Progress Report, please?

[HSB]

My lil bard is now 16, and doing quite well. I got Tsoran's spreadsheet, and hammered everything out, but I've got a couple of questions (with character info following the questions).

1. How much air lore, if I'm going to continue swinging a weapon? Is it a 'the more, the merrier', or should I stop at 20 ranks? 30 ranks? Why or why not?

2. Manipulation lore, or Mental Mana control, if I have to choose between the two?

3. While I know that 1030 is the end-all and be-all of Bard-dom (and I realize this is a little up for debate, but just go with it)... what should my spell progression be? I currently plan on going Bard up to 20, then skipping a few levels to double up my lores and get caught up, then going for the Minor Elemental stuff, coming back to Bard later down the line when I have the mana to use 1030 (at which time I'll probably fixskills into a pure). Any thoughts?

And, naturally, I'm interested in any comments or advice of a general nature, as well.

-----------------

>psinet scan
Beginning character information collection.
Scan: Requesting INFO
Name: Cannel Race: Forest Gnome Profession: Bard (shown as: Piper)
Gender: Male Age: 0 Expr: 316197 Level: 16
Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 100 (15) ... 100 (15)
Constitution (CON): 67 (18) ... 67 (18)
Dexterity (DEX): 60 (10) ... 60 (10)
Agility (AGI): 75 (22) ... 75 (22)
Discipline (DIS): 74 (17) ... 74 (17)
Aura (AUR): 95 (22) ... 95 (22)
Logic (LOG): 67 (13) ... 67 (13)
Intuition (INT): 64 (7) ... 64 (7)
Wisdom (WIS): 48 (4) ... 48 (4)
Influence (INF): 66 (3) ... 66 (3)
Mana: 72 Silver: 15706
Scan: Requesting INFO START
>
Level 0 Stats for Cannel, Forest Gnome Bard

Strength (STR): 100
Constitution (CON): 60
Dexterity (DEX): 50
Agility (AGI): 70
Discipline (DIS): 70
Aura (AUR): 90
Logic (LOG): 65
Intuition (INT): 60
Wisdom (WIS): 40
Influence (INF): 55

Scan: Requesting SKILLS BASE
>
Cannel (at level 16), your base skill bonuses, ranks and goals are:
Skill Name | Actual Actual
| Bonus Ranks Goals In-Game Time to Goal
Armor Use..........................| 40 8 8
Combat Maneuvers...................| 82 18 18
Two-Handed Weapons.................| 132 36 36
Physical Fitness...................| 82 18 18
Harness Power......................| 132 36 36
Elemental Lore - Air...............| 62 13 13
Climbing...........................| 62 13 13

Spell Lists
Bard...............................| 16 16
Training Points: 49 Phy 0 Mnt (68 Phy converted to Mnt)

209 days remain until the annual FIXSKILLS is to be granted, on 05/20/2009.

Your 30 day migration period will begin when you choose to degrade a skill.

Further information can be found in the FAQs.
Scan: Requesting CMAN INFO
>
Cannel, your Combat Maneuver training is as follows:

Skill name Mnemonic Ranks
Feint feint 3

Available Combat Maneuver Training Points: 4
Scan: Requesting SOCIETY
>

Current society status:
You are a member in the Council of Light at rank 4.

You have learned and are able to use the following abilities:
Sign of Recognition
Signal
Sign of Warding
Sign of Striking

Past society affiliations (resigned or cast out):
You have no past society affiliations.

You may reset your society status one time. Enter SOCIETY RESET for details.

You may view your society task information via the SOCIETY TASK command.

Scan complete.

[Jaimaltz]

My lil bard is now 16, and doing quite well. I got Tsoran's spreadsheet, and hammered everything out, but I've got a couple of questions (with character info following the questions).

1. How much air lore, if I'm going to continue swinging a weapon? Is it a 'the more, the merrier', or should I stop at 20 ranks? 30 ranks? Why or why not?

2. Manipulation lore, or Mental Mana control, if I have to choose between the two?

3. While I know that 1030 is the end-all and be-all of Bard-dom (and I realize this is a little up for debate, but just go with it)... what should my spell progression be? I currently plan on going Bard up to 20, then skipping a few levels to double up my lores and get caught up, then going for the Minor Elemental stuff, coming back to Bard later down the line when I have the mana to use 1030 (at which time I'll probably fixskills into a pure). Any thoughts?

And, naturally, I'm interested in any comments or advice of a general nature, as well.

-----------------

>psinet scan
Beginning character information collection.
Scan: Requesting INFO
Name: Cannel Race: Forest Gnome Profession: Bard (shown as: Piper)
Gender: Male Age: 0 Expr: 316197 Level: 16
Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 100 (15) ... 100 (15)
Constitution (CON): 67 (18) ... 67 (18)
Dexterity (DEX): 60 (10) ... 60 (10)
Agility (AGI): 75 (22) ... 75 (22)
Discipline (DIS): 74 (17) ... 74 (17)
Aura (AUR): 95 (22) ... 95 (22)
Logic (LOG): 67 (13) ... 67 (13)
Intuition (INT): 64 (7) ... 64 (7)
Wisdom (WIS): 48 (4) ... 48 (4)
Influence (INF): 66 (3) ... 66 (3)
Mana: 72 Silver: 15706
Scan: Requesting INFO START
>
Level 0 Stats for Cannel, Forest Gnome Bard

Strength (STR): 100
Constitution (CON): 60
Dexterity (DEX): 50
Agility (AGI): 70
Discipline (DIS): 70
Aura (AUR): 90
Logic (LOG): 65
Intuition (INT): 60
Wisdom (WIS): 40
Influence (INF): 55

Scan: Requesting SKILLS BASE
>
Cannel (at level 16), your base skill bonuses, ranks and goals are:
Skill Name | Actual Actual
| Bonus Ranks Goals In-Game Time to Goal
Armor Use..........................| 40 8 8
Combat Maneuvers...................| 82 18 18
Two-Handed Weapons.................| 132 36 36
Physical Fitness...................| 82 18 18
Harness Power......................| 132 36 36
Elemental Lore - Air...............| 62 13 13
Climbing...........................| 62 13 13

Spell Lists
Bard...............................| 16 16
Training Points: 49 Phy 0 Mnt (68 Phy converted to Mnt)

209 days remain until the annual FIXSKILLS is to be granted, on 05/20/2009.

Your 30 day migration period will begin when you choose to degrade a skill.

Further information can be found in the FAQs.
Scan: Requesting CMAN INFO
>
Cannel, your Combat Maneuver training is as follows:

Skill name Mnemonic Ranks
Feint feint 3

Available Combat Maneuver Training Points: 4
Scan: Requesting SOCIETY
>

Current society status:
You are a member in the Council of Light at rank 4.

You have learned and are able to use the following abilities:
Sign of Recognition
Signal
Sign of Warding
Sign of Striking

Past society affiliations (resigned or cast out):
You have no past society affiliations.

You may reset your society status one time. Enter SOCIETY RESET for details.

You may view your society task information via the SOCIETY TASK command.

Scan complete.

Nowhere near enough armor, no dodging, and you have way too much harness power (you should keep it at level to avoid diminishing returns, 16 ranks at level 16).

[Izzy]

Level 0 Stats for Cannel, Forest Gnome Bard

Strength (STR): 100
Constitution (CON): 60
Dexterity (DEX): 50
Agility (AGI): 70
Discipline (DIS): 70
Aura (AUR): 90
Logic (LOG): 65
Intuition (INT): 60
Wisdom (WIS): 40
Influence (INF): 55

Ouch. Your stats are, well..horrid at best.

Capping out stats right away is bad practice. I'm aware that gnomes need the strength..but still, you can manage with somewhere between 80-90 and allow for SOME growth at least.

Influence is a primary stat for bards, which means you're missing out on a lot of TP's by tanking it so heavily. It also plays some effect in bardsongs, I'm sure.

Your logic sucks, so you're getting terrible exp/pulse.

I don't know why your aura is so high, especially as a gnome. Even if you wrack all the time, your spirit regen is incredible. You should drop this to 65ish, IMO (7 spirit). Plus, by the time you switch to pure, it will have gone up.

Basically, in my eyes, you tanked all the important stats except for strength..which you capped (which is almost as bad).

[Lumi]

I hate to say it, but I agree completely with the above. You missed the target using a automatic rifle X.x

Are you still able to adjust stats? If so, you should. If not, level 16 is nothing, you should re-roll and save yourself a ton of grief down the line.

Regarding your actual questions, you should optimize training as a 2HW user (armor, dodge, CM, 2HW, MoC, Telepathy, etc.), choose a conversion level, and just make the complete jump. No fence-straddling.

Optimize stats for the caster, of course, since that's the long term goal.