My apologies for dropping any threads and not staying current. Our SDSL ISP
dumped us a couple weeks ago with no warning; getting email in and out has
been problematical. They went under and didn't notify the customers prior to
service termination.

Sharkskin drum: This was actually patched some time ago, I forgot about it
til I got ingame after our drum discussion and realized it has a drum/stick
graphic now. It's no longer a lute graphic.

Mediocre players: Playing my baby cleric (L9) last night and get asked to
heal a bard twink. When I stand up, I see he's singing Hymn. Where's your
lute, boy? Yep, this guy will be a good bard, you can just tell . . .
Another bard twink I saw the other day was clearly singing Selos and running
a distance that made me really wonder why he didn't equip a drum. I would
have in the same circumstances. Maybe I'm just a speed freak though. I
think I'll learn to be a good cleric though, after all, I sit right beside a
master, hehe. I can count on him providing feedback!

The FAQ: Talies, in reference to the last question, don't have a 49th song
now? Melody of Ervaj from Velious is listed as being 49th level. And
speaking of the issues of bad bards, wonder if we could get that fabulous
FAQ posted on the Concert Hall. It might possibly help the new crop of
bardlings.

Weapons bards: I'm primarily a weapons bard. I go to instruments primarily
on big raids. Typically, my normal experience group is tank light, so I tank
and sing. We almost never have a warrior or paladin in the group unless it's
a raid. Our clerics use Divine light much more than CH I've noticed. He used
CH when he got is but now DL seems to be much preferred. I've noticed
similar leveled clerics seem to prefer it as well. I was instrument barding
the other weekend in HS front room since we had a pally to tank, but the
cleric decided it was taking the pally too long to kill stuff! "Get your
swords and get in there, bard!" We ended up holding the front room with me,
a robo'ed mage, and enc and a cleric. I was using Twilight on the mobs
right after the enc finished his spells on the pulls, (slow, etc) and he
observed things were less likely to try and eat him first when we got the
timing right. Anyone else have this experience?

CC: I've done quite a bit of CC in the front room of HS. I don't know of any
zone out there, was told there was none. Also, I had 3 mobs mezzed and one
charmed while doing the cleric epic quest segment that takes place inside
the Sol temple. You have to kill a plasmatic priest that is pretending to be
a keeper. The trouble is when he goes agro, he tends to aggro some of the
normal temple residents and they will KS him, making your cleric redo some
of his quest. We had done this previously with no problem but the second
time 4 npcs dove into the fight and I CC'ed them to prevent us taking the
faction hits as well as protect our interest in the priest.

Brilinnia Ban'Sidhe (hoping the new exp changes will ease 54)
Excalibur, Xegony