What next for midlevel bard?

[WarpathEQ]

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

If by some odd chance you see this, OP bcbrown, I'm about to roll a bard, but it's my first toon starting on p99 (gave away 56 rogue acct 20+ years ago), so I'll be lucky if I see a hand-me-down or two. I want to make sure I don't misspend/allocate a single starting stat.

I'm rolling Wood Elf no matter what. I planned on putting 10 to Dex (to start at 100), 10 STR (still low at 80), and the rest (5) in CHA (90)

Is there something I should know regarding your hindsight about "going dex being suboptimal"? Thanks

I rolled 2 bards, first went STR heavy, second went DEX heavy (with the final points going into the other). I would concur that I had a much better QoL on the STR build. The Dex build had issues with encumbrance all the way up to 60 and only overcame it once I was raid geared. Even in that case playing for the ultimate late game meta build in hindsight I would say STA would be the stat for virtually all melee classes as the other stats are easy to buff up STA/WIS/INT are the stats that have the least buffs.

[bcbrown]

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

I'm rolling Wood Elf no matter what. I planned on putting 10 to Dex (to start at 100), 10 STR (still low at 80), and the rest (5) in CHA (90)

Is there something I should know regarding your hindsight about "going dex being suboptimal"? Thanks

Man, I don't know. I recently rolled a second bard and went strength. The first dex/cha bard is only like 20-30 stone away from encumbrance and is constantly overweight after a couple hours worth of loot. The second bard has a lot more carrying capacity, but I'm getting more missed notes and noticeably fewer procs (at level 19 now). Obviously the lack of procs won't matter as much from 30-onwards as you stop meleeing so much, and probably the missed notes won't be as big a deal as my musical skills get closer to the cap.

I think 10/10/5 seems like a decent split. WarpathEQ and Busted both make good points. The first bard was 15 dex/10 cha. I guess I'd start by thinking about what your goal is for the bard. If you plan to swarm to 60 and raid heavily, sta/dex might be a good idea. If you just want to fuck around through the lower levels, dex/str might be the way to go. If you're starting from scratch without any twinking, you probably won't be able to afford a good proc weapon before melee starts to become less relevant, which imo makes dex less useful.

I guess I'd recommend 15str/10dex or 20str/5dex. Strength is especially useful on a first toon on a server since you'll want to be able to carry as much loot as possible to buy gear. I found it pretty easy to get a good set of cha gear: opalline earrings, gypsy medallion, mask of deception combine for +32cha. I've got 148cha right now and that's probably overkill. I've only noticed charm breaking early once, and that's not a big deal anyway since you're gonna get a lot of experience swapping charm between the two mobs. Lull, sure, but if you're pulling for a group a crit fail shouldn't be too big a deal since you can mez-lock three mobs with a bit of practice.

Are you planning on swarming your way to 60 as quickly as possible in order to raid, or are you going to level kinda slowly and explore as much of the world as possible without worrying about raid gear?

[busted]

Go dex build. Str items are easy to come by and getting 100% WR bags are pretty easy.

Dex is the most underrated stat in the game IMO. Proc city with high dex and supposedly fewer missed notes.

Bard with https://wiki.project1999.com/Essence_Mace + https://wiki.project1999.com/Silver_Whip_of_Rage + high dex becomes pretty beastly. Highly recommend this setup

[WarpathEQ]

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

Go dex build. Str items are easy to come by and getting 100% WR bags are pretty easy.

Dex is the most underrated stat in the game IMO. Proc city with high dex and supposedly fewer missed notes.

Bard with https://wiki.project1999.com/Essence_Mace + https://wiki.project1999.com/Silver_Whip_of_Rage + high dex becomes pretty beastly. Highly recommend this setup

Seems like a waste to me, by the time you have that type of gear you should be able to max out dex pretty easily without using starting stats on it. If you're looking at ultimate meta game min/max seems like STA would have been the choice at that level of gearing.

[WarpathEQ]

Definitely wouldn't worry about CHA. I've never added starting starts or focused on +CHA gear and its extremely rare that anything relevant to CHA works at less than 100% success for a bard.

[busted]

You need several Vulak items to max un-avatared DEX. This is very hard to do

https://wiki.project1999.com/Silver_Disk is also key for mega dex

STA is over-indexed IMO. 80hp lifetap + 150 rune proccing several times in a fight will net you more survivability than 100hp (25 base sta * 4 hp per sta)

Here's the setup:

- High dex (or avatar wep *but proccing with low base dex sucks)
- https://wiki.project1999.com/Essence_Mace
- https://wiki.project1999.com/Silver_Whip_of_Rage
- Primary lute twisting in https://wiki.project1999.com/Niv%27s...f_Preservation + https://wiki.project1999.com/Hymn_of_Restoration
- Ring 10 regen
- Fungi (or 8 regen from 4x aura of battle items)
- Then HP / STA items to boost base hp

These things + 60 bard slow make you a beefy boy.

Bonus:
- Chardok ring for 25 extra DS
- Sky shoulders fury clicky for an extra 10hp regen

I call this the "battle bard" setup

[WarpathEQ]

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

You need several Vulak items to max un-avatared DEX. This is very hard to do

Agreed. At the same time I would also state that people that have the type of gear you're referring to (such as the essence mace and silver whip of rage) also likely have several vulak items.

I would consider Vulak BIS gear, I would consider those as beyond BIS gear as most bards are going to focus DKP spend on epic/primary instruments for their hands and focus on gearing their other slots before going for min/max solo-quest funsies type of items that have more niche use cases.

[Keebz]

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

You need several Vulak items to max un-avatared DEX.

Just proc avatar then? If we're talking about essence mace and vulak items then you have a primal.

[Vivitron]

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

Not especially. I've put the bard on the back burner for the time being. I'm halfway through 54 and almost all my xp in that range has been in KC. I had a good time duoing with a pally just outside the entrance, and now that I have aoe snare I've been learning how to cc a big pull by kiting them around camp until they're all rooted/mezzed. I've been meaning to check out Burning Woods, either charming giants or swarming hornets. My gear still isn't great (no fungi), so that limits my options a bit.

BW could be fun, I haven't tried those giants on a bard.

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

53+ Western wastes can be kind of fun if you are charming rhinos / mammoths and suiciding them into ice burrowers. You gotta get positioning right to avoid the 500dd frontal AOE cone blast but you get the hang of it. I level here in between scout rolls. A side bonus of killing these is you can spawn stronghorn and tantor. You gotta be non kos to dragons or you gonna get smashed by something

I tried this a little, I don't think it's going to be a big xp source for me but was fun to play with. I also tried pulling the pirates to klandi's spawn to pbaoe down; unfortunately I got caught and they insta killed me because of the backstabs. There aren't a ton of pirates and I don't know their respawn time but I might give them another try.

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

Bard solo falls off hard 50+. Your new charm costs mana and only lasts for 3 ticks instead of 4. Also your melee dps can no longer really keep up with mob hp. I’d probably just try to swarm, maybe td raptors?

Originally Posted by busted

Velks is also fun if there are no swarms going on. Charm killing + melee solo is great fun 54+. You need fungi to make it viable. Snare + fear at lower than 25% to save on downtime.

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

Cobalt Scar charming would be fun if you can avoid the high levels (Azuredrake and Yolcarn?). Wakening Lands or giants in GD, south of the fort there are a ton of high levels to charm. I charmed Expedition Dwarves 57/8-60 and had a lot of fun. XP was pretty solid.

For swarmers I don’t know. Likely DL and BW to 60, or TD raptors.

I do like TD raptors, if I get stalled before 55 I may go grind it out there to get OOS and Cantana. I might try those dwarves when I'm higher too; could be a good alternate if velks is taken or vice versa.

Originally Posted by bcbrown

I did a little Cobalt Scar 49-51, either dot-kiting or charming. The problem with charming is making sure you avoid getting an add, especially any of the cobalt drakes with their aoe dd/dispel. But if you can pull two wyverns down to the othmir it'd be pretty good. I root rotted on my druid up until 53, when it finally completely greened out. Getting non-KOS with dragons is definitely recommended.

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

Crazy exp 45-50 then at 52 a bunch of them are greens. I left after 51. Also a very good idea to be at least dubious with COV for general safety.

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

There's a big rock on the main ridge close to skyshrine which is safe from pathers, they wander like 50-75yards from the rock and turn away. I always pulled to that area but they come in pairs so you might have to lull one first.

If you charm from the tower and pull to land, you have to go down the staircase waiting for your charmed mob or it will fall on the rocks below and aggro a bunch of bulthars, which is bad news.

Good tips; I didn't have any issues killing them between the rock and the skyshrine ramp. I found if you dot instead of charm from the tower the bulthars will not social the wyverns. I only had this camp for a few cycles but finished out 51 here and really liked it. I may try to get the camp again for some of 52.

I tried wl some when this camp was taken; the giants were already largely greening out. There might be some promise in killing the faerie dragons though. I also found out you can charm lieutenant krofer to do the https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Studded_Cloak quest without faction.

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

Bonus:
...
- Sky shoulders fury clicky for an extra 10hp regen

Can you confirm whether the sky shoulders are rechargeable? The wiki and forums are unclear. If they are I will prioritize them.

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

Go dex build. Str items are easy to come by and getting 100% WR bags are pretty easy.

Dex is the most underrated stat in the game IMO. Proc city with high dex and supposedly fewer missed notes.

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

Just proc avatar then? If we're talking about essence mace and vulak items then you have a primal.

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

Seems like a waste to me, by the time you have that type of gear you should be able to max out dex pretty easily without using starting stats on it. If you're looking at ultimate meta game min/max seems like STA would have been the choice at that level of gearing.

Originally Posted by busted

You need several Vulak items to max un-avatared DEX. This is very hard to do

Stats

I think STA is a good default. Especially if the end goal is a bard geared in practical gear for typical raid roles. I agree STR could be a nice quality of life bump early game for a first character. CHA is mostly for crit lull rate (how often the mobs attack you when you try to lull) -- it has a huge effect here, but it's completely feasible to get CHA to a satisfactory level when/if you need it without using starting stats.

I went CHA on my main bard which was maybe a silly choice. Gearing, I've been focused on hp/resists/sta, although I'm starting to think I have been under valuing ac.

My weapons include the ones busted mentioned and my goals include trophy solo kills.

Of my 18 non-held slots I have 9 tunnel-tier, 7 bis-ish, and 2 solid but lower tier raid drops. With drum/epic, vindi bp on instead of fungi, and not in resist swaps, my stats are:
207 STR
200 STA
162 DEX

My STR already feels like a dead stat: with weapon procs and/or werewolf illusion I think I'm usually capped even without FoS.

My STA is around the 205 that would let a single buff cap it; but I want to max it unbuffed and pumping it up warps my gearing decisions.

Busted has a decent point that max DEX would be nice for high end face tank solo. I do have a primal, but if I proc haste then primal that's two procs relying on unprimaled DEX. And getting a primal on a bard is admittedly weird. Some of the high dex vulak items are debatable (no hp on the boots/arms and belt of dwarf slaying is an interesting dexless belt option). That said I still find myself chasing STA not DEX in my gear decisions, and probably would go STA if I could re-allocate.

[busted]

Can you confirm whether the sky shoulders are rechargeable? The wiki and forums are unclear. If they are I will prioritize them.

I couldn't get them to recharge. This seems like a bug though. Every other sky item is rechargable via mana batteries and box of the void. Surely this one should be too