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> Mainly it is a matter of control. It's difficult for me to twist songs,
> switch intruments and move my character around at the same time. I fight
in
> first person view (I know I would have a better view in 3rd person, but it
> takes away from the "immersive" experience for me...) and I have a hard
time
> "keeping up" with the battle when I can not have one hand on my movement
> keys.
I also fight in the first person view, as I agree with you about the
immersiveness of it; although I do use the full screen view more than the
one with all the menu options. A question, though: Are you using your hotkey
banks to switch instruments and weave songs? I find, during battle, that I
have no problem switching from weapons to instruments and weaving songs, AND
moving around, because of the fact I use the hotkey banks exclusively for
song weaving and weapons switching (which, btw... i learned how to do by
reading this list - thanks guys!). You can hotkey your melee and inventory
slots not just your songs/spells. I like the hotkeys so much so, that I have
many things hotkeyed that most people don't (all 6 of my hotkey banks are
full and I am continually rearranging depending on who is in my party, what
we're fighting AND what tactics we're using).
> Reason #2: Have been fighting with an enchanter in many groups lately,
and
> the "wince" wakes up their mez's. Where I would like to be softening up
the
> 2nd or 3rd mob, I even have to remove Denon's from my repotoire when using
> weapons too. As a side note, anyone ever tell you your mana song seems
> slow? Call it too much of a good thing on a regular basis. : )
My husband is an enchanter, and quite a good one. Any of the AE songs (CoD,
DDD, Largo's, Lullaby, etc) will disturb the enchanter's mezzing, making it
hard for him to do his job during battle, which at this point is mostly
crowd control. We make it a point, when grouping, to tell people to assist
the person pulling the creatures back to where we are fighting, so he can
mez the rest, and we can dispatch them one by one. This is a much easier
tactic than trying to fight a mob or control it with my AE crowd control
songs (as they are not always effective - i.e. lullaby resists).
> No matter what you typically use, I would recommend training up all your
> weapon skills. There's some very nice Bard only weapons at the top that
> won't work so well with 1 in 1H slash. : ) I put a 1H Slash in my
primary
> hand and a 1H blunt in my secondary, and alternate in a piercing weapon
just
> to get the skills maxed every level.
It's ALWAYS good to have several weapons skills trained. More is better --
you never know what weapons we'll be getting in the future, and I, for one,
want to be ready to wield anything. It really doesn't take that long to
train the skills up either, especially after you get dual wield. When I'm in
a group with a good tank (or two), I put the weapon with the skill I'm
trying to train up in the primary hand. In my secondary hand I put the one
in which the skill is maxed. If there's no tank or I'm needed to be one of
the tanks moreso, I switch it around so I'm hitting with the weapon with
which I've got the most skill. The secondary weapon skill still gets
trained, altbeit a little slower, but it does eventually raise.