Bard Do's and Dont's

Ok I finally listened and am trying to incorporate a bard into my set. I have not played one really but with TA, some pling and overseers he went from heroic 100 to 120 and max T3 gear.
Some guys on BB have explained how to do the songs and so basically I have 3 buttons on him. 1. assist Flatchy 2. start melody 3. attack I throw in some AA special attacks as I can.

Now my problem is I will be fighting along fine but then sometimes (specially in shadow haven) in jump the guards or other mobs I did not pull.

In my song lineup there are mostly buffs and stuff to help the groups dps and then at the end I think I have 3 insults. This was what was suggested to me.

Can you perhaps explain what I am doing wrong or what I can do to avoid this? Maybe give me your suggested spell line up?

It would be nice to have on my macros one that would shut the melody off when the mob dies instead of having to do that manually.

Thank you for any help or suggestions and I apologize for my ignorance on this character which really seems to be very interesting and helpful.

Without knowing what is in your melody, it's hard for me (I am somewhat terrible with my bard) to tell you exactly what the problem is. My guess is you have something like Radiwol's Melodic Binding (PB AE Slow + AC Debuff Song) or Wave of Nocturn (PB AE Mesmerize) in it.

Macro to stop your melody:

Stop Song

/stopsong

/stopsong

Be careful with vainglorious shout. It goes through walls.

On my bards I run simple /melody all the time (I do not /stopsong on regular basis)
/melody war march, Insult (I use Nord's Disdain), chant 1, chant 2, Aria, special song, chant 3, chant 4

This melody has an uninterrupted coverage at the expense of slightly reduced versatility.
Special song depends on the situation: a second disdain for extra dps with extra mana cost; Constance Aria to support fire-based casters in the group if any (ranger or mage for example); Ecliptic Psalm if I have endurance to spend; Pulse of Nikolas to recover mana/endurance at the cost of reduced dps, or what else.

My "mash" hotbar has Fierce Eye, boastful Bllow, Lytical Prankster, cacophony, Bladed Song an Selo's sonata. Sometimes I add Fading Memories if MT has aggro-control issues (in laggy zones pets have some aggro issues).

This set-up is NOT the most efficient, but it is maintenance-free and does not cause AE aggro issues. I often fight in close-quarter combat situations without messy proximity aggro.

I guess I did not describe what I meant very well. I have a button to stop song I made already but I was thinking it would be easier if he stopped them automatically when the mob died just like his attack stops when mob is dead. I will write down all the spells I have in that melody when I get home.

Problem is, with /melody it just continues to loop. I don't think there is a command or a spell/song under melody that'll stop when a mob dies. Even a spell that requires a target will just skip it (well give a needs target message) and continue on it's merry way won't it?

I'm currently leveling another Warrior with a Bard and Rogue box but i'm not high enough level to where I use single target songs in my melody so i'm unsure of how that works.

If a target required song does stop melody when you don't have a target, that may be the way to do it. But since you have insults in your melody and it doesn't stop it, i'm going to assume it just skips over it.

I did the same thing when I started my bard - I asked Ely one day when she was on what I was doing wrong. Always ask she saved me so much to make the bard fun. Svann I didn't know that one went thru walls - thanks!

http://forums.eqfreelance.net/index.php?PHPSESSID=8cac2323cd2973fb6ac976c827d0873c&topic=3384.0 is a good guide on bards in 2023.

I'm guessing you're either hitting guards with Vainglorious Shout or have a melody with Insult/Chants running and are targeting guards on your bard. I generally don't use Vainglorious Shout just because of the AE issues.

There is no mechanic like autoattack that turns melody off when a mob dies. You also don't always want this, because often you want the regen songs to be active inbetween pulls or you want the buff songs to be active when you engage a mob. I have a macro on my bard that I use a lot that will stopcast to stop the melody and activate double invis ( Shauri's Sonorous Clouding ).

For spell lineup, the critical spells for me are Aria and War March. I also enjoy using Reckless (ex: Kai's Reckless Renewal), but that's only useful in dangerous situations (which I put myself in constantly with sloppy pulling). You can add other songs as needed (See the Freelancer post for ideas), but once you decide what buffs / chants you want, it's recommended to intersperse insults in your melody. So if you want to have songs that are in spell slots 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 active, and you want a single insult running that's on spell slot 1, your melody might look like:

/melody 4 5 1 6 1 7 1 8 1 9 1

Note that I didn't put an insult between 4 and 5, with the intent that 4 and 5 would be Aria and War March, and when you start that melody you want those two buffs up ASAP even at the cost of an Synergy proc from an Insult.

Outside of your melody, the three biggest things you need to do is click epic 2.0, fierce eye and quicktime.

Great info guys I appreciate it. I have not done his epic yet will have to look into that. My biggest regret is that troll cannot be bards. that stinks I could see him strumming his washtub bass now!

Why do they get through abilities?

Wizard can't even beam through the wall.
Wizards their beam got nerfed, and still have blindness? Why?

Wizards honestly, should have an eye of zomm that picklocks, pickpockets.

Wizards need more.
Every other class enjoying benefits from other classes, like haste, slow, etc.
Wizard never getting anything any benefit from other classes.

Its not like they have a nuke that slows down enemy attacks drastically. Not like they have an irresistable root that lands on immune root mobs.
Nothing.

Stuck with nerfs and forgotten that they get blindness on beam that doesn't even go through wall

Wizards can absolutely beam through walls, in outdoor zones.

I'd like to know which class has this game breaking ability please. I want to make it right now. Would solve a lot of problems

Ok last night I wrote down all my songs I have memmed. This is in order and I might add I have a melody key that plays them all in this order too. Feel free to tell me which ones are not needed and what I should install instead. Like I said I am way way new at this class.
1, Shak Druthors chant of Flame
2. Nords Disdain
3. Cruors Chant of Poison
4. Sograns insult
5. Sylra Fris chant of Frost
6. Yelinak's Insult
7. Sontalaks Chant of Flame
8. Shojralon's Song of Suffering
9. Arcane Harmony
10. War Chorus of the Blood Beast
11. Aria of Pli Xin Liako
12. Zelinsteins Lively Crescendo
13. Echo of Pli Yin Liako

Now they are in the order they are in because I was instructed to do so (Dott , insult , dott etc) If it is incorrect , or bad choices let me know. I didnt know which ones to pick , just picked the type I was told.
Oh and if you see something that would cause a problem with getting adds let me know.

Oh also forgot to mention that beam like shout AA you said may be causing my problem , I do not even use it yet but thank you for the heads up. Basically I had geared up all my alts and was looking for something to do (work on evolving his cloak).

Rule number 1 of group game for a bard. Do not use chorus. It will land on other players not in your group. If they pass by and fade after your song touched them your bard is on agro. Use War march

Flatchy,

Your echo is AE. Use Aura instead.
Couple macros I setup for my box bard:

Mez ADD:
/pause 6, /xtar 2
/stopsong
/attack off
/useitem Selo's Drums of the March
/melody 11 (where spell slot 11 is Slumber of the Diabo)

FADE:
/timer 90, /attack off
/stopsong
/alt act 212 (Fading Memories)
/alt act 231 (Shauri's Sonorous Clouding)

STOP:
/stopsong
/attack off
/alt act 231

Conq

Pauses are always free, you don't waste a macro line with them. You should incorporate tiny pauses between each command because EQ tends to mess up if it you input 5 commands all at once. Keyboards don't support you smashing multiple keys at once either, unless you have a rare and costly n-key rollover keyboard. Each render pass a game checks for input commands stored in an event loop, the more orderly these come in, the easier it is for the game to handle them.

No idea why but I get better results using /mel with no songs listed instead of /stopsong.
Chorus and war chorus will buff nearby players not in your group and add their ETW to yours.
Alt-O "click through self". Set this or you will occasionally misclick target yourself while singing a melody and dot yourself to death.
Add your swarm pets to a spam button if your box group has mages casting "of many".
I made lev on, lev off and speed on, speed off buttons, it can sometimes be useful to not jump 10 feet forward and ricochet off into a chasm due to bard speed, and lev on/off beats searching buff window to click it off.
Lev: 1)/blockspell remove me 48823, 2)/alt act 231
NoLev: 1)/blockspell add me 48823 (bard lev only, rest are permablocked)
UnblockSpeed: 1)/blockspell remove me 50190
BlockSpeed 1)/blockspell add me 50190
Make shout and bellow macros, include intimidation (boosts kick damage) and selos sonata. Use shout when multiple mobs if you can pull packs, both on named if no npcs nearby. Let shout and bellow run their full 18 second duration, they do far more damage. Make a kick button and set it to autofire.

Using your song list:
Use aura of pli instead of #13 echo of pli imo, echo stays where you put it and is tiny, your group will often be half out of it unless you're very careful. Dont sing aura/echo constantly, leave them off melody, they're once after a rez and IIRC fade after an hour or so in zone, one and done mostly.
For melees and pets, aura, #11 aria and war march (not #10 war chorus, which is a slightly nerfed aoepc version of war march) all stack together for decent results, I frontload them in the melody, casters just need #11 aria but it's pretty big for them. All the proc songs (#8 song of suffering, #9 arcane harmony) and caster nuke/dot buffing songs are garbage no matter how many people in group or how many spells they cast, use a dot or nuke for far more damage in the same sing time.
You really don't need to mem 3 nukes, use the same one (nonpushy #2 nord's disdain). You could use cheaper mana one, or 2 if you insist on nuke every other song, but with your mana regen it's a waste of a spell gem that could have mez,aoe mez, slow or some other sometimes useful song imo.

I have multiple macros that fire 5 instant aa/disc/clicks and they work well, bigger risk of interrupting melody than skipping any of the 5 imo.

It is a better thing by far to make the bard a troll than to make the troll a bard, witness the wonder of https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=113452, my friend. No strumming tho, no troll bard animations.

War Chorus is AE haste for everyone nearby, that is the agro issue. Use War March it's slightly better for single group anyway. Chorus Regen is a similar issue if you ever use it.

Insults/Disdain has 2 timers, timer 3 and timer 6. You only want 1 of each that also proc synergy I go with Nord's/Yelinak's combo but if you dont have synergy maxed adjust to what it has listed.

DoTs are good dps if mobs live long enough for them to tick and you have the AA focus for them.

The procs/focus songs are all really low benefit but can fill in place of an Insult/Disdain to keep your mana pool going longer instead of burning 4 insult/disdain per melody cycle. Song of Suffering got a boost on beta so should be the highest dps option for this in LS if everyone is meleeing.

My group melody is usually:
Fire dot, frost dot, disease dot, poison dot, nord's, yelinak's, aria of pli xin liako, war march, nord's, yelinak's.
If you want your mana to last longer replace any of the 4 insult casts with the much lesser proc/focus/mana regen options.

Vainglorious and Boastful can be alternated for higher DPS but as mentioned vainglorious is frontal cone AE with various issues through walls etc so skip it for boxed bards unless you know the area.