So I have done 6 or so Wargames and had about the same one-on-one spars and I have noticed something. Using Treat, defense doesn't seem to be the real issue. Daj kills me with magic something, and Badluck sucks, but Even at 52. I seem to be doing okay, lasting 5-10 minutes and drawing with people about my same level.

It appears defense is largely a non-issue in comparison to offense. Offense, Yiila has none. I am just not sure how I am to be playing my class, and I was hoping the forum could offer some tips for playing a better bard. My skills stand thusly at current:




Now, I understand that I am not even at likely 25% combat efficiency of my class (nothing in Combat which I am told is a must for pvp, no contort and such in Acrobatics) and everyone has been sure to tell me that Cantors are the worst bard guild for pvp,and I can accept that in stride, I just want to know how I can personally be better.

I have so low power and it returns to my prompt so slowly, that I generally can not get a DiscordantChord to really work well. Starting a song and dropping Octave, trying to keep them in the room, etc. has been a real challenge.

My understanding is that I should be using PerfectFifth followed by Octave Sempre, followed by Minor and Major Sevenths, leading up to a DiscordantChord, the whole time using Blanknote and watching for the eating of horehound. I have used ColourBurst but to little real hindrance against the monks I fought with it. Ideas? Tips? Tricks? Further References?

PS: Any particular skills I want to strive for, or not strive for?

Thanks a bunches!

Defense isn't an issue yet because you're too busy dying rather than curing!

Your power issues come from a lack of Discipline skill - at trans you'll regenerate 1 power every 6 seconds. At inept, it's every 10, I think. However, you don't have the lessons to spend for this by any means! You want to get the basics first:

-Acrobatics up to Contort (faster writhing. way faster.)
-Consider investing in Herbs if you want to supplement your income with a wider arrange of plants to sell.
-Lowmagic to Yellow (+1 CON - you need everything you can get)
-Overall goal: Starhymn up to Transcendent (unlocks your deathsong, staple for a bard kill)

Colourburst is going to be very subpar hindering for you - Glamours in general is a very high-investment skillset. If you're serious about hindering, your cheapest (and best) bet is to get a web enchantment of some sort.

You've got the Discordantchord thing down more or less pat, which shows some combat potential once you have more lessons and practice. Keep it up. As it is, you're mostly going to be a support role - keep the enemy in the room with Perfectfifth so your ally can wail on them. If you can keep them in the room, a lot of classes have timed instakills to help speed things along.

@Furien: Thank you very much for the explanations, it means a lot. I will strive for those skills in particular. What do you mean to say that Glamours is a "high-investment" skillset? To what does that refer, exactly? I got some raiding experience tonight and I got to test the Blanknote+PFifth+MinorSecond thing and it worked okay. I am enemies to a million things now, but I had a good time!

@Shaddus: I had never thought of Illusions as a offensive thing, I mostly use it for dancing and RP purposes. How might one use it offensively? Lawliet is supposed to get with me on it at some point, but I am curious now. =(

EDIT: @Furien: I see what you mean, when I get hit by say 2 or 3 people at once... I just go splash. No chance to even begin curing, the damage is just too much.

Alright, off work now.

First off, Yes. Cantors are probably the crappiest spec in the game for bards. They have no synergy at all, and no real attack power. Their only saving grace is PrincessFarewell, the targetted skill at around 33% Fabled which causes Aeon/Blackout/Stun all at once, and is quite useful for masking things like Soulless flings, or even Deathsong if you're careful. Be that as it may, your spec is decent for backup/assisting in raids because it quickens sipping/does the opposite for your foe, replenishes health/mana/ego, keeps the enemy from shielding in Water, and more. It's not great really.

As for illusions, they are mostly used to throw off your enemy and do other things. For instance, one of a bard's greatest enemies is Love Potion. If it tics and makes you "love" him, it forces him onto your ally list, which means not only that your song isn't hurting them, but it's actually helping them. Always make sure to keep an eye on your ally and enemy list. If you alias an illusion for vomiting blood or another choleric cure, this can cause your enemy to sip choleric, which cures love potion. Programmed illusions come in handy for slowing foes down, such as making them think they have been hit with something which requires a writhe or cleanse cure.

Other illusions are useful for basically making your enemies eat other herbs than the ones they need to to cure your aurics, or perhaps a sap illusion to make then use Cleanse, thus throwing them off balance and not attacking you. I'm not the greatest at this, but it's definately worth looking into. Talk to Shric, he's pretty decent in battle. If not, message that ass Pesukaru, he wakes up every so often >.>

@Shaddus: Ah. thank for all of that! A lot to absorb! I hadn't thought of Illusions that way, but I will test it during the next few spars and see what I can do. I am trying to script tracking horehound and hearing right now, but it isn't working out yet.

Cantors were once considered the OP bards, if you can believe that. Poke your local envoy!

Jayden asked the guild if we wanted to discuss/envoy anything besides Starhymn. I am led to believe it is being looked into? Though I would ask Jayden as I do not have the behind-the-scenes knowledge to really make sure I understood what he said in context. Also, I don't have enough skills to make any suggestions, though it would be nice to have an enemy effect song a bit lower in the spec, one of the low stanza ones.

I do not think Jayden is a combatant, I think hes more varied than having combat focus. That is, I think he doesnt devote all his time or the majority of it to combat, he has better things to do, so yeah.... anyway.

I would ask some former cantors and even former bards in general about thoughts. And decide what you all want from Starhymn.. you have alot of curing control it just doesnt flow all that well, but then again.. if it did.. you would be pretty unstoppable and the single cause of the end of combat in groups!

Jayden is our envoy is he not? Honestly, I do not think enough Cantors fight to really get a group together. Shric does I think, but he is quite busy on his own. I am getting my combat training from the Paladins and Dawn Brigade at the moment... which would explain the bottom kicking you gave me earlier tonight on Nil/Earth. Good show by the way, that was quite pleasant.

PS: Paladins and Dawn Brigade are awesome!

Your envoy does not have any combat requirements at all. Its a divine appointed position and is not related to combat skill. Also, who said you need a group of cantors to find the best changes? You can probably ask...

shric
wuylinfe (maybe)
narsrim (former cantor)
placeus (I believe)
and any current or former bards who managed to kill people

But first decide where you want the skills to go.

LightCantata periodically blinds/prones (kneel) enemies. It's great against people who don't have Acrobatics Springup (and therefore need balance to STAND), but the blind makes it kinda counter-productive with Glamours (which requires the target not to be blind). Perhaps you can ask your envoy to remove or change the blind effect.

The song effects that hinder healing/curing/defense - MercifulSanctus , Recessional, and EverSea - work with each other. Try to get those.

The problem with Starhymn is that it has no unifying theme. Its effects do not complement each other, or the effects themselves are negligible. Consider: Wildarrane has equilibrium-loss, Necroscream has hunger, and Shadowbeat has bleeding and mana loss to help the bard kill. Has Starhymn had its special report yet? I can't remember.

For Glamours - the main, deadly skills are hard to get a hold of. Rainbowpattern is up around Expert. Being able to actually capitalize on Colourburst/Rainbowpattern comes only around Virtuoso. You can't bash well until Mythical when you get Illusoryself. Colourmaelstrom comes after that (for group and single combat), and Maze is also nice for groups and ganks.

Blanknote/PFifth/Minorsecond will keep you going for most general enemies, but once you face someone that's fairly enduring (say, a Demigod) you'll usually have to either go for some sort of Aeon lockdown or pull off an instakill if you want to kill them anywhere fast enough.

Their old envoy left the report to rot I believe, they never got that upgrade no.

Blindness is actually one of their best songs. While it can work against them with glamours, it is true blind. So it not only requires they cure to act/attack, but also strips sixthsense if the target has it. That skill is pretty crazy for a bard really because sixthsense is also delayed to put up so it gives easy access to times they are not blind (when you see them eat faeleaf or myrtle).

Cantors over all were made to try to shut down curing, but the best applications of this they have available is aeon with princessfarewall (as has been said you can start instas in the blackout usually and if you are lucky they dont get to actually cure but I suggest doing farewell shortly before song tics so you get the blind/kneel a few seconds after the normal stun wears off).

If you want to get better decide where you want to go, cant stress that enough. Once you have that people will accept alot more, like Harbingers made manabarbs a skill condition with bleeding song, double mana loss, and mental/focus affs. If you want to specialize in freezing people sure, if you want to get the old large scale damage stacks going you can probably do something similar again.

To me Cantors are -the- guild for taking tarot.

Recommend laying down fall for rubble, apply octave to room. Make sure you have lots of echos for when they climb over rubble. In this case, throw hangedman, or do nothing if your kneel song is about to tick. If they start tumble throw lust and trigger their exit tumble to empress back into octave, OR pfifth (if you aren't afraid of the power cost). The whole goal is to make it so they cannot escape your octaved room to cure manabarbs/egovice. If you can succeed in this you will be able to easily damage kill them.

The big weakness here is if they have leap. I'm not sure what to do about that, but still, not every class has that ability.

On that note, I'm curious, does anyone have numbers on the % chance of recessional causing failure to eat/drink?

Yea a lot of people have told me I should have gone Tarot, especially as a Faeling, but I do quite enjoy Illusions as an RP tool.

@Malarious: I do not know what direction the Cantors should go, damagekill seems kind of cheap and only situational at best though... or well, it sounds that way to me. More response from me later once I have played with skills some more.

1. The Starhymn report was submitted around the time Hallifax and Gaudiguch came out... kinda got lost in it all. Spoke to Sior, getting looked at now the demigod/ascendant changes happened and what not.

2....


3. Recessional has a 33% chance, but works like amnesia so can immediately sip again.


4. You can nag myself or Shric or even Pesukaru if you find him around in game for questions.

I'm not a combatant, but you probably need to get past that. especially if your guild is as nerfed to the ground as I hear.
you take your shots when you get them, because everyone else is going to take every shot they get and they WANT theirs to be cheap.

No no, I meant it like...

A Damagekill might only work on a very small percent of the playerbase period, and doesn't sound reliable to me as a kill method.

It's normally not, but Bards can sometimes be the exception to this.

You won't damagekill by straight-out spamming minorsecond unless you're an artied Demigod - sticking manabarbs and egovice, though, is another story. Achromatic aura is also a solid 20% (I think?) weakness to all magic damage, too, and shouldn't be sneezed at.