Total bard noob here, he's only 95 but now but been playing a lot more and he'll be 100 in no time. For a 2box of mage/nec, what do you think is the best "hands off" /melody lineup? I say hands off because I cannot alt tab to the bard at all during fights (mage/nec requires all my attention because I don't use macros), so I have to waste one song on selo's instead of usng the AA because the AA requires a click and only lasts 2min. And I really prefer constant selo's for pet runspeed, so having to waste a song I see as necessary (but annoying) Thus far, my songs do not affect lv 105 spells, so I've just been using mana regen "pulse" song and "chorus" song, which appear to stack and give me almost 1000 in-combat MR on my casters. Which is awesome because it allows me to spam whatever dps spells I want without stopping Once I get a better aura for spell damage I'm going to use that. The "warsong" line doesn't seem to help pets much because they have RKII pet buffs from caster already for their attck speed and stats. I tried the "suffering" line to give pets another proc, but it felt underwhelming, due to the bard having to stand almost on top of the pets to give them the boost, where I normall keep him back near the casters, and he dps gain didn't seem like that much. An aria is just an aura that you can place, correct? So thus far I was thinking of, at lv 100-105 spell damage aura, mana regen, mana regen, selos, + what? Have room for one more song. Can also replace one mana regen song for another if it is THAT good for my combo (although I love the double-MR)
Auras aren't sung constantly. They stay up for 30 minutes, following the bard. Echoes are the placed versions of those. Aria is the song that boosts the same things, but to different degrees. Aria is the best spell boosting song there is, it's where you start barding. Aria of Maetanrus is 44% spell focus (at rk2) versus Aura/Echo of Maetanrus's 30%. What Aura of Maetanrus does better is +15% chance to Flurry. That'd just boost pets, you can decide if you'd rather that boost for them, or an additional 158 mana regen from Aura of Sionachie. Selo's is not a song you sing, it's an AA you click once every four minutes. If you don't have it get it it's wonderful, congrats on +1 song gem. Annnnd you had room for two more songs even before I sorted out those errors. /melody can keep 5 going (plus Crescendo) even without the song-extending The Show Must Go On activated AA. So: Aura of Maetanrus (for some pet flurries) OR Aura of Sionachie (for 158/tick more mana), cast once per half hour. Selo's from AA click every 4 minutes. Refreshing this as part of the hotkey that does your epic and Fierce Eye every time they're ready makes it pretty automatic. (you're doing epic and Fierce Eye every time they're ready, right. good.) Songs: Aria of Maetanrus Arcane Melody Chorus Pulse ...something. Fjilnauk's Spiteful Lyric to boost the tanking pets' ACs is a legit choice. Horthin's Psalm of Potency adds a bit to the fire & magic dots, which will be getting a workout on the TDS mobs that have chunkier hp. There's Nilsara's Aria, which adds to fire nukes for the magician, but dot song is likely to be higher performing. Keep the latter two in mind for a "burn" /melody at least. Sometimes it ain't about mana regen. and read this: https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/proper-care-and-feeding-of-heroic-bards.209160/
I have the selos AA, but I still waste a song on selo's because melody will keep that going, whereas with the AA I have to tab to the bard every 2min, which is a huge hassle for me when 3boxing without macros Edit: I don't have fierce eye or epic /ducks (!!). Bard is F2P... Thanks for the info thus far though, very helpful
To use the song version of Selos, I recommend a melody like this: /melody 1 2 3 8 1 4 5 2 1 3 4 5 1 2 3 7 1 = Aria (if you're using it, it's shorter than most songs so you have to play it more frequently) 2, 3, 4, 5 = other normal songs 7 = Crescendo 8 = Selo If you're not using Aria: /melody 1 2 3 4 5 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 7 1-6 = normal songs 7 = Crescendo 8 = Selo You could make the melody a lot longer, and play Selos less frequently, but you also probably don't want to wait 2 minutes for it if you happen to be out of range. Regarding songs for pets.. pets in general are low DPS, so ADPS for pets alone is usually low priority. I'm not a fan of the spell damage bonus songs (xxx of Potency, xxx Aria) because they're low ADPS and they probably wont work on your MAG/WIZ spells anyway. In this case, if you don't know what to play I would go with War March + Song of Suffering anyway. Another option would be Terasal's Spry Sonata for AC & spell resist. Just FYI, mana regen songs only appear to be modded - the mana regen value you get in your stats window is incorrect. You're right that they stack. I highly recommend playing Crescendo as well if you enjoy bard mana regen - it's a big boost. Mana regen for a 95 bard = Pulse of Lunanyn = 78Chrous of Lunanyn = 79Aura of Lunanyn = 105Kolain's Lively Crescendo = ~2406m / 48s = 300/tick (if you play Crescendo every 16 songs)Total = 562/tick edit: I'm not sure how far you can get with a FTP bard but I highly recommend the Extended Ingenuity AA. It will make your selo AA last closer to 5 minutes (and increases the duration of Quick Time, Fierce Eye, and the epic as well)
Epic doesn't require sub to quest or to use. When you've put in the time to level, and laid out for the expansion, springing for a month sub (via krono or cash or whatever) once you're at the level cap to hit Auto-Grant and then fill in good AA seems like a reasonable expectation. Maxing Fierce Eye AA will put it on the same timer as epic, 3 minutes. Together they provide a +22% crit rate boost (doesn't work on mage rains, but does for Many/Spears. straight up siiick for necro.) that's up at least half time (more than half time if you just look at in-fight time)
Ok, read up a lot more on songs, have a new lineup at 97 (soon to be 98). I realize now that I was wasting a lot of time, and not getting enough songs out, and I wanted to try Brohg's suggestion of Kolain's Lively Crescendo. But it was hard to get the timing right. I had to sit and tweak it to create a lineup where I can keep 4 songs up all the time, 1 up most of the time, keep selo's going (song not the AA), and have crescendo finish right before I can use it again. Songs: (Aura is MR/HP regen) 1 Aria 2 Suffering 3 Chorus 4 Sonata (AC song) 8 Pulse 6 Crescendo 5 Selo's using /melody 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 8 6 1 2 3 4 8 5 This way selo's and cresendo are only used once, aria/suffering/chorus/sonata never drop, and pulse almost never drops. The MR from aura + this song lineup is nice, just enough to cover spear spamming with mage. The extra AC from sonata is INVALUABLE, definitely see the most noticeable benefit here out of all songs. Tanking multiple T3 mobs even with 2 healer mercs is dicey, and the extra AC is noticeable. I'm not sure if I'm seeing any big dps gains from aria and suffering line... I also took Sionache Crescendo AA which is annoying to have to click (every zone-in) to add some range on songs - the devs should have just added an extra rank to the other AA. But this is really important for keeping songs on tanks without standing my 20k hp bard close enough to get one-shot lol. I got Fierce Eye + extended, working on hastened Fierce eye. Fierce eye is worth tabbing to bard to use pre-fight, and the spell graphics are cool. Probably not going to get bard epic because I got burnt out on epics doing necro's 2.5. But maybe someday... Once I get 98 I'm going to try Psalm of potency instead of suffering line (maybe instead of pulse, but im gonna miss the mana regen), and see how that works, although it'll still be decaying. really excited for bard lv 105. Going to get AA grant up to 1000 probably, get some gear, might even upgrade him to silver. but no way I can 3box actively playing bard, too used to just alt-tabbing which doesn't work for 3 boxes
On the right track . Aria is dropping briefly, though, if you have more than 3 other songs between "reps". You're using Song of Suffering for pets to proc damage? It does lower the tank's agro, that may or may not be an issue for you. You could instead use the Arcane proc line, that adds a (smaller, yes) proc to both melee and your casters so they proc damage on casts too, without lowering agro. Or since you mention the AC from Doben's, you may prefer the Spiteful Lyric proc for your melee, it includes another boost to AC, the melee procs from that one *boost* agro. If you sub for AA autogrant, all AA through level 90 are filled in, not just 1000. It's something like 6.5k, not 1. You then get the rest of the sub time to add on from there
I subbed the bard just because I hit the AA ceiling before I could max the Fierce Eye AA. I haven't done the auto-grant yet though, are u saying u get to keep the 6.5k AA even if you go back to F2P? Or is it only the ones u get after that u keep? Because if you can't keep the auto-grant AA's, I don't want to use it, and instead grind up a bunch of AA's with the +4000% bonus then switch back to F2P next month I chose suffering because I remember the suffering line being good pet proc dps in House of Thule era, and it had a cool effect, a lightning bolt would come down every proc. But procs in general seem just kinda meh now, and I don't notice a cool spell effect on the one I'm using (I'm all about the looks). I haven't noticed any issues w/ aggro yet, an em21 pet with dual rageswords holds aggro fine. This suffering song is going to be temporary, I'm fairly certain I'll be replacing it with either psalm of potency and/or the mage +dmg to fire nuke song once I get the lev100+ equivalents
Ah k. Then the smart play would be to grind out as many of the most essential/powerful AA's with the 4000% bonus, then on the last day of the month before the sub expires to take the autogrant heh
