Ideas on how to PL my bard?

[TreeHuginDruid]

Started a bard ... got him to low 50's. He has a wizzy merc ( Journeyman T1 obviously )

I have a second account... but the only toons it has on it are a shammy/mage/rogue. They are all 80+

Does anyone have an idea of how i can PL the bard on account 1 with any of the toons i have on account 2 (shm/mag/rog)

I'm really not seeing any possabilities except a slight aid of the mage's DS's on him... which isn't really pling.

And it's not like the mage has an ae-root to gather up a train and let them bash him with stacked ds's ... while the bard uses a lowbie ae damage song to get some minor self damage in.

So i'm really looking for any idea of what i can do with what I got.

 

[Chase369]

Put bard with mage and tear up Valdeholm.

 

[Tempest]

Depends on a few things, but could try out PoNightmare (I know the EXP is good there and good up to like 60, and even ok to 70 off memory...

Take the Mage up and see what is better, grouping and raping the zone, or...

Have mage with a Cleric merc (Dont group Bard). Pull a heap of mobs onto you with DS up and eventually the Cleric Merc will take agro. Keep him DSd and once they are lowish health AoE on the bard till you hit em all.

The solo EXP should be Crazy at 50, and at lev 60s AA should be like 10%+ per kill easy.

I PLd a Warrior from 46 to 70 with over a thousand AAs doing a few hours a day over about a week. (although I did Box a Cleric, Bard and a Mage to help with the PL) but should still be decent if you dont pull too many.

 

[TreeHuginDruid]

uhhmm

The mage is 85+ .. the bard is low 50's... They can not group together and get any xp.

That's why I'm looking for any ideas on how to PL the bard, because no toon on the other account is low enough to be in group with him to wipe a lowbie zone and get him xp in group.

If i had a druid or even a ranger on the other account.. this would not be an issue.... Ranger aeroot + healing self with bard aoe dotting... or druid multi DS stack on bard... and outside healing bard...

But as the case is.... all i have is a 85+ mage 85+ rog 85+ shammy on the second account.


I'll try the mage+cleric merc thingy... and see if that works out.

 

[devestator]

You've got my favorite power leveling class on that account.. a shaman!

Make some DS pots, go pull lots of mobs, use ae slow to get aggro on everything, throw on a HoT, sing ae dot with the bard once or twice, then throw on the DS pot on the shaman and let the mobs kill themselves.

Back into a corner and you can heal when necessary. You can keep using ae slow if you want to make sure the hot out heals them, just takes a little longer for all of them to die. If you could find someone with an SK you could borrow sk + shaman plvling with the sk tanking = awesome. Sk can use ae aggro spells to maintain aggro while shaman easily keeps him heals. Sk has some of his own ds spells + the shaman pot ds, and if he's geared descently can tank mobs up to a lot higher level without slowing them.

I use this method with my shaman when I'm plvling a new character until about level 65 or 70, of course my shaman is 90 and has full t4 so has a lot more hitpoints and such. After 70 I have to bring in my sk if I want to plvl further, but I haven't done it since HoT came out, my sk is level 90 but I haven't gotten him t4 gear yet so the shaman has more hitpoints than him right now lol. But a t4 geared sk with shaman healing could probably plvl using this method till 80 at least, at which point you can group the character with the level 90s and grind it out in a easy zone to the 90s. I think you could group with 90s as low as level 60.

If I remember correctly I think the formula for group levels to get xp is (high level / 3) * 2 = lowest level that can group with it. Or (low level / 2) * 3 = highest that it can group with.

 

[TreeHuginDruid]

its (high level / 3) * 2

Well the cleric thingy did not work at all.

I pulled a small bunch.. 5 mobs... let them beat on the mage with his stacked DS's ... mobs were taking 1500 damage a hit from ds ...

Waited till they were all around 25% health.. and cast 1 round of my lowest ae dot song.. did 22 damage to each mob... that was all .. and they all just ignored the mage and went straight for the bard... ( sigh ).

I'm gonna try the shammy method dev listed.

 

[Chase369]

Afaik. Those mega large DS buffs act as "nukes or dmg done" so even if the bard didn't get aggro, he would not have gotten the exp anyway. I could be wrong...

 

[EverquestBB]

Sometimes the old way is easier

Just go buy the chant DOT spells (starting in the 40s I think) and head to a zone and kite. It won't be fast but you can use mq2advpath to memorize a path and twist for your chants and add any target mac and voila; slowly but surely he will level up without much interaction from you. Just don't go completely afk and it should be fine. In the 50s I am guessing you can do ponightmare undead to 60 although it will slow down but iirc they do not summon or run on low health. I know powerleveling is faster but this is arguably easier if you have the time.

 

[mjtizzle21]

With the cleric/mage thing make sure you turn your cleric merc on passive til you get to pretty low hp then turn on normal or w/e lowest is. Haven't played in a while lol im rusty. But do that a few times to build aggro on cleric. Takes a while but a T5 cleric merc can tank like 30-40 mobs in PoN. It's how i used to do low levels until they could group with high level chars.

Once your able to group with mage it'll be great exp just slaughtering PoN for a few levels. Get a bit more than 1% per kill iirc. Or some other random zone with ez mobs. Mage pets rape everything, just write a simple macro to /target npc /pet kill and can afk a few levels np.

 

[TreeHuginDruid]

With the cleric/mage thing make sure you turn your cleric merc on passive til you get to pretty low hp then turn on normal or w/e lowest is. Haven't played in a while lol im rusty. But do that a few times to build aggro on cleric. Takes a while but a T5 cleric merc can tank like 30-40 mobs in PoN. It's how i used to do low levels until they could group with high level chars.

Once your able to group with mage it'll be great exp just slaughtering PoN for a few levels. Get a bit more than 1% per kill iirc. Or some other random zone with ez mobs. Mage pets rape everything, just write a simple macro to /target npc /pet kill and can afk a few levels np.

I've tried both using the mage as the DS'ed toon and letting the cleric get agro from healing the mage and DS'ing the cleric .... same scenario happens... they get down to low 20's in hp% ... i sing 1 round of the lowbie bard aedot "Chords of Dissonance", it hits the lot for 22 damage... i immediately turn off the aedot as soon as i see they are on the bards extended target list... ( before a 2nd wave of the aedot ever lands ) ... and the mobs just make a beeline for the bard and kill him.

I'm waiting as long as i can for the mage's DS to build hate when I'm using the mage as the DS'ed toon.. and also waiting that long when i get the cleric to gain agro from healing the mage.... still yield the same smooshed bard outside of group.

I haven't had the chance to try the aeslow / ds potion method dev stated.. but will by tomorrow.. will post results.

And man.. i do NOT want to freaking circle kite and twist my way into levels.. thats not what i call PL'ing.. lol

 

[JimJohnson]

Shm with a healer merc and pull CoD, slap on a DS and hot and just let them go to town beating the shm down. As they start to get lower toss in bard AE dot from lvl 2. when they die bard gets all the exp. With sk/pally you can do 50-60 in 2-3 pulls.

 

[PeteyPablo]

DS won't build up hate. You need heals, stuns, debuffs, or damage to get hate. Low life works awesome to get mobs to stick to you too.

 

[JimJohnson]

DS won't build up hate. You need heals, stuns, debuffs, or damage to get hate. Low life works awesome to get mobs to stick to you too.

Sit+Fast Heal with shaman works great.

 

[TreeHuginDruid]

woot

Used the shammy just like Devestator suggested...

Rounded up 6 to 8 mobs at a time.. circle kited them into a overlapping group.. backed myself into a corner... casted aoe slot on them .. clicked high level ds potion on shammy.. and threw a hot on every now and then... while occasionally sitting.

Once they were down to around 50% health.. i 1 round aoedotted them on bard... made 7 levels in 65 minutes this way... WOOT..

TY TY TY

 

[mjtizzle21]

Nice! For future reference use a quick heal instead of HoT and youll get more aggro

 

[JimJohnson]

Use your HoT as you round them up so you dont really lose any life. Your quick heals are for aggro.

you can also use lassitude once the mobs start hitting hard. that also helped build aggro

 

[Morx]

Use a very similar tactic currently on TLP servers, with a cleric, and mage damage shield. It's fun rounding up a train in upper guk, and watching the lowbies sky rocket in levels.

 

[thugo]

I use my 83 Paladin for this, but shaman would work just as well, buff up make sure to use Lastitude, load up the SHM with DS pots, Acrylia caverns lvl 40-60 faster than you would believe. I have tried everything, i promise you, nadox, the hole, none of them can compare to this zone. With Paladin HoThul t2 group gear and max def aa, I can pull the whole zone in 2 pulls, back into a nice corner, get my HP to 30%, click anguish bp and get some great heal aggro going. By the time you pull half of the zone, some of the mobs will be 60-70%. Wait for the majority to hit 30% and start singing AE, you wont get aggro. If you can pull the entire zone in a lesson = 45ish AA at lvl 60. I did this with my Wizard alt, ahh it was so nice.

 

[Darkheart]

i also use similar method but with SK. Equip a non weapon in primary have merc out but on passive, pull huge train to camp. Turn merc on. Either use hitall mobs mac or for classes that have ae spells cast those untill your confident youve hit all mobs. /twisting ae aggro spells all this time with SK merc healing u then i have a hotkey to cast all my clicky ds' spells and and my self buffs wich i had kept loaded. Turn back to mobs and chain sit. With out a real pri weapon you dont reposte. basically works until you can actually group with them and PL them that way.

Biggest issue that way is picking zones that mobs dont run at all or atleast only the last one runs but Ive leveled many toons this way ultra fast

also at times i was clearing entire zones nearly per pull, I would keep lesson or a potion running and leave them logged out untill the pull was in camp then just hold them there till logged in kill "touched them all" kill them as stated above then log out while waiting for repops and a full train again.