On Thu, 13 May 1999, Snicker wrote:
>
> My best luck was with Anthem and the Bellow. Depending on my timing, I
> could sometimes get the Bellow to go off twice before losing Anthem - but I
> could always get it once, then switch back to Anthem.
I think it depends on your connection latency (the upper-left
number on the lag meter is your ping time in ms). I usually
get 115-130ms over a cable modem, and am just shy of being
able to keep 4 songs going (4th song effect expires an instant
before it comes back). Usually I keep three running. A
friend playing over a modem can, like you,k do two reliably,
but not three.
I usually go with restoration, the anthem, and bellow, to
minimize downtime between fights. If I'm soloing, I'll
substitute the whistling warsong for the anthem since it also
boosts your AC. I only get 33% of the bellows, but you get
the other two effects 100% of the time.
Btw, despite my good connection, I don't particularly like
that an external factor like connection speed could have this
sort of impact on the game.
> The increased speed
> DOES mean a lot, btw - much more than the increased str.
Has anybody figured out exactly what it is increased str does?
And as I said yesterday, the speed boost for both the anthem
and the whistling warsong do not stack, so there's less of a
reason to use both together. (Would be interested if others
find differently)
> And the extra 7
> adds up (although I counted and averaged, and not including resists,
> against blues, I was averaging 4-5 for a total of about 40 extra damage any
> combat).
I've found the bellow is rarely resisted. So when a monster
starts to flee, I will usually drop the other songs and use
bellow repeatedly to kill it quick before it wanders into
dangerous territory or brings back friends. This should
become moot though when I get the root song (level
twenty-something), or if a spellcaster in the party can root.
I guess that's why I really like playing the bard. Every
level, you have to reassess your capabilities, reprioritize
which songs to play, and modify your fighting strategies.
With the fighting classes, you only do this every time you get
a new skill. With spellcasting classes, you only get new
spells every 4 or 5 levels. (Lullaby, L15, is awesome by the
way. I've already saved three groups that were being
overwhelmed by multiple monsters. Just fire up the song and
put the ones they aren't fighting to sleep.)
--
John H. Kim
kim@...