used to be.

Edit: I think the reason the wiki claims it doesnt work as well 25+ is because it used to work amazingly well 25+, and in contrast it is a far cry from what it used to be. Bards used to be able to lock down entire end game zones, and unless things have changed, they definitely can't anymore. It might still be situationally useful now, especially at lower levels, but I highly doubt many 50+ bards are using it with any regularity.

Funny story....when i moved back to live and rolled a chanter on Lockjaw i ran into several folks who felt they needed to "tell me how to play an enchanter" and how they never ever use ae mezz and how useless it is. I still laugh at those people. It works even better on live becasue you can overwrite it with longer duration mezzes. I cant count the number of times ae mezz has saved the groups ass from an accidental or intentional train. And of course the time i was out of grouping the chanter for buffs and nukes and the in group druid freaked out and evaced my wizzies group. Ae mezz, origin, problem solved.