Mage and bard duo question

Hello all,

Would a lv60 mage be able to keep up with pet heals on blue con mobs with bard regen and bard slow on the mob? Was thinking of those two as a duo. Not sure how it would compare with the power of, say, necro/shaman for pet tanking. Seems like the mage combo would have more burst, easier to box, and more CC options.

Just curious

I've only tried the epic pet, and he can tank in GE with shaman slow and a heal every few mobs. Blue and LB. I can keep him alive np with pet heal and no slow, it just means less mana for nuking. You should have np with bigger blues and even bard slow.

You severely overestimate the power of bard hp regen. Even if modified with string, it's not able to keep anyone alive, let alone a pet.

A bard + mage combo is effective on live. But there's two reasons why bard + mage is completely pointless on TLP right now.

-pets are much weaker on TLP than on Live, you need real heals on the pet from a shaman / druid / cleric
-you need pet affinity AA from Gates of Discord for the pet to get any benefit from bard songs

If you are looking into the future, i.e. Gates of Discord+, sure, a bard + mage is a good duo. But it's going to be a really bad duo all the way through PoP. Once Gates unlocks pet affinity AA, the whole story changes.

A shaman + mage is a way better combo currently.

I wasn't thinking about the bard for hp regen as a heal or buffs for a pet, that's why I asked about the mage being able to keepup with pet heals with the bard slow and mana regen. I was thinking of the bard as a puller, debuffer, and CC when needed.

Bard+Mage really takes off once you get access to a cleric merc, until then you struggle with actually keeping the pet alive on meaningful content.

Once you get the merc however, you can duo basically everything in the group game (assuming the mage has raid EM level pet focus). But that won't be for quite a while on these servers.

Okay, thanks.

Is there a better class you can recomend with a bard? I don't think they're as optimal as a duo class as, say, a shaman, but I already have a 59 bard that I enjoy.

druid+bard might be ok, kite and/or root/rot

A beast would be able to do what you wanted the mage to do. Their heals (both pet and regular) are much stronger. And the bard haste and mana regen would compliment them well.

Bard slow is like 30 percent currently. Shaman is what, 75? Bard-slowed mobs put out around 2.5x the damage of shaman-slowed mobs. Bards do give the mage some much-needed mana regen though, and cc, snares, and pulling which the mage sorely lacks (and shamans lack too). But as someone said, the bard can't heal or buff your pet at all. So bard has its benefits, but it's more like as a helper to a mage soloing.

Bard slow is 55%

Where do you get your numbers from? Honest question. I always look at zam for slow %, but they list them in a range between lv1 - 105... not sure what the real slow % is on the lv51, 54, and 60 slows.

Thanks,
~Von

The problem is not the pet, especially the epic pet, tanking. The avoidance/mitigation/hp penalty is loyer in Luclin than in Velious, even if we'll have to wait LdoN for full unlock of pet defensive power. Bard slow + mage pet heal and Mend Companion AA for emergencies will do fine on dark blues at Gates camp in GE. I box there from time to time and my enchanter uses Tepid Deeds only (level 25ish slow, 50% when you are level 60).

The problem is you use a lot of utilities with a bard combined with a pet class before Gates of Discord. As said by Strawberry, bard and mage (or beastlord) becomes interesting once pets can be hit by group or aoe beneficial spells.

You´ll be in trouble without a real healer class only if pet needs to tank several mobs at once. I am umsure how high a bard can mez levelwise in Luclin, so the crowd control and pulling abilities of the bard are the real key questions here.

If you have some pps to spend, I´ll suggest to buy some cheap AC/hp armor for the tanking pet in bazaar, lots of cheap stuff there which is far superior to the summoned phantom plate. And to make your pet an aggro magnet which will be able to resnap aggro quickly on unmezzed or slowed mobs, give it gnoll hide lariats or one handed Ykesha proc weapons.

Hey there,

Bard is my main also. Sadly, there is no 2box setup, which includes a bard, and is a good duo. If you add a 3rd party member then your group is awesome but until you get that 3rd person you are kind of fighting for scraps.

In the early levels pre-level 30, the Bard can tank with a shaman-box providing slow,heal,and dot. Especially with the hate generated by twisting songs. Once u start to near Level 30 the bard becomes less and less able. The Bard+Shaman 2box is by far my favorite setup. The only problem as you can see, is lack of tanking ability. As long as you can find any tank or pseudo-tank then you will be fine. Finding another person to group with, especially on TLP servers, should be easy! However, if you don't want to rely on finding a real tank then I would go with Bard + SK. The only problem is you start lacking heals or the rest-in-between-fights becomes unbearable.

As far as song-spells go:
LEVEL 51 LARGOS : Decrease Attack Speed by 5% (L51) to 40% (L61)
LEVEL 54 SELOS: Decrease Attack Speed by 10% (L54) to 46% (L105)

1. Max% - Min% = SpreadAmount
2. MaxLevel - MinLevel = SpreadLevel
3. MyCalculated% = Min%+ ((SpreadAmount/SpreadLevel) * HowManyExtraLevels)

EXAMPLE FOR LEVEL 51 SLOW:
@LEVEL51 = 5 + ((3.5)*0) = 5% Slow
@LEVEL54 = 5 + ((3.5)*3) = 15.5% Slow
@LEVEL55 = 5 + ((3.5)*4) = 19% Slow
@LEVEL61 = 5 +((3.5)*10) = 40% Slow

EXAMPLE FOR LEVEL 54 SLOW:
@LEVEL54 = 10 + ((0.705) * 0) = 10% Slow
@LEVEL55 = 10 + ((0.705) * 1) = 10.7% Slow
@LEVEL61 = 10 + ((0.705) * 7) = 14.9% Slow

EXAMPLE For your LEVEL 23 SELOS CONSTANT CHAIN - SLOWS:
@LEVEL 55 = 5 + ((0.83) * 32) = 31.5% Slow
@LEVEL 61 = 5 + ((0.83) * 38) = 36.5% Slow

As you can see, Bard slows do not go past 40%, even at level 61
Basically, all of these calculations mean that a bard is a perfectly capable slower (Even a better slower) until level 55, at which point the shaman's slow increases to 55%

So under all but 1 circumstance should you be using the Level 51 slow. And that is if you have like 3 or more enemies and you need to get them all slowed, in which case you should use the level 54 song.

What? Bard works very well with Beastlords, at the very least. I know the OP is asking about a mage-bard combo, but to say that bards don't do well with anyone is nonsense. With a beastlord, a bard's gimped slow isn't even needed. You might as well be a /melody bot and tear stuff up.

Nice post but why didn't you include the lvl 20 slow? And do the calculations for lvl 60 instead of 61?

I kinda disagree about the bard tanking in a duo, bards can take hits ok and generally keep the aggro off a healer as you say (though in a group they can't keep the aggro off real dps'ers). The problem in a duo with a healer would be more a lack of dps. Or if you went with a dps partner, a lack of healing. So ultimately I reach the same conclusion as you, bard isn't a good duo class.

Beasts have enough healing to get by. They have Chloroblast at 60 now. I regularly solo two mobs at a time in GE. Eats into the mana pretty quick but with bard regen, SP and a KEI from the nexus mana would be much less of an issue. Not to mention bard CC would halve the incoming damage. Bst/Bard is a solid duo.

Hmmm...

Already have a 36 beastlord. Do they still allow you to transfer characters between accounts if you own both? I remember doing that when I played circa 2004

Seems that there's been an upgrade to the go to Bard slow. It's a 20% slow when you first get it at 64 and peaks at a 75% slow at level 71

Requiem of Time

Whoever saying bard isn't good duo class can send me a tell in game. I will show you. Any class welcome.

good, is a subjective word. I love bards, my all-time favorite class. They are the most versatile class in EQ. I don't think anyone is saying that bards are bad in a duo-group. Maybe "good" is not the best word. Let me rephrase by saying "Bards are good, but in a duo group. Your effeciency is better maximized with almost anyone else in the group other than a bard". I have played about 15 years and 10 of those years are with my main accounts Bard + Shaman. I wouldn't have played that long if it was a terrible mix. There are other combinations that may be more effecient, but not quite as much fun to play. Just my opinion.

Yes, account transfers are still available, except between TLPs ( last I had heard )

I just offered up the formula for doing the calculations. In reality, I never calculate anything because usually people are close to the minimum %..... or close the max %. It has never been important enough for me to find out the exact %. ALSO, that level 20 Real-Attack-Slow maxes out at 40% at level 61. Which tells me at level 40 its exactly half or 20% slow. Basically, this spell is better than the level 23 Selos Chain for strictly attack speed.

Your comment basically summarizes what I was trying to say for Soon. And there is a difference between taking hits, and tanking. At pre-level 30 with nice gear you can easily tank and hold the aggro. After level 30 you can still take the hits, but your song aggro generates less and less hate which means that instead of you actually tanking; its the healers who end up tanking. At levels 65-80 I personally found myself dying the absolute most from aggro. I think between the LOW AAs and the gear made this difficult for me. At level 95 with 8kaa?, I can take the hits pretty good these days, and dare I say it: nearly as good as my generic J5 tank.

Back on topic, regarding the OP discussion. Almost any class will work with a bard because a bard is a utility-type class. The worst classes though are pure-pet classes. With Necro being the worst, followed by mage/enchanter. The best is probably beastlord/shaman/or Paladin/SK. They all have their benefits and it really comes down to how "you" want to play. There is a PRO and a CON with each combination. As Poydras and I have been discussion: We love the bard utility but it comes with caveat of trading off something for something-else. Like I said, I hate duoing with pure pet classes like a Mage but some of the
PROS:
*mana regen for mage
*heal regen for pet
*extra AC and attack speed for pet
*very crappy DOTs, if you can fit them into your lineup
CONS:
* no bard melee dps = (with mage being the only DPS, you have to kill more mobs for the same amount of xp )