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

[Tetsuo]

Considering how horrid bard damage is, I was wondering what level would it be more beneficial for the group to just drop the stat stick and just jam out ?

[gildor]

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.

[darkreap]

When I would twist songs at low levels I would use melee weapons and right before cantana went off I would equip my lute. Kinda a PITA but I think people who don't know how to bard get pissy when you don't melee sometimes.

[Pyrion]

at 46 you can do more than 130/tick with just the 3 ranged dots while equipping a drum. Your weapons probably can't keep up with that. That damage is quite reliable too, other than the sporadic nature of weapon damage.

Generally i would say i switched more and more to instruments starting in the late 30ties.

[Aaramis]

I suppose it all depends on your weapons and instruments.

In the example above, 130dmg between 3 songs means each song is doing what, about 43dmg?
Depending on your instrument modifier, switching to melee could mean each song dropping to about 30d'ish mg - so 90dmg with weapons out vs 130 without.

So as long as your weapons do 40dmg per tick then you're pulling even, and with a haste item, haste song, and decent weapons, you should be hitting that.

I dunno, maybe I did Bard completely wrong, but I found that the vast majority of times it was worth meleeing.

[fishingme]

In a raid or downtime I would use an instrument. Bard charm or cc while melee is good.

[Pyrion]

Equipping an instrument applies the instrument modifier to the dot damage. if your isntrument has strength 21 (mistmoore battle drums, easy to get) than your damage increases by a factor of 2.1. So the 130 will be a bit more than 60 without instruments. Hard to do more than 60 damage a tick reliably with weapons as a 46 bard. Still, it's a possibility. You will have to be close to the mob though which is another inconvenience if you want to fear kite for example.

If you really *like* to swing your weapons you won't gimp yourself by doing so and applying dots at the same time, but the effort is really not needed.

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

I suppose it all depends on your weapons and instruments.

In the example above, 130dmg between 3 songs means each song is doing what, about 43dmg?
Depending on your instrument modifier, switching to melee could mean each song dropping to about 30d'ish mg - so 90dmg with weapons out vs 130 without.

So as long as your weapons do 40dmg per tick then you're pulling even, and with a haste item, haste song, and decent weapons, you should be hitting that.

I dunno, maybe I did Bard completely wrong, but I found that the vast majority of times it was worth meleeing.

[Pyrion]

One thing to add: If you are *not* in a DPS role and the group needs your other songs (haste, shielding and such) then using your weapons is of course the best thing you can do. Free damage, however little, is always nice.

[Aaramis]

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

Equipping an instrument applies the instrument modifier to the dot damage. if your isntrument has strength 21 (mistmoore battle drums, easy to get) than your damage increases by a factor of 2.1. So the 130 will be a bit more than 60 without instruments. Hard to do more than 60 damage a tick reliably with weapons as a 46 bard. Still, it's a possibility. You will have to be close to the mob though which is another inconvenience if you want to fear kite for example.

If you really *like* to swing your weapons you won't gimp yourself by doing so and applying dots at the same time, but the effort is really not needed.

Yeah, MM drums are one of the higher ratios - I was using an example of about a 1.6 modifier which is probably the base stuff, which is why I said it depends on your gear. If you have awesome instruments, then yeah, you're probably better off just using instruments. If you're an A/A twink with a Siren Song dagger, then melee is probably your better option.

All told, though, the damage is probably not going to be a huge difference between melee + base songs vs. no melee + instrument-modified songs. Probably equates to less than a 5 or 10% variable, although that's a number I'm just guessing at.

Obviously, for swarm kiting melee is out. And dragons / raid targets, I'd probably avoid melee too unless you have Siren Song / Epic and want to proc.

[Aaramis]

I should also add that if you're twisting 3 DoTs, then you're not singing haste, snare/slow, or anything else, most likely. But if you're doing all that other stuff, hastening folks, singing a slow, and throwing in just one DoT, then perhaps you'd be better off meleeing.
Losing instrument damage for just one DoT should be more than made up for with melee, especially in a melee group where you're singing haste.

So, not only does it depend on your instruments or weapons, I'd argue it also depends on your group, too.
No point in meleeing and singing haste if you're in a caster group. Easier to let a pet tank, and just sing your DoTs from afar and throw in some mana regen, and maybe slow the mob if nobody else is.
Versatility [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]