I´┐¢m now 27, and I´┐¢m currently reevaluating my group strategy. I thought I´┐¢d post my thoughts for group discussion. Please disagree with me here though; I like being shown that I´┐¢m wrong as long as it makes me better.

As always, when I get into a group, I found out what classes are there, and look for holes and how I can hep. First, I need to determine what the group needs, and fill their holes. But here are common songs I sing, and when I play them:

Healing and Anthem
These are the two staples. It´┐¢s hard to go wrong playing these songs. I may drop healing, if there are a couple of clerics in the party, or anthem if we´┐¢ve got an enchanter doing attack speedups. But making the cleric´┐¢s life easy is a good thing, and letting an enchanter do crowd control instead of buffing is a good thing too (except that the enchanter speedup is better than anthem it appears). Also, in a pure caster party, attack speedups are meaningless.

Chaining Mode

Normally, I like chaining the most, since it both does an attack speed slowdown, as well as a movement reduction. That´┐¢s a very nice combo. ´┐¢30% attack speed means we´┐¢re coming out of the battle with 30% more health. Plus, there´┐¢s still another song or two I can twist in.

However, chains will not always work, especially on yellows. I´┐¢ve been fighting in places where it´┐¢s critical to control runners. If chains fails a couple of times, the runner can get away. Therefore, I only do this on blues. Whites and yellows just have too many resists. When the mob starts getting close to running, I start twisting 2 songs, instead of 3. Thus, if I get a resist on chains, I have one more shot before the old chains wears off. If we are fighting yellows, if anyone else can put up a longer term snare or root spell that will last, that´┐¢s a better idea. No attack speed reduction, but that´┐¢s nothing compared to letting a runner get away.

So, what song do I twist in? Normally healing (especially if no cleric), anthem (unless an enchanter´┐¢s doing speed buffs), or Psalm of Warmth for the damage shield. Sometimes I´┐¢ll do Chant of Battle, but it´┐¢s being shown that stats don´┐¢t really help too much.

Caster Pulls:
If there´┐¢s an incoming caster, I´┐¢ll swap to drum and bring up elemental and guardian to get up a nice magic shield (plus one more if I can twist 3), until the caster´┐¢s dead. One problem I have though, is that usually, the caster has already dumped a fair amount of damage on the puller, thus I sometimes wonder about this strategy.

Another caster strategy, that I haven´┐¢t tried out yet is a constant stream of bellows, to interrupt the caster. Any thoughts here?

Multiple mob pulls
If we have an enchanter, then it´┐¢s no problem; they handle crowd control. I can assist in a very large pull, and/or pull the mob off the enchanter with charm. It is a pure joy to be in a group with a good enchanter.

2 mob pull
I haven´┐¢t tried it yet, but ideally, I´┐¢d like to hotkey an ´┐¢/assist tankperson´┐¢ and ´┐¢/pet attack´┐¢. So, I can rapid fire charm, assist the tank (go back into combat), then have the pet attack, then go back to weaving a song or two until the song wears off.

3 mob pull
Fighters take on mob 1. Others go after me (classic bard taunt effect). I pull back (with 2 on me), hit the escape key (to target the next mob that hits me), hit charm. Take a hit (thus aggroing my charmed mob) and then pull back to avoid the hits. Then I twist another song or two, until charm wears off, etc. Ideally, I tie up two mobs.

4 mob pull
Run if I´┐¢m smart (unless they´┐¢re easy ;). If not, resort to 3 mob pull strategy (since I probably don´┐¢t have sleep hotkeyed).

A question about a specific case: What do I do here?
I´┐¢m starting to group with people, and in this party is a tank or two, an enchanter, a cleric, and a necro. We´┐¢re fighting yellows. The necro snares. The cleric heals. The enchanter does crowd control and speed buffs. I swear I feel almost useless ;) In this case, I play healing, Psalm of Warmth (damage shield), and chant of battle (buffs). We may also have me play anthem to give the enchanter a mana break though.

What about Sleeping?
I know it´┐¢s a great strategy to sleep a whole crowd if there´┐¢s a dedicated cleric in the party. However, at my level, I´┐¢ve found that it doesn´┐¢t really work too well. It seems that I take a lot of hits, when tanks can better absorb the damage. Thus, when combat´┐¢s over, the cleric´┐¢s out of mana. If I fought using the other methods, the cleric seems to be in much better mana shape, and we´┐¢re ready to go to combat sooner.

- Reed Stormwind (E'ci)