So I have been leveling a bard, got to 71 and have kind of stalled out. Up until now if there were no groups I could just pull out my merc, go find some exp mobs and fight 10 or 12, then rest the merc up. Now the mobs get a merc down to about 50% in one fight. Any good tips at 71+? Or is a bard reduced to only fighting in groups at this point? (I can pull out a cleric merc, but I find the dps to be painfully slow and I am hard on a healers mana.)
Curious where you are fighting? RSS is probably a good spot or PoFire. Unfortunately we're not anything great fighting toe to toe solo. I'm sure there are folks who can give advice to maximize what you can do though if you provide a little more info. What is your song lineup? Where are you fighting? 65-80ish our charm is a small range as well which makes swarm kiting a bit more of a strain than someone learning would want to go through.
At the moment I have been fighting in an instance, the one in nedaria (Forgotten Halls). Nice oldworld hp mobs there, that aren't too bad. My song line up right now is: Start of with Requim of Time then melody in : War March of Muram, Warsong of the VahShir, Erollisi's Cantata, and Storm blade. It seems to work ok. I can take 4 or 5 but then I have to med. (let merc regen his hp). Still fighting with a tank merc for the moment. I got a suit of the Othni I think it's called (Lost Rubicite) and that seems to have helped quite a bit. I'll try RSS tonight when I get home and see how it turns out.
PoFire might actually be faster. RSS is a lvl 70 zone, i always forget =b. Look into getting Jonthans It's a self only better version of war march or muram. Also if you can get Aura of the Muse or Overhaste song. It should help dps a bit. At that level aura is the better option as you can leave it up and won't take a song slot and it's just as good. Both are general upgrades to warsong of the Vah shir. If you go to aura it will allow you to dropm Vah Shir and pick up a DoT which should give you some more dps. Also you can get a lot of these songs in PoK now. Hope that helps.
Took your advice, dropped the Vah Shir, picked up the fire dot, started keeping up muse, and my merc and I can once again do light blues and the occasional blue without any down time. Managed to get around 500 aa and to level 73. Still prefer grouping to solo/moloing, just not a lot of 70ish groups out there.
For sure, we shine in groups not solo =/ Swarm kiting is an option for fast experience but you're in that level gap where we have a 30' charm which makes it a pain, especially if you would be trying to learn it for the first time. Once you hit 79 or 84 (i forget which) it goes back to 60' which is much more reasonable and I'd suggest giving it a try.
Jehmal... we can solo pretty well in the upper levels... But like Jerus said we shine in groups.. I did this video a couple of days ago it may help you out.It has instructions If you can pull it off with proper timing you can make some Rangers jealous
When I came back, I hung around in Sunderrock and just moloed the drakes using the A5 merc healer. Seemed to work pretty well. My bard only had around 200 AA at the time. I think my song lineup was amp, Haste w/DS, melee proc, Resist buff w/DS, and regen. Just opened with HoS and then RoT and I would have them pretty much dead by the time Slow wore off. Oh, I also had my VoS clicky buff on too to make the melee proc even higher. I've never used a DoT while meleeing.....I've also been told it helps our DPS more, but for me it seems to slow me down a bit. I also already had WA maxed for lvl and most of my personal DPS AAs done with a small amount of Defensive. At 73 I had already made myself a couple of box toons so I could finish some more DoN progression AAs (still going) so I haven't had to molo since. But if you have your CA and CS up at 73 could you probably solo the griffens in Direwind for decent exp and the feathers sell pretty good for vendor loot too.
Just a note, you don't need Boots of mosquito anymore for swarm kiting, the new bard invis AA works great for it. Mosq boots still have their uses though. Nice guide though, Mind If I link that over on TCH or if you want to? =)
By all means please post away! And yes I have used the AA, there is a little lag to activate .. i have tried it a couple times... I am just familiar with the timing on the boots I guess .. any question feel free to in game /tell or e-mail. I plan to do more vids.
