Welcome to the second installation of GuidesbyWhirlin. This time I'll tackle everything I know about Bards.
The style will be very similar to the wizard's guide that I wrote about a month ago. First, I will go into the Skills and spells that make the class unique, then go into different build options, racial selection & societies, and then a Q&A Section based on feedback/commentary from replies.
I will require 5 posts for the guide for the logical separation of the guide... And it will likely be several days until complete. Please be patient!
Welcome to my Second Profession Guide. This guide will cover Bards, including everything training, common archetypes, racial selection, and societal considerations.
Bard: The Ultimate Quest to maximize Short Term Gains
In my own experiences playing a bard, I've found that the bard class is a series of short term gains and considerations meant to maximize your current self, while putting off training that would widely be considered core required training.
This is a new mindset for a large playerbase of Gemstone. A large group of us were playing back in the GS3 days, when training was done when you leveled, only when you leveled, and you could never go back in training to make up for things lost. This created an environment where gains may take a large time to achieve, and couldn't really be powered through at the temporary cost of training points.
However, with the migration of GS4, and the revamped training point to level relationship, training point investments are much more temporary. The implications of this migration means that missing a level worth of training in X may be insubstantial in the long term, as long as you pick it up later.
What training in stuff does, and why its important
Lets go item by item...
Physical Stuff
Armor Use Reduces RT associated with heavier armor, Combat maneuver penalties, and spell hindrance from wearing armor (more on that later!)
Shield Use Generates DS when using a shield... Derp
*** Weapons Raises AS with a particular Weapon... Derp
Two Weapon Combat Specifically to Two weapon styles... This is a bigger topic than a one line snippet.
Combat Maneuvers +.5 Melee AS per rank. Plus all those shiney shiney special moves... This is the good stuff
Multi-Oponent Combat Pretty good, I'll go into this a little more later on... allows mstrike, and Force on Force adjustments... overall good stuff.
Ambush Nice to be able to aim... some posts say that a full 1x isn't necessary with proper Combat Maneuver training, but still pretty difficult to pull off without sacrificing elsewhere.
Physical Fitness Core training, HP growth, Maneuver defense
Dodging I think for most instances, it's the most TP efficient way of generating DS and general defenses.
Magical Stuff
Arcane Symbols Good if you have a pocket Sorcerer
Magic Item Use Good if you have a pocket Wizard or Sorcerer
Harness Power It's Mana!!! yay Mana!
Spell Aiming It's like weapon training, but worthless for bards!
Mana Control:Various Elemental and Mental are good for bards... but that's a bigger topic later on.
Spell Research Core Training Get spell ranks, unlock new spells, make existing spells better.
Lores Bigger Topic... Two types matter, mental and... air...
Super Quick Overview of Bard Songs
Buffing Songs: 1003 (DS), 1006 (Maneuvers, group), 1007 (AS, Group), 1010 (DS), 1019 (Dodge ranks (ie: DS))
Equipment: 1009 (shield), 1014 (Armor), 1012 (weapon)
Attack Songs
1001: Warding, Reduces target's DS. Solid Opener
1002: Warding, Turns target's weapon/shield into a vibrator, causing pleasure and difficulty to handle. Decent Opener for a swinger, amazing and cheap opener for a pure.
1005: No Ward, puts a critter to sleep, or causes them to sit, or induces additional RT. Good Opener when you have difficulty warding
1008: Warding, damage + knockdown. Meh
1030: The most overpowered attack song in the history of everything. Play an instrument, explode heads. Stronger if you're good with an instrument, and using a two handed one.
Miscellaneous Songs
1004: Purify gems, make loot
1013: Absorb the mana out of magic items
1025: Animated weapon follower.
Situational Room-Effect Songs:
1011: Traveling Sanctuary
1015: Warding for critters and additional slow effect
1016: Critters forced into offensive, targeting bards. Equivalent of WOW taunt, FFXI Provoke, etc, etc... Making Bards more effective tanks than warriors and paladins! How's that for logic?
1017: Makes it hard for anyone to cast spells in the room, INCLUDING SONG RENEWAL
1018: Traveling mana node for your group
1020: Basically like fogging to town, except, to an inn, and a pain in the ass to set.
In a category of it's own:
1035: Group Haste, Dodge buff
1040: Get out of stun/jail/lying free
How do they work?
Normally, people sit in TSC or GC and beg for a wizard to cast them 4 hours of spells, and then they go on their way, prancing and slaughtering. Bards... not so much. Songs aren't quite like that. Songs have an initial cost to activate, and then a duration, then an upkeep cost. Initial cast is based on potency, like many spells, Duration is increased via Bard Song training, Mental Lore: Telepathy training, Logic, and Influence. The upkeep cost is dependent on the songs being sung, and are then influenced by a multi-song penalty.
Multi-Song Penalty
The multi-song penalty is still being researched. But, the basic gist of it is that there's a default of an additional 12 mana cost for every song that you keep up after the first. This is reduced by bard song ranks, Discipline, and Logic. This is a very steep cost. It also grants some preferential gaming of the system. For example: 1003 only costs 3 mana, 1 upkeep. So, 5 seconds before the renew cycle, drop 1003, do your renewal manually, and put 1003 back up: You just saved up to 10 mana.
Multi-song penalty becomes a non-issue over time. The known part of the equation is that each bard rank provides -.5 renewal cost on the multi-song penalty. However, the upkeep costs for songs also increases as bard ranks increase:
1006 grows at +.125 upkeep
1010 grows at +.1 upkeep
1019 grows at +.1 upkeep
So, if you're keeping those three up, you're losing out on .325 upkeep gains on the multi-song penalty... Meaning each rank is only decreasing mana costs by .175 mana per rank.
Lores: Dafaq?
5 Mental Lores: Divination, Manipulation, Telepathy, Transference, Transformation. Divination, Transference, and Transformation have nothing to do with anything, so we're gonna ignore them outright and just talk about the remaining two:
Telepathy
Telepathy is good for two ends: A physical Bard, and a low level bard.
For Physical builds, the two main things from Telepathy training are additional AS from 1007, and additional duration on 1035. The AS increase is by the Seed 3 calculation, and 1035 the duration is +1 second for the first 20 ranks, and then 1 second per 2 ranks after that.
For Pure builds, it furthers the TD pushdown of 1015... but, for mental builds, Manipulation is better.
Manipulation
Manipulation effects 1002, 1004, and 1030.
1030 is the biggest influence. Basically, at 75 ranks, it makes it so that it's as though you're actively playing a two handed instrument... without having one. With gradual increases up to that point.
Elemental Lore: Air
Air Lore is great. For 1035 and Sonic gear.
There's no reason for a bard to train any other elemental lore. If you see a bard with Fire Lore, punch them and insult their mother, they deserve it.
I'll have a whole other section on sonic gear... right now!
Sonic Gear: Why Bards always have money!
1009 and 1012 has a base of 2x, growth of 1/2
1014 has a base of 3, growth of 1/2
All have a max of 7x
Sonic Shields
Air Lore is pretty badass with sonic shields... at 20/50/100 ranks of air lore, the shield is effectively -1/-2/-3 sizes for penalties. This means at 100 air ranks, a tower shield reduces evasion like a small shield.
Sonic Weapons
This is why people want to be bards. ALL sonic weapons have air flares. With air lore, you're increasing the chance of a second flare. This increases at 3% per seed 3 summation, with continuous, rather than discrete growth.
So... Continuous Growth means that 1 rank in air lore may yield that additional 1%, rather than needing to land nicely on a seed 3 number.
Sonic weapon double flares are what draw a lot of people to bards... Although, it should be noted, they cannot be ensorcelled!
Sonic Armor
I'm a bigger advocate of Sonic Armor than the other two pieces of gear... The main reason is that you choose what ASG you want your armor to be... So as you're training up your armor, and you reach that point between double leather and leather breastplate, no reason to go out any buy new armor. Just use a different number when you sing. Nice and easy
Ohh... and it deflects elemental magic based on air lore ranks... which would be nice, but we have song of noise... so it's not REALLY a huge issue, just a nice-to-have
The real deal with Sonic Gear
Don't get me wrong, Sonic gear is badass as all hell... but it's not THAT amazing until LATER in your bard career. I'm talking 60/70+. This will be a major sticking point in my guide, and one of my major points that I will be making right now.
Lets first look at the next best alternative to non-sonic equipment.
AS Implications:
I was able to pick up an elegant 4x lance for about 30k from a player shop. So that's the equivalent of about a +22 weapon. I'll need 24 ranks in bard circle before I get the same AS bonus. If you take the Minor Elemental Path, that's level 52... That's 40 levels of using the song while not utilizing a maximum AS. And realistically, at those levels, critters don't really live long enough to worry about the additional flare damage, you're being more restricted by your DS
Mana Implications
The multi-song penalty is putting the cost of that spell at 14 mana per renewal cycle. Which is a lot at lower levels!
Furthermore, even once you do get up to 65, when you have both 430 and 1035... That just further incentivizes keeping that mana and converting it into damage output via 1035.
Training Implications
This is my last argument against instant use of sonic equipment until later. If you are NOT using sonic equipment, you don't need as much Air Lore Training. This can allow you to train more freely in other, discrete training options. It can allow you to unlock 425 and 1020 in a more expedited fashion, unlock hinderanceless ASG15 earlier on, and focused MStrike if you want that path. There are a lot of things that Bards can train in... Dedicating 8 MTPs a level towards a lore which you won't be using til later is really limiting your potential.
The Bard Versus MnE Spell Circle Debate
Man... Just to make sure I put myself on the corner of every ledge ever with this guide, I'm gonna go ahead and chime in on the ongoing debate of emphasizing Bard Circle or Minor Elemental Spell Circle first.
I recommend Bard to 20, then Minor Elemental to 30. Then Bard back up to X level. Lets go into my justification
- Unlocking Sonic Armor (1014) is incredibly powerful before you're fully trained in Armor to keep yourself in the highest ASG you have available.
- 1035 is incredibly mana intensive. If you unlock 1035 at level 35, you will not have the max mana pool to support utilizing the spell to the full potential.
- The Non-Lore AS component of Kai's Triumph Song (1007) maxes out at 17 Bard Ranks.
- The 20th rank of Bard gives +2 DS total due to rounding on 1010 and 1014... So its worth picking up the 20th rank after song of Mirrors
- The first 20 bard songs are simply better than the MnE counterparts, and should be prioritized first.
I created an Excel Spreadsheet that analyzes AS, DS, and CS for MnE/Bard Ranks.
I assume 1012 or 411 is used... whichever has the superior AS bonus
I assume 1014 is used, but not 1013... which could skew results.
I haven't really messed with google docs too much... but if it worked, the spreadsheet is here... because there's no way in hell I'm reformatting it as a table:
No code has to be inserted here.
Note: Ties were counted for both winners.
Note: Emphasizing Minor Elemental before 1035 is also 100% dependent on being a SOLO player. If you have a pocket wizard, mana battery, and all other sorts of helpers available, the gap diminishes to a point of pure subjectivity. Multi-account builds can be VERY different than solo builds to maximize performance of a group. This guide is really only dealing with solo builds.
Also... as I mentioned early on, and feel like re-emphasizing... This is all about short-term gains. Everything evens out at the same after you have the 65 spell ranks.