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Fun with Bard Masteries

Z

Zero Day

Guest
First things first!

Each mastery ability has at least 2 effects and usually these are complimentary.
So even if the effects themselves are not incredibly significant, the combined total effect may be a bit more powerful than you initially realize.

Mastery Abilities(overview):

Inspire -> Bonus SDI, DI, and HCI
The HCI increase means the subject hits more often.
The DI will be a small bonus to base damage.
SDI in PvM has no Cap so this is a boon to all PvM casters.
---> I dont find this too great for career PvPers with money artifacts and crazy suits, but for my characters which aren't able to Max out all this on their suits it does help. I find my dismounter misses A helluva lot less when he's buffed with inspire.

Invigorate -> Bonus to All Stats, HP, Healing every 4 seconds.
Strength Bonus ties directly in to melee damage and Int ties directly in to Spell damage. Dex buffs stamina which affects swing speed. And who wouldnt like an extra 20 HP. (Not to mention the extra Healing every 4 seconds is like +30-50 HP Regen).


Resilience: Bonus to all regens, Poison Resistance, Curse Duration Reduction
The regen means more mana for casters, more stamina for fighters and a nice almost 1hp per second regen rate.
Quicker curing of poison, faster removal of bleed (for those without healing) less paralysis duration, corpse skin, evil omen, blood oath etc.

Preservance -> DCI and Damage Reduction
Not only does anyone under the effect get hit Less often, they also get hit for less when they get hit. (For all the pets and party members who can't ride swampies) Or if you want to take it further, This also stacks with the swampie damage reduction)


Despair: Physical damage 20-60 , - a whole bunch of strength.
So the target is doing less damage from their melee hits, has a lower hit point cap, (PvP armor falling off is sometimes a nice bonus), And dealing fireball to ebolt damage every 2 seconds and only having to stop to initiate the casting and then just keep them in range. (This is fun because once initiated it is not line of sight so if they run into a house, or hide they still continue to take damage as long as they are in range)

Tribulation: 20-60%Bonus damage to target in addition to up to 32% SDI penalty and HCI Penalty
So target is hitting less and their spells do less damage, and the damage they take is significantly increased.
 
Z

Zero Day

Guest
And the fun.

Some of the templates I've messed around with that make use of masteries.

This is my Whaaaaaaaaladin
Discord/Musicianship 120
throwing 120
Necro/SS 100
Tactics 100
Chivalry 60

I use Slayer with Life and Mana Leech/ Enemy of one/ and Tribulation in wraith form.




I also find that with my mystic provo or mage provo that inspire and EV's or inspire with a colosus seem to be a bit more effective.
For my tamer I think I prefer peacemaking masteries to the provo ones.
The less damage my pets take I find makes my job easier than having them hit slightly more often with inspire and for a smidge more damage. Also hunting anything with poison or specials like bleed/ai/mortal i think the value of resilience goes up especially since I can keep up both spells concurrenlty for something like 8 or 9 minutes or I can stop preservance for a few seconds and resilience will allow my mana to regen back up to full.



One of the templates I've been goofing with is a Mystic Discorder.
A colosus does really nice to a discorded mob and I can add despair to that to squeeze out some more damage. (Discord + spell plague if I want to mana dump.)


I've ran around a bit with a Mystic Discorder as a goofy pvp template.
120/120 Disco/Music
120/120 Mystic/Focus
120/ Wrestling
120 Meditation

Just dont have the mana to sustatin my spell songs and very reliant on trapped boxes and apples since I have no resist.
On the plus I had some pleasant surprises.
If Im attacking a dexer, I can usually sleep him which will allow me time to get tribulation off so that they tend not to hit me (until I run because I'm out of mana)

I can also use sleep to get despair off versus mages or other mystics, which then usually gives me a good enough interuption cycle to spell plague, bombard and spell trigger bombard, before they die, or I run because I'm out of mana.

Gank wise Tribulation with spell plague usually are much harder for the gankee to deal with than spell plague alone. And versus house fighters I can keep despair on them even when they close the door or hide behind a wall.
 

Storm

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Good post
I am in the middle of a new build
mystic/focus 120 each with 60 of the 240 points from jewels
120 in all 4 bard skills no jewels all real skill
60 points in med 30 from jewels
30 in magery and can switch spare jewels in to give me 60 for recalls and protections etc
 
Z

Zero Day

Guest
I really need to look into +skill jewelry I'll bet I could cram all sorts of interesting crap in. I could probably even get resist or meditation in to my whaaaladin.
 

Storm

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if I remember correctly you can get 3 skills of 15 and 1 of 8 on each ring/bracelet

I wanted the focus and as much med for mana regen to keep the mastery going also will add as much mana regen as I can to the suit!

all the bard skills are real so I get the max effect

myst because it goes with focus and collossus etc

magery like I said for recals protection etc also will run with a plus magery book to get another 15 magery
 
Z

Zero Day

Guest
I'm probably running into trouble because I'm using the same suit for PvP and PvM so on my jewelry for my whammy I'm running 1/2 15 hci ring/brace with 11/ 13 dci. Also have a bit of LRC on one.

I guess I'll have to work up an imbuing and my a skill jewel set to change out to.
 

WarUltima

Babbling Loonie
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Oh and in case some dumbies out there still has no clue... Tribulation brings any player mage with 15sdi does to -17 sdi... you are talking about a 120 eval gm inscribe legendary mage lighting you for 11, and ebolt for 16.

On top of that huge sdi reduction, every damage you dealt will be added with a 40% bonus damage as physical... this is very fun spellsong to cast, especially when the receiving dude has zero clue wtf you just did (and they usually accuse you for running "resist hack" because their lighting cant do more than 15 damage even after curse.
 
Z

Zero Day

Guest
Funnily enough I always went despair versus mages for the interrupts, but now that you mention it tribulation would be pretty sweet and more mana effective.

I've primarily been using tribulation versus dexers because the -20 hci is really freakin sweet.
 

WarUltima

Babbling Loonie
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Stratics Legend
Funnily enough I always went despair versus mages for the interrupts, but now that you mention it tribulation would be pretty sweet and more mana effective.

I've primarily been using tribulation versus dexers because the -20 hci is really freakin sweet.
Despire on mages is not that bad neither, and I use it as well. The beauty of tribulation is they cant deal enough damage to take down your spellsong. They will need a curse flame strike or omen ebolt to take it off you.

Bard mastery is really fun to use in PvP especially most average joe has zero idea wtf is that and they just panic. As you read some other posts there are still a lot of newbies out there they dont believe people use spellsongs in PvP. And mastery really shines when you have friends around you. Too bad most people only think about how effective it is 1v1. And besides I 1v1 PvP with my bard just fine.
 
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