I want to know what should I aim for now?

How a bard fares in battles?

How a bard fights another bard?

Is it true that bards in Maestro Level can be 'bashing gods'?

Help?

Bards are worthless in PvP. I don't recommend even wasting your time trying to learn how to fight well, since you can't. Just spam blanknote and damage, and hope for the best, I guess.

Bards can be nice at bashing, it seems, with maestro and high acrobatics.

From what Shorlen and I discussed and what I've seen for myself.. I can only agree. You are useless in PvP until the Admin gets their stuff straight concerning deafness and blindness.


Put very simply: until deafness stops protecting you from something, it will always be just that.. a protective defense. If they want it to be an affliction, it needs to add a penalty and no benefit. In this case, the benefit is the NULLIFICATION OF AN ENTIRE SKILLSET.

All that said, the ear canal crap (though it's a really bad idea for some other reasons), almost makes music worthwhile. Almost. It's still the WORST "primary" skillset in the game.

Lysandus, focus on using Tarot effectively, it's really your only worthwhile skillset.

Don't know much about PvP, so I won't comment much about it. Tarot is better than illusions for it, I'm 99% sure.

In terms of bashing, bards can decrease the damage of mob attacks, but the chance of that happening is based on acrobatics -and- resilience (and perhaps dexterity too? not sure about that). I talked to Yini, who's transed both, and she said she was deflecting almost (key word, almost) all of the attacks. I'm inept resilience, expert acrobatics, and I deflect FAR FAR fewer attacks (it's rarer than a critical, for me, at level 78/79). The balance/eq regain with a maestro instrument isn't bad, and the damage isn't bad, but the fact that you're forced to choose between leather + deflecting a small proportion of attacks or robes + no deflecting is kinda a deterrent...

Acrobatics is linked with Resilience, Music with Dramatics. Why does it seem like Bards need more of a lesson investment than others?

Enchantment.

Poisons.

Focus on Tarot. I saw good nihilists do crazy things with tarot only.

Though, I have to ask - do you plan to do PvP or PvE? And, what is Maestro?

One time a day when you play your instrument it gains a %, when it reaches 100% it is called maestro and you get some benefits. You can bond with the instrument for 10 power which then allows you to call it to you and it will have time added before it decays if you play it regularly, play it enough and you can add months.

Compared to being a non-Merian Aquamancer, I've found bard bashing to be better, mainly because it's a lot faster and I can weave reflections quickly. Though... if you use tarot then that's a different story :/

For PvP, yeah... I feel even more uesless than before. I just put up LightCantata and try to get an insta-kill in somewhere (it worked once! ). But truthfully I'd rather aid others in combat rather than participate myself, which I thought was what the bard class was supposed to be focused on... :?

In case you're interested, I'm now a level 79 human, and with Virt Acrobatics, Adept Resilience and 14 constitution, I couldn't take a linked fesix without running every chance I got. I deflected a -very- small proportion of attacks, still.

I miss the old Merian Aquamancer forcefield bashing days

I wish Acrobatics was a choice for warriors in place of Athletics, aand then give them a rapier+dagger weapon spec. Yay for Duelists!

So..........

Anybody know some good combos to use as Bards PvP?

From what I've heard, the best one is: play blanknote @tar; play perfectfifth @tar; ct Hey, someone come kill @tar for me.

That doesn't even really work, because by the time you play perfectfifth, they put deafness back up and walk out :-p

Much as it hurts to compliment him, Visaeris does a pretty damn good job of Bard in PvP. So far, he's the only decent PvP bard I've seen.

And he doesn't use music, at least, not when fighting me. He just uses acrobatics and tarot, since music is so ineffectual

I used music to kill Bauto awhile ago when I was dueling him...

Though you're right Tarot and Acrobatics is deadly.

Bards aren't the only ones with PvP-useless primary skillsets. Wiccans' Fae kill only newbies or people so messed affliction wise that they'd die to newbie kicks. Wicca's only good PvP ability is the Toadcurse.

Tarot is good for hindering...but for killing? You'd have to get soulless in while still hindering. How feasible is that?

And for the trans Music spec. abilities, what can prevent you from completing it? If you begin it, and you're knocked down, can it still work? Or is it that once you start it, as long as the person isn't deaf when it finishes, it'll work (in other words, the song becomes independent of what you do)?