Dual Wield: I use a Barbed Leather Whip(P) and Well-Balanced Rapier(S)
myself. Works well.
Song Efficiency: My personal view, of course. Mileage may vary.
It's basically a 'depends' situation. Mostly depends on the group makeup
and what you're fighting.
At level 23 I thought that it would be most efficient for me to
stack(twist/weave/whatever) Anthem, Binding, and Chain whenever we fought
one, maybe two, mobs. I wasn't Bellowing for damage but the Binding and
Chain would slow their attack rate down quite a bit and the party would take
less damage.
Two things were wrong about this strategy. First was that the group had two
tanks and my songs pulled the mob to me. I consider myself as a decent tank
so this did not concern me much. Second was that after a fair punishment I
found that I built up so much agro that it was locked on me and I almost
died from it.
Now I play Anthem, Chain, and another song.
I often do not start out a battle playing Hymn. I go with some other song,
possibly Bellow, until someone drops between 1 and 2 bars of health. When
someone's health goes critical and the healer(if we have one) can't keep up
then I lay down every 'piss em off' song I got to pull them to me, ending
with Lullaby so that we can get reorganized a bit. If someone is using a big
weapon I mix in a little bit of the Jig every now and then to keep stamina
decent.
Other than that it's basically watching the health bars, the targets,
anything that might be incoming, and the song effect messages so I know when
to hit the next key. Sure it can get rather boring but I can tell you that
it is nowhere near as boring as kiting is. Imagine running around from
anywhere between 5 to 20 minutes with a mob on your tail, not being able to
talk to anyone or risk a fair amount to type in tells, just pounding the
Bellow and Accelerando hot keys.
If you're fighting multiples and have good clearance then area effect songs
like Discord or Lullably can be more effective than Bellow.
Grouped with mana using members might make Clarity worth it(when you're up
that high of course) especially in longer fights.
Don't recall where the resistance issue lies but if they work then playing
the rythms against mages could be helpful although attacking, Bellow, and
Discord seems to be pretty good at interruptions.
When fighting underwater I'd say that Ayre would be efficient. =)
Good Journey,
Sineras Silverlyre (Cazic-Thule)
8)-----Original Message-----
8)From: Dudley Stewart [mailto:
dud@...]
8)Sent: Sunday, June 13, 1999 3:35 AM
8)To: '
eqbards@onelist.com'
8)Subject: [eqbards] Quick question re: choices of primary & secondary
8)weapons
8)
8)
8)From: Dudley Stewart <
dud@...>
8)
8)So if I'm using a Combine LS and one of those FUNKY Dvinn's
8)daggers, I'm
8)better off sticking the dagger in my secondary? As it stands
8)I'm doing the
8)opposite, cuz I figure since I have a veryfast weapon to play
8)with I'd best
8)give it all the chances I can to do as much dmg as possible
8)by using it in
8)my primary. I might've just confused the issue ;) What I'd
8)love is to stick
8)another Dvinn's dagger in my secondary hand... *sigh*
8)
8)Just had rather a dull session in Mistmoore. The leader of
8)the group I
8)joined commanded me to "do just heal and combat song"...
8)which is what I
8)did, along with a bellows every few secs. Kinda boring, but
8)effective. It
8)led me to thinking: the most efficient way of fighting is to
8)whackum the
8)mob as fast as possible. Less damage done to the group, less
8)chances of
8)things going wrong... so if one were to stick to the most boring,
8)statistically correct methods, most of the bard songs would be pretty
8)unused apart from in rare situations. Am I wrong here? Don't
8)mistake me
8)however - although I behaved according to the leader's
8)desires (didn't have
8)the energy to lead them through the "look at what I can do!"
8)routine) - I'm
8)much more fond of doing a wider variety of songs, twisting different
8)melodies that enhance and obstruct... far more elegant and
8)poetic, I think,
8)not to mention entertaining. Felt like an office drone
8)hitting my hotkeys
8)at the right time without having to think about what I was doing.
8)
8)But do folks agree that it'd technically (using Vulcan logic
8)here) be best
8)simply to do Anthem with 2 bellows, repeat? This is for me at
8)lvl 20 btw.
8)Wouldn't even heal, leave that for after the battle. The aim
8)is to zap the
8)critter as fast as possible from what I've seen. And remember
8)- this is
8)hypothetical. Why I'll never deny that sometimes there's a need and a
8)desire to be all efficient about this game, most of the time
8)I'd rather
8)have fun even if it involves more risk.
8)
8)Dud
8)