[Discordance] Need advice from the Experts

[James [W^H]]

Hi,

I have developed a lot of different characters in the years I have played, but I have never played a Bard. I would like to create a Bard using all 4 skills, which will give me the opportunity to learn how to develop the skills and play the character. Is a Bard built around the 4 core skills playable or will I need additional skills on the template? At the present, my only knowledge on these skills is from reading posts here on the forum. If it's not too broad of a question, how do I start?

Thanks, Katrena

 

[Bort of Atlantic]

You will need additional skills on the template. Magery is usually a good addition for utility and summons (if you have nothing to provoke onto the last creature standing, you need some way to kill it). Mysticism would be another good choice for RC and offensive spells.

If you're willing to utilize a single main bard skill, then template options open up a lot. I enjoy discord and provocation, so I use provoke on my treasure hunter and use discord on my tamer, and that's probably still one of the strongest pvm templates out there. I've also swapped bard skills to a number of my characters over time just to see how they work out. I've currently got 120 discord on my swords vampire and am liking it a lot. I've also run a mage with provoke and discord, and I've also tried peacemaking on my tamer. The short of it is you can work bard skills onto almost any character type, but...

I have never tried a bard running discord+provoke+peacemaking. I'm honestly not sure in which scenario all three skills would be useful. I tried peacemaking on my tamer and it broke too quickly, so I swapped to discordance which seems better all around for single-target killing. Maybe if you run a mastery full-time with decent mana regen to balance it out, you can get the full benefit of having 3 bard skills. Otherwise, I would suggest provo + disco as the main skills and supplement with magery + meditation or mysticism + focus. Hope this helps.

 

[Poo]

for a pure bard, in my experience you can either go with magic and eval if ya dont plan on using much spells or masteries.

or you can go magic and med (which i find myself doing more and more so i can drop more EVs and masteries)

mystic is also a fun one i have and is fun.
course with mystic youll need focus to add some pepper to your spells.

both have pro's and con's.

magery is more versatile and myst seems to hit harder.

ive heard of people running necro and ss but have never seen it myself.

 

[Storm]

I would go with
120 music
120 disco
120 peace
120 provo
90 magery (+30 jewels)
90 med (+30 jewels)

60 focus (+30 jewels)
or go with eval and bump eval with jewels

the focus is if you plan on running masteries all the time the regen the better

 

[James [W^H]]

Hi,

Thanks for all of the great advice. After reading all of the FAQ's and other posts, one area I'm confused on is training discord and provocation. Some posts talk about using blue's for training and having them friended to someone, and other posts talk about using wild's and not being able to keep them from wondering off. It appears that the method to train discord and provocation is the same, but I may be missing something in how I'm reading the posts. Can someone please explain exactly how to train these two skills?

Thanks, Katrena

 

[Poo]

get a mess of animals in one area and train.

if they are wild they are gonna walk around and may walk off on ya.
if you have a tamer friend they can tame them and keep them sitting in one spot for ya.

or pick up herding and keep them in an area.

some people try corralling the animals in houses and on boats, but if a GM happens to find you doing that you run the risk of getting into trouble for it.

personally ive never seen a GM when ive been training.
but i have had people come in here complaining that they have.
granted, very very very few.

 

[Poo]

or

go out and train the skill as you actively hunt.

i know i know, thats so old fashioned!

 

[evil randy]

or

go out and train the skill as you actively hunt.

i know i know, thats so old fashioned!

Using jewelry and an LRC suit, I farmed the blood elementals on lvl 3 of shame for the past few days. went from 60 discord (80 with jewelry) to 90 and then used mastery to get to 120. The loot took my artificer from 90 - 100.

 

[Poo]

see, there is something to be said for actually playing the game instead of powergaming the skills, eh

 

[Poo]

when i made my first few guys i did it all by hand as i was out hunting.

but over the years i just wanted to get my new guys trained and into the field.
so power train to get them done.

i still prefer to train as i play.
hell, i still do that with my tamers.
i refuse to train taming past GM, i GGS it to 120 if i have too, haha

 

[AzSel]

My favorite bard template is by far:

120 mage
120 eval
120 med
120 music
120 provo
120 disco

I find I can handle most things in the game solo, and rock at it too

I used to have an archer/discoer and I liked it aswell.