The bard's insult synergy + vainglorious/boastful really increased the value a bard brings to a group when they are more than a melody bot. With RoS a melody bot is more like 25-35% of a perfectly played bard. Which is a good thing. It's not DPS but one thing I've started experimenting with is I got my bard dual wielding Conflagrant Rods. http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=129385 I haven't done a thorough parse, but from some quick analysis I'm putting out a fairly steady 10k healing per second with them. This is a fairly substantial backup healer option. I'm actually experimenting with a group of war/brd/sha/bst/rng/ber, where the brd/bst/rng are all dual wielding the conflagrant rods. I want to see just how crazy I can get with heal ToT procs. It's too bad the Boon of the Soother belts only work on healing with min mana cost of 100, because them triggering on weapon procs would be pretty crazy.
It worked pretty well. I haven't done any long-term analysis of it but the below is from my most recent fight. I'm not 100% but I'm pretty sure the below is just the healing burst effects I'm getting on my bard dual wielding those rods. I also played briefly with my bard + bst with the rods earlier and had similar success, and soon I'll add my ranger to the mix once he hits 106. The above log was with fierce eye on(66% uptime), which has this effect: 9: Increase Worn Proc Rate by 300% Obviously you're trading a good chunk of damage for healing, but I think a bard/bst/rng who is in a group with sub-par healing will really contribute a lot with a pair of those weapons, and even with good healing if you get a nasty pull switching to those two weapons until the damage is under control makes a lot of sense.
So my box bard currently plays the following /melody for the mage- Aria War March Arcane Ballad Pulse of Xigam Some melee DD proc Psalm of Veeshan (AC, damage shield) I also have two burn hotkeys- Short refresh burn (Fierce Eye, Cacophony, Bladed Song) Longer refresh burn (Thousand Blades, Dance of Blades, Quick Time, Funeral Dirge, Spire, Song of Stone) When I see Fierce Eye is up, I click it on a mob that I just engage. On named, or during lesson burns, I will use the longer refresh burn hotkey. On a named I have a /melody that incorporates Requiem of Time, Dicho and Insult woven in. Sometimes I remember to use that, most of the time I do not. I think I am doing OK with the box bard. I clearly know it is not maximized and optimized for full DPS. But I figure it is contributing more than a merc by a good amount, and it single pulls, so that is enough for me!
"some melee dd proc" assume Travenro's Song of Suffering? Second Psalm of Veeshan is very low power. It should be either Travenro's Spiteful Lyric, Kluzen's Spry Sonata, or something wholly different. If you use a mercenary healer, I highly recommend Rigelon's Reckless Renewal.
What do you think about a melody bot bard in a mage/bard duo playing Akett's Psalm of Potency or Qunard's Aria? Cicelee, I know you weren't asking for advice, but you may want to consider throwing on Boastful Bellow or Vainglorious Shout on your short refresh burn key. You may also want to add Chorus of Xigam to your melody.
I believe it is song of suffering, not in the game at the moment. I assume that will work with pets, hence why I use it. I have two mercenary healers. I use Pulse of Xigam because it increases critical heals by 12% if I recall. I assume that works on mercs too. Why would I want reckless renewal? If I remember, isn't that just mana regen and HP regen? The reason why I chose Psalm of Veeshan is that from what I saw, it offered the highest additional AC to help pet tank. I am open to changing to something else that would be better of course. However sometimes I just stand bard around and /melody so anything I change to needs to be where I do not target a mob...
So apparently I was wrong about bard songs. Shocking. So raidloot.com has reckless doing 25% crit heals, and pulse increasing heals by 12% pre crit and some h/m/e regen. So I ask, do those two songs stack with each other? If so I could possibly go with only one healer merc and have the other one be a caster merc to help group DPS. My pet can handle ROS single mobs for the most part. Named it is nice to have the second healer just in case, although I guess in a pinch I can heal pet as well in between DPS. The only time I would worry about one healer mercs is if I have 3-4 mobs. Am I able to switch over to bard fast enough for AOE mez?
For posterity, RkII spells: Pulse of Xigam: 1: Increase Healing by 13% to 14% (Before Crit) 9: Increase Current HP by 212 per tick 10: Increase Current Mana by 141 per tick 11: Increase Current Endurance by 18 per tick Rigelon's Reckless Renewal: 1: Increase Chance to Critical Heal by 25% up to level 110 (lose 10% per level) 2: Increase Chance to Critical HoT by 25% up to level 110 (lose 10% per level) Chorus of Xigam: 1: Increase Current HP by 183 per tick 2: Increase Current Mana by 159 per tick 3: Increase Current Endurance by 13 per tick Psalm of Veeshan: 1: Increase Damage Shield by 81 2: Increase All Resists by 142 4: Increase AC by 34 Travenro's Song of Suffering: 1: Add Skill Proc: Travenro's Strike II with 250% Rate Mod Hate: -2018 1: Decrease Current HP by 9505 Travenro's Spiteful Lyric 2: Increase AC v2 by 261 3: Add Melee Proc: Travenro's Spite Hate: 2185 1: Decrease Current HP by 476
Also note that I've parsed Reckless Renewal and found that it increased my cleric's crit rate from 54% to 86%, or around 32%, which isn't much higher than advertised but still significant.
Thanks for the breakdown. Some questions - 1. Does reckless renewal and pulse stack? Both of them list slot 1 on what you typed, so I am not sure if they stack. 2. Do the melee songs from Traverno also work on pets? Not only the main pet, but swarm pet as well? I think right now I am considering the following changes to /melody, which may change on answers to the above two questions... Aria War March Arcane Ballad Reckless Renewal Pulse (if stacks with reckless) or Chorus Traverno spiteful (or whichever one adds hate if it works on pets) or the song of suffering (non AC song) I will have to look at what Brohg listed for the other song options (spry songs, etc) for the final song
1. Pulse of Xigam uses SPA 125, reckless renewal uses SPA 274/319, so they should stack cleanly. They also have fairly different effects. You can get a pretty good breakdown of stacking in this link: lucy.allakhazam.com/stacking.html?id=56142&source=Live 2. AFAIK the only thing that Bard's can do to buff swarm pets is the Bard's Aura/Echo of Begalru (and I assume circle of power aura buffs work too). I wish that buffs extended to swarm pets, would make the shaman's roar of the lion buff a lot of fun among others.
Will the melee DD proc songs (both hate proc and the higher damage non hate) work for magician earth pet?
Yes. I use both songs in my lineup. I mostly use suffering for the damage and spiteful for the AC buff.
I'll let you know when I figure that one out. Here's a pic of my bard at the end of a play session. But seriously, miniature of horn of unity, beastlords and sitting when OOC help.
Pretty much all spell effects in game have something in slot 1. They only conflict if they're the same something. Reckless Renewal stacks fine with Pulse. The Travenro procs work only on your main pet. Suffering for higher damage, Spiteful for ac/hate. You can even run both, not that it's particularly advised. I've not found Boastful Bellow to be a huge drain used once per mob. I can envision it being quite draining if it were spammed, but that would also cut off the potentially enormous fulmination for no reason. I only end up drained on bard after hours of use. My perspective may be bent by being quite high AA & such?
I generally dont have a problem with boastful bellow but using insult every 4th song in a group will eventually run me out of mana.
