Rull
05-07-2013, 03:39 PM
(I enjoy playing a bard so much that I thought I'd post my 2 cents)
Class & Race:
16 Bard, 2 Fighter, 2 Rogue
Human
Human mainly because Improved recovery III is so good, that alone would have convinced me to go human. But the extra feat seals the deal.
My experience is, you want at least 12 bard levels for song duration, song amount and courage damage. but also lvl13 for GH. and lvl14 for +1 song damage. so you might as well get lvl15 for inspire excellence. and lvl16 for irresistible dance while you're at it. Although anywhere between 12 and 16 makes sense, I feel 16 is the best (if you have the gear to make it work).
(The best alternative for me is 14/4/2, changing inspire excellence for empower heal and picking up fighter haste boost II.)
((If you want to go without selfhealing, I prefer the 8bard/12kensai over the 12bard builds))
Stats:
STR 16 +6 levelup
CON 17 or put the levelups here. or split them.
DEX 13
INT 12
WIS 8
CHA 12
I assumed +4 tomes on all stats
I consider STR and CON both to be my main stats, and don't really prefer one over the other. Anywhere from 22STR/17CON to 16STR/23CON is equally good to me (but do make sure you hit 21 con including your tomes, to get epic toughness).
Feats (7 + 1 human + 2 fighter + 2 epic= 12):
+Power Attack
+TWF
+iTWF
+gTWF
+Prof: Khopesh
+Critical Slashing
*Maximize
*Quicken
*Extend
>Toughness
>Epic Tougness (E)
>Inspire Excellence (E)
Only choice here is extend or empower heal, the rest is a must.
Skills:
Search, Disable, UMD, Perform, Concentration, Balance, Jump @ 23
Open Lock, Tumble, Spot, Swim @ 4
Enhancements:
Extra Song I
Inspire Damage III
Lingering Song IV
Spellsinger II
Adaptability CON
Adaptability STR
Human Improved Recovery III
Human Versatility III
Racial Toughness III
Rogue Sneak I
Improved Concentration II (prereq)
Lyric of Song II (prereq)
Energy of Music III (prereq)
Song Magic IV
Fighter STR I
Fighter Toughness I
Rogue Trap Sense I
Wand & Scroll Mastery I
Even a very combat-oriented bard should take spellsinger, it’s just much better than warchanter and doesn’t cost an otherwise useless feat as prereq
Spells (that i actually put on my bar):
1: featherfall, focussing chant, ---, ---, ---
2: blur, rage, invis, (cure mod)
3: Haste, Displacement, Cure Serious, (remove curse)
4: Cure Crit, FOM, DDoor, break enchantment
5: GH, Mass cure light, (summon earth elemental), ---
6: Irresistable, massModerate
Gear:
Ravager Ring: 20% amp - str6 - str1
Avithoul Ring: dex7 - sneak5 - sneak3 - deception
claw gloves: 30% amp
claw bracers: con2 - fort
shamanic fetish: devotion120 - PRR14
Black dragon helmet: str3 - 35HP - str7
Black dragon armor: luck+2
EE Ghost-waking cloak: DR15 - resist7 - cha8 - ghostly
Ravager belt: con6 - seeker2
EE Dream Visor: +5 - imperial blood
EE Pendant of the stormreaver: STR2
----swap to epic torc with STR2
Concopp GS boots: concopp - wis6 - 10HP - 15HP - 100SP - cha+3
Other gear layouts possible with stalker ring:
Ravager Ring: 20% amp - str6 - str1
Stalker Ring: seeker6 - ghostly - 30HP - dex6
Backstabber's gloves: con2 - sneak5 - sneak3 - deception
Convalescent Bracer of Parrying: 30% - +4 resist - 20HPguildslotted(or STR7 in a colorless)
Shamanic fetish: devotion120 - PRR14
Black dragon helmet: str3 - HeavyFort - str7
Black dragon armor: luck+2
EE Ghost-waking cloak: DR15 - resist7 - cha8 - ghostly
Ravager belt: con6 - seeker2
EE Dream Visor: +5 - imperial blood
EE Pendant of the stormreaver: STR2
----swap to epic torc with STR2
Concopp GS boots: concopp - wis6 - 10HP - 15HP - 100SP - cha+3
it's better if the manslayer from the stalker ring is applicable.
And for when you need ring of the djinn:
Ravager Ring: 20% amp - str6 - str1
Ring of the Djinn: elec.absorb - DR15
Backstabber's gloves: con2 - sneak5 - sneak3 - deception
Convalescent Bracer of Parrying: 30% - +4 resist - 20HPguildslotted(or STR7 in a colorless)
Shamanic fetish: devotion120 - PRR14
Black dragon helmet: str3 - HeavyFort - str7
Black dragon armor: luck+2
Jeweled Cloak : resist7 - cha7
Ravager belt: con6 - seeker2
EE Dream Visor: +5 - imperial blood
EE Pendant of the stormreaver: STR2
----swap to epic torc with STR2
Concopp GS boots: concopp - wis6 - 10HP - 15HP - 100SP - cha+3
Which is pretty sweet also, with the jeweled cloak instead of the ghostwaking since you haver DR15 in the ring
Other ultimate gear setups might include:
-Random blueslotted celestial lightarmor with primal of superior false life (or "of heavy fort", or "of major luck". even "of greater reinforcement" will do great)
-Pirate event helmet with Sneak5 and perform15. It sure is nice not to have to swap to perform.
you don't need avithoul or backstabber with the 5 sneak in the hat + exceptional 3 from stalker ring. But I haven't been able to work out a complete layout with this that I really like.
About the hp/hp/sp greensteel:
The 100 SP and +3 CHA skills is slightly better than 6 CHA.
20 HP is slightly worse than 2 CON.
So even though i prefer 2 CON over 6 CHA, both slight benefits add up to this weird choice
Weapons:
2x holy burst silver khopesh of GEOB, electric slotted if you find a silver/redslot
2x annihilating khopesh of smiting for constructs (adamantine if you're really lucky)
2x triple pos warhammers for undead
2x banishing celestias for elementals (a pain, but worth the upgrading)
alchemical fire/air/fire/1d10fire (seeker10, doublestrike6) as default offhand
alchemical earth/earth/earth/1d10acid for general purpose
(favorite randomdrop I have) scintillating khopesh of mauling for general purpose
but of course a lot of sick random tempestuous/meteoric/mangling/obscenity khopesh outshine these
Tortured livewood bow with acid slotted and a lot of houseD sturdy arrows
(or another bow with high added damage. crit is not important since you don't have improved crit or bow strentgh, so some many actually outshine pinion/thornlord)
Trapgear:
Epic utility vest for 20 disable and 20 open lock
Epic spyglass for 20 search
tinker's goggles for +5 disable
tinker's gloves for +5 open lock
and I sometimes use vorne's belt + gnawed ring for +2 saves if the box is in the trap.
search = 75
disable device = 74 (+7 tools) = 81
open lock = 56 (+7 tools) = 63
reflex vs. traps : 55
without twists
Destinies (18 faith points):
Fury: Tunnel Vision (3), Primal Scream (3), Injury (2), Damage Reduction (3), Acute Instinct + Sense Weakness (3), Overwhelming Force (3), Fury Eternal (1), Unbridled Fury (1), Twisting: Reign (3), Critical Damage (3), Brace for Impact (1)
*swap Critical Damage for Grim Precision in quest with a lot of fortification
Dreadnought: Attack Boost (3), Extra Action (3), Improved Power Attack (1), Haste Boost (3), Volcano's Edge (1), Devastating Critical (1), Advancing Blows (1), Additional Constitution (2x), Twisting: Sense Weakness (4), Primal Scream (2), Brace for Impact (1)
*swap Primal Scream for Fey Form, and use jeweled cloak instead of ghostwaking since you have DR7 already
In either destiny you'll have about 800 HP unbuffed. About 925 with shipbuff, inspire excellence and primal scream. A bit more or less depending on how you split between STR and CON, and depending on the +2 con from alchemical earth.
You will get about 225% healing. With maximize going and a 120 devotion item, this means your cures will heal you for 300-400. This does not fill up your bar, but you can curecrit+cureserious after eachother in a split second (always have your heals quickened).
Have an un-quickend, un-maximized cure serious wounds on your bar also for between combats. this heals about 150 and costs something like 8 sp instead of 60, that's about 5 times as hp per-sp efficient.
Don't forget to use a torc. While +5 damage from pendant is tempting, the default should actually be torc unless it's EH and it's so easy it doesn't matter, or if it's EE and they hit so hard your torc loses efficiency but you CC so much you don't take hits much.
Playstyle:
Sing your songs, GH, FOM and hit yourself with a spellsong vigor. Don't bother with spellsong trance when solo, but always keep clerics and wizards under it. arcane might is for bossfights when the DC matters less and a little more damage and healing is worth the bother. Keep yourself hasted/displaced at any time. From this point on, in almost any quest you'll be playing just like any other DPS.
Even though it is designed to play as the rogue, you will find any group thankful if you pull aggro before the barbarian does, the displacement and the tons of healing amp combined with 925 HP make you a much much better tank than them anyway.
When with a monk or fighter, try to be slightly behind them so they take initial aggro, and more importantly when they stun a mob your adrenaline hits for 2k instead of 1k because of the helpless (there's no worse feeling than knocking an enemy down moments before you hear the stunning fist 'ding', you just wasted 1k damage).
Keep yourself healed. Alternate between quickened cure crit and cur serious for short timer (they heal about equally, 300-350hp). When they cleave, use mass cure, but it's not that efficient so don't overfocus on that. Only when you are experienced at keeping yourself alive, start healing whoever needs it. This can include the main healer if you notice his HP being down. Usually by the time you notice, he will have noticed himself for sure, and the fact that he didn't heal himself means he's either busy or stunned.
Basically, what you do is:
Activate adrenaline, run into a couple of mobs. Dance one mob and knock another down, kill it while it's helpless, adrenaline again and move on to the next. kill the dancing one last.
With TWF and some doublestrike, you get back adrenaline almost as fast as you spend it (0.5 per mob)
But when out of adrenaline, dance a mob and start beating on it. It takes twice as long, but the plus side is you get 1 adrenaline almost for sure. Or beat on a redname that you can't knock down anyway (don't waste adrenalines on rednames just for damage, they have an activation time in which you're not swinging anyway)
Go into Fury often, it should be full long before you're out of adrenalines. You don't need to use adrenalines now so you regain some.
7 adrenalines kills 7 mobs, this gives 4 adrenalines back. Go into fury and kill 4 mobs, giving 2 adrenalines, so you're back up to 6. Dance a mob and kill it slowly, you're back to 7. You just never run out.
Adrenaline knockdown makes them helpless for 10 seconds, meaning you not only get 80% more damage, but also auto-sneak even if you had aggro. And they don't move around, which is often forgotten but this can double you effective damage per second if they otherwise jump around a lot.
Remember to also knock down undead, elementals and construct. They don't take the crit damage (unless black dragon armor helps you), but they will be helpless, giving you 80% more damage (and sneak when bypassing).
Always use adrenaline on orange named and make sure you save 1 for that. When they survive the initial 10 seconds, adrenaline just before it runs out (so that you don't waste downtime) but do it in time, since you do want that +80% on the 1k.
The OTHER playstyle is hardly ever needed, but awesome to have. especially solo.
Run invis into a bunch of mobs while singing fascinate. jump away. adrenaline the one that saved down and kill him. pick out the next, load up adrenaline and kill him. pick them off one by one, using irresistible dance instead of knocking down a couple to save adrenalines. You can solo almost any epic elite quest up to the endboss with this (and by fascinating the thrash first you can usually take him down also)
(The OTHER OTHER playstyle is best most of the time. run invis through the quest, load up adrenaline and snipe the orange that is a quest objective, invis again and run run run.)
Playstyle when in dreadnought: only do this when rednames make up a significant part of you enemies, or in quests with so much fortification the adrenalines are less useful.
In that case, just autoattack and use all of your boosts well before the next shrine.
Class & Race:
16 Bard, 2 Fighter, 2 Rogue
Human
Human mainly because Improved recovery III is so good, that alone would have convinced me to go human. But the extra feat seals the deal.
My experience is, you want at least 12 bard levels for song duration, song amount and courage damage. but also lvl13 for GH. and lvl14 for +1 song damage. so you might as well get lvl15 for inspire excellence. and lvl16 for irresistible dance while you're at it. Although anywhere between 12 and 16 makes sense, I feel 16 is the best (if you have the gear to make it work).
(The best alternative for me is 14/4/2, changing inspire excellence for empower heal and picking up fighter haste boost II.)
((If you want to go without selfhealing, I prefer the 8bard/12kensai over the 12bard builds))
Stats:
STR 16 +6 levelup
CON 17 or put the levelups here. or split them.
DEX 13
INT 12
WIS 8
CHA 12
I assumed +4 tomes on all stats
I consider STR and CON both to be my main stats, and don't really prefer one over the other. Anywhere from 22STR/17CON to 16STR/23CON is equally good to me (but do make sure you hit 21 con including your tomes, to get epic toughness).
Feats (7 + 1 human + 2 fighter + 2 epic= 12):
+Power Attack
+TWF
+iTWF
+gTWF
+Prof: Khopesh
+Critical Slashing
*Maximize
*Quicken
*Extend
>Toughness
>Epic Tougness (E)
>Inspire Excellence (E)
Only choice here is extend or empower heal, the rest is a must.
Skills:
Search, Disable, UMD, Perform, Concentration, Balance, Jump @ 23
Open Lock, Tumble, Spot, Swim @ 4
Enhancements:
Extra Song I
Inspire Damage III
Lingering Song IV
Spellsinger II
Adaptability CON
Adaptability STR
Human Improved Recovery III
Human Versatility III
Racial Toughness III
Rogue Sneak I
Improved Concentration II (prereq)
Lyric of Song II (prereq)
Energy of Music III (prereq)
Song Magic IV
Fighter STR I
Fighter Toughness I
Rogue Trap Sense I
Wand & Scroll Mastery I
Even a very combat-oriented bard should take spellsinger, it’s just much better than warchanter and doesn’t cost an otherwise useless feat as prereq
Spells (that i actually put on my bar):
1: featherfall, focussing chant, ---, ---, ---
2: blur, rage, invis, (cure mod)
3: Haste, Displacement, Cure Serious, (remove curse)
4: Cure Crit, FOM, DDoor, break enchantment
5: GH, Mass cure light, (summon earth elemental), ---
6: Irresistable, massModerate
Gear:
Ravager Ring: 20% amp - str6 - str1
Avithoul Ring: dex7 - sneak5 - sneak3 - deception
claw gloves: 30% amp
claw bracers: con2 - fort
shamanic fetish: devotion120 - PRR14
Black dragon helmet: str3 - 35HP - str7
Black dragon armor: luck+2
EE Ghost-waking cloak: DR15 - resist7 - cha8 - ghostly
Ravager belt: con6 - seeker2
EE Dream Visor: +5 - imperial blood
EE Pendant of the stormreaver: STR2
----swap to epic torc with STR2
Concopp GS boots: concopp - wis6 - 10HP - 15HP - 100SP - cha+3
Other gear layouts possible with stalker ring:
Ravager Ring: 20% amp - str6 - str1
Stalker Ring: seeker6 - ghostly - 30HP - dex6
Backstabber's gloves: con2 - sneak5 - sneak3 - deception
Convalescent Bracer of Parrying: 30% - +4 resist - 20HPguildslotted(or STR7 in a colorless)
Shamanic fetish: devotion120 - PRR14
Black dragon helmet: str3 - HeavyFort - str7
Black dragon armor: luck+2
EE Ghost-waking cloak: DR15 - resist7 - cha8 - ghostly
Ravager belt: con6 - seeker2
EE Dream Visor: +5 - imperial blood
EE Pendant of the stormreaver: STR2
----swap to epic torc with STR2
Concopp GS boots: concopp - wis6 - 10HP - 15HP - 100SP - cha+3
it's better if the manslayer from the stalker ring is applicable.
And for when you need ring of the djinn:
Ravager Ring: 20% amp - str6 - str1
Ring of the Djinn: elec.absorb - DR15
Backstabber's gloves: con2 - sneak5 - sneak3 - deception
Convalescent Bracer of Parrying: 30% - +4 resist - 20HPguildslotted(or STR7 in a colorless)
Shamanic fetish: devotion120 - PRR14
Black dragon helmet: str3 - HeavyFort - str7
Black dragon armor: luck+2
Jeweled Cloak : resist7 - cha7
Ravager belt: con6 - seeker2
EE Dream Visor: +5 - imperial blood
EE Pendant of the stormreaver: STR2
----swap to epic torc with STR2
Concopp GS boots: concopp - wis6 - 10HP - 15HP - 100SP - cha+3
Which is pretty sweet also, with the jeweled cloak instead of the ghostwaking since you haver DR15 in the ring
Other ultimate gear setups might include:
-Random blueslotted celestial lightarmor with primal of superior false life (or "of heavy fort", or "of major luck". even "of greater reinforcement" will do great)
-Pirate event helmet with Sneak5 and perform15. It sure is nice not to have to swap to perform.
you don't need avithoul or backstabber with the 5 sneak in the hat + exceptional 3 from stalker ring. But I haven't been able to work out a complete layout with this that I really like.
About the hp/hp/sp greensteel:
The 100 SP and +3 CHA skills is slightly better than 6 CHA.
20 HP is slightly worse than 2 CON.
So even though i prefer 2 CON over 6 CHA, both slight benefits add up to this weird choice
Weapons:
2x holy burst silver khopesh of GEOB, electric slotted if you find a silver/redslot
2x annihilating khopesh of smiting for constructs (adamantine if you're really lucky)
2x triple pos warhammers for undead
2x banishing celestias for elementals (a pain, but worth the upgrading)
alchemical fire/air/fire/1d10fire (seeker10, doublestrike6) as default offhand
alchemical earth/earth/earth/1d10acid for general purpose
(favorite randomdrop I have) scintillating khopesh of mauling for general purpose
but of course a lot of sick random tempestuous/meteoric/mangling/obscenity khopesh outshine these
Tortured livewood bow with acid slotted and a lot of houseD sturdy arrows
(or another bow with high added damage. crit is not important since you don't have improved crit or bow strentgh, so some many actually outshine pinion/thornlord)
Trapgear:
Epic utility vest for 20 disable and 20 open lock
Epic spyglass for 20 search
tinker's goggles for +5 disable
tinker's gloves for +5 open lock
and I sometimes use vorne's belt + gnawed ring for +2 saves if the box is in the trap.
search = 75
disable device = 74 (+7 tools) = 81
open lock = 56 (+7 tools) = 63
reflex vs. traps : 55
without twists
Destinies (18 faith points):
Fury: Tunnel Vision (3), Primal Scream (3), Injury (2), Damage Reduction (3), Acute Instinct + Sense Weakness (3), Overwhelming Force (3), Fury Eternal (1), Unbridled Fury (1), Twisting: Reign (3), Critical Damage (3), Brace for Impact (1)
*swap Critical Damage for Grim Precision in quest with a lot of fortification
Dreadnought: Attack Boost (3), Extra Action (3), Improved Power Attack (1), Haste Boost (3), Volcano's Edge (1), Devastating Critical (1), Advancing Blows (1), Additional Constitution (2x), Twisting: Sense Weakness (4), Primal Scream (2), Brace for Impact (1)
*swap Primal Scream for Fey Form, and use jeweled cloak instead of ghostwaking since you have DR7 already
In either destiny you'll have about 800 HP unbuffed. About 925 with shipbuff, inspire excellence and primal scream. A bit more or less depending on how you split between STR and CON, and depending on the +2 con from alchemical earth.
You will get about 225% healing. With maximize going and a 120 devotion item, this means your cures will heal you for 300-400. This does not fill up your bar, but you can curecrit+cureserious after eachother in a split second (always have your heals quickened).
Have an un-quickend, un-maximized cure serious wounds on your bar also for between combats. this heals about 150 and costs something like 8 sp instead of 60, that's about 5 times as hp per-sp efficient.
Don't forget to use a torc. While +5 damage from pendant is tempting, the default should actually be torc unless it's EH and it's so easy it doesn't matter, or if it's EE and they hit so hard your torc loses efficiency but you CC so much you don't take hits much.
Playstyle:
Sing your songs, GH, FOM and hit yourself with a spellsong vigor. Don't bother with spellsong trance when solo, but always keep clerics and wizards under it. arcane might is for bossfights when the DC matters less and a little more damage and healing is worth the bother. Keep yourself hasted/displaced at any time. From this point on, in almost any quest you'll be playing just like any other DPS.
Even though it is designed to play as the rogue, you will find any group thankful if you pull aggro before the barbarian does, the displacement and the tons of healing amp combined with 925 HP make you a much much better tank than them anyway.
When with a monk or fighter, try to be slightly behind them so they take initial aggro, and more importantly when they stun a mob your adrenaline hits for 2k instead of 1k because of the helpless (there's no worse feeling than knocking an enemy down moments before you hear the stunning fist 'ding', you just wasted 1k damage).
Keep yourself healed. Alternate between quickened cure crit and cur serious for short timer (they heal about equally, 300-350hp). When they cleave, use mass cure, but it's not that efficient so don't overfocus on that. Only when you are experienced at keeping yourself alive, start healing whoever needs it. This can include the main healer if you notice his HP being down. Usually by the time you notice, he will have noticed himself for sure, and the fact that he didn't heal himself means he's either busy or stunned.
Basically, what you do is:
Activate adrenaline, run into a couple of mobs. Dance one mob and knock another down, kill it while it's helpless, adrenaline again and move on to the next. kill the dancing one last.
With TWF and some doublestrike, you get back adrenaline almost as fast as you spend it (0.5 per mob)
But when out of adrenaline, dance a mob and start beating on it. It takes twice as long, but the plus side is you get 1 adrenaline almost for sure. Or beat on a redname that you can't knock down anyway (don't waste adrenalines on rednames just for damage, they have an activation time in which you're not swinging anyway)
Go into Fury often, it should be full long before you're out of adrenalines. You don't need to use adrenalines now so you regain some.
7 adrenalines kills 7 mobs, this gives 4 adrenalines back. Go into fury and kill 4 mobs, giving 2 adrenalines, so you're back up to 6. Dance a mob and kill it slowly, you're back to 7. You just never run out.
Adrenaline knockdown makes them helpless for 10 seconds, meaning you not only get 80% more damage, but also auto-sneak even if you had aggro. And they don't move around, which is often forgotten but this can double you effective damage per second if they otherwise jump around a lot.
Remember to also knock down undead, elementals and construct. They don't take the crit damage (unless black dragon armor helps you), but they will be helpless, giving you 80% more damage (and sneak when bypassing).
Always use adrenaline on orange named and make sure you save 1 for that. When they survive the initial 10 seconds, adrenaline just before it runs out (so that you don't waste downtime) but do it in time, since you do want that +80% on the 1k.
The OTHER playstyle is hardly ever needed, but awesome to have. especially solo.
Run invis into a bunch of mobs while singing fascinate. jump away. adrenaline the one that saved down and kill him. pick out the next, load up adrenaline and kill him. pick them off one by one, using irresistible dance instead of knocking down a couple to save adrenalines. You can solo almost any epic elite quest up to the endboss with this (and by fascinating the thrash first you can usually take him down also)
(The OTHER OTHER playstyle is best most of the time. run invis through the quest, load up adrenaline and snipe the orange that is a quest objective, invis again and run run run.)
Playstyle when in dreadnought: only do this when rednames make up a significant part of you enemies, or in quests with so much fortification the adrenalines are less useful.
In that case, just autoattack and use all of your boosts well before the next shrine.