Here is a blank sheet of "paper". Fill in what *you* think the bard should
be:
Bard
----
Primary: Down-time reduction & over-land travel
Secondary: Melee + group buffing
Tertiary: nearly everything else.
Down-time reduction:
No one, and I mean no one, is better at down time reduction then we are. Ask
any player in, on any server, what they hate the most about the game and I
would bet a FBSS and a pair of yaks that downtime would be at the top of the
list.
Over-land Travel:
At lower levels group gating every where is just not an option. We get fast
travel before any other class in the game. And at upper levels we can out
run anything in the game. Add to this that in the expansion there will be
zones twice as large as West Karana and that there is only going to be one
GG point and 2 boat docks on the new continent and this does becomes a
valuable addition.
Melee:
We melee better then caster/priest class, but not as well as the other melee
classes. Our melee damage output is not trivial, do we pump out the pain
like a monk? No, not with weapons at least :)
Group Buffing:
As feeble as our group buffs may seem when compared to the finger-wigglers
there is something important to remember. VI has thoughtfully added, and
keeps adding, mobs that like to AE dispel. Guess which group is going to do
better in a case like this?
Nearly everything else:
We can do nearly everything else any other class can do, with the exception
of Group Gating and Resurrection. The ability to dynamically change buffs
in a few secs is an amazing ability, not to be taken lightly.
Overall:
I have said this numerous times, so I will say it again :) The Bard class
is unique in the fact that we amplify the power of the party. The large the
party the more powerful the bard becomes. No other class and ramp up as
easily like this. We can take ANY broken group and make it work. We can
take a well-balanced group and turn it into a nearly unstoppable death
machine. Playing a Bard is a lot of work, but well worth it IMO.
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Ro-kenn Swiftsong - Karana server
EQ Bard Song Analysis
http://rgonzalez.net/EQSongs/