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An ordinary day as a "pure" bard

Gusten

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Hello bards,

I've decided to stop mocking around with hybrid bards (taming, archery and what not), and go for the pure 4x120 setup. At the moment it's coupled with 120 magery/spellweaving, but I'll probably stone SW and use med instead. (For keeping up masteries and heals, and feel even more "pure".)

My question is - what do you guys normally do with your pure bards? What's your everyday schedule? Which dungeons do you frequent, in which champs do you farm sots, etc.?

I usually bring along my two vollems, but maybe it's more simple to just rely on provo and EVs?

I'd like to hear about your pure bard everyday life. Preferably doing things solo, but if you usually team up then I'd like to hear those stories too.
 

Poo

The Grandest of the PooBah’s
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im like you.

i travel with my 2 vollems.

but if im feeling lazy and dont wanna have to worry about getting a res if they go down then ill just use EV's.

i have been hitting shame of late, farming in there.
pulling out massive amounts of Relics.

have been making runs into wrong now.
trying that out.
stuff in there seems to be a bit harder.
definitely not as easy as shame is.

i dont champ much on my pure bard.
but now with the looting changes maybe i should....
 
Z

Zero Day

Guest
My ordinary day as a pure bard is pretty simple.
I check if guild mates are on, find out if there is a champ spawn, raid or general rough housing going on and I drop in and throw in some tribulation and discord and share in the loot that enhanced focus fire generates.
There's nothing like watching someone get hit with explosion flame strike and tribulation.

I think its a shame that there's not alot of faction participation, the bard masteries lend themselves to group play really well.

Though I'm currently working on the template He's a 4x 120 bard with 120 chiv and 120 meditation.
Aside from emergency heals with chivalry and holy light spam all his damage is reliant on bard abilities. Definitely the most fun I'm having in a while.
 

Poo

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chiv bard eh?

hmmm.
 

Gusten

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Chiv bard sounds too tricky for me. I can't imagine bard life without magery, as limiting myself to 4x120 bard skills is challenge enough for me. This is the character I consider as my main, and I want my main to be able to travel, explore, and then also mark runes and gate friends.

Shame sounds interesting, I haven't been there since they changed it. I read a guide/post somewhere that stated that Bedlam entrance is a good place to master all bard skills. (Player skill practice, not character skill.) I had planned to spend a few days there and refresh my abilities to play bard, but from what I hear, Shame can offer the same training grounds.

I just scrolled my bard for 120 resist spells as well. Seems like a comfortable option to be able to put on him at times. Heck, even 90 stealth / 30 hide sounds handy. (I know 90 isn't needed, but it adds up to a nice 120) If I remember correctly, 30 hiding is enough to be able to cast invis on yourself and then walk in stealth. In any case - I find that the only thing I really use spellweaving for when I'm on my own is gift of life on my vollems. I figure that it's smarted to make sure they don't die in the first place.

Thanks for the input guys!
 

RaistlinNowhere

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
i recommend you to drop peace and make a half bard with mystic. Mine is :

120 mystic
120 focus
120 music
120 provo
120 disco
100 magery
100 eval

Of course i use magery and eval on spellbook and jewelry. I use a crystalline ring.

I do almost all on game, but still didnt go to wrong, but dont think will be a big deal

PD: remember .... colossus is your friend.

Another template i use is :

120 mystic
120 focus
120 music
120 provo
120 disco
50 chival
20 necro
50 spirit speak.

And remember ......Wraith is your true form.... hehe.
 
Z

Zero Day

Guest
Chiv Bard, Holy Light Spam.

6x120 Chiv + bard Skills + Meditation.

Current Mastery -> Peace.


Fun stuff.
 

Poo

The Grandest of the PooBah’s
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i recommend you to drop peace and make a half bard with mystic. Mine is :

120 mystic
120 focus
120 music
120 provo
120 disco
100 magery
100 eval

Of course i use magery and eval on spellbook and jewelry. I use a crystalline ring.

I do almost all on game, but still didnt go to wrong, but dont think will be a big deal

PD: remember .... colossus is your friend.

Another template i use is :

120 mystic
120 focus
120 music
120 provo
120 disco
50 chival
20 necro
50 spirit speak.

And remember ......Wraith is your true form.... hehe
.
ya know, i did the same with a SW tamer.
i put on low necro and ss and was hoping to get back my mana with the end game word of death spam, and i must admit, i was very disappointed.

i looked into it some more and it turns out that you need to have really high SS to get any good amount of mana back.
 

RaistlinNowhere

Slightly Crazed
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Stratics Legend
yeah poo , but i use slayer or superslayers spellbooks, so i got back ALL the mana i use :D

But its true, that if you dont use those spellbooks, you wont get back the mana you need. Thats why i use one template or other , if im soloing (magery template) or going with a group (chival/necro template)
 

Thrakkar

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Though I'm currently working on the template He's a 4x 120 bard with 120 chiv and 120 meditation.
Aside from emergency heals with chivalry and holy light spam all his damage is reliant on bard abilities. Definitely the most fun I'm having in a while.
Interesting.
How much damage does holy light do? (I tried it on TC and it did about 23-26, but this was with 0 Karma, though)
If you spam HL, how do you get your mana back? (As spamming I refer to constantly casting it, whithout any noticable regeneration breaks)
 
Z

Zero Day

Guest
Peacing Mastery gives resilience.

Gives me alot of regen to keep spamming holy light
 

Poo

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yeah poo , but i use slayer or superslayers spellbooks, so i got back ALL the mana i use :D

But its true, that if you dont use those spellbooks, you wont get back the mana you need. Thats why i use one template or other , if im soloing (magery template) or going with a group (chival/necro template)
hmmm

i wonder why youd get back more with a slayer on?

the amount of mana ya get back from being in wraith has nothing to do with the amount of damage you put on the critter?

Caster receives the ability to truely (unlike weapons with "Hit Mana Leech") leech mana from a target.
The mana leech is determined by that formula:
Spirit Speak / 5
So at Gm its 20% mana leech, and legendary is 24% mana leech.
 

RaistlinNowhere

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
ummm, poo , have been thinking and is all ok.

You leech at GM a 20% and at legendary a 24%, from where?...........
...... from the damage you do XDDD
 

Poo

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ive got 20 necro and 50 SS on a SW tamer right now.
ill go test this and see if that is for sure and ill report back.

if im not back in 5 mintues...... well just keep waiting i guess.

hehe
 

Poo

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just went and tested it, didnt get anything back off word of death in wraith form with either high SDI or with a slayer book on.
 

NBG

Lore Master
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Stratics Legend
I have no problem getting full mana back using WoD with human racial 20 SS against bosses\cast type monsters that can be leeched using wraith form.

You have lvl 6 focus from SW? You know that WoD even at lvl 6 focus only really works after 30% health right?

What are you fighting?..... Some things just don't have the mana to leech from.
 

Poo

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ya i was out beating stuff up and waited till they got low.

i went and did some artic OLs and then went and did some unbound ev's

i did a third thing too..... trying to remember what it was, haha, was like 12 hours ago......

crud, ive killed so much stuff since then!
 

Poo

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ok so if you only get back 20% mana leech when GM.
then at 20 skill your getting back..... 4% ?? 5% maybe?

so if your dropping WODs for.... what 460?

800 if your maxed on SDI and slayer say.

(math time!)

so at 460 youd get back like 18 mana

and at 800 youd get back 32 mana

WOD takes what, 50 mana
then -40% thats gonna be 30 mana to cast it.

so yes, if your hitting for 800 your gonna get it back.
if your dropping it for 460 which seems to be what i hit for most of the time then i SHOULD be getting back half my mana.... and im not.

we are gonna go do a lady mel right this second and test this.
we are taking in 3 SW's

back in a bit.
 

RaistlinNowhere

Slightly Crazed
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Stratics Legend
Just a hint, dont test it with UEVs , it dont work on them dunno why. Try for example normal blood elementals from level 3.
 

Poo

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well this makes absolutely no sense.

ill just put down the results and people smarter then me can maybe figure this out.

we ended up taking in 2 Spell Weavers.

1 was a SW tamer with 20 skill in neco and SS.
had a ring and watch and tali on him to get to i think it was 48 in each.
only SDI on the toon was 25 on the spellbook, no slayer.

2nd was a pure mage/SW/necro
120 SS natural on this toon.
101 SDI on the suit.

both toons of course had 40 LMC and a level 6 crystal, both are 120 SWs too.

so this was strange.
what we did was we beat mel down with some dragons.
when she got to 30% we pulled them all off but one and left her to hit that.

we then took turns firing off WODS
i fired off 7 in total that hit for 360 each.
i didnt loose ANY mana on 6 of them, on 1 of them i lost a lot of mana.

the real mage with 120 natural SS landed 8 WODS that hit for 605 each.
only got back full mana on 4 of the 8.

so.... what the heck.

that makes no sense.
now, im not complaining, for some reason it actually worked for me!
haha, but my guild mate is PISSED!
 

Poo

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so my guild mates on the pure mage.
hitting for 605 with 120 SS he should have been getting back like 150 mana per hit.

me with 20 SS, i should have been getting back like 14 mana per hit.

i was definatly getting a LOT more then 14 per hit.
cause it would have costed me 30 mana per hit to launch the spell and i didnt drop at all in mana for 7/8 WODS.

the only thing i can think is that my guild mate maybe hit her when her mana tapped out and therefor got nothing back from her.

but that would have to be some pretty crappy luck since we were going back and forth with it.
 

NBG

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
When you use base 20 SS, make sure you also cast arcane empowerment first to up your damage (level 6 arcane focus is a must)
 

Poo

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didi i not say we had level 6 cyrstals?

im pretty sure i said we had level 6 crystals.
 
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