Bard Combat - tips/strategies/logs

Washeed

I'm returning from dormancy and I'm looking for a little help with Bard combat

Steuern

I'm returning from dormancy, and I'm debating on Paladin, Bard, and infernal, i'd love to see these bard tips! haha

Jhui

force apply resto/jab slike/ sing impatience

kalmia, then gecko/paral song

rejoice.

For less stock curing you may need to stick something before this combo

Valdus

Here is some advice from @Sidonia

Lightning-quick, you jab Sothantos with a ranger's bow.
Sothantos quickly jumps back, avoiding the attack.
5720|100 4869|98 99 83 cekdbv-  22:52:54.212
As you focus on your attack you realise that you aren't wielding a song-blessed rapier. Horrified,
you lose your concentration and are unable to carry on.
5720|100 4869|98 99 83 cekdbv-  22:52:54.216
Using a heavy tremolo you crush Sothantos's left leg.

This is not how you do raid defence.

Sidonia

Jhui said:

force apply resto/jab slike/ sing impatience

kalmia, then gecko/paral song

rejoice.

For less stock curing you may need to stick something before this combo

You also need a jab under 2 seconds for this

Xer

That is true, but having Canticle up means that this is achievable without -completely- ridiculous rapiers. 

Sidonia

I wasn't saying that like it's hard to achieve, just so new bards don't go out and try it with a 2.X jab and wonder why it isn't working.

Washeed

I have a 60/150/231 rapier, is that quick enough? And also should I be going for some type of prep, like a leg and an arm?

Sidonia

231 is fine for speed. You can prep limbs for some setups but mostly it's not worth the time you put in because tremolo/vibrato exist.

Averi

I have a rapier speed question, as mine is about to decay.  

What are the speeds of your rapiers? I heard voice balance scales with rapier speed now, do they tend to match up pretty well or are there certain speeds that work better?

Riley

I notice a 1 second lag between balance and voice, at 199 speed and 231 speed rapiers with Nimble.

Averi

Riley said:

I notice a 1 second lag between balance and voice, at 199 speed and 231 speed rapiers with Nimble.

Thank you! That's sort of cool!  

So it really doesn't matter what speed my rapier is because voicecraft will lag a second behind regardless?  I realized this yesterday too with my 231 but I was wondering if that was like a thing or if it was my rapier being too fast. 

Sidonia

I use a 235. I jab around 1.8 with canticle/nimble, voice balance is 2.4-2.5ish

Santar

Have you all heard of @Xer?

He's no expert of diamond or fur

Yet where Bard combat is to the concern

Xer's advice shoots true at every turn

Directing a lunge or a limerick your way

He charges in without the slightest 'Good day'

He will tremolo you for a bite

You won't even get a chance to fight

With arrowcatch and trueparry

All effective attacks are narry

Broken limbs and a whispered command

A funeral-mass is the price he demands.

Jovolo

Guuyyssss. Someone broke Santar.

Atalkez

You see his avatar, right?
Here kitty kitty..

Anedhel

Play defence and wait for the other bastard's willpower to run out.

Seftin

Mmm willpower fightS

Varrorr

What are bards like? How are they for bashing, and what not? Or group combat? And how effective are they in PVP, and when they are in PVP, what is their general strategy, and how lesson dependent are they?

Anedhel

Bashing's not great, but not unworkable.

Tremolo's disgustingly effective in group combat, dirge is situationally godly, and harmonics never hurt. Arrowcatch is nice, so's dwinnu.

PvP, they make a pretty good dueling class. General strategy varies, depending on how much effort the bard puts into it. Could be as lazy as forcing restore on broken limbs/using funeral mass, and I think, fancy-wise, they can still pipelock.

Heavy investment, lesson-wise, for bard, they benefit from a lot of skills.

Tesha

Bard bashing scales with how good your rapier is: if it is a phenomenal runed rapier (I had a 64-158-257 runed), you have phenomenal bashing (on par with or faster than artied monks). General casual play or low/mid level combat, Bard is great. Group combat is really strong with tremolo, great support through dirge, aria, harmonics control, arrowcatch (waiting on soulspearcatch, probably just need a catcher's mitt), leaphigh, backflip, somersault... exceptional mobility (compared to normal classes anyways. Serpents/occies still make Bards look stationary.)

1v1 PvP for Bard is really difficult to set up, but once you get it set up it is pretty decent against all but the best, which is the reason I quit the class (I focus on fighting the best). There are a few cute tricks you can steal (Xer reworked my confusion/satiation into tremolo, acciaccatura/epseth, confusion/force restore), above mentioned quick lock against non-fitness classes or inexperienced people, or you can just get a ridiculous speed rapier and sash/collar and do ridiculous damage with accentato (probably more dps than than Magi or Monk, honestly).

Lots and lots of lessons. Don't consider Bard unless you plan on buying credits.

Oh, and don't fight Magi ever ever ever. Silence blocks minuet. I remember going to spar Earionduil as Magi v Bard and being kinda "buh? what the hell do I do now".

Xer

I didn't rework yours! I've already been doing it since I was a Shaman >( 

And Magi are still not that bad to fight against - Just because you don't have Minuet doesn't mean that you can't do a lot of good hinder and ways to lock/kill them! You can also try to force them into situations where they won't have silence up, etc. etc.

Bard bashing is honestly fairly strong - Cantata + Harms + Raze is extremely convenient and in groups.... Well, everyone hates Bards XD

Iocun

I wish I knew how to survive bards. Respectively, @Xer.

Guess I'm too low tier for bards!

Jovolo

writhe

Anedhel

Jovolo said:

writhe like a bitch.

ftfy

Iocun

Well yeah, but it's not as if I couldn't die by other means!

Melodie

Don't worry Iocun, I'll loan you piety, demons, and absolve.

You got this.

Tesha

What, you are a nightmare to fight. Just avoid dying to silly tremolo/force restore and you should be fine. Other than that, you are only in danger if you:

- have impatience or asthma

- are undeaf

- have tree on cooldown

- cannot get away or cure any part of force resto/slike/impatience before followup.

People can just walk away when you stick something and are ready to finish. Jhui and Mizik used to just fly against me. The problem was, for me, the only thing that would prevent them from leaving was tremolo and that sacrificed herb momentum. No way I was going to add limb damage to the crazy mix of complications, so I changed class!

Xer

Limb damage isn't that bad. Particularly because Bards have easy ways to bypass parry and hinder simultaneously (not the best I think, but still quite strong), and the fact that Acciaccatura allows for faster prep, means that limb damage strats aren't -that- hard to incorporate. Keeping track of everything and being able to -do- everything will be the initial difficulty, but once you have your offensive set up ready, and practice a number of different things to an appropriate level of execution, it's all good. Admittedly, getting to that stage can take some time, maybe more than you would like to spend - I agree that Bard probably has more things to prepare in order to coordinate all the different things you can do effectively than most other classes: Voice balance, tunesmithing, targeting, venoms and Minuet are all things to keep track of to do well.

I find that damage strats in particular are amazing with limb prep + Minuet. I honestly wish I had Sash/Collar so my damage strats are more effective - I can take down a 5.5k health Alchemist from full with L3 sip with 12 Str/12 Int and no Collar while they're stuck prone for the entire duration. With Sash and Collar...

You can do more than well without actually delving into limb damage as a Bard though. It has more than enough versatility to do without - limb damage just allows you to go for other options if the other ones mentioned above don't work out.

Trevize

Sidonia

Anedhel said:

Bashing's not great, but not unworkable.

#-o bard bashing is good even with a borderline rapier. Get a great weapon and arties and it's phenomenal