Bard Questions

[orion949]

Is there any Bard experts in the house? I bought a Bard (lev 85, max AA) but I have zero idea how to play a bard. So a couple questions for any resident experts.

1) If you were in a group only as dps and wanted to max the dps of the group (group is War, Rng, Wiz, Mnk, Chant)
What would you be twisting?

2) If you were soloing, kiting stuff in a circle, what would you twist?

3) Absolutely any helpful hints to a total bard noob from an expert is appreciated.

The Bard seems to be a very complex class from what I can tell so any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Maskoi]

Here is the most useful, quick and general list for a group most effective with MQ2Twist

Twist what ever order your songs are mem'd. This order is just for ease of reference.

Aura of the Poet up always 20%+ spell damage 25% overhaste

/twist 1 2 3 4 5 6

1 Selo's Accelerating Chorus - Can never run fast enuf
2 Amplification - increases aura, Pslam and storm blade
3 Storm Blade/Arcane Arietta - Add a weapon proc like lynx to all melee
4 Warmarch of Brekt - Haste/Str/Attack/DS
5. Psalm of Veeshan - DS/increase all resists/AC
6. Dirge of the Fallen Rathe - 7% melee damage mitigation

If you have a bunch of suck or whiny casters change

6 Chorus of Rodcet

Trying to kill stuff at level 85 by kiting is diminishing returns. with level 81 + maxing out at aroun 600-700 dps a dot take 10 hours to kill any thing.

Typical kite list is just selos and and your 4 highest dots

1 selos
2 fire dot
3 poison dot
4 cold dot
5 disease dot

 

[Tempest]

Or of course save a twist and use MQ2SpeedUtils and /speed 1.4

The most you want to twist at one time is 5 at the most, 6 at a time will leave you without haste or what ever else you are twisting for a tick.

With kiting you could also every min or so chuck on a "Angstlich's Assonance" which is a min long slow/DoT. It does add up.

Also if you have Ancient: Chaos Chant it is good and stacks with other DoTs, meaning 5 Dots running for max DPS.

Would recommend checking out the Concert Hall (bard forum) they have lots of info there and are pretty cool.

 

[Maskoi]

Or of course save a twist and use MQ2SpeedUtils and /speed 1.4

The most you want to twist at one time is 5 at the most, 6 at a time will leave you without haste or what ever else you are twisting for a tick.

MQ2SpeedUtils doesn't speed movement on your group if you are in a normal group and not boxing and is an active hack.

MQ2Twist knows how long every song is so

Selo's is twisted every 2 min
Amplification is twisted every 30 secs

So for all practical purposes you are twisting 3 4 5 6 in my example above 4 songs 90% of the time.

 

[PeteSampras]

It depends entirely on the situation.

Your standard twist (assuming you have a good tank) I would use:

Arcane Arrietta
Aria of the Poet
Warsong
Ancient: Chaos Chant

Aura: Aura of Rodcet


Assuming you have a tank that is ok, but notso great:

Arcane Arrietta
Dragorns
Warsong
Ancient: Chaos Chant

Aura: Aura of the Poet


Assuming you have a tank that never lives long enough for buffs to wear out on their own:

Arcane Arrietta
Dragorns
Warsong
Dirge of the Fallen Rathe
Psalm of Veeshan

Aura: Aura of the Poet

Arrietta doesnt stack with mana reiterate aura (and you should be using manareiterate aura + twincast aura on enc). So wizard/chanter/ranger will make use of the mana reiterate, the melees will use arcane arrietta for the procs.

On a burn order ,with the AA "tune stuck in your head" you can do warsong + arrietta + venimors x 4 to max out dps.

Make sure you have bellows AA, selos kick, identity crisis, and maybe even vainglorious shout to auto trigger via mq2melee to do even more dps.

Aira of the Poet Rk 3 maxes at 35% focus to all nukes. Aura of Poet maxes at 25%. If your caster run out of mana, it might be worth using Aura of Rodcet and Aria. If your tank is taking too much damage, use Aura of the Poet and use defensive songs. Ancient Chaos Chant is a nice debuff for the wizard/ranger nukes/snares to land. But they really dont resist often anyway so it shouldnt be a huge issue.


I like his song line up mostly:

1. Aria of the Poet - 25% overhaste /35% spell damage
2. War March - haste/ds/str inc
3. Dance of the Dragorn - (see above)
4. Arcane Arietta - melee spell casting proc
5. Venemor's Insult - DD(uses a lot of mana)
6. Catana of Rodcet - group mana song
7. Slumber of Mindshear - single target mezz
8. Silence of the Void - pacify(lull)
9. Requim of Time - 55% slow
10. Drizzull's Disillusionment - 2 slot dispell - Switch this to Gruber's Lively Crescendo
11. Kazumi's Note of Preservation - group Divine arua 18 secs
12. Wave of Slumber - AE mezz

Use the tash orb from old man mission to pull with instead of drizzuls. Or use bellow. Grubers does a 2.5k group heal 1.5k mana to group. its extremely useful in keeping mana up in group.

 

[Sum1]

Basically,

Moral of the story is go to theconcerthall and do some reading. Everyone will have different opinions on what your twists should be (and I don't agree with 99% of the people above).

 

[Maskoi]

I would disagree as these being most effective for a group.

This is a generic twist that will work in any group. I never said it was it the most effective for a group but most effective with MQ2Twist.

Venemor's Insult this can be an issue with twisting cause it can randomly nuke the wrong target if you are pulling or mezzing.

 

[PeteSampras]

Going to theconcerthall would work swimmingly.. if it didn't die a few months back and now theres only 2 forums with no information and a beta forum. before then it was awesome. I have mana issues before end issues for most my toons, but it is because i pull nonstop for hours.

 

[orion949]

I really appreciate all the help folks! Believe me, ALL the input is welcome, including personal opinion! I have ZERO experience with a Bard so I just hearing what different people use is great to get me started here.

Im looking to setup a usable twist and start learning by trial and error with my group. The group is a pretty strong group, I would like the bard to enhance their capabilities the best way possible. The estimated breakdown is like this,

Brd: 85 / 40k hp / 5k AC / Max AA
War: 85 / 40k hp/ 5k AC / Max AA
Mnk: 85 / 30k hp/ Max AA
Wiz: 85 / 40k mana / Max AA
Rng: 85 / 35k hp / Max AA
Enc: 85 / 25k mana / 1800 AA (noobified)

Im still in Iraq but I will be getting out of this shitpit in April so I want to learn as much as I can now so I can be ready to play when I get home!!

 

[Sum1]

Should remove the chanter and add a cleric, imo

Can run the chanter out of group if need be for the few events in UF that actually require major CC. Almost all other events will be trivialized by being able to single pull with the bard or monk (or hell, even the ranger).

 

[Brano11]

Yea I did notice you have no healer classes lol

 

[jaha7649]

Given the group you listed, a simple 4 song melody I would use is this:

1. Warmarch of Brekt
2. Aria of the Poet
3. Arcane Arietta
4. Storm Blade (I don't believe there's a conflict between this and Arcane Arietta, but if so someone please point that out)

Aura of Rodcet

You'll find out that bards are very flexible and can help balance out a lot of group issues such as melee/spell mitigation. Bards are a little bit trial and error to see what works best for you.

If you had to break you're group apart (like Brano11 and Sum1 said you have no healer!) for t8 UF named or something I'd do this:

Group 1: Warrior, Wizard, Enchanter
Group 2: Bard, Monk, Ranger

Those UF named are pretty serious. 3 cleric mercs each group just to be safe.

Seriously though, what is healing you?

 

[orion949]

Should remove the chanter and add a cleric, imo

Can run the chanter out of group if need be for the few events in UF that actually require major CC. Almost all other events will be trivialized by being able to single pull with the bard or monk (or hell, even the ranger).

I probably should have noted, outside the group I run,

Cler: 85 / 30k mana / 3k AA
Dru: 85 / 30k mana / Max AA
Shm: 85 / 30k mana / 2.5k AA

So that begs a new question, I thought I arranged my group for the most DPS but would you use a different arrangement with those three outsiders to choose from?

PSS

For further clarification my main has always been a Monk, I like to think I am beyond masterful at being a Monk. Im pretty good with my Druid, Cleric, Wizzy, and Ranger but I purchased (right here in the Marketplace) the Shammy, Bard, and Warrior and have never really played with them because I am in Iraq. Soon I will be home and dead set on employing my group/groups the best way possible.

Warrior doesnt seem too complicated, get aggro, tank. I dont foresee issues there.
Shammy, I really only bought him for buffs and alchemy purposes (maybe Im overlooking something better to use him for?)
Bard, bought him because he looked cool and I had money burning a hole in my pocket but have absolutely no clue how to best employ him but Im excited to learn because Bards seem like an extremely powerful class in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. Should be a long and interesting road to travel when I get back to the States.

Also, I know Bards are uber pullers but I will probably continue to pull with my Monk, just because Im a master puller with my monk (been a Monk since Kunark) and will probably never get to that level with the Bard.

 

[orion949]

Is Aria of the Poet the same as Aura of the Poet? Should I use both or if I have the Aura up not worry about singin Aria?

 

[Sum1]

If you're planning on doing UF content I would still remove the chanter and add the cleric into the group. A lot of events will require some heavy healing, including group heals to counter ae damage from lots of named. The shield / arb / group heals from the cleric will be key. The chanter is a wasted slot imo since it could CC and nuke from out of the group just as easily as from within.

I know some people are going to say "well what about mana reiterate and the auras chanters have" ... well that's fine, but your wizard and to a much lesser extent the ranger are the only two classes who might use it. Adding the cleric is going to give you more bang for your buck, especially if you are still playing those other 3 toons outside of group (secondary healing/dotting/nuking from druid + shaman dotting/lynx = the win).

 

[Maskoi]

Is Aria of the Poet the same as Aura of the Poet? Should I use both or if I have the Aura up not worry about singing Aria?

Aria of the Poet is the song version of Aura of the Poet
The diff is it has a higher dps spell mod 31 to 21 % or something like that.
Aria of the Poet also uses mana where aura does not.
They do not stack use one or the other

 

[JimJohnson]

yea song spell poet kills your mana if you twist it none stop.

Personally I would drop the monk for a healer Inside instances you can pull anything between the bard / rng(Harmonious arrow) and still have decent dps. Chanters are not really all that bad as people make them out so its still worth keeping in group for more then a buff bitch.

 

[twizzops]

Do you guys have your bards play Autarchian Mindwrack RK.II? I just got it and from the description it sounds very promising.

The problem is I am afraid that I will have to target the tank instead of it placing the effect on the target's target, which would be very nice.

Guess I will find out tonight.

 

[Sum1]

Do you guys have your bards play Autarchian Mindwrack RK.II? I just got it and from the description it sounds very promising.

The problem is I am afraid that I will have to target the tank instead of it placing the effect on the target's target, which would be very nice.

Guess I will find out tonight.

It's self-only, so you don't have to worry about that.

 

[twizzops]

gah, self only is terrible. I can say I will never use this spell. I can't even think of a reason as I box my bard and can't see ever needing a reason to stun mobs attacking me.

I did however think it would rock on my warrior for both aggro and dmg mitigation. Boy did the description on the spell let me down. Who comes up with this stuff, a self only bard song. He now sings to himself?