TLP Bard guide?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Fiugvktffkhgvkkh, Mar 5, 2019.

  1. Fiugvktffkhgvkkh New Member

    I've been away from EQ for a long while and have never played a bard. I'm going to play on Mangler but I can't seem to find a good bard guide for TLPs. I found one that gave good general information for heroic characters but most of it was not applicable for new players.

    I understand that most people box bards and just use melody but I'm looking for information on solo/group/raids/etc.
  2. Candystore Augur

    Soloing with a bard will probably make you uninstall EQ. A bard can reverse charm kill, but it's very slow going. A bard can dot kite too, but again, it's very slow going. Bards used to be able to solo well due to AE songs, but they got nerfed a long time ago.

    That's basically what you do as a bard though, that's where 90% of your power comes from. That's all you're expected to do on a raid. Melody (and click Quicktime and Funeral Dirge when you get the AA) and you have done all a raid expects from you.

    Bards can pull well, especially when you get fade, boastful AA and Sleepwalker mezz.

    Other than learning how to pull effectively and being mindful of the speed your group and tank can handle, there is very little to know about bards.

    Requiem isn't worth using since bard slow is weak and on an extremely high resist that makes it unusable without using HoS first, if your group tank asks you to slow, tell him to take a hike.
    Gorgol the Ogre likes this.
  3. sumnayin2 Augur

    You'll be loved as a bard in groups and raids if you're a main bard...and it won't be hard to get groups anytime soon...so there isn't a problem of ever really having to solo.
  4. Candystore Augur

    Here are some tips:

    -if it wasn't obvious yet, bards no longer twist songs, make a /melody 1 2 3 4 macro

    -keep your melody going at all times, don't start interrupting it for pulling if it's not needed, a bard that keeps interrupting their melody is a bad bard, if your tank can handle two, bring two if it means you don't interrupt your melody (if you tank asks you to slow, ignore it, requiem is on a terrible resist and requires HoS, like I said...keep your melody going uninterrupted)

    -after wipe recoveries, casters want mana, play mana

    -get your instruments, your flute, your percussion instrument, the cute guitar, etc...they act as modifiers for many (not all) of your songs, you can find cheap versions of them in most towns

    -if you are in a group, you are the puller,...not the monk...not the enc...if you are playing songs while the monk FD's, you will pull everything because you are drawing aggro from the monk...be proactive and take up pulling (don't worry too much about song range, you quickly get AA that extends their range, eventually your songs will hit from half accross the zone)

    -make a macro that does /stop melody and only then triggers fade, it will save your butt a lot

    -if someone campsteals you or your group, don't be affraid to use Highsun, they will never campsteal from you again
    Kattria Minx likes this.
  5. Vorlic Journeyman

    I'll give this a shot...

    Solo
    • Don't until Planes of Power.
    • While LFG or sitting around, practice playing your instruments to level them up.

    Group
    • Your job is to pull. Use your best drum with a melody of Selos/Guardian/AC.
    • Download Brewalls maps and load them (if you haven't already).
    • Pulling is more akin to training on a TLP. If your group is semi competent, 3 at a time is completely fine. There are rare circumstances where you want to spend the time to single pull so feel out your group.
    • Bard dps is terrible, you shouldn't wait for your group to kill all mobs before pulling more. When one or two are left, go out searching for more.
    Raid
    • Don't die. Your dps is terrible so your biggest benefit is to keep the songs playing.
    • You want resist songs and then the others depending if you're in a tank, melee dps, caster group. Talk with experienced bards about the best song combinations for each target.
    • Turn off songs if you're in the puller's group until the target is engaged. Your songs can get agro.
    • If you're experienced, you can pull in some raid zones but (PoFear, PoGrowth, etc) but if you're new, leave it to someone else.
    Gear
    • Best instrument you can get, resists, hp gear. While you are a plate class, you should never be getting hit so leave that high AC armor for the tanks.
    • Your epic is easy to get with a decent guild and is used until PoP.
    • In Luclin and beyond, getting 15 flowing thought (mana regen) adds a lot of utility.
  6. Weebles Augur

    Mostly agree with Vorlic's post above me. Agree that in groups, you will frequently be expected to pull so if you are nervous about this, either choose a different class, or make it clear up front and accept that you'll likely get fewer groups if they message you looking specifically for a puller.

    I'll just add a few miscellaneous thoughts:
    -When I'm pulling a place with lots of casters, I typically melody Selo's, Ele or purifying rhythms, guardian rhythms, and a flexible 4th.
    -In addition to my standard melody, these 4 songs *almost* never leave my spell slots - charm, mez, lull, dispel. I use dispel to pull. In dungeons, monsters almost always have sow, haste, ac buff, etc etc.
    -Bandolier is your friend.
    -hymn of restoration + lute is insanely strong at lower levels (and even higher depending on comp - necros and shaman will love you for it).
    -your low level mana song is a single pulse, not a duration if I recall correctly. This means during downtime, I would typically have a 4 song melody that was 1x hymn of restoration and the 3 consecutive mana pulses (ex. /melody 1 2 2 2)
    -I frequently mez targets during my pull so that they stagger into the group one at a time, ideally as the previous one dies. I also frequently charm adds during bigger pulls. For example, if I pull 4, I'll charm one, stick it on one, mez one, and let the group kill the last one. Essentially turn a 4 pull into a single pull with only 2 casts.
    -In raids, you are often maximized by not melee'ing. i.e. you are equivalent to a boxed bard. A good example is nagafen. You can't risk getting feared and letting resist songs drop off your group, because then they get feared, AoE'd, dispelled, etc. You are literally maximized by sitting behind a wall out of the AoE. Your melee dps isn't even worth the healer's mana to heal you after you take an AoE. If you are with casters and melee (which may happen out of necessity if there is a bard shortage), you want to stand in between the melee and casters to make sure the entire group gets your songs. Again, this means not melee'ing.

    If you have specific questions, feel free to pm me.
  7. Vorlic Journeyman

    Good stuff Weebles, I forgot about Bandolier! (This lets you quickly swap weapon setups or in a bards case, instruments. If you want to min/max, this lets you play the perfect instrument for each song you play.)

    Definitely practice wind before trying to mez something.
  8. HoodenShuklak Augur

    Bard in a nutshell...

    Great in groups and raids.
    Expected to pull in groups.
    Learn to use multiple /melody buttons. If you play the same one or two melodies 24/7 you might as well be a box.
    They have a lot more utility than 99% of people realize. Delve into the theory-craft and you can min max a lot. They're incredibly powerful early EQ in groups. High 40's in Classic sucks though, from what I recall you don't get a good mez. But learn to use charm as a powerful CC/dps tool. I remember doing velks with a charm pet as a bard. Sure you need to baby it once a minute, but bards are active as it is. If you don't want to click a lot it's better to main something else.
    When Kunark drops try to get your epic fast since you'll need it for a long time.
  9. Crayon123 Augur

    But the casters need my mana regen!!11 AFK 30 mins brb
  10. Vorlic Journeyman

  11. Parker Elder

    Bard charm kiting is exceptional experience if done right.

    First camp I remember doing with great results was cougars in Iceclad. At some point I moved on to spectres in Oasis while using Niv's to offset the lifetap, ridiculous experience. From there, I believe I spent a good amount of time doing Spirocs in TD. At some point after that I spent what seemed an eternity doing raptors in TD also. Again, amazing experience but in the same breath I got really, really effecient at it. And I would advise grouping as much as possible to keep grouping abilities up to par. Barding isn't one thing, it's being able to do it ALL.

    From that first charm song on I think it's POSSIBLE to solo all the way up to level 110...meaning there was always SOME spot to go to with each expansion.
  12. Parker Elder

    You caught me on a down night! I'll do my best.

    Solo
    -------
    Well like I said, Charm kiting is an amazing means to level!! You will probably take quite a few deaths in the beginning but it's worth it. Now I know I laid out some actual camps but the actual basics of charm kiting is this: You need social mobs...meaning that specific type of mob will assist another. To start out, try packs of 3 or 4 social mobs...cast charm on you target and make a hotkey that goes something like /pet attack. What's it attacking? Your target duh. Now that takes care of 2 mobs but your entire pack of mobs might not all assist the 2 fighting it out(your pet and your target). That's ok, you have selos so keep doing drive bys near the pack and eventually the other mobs will assist the mob that your charmed pet is attacking...this gets MUCH easier later when Fading Memories comes into play. Now that you have your entire train beating on your charmed pet you need a means to inviz to break your charm and you want that to be at lowest point possible in your charmed pet's health....very early on I had to use the inviz song which meant I also had to manually instrument swap AND get good at the timing of the break...you will get it over time. If TLP allows inviz potions then stock up! When you get up to level one of the very best items you can get is boots of the mosquito...I ended up just paying for mine on Live back in the day...I still use them on Live some 20 years later! So as you get better at this you're going to want to experiment with rounding up more and more mobs...there is a point of diminshed returns it terms of what item you have to break charm, meaning if you have let's say 100 mobs beating on your pet thats probably overkill for a few reasons. 1) One slip up and your dead which is ironically what you sorta want anyway 2) that damage output from 100 mobs beating on your pet is going to be so fast that when you try to break charm either your pet will poof if it hits zero or you'll have to break it so early to guard against your pet poofing that you will be left with a mob with 30 to 50 percent health and that is VERY ineffecient given the dps of our dots(which is what you will be using to finish these former pets off with). So the happy medium is to gather enough mobs that provide a good quick death to your pet's health but not so fast that you can't break charm withing the 1 to 15 percent range....so ideally within a server tick, you'd want anywhere from 10-20 percent of health coming off your pet. This whole process gets much easier later on after fade and extended target window comes into play. Your hotkey will modify itself as you get fade, something like, /line 1 being alt activate fade /line 2 being /pet attack. This removes you from the hate list for a split second and then sends your pet into a social swarm of mobs that haven't pathed away yet, meaning the entire swarm of mobs will not chase you as they did in the beginning of you bards life. There are tricks with DA song that help with this too but focus on the basics.

    Like I said. Cougars in IC. Specs in Oasis, use a lute with Nivs and heal song to counteract the lifetap thing. Spirocs. Raptor Island, prepare to go bonkers. Man and it goes on and on and on from there. You're looking for basically dark blue mobs when you get your new charm song for your level.

    In fact I've soloed quite a bit of stuff using a modified version of this. I remember going into Ferubi I think it was and going after the elemental lute we get, charm burning the named until I finally was able to kill him....solo. Doesn't sound impressive now but at the time I think I had 7k total hit points and I was able to kill placeholders with charm until I got the named to pop, then train him with DA song into the room I intended to kill him....split him...charmed a pet, sent it at him til that pet poofed...hurry up get another pet in same room and throw it on him...repeat until low and then possibly Deftdance'd for the final kill THEN pray it dropped, and it did! One of many, many, solo opportunities that available to bards with a good imigination and some grit. Including soloing Phinny by mez/melee for the epic piece he drops....using healing songs to recoup health between mezzes. The VoTS camp...it goes on and on I'm probably forgetting 50 things easily.

    Grouping
    -------------
    This however will be your bread and butter. Get good with the dynamics surrounding splitting. Pre fading memories and post fading memories. Lull/pacify type songs will be your means to single pulling early on...groups will have to deal with any sloppiness at this point but I encourage you to go out by yourself and practice breaking up camps with the songs available to you at the time, have a zoneline nearby to expedite things. Build a solid reputation as a bard that keep a mob or 2 or 3 in camp at all times or be flexible if the groups wants constant training...hell, get good at training.

    You absolutely can and should stop melody at certain times. Just make sure the first song in your melody is the most important one. Resists paramount? Have first song be your resist song so IF you have to stop your melody the first one up is that sound...adjust for whatever situation might arise. I remember being the only bard on a dragon raid at times and what I did was play a zone offense/defense because resists were paramount back then. So I would pulse one hit of aoe resists in one portion of the raid(covering that area), then move to another and hit another pulse, then another then back to the first one. SOMETIMES, you have to break the sit in one spot and /melody and thing you're doing all you could/should do. If you're listening to a bard that says you do this and only this you're probably listening to a bad bard(caveat:there are occasions when you need to strict actions that inhibit certain other bad things happening).

    Songs do not cause aggro by themselves. Test it out if you must. You'll know what I mean when you get to this point and the ignorance abounds. If a monk is out pulling...can you sing songs? Yes, is it a great idea? Probably not but I will tell you this....once you understand how aggro is transferred you can get away with a TON more...be that bard that seeks to understand mechanics. Example: POST AGGRO, PRE AGGRO DROP is a phrase you should internalize....for situations where YOU pull or another aggro dropping class is pulling.... can you pulse any song on a monk before he aggroes something without training the group? YEP. Can you pulse any song on same monk AFTER he aggros and before he drops aggro? NOPE, you are now on the mob's hate list because it's like you buffed him after he aggroed mob and MONK'S fd only removes him from aggro, you are still on the mob's hate list....choo choo. That is a very rough explanation on that works. As you being to understand the dynamics of songs and pulling you can get away with so much more.

    Beyond pulling you want to be playing the best songs for the situation. It's not always a cookie cutter /melody. I remember not being able to scrounge up a traditional tank in KC once and we had a shaman monk combo I believe, nivs and heal song iirc with instrument swapping in a lute kept the shaman full mana via cannabilzing which nivs negated a lot of the damage from Canni....it might have been Shield of Songs not sure so long ago but point being....don't forget about the dusty song that's been collecting cobwebs in the back of your songbook. Try to evalute the situation, what your group needs most and adjust. Bardapulting would have never been a thing if every bard thought inside of the box LOL! So with that said, especially early on, try your damndest to get thee best instrument available to you and learn to instrument swap when applicable...not sure if they retro nerfed a lot of the great songs back in Classic when they changed songs awhile back in terms on modification via instruments.

    Learn to CC. I suggest making keyboard keys to cycle thru nearest target, last 2 targets and an assist hotkey and position them fairly close to one another on the keyboard. My movement keys are my arrows, not typical A D W X or whatever most people use...just to give you a reference. So my cycle nearest target key is the END key, my last 2 targets key is NUM PAD 0, my assist key is assigned to DELETE key. Over they years this is all muscle memory now, I don't even have to think about it, it's automatic. Pick a layout you like and stick with over a loooong period of time making sure to try new things out here and there in an effort to not stay stagnant. This will help immensely with CC'ing. Gets to the point where you can be CC'ing 2-3 mobs then for last server tick be /assisting for some rounds of melee then back to CC'ing then back to /assisting. It can be that efficient if you want it to be. Or you can not show off and sit back and CC. You get out what you put in.

    There WILL be a time where your personal dps is competitive. Now HOW competitive will vary on each expansion so be reasonable. It's about the time when we get our 1kblades disc and some decent AAS that I recommend delving into your AAs, discs, abilities and do a in depth self parse to really get a feel how can not only optimize your personal dps but those around you. Or if you're really lazy at that point, read Lucy or raidloot lol...but I advise against it. Strip down your character at that time and meld with it. Do not listen to people that say bards cant DPS, there were certain expansions where I could make top 5 - 10 on consistent parsing AND have my group place higher than others. Depends on how far you want to push your bard but this will come MUCH later in it's life. Early on focuz on being the good grouping bard that everyone wants in the group because 1) exp seems to fly 2) little to no downtime 3) no deaths 4)always seems to have multiple named to kill 5) an overall pleasant experience.

    Man this is just off the tip of my head. Enjoy your bard and whenever you hear a "can't" dont accept it at face value....trust, buy verify.
    Old_age and Kattria Minx like this.
  13. Fiugvktffkhgvkkh New Member

    Wow thank you for all the great advice. I really appreciate you all taking the time to type out these responses :)
  14. Hateseeker Augur

    I think if they can remove golden idols, focus effects, etc to make the game more classic, they should bring back full power and full exp charming for enchanters, bard kiting, etc. Because that's how those things were back then -
  15. Xyroff-cazic. Director of Sarcasm

    Your post is 99% great advice, but this part is inaccurate. The level 20 song is +2 mana per tick for two ticks. Zam says three ticks, that's wrong. Same with the level 32 song, it's +7 mana per tick for two ticks. Two ticks is still long enough to keep a regular melody going with 4 unique songs.
  16. Machentoo Augur

    Thankfully, with the skill changes, this isn't so critical any more. It used to take weeks to fully skill up a bard's intruments. Now it takes about five minutes per skill.
  17. Weebles Augur

    I just tested this on an old bard, you are absolutely right. That’s so weird. I have distinct memories of melody’ing a song multiple times and I could have sworn it was the mana song for that very reason. I have no idea why I’m misremembering this, but I digress.

    Either way, good catch.
  18. Yarteb Elder

    For outdoor pulling the bard can just bring everything usually. Did you remember to buy throwing weapons? You won't always have a mage there to summon.

    For bard pulling you'll want multiple melody keys made up in advance.
    /stopsong
    /melody 1, ?, ?, ?


    Make a melody including soothe if you want to separate mobs, then throw an axe to pull. If a short time separation is ok, use mez to aggro the non-mezzed mob(s).
    Once back at camp, switch to the haste/etc. melody to help kill until you go back for more.
  19. Weebles Augur

    I j

    You can certainly do this, but I prefer to use bellow and then dispel once I get it, freeing up the ranged slot for stat items (Runed Bone Fork is quite strong and accessible in early TLP). This costs you a spell slot, but that is rarely an issue in my experience.

    Great note on /stopsong. Definitely want that at the beginning of each melody and song macro so it only requires one button press and not two. I also have my "5" button dedicated to just stopsong, if for whatever reason I need to instantly stop singing.
  20. Shakara Augur


    Very little to know about bards? I feel that is rather misleading. bards are one of these straightforward classes in and take quite a while to know what is good in what situation.