What next for midlevel bard?

[Toxigen]

i feel like keeping a designated pet as a bard is a waste in groups

you should be pulling and using charm temporarily on big pulls for added dps / cc

[busted]

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

i feel like keeping a designated pet as a bard is a waste in groups

If the pet sucks yeah it can be.

But charming a baby golem in ST, or a rat in DN is verrrry good DPS.

You charm, pet attack, pulse mana/whatever for group and repeat. Then mez pet in between fights

[bcbrown]

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

c u in the future when you twist mana song and afk in our riot raids.

I'll be quoting this in my guild application.

I stayed at the giant fort until 38, when some started greening out and it became harder to find similar-level duos and trios. I kept an eye on Kaesora, but there wasn't a single person leveling in there (on green) at any point while I've been playing. I went to Mistmoore CE for 38 and most of 39 in full groups. One group was pretty rough at first, as the ranger was pulling pretty heavy and I was the only CC, but eventually I got the hang of keeping three mobs mezzed in a loop. Someone else in the group also played bard, and it was nice when they recognized stuff I was doing like using the DD song to interrupt spellcasters. I also at some point here got to try out pulling, and got pretty good at pulling singles from the musician room. One time, on my very first pull for a group, I missed the bridge, plunged straight off the cliff, and promptly died to all the mobs in the pit below, which was pretty hilarious.

Then I went to CoM, where I was underleveled in a moat group with a bunch of high 40s. It was kinda boring to lay back and twist manasongs, but I couldn't land anything offensively and it was also nice to take it a little easy after tryharding most of the previous recent groups I'd been in. After a couple more groups at stables and arena I headed back to the old continent, and now I'm halfway through 42 in the Rathe Mountains, duoing and trioing hill giants with mages.

Mage was a nice duo partner. I could twist snare/dot/dot and mostly keep aggro on myself, with the fire pet chasing after. The trio with two mages was lots of fun, fastpaced chaos as we tried to compete for hill giants against two 60s soloing. It feels like bard really shines the most in duo/trios. Solo is fun, but my tankiness is starting to drop and my DPS isn't keeping up, even with two drum dots. Full groups are fine too, but the jack-of-all-trades aspect of barding becomes less important.

I think I'm going to stay with hill giants in Rathe a little longer, until I get enough plat and fine steel weapons that I need to go bank, then hit up Vivitron's suggestions of geos in Crystal Caverns, SolB, and Droga. Vivitron, how should I run through SolA to SolB? Fight my way through or just train it? IIRC a lot of them see through invis, and every time I've tried to fight my way through on my 51 druid I've gotten bogged down and eventually have to gate out.

Probably also a good time for a gear check. Anything I should be on the lookout for? I can't afford any of the good SS items yet. Getting some 5/55 or 6/65 rings seems like an obvious upgrade, but I'm not sure what earrings or neck I should look for. Arms and feet also seem due for an upgrade. I've got 2-3kpp right now. https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Green:Prosody

[enjchanter]

Aggro kiting using a fire pet
That's a yikes

[Vivitron]

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

I think I'm going to stay with hill giants in Rathe a little longer, until I get enough plat and fine steel weapons that I need to go bank, then hit up Vivitron's suggestions of geos in Crystal Caverns, SolB, and Droga. Vivitron, how should I run through SolA to SolB? Fight my way through or just train it? IIRC a lot of them see through invis, and every time I've tried to fight my way through on my 51 druid I've gotten bogged down and eventually have to gate out.

It's the easy path through sol a, just a couple right turns and you're there -- you only have to pass a couple mobs. The correct zone line is marked C on the map. In sol b you clear in from that zone line. Stick with the greater kobolds and greater kobold shaman, there should be plenty of them.

You asked about finishing the charms indoors -- it can be messy. Consider ccing the uncharmed target before the last charm break when it makes sense. Sometimes a snare+fear on a shaman is the right thing to do. IMO don't worry about the occasional half xp kill when getting the full xp kill looks like it will be costly.

[bcbrown]

Ah, I've been trying to get to D. C looks a lot easier, thanks.

[Toxigen]

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

I'll be quoting this in my guild application.

I stayed at the giant fort until 38, when some started greening out and it became harder to find similar-level duos and trios. I kept an eye on Kaesora, but there wasn't a single person leveling in there (on green) at any point while I've been playing. I went to Mistmoore CE for 38 and most of 39 in full groups. One group was pretty rough at first, as the ranger was pulling pretty heavy and I was the only CC, but eventually I got the hang of keeping three mobs mezzed in a loop. Someone else in the group also played bard, and it was nice when they recognized stuff I was doing like using the DD song to interrupt spellcasters. I also at some point here got to try out pulling, and got pretty good at pulling singles from the musician room. One time, on my very first pull for a group, I missed the bridge, plunged straight off the cliff, and promptly died to all the mobs in the pit below, which was pretty hilarious.

Then I went to CoM, where I was underleveled in a moat group with a bunch of high 40s. It was kinda boring to lay back and twist manasongs, but I couldn't land anything offensively and it was also nice to take it a little easy after tryharding most of the previous recent groups I'd been in. After a couple more groups at stables and arena I headed back to the old continent, and now I'm halfway through 42 in the Rathe Mountains, duoing and trioing hill giants with mages.

Mage was a nice duo partner. I could twist snare/dot/dot and mostly keep aggro on myself, with the fire pet chasing after. The trio with two mages was lots of fun, fastpaced chaos as we tried to compete for hill giants against two 60s soloing. It feels like bard really shines the most in duo/trios. Solo is fun, but my tankiness is starting to drop and my DPS isn't keeping up, even with two drum dots. Full groups are fine too, but the jack-of-all-trades aspect of barding becomes less important.

I think I'm going to stay with hill giants in Rathe a little longer, until I get enough plat and fine steel weapons that I need to go bank, then hit up Vivitron's suggestions of geos in Crystal Caverns, SolB, and Droga. Vivitron, how should I run through SolA to SolB? Fight my way through or just train it? IIRC a lot of them see through invis, and every time I've tried to fight my way through on my 51 druid I've gotten bogged down and eventually have to gate out.

Probably also a good time for a gear check. Anything I should be on the lookout for? I can't afford any of the good SS items yet. Getting some 5/55 or 6/65 rings seems like an obvious upgrade, but I'm not sure what earrings or neck I should look for. Arms and feet also seem due for an upgrade. I've got 2-3kpp right now. https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Green:Prosody

bards are kings in com because outdoors

id stay there, plenty of times you'll have less than full groups...gonna be your best xp to 48 or so

also your drum dots will improve a bit when you get chant of frost at 46

get the 65 hp rings asap, singing steel helm for pulling (basically BiS for leveling bard), cloak of the maelstrom is good, mystic koada for cheap fashion, queen's carapace

may be time to farm some plat if you want to be better geared for the long haul of 50-60...crystal caverns / sol A may be good idk i havent farmed for plat on a non 60 in a decade

[bcbrown]

I've continued having a lot of fun on the bard. I did all of level 43 on Crystal Cavern geos, getting 1kpp in the process, by far the most lucrative camp I've done yet. I probably should have stayed for another level, but some of the geos were turning green, and I wanted to check out SolB kobolds, which I did for all of 44. That was a lot of fun, and good charm practice. It turns out that for all my questions and struggles when I was starting out, the solution was just to get good. Most of the time I was able to complete a charm fight without losing more than like 20% health, and mez, snare, fear gave good crowd control. When I had a single pull I could pretty quickly drum-dot it down. I always felt in control, even at low health.

45-48 was mostly CoM. I had an absolutely fantastic session with a warrior/shaman trio where I was chain-pulling for an hour or two at stables. Then I had an experience at Arena that kinda bummed me out. We had a weird group composition, pally/bard/cleric/wizard, and I was playing a ton of different songs, sometimes three dots, sometimes haste/slow, sometimes damage shield, sometimes manapump. The group wasn't killing very fast, though. Later, as other people joined and my wrists were tired, and we had pally/melee/mage/bard/cleric/wizard where I had swapped to cleric. The new bard mostly just pulsed mana, and it seemed a lot smoother. I don't know how much of it was the song choices and how much was the full group, but it does seem that in groups at higher levels just pulsing mana might be the best contribution, and that's real boring.

All the casters in Droga left me a little scared to try charming in there, and not sure if it would still be worthwhile now that I'm level 48. I did a little duoing with a wizard at Cobalt Scar against drakes and wyverns, and might head back there to solo a bit, interspersed with some more City of Mist. I also need to head down to Guk to get my DE mask; what level would I need to be to solo that camp? With three mobs in camp and not much room I'm not sure how I'd split it or fight them, either.

I got some gear upgrades, some meaningful and some not. I've got my 5/55 rings, which certainly help, but I don't think the Heavy Dragonhorn Boots and Crystal Chitin Armplates are very impactful. And then I got a free Pegasus cloak from someone farming Quillmane and giving away loot rights over this past long weekend. It's a lot of fun to be able to levitate everywhere now. And then I got the SS gauntlets for the worn Enduring Breath, which makes me want to go see if there's anything I can do in Kedge Keep.

Anyway, I can probably let City of Mist carry me to 50, but where should I go after that?

[Toxigen]

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

I've continued having a lot of fun on the bard. I did all of level 43 on Crystal Cavern geos, getting 1kpp in the process, by far the most lucrative camp I've done yet. I probably should have stayed for another level, but some of the geos were turning green, and I wanted to check out SolB kobolds, which I did for all of 44. That was a lot of fun, and good charm practice. It turns out that for all my questions and struggles when I was starting out, the solution was just to get good. Most of the time I was able to complete a charm fight without losing more than like 20% health, and mez, snare, fear gave good crowd control. When I had a single pull I could pretty quickly drum-dot it down. I always felt in control, even at low health.

45-48 was mostly CoM. I had an absolutely fantastic session with a warrior/shaman trio where I was chain-pulling for an hour or two at stables. Then I had an experience at Arena that kinda bummed me out. We had a weird group composition, pally/bard/cleric/wizard, and I was playing a ton of different songs, sometimes three dots, sometimes haste/slow, sometimes damage shield, sometimes manapump. The group wasn't killing very fast, though. Later, as other people joined and my wrists were tired, and we had pally/melee/mage/bard/cleric/wizard where I had swapped to cleric. The new bard mostly just pulsed mana, and it seemed a lot smoother. I don't know how much of it was the song choices and how much was the full group, but it does seem that in groups at higher levels just pulsing mana might be the best contribution, and that's real boring.

All the casters in Droga left me a little scared to try charming in there, and not sure if it would still be worthwhile now that I'm level 48. I did a little duoing with a wizard at Cobalt Scar against drakes and wyverns, and might head back there to solo a bit, interspersed with some more City of Mist. I also need to head down to Guk to get my DE mask; what level would I need to be to solo that camp? With three mobs in camp and not much room I'm not sure how I'd split it or fight them, either.

I got some gear upgrades, some meaningful and some not. I've got my 5/55 rings, which certainly help, but I don't think the Heavy Dragonhorn Boots and Crystal Chitin Armplates are very impactful. And then I got a free Pegasus cloak from someone farming Quillmane and giving away loot rights over this past long weekend. It's a lot of fun to be able to levitate everywhere now. And then I got the SS gauntlets for the worn Enduring Breath, which makes me want to go see if there's anything I can do in Kedge Keep.

Anyway, I can probably let City of Mist carry me to 50, but where should I go after that?

KC is really your only option for grouping at 50. And it sucks balls.

[Salaryman]

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

KC is really your only option for grouping at 50. And it sucks balls.

Yup, game sucks and the class you play is dommed to be in the worst zone in history even though thats where the best monk pvp weapon drops if you play on a server that isnt for n00bs (blue and gren is for n00bs).

Listen to this guy, hes got an avatar making facial expressions that would get you kicked out of any real life social situation, your class sucks if you dont zem +15% just log out.

You blues play in museum thats supposed to emulate the classic experience but wont level up anywhere that isnt KC. your playing bard, giving yourself carp tunnel fish hand down syndrome and you wont give up that sweet Zone Experienc Modifier.

And this guy with an avatar making facial expressions that would get you kicked out of any real life social situation never even played the only classes that are fun.