Hi everyone! :)

Well to start off, I have a level 33 Ranger, so I am not really a newbie player. But, I am very much a newbie bard, and feel more and more clueless everyday. :P I'm the type of player who likes to analyze what went wrong after a death or bad fight, and try to determine how to prevent it in the future. A death is not so bad if you've learned something from it. So, tonight I had a pretty horrible night with my level 15 bard, and I was hoping y'all could help me figure out what went wrong.

DEATH #1: First off, we were in Unrest fighting trash. I was grouped with a level 18 druid (I'm level 15) - and we both played our rangers together, so we work together well. We ended up fighting a tormented dead, and a beetle joined in, so I fired up lullaby (I hadn't used it in battle yet, so I was probably too anxious). Soon I had like 5 or 6 things on me - some nodding, some beating me up. Eventually I decided to run, but alas, it was too late.

WHAT I LEARNED: The radius on lullaby is pretty wide... perhaps as wide or wider than Chords of Dissonance. So I think two important things I figured out here are: a) Make sure there aren't any other mobs around when you play it because you'll pull them in, and b) don't play it just any ol time you have a pull or 2 or more. I'm still not totally sure WHEN to play it though - it seems like a spell that is very dangerous to bards and should only be played when absolutely necessary.

DEATH #2: Now we hooked up with a ranger to be our tank (level 16 I think). Our druid pulls a single ghoul from the house (nice pull!) but unfortunately some yard trash joins in once he reaches our spot. We've got about three beetles (green to me) a tormented dead (blue) and a ghoul (yellow) now, so I decide to play lullaby on my mandollin. So the druid was smart enough to know not to cast area spells (which, if he had, would have pretty much killed me instantly), and he really burned mana on the ghoul so it stayed on him and off me. Seemed like a good idea to me. So by the time we kill the ghoul, I was down to about half health, even though lullaby was working great. So everyone gets on the tormented dead, thus waking it up, and it remembers that it REALLY doesn't like me. Now I'm at half health and tanking a tormented dead full-time since he won't sleep. Our druid heals me a few times but he is very soon OOM due to burning the ghoul. The ranger healed me once or twice... and soon the tormented dead was done, and we're left with three beetles. But I'm down to like a bubble or less of life. So, for several seconds I try to back away and play lullaby, hoping to give myself a little time. Not sure why (maybe we were attacking different things) but it really wasn't working. Then I decide to stop lullaby and and stop attacking and play heal and back up, hoping the ranger and druid can taunt them off. Of course, the beetles not only totally hated me for putting them to sleep, but they also were getting worked up cuz they smelled a kill. And they got it, I was killed by a green beetle. :(

WHAT I LEARNED: Hmmm... I'm not sure. I guess the idea situation would have been to have the ghoul hitting on the ranger, and the druid healing me while I slept the other mobs. The only problem with that would be that this means the ranger is basically soloing the ghoul... but I think if we had a full group or another healer that wouldn't be a big deal. I guess we should have ran? So I think, in order for a bard to do that kind of crowd control, you need the bard to play lullaby and get healed by the healer (who can of course cast or heal others or fight between heals).

DEATH #3: So I go back to get my corpse, and as I'm looting some guy trains like four yard trash onto us, which, for whatever reason, all frenzy on me and kill me almost instantly. I still had almost a full bar of health when I was looking down at my corpse.

WHAT I LEARNED: Man, life sucks!

Daleia
Bard of the 15th Song, Bristlebane