The Spirit Realm

Well, I played the bard (level 70) last night for the first time in a long time. And I had fun. I forgot what a joy this class can be. I was puller, off tank, slower, and haster rolled into one. It took a while to get into the flow (mostly timing the respawns - I used to be so good at that!), and I forgot to click my melody button a few times (DOH!), but I played for about 75 minutes and just had a solid fun time. I love the new promotion where old accounts are free for the next two months.

Anyway, the number one problem I'm facing right now is remembering what type of spell lineup to use. I played around a bit and settled on a 'standard' song set last night, but I can't help but feel I'm missing something.

What I used:
1) War March of Muram (haste) + DS
2) Rizlona's Call of Flame (overhaste) + spell damage
3) Song of the Storm (proc)
4) Various (mana song / debuff song / even a dot)

Basically slot 4 in the song set seems sorta useless. I pretty much put in Chorus of Life (mana song) and called it a day, but it didn't feel that useful now that ooc regen gets a caster full mana during a typical bathroom break. It also got me thinking, if you already have haste, is there any real reason to play the war march?

About the only songs I don't think I would ever drop from my song lineup would be overhaste and the proc song. Last night was perfect for playing the War March (no other class to cast haste), but I know I'll be in future groups where haste is already taken care of. Do I want to waste a song twist for what will be a small damage shield?

Anyway, I'm hoping to hear from other bards what their spell lineups are. Also, I'm trying to decide whether to stay 70 for a bit and work on AA, or if bards get some sort of uberduber song between 71 and 75 that I would be a FOOL not to immediately work toward, AA be damned.

War March has value for the enormous +atk on top of haste. If you're not playing for many melee, though, you might do better with other songs in its place. Psalm of Veeshan has large +AC and +DS, Ancient Chaos Chant is a direct dot and also debuffs for casters you're with. Passive mana regen is not as useless as you're feeling. Of the songs you've listed, Song of the Storm is probably the lowest value.

I'm not sure if this will be useful to you or not, but my "standard" lineup is:

1) War March Of Muram
2) Aura Of The Artist
3) Jonthan's Mightful Caretaker
4) Dirge Of The Darkvin
5) Coldcow's Spry Sonata
6) Command Of Queen Veneneu
7) Dirge Of Metala
Elddar's Dawnsong
9) Psalm Of Veeshan (if melee heavy) or Arcane Aria (if caster heavy)
10) Chorus Of Restoration

My standard melody is 5, 1, 4, 9 for most fights. If I'm feeling like I want to do some additional DPS, I'll do 3, 5, 1, 4, 9.

I'm sure other bards will have other lineups; this is just the one that works best for me.

I *never* sing passive mana/health regeneration except... no, I never sing it to be honest. That might just be a function of who I group with, but we tend to not need it. If someone runs out of mana, we just tell them to sit out a round and cover for them.

At level 70 you should be playing eriki's psalm of power, not rizlonas.
70 ancient song from anguish is even better if you can get a rotting rune.

War March is staple if you've got other melees in group, if you're the only one play jonthans mightful caretaker.
If you're playing in old raid zones with 5min ooc timer make sure you're playing manasong.
If your tank is really getting owned and you need to sacrifice some dps for survivability swap war march for verses of victory (big ac boost but no DS/atk).
Coldcrow's Spry Sonata is the lvl 79 upgrade to Niv's Harmonic - another nice AC boost.
Psalm of veeshan gives some ds + resists + ac - usually the first song to be dumped from my twist when a caster joins.
Dirge of the Darkvine is a mini-vie type buff for the tank in group.
Storm Blade is only mediocre dps (18-20 per melee).
Performer's Explosive aria is great if you have fire nukers (rangers, wizards, mages).
Garradels Fatesong is great if you have cold nukers (rangers, wizards, beastlords, shamans?)
Arcane anthem stacks with the 2 above if you have a lot of caster types (kinda like mana flare but lower dmg).
If you have a lot of melees and everything you're fighting is snare/slowable consider using largo's assonant binding - has a massive AC debuff and will increase your groups DPS.
If you're fighting unsnareable stuff that needs to be ac debuffed (vt trash is a good example) you can use denons disruptive discord, just be warned its also an ae dot and will mess up mezzing.
Consider keeping HoS in your twist if you have casters in group and resistive mobs (anguish trash?).
Add ancient: chaos chant for really resistive stuff (ToB group named?) - usually not needed if you have a shm in group tho for malos.

So yea asking what 4 songs should I sing is a pretty open ended question without additional info

Using your post as a source, organized for myself:
In a raid setting, ideally?

Aura of the Artist assumed to be up, unless Ancient Call of Power is needed for range.

One per raid:
Harmony of Sound
Ancient Chaos Chant
Chorus of Restoration
Denon's Disruptive Discord

Melee dps group bard:
War March of Muram
Storm Blade?

Tank group bard:
Verses of Victory
Coldcrow's Spry Sonata
Psalm of Veeshan
Dirge of the Darkvine

Caster groups (incl. rng/bst/sk?):
Arcane Anthem
[Performer's Explosive Aria]
[Garradel's Fatesong]

There seems to be more songs in the Tanking section than one bard can play , and not enough good ones in the Melee dps section atm. I can't recall while I'm not raiding here what I usually see in the song box, what am I mixing up / leaving off?

edit: edited to reflect Chordling's answers

Kinsong ?
Eriki's Psalm of Power / Aura of the Muse Effect ?

War march and verses don't stack, its a choice between atk and DS or AC.
Thats pretty much all there is for melees besides epic clicky/FE/QT, so melee group bards cover raid songs.

Wonderful info, thanks! Beats reinventing the wheel on all this..

Help me out with expected numbers from these songs? I expect every raiding bard will have at least 2.9(epic)+AA mod for his songs, so that's the baseline. That's 3.7 mod total?

Our bards still use this xls sheet: Unfortunately not being updated anymore but it gives all the data up to and including TSS. Excellent work.

One of the things you should definitely get is Aura of the Muse, it's gotten via Ao.3 iirc in PoR. It's an overhaste/spell dmg focus aura though its range is much smaller than the Ancient overhaste song from Anguish. There's a stronger version of it at level 80 that focuses dmg spells to level 80, rk.2 is 33% dmg focus for any DoT or nuke cast. My usual lineup in challenging content is Psalm of Veeshan, Coldcrow's, Storm Blade and Chorus of Restoration. In easier content, I'll drop Coldcrow in favor of War March of Muram for the DS and atk bonuses. If the mobs are highly resistant, I'll drop Storm Blade from the mix and start it with Harmony of Sound.

At Brohg, iirc anything over 3.4 with full AAs just goes to waste.

Tried the Library quest for Aura of the Muse over the weekend. Veeeeery interesting bug (sure hope that isn't working by design anyway) where you end up with a few dozen adds after a couple of minutes.

Worth a few tries though, must get that aura.

Note: Your spell is your reward for completing Skylance 3, not for completing the entire series. You do not need to do Skylance 1 or 2 to get your spell. Just go straight to .

P.S. Despite claims to the contrary, , is not bugged. Save the bookworm spawning named (Venorin) for last. Don't go anywhere near his platform until all are ready to charge up the ramp. Burn him down as fast as you can, loot him the instant he dies, and make a bee-line for the exit.

Thanks, Kiru! I had no idea, and Laboratory looks MUCH easier than Library.

Urk, thanks, Huurgh. I should've guessed that.