On Thu, Sep 09/99, firehawk@... wrote:

> From: firehawk@...
>
> What I don't understand is WHY if we can duel we can't be as effective
> against mobs? It's something that's been bugging me lately if we can't
> fight as well as a fighter.. and can't use our more powerful atk songs
> for fear of being overrun isn't there a problem. I'm not saying we
> aren't useful I know we are I've kept more powerful groups alive in
> hostile areas for months.. but is it just me or are we being TOOO
> limited in our role options? Can some of you higher ups explain?

It seems mobs go up in level a lot faster than PC characters, to the
point where fighting blue mobs in the late 40's requires 2 to 4 people
in a group at the best of times. (except things like spectres) A bard
can chain and fear a Solusek Kobold if all goes well, but that's really
a special case, and if it breaks chains and brings back a friend, you're
zoning.

Also, at least in my experience, at higher levels our songs aren't
really that effective in PvP either. The same duel that started this
discussion at L45 would likely see the cleric resisting both chain and
fear often enough to cause the bard extreme problems, especially if the
cleric was a smart PvP player. Clerics, played well, are extremely
deadly at PvP, as their flash of light spell is very fast to cast and
seems to be very difficult to resist. I had an unbuffed resist of 65
magic resist and he blinded me multiple times. A friend of mine at L35
beat a L40 warrior in a duel by blinding him, rooting him then blasting
him. He had to run and hide to med to get enough mana to finish the
warrior off but was able to do that because the warrior was blinded and
couldn;t see where he went.

I tried a bunch of tactics at L48 against a friend of mine who was then
a L45 warrior in the freeport arena and I found that he resisted way too
much for me to have a lot of confidence in winning if we were seriously
dueling. And this was _before_ the recent changes that increased
warrior's magic resist. He even removed the resist+ items he was wearing
to see if that helped. I had a charisma of 113 at the time so I don't
think you can make our songs much more effective than they were for me
then. Using a horn for fear increased it's effectiveness, but the worst
was the unreliability of chain. (plus the fact that sitting and/or
jboots break it instantly)

One tactic I had hoped would be effective was using lullaby with CoD and
the L48 song, but lullaby has no discernable effect on PC chars at all.
This combo doesn't even seem to work all that well on mobs, which is
really too bad as nodding them off while your dots kill them would be a
nasty way to do them in.

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