> I'm a fairly young Bard, and "discovered" twisting on my own
> just fooling around with my early spells. It's useful, but as
> one of the "dextrously challenged" I'm also a bit disappointed
> since it seems to violate the EQ designer's statement that "This
> isn't a twitch game". Esp, if what I'm hearing about twisting
> being both needed at higher levels, and impacted by connect speed,
> graphics, etc...

Part of the many reasons why my Bard sits in storage. My wrists are
physically tired after about an hour of twisting songs. It's tedious, it's
annoying, and what we get for twisting isn't worth it. There's only two
things bards do well, run fast and regen mana for the party. Everything else
some other class does better and easier and with fewer deaths associated
with it.

EQ is the fourth gaming system (paper & pencil and computer) to make bards
so close to being fun but then ruining it by making the player (the person
playing the character) do extra work for few extra benefits. I don't think
it's fixable.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy my bard. I enjoy her because she can run fast...
grouping (or trying to find a group since there are few high level tanks on
The Rathe who will group outside of their guilds) is a grand disappointment.
We do not add much to a party (less downtime, who cares though since you'll
be waiting on caster mana).

I've spent countless hours trying to be a better bard. I know much about the
class. How things work and don't work. Yet I hop behind any other class and
I'm suddenly a 10 times more effective character without even being sure
what my spells or skills really do. It's sad... depressing because I wanted
my bard to be so good.