Why do bard masteries even get DISRUPTED? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of them?

[Dan123The123Man]

Has anyone ever considered to ask why bard masteries even get disrupted? Like once they are cast on the person, how they can be "interupted"? I think it MIGHT be possible to make a viable "PvP" bard template if the spells weren't interupted after they've already been cast.

 

[Zero Day]

There are viable PVP bard templates.
But they didnt implement the masteries to make bards the new mystic mages or necro mage of yesteryear.
A bard is most effective as a team player. They make the group stronger.

So a bard can give himself a 10% damage increase until he gets interrupted. Thats not too big a deal. So interrupting the poor guy is a bit harsh for that small payout. But if he's in a full party, there are 9 other guys getting that 10% increase. Or he's healing himself for 12 damage every 4 seconds and has 20 extra HP until he gets interrupted. Again no big thing on an individual level, but group wise he's outputting up to 180 healing every 4 seconds just by standing around.

If bards weren't interruptable they would be similar to the major gimps of uo's past, WoD archers, no-SDI cap mages, Bestial Suits, Perfection in PvP etc.




Bard PvP templates are viable, but you are giving up at minimum 240 points to masteries. Any template that gives up 240 points to skills not providing a direct/immediate translation to survivability or damage output will be at a disadvantage versus any template with full skill dedication towards damage output and survivability.
A Stealther dedicates 200 points to being hidden, so once out of stealth he/she is at a disadvantage versus many other templates.

You can do 120 Mage/Eval/Provo/Music/Resist/Meditation as a viable bard template.

If you run inspire alone you can boost your damage output to that of a focused mage, while aiding everyone in your party at the same time. You can swap Mysticism/Focus on the above template, but unless you drop resist too for a weapon skill, you'll have a hard time defending yourself from melee attacks.

You could run Invigorate alone and provide a significant healing pulse and hp increase for yourself which would give you a buffer from the first incoming damage and also increase your healing output.
Running both of them at the same time to provide both those things at the cost of your mana regen to nothing.

In spawn raids, provo is useful both for getting spawn off yourself, and remember to provo spawn onto your enemies and their pets. You have a whole army at your disposal when raiding or getting raided


Swapping out Provo for peace
You can run Preservance as a damage buffer, and defense chance buff so that you'll take less damage off the first hit or so in a fight similar to invigorate as above.
You can run Resilience to ensure you never run out of stamina, and that you regen quickly for push-through. Or if you are running through poison fields, it will help you cure, and the hp regen will negate some of the damage the poison is doing.
If you are running away at half health and know the the next hit wont kill you or interrupt your spellsong, its better to cast resilience than lesser or greater heal because once its running you can keep running and continue to heal from the regen.

Area peace right before you cast a spell, can stop warriors from swinging long enough for you to cast without being interrupted.
Also is really good for dealing with tamers as directly calming their pet disrupts their control and follow abilities.


Swapping out for Discord
You can run Tribulation on your target to lower their hit chance so you get hit less often, at the same time giving yourself a chance to do 36% more damage whenever they get hit. A nice 60 damage flame strike always feels good.

You can run Despair, to drop their strength Significantly, which also drops their max HP and then deals its damage ticks over time, allowing you to chase people down without stopping to cast. The strength debuff is immediate so even if you dont get the damage ticks, that initial HP lowering effect would have cost some HP to a full health target or if they healed while it was in effect they wouldnt be back to full since it lowered the HP cap as well.
Combining Despair with spell spam such as fireball, magic arrow and harm provides alot of interrupts.

Disco is really good if you are fighting tamers as well or summoners.





You can combine bards with necro/mysticism/magery/taming (I havent tried a warriorl bard yet) and play effectively.
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When fighting the non tactics melee templates, a peace mastery bard can almost laugh them off. With preservance in effect the Bushido/Ninja/Nox template cannot put out enough damage to the standing bard to interrupt the spell song.
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I'd recommend you take a viable PvP template and add bard skills to it and see how they complement each other. Bards skills are really not the primary means of fighting. So you'll be a mage/necro/mystic/warrior first, with bard capabilities. And don't discount the use of the skills themselves in addition to the mastery abilities.

 

[Mr. Smither1]

I don't know if it is listed anywhere but those masterys buff your summons also. That is why with the masterys on in fel you turn grey soon as anyone in the party summons an ev, rc.

 

[Dan123The123Man]

Is there any point in going 3x if u run with resilience and perserverence? You get like 19 in regens but if the cap is 18 then would it be wiser to run 2x bard and use the 120 skill points into something else?

 

[Zero Day]

The regen cap is 18 from items.
A bard can still buff you to 19.
3x also gives you a better chance to resist poison. I think its a 45-50% reduction in curse duration, 27% damage reduction (vs 24%) 27% DCI (vs 24%)
but most importantly it reduces your base upkeep cost by 1. So gives you an upkeep cost of 3/4 instead of 4/5 .
I also like to run a 3x bard in PvP because I can switch the masteries without having to stone skills, and disco/peace are more likely to be used in PvP than Provo.
If you are up against any tamers your peacing and disco can effectively shut them down. Peace bombs also break dexer swings, so regardless of which mastery you have active you still have the skills themselves to employ.
One of the funniest things to happen is one of those Orc brute bushido/ninja/nox guys tries to attack you when you have disco mastery on. You can take down his brute in about 4-5 ticks with despair and discord. (less if you use tribulation.)

 

[Dan123The123Man]

Zero, i'm seriously considering going with 2x bard instead of 3x so I can have some offense in my template.
The template i've got now that i'm going to be using for raids, holding choke points and pushing through choke points is below:
mystic, bard, spellweaver, mage
120 mystic
120 focus
120 meditation
120 music
120 peace (area peace dexers or mobs)
81 spellweaving (to cast pixies 100% of time)
39 magery (to cast protection 100% of time)
The spellweaving would be for the offense but the template is mainly defense and supportive. The downside to it and i'm not sure if I should keep spellweaving or pickup magery because I can't ressurect people unless I put gift of life on them before they die... The upside (maybe) though is that when faction people die anyway their in stat so a 6x 80 skills isn't much help anyway. So either I give up the spellweaving for magery so that I can res or keep the spellweaving. The idea was if say we're holding a spot and people are pushing through then I can use preserverence and resilience if things get real tough, but not both since i'd run outta mana quick with those up plus casting cleanse wind. The pixies would be backup basically, if someone wants to get brave and teleport over or people push through I can use the pixies to chase off the casters.
The difference though from 3x from 2x bard is 3 regen and if the cap on HP Regen is 18 anyway and after 15-16 MR you start getting diminishing returns... Is there any reason to really be 3x if you plan on using the peacemaking bard masteries? Have you ever tried this template?
I thought in a 1v1 situation against a dexer or mage i'd toss a spell plague out, tell pixies to all kill and netherbolt/eagle strike spam (or sit there until backup comes to help out). Now for another mystic I think it'd get a bit interesting... My suit though is already 4/6 for spellweaving and bard masteries. What do you think? Should I keep the spellweaving for a means of offense or ditch it and raise the magery so I can res people? The mana regen from my bard mastery would also help allow my pixies to pretty much non stop cast on whatevers on me with their mana regening, so I can just run around really.
What i've figured out so far is pixies even at 16 HP Regen regen their health so quickly that they go from red lined to full in just a few secs... What I don't know is if their health will regen quick enough to not die to poison fields anymore.

Zero, I just read your post there after having written all of what I said above... After having said all of that, do you think it would still be better for me to go with the 3x bard template? Or the template I have there?




EDIT #1:

While I was on the toilet I was thinking... See if I went with 2x and spellweaving I can have 120 med and it would help a lot in allowing me to cast more cleanse winds on my party.. If I go with 3x bard I could only have 80 meditation..
The thing is though if I were 3x if from what you have said is true my masteries would obviously be more helpful with the reduced curses and stuff... I'll also still be able to cast a Colossal since i'm a mystic, OR I can have two VOLLEMS... The vollems and Colossal would also benefit from my mastery...
What do you think? Which do you think I should go with?



EDIT #2:

Ok I just realized if i'm going to go with 2x I think the best template would be:
120 mystic
120 focus
120 peace
120 music
120 med
120 magery (combat skill & be able to invis/res)
That way I can use mage weapon and also have a combat skill... It's a hard decision because it sounds like 3x bard is really nice (ofcourse ill be 80 meditation). Should I be 3x bard or either of the templates i've listed above (spellweaver or magery)?

 

[Zero Day]

One of the bards I run is a 4/6 Chiv/Wrestling/Med/Peace/Disc/Music -> Bard.
Purely defensive template. (remember the HP Regen cap from items is 18, the mastery gives 22 (3x bard) my suit takes me closer to 30)
I initially tried that with a 4x bard, but the lack of weapon skill meant dexers ate my lunch.
I think you could swap out One of the Bard skills for your spell weaving/Magery combo so that you can have pixies and Invis Capabilities. And if you had peace up that would prevent pixies from running out of mana as quick, or you could use despair in conjunction with the pixies and holy light spam to do alot of interrupting.
(Say 69.9 Magery 50 Weaving instead of the 120 Disco)



My Mystic Bard is 120 Mysti/Focus/Wrestling/Provo/Music/Meditation (I have Peacemaking stoned and I swap that out on occasion)
I guess I could swap out Wrestling for Magery in order to get Res / port capabilities, but JOAT Chiv is enough for Sacred Journey so I use that.
When I tried Magery with mage weapon, I found that I really didnt have as much defense as wrestling offers. You get hit about the same BUT the major part of my dexer defense strategy is disarming them and using a mage weapon doesnt allow that.
Really the only thing magery would provide is Gate/Res/Summons since you can get invis pots and sacred journey without the skill investment.

If you are using summons, you may want to look at the original Mastery Update thread.
I dont see numbers for a 2x bard, but a 4x bard was getting about a 32% damage increase on a greater dragon using inspire+invigorate.
So a 2x would probably be about 16-20%,

Mage With MageWeapon.
My Mage Bard 120 Mage/Eval/Med/Resist/Provo/Music (Peace on Soul Stone)
I could drop resist and add Disco or Peace or wrestling.


Important Notes:
I prefer to have a 3x bard running peace than a 2x bard because of the poison resistance and Curse reduction. Typically a 2x bard resilience will take a while to cure deadly poison much less lethal. A 3x bard will usually cure it in about 3-4 ticks. Additionally I think a 3x bard reduces Mortal to 2 seconds.

--------------------------------------------
Untested
Healing Bard
120 Wrestle/Heal/Anat/Med/Peace/Music
I think this would be a pretty badass support/defensive template with res capabilities and healing on the run.

 

[Dan123The123Man]

Zero,
The mastery of a 2x bard is 16, a 3x bard is 19, and a 4x bard is 22... I was thinking about that chiv template you have there but then I was wondering, wouldn't a mystic instead of a chiver work better for group support with the cleanse wind? Chiv you have to be so darn close for close wounds to work, and you can't essentually
"spam" it while healing your allies. I think I would also have more regen to cast cleanse wind more with the focus and meditation at the cost of having no combat skill though .
So If I go with a 3x bard... Have you ever tried this template below to know if it's effective or not?
120 music
120 discord
120 peace
120 mystic
120 focus
80 meditation
40 magery (enough to cast Protection to spam cleanse)

The chiv template you have would definatelly allow me to spam holy light even when in choke fights and stuff, but the only support I could offer my party members are my bard buffs. Spamming holy light I would think would also run me dry of mana quick if say I were on the bridge in despise tryin to push people back. Another drawback I would think is that I could only heal one person at a time and not 4 at a time (including myself if I were mystic). The upside though is that I WOULD have a combat skill, and so I would be able to defend myself in a 1v1 situation much easier then if I were in stone form with protection cleansing myself while waiting for backup.

So have you also tried stoning off wrestling off of your mystic bard and going 3x mystic bard? you don't find that it's limited not being able to cast protection, or have you ever considered dropping med to 80 to pick magery up to 40 so u can cast protection whenever?

 

[Zero Day]

With Chiv you can get cleanse by fire off as quickly as magic arrow, and close wounds as quick as fireball so as long as you are 4/6 you can spam it pretty well. The distance is a bit of an issue that you have to surmount in which case mysticism would provide a better alternative. Since mystycism is a 2 skill deal, that makes your template tighter, and I'd rather give up one of the bard skills and be 2x which is slightly less effective, than 3x rather than keep the 3x and not have a defensive skill. Protection is really overrated since if you dont have the weapon skill, the rate of damage you take from getting hit will exceed the rate you heal for with cleansing winds. (Cleansing winds and prot work really well when combined with a defensive skill so that you arent getting hit on every swing).

One thing thats pretty sweet with mystic peacer is that the damage reduction is post-resist damage so it stacks with the increased rest cap you get while in stone form.

Chiv is also good for dispelling summons, maintaining stamina, and you can also res some of your team mates.

Initially I didnt have wrestle on any of my bards, but I just got hit way too much.

(Yes 3x Bard gives 19 not 22- which means I have an extra 3 HPR on my suit! Sweet)

 

[Dan123The123Man]

With Chiv you can get cleanse by fire off as quickly as magic arrow, and close wounds as quick as fireball so as long as you are 4/6 you can spam it pretty well. The distance is a bit of an issue that you have to surmount in which case mysticism would provide a better alternative. Since mystycism is a 2 skill deal, that makes your template tighter, and I'd rather give up one of the bard skills and be 2x which is slightly less effective, than 3x rather than keep the 3x and not have a defensive skill. Protection is really overrated since if you dont have the weapon skill, the rate of damage you take from getting hit will exceed the rate you heal for with cleansing winds. (Cleansing winds and prot work really well when combined with a defensive skill so that you arent getting hit on every swing).

One thing thats pretty sweet with mystic peacer is that the damage reduction is post-resist damage so it stacks with the increased rest cap you get while in stone form.

Chiv is also good for dispelling summons, maintaining stamina, and you can also res some of your team mates.

Initially I didnt have wrestle on any of my bards, but I just got hit way too much.

(Yes 3x Bard gives 19 not 22- which means I have an extra 3 HPR on my suit! Sweet)

I don't think noble sacrifice works on ressing reds though, even if you are in the same guild. So which would u go with if you knew the defensive build would be used for faction raiding and holding like the island in despise? The reason I originally thought, well mystic over chiv was because people will be throwing poison fields on top of us on the island and my team mates will be getting insta poisoned so with chiv id have to cleanse, and "hope" that I could get a close wounds off before they get re-poisoned. THey could move out of the poison fields but then again if there are to many fields everywhere and no place to really go the cleanse wind would be better since it does the cure and heal all in one spell.

So are you saying that if I do go with a tighter template by having the mysticism then I should have a combat skill rather then being 3x... What do you think about teh template below, would it work? (I would have no offense and obviously get wrecked by a mage if I have no trap box, but would have a combat skill)


120 mystic
120 focus
120 music
120 peace
120 wrestle
80 med
40 magery (for protection)

I could either 1. have 2 vollems by my side or 2. just summon colossals while im in stone form and protection. would this work, or do u think it could? Also if i'm only 2x bard is it better to go with the discordance route and have invigorate rather then peacemaking route with the regens and curse reductions? peacemaking I can area peace and all, discord well it sucks that I cant discord players lol but i could their pets I guess. I also wouldn't be able to dispel summons if i'm a mystic, but it's a big tradeoff I think when you think about being able to cure/heal immediately from a distance when you're being over ran with poison fields. I love 4/6 chivalry, but I know that if you're standing in a poison field or several people are then as soon as they get cured with that cleanse by fire, before you can get close wounds on them they will be instantly re poisoned.


Really, it almost sounds like if I dont go with the Chiv build then I give up having STRONGer bard masteries... If I go with the chiv build then i can dispel and cure/heal fast (as long as im not in protection).
If I go with Mysticism build then i'll be giving up the 4/6 heal/cures (if im not in protection) and I won't have as strong as bard masteries... In return though I will be able to Heal/Cure INSTANTLY making poison fields not so much of a threat if over ran by them.
I don't know which tradeoff is the better one to go with.



Also as a mystic with a combat skill and the 70 dci i'd expect to be able to tank atleast 2 dexers in protection with stone form... As a 4/6 chiv I think i'd struggle healing through 2 dexers with or without protection because I wouldn't have stone form for one or that cure/heal spell. Vs 2 mages though I know i'll be dead anyway regardless of which temp I go with because I don't have resist lol. All it would take is for one to mana vamp spam and the other to just dump. The idea is just to survive though long enough for my backup to arrive.

 

[Zero Day]

With a 2x bard you and your whole crew can stand in a poison field and not really worry about it unless its a DP field. If its a DP field then youd really want to be on a 3x bard.
If you time the healing you can get your heals in with chiv when the mastery cures them.

I rate Mystic Focus /2x template about the same as a Chiv 3x template. Either template can handle the 2 dexers as long as you are disarming them. But if if you're just standing and fighting not gonna happen.

I think defensively the templates are pretty close maybe a slight edge to chivalry since 4/6 is really hard to interrupt and you can dispel summons and res your blues. Mystics get the offensive bonus though since they can throw out spells and summons.

I think for defending choke points I'd go with the chiv bard. otherwise prolly the mystic. Also dont use the pets and summons unless you are solo, since they'll drive up your mastery upkeep cost.
If you are going to use summons then stick with the mystic 2x bard since the extra focus will compensate for their additional mana cost.
No matter what, trapped box/apples/pots is a must.