Healer / Caster Bard Build Request.

[Phyre]

hello all...

id rellay like a good bard healer build. i mean caster build enhancements can turn it from offensive caster to healer, the feats are gonna be the same i think...

extend, empower healing...

obviously 20 charisma to start, so drow...

any good advice here?

[Tuffmann]

maximise for your mass heals and quicken (saves you sp and hit realy hard)

realy the only way to keep up with clerics

with emphealing, max, and quicken my bard has soloed healed the shroud many times.

also want to get mentaltuffness and going human for xtra the xtra feat is realy nice aswell. you only lose out one 1 chr vs drow and get more hp and able to get realy nice haggle with human versatility.

[Bilger]

maximise for your mass heals and quicken (saves you sp and hit realy hard)

realy the only way to keep up with clerics

with emphealing, max, and quicken my bard has soloed healed the shroud many times.

also want to get mentaltuffness and going human for xtra the xtra feat is realy nice aswell. you only lose out one 1 chr vs drow and get more hp and able to get realy nice haggle with human versatility.

For healing yes those are good and can do what he says. For cc/heal no.
Extend, focus enchant and greater focus, maximize or empower healing your choice, Heighten, MT, and spell pen.
Reasons for me atleast.

Extend at this point is needed but at 20 prob not can switch for quicken then if want to.

Focuses- For cc will almost be a must if want to have any hope of cc at end game. Alot will tell CC for bards is dead it is not just have to focus and get your dc as high as can with exceptional item and capstone. End game will be tough especially in new mod for all caster types so bump that dc as high as can if expect to CC at end game. My CC/Heal bard will have 42 charisma and 38 dc at end game and should do just fine.

Maximize or empower I use maximize personally some consider waist but my bard has plenty of sp and does perfectly fine and can be main healer or second healer in shroud just fine. Empower is just a lil less expensive on mana and will do job to.

Heighten is a MUST if CC specced bump those dc's as I stated before.

Mental toughness a must for spellsinger which is what you will want to be if CC and heal bard. Plus extra SP on a bard is always helpful.

Spell pen +2 to spell pen is not a must just won't break through there Spell penetration as much could take quicken instead but recommend a high spell pen especially from reports back from lamania are true. Even in vale and and sub if not high spell pen ya hurting.

Stats if want to do nothing else but this max char, atleats 14 con and dump into int then other stats. Just my OP.

Now these are my OP and what I did with MY cc/heal and he hardly misses anything atm and yes did include the lvl 18 feat witch is spell pen that will be taking on mine.
Again this just my opinion if want to be good at both.
If just want healing then go with other suggestion.

[Noctus]

If you only weant to be a pure Healbot, go for a Halfling and full Dragonmarks. Way more usefull for that role than +1DC from Drow.


If you really want to be more than a Healbot, listen to Bilger´s advice.

[maddmatt70]

If you only weant to be a pure Healbot, go for a Halfling and full Dragonmarks. Way more usefull for that role than +1DC from Drow.


If you really want to be more than a Healbot, listen to Bilger´s advice.

A drow makes a fine healer/cc bard as well. The dragonmarks are nice but the feats will be tighter especially if the OP wants to do caster oriented bard things as well.

A set of Bard feats for a drow bard (note could go with spell focus and greater spell focus enchantment as well instead of a couple of feats listed).
Extend
Spell Pen
Quicken
Greater Spell Pen
Empower Healing
Heighten
Mental Toughness

If the Op wants to go with halfling dragonmark the OP has to remove 3 of those feats in order to fit in the 3 dragonmark feats. The end result is the OP's ability to cc will be weaker. I have a drow healing bard and believe me I do not miss or need the halfling dragonmarks..

[Noctus]

If the Op wants to go with halfling dragonmark the OP has to remove 3 of those feats in order to fit in the 3 dragonmark feats. The end result is the OP's ability to cc will be weaker. I have a drow healing bard and believe me I do not miss or need the halfling dragonmarks..

Correct.
Thats why i wrote "pure healbot".

[winsom]

Just keep in mind that a starting 18 to 20 Charisma does NOT make you a better healer than a bard with a lower score. Feats, items and enhancements will make the differences, along with a very attentive and quick-reactions play-style. I think my drow bard rogue started with CHA 17 and ended up with 32 (could be 34 if I wanted). Cure Critical empowered healing works very well. I am considering changing it to Maximized Cures if I get the Glacial Assault gloves from VoD raid. Cure Crit should be around 120 then (like a Heal scroll). With Empower Healing I do around 85 (this is with only 12 bard levels). I could get more with a +50% devotion item rather than my belt with Spell Penetration +2 and +30% devotion.

In regards to spell-resistance penetration. If you take a couple of enhancements and a single feat, along with single-class bard levels, then you will be fine. Not as optimal as a wizard that might have both spell pen feats, but good enough for most Normal adventures. My multiclassed bard suffers from being down in caster levels compared to a pure bard, but I still try Ottos Dance at times. If I get one out of 4 of the green devils its still better than not trying, especially if noone else is trying to CC them. Cast Displacement on the people taking damage from the devils. That's the best "control" of the incoming damage.

[Anthios888]

It seems like for the goals you're going for on this bard, you would be better off going human. Both healing and crowd control are feat intensive, and the extra feat will help everything fit in much easier. Crowd control draws aggro, and healers need to be sturdy, so the con hit on a drow is just not worth it in my opinion, especially now that racial toughness boosts humans even further. The human versatility helps a character grow up, the skill boost helps haggle and umd, and the healing amplification will help your own incoming heals. A human will reach 40 cha at cap, which is not exactly a hardship on the DC side of things. There is no good reason to go drow on this build unless you do not have 32 point builds unlocked.

For feats I would recommend toughness, maximize, extend, quicken, and probably some spell penetration if you can squeeze them in. Maximize gives you much more oomph than empower healing, helping make up your edge with clerics. With even a moderate starting str (12-15) and just improved critical: piercing, you can help out a lot with party support via debuffing and stat damage in the situations where your other specialties are not what is called for. Don't forget the full inspired damage line, and you will be a loved bard :)

[maddmatt70]

It seems like for the goals you're going for on this bard, you would be better off going human. Both healing and crowd control are feat intensive, and the extra feat will help everything fit in much easier. Crowd control draws aggro, and healers need to be sturdy, so the con hit on a drow is just not worth it in my opinion, especially now that racial toughness boosts humans even further. The human versatility helps a character grow up, the skill boost helps haggle and umd, and the healing amplification will help your own incoming heals. A human will reach 40 cha at cap, which is not exactly a hardship on the DC side of things. There is no good reason to go drow on this build unless you do not have 32 point builds unlocked.

I disagree with you anthios. I do not think healing/cc bards are really particular feat intensive. Melee warchanters are far worse off. 40 cha is a presumption on your part. There will be more items which raise cha almost certainly. I would go drow for cc or halfling for healing.



For feats I would recommend toughness, maximize, extend, quicken, and probably some spell penetration if you can squeeze them in. Maximize gives you much more oomph than empower healing, helping make up your edge with clerics.


This is definitely more of a question of healing style. If the OP can do the healing job with empower healing the OP should go with that over maximize its far more efficient spell points wise. I would definitely not recommend toughness for a healing/cc bard. A healing/cc bard can actually get away with the lowest hit points in ddo because they almost never get aggro and can self heal. For starting stats I would recommend a 14 con though, but toughness is not neccessary. empower healing, extend, quicken, are essential for healing. The other feats are up to the OP's CC preference unless they go halfling then consider some halfing dragonmark feats for the healing.



With even a moderate starting str (12-15) and just improved critical: piercing, you can help out a lot with party support via debuffing and stat damage in the situations where your other specialties are not what is called for. Don't forget the full inspired damage line, and you will be a loved bard :)

Agreed with the full damage line, but I would not get improved critical piercing. You like to melee Anthios. I have a guildy when she plays her cleric she likes to kill side mobs all the time. There is no need to melee to be effective as a bard and in fact if the person is a healing oriented bard I would recommend they not melee because it usually means they will be less effective in one way or another at healing.. I would recommend having a 10 str though in case warchanter 2 and 3 are just the bomb and the OP ever wants to swap to warchanter.

[Junts]

Matt: You really have a one-track mind. Why make characters that excel at one thing instead of .. you know, several? Continue reading.

For the OP:

This is my bard's build; he does everything you have asked for and everything Anthios laid out. I made him when I was relatively new and would change only minor things about him now (2 less int for another str point probably, and make him neutral instead of good)

This bard has the best available CC, full spell penetration, is capable of healing raidds (he has served in primarily healing role in every endgame raid), and is also capable of vorpal, stat damage and moderate (he does roughly half the dps of a serious dps twf toon, but that's still useful compared to zero dps whatsoever) with the hp to back it up. It also incidently gives you the benefits of a haggle bard, though it doesn't carry feats and has no ap for that, it's capable of otherwise max haggle (eg, mid60s tops)

I will probably cross-post this build into it's own thread as I've been putting that off for a while.


Falstian Whalan, human bard 16 (chaotic good, would change to a neutral alignment)

strength: 15 + 3 tome + 6 item + 2 rage = 26
dexterity: 8 + 2 tome + 6 item = 10 or 16 depending on eq
constitution: 14 + 3 tome + 1 enhancement + 6 item + 2 rage + 2 shroud (situationally) = 28
intelligence: 10 + 3 tome (only need +2, but I pulled a 3 from a 20th)
wisdom: 8 + 2 tome + 6 item = 16
charisma: 18 + 4 levels + 2 tome + 3 shroud(situationally) + 6 item + 3 enhancements = 36 (38 with a +3 tome)
(again, I'd go to 8 int and 16 str in retrospect)

Hit points: 393 w/ rage and min2 rapier and minos legens
spell points: 1215 with the ring of thelis

(eq follows feats)

Feats:

1: extend spell
1h: spell penetration
3: quicken spell
6: heighten spell
9: greater spell penetration
12: improved critical: piercing
15: maximize spell

Presently using minos legens for toughness: will be dropping GSP for toughness, and taking GAP again as levle 18 feat when the cap rises.

Enhancements are spellsinger requirements + spellsinger, full inspired damage, 1 rank inspired attack, full healing/sonic, human improved recovery 1, 2 ranks of wand and scroll, and spell penetration enhancements (2 of them), plus stat enhamcements and of course all 3 human racial toughnesses .. that's pretty much all your action points, they're very tight on this kind of build.

Equipment:

Eyes: mineral2 shroud: 45 hit points, 6 constitution skills, heavy fortification
head: beacon of kira or minos legens (more often beacon these days, was minos a lot before my +3 tome and min2)
neck: torq of prince raiyum de II / silver flame / stormreaver's ammy situationally useful for static lightning res
cloak: bard's cloak (w/ other rings) or stormreaver's napkin (w/ 6 cha ring)
belt: belt of brute strength
hands: Gloves of the Glacier (cheaper healing) or Seven-Fingered Gloves)
feet: shroud existential stalemate/concordant opposition (may recraft this to bracers): 5 cha skills, 150 spell points, disease/blindness
wrists: Levik's bracers (healing amp), Bracers of the Glacier
Ring1: Ring of Thelis (static sp item w/ sr 22, archmagi ring would be neat however)
ring2: tumbleweed (dex), or charisma 6, or striding, or ff/jump, etc: utility slot
trinket: bloodstone / head of gf

Armor: dragontouched, resistance 5, charisma 6, destruction or radiance guard

Shield (situational): greater dev 6 light steel (still looking for mithral, use titan gloves when having 0 asf is critical)

weaponry:

shroud +3 charisma rapier (when highest dc casting is required, eg hard/elite raids)
shroud mineral2 rapier: holy, acid burst, +2 constitution (for dps mode .. since you lack power attack
(the rapier, as you lack pa and etc, actually does more dps than a greataxe due to its higher crit rate and more swings/minute, as you do not have the to-hit to properly abuse sidestepping as a non-primarily-melee bard)
vorpal longsword, banishing rapier, smiting rapier, wounding of puncturing dagger
staff of the petitioner is amazing for your smaller spell pool, as it stacks with your spellsong and gloves.


This character's umd tops out at 49 right now, perform 55, haggle 58, etc

Spells are cast at dc 31, 32 with the +3 tome, hp is adequate enough for melee and saves are also quite fine when using tumbleweed (25+ in all, not too many dbf fails on reflex)

meleeing the pitfiend in shroud hard is doable; elite is not advised.

Healing output is the same as a maximize-based cleric. If you are used to healing with max (more expensive, but much bigger, heals), you will be fine: 1215 sp goes a long way even with just spellsong, but when you stack in the vod gloves and the staff, your healing endurance is incredible (this character can easily solo-heal a shroud from the pool while gaining sp back over time). mass cures are roughly 80-110 points, cure crits 150-180 on others. However, he gets 32% healing amp, so self-heals are enormous (non-crit cure criticals of 220+) and the torq makes him a permanent sp battery that never runs out.


With the cap raise, there will be enough ap to finish maxing out the last spell pen enhancement, letting you have 40 (42, with a litany of the dead) charisma, and +32 on your spell penetration check, effective dcs of 36.

There is absolutely no reason to build your bard to shoot for a lower platform; this is not my highest priority character and getting him good at what he does did not require all that much non-shroud raidloot .. the vod gloves are probably the most important item for the healing end, and the other important raidloot items come from the reaver or titan.

[Noctus]

Junts has a solid build for a Versatility-Bard.

[maddmatt70]

Matt: You really have a one-track mind. Why make characters that excel at one thing instead of .. you know, several? Continue reading.



I honestly do not think you play with bards like I am discussing. Bards that take cleric spots in a party. That is what I am talking about. My bard hangover takes a cleric spot i.e. in a raid one less cleric and in a 6 person quest runs with 0 clerics. Hangover is not the only bard like that on my server there are several others. The advantage of that is it is more efficient for a group.

The key aspects to that build is for that to have a fair number of spell points and the key healing feats. The best synergy with that is to be a healing/cc bard.

[maddmatt70]

Matt: You really have a one-track mind. Why make characters that excel at one thing instead of .. you know, several? Continue reading.

For the OP:

This is my bard's build; he does everything you have asked for and everything Anthios laid out. I made him when I was relatively new and would change only minor things about him now (2 less int for another str point probably, and make him neutral instead of good)

This bard has the best available CC, full spell penetration, is capable of healing raidds (he has served in primarily healing role in every endgame raid), and is also capable of vorpal, stat damage and moderate (he does roughly half the dps of a serious dps twf toon, but that's still useful compared to zero dps whatsoever) with the hp to back it up. It also incidently gives you the benefits of a haggle bard, though it doesn't carry feats and has no ap for that, it's capable of otherwise max haggle (eg, mid60s tops)

I will probably cross-post this build into it's own thread as I've been putting that off for a while.


Falstian Whalan, human bard 16 (chaotic good, would change to a neutral alignment)

strength: 15 + 3 tome + 6 item + 2 rage = 26
dexterity: 8 + 2 tome + 6 item = 10 or 16 depending on eq
constitution: 14 + 3 tome + 1 enhancement + 6 item + 2 rage + 2 shroud (situationally) = 28
intelligence: 10 + 3 tome (only need +2, but I pulled a 3 from a 20th)
wisdom: 8 + 2 tome + 6 item = 16
charisma: 18 + 4 levels + 2 tome + 3 shroud(situationally) + 6 item + 3 enhancements = 36 (38 with a +3 tome)
(again, I'd go to 8 int and 16 str in retrospect)

Hit points: 393 w/ rage and min2 rapier and minos legens
spell points: 1215 with the ring of thelis

(eq follows feats)

Feats:

1: extend spell
1h: spell penetration
3: quicken spell
6: heighten spell
9: greater spell penetration
12: improved critical: piercing
15: maximize spell

Presently using minos legens for toughness: will be dropping GSP for toughness, and taking GAP again as levle 18 feat when the cap rises.

Enhancements are spellsinger requirements + spellsinger, full inspired damage, 1 rank inspired attack, full healing/sonic, human improved recovery 1, 2 ranks of wand and scroll, and spell penetration enhancements (2 of them), plus stat enhamcements and of course all 3 human racial toughnesses .. that's pretty much all your action points, they're very tight on this kind of build.

Equipment:

Eyes: mineral2 shroud: 45 hit points, 6 constitution skills, heavy fortification
head: beacon of kira or minos legens (more often beacon these days, was minos a lot before my +3 tome and min2)
neck: torq of prince raiyum de II / silver flame / stormreaver's ammy situationally useful for static lightning res
cloak: bard's cloak (w/ other rings) or stormreaver's napkin (w/ 6 cha ring)
belt: belt of brute strength
hands: Gloves of the Glacier (cheaper healing) or Seven-Fingered Gloves)
feet: shroud existential stalemate/concordant opposition (may recraft this to bracers): 5 cha skills, 150 spell points, disease/blindness
wrists: Levik's bracers (healing amp), Bracers of the Glacier
Ring1: Ring of Thelis (static sp item w/ sr 22, archmagi ring would be neat however)
ring2: tumbleweed (dex), or charisma 6, or striding, or ff/jump, etc: utility slot
trinket: bloodstone / head of gf

Armor: dragontouched, resistance 5, charisma 6, destruction or radiance guard

Shield (situational): greater dev 6 light steel (still looking for mithral, use titan gloves when having 0 asf is critical)

weaponry:

shroud +3 charisma rapier (when highest dc casting is required, eg hard/elite raids)
shroud mineral2 rapier: holy, acid burst, +2 constitution (for dps mode .. since you lack power attack
(the rapier, as you lack pa and etc, actually does more dps than a greataxe due to its higher crit rate and more swings/minute, as you do not have the to-hit to properly abuse sidestepping as a non-primarily-melee bard)
vorpal longsword, banishing rapier, smiting rapier, wounding of puncturing dagger
staff of the petitioner is amazing for your smaller spell pool, as it stacks with your spellsong and gloves.


This character's umd tops out at 49 right now, perform 55, haggle 58, etc

Spells are cast at dc 31, 32 with the +3 tome, hp is adequate enough for melee and saves are also quite fine when using tumbleweed (25+ in all, not too many dbf fails on reflex)

meleeing the pitfiend in shroud hard is doable; elite is not advised.

Healing output is the same as a maximize-based cleric. If you are used to healing with max (more expensive, but much bigger, heals), you will be fine: 1215 sp goes a long way even with just spellsong, but when you stack in the vod gloves and the staff, your healing endurance is incredible (this character can easily solo-heal a shroud from the pool while gaining sp back over time). mass cures are roughly 80-110 points, cure crits 150-180 on others. However, he gets 32% healing amp, so self-heals are enormous (non-crit cure criticals of 220+) and the torq makes him a permanent sp battery that never runs out.


With the cap raise, there will be enough ap to finish maxing out the last spell pen enhancement, letting you have 40 (42, with a litany of the dead) charisma, and +32 on your spell penetration check, effective dcs of 36.

There is absolutely no reason to build your bard to shoot for a lower platform; this is not my highest priority character and getting him good at what he does did not require all that much non-shroud raidloot .. the vod gloves are probably the most important item for the healing end, and the other important raidloot items come from the reaver or titan.

-No need to do any rapier wielding and in fact you are far less efficient at doing so then other melee because of poor dps and it takes away from your healing (irregardless w/p is nerfed next mod so irrelevant). That improved crit feat could be better used for other feats such as mental toughness or spell focus enchantment. Battle cleric, bard, arcanes are all healing less then a regular bard, arcane, cleric. Especially with quicken and maximize on and your limited spell point pool. How many healing spells are you actually casting? Your damage for this build is mimimal but your healing is not. At level 18 you are picking up toughness whereas other bards that are cc/healers will not need toughness so that is two feats you are out.

-Maximize is less efficient then empower healing and unecessary in terms of healing power for a bard.

-You have .5 less dc then a drow and do not have the halfling marks so human is less good at either cc or healing then the above two.

[Junts]

-No need to do any rapier wielding and in fact you are far less efficient at doing so then other melee because of poor dps and it takes away from your healing (irregardless w/p is nerfed next mod so irrelevant). That improved crit feat could be better used for other feats such as mental toughness or spell focus enchantment. Battle cleric, bard, arcanes are all healing less then a regular bard, arcane, cleric. Your damage for this build is mimimal but your healing is not. At level 18 you are picking up toughness whereas other bards that are cc/healers will not need toughness so that is two feats you are out.

-Maximize is less efficient then empower healing and unecessary in terms of healing power for a bard.

-You have .5 less dc then a drow and do not have the halfling marks so human is less good at either cc or healing then the above two.


Actually, vod gloves + maximize is 99% of the sp efficiency of empower healing: the empower healing feat sucks, especially without the cleric enhancements.

This character's dps output is something in the ~110 dps range, which is not a huge total by any means, but -you are not always healing-, and your ideal bard apparently sits around ************ when no healing is necessary.

There's just not that much healing that needs doing on DDO. Toughness and IC:Pierce aren;t' doing me any good if I'm solo-healing shroud 5, sure .. but when there's a 250 hp dv cleric sitting there? Yeah, he can heal, I'm going to go speed it up. +2 damage per swing for a twf toon is roughly 11-14 dps, so unless the group has 11 melees in it, my DPS output via meleeing is actually higher than it would be if I was a non-meleeing warchanter.

I need a mental toughness feat about as much as I need a third testicle, I gotta say; even maximized, mass cures cost me ~39 and 44 sp, healing from the bar is not a problem at 1215.

It baffles me that you would want people to create squishy, useless bards that stand there and throw scrolls while a cleric is healing and will die the first time they're hit with a dbf without a fireshield scroll up. The class can do so many more things, why would you want it to sit in the corner and be worthless? Does it make you feel better about your bard?

[Junts]

I honestly do not think you play with bards like I am discussing. Bards that take cleric spots in a party. That is what I am talking about. My bard hangover takes a cleric spot i.e. in a raid one less cleric and in a 6 person quest runs with 0 clerics. Hangover is not the only bard like that on my server there are several others. The advantage of that is it is more efficient for a group.

The key aspects to that build is for that to have a fair number of spell points and the key healing feats. The best synergy with that is to be a healing/cc bard.


I do this routinely; however, sometimes people -have a cleric they want to run anyway-, and, shockingly, my character can do something besides stand there with its thumb up its ass.

[maddmatt70]

I do this routinely; however, sometimes people -have a cleric they want to run anyway-, and, shockingly, my character can do something besides stand there with its thumb up its ass.

I edited my post slightly so my apologies for this. Are you saying you solo heal the shroud all the time? I have with hangover, my bard, at times but not typically.

[Junts]

I edited my post slightly so my apologies for this. Are you saying you solo heal the shroud all the time? I have with hangover, my bard, at times but not typically.


I routinely fill a cleric spot in raids or quests; I don't routinely solo-heal the shroud, because everyone I know has multiple clerics they want to run

I have solo-healed 4 and 5 before, though.

[maddmatt70]

Actually, vod gloves + maximize is 99% of the sp efficiency of empower healing: the empower healing feat sucks, especially without the cleric enhancements.

This character's dps output is something in the ~110 dps range, which is not a huge total by any means, but -you are not always healing-, and your ideal bard apparently sits around ************ when no healing is necessary.

There's just not that much healing that needs doing on DDO. Toughness and IC:Pierce aren;t' doing me any good if I'm solo-healing shroud 5, sure .. but when there's a 250 hp dv cleric sitting there? Yeah, he can heal, I'm going to go speed it up. +2 damage per swing for a twf toon is roughly 11-14 dps, so unless the group has 11 melees in it, my DPS output via meleeing is actually higher than it would be if I was a non-meleeing warchanter.

I need a mental toughness feat about as much as I need a third testicle, I gotta say; even maximized, mass cures cost me ~39 and 44 sp, healing from the bar is not a problem at 1215.

It baffles me that you would want people to create squishy, useless bards that stand there and throw scrolls while a cleric is healing and will die the first time they're hit with a dbf without a fireshield scroll up. The class can do so many more things, why would you want it to sit in the corner and be worthless? Does it make you feel better about your bard?

I actually would really advise people not to make healing bards at all. It has to do with the mass heal spell and the contintued improvement of clerical healing in general. The uncertainty of bard healing and the continued weakness of bard ccing means that I would really advise people to make pure batle bards.

If I were to make a healing bard it would be like my bard hangover just pure (I made her well before the capstone came out and she has a sorc splash). She has a a starting con of 14 as a drow, but does not even wear the toughness helm it is unecessary for her because she does not get aggro and I can umd or cast whatever damage mitigation is needed.

I buff the heck out of people on a typical quest (shroud is not typical of course) and heal and cc. That is what hangover does. It really sounds like that is what the OP wants and not what you are proposing.

The lack of a mod in 7 months has led to folks getting lazy. A big part of the reason you can get away with alot of sillyness in the shroud is it has been around for a long time. If we get mod 9 and mod 10 in the next month we will see how things go then.

[Junts]

I actually would really advise people not to make healing bards at all. It has to do with the mass heal spell and the contintued improvement of clerical healing in general. The uncertainty of bard healing and the continued weakness of bard ccing means that I would really advise people to make pure batle bards.

If I were to make a healing bard it would be like my bard hangover just pure (I made her well before the capstone came out and she has a sorc splash). She has a a starting con of 14 as a drow, but does not even wear the toughness helm it is unecessary for her because she does not get aggro and I can umd or cast whatever damage mitigation is needed.

I buff the heck out of people on a typical quest (shroud is not typical of course) and heal and cc. That is what hangover does. It really sounds like that is what the OP wants and not what you are proposing.

The lack of a mod in 7 months has led to folks getting lazy. A big part of the reason you can get away with alot of sillyness in the shroud is it has been around for a long time. If we get mod 9 and mod 10 in the next month we will see how things go then.


I hate to point this out but given my build has spellsong trance+spellsinger and yours doesn't, I'd be completely willing to wager that our SP pools and DCs are near-identical, to say nothing of the fact that all the melee stuff is just fluff.

You have to take a mental toughness and a spell focus just to get the +100 sp and +1 dcs gained for being a spellsinger; that's to say nothing of the -10% cost reduction on the healing/cc spells as well, so my healing and cc and buffing endurance is probably quite a bit higher than yours.

[maddmatt70]

I hate to point this out but given my build has spellsong trance+spellsinger and yours doesn't, I'd be completely willing to wager that our SP pools and DCs are near-identical, to say nothing of the fact that all the melee stuff is just fluff.

You have to take a mental toughness and a spell focus just to get the +100 sp and +1 dcs gained for being a spellsinger; that's to say nothing of the -10% cost reduction on the healing/cc spells as well, so my healing and cc and buffing endurance is probably quite a bit higher than yours.

My healing bard Hangover's link is below. She is a spellsinger. I would swap out Mental toughness for heighten (do not need it to qualify for spellsinger because i have the sorc splash), but I have not been playing her as much when they announced the bard capstone - that really stung.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=138806

[maddmatt70]

No clever retort Junts because I am not going to let this inferior build you put up go. It costs 25 spell points for maximize and 10 for empower healing so that is more mana spent and inefficient for maximize. Maximize is overhealing, overhealing, overhealing. A pure bard version of hangover has +1 to dc and an extra feat over your bard at level 20. That feat can be spent on spell focus enchantment or mental toughness for either another +1 to enchantment dc or more sp. What do you get from the toughness and improved crit but an ability to swing a lousy sword instead of cc or heal or buff which is what a bard of this type is best at doing.

If you want to tag on the cleric's coattails and let them do the healing do so, but make something that is more of a contribution on a new quest like a battle bard if you do so. Something must be in the water in Ghallanda because Khyber bards know what is up. In the first 2-3 weeks SOS came out I was running Hangover through all the SOS quests on normal, hard, elite as sole healer. Clerics are for sux.

[Junts]

No clever retort Junts because I am not going to let this inferior build you put up go. It costs 25 spell points for maximize and 10 for empower healing so that is more mana spent and inefficient for maximize. Maximize is overhealing, overhealing, overhealing. A pure bard version of hangover has +1 to dc and an extra feat over your bard at level 20. That feat can be spent on spell focus enchantment or mental toughness for either another +1 to enchantment dc or more sp. What do you get from the toughness and improved crit but an ability to swing a lousy sword instead of cc or heal or buff which is what a bard of this type is best at doing.

If you want to tag on the cleric's coattails and let them do the healing do so, but make something that is more of a contribution on a new quest like a battle bard if you do so. Something must be in the water in Ghallanda because Khyber bards know what is up. In the first 2-3 weeks SOS came out I was running Hangover through all the SOS quests on normal, hard, elite as sole healer. Clerics are for sux.

Actually, I went out to dinner and made fun of you.

With a hattip to Gratch, let me provide a lovely chart of chartiness:

http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/1513/hpsp2.jpg (I can't display the chart because this forum doesn't permit images in posts: the blue lines are sp efficiency w/ cleric improved empower healing enhancements, the pink line is without .. both lines use the efficient meta items (vod gloves, lorikk's necklace).

As you can note, the sp:mana ratio when you're using the vod gloves (-4 per cast) is nearly identical for cure moderate and cure light mass (the relevant spells, for a bard). Further, there is enormous extra gain for a bard because maximize does a great deal more with cure critical than empower healing, making it into a 200 point single-target topup spell.

I'm not sure what the bards and clerics on Khyber are smoking, because the people on GHhallanda who know what they're doing (see, isn't it fun to use each other's moronic quotes like that?) know that empower healing is a ****-tastic feat. My cleric doesn't have it, and none of the best clerics I know use it either: the feat is worthless. When I watch clerics heal with emp healed masscures, I see them routinely burning 2 spells (and associated cooldowns) to top up someone who just failed a dbf save or who is otherwise getting hammered because they have poor ac. If you are overhealing with maximize, it's because you don't know how to heal: when your mass cures are worth 90-120 points, there's no reason not to let several people get down to half before you throw a mass (and watch them all top out from the single casting). Scrolls or the single target-ccw serve for the people taking the most damage and in need of the in-between topup. The idea that maximize is somehow a detriment is hilarious: When I heal from the pool in shroud 5, -i actually gain spellpoints over time instead of losing them- with no one else healing the party (someone throwing mass prot occaisionally is nice in few-evasion groups, though) - it's just not that hard.

Further, I find it entirely laughable, even ludicrous to listen to someone who continually deadpans the torq (an item worth roughly 800-1500 sp per quest on a character gaining any kind of aggro) to be talking up the enormous importance of pathetic mental toughness feats: You're willing to burn a whole feat on 85 spell points, but not wear an item that makes your sp eternal? Aren't you the fool who jumps into every torq thread to point out people can just drink mana pots?

I have yet to encounter a quest with such a massive healing burden that I could not keep up in SP terms with every cleric I've ever run with. By far the most sp intensive healing burden I've ever encoutnered is keeping up 5-6 tanks in an elite abbot, and not even in that am I forced to my potions sooner than a cleric.

In any case. if the OP wants to make a drow bard that stands there and does ****-all when someone else is healing and can't in any way contribute meaningfully to killing mobs, he's entirely welcome to do that.

He's also welcome to make a flexible and versitile character that can render some effectiveness at any task it's assigned to. The extra mana pot every 20 quests is entirely a price worth paying for that to me, and the survivability is probably even more valuable to the OP, who as a less-experienced player is going to be far less likely to be familiar with the best means of ensuring a low-hp, evasion-less toon should survive, or have the resources to acquire said means (in the case of fs greaves).

Every time I see a 'healing' drow bard join a pug group I groan, because those toons are pretty much universally worthless. Half the time they're wasting feats on repeater usage, and it wouldn't matter if they had 3000 mana, they don't know how to play a healer anyway.

In any case, though, if you need 1700 sp to actually heal any quest in the game, I just feel bad for you: it's a great number for a cleric, but they have far more spells to cast in party support than you do most of the time, and more expensive ones if they're trying to do anything but be a worthless healbot.


Maybe the tanks you run with just suck so much that you really have to spend all your time and sp on healing them, but when I run prey or something without a cleric, I rarely spend more than 600 or so spell points healing the whole quest .. there's just no need. But, I mean, maybe the whole **** dying extremely fast thing might help a little there, too..

[maddmatt70]

Actually, I went out to dinner and made fun of you.



Wow you must have had some really stimulating dinner conversation to have to fill in the blanks with some random argument you have on the forums of a video game.



With a hattip to Gratch, let me provide a lovely chart of chartiness:

http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/1513/hpsp2.jpg (I can't display the chart because this forum doesn't permit images in posts: the blue lines are sp efficiency w/ cleric improved empower healing enhancements, the pink line is without .. both lines use the efficient meta items (vod gloves, lorikk's necklace).

As you can note, the sp:mana ratio when you're using the vod gloves (-4 per cast) is nearly identical for cure moderate and cure light mass (the relevant spells, for a bard). Further, there is enormous extra gain for a bard because maximize does a great deal more with cure critical than empower healing, making it into a 200 point single-target topup spell.


What I note is healing is about frequency more so then power in D&D. If I mass cure enough times I will take care off the melee's injuries. Now I am not going to waste a healing spell on somebody that just has a little damage of course, but when there is constant damage over time there needs to be constant healing over time. If you are in there meleeing with quicken and maximize on you will have less sp and can not cast as many mass cures as somebody who just has empower healing on and stands away from the fray.

It is that person that stands away from the fray and heals that does the real healing. You might not like playing that character, but somebody has to do that job especially since you are about running in and melee and not healing. I run with a fair number of melee clerics and they just quite frankly do not do as much healing as the caster/healbot clerics.

My mindset when I play hangover is I do not want to run with clerics. There is too much duplicity in what hangover does and the cleric does. The only clerics I like to run with are melee clerics who melee all the time or clerics who waste all their sp on offensive spells and do not heal at all. I have been running her with this style of play for a long time since mod 4.

Everthing I read from your posts is this is not your mentality its well I will fill what we need. What a waste because your melee capabilities are pure drivel. Next mod the bard gets +1 or +2 to damage to songs, but the reality is every other melee class gains a significant amount of dps next mod. The question for the mathematical junkies is will a bard still be worth bringing along especially in a 6 person quest. I would say your wasting feats on melee instead of carving out a niche and that this is not a contribution to bards.



If you heal
I'm not sure what the bards and clerics on Khyber are smoking, because the people on GHhallanda who know what they're doing (see, isn't it fun to use each other's moronic quotes like that?) know that empower healing is a ****-tastic feat. My cleric doesn't have it, and none of the best clerics I know use it either: the feat is worthless.

When I watch clerics heal with emp healed masscures, I see them routinely burning 2 spells (and associated cooldowns) to top up someone who just failed a dbf save or who is otherwise getting hammered because they have poor ac. If you are overhealing with maximize, it's because you don't know how to heal: when your mass cures are worth 90-120 points, there's no reason not to let several people get down to half before you throw a mass (and watch them all top out from the single casting). Scrolls or the single target-ccw serve for the people taking the most damage and in need of the in-between topup. The idea that maximize is somehow a detriment is hilarious: When I heal from the pool in shroud 5, -i actually gain spellpoints over time instead of losing them- with no one else healing the party (someone throwing mass prot occaisionally is nice in few-evasion groups, though) - it's just not that hard.


Alot of top notch clerics on khyber have empower healing for when they heal and alot of them have maximize and perhaps empower for when they heal. The issue for clerics is different then bards because maximize and empower helped facilitate one of the most essential spells for Clerics Blade Barrior. With the limited number of feats clerics get it becomes a difficult choice between maximize and empower or maximize and empower healing for alot of builds. It is understandable that many clerics choose maximize and empower instead of adding empower healing.

The bard decision for maximize over empower healing especially with the bard's limited spell points really speaks to that player's inablity to heal with just empower healing. There are some bards that are sonic specced so they have the maximize and empower feats, but this is far less solid a build as a blade barrior cleric build because greater shout is not as persistant as blade barrior and does not do the same damage. At least those sonic specced bards though have some justification for maxmize and empower.



Further, I find it entirely laughable, even ludicrous to listen to someone who continually deadpans the torq (an item worth roughly 800-1500 sp per quest on a character gaining any kind of aggro) to be talking up the enormous importance of pathetic mental toughness feats: You're willing to burn a whole feat on 85 spell points, but not wear an item that makes your sp eternal? Aren't you the fool who jumps into every torq thread to point out people can just drink mana pots?


As I stated in a previous post I would swap to Heighten if Hangover were a more active character for me but the last 3 months since the bard capstone came out she has been less active for me. The feat that you conveinently neglected to mention spell focus enchantment gives you a +1 to your dc on many of a bards prominent cc spells. That is a +2 higher DC then what your bard would have on enchantment spells. The reports on Lammania are that spellcasters will likely have to specialize even more to continue to be productive, i.e. they need every dc they can get. 2 DC for gimpy melee ability so you can get a couple of kills on a quest now and then or put more burden on the clerics healing on a raid because you need quicken on and can cast less mass cures. I see how that is so much better.



I have yet to encounter a quest with such a massive healing burden that I could not keep up in SP terms with every cleric I've ever run with. By far the most sp intensive healing burden I've ever encoutnered is keeping up 5-6 tanks in an elite abbot, and not even in that am I forced to my potions sooner than a cleric.


I do not seek to keep up with clerics I seek to be the cleric or primary healer. This is an important distinction in the way you play vs. how I play.



In any case. if the OP wants to make a drow bard that stands there and does ****-all when someone else is healing and can't in any way contribute meaningfully to killing mobs, he's entirely welcome to do that.


Who says I do not contribute. I heal and keep every other character buffed. I make the whole quest easy as pie. I facilitate. My goal is 0 deaths, 0 kills, and optimum speed completion of quest. If I need to I will hold and kill, but I would rather hold and let the melee kill. I do also of course umd this or that if need be from solid fog scrolls, cloudkill scrolls or clickies, death ward scrolls, recitation wands, whatever the heck people need. My guildie Ellistran, has the most fun when he plays his wizard and get 0-5 kills and he totally dominates the quest by the way. You like to kill things, I will try to of course kill everything in sight on my melee or what have you, but when I play Hangover I could care less.



He's also welcome to make a flexible and versitile character that can render some effectiveness at any task it's assigned to. The extra mana pot every 20 quests is entirely a price worth paying for that to me, and the survivability is probably even more valuable to the OP, who as a less-experienced player is going to be far less likely to be familiar with the best means of ensuring a low-hp, evasion-less toon should survive, or have the resources to acquire said means (in the case of fs greaves).


Fireshield scrolls, resists wands, whatever else the OP needs. It really is not too hard for bards to mitigate all damage just by using consumables of one sort or other through umd.



Every time I see a 'healing' drow bard join a pug group I groan, because those toons are pretty much universally worthless. Half the time they're wasting feats on repeater usage, and it wouldn't matter if they had 3000 mana, they don't know how to play a healer anyway.


so you run with alot of **** poor non melee bards your loss.



In any case, though, if you need 1700 sp to actually heal any quest in the game, I just feel bad for you: it's a great number for a cleric, but they have far more spells to cast in party support than you do most of the time, and more expensive ones if they're trying to do anything but be a worthless healbot.


I made hangover back in mod 2. Back then a sorc splash made alot of sense. Now it does not. There is no reason to not have 1650 spell points if you can.



Maybe the tanks you run with just suck so much that you really have to spend all your time and sp on healing them, but when I run prey or something without a cleric, I rarely spend more than 600 or so spell points healing the whole quest .. there's just no need. But, I mean, maybe the whole **** dying extremely fast thing might help a little there, too..

Typical poor example. Sure all quests have been out 7 months and Prey is a bit of a joke although the end fight is at least interesting. How about a better example such as Kobold on elite. I remeber repeatedly running Hangover on Kobold elite the first two or three weeks it was out and solo healing it.