Glamours isn't really applicable to stats, as it's merely a matter of casting most of the effects. Obviously, higher int will mean more mana for the skills, but for things like dispell it's merely a measurement of your own skillrank versus other illusionists. The only thing I can think of that might be augmented by higher stats is indigo on colourburst or maelstrom, which does damage.

Bard's musical attacks (aurics and basic damage attack) used to be based on both int and cha. I think nowadays it's based on whichever stat you have highest. Low stats in either of these obviously won't do great damage - however bards get bardicpresence to up their charisma.

As a Tae'dae you're already walking around with a point higher base charisma than me, and I float around between 20 and 21 charisma most every day, based on whether I have karma blessings and Penumbra. It's not as high as, say, a faeling could be, but the tankiness, combined with acrobatics and demi really is great. Magical weakness would be tempered slightly by shadowdancer garb. I don't know if Seren's bards have these two options to assist them in charisma boost and magical dmp.

Slower eq won't help you out, and you would likely find yourself frustrated as a bard in one on one combat as you try to keep targets undeaf and stick aurics - slower eq will make this harder. It will also make singing your songs take longer, and your basic bashing attack will be slower.

You asked early on about deathsong - it's not affected by stats or eq. It's a flat 8 seconds, for everyone.

Only Elemental, actually - Cosmic can have its terrain type changed.

EDIT: And I don't think you can change the terrain type of the opposing ethereal forest, either.

Water/Earth/Opposing Ethereal Forest


As for times as a faeling (which doesn't have a bonus that I remember) they are something like
Forest 3.5
Meld 3.5
Sapling 2

So nine seconds minimum for one room and I forgot to check but I think demesne effect cast times are 4 seconds

As a Tae'dae
Forest 4.5
Meld 4.5
Sapling 3
Demesne effects 5

And 12 seconds minimum for one room, if someone without the penalty forests/taints/floods right after you they could protect the room before you had balance back.

The reason I mention demesne effects is just you will probably want to use other abilities while you are timing the demesne, from nothing to fully active in a single room you could be looking at 82 seconds. During which you could be dropping motes/runes/totems/etc while setting up but you might be pushing it with the penalty. In a forest area I've been able to interleave melding/motes/deffing up with setting up demesne effects which is handy at the least.

For a ten room hartstone meld uncontested I'd say you may be looking at ~190 seconds with more for additional set up such as pathtwists, curse, totem and motes/runes if your balances make them take anything more than 4 seconds. This figure can be brought down by taking off time to forest/sapling the area if you don't need to/have second or third druid.

My charisma boosts:
Moonchilde
BardicPresence
Netzach
Beauty karma blessing
Throne
And being a Demi, of course.

There are two song effects that increase DMP: AncestralFealty and Celebrate.

EDIT: Ah you meant defensive DMP. The spirits from the song, and dodging increase resistance to magic damage. And go tailor and wear splendours!

We can. Purple Etherseren is one of the most beautiful sights in Lusternia.

..No we can't.

Water, Earth, anywhere that's underwater, and the opposing Ethereal forest while Maeve is alive

Yes we can.

If some helpful city-folk kill Maeve.

Waait, when did that happen? I was positive that ethereal anti-terraining applied only to taint/flood, I could've sword I saw purified forest in Glomdoring even before it was changed to allow terraining with the death of Maeve.

You sword wrong. D:

THey should be able to break melds, but not meld themselves.

Huh? When did it stop being 50/50?

The first week I was playing. They found out that it was counting both int and charisma, making for rather nasty attacks, and changed it. I believe it was changed to whichever stat is higher, but it could be 50/50.

Damn it. If that's true, I've been running under a false assumption forever... Halp, immortals!

No, it's still half int and cha. The change was that cha was giving a much larger return than it should have been. Charune posted the exact formula once, I think.

So from what I hear, harbingers typically use manabarbs (with that odd mana song) as their kill method. What do spiritsingers do? It doesn't seem like minorseconds would be useful, and minorsixth wouldn't be as effective... Though I see posts scattered around the forums on how SS are the stronger bard spec - What am I missing here?

Is there a list of Eq/Bal times for skills anywhere, or do I need to have a helpful person test them for me? (Thanks for the comparison above, Saran! )

EDIT: Is it possible to time the song or glamours abilities, like in setting up demesnes?
EDIT2: What's the chance of IllusorySelf taking damage for you? Is DeadlyPattern an ongoing effect?

Song effects hit regularly... every 10 secs too I think, and you may play with illusions I guess. IllusorySelf has 50-50 chance I think and DeadlyPattern sadly is like Atone... it's not continuous... and I hope it will be continuous like Moon Dark... Glad you are at least considering Bard (SS) at least. The strength of Wildarrane lies in keeping your enemies off balance/equi alot and for long periods of time.

Thanks for testing the song effects Eula!
So I guess song effects at least can be timed... How do song stanzas work? Is it every time I play a stanza, it hits with every effect in the stanzas before it too, or does each stanza have a separate effect timer? Or would I need to go back through the entire song to get the lower stanza effects again? What effect does refraining or sustain have on the effect ticks?

Deadlypattern sounds a little useless in that case - it'd be pretty much the same as invoke spring?

Still curious about the possibility of timing the glamours pattern ticks ^^

(The Glamours skills are all really pretty! How useful is Maze? Does Manse see much usage at all?)

EDIT: Anyone else think they're pretty too ?

Glamours are way fun!

The song effects tick at different places in the cycle, not all at once. So you have to pick which song effect you want to time Glamours with. Refrain and song length might both affect cycle. Needs more experimenting!

You don't need to replay the previous stanzas. Once you have played a stanza it's imbued power keeps working as long as the song is playing. Well, maybe not if you get adagioed back to an earlier stanza, but that's never happened to me. So if Fae Ditty is in your 4th stanza and you play up to your 9th stanza, every time the 6th (or whatever) second of the song's 10 second cycle comes around, Fae Ditty will hit.

It's my understanding that bard songs are on a universal timer that is constant. So it doesn't matter when you play or refrain your song the song ticks happen when they happen (not all of them go at the same time but that is different from guild to guild). It's not like a demense where you can time things.
Although, you can time things with glamours and such to hit when the songs tick keeping in mind that blindness will be a factor in how often hynoticpattern hits.
Also, a lot of people get confused about rainbowpattern. It's not a personal colourmaelstom that follows people around. It has an entirely different set of mental afflictions that it gives as well as hits with damage everytime it ticks.