How does bard agro work on live servers compared to classic/p99 exactly? I know it's reduced in some way, looking for the specifics. If you want to hold agro as a bard, what works and what doesn't? Is it possible to hold any kind of AOE agro or are there no songs that really do that anymore?
The usual suspects, slows, snares, healing. If you really want to tick off a mob, run all 3 of those plus a couple of dots. The only problem with holding agro on a bard, is that you are constantly having your /mel chain stopped because you are stunned. If only we could make ogre bards.....
I'm not sure you're going to be able to hold it if you want it. Most tank masks with a hate mod also include bard so that helps. Can bards turn off spell casting subtlety or do they even get it? Generally a bards aggro issues are accidental aggro (songs tend to get adds, and a slow tank lets them die). There are special keys but I don't think you could reliably use a bard to tank aggro wise.
The best way to hold aggro as a bard is to first: /camp > click Create Character at the character select screen > go through the steps to create an ogre warrior or shadowknight > level up the warrior / sk > ditch the bard. The second best way is to just load up as many dots as you can and ask the rest of the group not to taunt or cast high aggro spells.
As for holding AOE aggro, the best way to accomplish this is to solo (not molo, but solo). You could try to load up AE dots, but those probably wouldn't hold aggro over your cleric merc. You might also ask your group to ignore the rest of the mobs in camp and to have the casters click their silent casting AA. Basically the only way a bard generates aggro is through damage. Songs themselves get you on the aggro list but that's about it.
Step 1: Turn off combat subtlety Step 2: Equip tank mask Step 3: Cast dots for single target aggro Step 4: Boastful Bellow/Vainglorious Shout Step 5: Still lose aggro to any other class Step 6: Click Dissonant Chord & Deftdance Step 7: Die because modern mobs hurt Step 8: Cry
On Coirnav (Not modern EQ, I know), I would use my bard to tank when I was boxing a toon on my SK's account. I had a BoC with a DoN aggro aug in it. Also, having a druid cast Skin of the Reptile was killer for AOE aggro (Used to go into paw and use my bard with Reptile to hold aggro on 8 or 10 mobs for PL purposes). I'm a bit behind the times, as I've spent the last handful of years on a TLP, so I'm not sure if there's a modern analog for all of these things, but in TSS this worked fantastically with my beast and druid. There wasn't any group content he couldn't tank. The biggest thing is making sure anyone else in your group knows that bards suck at aggro generation so they need to hold back a bit and not go ham, or they'll be tanking, because there's no taunt to snap it back to the bard.
