Bard starting stat points

[rajax]

Str for additional max carry weight would be my choice for a first ungeared character. It’s by far the biggest benefit you can give yourself with those starting points. Plate armor, weapons, instruments, bags and loot get Str for additional max carry weight would be my choice for a first ungeared character. It’s by far the biggest benefit you can give yourself with those starting points. Plate armor, weapons, instruments, bags and loot/coins get heavy fast.

For a character you are starting off with the benefit of weight reduction bags, stat gear, etc: like above have suggested my recommendation would be a mix of dex and cha. Higher you go most of your weapons become useful primarily for their proc effects and missed notes are a constant annoyance while leveling. Early charm breaks and lull resists are something to take into consideration, you will really start to notice the uncommon charm early breaks especially when you have to use the level 39 song at 20 mana a pulse and targets having higher magic resistance at levels 40+.

100 Hp at 60 4hp:1sta (trivial returns at low levels) does not justify sta as a starting point choice in my opinion. Ultimately though, for bards those 25 points do not have a great deal of impact on your experience.

[Ennewi]

If only starting points could be placed into resists, or ac/atk.

[Ghost of Starman]

Enough str to not be encumbered and Resists / HP/ AC are the only things that matter to a bard, you don't have a long duration charm so stacking CHA doesn't do much, If you need CHA it's easy to use CHA song and maybe toss on a piece of gear.

Throw all points into STA, it's the only thing that matters in the long run.

[Selene]

I just find it so unlikely that my bard's ability to solo or group at the higher levels will really be impacted in any noticeable way with the last 100 hp. How often would I be in a situation where I was down to the last 100 hp or less, when the mobs are hitting 100+ anyway? (I don't plan on swarm kiting at all, just charming for solo and CC for groups)

I feel like usually when we play any toon, adjustments are made real-time during combat in most cases so that we aren't in a situation where everything hangs by a thread, i.e. the last 100 hp.

Since i'll be in dungeons a lot or charming a lot, I thought charisma > stamina. I won't be raiding super seriously with this toon.

Seems like dex isn't worth dumping the 25 points though --- and the more i think about it, i don't think +25 dex is gonna have a huge impact on procs anyway

[Crawdad]

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

I just find it so unlikely that my bard's ability to solo or group at the higher levels will really be impacted in any noticeable way with the last 100 hp.

You'll notice barely surviving with ~100hp far more often than you will notice having slightly more Cha/Dex. Goodly race stats means you're going to have the hardest time maxing your Stam/HP; Cha/Dex are not a problem or really noticeable once you get >100 IMO. At the end of the day its that bard starting stats are already hedged towards Dex/Cha, Stam has Meh returns, but you don't need any other stats. I can tell you as a Woodelf bard at 60 that went all Dex/Cha, I wished I had gone Stam just to eke out surviving a few AoEs, or a little more wiggle room to CC and regen up.

Str seems weirdly pointless but I guess fresh on the box and planning to be super casual sure. Between cheap gear and Selos+All the songs that add Str, I don't know how its really a problem for people.

[Ripqozko]

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

I just find it so unlikely that my bard's ability to solo or group at the higher levels will really be impacted in any noticeable way with the last 100 hp. How often would I be in a situation where I was down to the last 100 hp or less, when the mobs are hitting 100+ anyway? (I don't plan on swarm kiting at all, just charming for solo and CC for groups)

I feel like usually when we play any toon, adjustments are made real-time during combat in most cases so that we aren't in a situation where everything hangs by a thread, i.e. the last 100 hp.

Since i'll be in dungeons a lot or charming a lot, I thought charisma > stamina. I won't be raiding super seriously with this toon.

Seems like dex isn't worth dumping the 25 points though --- and the more i think about it, i don't think +25 dex is gonna have a huge impact on procs anyway

People stare at walls 35 hours a week for 10hp, 100 ain't bad. Basically nothing else matters anyways, can't put in resi so

[pink grapefruit]

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

I just find it so unlikely that my bard's ability to solo or group at the higher levels will really be impacted in any noticeable way with the last 100 hp. How often would I be in a situation where I was down to the last 100 hp or less, when the mobs are hitting 100+ anyway? (I don't plan on swarm kiting at all, just charming for solo and CC for groups)

I feel like usually when we play any toon, adjustments are made real-time during combat in most cases so that we aren't in a situation where everything hangs by a thread, i.e. the last 100 hp.

Since i'll be in dungeons a lot or charming a lot, I thought charisma > stamina. I won't be raiding super seriously with this toon.

Seems like dex isn't worth dumping the 25 points though --- and the more i think about it, i don't think +25 dex is gonna have a huge impact on procs anyway

it's all basically w/e. it seems like you really want to put the points in cha so just do that. then whenever lulls work and charm lasts as long as you feel it should you can feel vindicated lol.

i'm from a pvp server where the last 100hp often really did matter, and i had to sacrifice hp gear for resists even while leveling. cha and dex are both far from useless.

[Toxigen]

if first char / untwinked, STR just for carrying stuff

[Randarn]

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

hi.

i mained a bard on live, and remember all the fun math that was posted on the concert hall forum back in the day. they wanted to figure out how cha worked and it was a mystery for a long time. it was discovered that cha has no effect on mez.

cha decreases chance of critical resist on lull, and increases average charm duration. it was also thought that some combination of dex and cha together determined how often missed notes would occur. dex decreases rate of missed notes and determines rate of weapon proc ofc.

now, my argument: charm duration is not unimportant, but remember that no amount of cha will push this duration beyond the 18 second maximum. bard gear also has a ton of cha on it, and it's not difficult to raise this stat up to a decent level even with normal midlevel gear on. critical lull resist is much more important, but again keep in mind that there is already a lot of cha on bard gear to begin with. at level 59 you get a song that will increase cha like that other poster said, and if you get epic that 1.8 singing mod will increase 45 to some ridiculous number. i do not recommend putting points into cha.

missed notes are like spell fizzles, except not nearly as detrimental. fizzles for other classes have a mana cost to them which makes them worse than missed notes. missed notes also happen at the start of a song, so it's not like you're waiting x seconds and have a huge amount of lost song upkeep time due to missing notes. it's something you generally notice immediately and can rectify right away, making missed notes more of a nuisance than anything else. dex increases rate of weapon proc which is amazing, particularly when you have your epic and other raid weapons with top-tier procs on them. but similar to cha, bard gear always seems to have a ton of dex on it. dex might be a worthwhile place to put ponts into with raid gear in mind. one of the best songs we got in luclin was the dex song, and it sucks we'll never get it here lol.

we get 25 points at character creation, and at 60 each point of stamina gives 4hp. that's 100hp, not 80. this is on par with an amazing piece of raid gear. and if you are gearing to prioritize resists over hp, you'll have like ~1.4k hp with like 1-3 good raid items. that's what i remember running around with anyway, with my resist jewelry and epic back in velious on live. 100hp is a decent chunk of your total hp. i absolutely recommend putting all points here, even over dex. because as we all know, sta gear is never an easy find- unlike dex and cha.

so i think you should put the points into sta.

I just wanted to thank you for the comment. And here I was thinking as the alternative stat to put it all in agility and see what that really did.. but it seems like the answer is stamina.. So i will start stamina . Thanks again
~Trys

[pink grapefruit]

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

I just wanted to thank you for the comment. And here I was thinking as the alternative stat to put it all in agility and see what that really did.. but it seems like the answer is stamina.. So i will start stamina . Thanks again
~Trys

yw <3

bard is the best class in this game and i hope you have fun with it!!

agility helps with ac or something idk exactly. no one ever takes agility seriously in this game so long as you’re not below 75.