vasei - stuff for bard wiki

[chordling]

I typed this out a while back just went through the spellbook and removed anything with no current use, theres still a tonne of songs below pop that should be mentioned in your overview since many old songs scale indefinitely. I can't work that wiki stuff and none of this is formatted so go ahead and change whatever you want!

Songs you should make sure you have:

4: Lyssa's Locating Lyric - find dead noober's corpses
17: Guardian Rhythms - AC + MR
18: Denon's Disruptive Discord - AE dot + AC debuff
19: Shauri's Sonorous Clouding - group invis
20: Largo's Melodic Binding - ae slow (no snare)
21: Melanie's Mellifluous Motion - Group shadowstep (highly amusing)
22: Alenia's Disenchanting Melody - Group dispell.... also highly amusing
30: Amplification - boost singing if your mod sucks
31: Agilimente's Aria of Eagles - Group Levi (Also get singing steel boots)
34: Lyssa's Solidarity of Vision - Bind Sight
40: Syvelian's Anti magic aria - single slot dispell
49: Selos Accelerating Chorus - duh!
49? Aria of Asceticism - LoY quested poison/disease cure
50: Verses of Victory - AC + haste with no DS
51: Selo's song of travel - but yuk get a tiny cloak of darkest night
51? Aria of Innocence - LoY quested curse cure
51: Largos Assonant Binding - single target snare/slow/huge ac debuff
54: Selos Assonant Strain - AE snare/slow
54: Elemental Chorus
56: Purifying Chorus
56: Song of Highsun - Gate mobs
59: Denons Bereavement - AE dot + MR debuff
60: Kazumi's note of Preservation - Group DA
60: Angstlich's Assonance - 1min duration dot + slow
60: Fufils Diminishing Dirge - LDoN vendor - MR Debuff
60: Ervaj's Lost Composition - mana drain
61: Song of the Storm - if you dont have DoN faction yet for storm blade, 120 crystals
61: Silent song of Quellious - last true pacify
62: Druzzil's Disillusionment - 4 slot annul
63: Psalm of Veeshan - PoP spectrals
65: Harmony of Sound - PoP glyphed turnins
64: Requiem of Time - PoP spectral
65: Ancient: Chaos Chant - Gates ancient (Iqthinxa Karnkvii) - prismatic debuff
67: Zuriki's Song of Shenanigans - AE dot + slow
68: Creeping Dreams - lvl 68? DoD quest arc virus mez
68: War March of Muram - oow song - last haste/atk/ds upgrade
68: Dirge of Metala - oow - snare only
69: Storm Blade - DoN faction Indifferent
69: Discipline: 1000 Blades - DoD quest arc
70: Ancient: Call of Power - Anguish Ancient
70: Aura of the Muse - Skylance 3 (or lvl 80 Aura of the Artist)
70: Arcane Aria: Devastation skins quest (or skip this and do Arcane Anthem lvl 79 ladies of the light)
71: Jonthans Mightful Caretaker - Katta faction - self champion basically with proc rate increaser
72: Ervaj's Defensive Refrain - Group manashield
73: Fermata of Preservation - targeted DA
75: Veshma's Lively Crescendo - Group manapump (and crappy heal)
75: Staccato Cadence - katta faction - AE corruption resist
76: Vyskudra's Chant of Disease
76: Amber's Last Lullaby - useful mez for moving mobs
76 : Elddar's Dawnsong - last paci upgrade
77: Dirge of the Darkvine - group vie
77: Garadell's Fatesong
77: Zeixshi-kar's Chant of Frost - Huge cold debuff + small dot
78: Performers Explosive Aria
78: Kildrukaun's Chant of Poison - Huge poison debuff + small dot
78: Coldcrow's Spry Sonata - group resist chance + AC (upgrade to 75: aviak's wondrous warble - katta faction)
78: Chorus of Restoration - manasong duh!
79: Command of Queen Venenu - mez duh!
79: Kirathas Cleansing Clarinet - corruption cure rk2 is just as good as tss rk3
79: Yowl of the Bloodmoon - higher ranks = longer duration charm
80: Tjudawos' Chant of Flame - Huge fire debuff + small dot
80: Denon's Dirge of Devastation - ae nuke, stupidly inefficient but adds dps when you dont need mana

That should pretty much cover everything you'll ever use, can move the rest of the junk to the back of the spell book somewhere and forget it!

[chordling]

The following was written by Astuce long ago but all the debuff info is still current since it hasnt changed even though the new dots have new names and higher damage the debuff portions are the same:

The following is a list of all the debuffs a bard can play on raids.

At level 70, a bard with all his songs, has the following statistics' debuffs available:

Commonly Used:
Harmony of Sound(drum)
Ancient Chaos Chant(drum)
Vulka's Chant of Fire(drum)
Fufil's Diminishing Dirge(drum)

Sometimes Used:
Denon's Desruptive Discord(string)
Vulka's Chant of Frost(drum)
Vulka's Chant of Disease(drum)
Vulka's Chant of Poison(drum)
Largo's Absonant Binding(singing)

Rarely Used:
Largo's Melodic Binding(singing)
Denon's Bereavement(string)
Cassindra's Insipid Ditty(string)
Katta's Song of Sword Dancing(drum)

Due to the nature of songs, raids and lag, one bard may only be
responsible for 3 to 4 debuffs at any given time. In extreme
circumstances a bard could possibly pull off 5 debuffs, but the
possible drawbacks usually outweigh the limited benefits easily.
The following groups of songs are practical song line ups for
specific debuffing goals.

Magic Resistance (values assume max mod and pertinent aa's)
Harmony of Sound (62 MR, CR, FR) (unresistable)
Ancient Chaos Chant (42 all resists) (chromatic 0)
Fufil's Dmininishing Dirge (84 MR) (magic 0)
TOTAL: 188 Magic Resist debuffed

*note: Denon's Bereavement (62 MR) (poison 0, AE song) does
not stack with Harmony of Sound, but is an AE song, so when
AE stun/damage is called, it's a great song to memorize, as long
as we're not mez'ing, since it has a damage component.


Fire Resistance
Harmony of Sound (62 MR, CR, FR) (unresistable)
Ancient Chaos Chant (42 all resists) (chromatic 0)
Vulka's Chant of Fire (109 FR) (fire 0)
TOTAL: 213 Fire Resist debuffed

Cold Resistance
Harmony of Sound (62 MR, CR, FR) (unresistable)
Ancient Chaos Chant (42 all resists) (chromatic 0)
Vulka's Chant of Frost (109 CR) (cold 0)
TOTAL: 213 Cold Resist debuffed

Poison Resistance
Ancient Chaos Chant (42 all resists) (chromatic 0)
Vulka's Chant of Poison (109 PR) (poison 0)
TOTAL: 151 Poison Resist debuffed

Disease Resistance
Ancient Chaos Chant (42 all resists) (chromatic 0)
Vulka's Chant of Disease (109 DR) (disease 0)
TOTAL: 151 Disease Resist debuffed

Armor Class
Largo's Absonant Binding (96 AC, 239 Agi) (magic 0)
*note: this song will not land on mobs immune to speed changes, nor slow changes

Largo's Melodic Binding (50 AC) (magic 0, AE song)
*note: this song will not land on slow immune, and is overwritten by Absonant Binding

Denon's Disruptive Discord (92 AC) (magic 0, AE song)

TOTAL: 188 Armor Class Debuffed (142 if immune to snare, 92 if immune to slow)

Character Statistics
Largo's Absonant Binding (96 AC, 239 Agi) (magic 0)
Cassindra's Insipid Ditty(79 Int, 79 Wis) (magic 0)
Katta's Song of Sword Dancing (25 Dex) (magic 0)
*note: the dex debuff is a weapon proc and does not stack with cripple
TOTAL: 239 Agility, 79 Intelligence, 79 Wisdom, 25 Dexterity debuffed

Detrimental/Curse/Poison/Disease Removal

Aria of Innocence (16 Curse Counters)
Aria of Asceticism (46 Disease Counters, 46 Poison Counters)

I posted this list to try to educate my guildmates on the
debuffing virtues of a bard, but I figured some people on
here might appreciate having a quick list handy of bard
debuff numbers.

'Stuce

[chordling]

[chordling]

continued...

4) Mob_02 must have Line of Sight to mob_01
LoS Split
This is an old monk fave, FD split mobs till one is round a corner from its buddies. Another PC can then tag it single. This is really a FD splitter trick and needs a monk/tagger pair. Imo the best tagger is bard because a) Bellow is an instant tag, no cast time with good range. b) Bard fade is full mem-wipe, if a monk tagger makes a mis-tag he now is screwed and must wait for the 2 min reset. Monk + Bard tagger = awesome team.

5) You must be in pursuit range of mob_02
Heres another interesting one that I have been playing with recently and it seems to be the solution to aggro-linked mobs. I'm just gettin a hang of this, but i think it could be veeeeery useful, situationally.
There is a range limit beyond which mobs will just stop chasing you, hey Im a bard, I think most mobs just give up. So how can we use this to split unsplittable mobs? Basically this technique needs LOADS of space, so mostly outdoor technique. What I do is tag a mob and they all come, I tag from my max range (300) and flee at full speed, after a short time I will be out of pursuit range and they will stop chasing and look around stupidly, but they are still aggro and will stay aggro until they reset (which takes a long time). What I do then is edge back in step by step till im only in pursuit range of the nearest, it will chase, but all the rest will continue to mooch about because under no circumstances will a mob pursue someone out of pursuit range... evah! Bingo, unsplittable mob is split.

Additional info: Wander Behaviour Split
Have you ever had the situation where you tag a mob and a small train comes at you, when you fade all the bastages wander back at the same time? You retag and fade again, they are still determined to huddle together back. Actually you are just wasting mana, because... The current 'Wander Behaviour' of all the mobs, is "go home, dont hang about'. No matter how many times you tag and fade, they will not change their 'Wander Behaviour'.
Wander behaviour is set when the mob is reset, and wont change until it has reset again. So what a good monk will do, is let them wander back and when some have reset, stand again. The mobs that havent reset will just wander back like before, but the ones that have reset will have a new wander behaviour and they *may* not immediately wander back. This is absolutely huge for monks, but again its not something that we will be able to play with much due to mana restrictions.

Summary
Theres are your main techniques, and I would put them in the following order. So try 1 first, then work down list till you can find a good one
1) Lull Pull. Bleh
2) Simple Mezz Split
2) Advanced Mezz Pull. Sexiness
3) Snare Split
4) Wander Behaviour Split
5) Mezz Push Pull. Double sexiness
6) Pursuit Range split
7) FD Split / LoS Split
8 ) Highsun Split

How It Works: The Lull Spell
Basically it reduces one or both of the aggro ranges of the mob. Remember that mobs have two ranges, aggro range and assist range.

Lull songs up to the lvl 61 song will reduce aggro and assist range to a tiny tiny range. So you can pull mobs right by them and they will not assist, and you can walk right up to them and they wont aggro. BUT, and I find this the hardest thing to beat into peoples heads, it does NOT reduce the aggro range to zero. If you walk right over the mob, it will aggro as normal. Time after time, i lull mob and watch folks gaily tromp right over its toes and get smished, the first thing they say after LOADING,Please Wait... is "**Halfling** I thought it was lulled" About this time I am tearing my hair out. It will happen to you too, and it will happen A LOT.

The highest level lull song only reduces Assist Range, so you cannot just walk past the mobs, but you can pull mobs right by it and it will not assist. Again, it does not reduce assist range altogether, if the aggroed mob paths right over it, it will assist as normal.

So... can mobs resist lull? Most definitely, mobs have an innate check to resist a lull. NOTE: This is NOT a MR check or a check on any normal resists. A mob may well have perfectly normal resists BUT be almost impossible to lull (e.g. LDoN hard mobs or some Qvic mobs) A lot of people assume that MR mobs will be hard to lull, the two things are not connected in any way. So what happens on a resist. Basically when you lull a mob, there are two checks.

1) Check to see if lull fails. The chance for a lull to fail is modified by only two things afaik. The mobs innate resistance to being lulled and level difference. To be honest, even the lvl difference affect is not confirmed, its just my observation so take that is guesswork. If lull lands all well and good, if it fails then a second check is made. NB: CHA does NOT affect the chance for lull to fail. No sirreee bob.

2) Check for critical fail. If lull fails this second check the mob will aggro. The only factor I know that affects the chance of critical fail is the bards CHA. The higher your CHA, the less chance of a critical fail if the first check fails. This is one of the main reasons bards desire CHA. Especially in the early-mid level game where lull > almost all content.

One thing that not all the newbie bards know, is that lull is considered a beneficial spell and thus does not need line of sight. i.e. If you can target a mob and it's in range, you can lull it, even if its through the wall. This is really necessary for lull to be useful, if you had to go into the mobs room to lull it, it would really be much help. So how can you get a target on the mobs in a room without going in? Again several techniques:

1) This de-luxe, royale bard will come with a Singing Steel Helm. If you don't have one, well, it's like not having a drum. Really, get one. Get it now. You can just send in the eye, get your targets. Lull them etc. NB: If you dont have helm you can use Stalking Probes, but this will be a spendy option. The uber super-deluxe bard model will come with Holgresh Elder Beads as these have a much faster cast time. Believe me 7 second cast on the helm seems a long time, when the raid/group is going "FEED ME!! FEED MEEE!!! FEEEEED MEEEE NOOOWWW!!!!"

2) Gimpy bards use invis! If the mobs don't see invis, then you can invis in to room, get targets, come out and lull.

3) Gimpy bards also use bind-sight. Open the door and get a target on a mob that you can see, then back up and bind sight on that mob, you can then bind-sight hop round the room, lulling all and sundry. Er... Actually uber mobs use bind-sight too from time to time. Case in point, the Feratha pull.
For the uninitiated, Feratha is a big badass puppy in RSS who lives in his big hutch with about 8 guard puppies. The guard puppies are lulleable so if you can lull round his room quick enuff you have a single pull. Howevah!!! The room is too big to lull them all from outside, and you cannot go into the doorway as Feratha has a substantial aggro range and will bite your head off. Sooooo how.... First run downstairs and, from a safe range, get a target on any mob in the room. Then go back upstairs and into the room directly above Feratha. You can now bind sight on the mob and hop around the room lulling with impunity!

Bard Tagging
Most of this is fairly obvious, you bellow it, or tag it with HoS. But one thing very very important to mention is how to tag mobs out of Line of Sight. HoS only needs to have line of sight at the initial cast, not when it finishes casting, so you can get close enough to start casting HoS on a mob, then fade and start running away around a corner or whatever, as long as you are still in range HoS will still land! You can also do similar things with throwing items since they take some time to reach their target.

Another thing to mention is long range tagging, there is a bard clicky boot called Sorrowsong Boots, they cast a 300 range bolt which is very useful for pursuit range pulling. The best bit about this is the time the bolt takes to reach the mob. By the time it hits you are pretty much out of pursuit range already.

Edit: hmm another edit ~ pursuit range pulling just mentioned doesn't really work that way anymore either, but the new code that makes mobs lose agro completely when you leave pursuit range can be used for splitting as well.

[Tordail]

This info is really great. I just started a bard on my account for my best friend, who just wanted to "run around fast and whack stuff." He has really gotten into the character and enjoys it, so I made/bought him a few gear items and have been trying to find him info on "how to be a bard." Thanks for posting!

[Siocnarf]

This is golden infos for all.Either your just crawling a crowded area with a group or soloing or raiding the mob behavious infos are very useful to know even if not the assigned puller.For a bard puller it dosent get much more detailed then this.

Personally ive been playing since beta P4 and ive learned details about assist aggro i didint know about.(or least didint understand fully)

[Vasei]

This is fantastic! Thanks guys. I've been updating as I have time to work my way backward through the spell list, but obviously this is better.

[Naluken]

Wow, AWESOME guide!! Some great info... even as an SK, there is a lot of pulling techniques I didn't know till I read this

[chordling]

[Idracab]

Server side ticks are quite important as well. Shamans will well be familiar with the 6 second rule. If you cast 7 dots on a mob, they all conveniently fire at the same time, regards of when the original spell landed. So when you cast a dot, the first bit of damage fires anywhere from 0.1 to 5.9 seconds later. As you start laying dots on, they all fire at the exact same time every 6 seconds.

This is the server side tick. The heart beat of Everquest.

Promity aggro is checked once per tick. So if you pull a mob and it doesn't immediately cause assist aggro, you are free to drag it across as many mobs as you want until the next server side tick. If your target is in range of other mobs when the next server tick occurs, aggro occurs. If you can get your target out of the range of any adds before the next server tick, then you just made a perfect pull.

Now even if you time things PERFECTLY you only end up with 5.9 seconds of aggro free time, but bards can really use this to their advantage using fade. If you pull a bunch of mobs, get one out of the assist aggro range of others, hit fade, run back, tag the mob, and if timed perfectly, you can have 5.9 seconds of aggro free time to get your target by itself.

Hope that makes sense. Figured this tactic should be added for completion sake.

[chordling]

Tick pulling was nerfed at least 12 months ago, mobs now call for assist much more often and its no longer a viable tactic, thats one of the things I removed from the guide melo wrote cos he wrote it before the nerf. It needed it though, it was kinda ridiculous when you could single pull any mob out of any size crowd of mobs by simply tag-fade-tag because the second tag wouldnt cause an assist call when you did it quick enough.

[shibui]

I tried to create a page in the wiki, but I couldn't figure out how to make it show up on the main category page. Here is a list of bard/rogue illusion clickies I've been making. Might be a start on that page.

Here's the page link: http://samanna.net/wiki/index.php/Bard_Illusion

Shibui

A List of Clickable Bard Illusion Items and the associated illusion.

Amulet of Necropotence = Skeleton

Ball of Golem Clay = Earth Elemental

Besmirched Mask of Conception = Dwarf

Burnoose of the Halfbreed = Half-Elf

Circlet of Disguise = Human

Crown of Decit = Wood Elf

Dessicated Halfling Mask = Halfling

Flayed Barbarian Hide Mask = Barbarian

Froglok Stone = Guktan

Guise of the Coercer = High Elf

Guise of the Hunter = Vah Shir

Iksar Hide Mask = Iksar

Lute of the Howler = Werewolf

Mask of Deception = Dark Elf

Mask of Obtenebration = Erudite

Neriad Shawl = Water Elemental

Veil of Flames = Fire Elemental

[Vasei]

Thanks! Added the category tag so it shows up under Bard stuffs.

[kuzko]

My roommate recently switched from a monk to a bard and is really enjoying the many many options available to a bard. One pulling technique that I think is nearly just cheating seems to be left off the list. Bard pet pulling. As I am still learning the class from a by-standards perspective (bards have always been a general mystery to me), bear with me if there's some discrepancies.

Step one, get a Ribbon of Empathy item (right click summon companion). Step 2, find the mob you want and make it a pet (only works to a certain level). After you have your mob petted, fade, run back to camp and click the Ribbon of Empathy. Drop charm and voila, cherry picked mob right in camp. There maybe some details that some of you actually-first-hand-experienced bards can elaborate on, but that seems to be the gist of it.

It has limited effectiveness due to the limitations on bard charm, but is certainly a really neat trick and yet another weapon in the vast arsenal of bard pulling.

[Samanna]

Wiki's looking good!

[Vasei]

[chordling]

[Vasei]

You could use it to make it a lot easier to get that DE illusion mask on the level 1 bard.

[kuzko]

[Brohg]

Really, in milliseconds, kuzko. You pull some arbitrary number of mobs and Fade once they're gathered together. Charm your charmable target, and have it attack one of the others. They turn on it, and smash it all up. When it's under 5% you Fade and dot it down. Voila,killed in milliseconds.

[Vasei]

[Brohg]

All a matter of lag, reflexes, and the nerve to pull enough monsters to one-round your target

[chordling]

There are tactics you can use when swarm kiting to make the short range on high level charms completely irrelevant, its just a matter of being able to do a reasonably accurate 3 second circle and you can still swarm kite without ever stopping running even with the new charms (and never get hit..). You only need to be in range of your charm target when you start casting and when it finishes casting, the 3 seconds in the middle it doesnt matter where you are.

[chordling]

[JyveAFK]

Charm + Ribbon of Empathy = Jyve Pulling!

If you want a PH, Quest mob, (some nameds) from other side of zone, use the Charm/summon trick to get the mob to the zone in for group to get xp/loot/task update. When xping in a group, it's simply a fast way to get mobs to camp /really/ quick when you're starting to get spaced out and lets you time things a bit earlier. Can have the mob in camp at all times, it's future replacement hitting away, time it right, last mob is dying /just/ as you break charm for the new mob. Very fast and efficient. (works better with lower level charm if you can as it appears to last longer). Plus, it's simple fast, no waiting for the mob to slowly path the distance/objects in the way/stop to cast.
If you want the PH dead, then once charmed it's seconds are numbered.

[Samanna]

[Kilgaroz]

[Brohg]

[Kilgaroz]

Ah, I'd never seen that bit on an item, wasn't sure what it meant. Makes sense.