Making Half-Elf Bard...startings stats?

[Jete]

Anyways, I am too lazy to read back, but whoever said it depends on how you plan to play your bard hit it right on. If you suck at pulling, don't wanna melee, cant charm / cc worth a darn... go with dex so you can be a mana song bot for a cleric who knows how to push the CHeal button.

Str if you wanna be a melee bard.. as Gwence said before...

Cha if you wanna charm / mez better... but honestly I don't think cha affects mez but that's my opinion.

Int if you plan on charming for a long time without access to a manastone.

Now with all that said, my personal advice is go all cha, and put the rest in dex. Once you wear decent gear str doesn't even matter, during raids and groups more often than not you will have an instrument out. Good bards will be assist pulling / charming / cc during raids and groups. Bad bards will sing one song and /afk out... for that you don't even need to spend your stats, but I digest-

[Omnimorph]

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

Bad bards will sing one song and /afk out... for that you don't even need to spend your stats, but I digest-

It's good to digest from time to time, especially after a meal!!

Starting stats on a bard, i'd probably go with some cha, then sta like people say. Can't go wrong with sta.

these people saying spend 11,11, 8 ... don't you people try and get your stats to look neat by ending with a 0 or a 5? like 80, 85 etc. that's what i always do [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[JayFiveAlive]

Great discussion guys, thanks a lot for all the input! Sounds like a few others were wondering as well [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Sounds like I will probably be putting most points into Cha, then dex and possibly some in Sta.. maybe 15 cha, 8 dex and 7 sta.


Love all the input, keep it coming [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Omnimorph]

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

Love all the input, keep it coming [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Have you tried making a realistic gear plan? It's a pretty good basis to work on, can switch in items as you go later on. ie. base it on having full lambent, electrum rings etc, tally up the stats you'll have, and see what your totals are, then you can see which stat you should ideally put it in.

Would also occupy some time from now til the servers are up [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[firesyde424]

**DISCLAIMER** I did not play a bard until luclin came out. Playing a bard on this server through the original world has been a very different and in many ways, harder experience. Almost to the point of requiring that I relearn how to play the entire class. Having said that, it's very possible that the information below is based on experiences that aren't relevant to the "classic" world because many of the bard's defining abilities that I experienced, weren't available then. ***DISCLAIMER***

After playing a bard for the better part of 5 years, one thing is clear. Bards are NOT a DPS class. Yes, they can do damage in a per second fashion, but the end result is laughable compared to almost any other class. The strength of the bard class is its ability to "cast" while moving, twisting multiple song effects, CC, overhaste, and mana regen that stacks with spell regen. Not to mention harmony songs and of course, nobody does resists or speed like a bard can.

Even though bards are "generalists," they almost always end up as CC or pullers. In general, dex and cha are your friends. These stats reduce the "fizzle" rate of your songs, allowing you to twist more consistently. Considering that starting stats are more important in the classic world, I'd suggest maxing dex and putting the rest into charisma.

Again, as a bard, you are not the Tasmanian Devil of DPS, you never will be. Yes, I know bards can stack chants, yes I know they can charm other mobs, yes I know (insert generic bard DPS rant here). It doesn't matter. Bards just don't have the abilities or damage bonuses of other classes and weren't meant to in the first place. If you want an argument that you have a real shot of winning, get into a fight with a monk about who's the better pulling class. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[JayFiveAlive]

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

Have you tried making a realistic gear plan? It's a pretty good basis to work on, can switch in items as you go later on. ie. base it on having full lambent, electrum rings etc, tally up the stats you'll have, and see what your totals are, then you can see which stat you should ideally put it in.

Would also occupy some time from now til the servers are up [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Believe me that is an awesome idea, but uhh.. I have no idea how to do that. Is there an easy builder that allows me to do that ala Thottbot style?

[astuce999]

Originally Posted by firesyde424 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

**DISCLAIMER** I did not play a bard until luclin came out. Playing a bard on this server through the original world has been a very different and in many ways, harder experience. Almost to the point of requiring that I relearn how to play the entire class. Having said that, it's very possible that the information below is based on experiences that aren't relevant to the "classic" world because many of the bard's defining abilities that I experienced, weren't available then. ***DISCLAIMER***

After playing a bard for the better part of 5 years, one thing is clear. Bards are NOT a DPS class. Yes, they can do damage in a per second fashion, but the end result is laughable compared to almost any other class. The strength of the bard class is its ability to "cast" while moving, twisting multiple song effects, CC, overhaste, and mana regen that stacks with spell regen. Not to mention harmony songs and of course, nobody does resists or speed like a bard can.

Even though bards are "generalists," they almost always end up as CC or pullers. In general, dex and cha are your friends. These stats reduce the "fizzle" rate of your songs, allowing you to twist more consistently. Considering that starting stats are more important in the classic world, I'd suggest maxing dex and putting the rest into charisma.

Again, as a bard, you are not the Tasmanian Devil of DPS, you never will be. Yes, I know bards can stack chants, yes I know they can charm other mobs, yes I know (insert generic bard DPS rant here). It doesn't matter. Bards just don't have the abilities or damage bonuses of other classes and weren't meant to in the first place. If you want an argument that you have a real shot of winning, get into a fight with a monk about who's the better pulling class. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I played a bard for 7 years on live, and I agree with everything Firesyde said.

Question for Jete Veux, does manastone give mana back to the bard on this server? It never did on live. The only thing that ever gave mana back to the bard on live was divine rez and flowing thought items.

cheers,

Astuce Subterfuge

[Excision Rottun]

I played a bard for 8 years.

Go STA and DEX imo....for reasons stated above.

[Skope]

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

I went full stamina on my half-elf bard and put the remaining points into dex. Charisma is extremely easy to raise and star ruby jewelry adds cha/dex.

If you are in a group situation dex will not help you with twisting songs unless you are getting lots of aggro. If you are getting lots of aggro it's probably due to your weapons procing... maybe from that high dex? Hmmm.

In any case stamina keeps you alive longer and is the hardest stat to raise in the game. If you are going to be pulling in dungeons you will want enough hitpoints to make it back to camp. Go stamina.

Charisma is also noted for being one of the most difficult stats to max out (minus shammy buffage), but in the long run, for all classes, int included, stamina is your safest bet.

Granted, with int classes you'll gain more with +hp items than you will with +sta, but they both help [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[mreynert]

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

Cha if you wanna charm / mez better... but honestly I don't think cha affects mez but that's my opinion.

I've noticed a strong difference in the number of resists on mez with different levels of charisma, mostly only for higher level mobs though. From personal experience buffing my own cha up to 160ish with cha gear made mezzing a bit easier in camps higher level than my bard, and with a cha buff on top of that putting me near 200 it became laughably easy. I was CCing and pulling lord in lguk at 37-38. Cha also has a HUGE effect on pulling, if a lull resists there is a secondary check done to see if the mob will aggro and this check is Cha based. Got 17 resists in a row trying to break lord room in lguk with 200+ cha and not one aggro whereas if you were say below 100 you'd aggro almost every resist.

As to the rest of the comments here, agree with most of them. Str is negligible and without double attack your melee is a dot at best, if you want to do damage with melee and I use the term "damage" loosely you'd want to be proccing to do it...but this presents aggro issues and is only good when you have a tank who can hold off of you, or are yourself bard tanking (which I did for the vast majority of my 40s due to lack of tanks...have even tanked raids though can't stand up to incredibly high damage mobs and we lack the efficiency of real tank CH chain healing)

As to STA...I disagree on this a little bit...bard hp to sta gain is pitiful, I'm trying to remember the conversion rate from in game, but at 48 it's not that much from personal experience. I am however, in no way stating that you should ignore sta...I put points into it myself at character creation and it's saved me a few times with that little bit. For the most part though you should either be capable of avoiding damage or it'll be so much damage the pittance you get from sta will likely not save you...but it can and it is to be considered. I have purpled about 5 times where I would have died without those bonus sta points.

Dex is helpful, reduces number of missed notes and increases amount you will proc. The exact effect on missed notes I've not noticed, proccing can be good or bad, depends on how you want to play and what your role is at the time. Many will argue against proccing weapons, and on raids you mostly have an instrument out anyway...unless fighting trash or for some godforsaken reason are tanking, but if you have a good tank proccing weapons shouldn't be an issue unless you picked bad ones.

My 2 copper on the matter.

*edit* And one more thing to note, on raids you will likely never mez either as the current bard mez caps out at lvl 46 mobs. May occasionally charm something for a quick CC, but this is not normal.