On Mon, 20 Dec 1999, Ryan Honeyman wrote:
>
> I should have clarified this more. Healing 12-14 points is
> with the lute in hand. The dmg shield provided from Psalm
> still allows the bard to fight with his weapons. Without
> the lute 6-7 points of healing occurs. (these numbers based
> on a L35ish bard, as we were focusing on) The dmg shield nor
> healing will provide sufficient worth if all members are not
> being engaged. Otherwise you end up healing one person, while
> everyone else is at max health, or you dmg shield everyone but
> the mob is only attacking one person. Whether you do direct
Well, the difference is, 6-7 (or 11-13) points every 6 seconds
is per party member. If you're facing one mob, the damage
shield (7-8 points) is going to be activated 0-4 times every 3
seconds (figure 2 average). So over 6 seconds, the damage
shield will do up to 64 points damage (32 average). If all
your party members are wounded, Hymn is going to do (6-7)*6 =
36-42 points healing every 6 seconds. If you switch to a
lute, healing 6 people at once easily outdoes the damage a
shield would do against a mob quad-attacking every 3 seconds.
So it really depends on the situation. :)
Incidently, this is why I started playing with the Chant songs
lately (they stack). They seemed to do (16-18)*3 damage each
to a mob per application. That's roughly on par with the
damage I do with my weapons per Chant. I didn't feel I was
losing much offensive power putting away my weapons and
sticking with instruments + Chant of Flame. Especially in
light of the druid tossing out Starfires like there was no
tomorrow (1-2 per mob, about 30 seconds downtime between mobs)
with Clarity plus manastone plus Hymn on my lute. :)
> dmg (shield) or indirect dmg (healing) - neither of the two
> will really make a single mob battle any quicker. Multimob
> battles would benefit from it, however the bard will take
> serious heat from using Hymm, and that was my original point.
I guess I group with an enchanter more often than you do. :)
Another thing I've noticed is that my friends have gotten
really really good at pulling singles (level, lull, harmony,
feign, etc). When we get multiples, they're usually
mesmerized, or I can control them easily enough.
--
John H. Kim
kim@...