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new bard question

Bob_the_fart_guy

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Working on my very first bard. I have found a LOT of info on my question, but maybe i'm just not intelligent to follow some of the math that goes into it. can someone just "dumb this down" for me, and answer a quick question... is having provocation still useful if you don't have Discord also? ............ anouther way to word the same question: Can you be effective against stronger mobs (dragons, succubus, deamon, reptalons ect... ) using provocation with zero discord?
 

croy6325

Journeyman
UNLEASHED
yes, you can certainly be useful without discord. however, the bonus' you get from having all 3 disciplines is like 22% or so. if your ideal template is tight on points, you wont miss not having discord.
 

Merus

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
I believe individual skill success chance is not affected by having multiple bard skills. In other words, your chance to provoke one creature against another creature is not impacted by your peacemaking or discordance skill... it is based solely off your music & provoke skill and modified by your instrument, mastery selection and possibly the virtuoso suit.

Bard mastery songs are affected by having multiple skills... lower mana cost the more total points you have in bard skills and a bonus to the bard songs effectiveness.
 

fonsvitae

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Fire horns too get a small damage bonus from having multiple bard skills. Not worth the skill points though imo, just mentioning for the sake of completeness.

It does have quite a big damage difference added per this calculator; also, fire horns have the unique advantage of being being area of effect (within a limited 3 tile radius).
 

Keven2002

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
It does have quite a big damage difference added per this calculator; also, fire horns have the unique advantage of being being area of effect (within a limited 3 tile radius).
Yea but this is BEFORE their fire resistance is taken into consideration. Example: I have 3 outta 4 skills 120'ed and it says I would do 70-86 damage which is great considering it doesn't use mana. That said, I literally picked up one this weekend to use just for giggles and it was doing nowhere near that damage to numerous high end monsters. I think on Scalis it did 32 dmg (not usre if he was disco'ed at that point)? On some other spawn it was doing ballpark of 40 which isn't bad but that's lower end MOBs too so not great considering their resist.
 

fonsvitae

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Yea but this is BEFORE their fire resistance is taken into consideration. Example: I have 3 outta 4 skills 120'ed and it says I would do 70-86 damage which is great considering it doesn't use mana. That said, I literally picked up one this weekend to use just for giggles and it was doing nowhere near that damage to numerous high end monsters. I think on Scalis it did 32 dmg (not usre if he was disco'ed at that point)? On some other spawn it was doing ballpark of 40 which isn't bad but that's lower end MOBs too so not great considering their resist.
Yeah. It isn't something to go toe to toe with anything worthwhile. Nor is it a steady go to as an offensive option (its cost in sulfurous ash would be offputtng enough in that context, not to mention its relative weakness). My post was not remarking that fire horns do big damage; rather, that there is a big damage difference between using one, two, or three bard skills for the resulting possible damage a fire horn may have.

As to its uses, as a quick way to get garbage off your back, it is great. It is also a decent enough AOE option for a bard w/ no other AOE skills or spells. I use it w/ my vollems: they are handy to get aggro and let the pets do the rest in spawn situations.
 

Bob_the_fart_guy

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
thank you so much. been a SLOW progression for me to get my provo skill up. but i'm sloooooowly making progress. this might sound like a difficult question... but does anyone know what the most difficult (but even at least somewhat possible) creature to provoke is?
 

Branden

Journeyman
it not fun and probably looked down on but magicia has a fountain with fences/wall up areas where a mage can easily teleport n mark runes. I used my tamer n depends on skill level I would release the animals in each of the area once I have a good amount. I would area peace n Provoke animals to each other and repeat as with area peace to get everyone to stop. Also work with discord slow gains but still works. Easier in Felucca I think you get better gains
 

Keven2002

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
thank you so much. been a SLOW progression for me to get my provo skill up. but i'm sloooooowly making progress. this might sound like a difficult question... but does anyone know what the most difficult (but even at least somewhat possible) creature to provoke is?
You can use a crystal ball of knowledge (Crystal Ball of Knowledge - UOGuide, the Ultima Online Encyclopedia) to tell you when you are in the sweet spot for gaining provo. Some of the harder but consistently spawning things (ie easy to find) to spawn are greater dragons / ancient wyrms. Just an FYI though if you are actually able to provo them at this point (ie you are over 90 provo) then it's going to be MUCH faster to simply use the provo mastery to gain (ie repeatedly casting the mastery spells) because that's hitting your provo skill every time which will give you gains. It's also bypassing the time you would need to wait to use the skill since it's being cast like a spell. Grab a max mana / mana regen suit and start spamming Inspire :D

 
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