Bard must-haves?

[Snert]

Hey, i just returned to daoc, and want to template my bard, but i've never had any arties or any other nice items and now my question is if there are any items, arties or others that are must-have for bards.. (i'm going 43 nurture, 47 music and sojourner cause i've been told that's a good rvr spec)
i've been looking at bard templates i've seen on these boards and on other boards, and i've seen like one item which i assume is must-have, phoebus necky... all hints/tips are welcome

Cragstone (47 bard, Knights of Mayhem)

 

[Himse]

Pheobus, CB, Bracer of Zo, maybe gov / cs.. erm.... thats all i can think of..

try to cap range, duration, cast speed, stats and decent resists..

 

[ruw]

musthave

I'll speak for myself

Imo the only "must have" for a bard is a drum to play end with...
The rest is just there to improve, and make your life easier.

phoebus neckie+harp - nice stats, makes it easier making template + no instrument swopping.
CB - ok stats, mezz/stun BT charge, most bards will keep on running even when the timer is down so if it's a "musthave" is up to you to decide.
EoY - rezz upto 8 realm m8s within a radius of 1000 with no powcost = almost a musthave.
BoZ - nice for interrupting
Jacinas - will save you some power
Crocodiles tears ring - might help you survive abit longer.
Battler/Malice - Both with nice /use debuffs
Cyclops eye Shield - Stealth Lore, If you like hunting down stealthers (never tried it myself)

For your template you should cap:
Castingspeed,Dex

Get as mutch powerpool,duration,range and charisma as possible

rest is just standard, resists/hits/con
I see no use for energy resist, some might disagree

There are lots of bard templates on these forums, you'll have to decide what suits you, and how mutch you are willing to pay ofc.

Good Luck

 

[Brack]

- All u need is a drum is kinda silly, wouldn't take a bard serious if i didn't see a harp

 

[Tallen]

Harp is just about the only "must-have" simply because you cant equip 3 instruments. Maybe it's not something you MUST have, but its just so incredibly useful that you'd be daft not to use it

 

[ruw]

Was meant as a joke but...
You can equip 2 instruments, and how often do you use MR/PS in rvr?

Brack's got a point tho', most ppl wont take you seriously unless youv'e got a harp,

 

[Mnexxiz]

Apart from PH all other items are rather optional. PH is giving enough advantage not to include as it
a) allows you to play all songs with just one instrument
b) helps with casting speed and range

GOV is good for the stats but a s*** proc, GSV is fighter stats but good proc.

EOY has obvious advantage in PvE, in RvR its use is very situational (i.e. SOR /DI /AM must be up to have an effect other than /release). If you get EOY then obvious you can't use GoLM which would be an alternative to BoZ and maybe the only artifact that even a bard can solo (with luck - at full moon - after preparation - better bring a friend anyway).

Winged Helmet is an optional. But nice to have for its use2. Might eventually give your druid a chance to keep you alive with the assist train on you. Use is situational again - speed burst breaks in combat.

Whatever you do, get an easy to make template first to get you going while you hunt your artifacts as they will take long to get unless you can motivate 5 animists (and support - and others) to help you with the artifacts on a regular basis.

 

[dwystah]

phoebus harp is good the necklace is replaceable tho with a necklace like zahur to get more power, some good artis to have:
EoY
Jacina
Zoarkat
battler and malice axe

lots say cb but its pretty useless so if you can find better utility bracer use that instead. lots other bard temps ive seen have crap powerpool but actually its quite nice to have a decent powerpool+jacina, you wont have pts to get RAs like RP etc be4 rr11 anyway. ur spec + ofc soj is good

 

[buffswithlove]

I got, Sash, Zo (missing still those), PH and cb in my temp and im quite happy all resist high spell range more than needed. There is lots of nice artis what u MUST have but wtf if those peeps doesnt have to pay your subs then that arti cant b must..

 

[FallycSymbol]

Cast speed/range and staying alive, anything to help with that tbh.

 

[Mckennitt]

As ruw said and explained i fully agree with him. Apart from the harp + neckie ( and no dwystah unfortinely u cant swap it for another neckie cause if yes ull be standing in DL for the timer to come up ) else are fully optional and just improves/helps your life. I wouldnt say they save the battle cause I do believe that battles can be won from whole group and not just from a seperate class.
Most of those optional arties gives you a charge or buff or proc that will help you a bit but not save you.

Tip/advice for your template.
If u want a non toa template ( that means SI + Catacombs + quests from any expansion ) Then imo u should cap you dex primarily and charisma ( affects dmg on DD and the capacity of your power ) cap resists, hits 200+ con 75+ and a decent pp above 20%

Now.. if u want a toa template ( which includes basically everything we got in the game ) then your work will be utter hard to complete but the outcome will be awesome.
As a template maker i dont like to see overcapped things.
Cap for a basic stat is 101 ( str/con/dex/quick/cha/etc etc )
Cap for pp is 75-80%
Cap for toa bonuses are either 10% or 25% ( depends what bonus )
So try to get those and dont exceed them.
Spell range 10% ( Items with spell range are pretty few though so u have to work a bit for em and those are , golden scarab vest +4 , guard of valor vest +4 , ml10 bard leggings +3 , phoebus neckie +4 , boz +4 , jasinas +5 , gem of lost memories +2. So combining those items u can get the result of +10% bonus or at least near it. )
Casting speed 10% ( easy to get it and harp already givfs you +5, the rest u can get it from tons of items )

Rest are optional but not MUST haves.
Power pool : Above 20% and u are quite oke since red castable AOE mezz takes allot of mana , same with aoe lul.
Buff Bonus : 25% is the cap and it will cap your base buff effectiveness. However u dont need to have it capped with your main template. U can use other items for swaping to wear em only for buffing , so dont bother much for it.
Healing Effectiveness : 25% is the cap for it and will improve your healing spells. Again not a much of a MUST since we suck at healing but then again always good to heal now and then ;p ( I can heal better than dr00d ofc )
Armor Factor : 50 is the cap and basically it increases your AF which means u take less dmg from enemies.
Skills ( Regrowth, Music ) : As far as i know u get a slight improve aswell if u have em capped ( u spend less mana afaik when u use a spell from those lines ) But as far as i remember the difrience is quite small so not much of a MUST have either.
Resists: They are good to have capped (26) but above 20+ are quite oke in my eyes and the difrience isnt noticable.
Hits: Get as much as u can. no comments ;p

Thats my opinion and how i see the bard templates. Not insulting anyone else and his opinion or whatever ( i know u'll flame me ;p )

Hope it helps a bit.

Regards

Mck

 

[Gear]

At the moment I'm using the following arties. GSV (uber snare proc), CS (fits nice in my template tho I wouldn't use it now if I was to remake it), CB (for /use2, everyone spams mezz anyway), BoZ (nice minions), PH (easy living).

I also got malice for the arrogance and cyclop's at 0 as I cba to xp it.

 

[Snert]

Skills ( Regrowth, Music ) : As far as i know u get a slight improve aswell if u have em capped ( u spend less mana afaik when u use a spell from those lines ) But as far as i remember the difrience is quite small so not much of a MUST have either.

hmmm, doesn't skill also increase my chance of landing mezzes? and maybe the dmg on my insta dd?


to everyone, thanks a lot for the info, really helping me a lot

(already got the book for PH, and almost won jacina's jash witha 619 roll, but then an LD came back and rolled like 700 )

 

[Merrilow]

The resist rate is based on the level of the spell vs the level of the opponent. +skill doesn't affect a great deal for a bard.

 

[liloe]

if you get an item that gives you -20skill in DAoC you get floating bubbles above your head I heard

Mck you noobster, +skill does jack for bards, except reduce the variance on baseheals a little and increase DD damage a little, so not even worth mentioning.

GoV has crap proc imho, but I agree that the harp is good, although you CAN swich necky after getting the harp cause it does not fade away when you die....just don't go LD =))

 

[Mckennitt]

Dierna said : Mck you noobster, +skill does jack for bards, except reduce the variance on baseheals a little and increase DD damage a little, so not even worth mentioning.

Yo gimpster. Get back to your cave and dont come back again ( i heard u using tunnels to connect to the net via text pr0n program ;p As i said previously + skills dont matter that much so stfu my uber friend /hug cause we basically agree ;p

Also i said u can swap with another neckie aswell but u have to wait in DL for the timer and ofc its meant if u ld or log off ;p Thats all ;p

Snert said: hmmm, doesn't skill also increase my chance of landing mezzes? and maybe the dmg on my insta dd?

+ skill increases a little the dmg of your DD spell . Charisma also increases it. But the difrience is small. Concerning the % on mezz no. + skill dont affects that.

Mck
Mck