How useful is a Bard in the high levels?

I tried a Bard as a Heroic Character and it was pretty good, but not sure I want to put it in my group. Hoping someone might help me with some questions:

1) In a group with lots of spell casters, how much more damage can they do with a Bard? When I put a bard in my caster heavy group I noticed a slight difference but no big deal, and sometimes I forgot to turn his songs on and I could still nuke stuff to death pretty soon anyway. At higher levels does the Bard spell boost become more noticeable?

2) How big can their spell range get? I wanted to have him play a song that slows the enemy mob, and buffs the group at the same time, but I like to use AOE Rains so it was hard to do because I had to fight mobs at some distance, and the Bard had to stand by the mob to slow it, and then my group was out of range of his buffs. And it seemed like hassle to move him into position when I am busy boxing, when my Shammy can just stand anywhere and cast his slow.

3) Why do people say they are the ultimate third character in a tank/healer/whatever 3 box group? Is it just because they can do a bit of everything and also pull? Or is their haste/spell-buff really special?

Thanks

a lot of these posts your making here really should have been made in the newbie zone cause these are basic char 101 type things .. but to answer them the best i can i would say ..

1) bards will add about 25%or more to everyones dps in the group assuming your playing the correct melody

2) big enough. if half your group is missing the songs your got your group spread out too far, tighten up the group.

3) cause they are super easy to box ... turn on /mel and auto attack and everyones dps goes up, then you dont have to mess with them till the next mob

I do think bards add a lot more to melee than to casters tho.

just my opinion,
I have a max level max aa bard that I garaged in order to bring up a real tank.
to clarify I was running shaman, mage, bard and switched to shaman, mage, sk
I decided to drop the bard because his personal dps and additional adps didn't make up
for the dps I could get out of just about any other toon. (granted a non boxed well played bard
might do well and be well worth it)
with the fast respawns in the eok progression mission it seems dps and a solid tank would serve me better than the ability to single pull anything anywhere anytime. which is the primary thing I was getting from the bard. and to be honest while I did see a slight drop in dps from shaman and mage that is more than made up for by the dps the sk brings and when I get the sk up to tanking ability I can drop my shamans tank merc for an additional dps merc, and bring by group dps up further.
so while I miss the bard some in tough pulling situations and the ease of auto attack, melody, gameplay
I don't miss him enough to bring him back yet.
and I dropped him before the autoskill kick thing so while I imagine that helped some I don't think it would be enough.
so in summary, in my situation while the bard might be a useful tool, there are better tools in the box.

Thanks! I decided I am gonna have my own bard in my group. It is just the only class that does everything I need. I really needed a good puller and the bard does that so well. But I also need mana regen and he does that too. And then any dps I can squeeze out of him will be a bonus.

Selo's Kick doesn't work with /autoskill since it's an AA. I wish it did though.

You have to remember that not only are bards capable of increasing DPS by a sizeable amount for everyone in the group, they also make everyone else better too. This goes for tanks/healers etc. Bards have a crit heal chance song that is very useful for any type of healing (I love it for knight self healing) and multiple AC songs. Bottom line, I don't go anywhere without my box bard, and on the rare occasions I don't have one in the group for whatever reason, I notice a huge difference.

That said, bards are highly dependent on groups at higher levels, so if it's going to be a main character with no boxing, then I highly suggest you form a network of friends you can group with. They are amazing boxes though, as you can still get a lot of a bard's value having him on autofollow and playing /melody.

A good bard is $$. A bad/mediocre bard may as well be left at home or turned into a melody bot.

I have had the pleasure of playing with some very good bards and they make the group amazing.

I added bard to my crew and it's the best choice I made. To be able to understand a bard, better, you have to conpare it with something. A bards counterpart is an enchanter.


ADPS

Enchanter - the enchanter is probably they best when it comes caster burst - IoG anf CH.

Bard - the bard excels at sustained DPS for melee and casters and does have burst capability for melee.

Pulling

The enchanter has more tools available for pulling than the bard, but those tool may not always work. With a bard, pulling is still an option when your tools do not work.

You're probably thinking there isn't a downside to a bard, but there is. The bulk of the bards ADPS comes from a few songs. Songs that look useful, may not be. Most people roll with healer mercs and block HoT spells. That makes a song or two somewhat useless. The biggest problem with a bard, there own DPS. If your only going to box two characters, you may be better off doubling up on DPS. Take everything that I said as a grain of salt, I am a bard newb.

Everyone can benefit from a Bard in the group.

• Casters benefit from the spell focus/over haste Aura and spell focus songs, proc songs
• Melee benefit from the 25% over haste, attack increasing songs, proc songs
• Hybrids benefit as a caster and melee as listed above
• Pets benefit from the 25% over haste aura
• Tanks benefit from the additional 1100 AC, over haste, proc songs, rune song, avoidance songs, DS songs

The class that benefits the most from a Bard partner is a Beastlord.

I like my new Bard now, especially since I stopped using Rains. They still seem to be the fastest damage, but they are not effected by the songs so I am just focusing on DD spells. So now I can pull the mob much closer to the group which lets me stand by it and hit it with the slow, and my group gets all the buffs too. Seems good.

The best thing is the pulling though. I can nail a pull every time now. Pacify works most of the time and if something goes wrong, I can use Fading Memories and it lets me try again. And I get good regen now too, glad I got him!

Bards get an AA called Sichos Cresendo or something like that. It increases you song range. It is a perma buff but you have to recast it every time you zone.

one downside to a bard (when they are just a melody bot).

Pulling with a monk, flopping too close, bam, 3 mobs in camp, bard dies first, generally a wipe.

I'm getting better at either stopping my melody after a kill, or, just pulling farther away for the flop on my monk.

So, just keep that in mind if you choose to add a flopping class to your ranks as the puller, stay far, far away

The problem is you're pulling with the monk. An ungeared bard is still better/faster puller than a monk in most cases.

pull all three mobs, AE mez song em'

Two issues with Spooky and Brohg's posts:

1) Ungeared bard is better than a monk. I played a monk in 1999, i'm very, very old school. I know how to pull with a monk, not a clue how to pull with a bard lol. I probably should learn though. Oh, also, the bard is lvl 97 and the mobs are all lvl 102 or so, not sure I that matters or not with resists and what not.

2) AE mez song them - Bard is underleveled, undergeared, and I'm confident that the AE mez song put into my melody will cause death and chaos to my little guy. Although that has crossed my mind, and I may try it again But now I have to find a song to drop, and there are soooooo many good ones! Don't you dare say to have two separate melodies, my skill level for that is far inferior to even fathom the thought lol. I am the definition of the guy you hate, 85 Heroic bard without a clue haha (although I leveled one to 71, still no clue)

To pull with bard you just use your pacify song to sleep a few mobs one by one, and then pull the one you want. Works the same as an Enchanter or anyone else. The difference is that if pacify fails and they all come at you, just hit fading memories AA and all the mobs instantly stop and forget about you. It is super powerful.

Also if the mobs are much higher level and your pacify song can't land on them, just snare one, lead them all away, and then use fading memories. It works like FD splitting, you just wait for them to wander back and tag one. And usually the one you snared can be easily separated from the pack. It is actually more powerful than FD because you don't have to wait for the mobs to reset. They instantly forget all about you.

The mez song is pretty powerful too but you gotta be careful with if you are boxing. It only lasts a short time and then they will come to kill you. So you have to be ready to cast it again, or die. Or you gotta kill them quickly before it wears off.

Or just leaving it running until you are ready to kill the mob...

That doesn't work.

If you start a song on one mob target and then keep playing only that song you can swap to other targets and melee and song will continue to pulse on original target. Not sure if this works with melody to start the song, may need to /cast song for it to work on original target.