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Old 11-26-2022, 10:43 AM
Homesteaded Homesteaded is offline
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Default What happened to Bards?

Did I miss something along the way where we now accept that Bards play two to three songs in camp. Rarely mez, never pull and never attack? I've witnessed the level of Bard play on these servers plummet.

Back in my day Bards were active, pulling, mezzing, charming etc. Using their kit. Now they are like bots. Why have we accepted this level of play to become the norm? Old age of the player base making it hard to play Bards in an active way? What gives Bards?
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Old 11-26-2022, 11:46 AM
Toxigen Toxigen is offline
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any bard that melees is a shitter...unless they have epic

hope this helps
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Old 11-26-2022, 11:51 AM
Homesteaded Homesteaded is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Toxigen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
any bard that melees is a shitter...unless they have epic

hope this helps
Wrong. Next.
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Old 11-26-2022, 01:12 PM
Cen Cen is offline
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Are you sure you are remembering what is allowed correctly? What exactly are you wanting them to do? Here's a few scenario's

A bard is playing 3 songs with an instrument, that's pretty good, but they wont be able to melee then besides throw fist attacks.

A bard can melee and dual wield after 20 but not double attack. Their melee skills are learned extremely late for all of them, and they are generally so poor that an instrument powered Chords of Diss from level 2 outdamages the offset of non instrument melee.

Here's one thing very few people don't know, a three chanting bard with good instrument is on the higher side of average possible DPS among all classes. They are very similar to a melee ranger. A bard charming + 2 chanting two mobs does incredible damage. 3 chanting I think is 75 DPS? It's a pretty nice amount for a hybrid with tons of tools.

All of this ive said is to compound the fact that the bards epic is likely the most powerful and transformative epic in the game, and some people don't understand how serious that is. Getting a high instrument bonus, and the only singing bonus, and opening up a full melee potential is taking the two halves of the class, combining them, and improving them.

If your bard uses its melee weapons without a instrument bonus at lower levels, that can be fine too but they need to select very specific songs to get the most out of that, namely singing only songs. Most other songs become insanely weak when you don't have the instrument. Big examples being Hymn of Resto and Chords of Diss.

At level 6, having a bard twisting just those two songs will far out damage the offset of picking up their single melee weapon.

Really, a lot of the time instruments straight up double songs effects as long as you have the correct type, and don't use the percent gains.

I don't usually use bad language on the forum too often, but I think I once read someone in the not too distant past saying "any bard that melee's is a shitter, unless they have their epic" and I think that's actually a pretty accurate statement.
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Old 11-26-2022, 01:18 PM
Cen Cen is offline
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Sometimes you have to consider all the possibilities of the toolkit and what needs to be sacrificed though.

For example, Necromancers are an AMAZING group class. Their kit to help a group is actually quite powerful. They actually give mana and even heal really well, and a lot of folks will say "anything a necro can do would be better served by a second cleric" and most people who say that are comparing the necro directly to the cleric spells, and completely forgetting there is a pet there beating down the mobs the group are fighting while all this support is going on [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] and that's the thing to remember - bards sacrifice a song or two to add a chant for DPS, or a mez, etc. You gotta pick those 3-4 song rotations carefully and decide what to bump out
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Old 11-26-2022, 01:39 PM
Homesteaded Homesteaded is offline
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I played a bard on blue, finished epic before Velious dropped. I know Bards. Sitting and playing only songs is not what Bards should be doing most of the time. These Bards are not chanting dots they are playing mana song and chant of battle and not doing anything else. It's an issue I've seen all the way up to high levels. Bards who don't even know they can mez or how to charm, how to lull or pull. It's sad to see such a powerful class represented like this.
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Old 11-26-2022, 02:13 PM
Cen Cen is offline
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Oh, yeah, this sounds more like bards not knowing at all what they actually can do. My blue main to endgame was bard as well, but I didn't the epic
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Old 11-26-2022, 02:30 PM
Danth Danth is offline
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This is probably another symptom of the larger culture of laziness that has gradually infested the grouping scene on P99 over the past half decade or so. It has almost totally soured the wife and I on grouping because we're so very sick of inviting people just for them to immediately expect to be carried whilst putting in minimal effort themselves. When we're on we seldom join anyone 'cept known friends anymore. Most any class seems to prone to such laziness since it's a culture issue moreso than a class issue, but slacking bards are extremely easy to see so they tend to stand out somewhat.

Danth
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Old 11-26-2022, 02:44 PM
Homesteaded Homesteaded is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
This is probably another symptom of the larger culture of laziness that has gradually infested the grouping scene on P99 over the past half decade or so. It has almost totally soured the wife and I on grouping because we're so very sick of inviting people just for them to immediately expect to be carried whilst putting in minimal effort themselves. When we're on we seldom join anyone 'cept known friends anymore. Most any class seems to prone to such laziness since it's a culture issue moreso than a class issue, but slacking bards are extremely easy to see so they tend to stand out somewhat.

Danth
This is a great point Danth, it isn't exclusive to the Bard. It's just way more apparent when they play like this. This is exactly the situation I run into. As a tank generally I have to tank and pull mobs while all these other capable classes just sit there and attack a mob. They contribute no joy to the group, no banter, no utility. They are effectively mercenaries. I've started being way more picky and will call these people out. Generally there are other people looking to join groups who will contribute.
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Old 11-26-2022, 08:00 PM
zanderklocke zanderklocke is offline
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What happened to the passion? What happened to the hard work? What happened to the OG '99 bards? Keep poser bards out of the scene!
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