Is this a thing?

Discussion in 'Hybrid' started by Chugwater, Mar 14, 2019.

  1. Chugwater New Member

    Hi everybody!

    Even though I've been playing off and on for a long time, I'm kind of a noobie, so this will be sort of a newbie question. I'm greatly looking forward to Mangler, and I'm strongly leaning toward being a Bard. But the forums are giving me the idea that there are going to be a lot of Bards, so I'm toying with the idea of not being one.

    But then I recalled something I read once in the Prima Kunark Guide long ago. (Anybody remember that book?) At the end of their one-paragraph introductory description of Bards was this sentence: " I once saw a pretty well-reasoned argument on a message board that the most powerful group you could put together would be 6 bards."

    Really? Do Bards group well with other Bards? Have any of you ever been in a group of six Bards? Even two or three? Does this sound like a good idea? Should I not be leery of grouping with other Bards?
  2. Derresh Augur

    2 and a half bards for endless quicktime
  3. Xyroff-cazic. Director of Sarcasm

    The most sought after bard abilities are typically unique to their class, and they do not stack with each other. Things like haste, selo, mana regen, hp regen, damage shield, innate proc songs. Having one bard playing these songs for your group is generally just as useful as having 6 bards playing them. Things like mez and charm of course each bard can contribute separately. In certain situations having multiple bards to temporarily charm a few mobs could really swing things in your favor. But that's not a typical grouping situation.

    You can definitely build a perfectly functional xp group with 2 bards, especially if one is pulling while the other is keeping the beneficial melody going on the group. It won't be a perfectly min maxed group with 2 bards, but it doesn't have to be. Any more than 2 bards though and you're seriously going to be hurting your group's potential. Bards have horrible personal dps, so enhancing each other's crappy bard dps with amazing songs is just going to result in slightly less crappy bard dps.

    That group of 6 bards being super powerful thing is probably mostly a joke. As I mentioned there could be some atypical charm heavy scenarios where multiple bards can thrive together, but that would be the exception and not the rule.
  4. Chugwater New Member

    Okay, then. Thanks, Xyroff-cazic. Good to know. That big old Kunark guide from Prima would make an outstanding coffee-table book for an Everquest player, but it's probably best to not rely too much on what it says. :)
  5. Buri Augur

    Bards don't typically work well together in the same group, in raids there is usually an effort to have one bard per group whenever possible. I suppose you could do something interesting with 6 bards in a group, if they used sticks & stones and were highly coordinated with each other. But if you wanna try something powerful with 6 of the same class, I'd go with 6 Mages. I remember when PoP first came out, and most people were struggling with their first POJ trial, there was a group of 5 mages that would take people through it one at a time. I was also in a group once that was just 4 Shaman, which was surprisingly effective.
  6. Tucoh Augur

    No, 6x bard groups aren't a thing. It'd be like 6 people showing up to a cookout with jello moulds.
    svann likes this.
  7. Syylke_EMarr Augur

    A lot of the exposition in the Prima guide was tongue-in-cheek. A group of 6 bards would be super awkward and not very viable in any current tier content
  8. Israfel Elder

    This hasn't been true for quite awhile now.

    If two bards are grouped together and have low AA counts or don’t know their class very well, it will be a slog.

    If two bards group together that have high AA counts and know how to coordinate, they will generate a ton damage. A conservative estimate for Covenant damage alone is 110k DPS.
    Fallfyres likes this.
  9. Xyroff-cazic. Director of Sarcasm

    I’ll be sure to remind the OP on Mangler server in about 4 years!
  10. Tucoh Augur

    Covenant of Sticks and Stones does make multi-bard groups much better than before. And the bard's synergy is really great because the damage is condensed to a one-time damage bonus unlike say, the beastlord's synergy which is a 20 shot bonus. This means that two bards proc'ing synergy on the group will rarely conflict on melee and only sometimes on casters. That combined with vainglorious shout / boastful bellow's damage has given bard's a much needed boost to DPS.

    However, the bard's covenant, like all covenants, has a high resource cost. But unlike other classes, bards ironically have very poor resource generation. So a multi-bard group running covenant chains will go OOM fairly quickly and would require a medding break to continue running covenant.
    Brohg likes this.
  11. Israfel Elder

    Fair. To be honest I didn’t know what Mangler was and assumed this was a “live” question refrencing an old and silly text.

    I don’t know too much about TLP servers and their rules. Do they incorporate some class-altering updates? For example, do bards have kick on those servers?

    Another thing I don’t remember well is bard personal DPS back then, but I think it was generally quite bad. At some point there will be instruments-weapons (several in PoP, but there might be a few that pop up even earlier) make a second bard singing 4 DoTs somewhat respectable, but I’m not sure how it compares to other DPS at the same levels of gear, skill and AA.

    But as the others have said, a group full of bards is pretty silly and would likely be unable to do much content of note. I suppose you could occasionally do well by overwhelming things with charmed mobs, but that would likely be in some pretty niche situations.
  12. Chaosflux Augur

    Back in the day 6 bards could swarm kite together and absolutely fist XP. The 4th level 50 game wide was a bard, the first two people used an exploit and got banned, the 3rd was a magician I cant remember their names.

    The person that hit it first was Furor, but it was his rogue that started with a K.

    That's probably what the guide is referencing. It took a month or two before people figured out swarm kiting or a bard would have been first to the finish line.
  13. Tucoh Augur

    How did multiple bards swarm kite together? I remember swarm kiting long ago with my bard, and I'd go through long periods dragging a big ole' angry ball of death behind me. The hard part was keeping the mobs perfectly grouped and lock-step with another. Seems like anyone who tried to interact with that mob in any way would derail them in some way, right?
  14. took2summit11 Augur

    Low HP agro. One bard kites them all at like 10% hp and other bards runs in the 100 mobs and dots them down. They since changed the dots to only dmg stationary mobs. I imagine this would still be possible with a wizard and a bard? Although I believe they messed with low hp agro. I think a person can now piss a mob off enough to steal agro even from a low hp agro person.
    Tucoh likes this.
  15. Rokenn New Member

    There are always a lot of Bards, but very few good bards :)
  16. AnzoRagespirit Augur


    Wrong, dots hit any mobs, it's the AE nuke songs that only hit stationary mobs...unless they changed the dots as well, but I don't remember reading anything like that.
  17. took2summit11 Augur

    You say potato I say potato (differently). I was referring to the AE dots which no longer damage moving targets, which, of course, are the songs that were used to kill 100+ mobs.
  18. svann Augur

    Pretty sure it was the dots. No one had the mana to do much with the ae nuke.
    from spell parser: