Bard instrument skill-ups

Heya,



I just wanted to share some thoughts on skill-ups, in my case concerning bard instrumental skills. Bard instrumental skills are raising very, very slow. To give you an idea: my Level 54 bard is standing around afk melodying wind instruments at the moment. I started this morning and within seven hours, I got 21 skill ups.



This would not be an issue if the exp rate was not as fast as it is. It is kinda impossible to raise all four (I don't count singing as this is going up automatically) instrument skills while you're leveling up. Even if you focus on switching instruments permanently to raise all skills simultaneously, it will be quite a challenge and you will pay for it by being rather useless in your groups.



To give you an example, let’s take wind instruments. Songs that use wind instruments differ from being highly to mandatory. You will need a high skill with instruments on a regular basis, but you will not be able to raise this skill while levelling. Let us take a look at the songs you could use in your group to skill up wind instruments.



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Level 11 – improve faction (man, your mates will love it if you improve your faction on that mob they’re currently killing)

Level 16 – enduring breath (unless you choose to fight at some very unique (and questionable) spots, turning your group into gill-wearing fishmen will only impress very few ocean lovers out there)

Level 19 – Invis/see invis (you might not be of value in killing that ghost dwarf down in the basement, but at least no one can see it)



Note though that your wind instrument skill will suck at this time unless you tried to belove some random NPC from level 11 onwards or spent your last three levels in an aquarium. Because invis is a valuable song for some occasions, this will be the first time you will stand around afk for 6 hours to get your wind instrument skill sufficient to cast invis on a reliable basis.



Level 21 – Group Short Range Teleport (Oh yea, you will make some friends with this. The description of the spell includes the word ‘chaotic’ which basically tells the story of this one)

Level 24 – see invis/ultravision (neat, mob is not dying faster, but everything is glowing purple!)

Level 27 – Charm (you will use this, but you are going to use it once every 20 seconds maybe and that won’t be enough to get your skill up)

Level 29 – Mez (indeed useful, but if your puller isn’t an idiot, you will not use it often enough to skill up while levelling)



By the way – guess what? Unless you were the sneakiest of all bards in Norrath who roleplayed his character invis, your wind instrument skill will once more suck so hard at this time that it will be time for one more of those juicy 6hour afk session in the tunnel to get to a level where you can mez or charm a mob from time to time.



Level 31 – levitate (Sure why not. Why would I provide my group with regen or haste if I could simply make them dizzy by levitating up and down for the next couple of hours)





Level 34 – target bind sight (Love it. If you did well with the short range teleport, you will be the only one living, so I like to call this spell “mirror, mirror on the wall” as the mob you’re using it on will be facing (and hitting) you)

Level 39 – Charm (See above. The lonely tunnel singer is back. Don’t forget to hit a key every 30mins or you will disconnect). If you intend to use charm heavily now to get some skill ups, don’t forget that this charm costs about 5% mana to cast and bards don’t reg mana really fast.



Now note please, that the developers of EQ apparently decided that from Kunark onwards, the most important spells are to be wind based.



Level 54 – Mez

Level 54 – Hate reduction

Level 56 – Pop Mob back to Spawn

Level 60 – Invul



Since the previous songs weren’t, your skill level will be so low, you will fizzle 9 out of 10 of any 50+ wind songs. So if you want to add any value, you should ask your friends to wait at the Sebilis zone in for two days before proceeding into Kunark, because the invis blue plate guy is back, singing the song of loneliness.



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In a nutshell: I can’t speak for any other classes, but as a bard it is kinda stupid to spend several days afk training instrument skills. When I reached 50, I didn’t have a single skill maxed (except singing). I am level 54 now and most skills are around 170/266, which means level 50+ songs will fail regularly. Since Kunark launch, I spent 24hours skilling up wind instruments, which is at 215 now.

I don’t even want to think about the hours I will spend to increase brass (the list of brass songs is awesome till 50 by the way – you can fear all mobs in camp or break mezzes – if you finally didn’t fizzle the mez – with AoE dots. From level 42 you get one haste song for 8 levels that you can’t cast in case you didn’t fear kite the 41 levels before…)



Therefore I pledge to reconsider the skill-up rate of instrument skills.



Best regards

My level 53 bard is in the same boat, maxxed singing, everything else low. I spent several nights afk(with a 28 minute alarm so I could hit a key....) swimming to get my skills all into the mid 100's.

Percussion is pretty high, because I often use a drum. Its like 212 or so. Not maxxed, not even close. The others are all around 130-180.

It's definitely a pain that's for sure. Finally maxed out my string instruments and now my bard can shred Through the Fire and flames on his lute.

Bard is by far the worse that is for sure. I got my cleric, chanter and shaman all maxed spells 250 very quickly, my ranger and sk were a pain so i stopped at 200 in each spell class... but the bard.... good lord!

I did spend a full 5 days after hitting 50 and doing the above to make all his instruments and lock picking. (had went to bed every night with the bard playing something for a week before this)

I read somewhere that if you do -melody- with several songs of the instrument type it helps some. I have no idea if that is real or not but maybe it will help.

Using melody makes the songs tick faster than just leaving the song playing = more skill ups. It doesn't have to be different songs though.

It's maybe more if you can rely on it not missing a note. It's been a while since I played my bard, but skill ups seemed to work much better just sticking to one song rather than using /melody. Its still slow, but at least you aren't splitting up among 3-4 different skills for skill up checks. Pick one, then move to the next one.

I am not sure I would confess to afk skillups on your bards. Unattended gameplay is the one thing they still seem to care about.

Interesting question. Can anyone confirm that it is not allowed to be standing around somewhere with song on for several hours? I mean I do get disconnected if I don't hit a key once in a while.

Would be nice to know.

Just find a nice quiet place where you won't lag people out and you should be fine. If you get grief, then it will just show how out of touch DBG is with their player base.

Seriously, they have made major changes to the game to appeal to the casual player. It doesn't make any sense to penalize the player because the skill system on some classes(and some qol skills like swimming) have not been adjusted accordingly. It's not like you are afk leveling or making plat.

Is it that much different than folks afk for mgb's?

It could be solved by raising the rate of skill ups. I just started a bard and even the instrument skills I've been using the most, percussion and stringed, are falling behind. It's ridiculous. I use those constantly.

Was just QQing about this in Bard chat yesterday. With release of Kunark, I was really excited to be main pulling camps again and @ 53 with a new mezz song, I'd be an even more efficient puller (staggering camps with combination of charm / mezz / selo's / etc.) or in a pinch a serviceable CC if group doesn't have an enchanter. Hell, even a backup mezz on a chanter pet when it breaks can be helpful.

But I ran into the same brick wall you did, with a wind instruments 16#/266 and basically my new mezz song is just "Spell Slot -1" fizzle spam. Not sure what other classes have to worry about skill capping so many skills. Hurts even worse as the chaser to grinding lockpick from 0-cap like 24-hours before Kunark released. Can't blame anyone else for that procrastination though.

Anybody know if melody with the +INT song helps chance of skill ups on instruments? I read and was told that the +INT song helped with lockpicking skill ups. No clue if it's true or not, but if it is, was wondering if same would apply to instrument skillups.

I did it for probably 60 hours to max all my skills. If they want to ban me for standing AFK then 'em.

And after 60-odd hours, you have a bard that's never under pressure to keep skilled. It's annoying, and a bit disproportional at the low end when you're leveling quickly, but why make a bard if you're not going to put in 2.5 days /played?

It's supposed to take time, there's nothing wrong with it. It's not even work.

Well, perhaps because it's also supposed to be fun and being forced to spend 60hours in a game to be able to play it is not fun. Especially considering Kunark is there for some 12 weeks and I've to spend about a week of playing to raise skills. (I even got myself teamviewer to prevent me from disconnecting while training skills when I am not at home).

Thus, I still consider my plea to reconsider bard skill up rates a good idea.

If you can't spend 60 hours on a character in everquest, maybe it's not for you. You can play straight out of character creation, but you'll be limited. It's the way it should be. Play your toon while you get your skills up.

I like the way skills work. Even on progression servers, it's much better than it used to be.

Things like skill-ups just prove no one remaining at DBG plays this game. The skill-up issues slap you pretty hard dead in the face on Bards, Monks, etc, the skill heavy classes.

Playing will not raise the skills. Normal group play will not see your wind or brass skills go up at all. The only solution is a 60 hour afk stretch. That is how the game works. You know, either do it while sleeping or watching 35 movies on netflix. Whatever floats your boat.

I did 9 hours once, got about 15 skillups on brass. That was very dissapointing.

This is EQ. A game where characters are played for months, or years. What's a few days?

*About 1/3 of my characters are bards. I know the pain.

I think you misunderstand. That was 60+ hours after I was level 50, to max out my skills. Just standing singing a song. It's a dumb time sink.

Question is not whether or not you know the pain or if "this is EQ". It's a game we all play to have some good time. We identified something that doesn't rly add any value to the customer experience. Perhaps they want to rethink it.