can someone explain the subtle difference in bard specs? Which is best for what,.etc. Also, any other information to know would be great.

A quick summary:

Starhymn: Considered to be the weakest Bard spec, though they have the powerful Princess Farewell and Eversea effects. Primarily based around the use of Angelic Choirs to inflict passive afflictions on the enemy.

Wildarrane: Probably the best hunting spec; they have access to fairly high end DMP, both offensive and defensive. Based on summoning up ancestor spirits to help you inflict powerful effects. Powerful, but the necessity of spirits and the chance for them to disappear on move makes them slower and less mobile than other bards.

Shadowbeat: Powerful damagewise, and has access to passive Shielding, but a smaller number of afflictions available. The tend to be high-risk, high reward; very powerful offensively, but moderately weak defensively.

Necroscream: Has access to passive affliction curing! Has two major themes: entanglement and disease. Necroscream bards entangles are harder to free yourself from, and inflict bleeding when you do. The disease afflictions are only moderately dangerous on their own, BUT removed disease afflictions have a chance to return, and Necroscream bards become VERY powerful when the opponent is heavily diseased. ARGUABLE the strongest bard spec, though not by a huge margin.

http://wiki.lusternia.com/Skills]

Now, lets see how long it takes for someone to tell me I'm wrong.

I don't know if tankiness is a problem, what with brewmeister being the optimal choice for me (always a Dwarf.)

I looked at the skill lists, there's that skill in all of them I think that shortens EQ time by half, I have to assume that's a temporary defense?

I'd like some more information, different points of view, and any Roleplay information associated with the particular guilds.

Every Bard class bashes the same way, with the same attack, yes? In that regard, they're an EQ class. Something I'm coming to terms with, especially if Lusternia has an EQ artifact like some of the other IRE games. I'll pony up the cash, if I have to.

I hate being so fickle, but at least I'm exploring all my options before fully diving in.

Combat information would be great too, but as an aside, because again, combat will be postponed for the better part of my time playing.

All the Bard Classes seem very support oriented, which I'm super cool with, as transing brewmeister offers a lot of utility/support as well.


EDIT - Some of my posts might be choppy, I play from my phone, from work computers, and from home, so I post when I can.

Worst case scenario, I can influence instead of bashing, but I am assuming most influencing is EQ based as well.

SS > Necro >= Shadowbeat > Starhymn

Ss?

If you're talking about Hyperactive, it reduces balance time by half, not EQ, and is fairly lame. No EQ artifacts that I'm aware of I'm afraid, though (with luck) slower EQ races are going to be buffed.

I BELIEVE that influence balance is based on Charisma, so you should be good there.

Bards are somewhat support focused, though you shouldn't really consider that a selling point of the Archetype; Guardians/Wiccans do it better.

I don't know enough about all the Bard archetypes to give you detailed RP and combat information, sorry.

For the record, everyone bashes in the same way: spam your 1 or 2 mob attacks till they die. Each bard has a Magic sourced attack and one other that varies by specialty.

Spiritsingers = SS

Otherwise, what Shuyin said.

As far as I'm aware there is no general EQ artifact, let's not give people ideas either. There are some artifacts that halve time for certain skills however, but none are really a must for the bard class.

I've never played a dwarf before, honestly, but since influencing and bard damage is mostly and partly charisma based, you won't be pwning anyone. Though this is without the knowledge as to how good a brewmeister dwarf might be in those situations. My assumptions are really all I got to work with.

The previous description of the class specs seems fairly sound, nothing I can think of to add to it.

Eh. As a High Magic Brewmeister he could still have 17 CHA, which is far from awful.

Yeah. I was gonna say. Reading the skills I could have a decent charisma. Encore, was the skills name.

BardicPresence is the skills name. And Netzach in High Magic.

Brew meister is low magic.

Oh right. Alchemy specialty. Oh well. You can still get a +1 CHA blessing pretty easily.

The key word here is considered, because there have not really been any standout combatants playing the class. The blocking shield thing, as well as the ability to force hearing the song effects for a limited time are fairly powerful components, but the game is still waiting for someone to wreak merry havoc with this spec and show us all how spiffy it is in action.

This is a solid class offensively and defensively in terms of the DMP and passive effects they have access to. EQ loss stacking coupled with lots of mental affs and other hindering on top of very solid damage and some very useful utility spells make them the strongest bard spec, hands down.Very strong synergy within the org (bleeding and mana drain), but weaker one on one or without the right group components. Definitely focused on aurics, specifically bleed+manabarbs+achromatic, but the major problem we face is that once you're out of mana, we can't damage you. Light on afflictions is accurate. Passive shielding is very high and terrain restricted.
Glaring omission of hunger attrition here, as well as the force-command. Definitely a strong spec, with strong passives, but with the right preparedness these can be overcome by the target.

The dwarf cha is decent. Base 15 is totally reasonable for a bard, it's on par with trill which is a generally popular bard choice, and better than irontongue viscanti, the bard spec race for Mag. The eq malus alone would make a min/maxer shun this race, but there's no reason you could not play it as a respectable combatant, a la Estwald.


Yeah, pretty much.

You'll have 17 CHA as a Brewmeister dwarf, even without Netzach (which is only a weighted +1 CHA anyway): 15 base CHA for being specialized plus 2 weighted CHA from BardicPresence, and then whatever other buffs you add on top of that, like truefavours, the Karmic blessing, etc.


EDIT: And even if it were possible to be a Brewmeister Dwarf with Highmagic, you'd still only have 17 CHA with Netzach because of the way the stat weights work:
So 15 base CHA + 3 weighted CHA is only enough to buff the stat by +2. You'd need at least one more source of CHA to bump it to 18.


EDIT 2:
Yes, most skills that reduce EQ time last a short duration but there's no stopping you from burning more power to use the skill again. Whether you'd want to in any given situation is not something I could tell you. Ask an actual bard combatant.

Idk if I can play in celest, to be honest.

Cantors are better played as guardians than bards. Go tarot and you will do just fine if you try to act Celestine. It is kind of funny, they have some of the best songs but because they are harder to use solo people discount them.

Having never played one, and with Nezha being the only decent Cantor combatant I ever knew of, I'm curious: do Cantors have to go for Soulless to kill or do they have any other viable tactics?

EDIT: Mai gremmar iz gud.

They can use aurics like all the rest, but most of their songs focus on hindering curing, so they do really well with aeon focus's. Soulless is the best solo kill, but I am known for my dislike of aurics focus wit beast gust/pogo and such skills availabe. With alot of luck you could pull the deathsong with aeon too, all depends how long you get aeon to last, which beasts can help with.

Egh, it's very easy to get +5 charisma in addition to being a 15 base charisma dwarf, what with throne +2, karma beauty blessing +2, bardicpresence +2, and lets say domoth of beauty, if you get it, or astrology, or a true favor, or something. Alright, probably you'll be a 19 charisma dwarf, with just throne, karma, and bardic presence. Then you can add on to that if you are worried about influencing with origami, perfume, a beast, attire and dramatics and charismaticaura (also arti's to increase influencing attack strength). If you want to have more health, ego, mana, throne of urlach, the monk's blessing, divine realm empowering.

minor second is based off of your intelligence and charisma. But!



All will be based on that 19-20 charisma you can get. So don't worry that much about having a low intelligence race, when it comes to hunting. Also, your musical aptitude with your instrument is very important! A maestro will be able to hunt far better than someone just beginning to play the violin.

And finally, if you'd like something that would make dwarf bard hunting look faster, create a new character and try out being a Tae'dae bard. I swear that you will find hunting as a dwarf bard something far faster for a while, and when that perception wears off, log on again to that Tae'dae and go back to the dwarf again. .