Bard questions

Endo

Hey, im creating a bard and would like to know how they fair in bashing as well as solo and group combat. What their main stat is or atleast how important of a role str and int play in the grand scheme of things? I also read an update on the bard class that looked very promising, is that making a difference for the class as a whole?

 

Any advice is welcomed and appreciated.

Seftin

Bard bashing i think is not relatively bad. With accentato on jab it counts as two attacks so chance for 2 crita at higher level.

In group combat harmonics and tremolo are amazing. Martello allows you to force actions like force tumble etc so quit nice.

1 v 1 they have optio for damage or lock. Having access to every affliction and a now nice affliction speed along with songbird is good, as well as having somersault for quick escape tumble and balancing/arrowcatch and various other defensive aids and passive healing.

They have a lot of options available from beastly 1 v 1 locks and damage throuh to good team abilities. Only issue i found was getting a good rapier. Outside of that expense/time deffinitely a solid class for now.

Jovolo

It's the Minuet Harmonic that allows you to force actions, Martellato is a tunesmithing that prones (You would use that with Tremolo). As Seftin said basically your only issue as a Bard is finding an excellent rapier, but you don't need one and it will only be more necessary for you at a higher level. 

All in all I think you will be fine with the class. It is good hunting as Garrus evidenced by hunting to Dragon by 23 with almost no artefacts, and the combat is rewarding if you take some time to learn it

Tesha

Bard bashing is pretty good. Constitution is the most important stat, otherwise you are going to be dying quite a bit. Combat is good but difficult to use to its fullest potential; there are a lot of offensive variables to track and song balance/jab balance is not paired. In group combat your job is pretty easy with tremolo, can get more complicated than that sometimes depending on how useful you want to be.

Seftin

my bad - was on my phone so couldnt check

Endo

Awesome, just what i was looking to hear actually, The only thing im still wondering about are the stats, @Tesha are you saying that con is the best choice for bashing or in general?

Tesha

Everything. The benefit from intelligence is not worth the glass-confetti-cannony-ness, same with strength and dexterity.

Seftin

Con is best bet.

Mishgul

i am dex specced right now, i like it

Sherazad

Tesha said:

Bard bashing is pretty good. Constitution is the most important stat, otherwise you are going to be dying quite a bit. Combat is good but difficult to use to its fullest potential; there are a lot of offensive variables to track and song balance/jab balance is not paired. In group combat your job is pretty easy with tremolo, can get more complicated than that sometimes depending on how useful you want to be.

Is there a second best important stat for bards? or does it not matter?

Tesha

In short: not really. 

Intelligence adds to accentato a little bit, but it is not really worth it unless you can get a lot. +1 int adds on 50ish damage, and it does not scale very high. The scaled damage is not very easy to reach unless you burn your opponent out of willpower, and even then, it is difficult to get higher than 3-4 mental afflictions (because them being out of will while you are full is somewhat unlikely). In short: lots of int with magi arties would be good. Otherwise do not bother. (although, it also helps with willpower/mana)

Strength adds to jab damage which increases over time pressure, but it is not really worth getting either. A very small amount of damage increase for the price - 1 str = 500cr = 50 more damage. Other classes typically receive double that for the same investment. DFA damage is basically two jabs for double the balance time + prep via leaping, without venom hit, tunesmith hit, but with 2 second blackout (yeah, lol).

Dexterity adds to dodginess, which is okay against knights with lolspeed rapiers, useless against soulpiercers, and relatively useless againts monks. Even if you dodge their roundhouse kicks (unlikely - they still hit me very often with mounted/acrobatics/drunkensailor) they can just jumpkick-train you, and if you specced dex, your health pool is lower. Jumpkick is not as percentage based as axekick/bbt, so jumpkick will hurt, a lot. Same with lunge.

If you absolutely need a secondary stat, get intelligence. It has the best value over the others by increasing offense through accentato, defense through mana (less percentage use vs apostate/priest - costs do not scale) and willpower (blademasters/occultists are nasty buggers) and it enables you to say "I am smarter than you" (which alone makes it better than the other stats).

Sidonia

Bard bashing is very fast/high damage (with a good rapier) at the cost of weak damage resistance (tune/leather). Anthem/continuo can help you bash places a bit more difficult, but slow your offence a bit and are tedious without a tuning fork.

For 1v1 PK I'd say they're a very good class with high potential but as @Tesha said, there's a lot of stuff to deal with, so it can be a bit frustrating if you're lazy like me. For group I'd recommend getting a bow if you can afford it, then you can do something other than play harmonics and tremololol in melee.

Con is the only stat for affliction classes.

Ast

Uh, I know this thread is old, but I'd like some Bard advice, has anything changed for what I should be doing based on all the bard threads? What traits should I be picking and am I supposed to pick Bodyguard as my specialization? And do I change my artefact order any in comparison to past years after I tri trans? Thanks in advance!

Klendathu

You're aiming for speed. Nimble for increased balance (rapier attacks are balance based). Bards aren't designed to kill with damage, but that's all you need for hunting, so con and str are equally of use - more con means more HP so you can take more punishment, more str means you hit harder so can kill things quicker.

Songbird costs 1000 mana to call, so you need to make sure you've sufficient mana to keep a songbird if you're going for PvP, and you'll also have the mana cost of focus and clot to contend with.

Bard specific artefacts:

With the changes to weapons, artefact rapiers are now useful for bards - they're faster than forged, and the faster you can go the better.

If you use harmonics a lot, a pendulum is useful in so much as it halves the time it takes to call harmonics, from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds. This means that eq is recovered (even with diadem) before the harmonics arrive, so you only lose 1 round of attacking when calling harmonics. I've not found much use for a tuning fork, replaying harmonics doesn't take long and you get a base 900 seconds (15 minutes) out of them if they're in room with you.

Bards can also use a Shield of Absorbtion, it can be wielded with a rapier and is arguably the single most useful artefact a bard can own. You just need to make sure your harmonic aliases unwield the shield and wield your instrument instead - there's no reason to wield your instrument (fnr fnr) at any time other than when playing harmonics.

Aside from that, the usual info about artefacts applies - sip rings / regen rings / stat artis, etc.