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Are bards played much

Grenier

Adventurer
SInce I screwed up and put a years worth of game time on the wrong account I have been mainly playing the tamer that was on it. That being said I did start a new bard on this account. From what I have seen, and that is not seeing much, I see tamers everywhere. The tamers forum seems to be quite active as well. So I wondering if bards are played much for harder content or have they been shelved for other characters? I really like playing the bard, but so far it has been rather tame, being that I am still training her.
 

Lord GOD(GOD)

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
It's a very general question you've asked so I can only give a general answer, but yes, Bards are absolute powerhouses when played right. The reason you see a lot less talk about them is two-fold 1) The devs have (for a long time) produced content that is not able to be affected by Bard skills, which means more people talking about the templates that can be used for it in a more direct sense. 2) Bards (again in general, and depending on the rest of the template) require a lot of player skill (which is ever dwindling) that is, to be successful as a Bard in difficult or high end content you have to be very alert and present in what's happening around you, as opposed to letting a pet deal with everything while hidden, or the effective 'I can't die easily' dynamic of a sampire, which to an extent can allow for a sort of afk-auto defending and still winning play-style. A Bard such as a 6x120 Mage/Med/Music/Disc/Prov/Peace pure has to do things like manage the rate at which various spawn is dying so as not to end up with one big annoying baddie on it's own with nothing to Provoke on to it. The above Bard can for example solo all of Doom Gauntlet.
 

Zalan

Crazed Zealot
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
It depends on your play stlye. Some people will bring a bard along on a second account foe the buffs. Alot of the high end stuff is ridiculously hard to get provoke or discord to work on.

Bards are one of those professions you love or hate. When I play its Sampire, Archer, or Tamer.
 

Grenier

Adventurer
Thanks for the reply. Like I said my point of view is very limited since I am really just getting back into the game. I have to admit the whole pet training thing is something am wanting to check out since it's been 10 years. I do like the bard and I have been using her to make the spending money have so far. I am encouraged more to take her all the way.
 

Lord GOD(GOD)

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Below is a good example of a situation that's great for a Bard. What's going on is one Minion is Discorded, and all the others are not, they're all Provoked on to the Discorded one (because these things take a long time to die), at the same time I'm running Despair (which you can set to target the weakest resist) and Tribulation (which has a chance of doing a % of some incoming damage again), in the top image you can see (I've temporarily swapped out Peacemaking for Spellweaving) I've used Word Of Death on the Discorded one hitting for 402 damage (this is without any Spell Damage Increase), Tribulation has triggered off of the WOD damage doing an additional 246, Despair is hitting the 80s, while there is continuous other damage numbers scrolling off coming in from the Provoked Minions.

Although this location is a normal overland area, this same tactic is the 'dream' setup you can get other places like Unbound Energy Vortex's/Diseased Blood Elementals in Shame. Or at events such as the town invasions where you typically have one high HP 'General' who drops the main event item that you're after and you can Provoke all the Lieutenants/Corporals/Greater Dragons or whatever on to him.

You can add in to this that I'm holding a Heavy Crossbow, which is a Mage Weapon, the reason for this is it has the second highest base damage in the game, so if I carry some bolts (even without Tactics/Anatomy/DI) I can help chip away and add to the number scroll, usually hitting at least 25. You can also use Summons and Firehorns or Vollems for even more output.

Minion TribDespWOD.jpg Minion TribDespWOD2.jpg
 

Li Mu Bai

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
This is another example. discoed Unbound energy vortex under tribulation effect is being attacked by 4 diseased blood elementals supported by 2 summonned wind ones. Despair runned out before a while so it is not visible on a pic. If i am staying there more i usually use 6 blood eles. when uev dies i provoke bloods onto themselves to keep them fighting in 3 pairs (they kill each other really really slow so it is more like a safe pause mode for a while). Then i lure next uev, disco it and provoke bloods onto it one by one. Before it dies 5/6 blood eles are 100% health back so in the next round i provoke them in different order not to let any of them die. it's a short work - comparable to my sampire if he's fighting 1vs1. Uncomparable to sampire whirlwinding 3 at once but much more satisfying :)
 

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Li Mu Bai

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
I 100% agree with Lord GOD - this is all the matter of good planning and some experience. It is a good practise to enter "the room", become invisible, plan the things, drag and organize all the healthbars and start provoking. Treasure hunting solo lev 6 and 7 maps is a perfect example. If you get 1 AW you disco it and provoke the whole rest onto it supporting with tribulation/despair/peace from time to time and you end up with 0-4% health discoed AW and a clear screen - EV/despair/mind blasts will do the job. If you get 2 of them you provoke them on each other and handle the rest. The result is similar. This dieing tempo control is the most important part - you can peace, disco, tribu, despair, mind blast, use summons, vollems from the crystal (they are awesome!), use fire horns and a few less popular methods (like this Lord GOD's crossbow for example) to keep the things dieing in planned order leaving 1 monster in heavy agony at the end.
 

Lord GOD(GOD)

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
@Lord GOD(GOD) - I love your mage weapon crossbow idea, I hope it has mana leech/drain? :)
Can't remember. I'm in the process of selling my characters suits and his has gone for 200m. It's not difficult to find ones with it though, also you can get Balanced ones as well, OR if you keep an eye out for ones with 1 FC that are Mage Weapon/Balanced you can always enhance them with Frostwood for a SC no penalty Balanced. I've also experimented with a fast one such as a Repeating Crossbow with HLA/HLD.
 
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