Actually I start Chaining at the beginning of fights too since it also slows
attacks by 30% or so ;-) I also sing Warsong if I'm pretending to be a
tank even when Alacrity'd for the extra strength. I have seen a lot of the
other behaviors you are describing though when playing my non-bard
characters with other bards.
Kit
-----Original Message-----
From: Amy Pratt [mailto:
pratts001@...]
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 1:25 PM
To:
eqbards@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [eqbards] Soloing bards
Since I'm not the soloing type with any of my characters, I had no idea so
many bards soloed into the 40s or higher. I knew that druids and necros
often did it, obviously.
This certainly explains a lot, though. Sooner or later, most of those
soloers get a taste for toys that lures them into dungeons, where they
proceed to be completely useless members of a group, wasting a slot and
often getting the group killed through sheer lack of ability to play their
class in a group setting.
Having grown up as a bard, I didn't get to see these bards in action. I
mean, how often do you see two bards in a dungeon group? However, now that
I'm playing an enchanter, I get to see lots of bards. And what I see often
disturbs me. They sing haste, even though it doesn't stack with my haste.
They sing dots in an attempt to do as much damage as possible (soloing
attitude, I'm guessing). They start chaining the mob at the beginning of
the combat. They practice instill doubt during combat. They pull out
instruments at innapropriate times. They cry like children when you ask
them to play mana. Ask them to keep 2 targets mezzed and they look at you
funny. In short, the bards I'm grouping with seem so clueless about their
class that they're actually detrimental to the group.
Are these the bards who grew up kiting, charm-kiting or duoing? When I
played a bard, I saw how a bard who wasn't interested in outdamaging the
warriors could uplift a group and make them able to do great things. The
bards I group with now can't even understand why aggroing a mob is a bad
thing, and don't put those actions together with the cleric shouting OOM and
the resulting evac/run for the zone/death.
It's kind of a sad thing to see, really. And I'm sure I'm harder on the
bard class than on others I see not being played very well, because I grew
up as one. But it really is painful and disheartening that when I see two
or three people shouting for a group, and one of them is a bard... Out of
hard-learned experience, I'll take one of the other two people over the
bard. If I know the bard, and know that s/he is a good one, I'll add him or
her to the group. But if all 3 are strangers, the bard almost never wins.
Sucks if I pass up a great bard who would have made the night fly by with
tons of xp and fun, but the odds are against it. Chances are the bard is
one of the above examples instead, and won't be very helpful in the group.
Kaelrei - retired 50 bard (Sacred Fyre - Fennin Ro)
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