What are the most effective CC spells in Epic quests

[pappo]

I have a level 13 Bard and was wondering what spells to think about taking as I get closer to level 20.
Would some of you high level Bards post your spell lists.
Thanks

[Wanesa]

Enthrallment

[pappo]

Enthrallment

I like that one as well.
Do you start it as you are running up the the mob, or after you get in the mob? I am new to Bards Fascinate and Enthrallment techniques.

Thanks

[Wanesa]

I like that one as well.
Do you start it as you are running up the the mob, or after you get in the mob? I am new to Bards Fascinate and Enthrallment techniques.

Thanks

There is always rule - you should start to "fight" with your lute first. Then you can wield a weapon.

If your party hasn't an intim-tank, you should sign immediatelly when you spot mobs running to you. With an intim-tank, you have more time, there is less chance you will be killed while singing. You can also sing while sneaking and invisible. Spells reducing will save or giving negative levels (such a wail of banshee) can help overcome higher DCs. Song affects monsters around you, so it is optimal to trigger effect when you are in the center of the horde (and still alive).

Enthrallment is better when party is not familiar with fight under fascinate. There is around 25% chance that Enthrallment will be broken on hit. However fascinate can be more powerful. You can fascinate undeads, oozes and constructs (Enthrallment doesn't have this feature). Unfortunately, if your party doesn't know, how to fight fascinated mobs, you only wasting song usage... the same in the case that your caster uses damaging AoEs.

Train fascinate/enthrallment timing in easier quest with many monsters. Butchers, Durk, Kobolt assult, etc.

Bard suffers -3 on DC in compare to wizard / sorcerer. Charm Monster Mass has highest DC (unless you poses Heighten feat - IMHO waste of feat slot). Some ppl dont like chamed monsters. Otto's sphere is Level 4 spell. For monsters with high will save, it is better to cast Greater Shout, which has Fort.save and stuns when failed

[BoBoDaClown]

While I find enthrallment/fascinate very useful, I find spells more so. However, spells require sacrifice to work, which may not be worth it for many. This is my spell list. Note that some spells are old spells I never got around to changing, so this could certainly do with some tweaking.

Level One: Detect Door, Expeditious, Featherfall, Hypno (unheightened debuff), Focussing Chant
Level Two: Blur, Hold Monster, Invis, Rage, Soundburst
Level Three: Crushing Despair, Good Hope, CSW, Displace, Haste
Level Four: CCW, DDoor, FOM, Hold Person (in conjunction with Hold Monster for quick Holds), Disco
Level Five: Mass CLW, Dispel, GH, Mass Suggest, MindFog
Level Six: MassCMW, Heroes Feast, Mass Charm monster, ---------Heal--------Wail

One of my most commonly used spells is SoundBurst from Exalted Angel ED.

To answer your CC question, for epics I find most effective/useful(in rough order):
1) Soundburst from Exalted Angel
2) Hold Monster
3) Hold Person (I use the two together)
4) OID
5) DiscoBall
6) Enthrall
7) Fascinate

Debuffs:
Unheighten Hypno, Mindfog, Crushing Despair, Wail, all have use.



Hope that helps.

[BoBoDaClown]

(unless you poses Heighten feat - IMHO waste of feat slot). Some ppl dont like chamed monsters. Otto's sphere is Level 4 spell. For monsters with high will save, it is better to cast Greater Shout, which has Fort.save and stuns when failed

Heighten Feat is very useful if you are running CC on a bard - it gains +2 to your Discoball which is great persistent AOE CC, and +2 to your Hold Person.

If you aren't running a spell-based CC bard, it isn't worth it.

Great Shout doesn't work very well because your DC is so low with it, if you have been bumping enchant DCs. Soundburst from Exalted Angel does what you want (targets High Will mobs), but is a high DC spell.

[gurth83]

Would some of you high level Bards post your spell lists.
Thanks

Spells are not listed in any order per level so not suggest what to take first.

1)
Detect Secret Doors - no explanation needed
Focusing Chant - this spell is unique (bards only)
Hypnotism - even on fail it gives -3 to will saves
Otto's Resistible Dance - really good, long duration compared with Otto's Irresistible, but need will save to fail
Sonic Blast - good for barrel destroying:)
other to consider
Merfolk's Blessing
Master's Touch
Feather Fall

2)
Daze Monster - this spell is really good, works against more monsters than hold monster - eg elementas and have got will save lowering portion
Rage - more hp
Invisibility - make some quests much easier
two form below
Hold Person - works against humanoids only, single target
Soundburst - did not test it after changes but if its make monsters helpless it might be good, but this is evocation school, on the other side its AoE and hold person is single target
Blur - if you do not have blurry item
(my personal choose woudl be Blur and SoundBurst to give it try)

3)
Good Hope - universall spell
Displacement - your best friend
Haste - usefull
Cure Serious Wounds - self healing
one from below
Fear - necro spell but it have -2 to saves even on fail (shaken effect)
Crushing Despair - Enchantmen, -2 to saves when land and -5 to will even if not land
(my personal choose would be Fear spell and Crushing Despair scrolls only for -5 to will save portion)

4)
Freedom of Movement - makes life much easier
Cure Critical Wounds - self healing (mostly i use this and cure serious quickend, when im damanged and nead heal I heal cure critical if after this one i still need healing I use cure serious becasue have sepated cooldowns)
Dimension Door - some quest are much easier, faster to complete
Hold Monster - helpless = 50% more dmg
Otto's Sphere of Dancing - aoe CC can be set before fight starts

5)
Suggestion, Mass - consider this more usefull than 6th level mass charm because have static time when it lands
Shadow Walk - make some quest much easier
Mind Fog - can be used with Otto's Sphere but I almost never use it
Cure Light Wounds, Mass - sometimes might be helpfull for party
Greater Dispel Magic - because nothing better to choose

6)
Otto's Irresistible Dance - awesome spell
Greater Shout - might be usefull against low fort save monsters with high spell resistance - drow casters
Cure Moderate Wounds, Mass - sometimes might be helpfull for party
Heroes' Feast - nothing better to choose


My personall feeling: level 3,5 and 6 spells are weak or only few of them are really usefull and you need to choose something only because you must while level 4 spells have a lot of good and there is hard to choose what to take

[Badmash]

Leaving aside songs for the moment, I find the most effective spell is Otto's Irresistable Dance, simply because it gives no save, and is quickly cast. The downside is obviously that it's not AoE.

On the AoE front, if I have time to set this up, I prefer the "disco with dry ice": Mind Fog, then Otto's Sphere of Dancing. Lure the mobs through, and if it doesn't stick, try to get them to keep following you back through. I've managed to snare mobs that initially made their save. It will not always work, however: some mobs just have great saves, even after all the penalties you can drop on them - you just have to live with that.

I also use Mass Suggestion, but this becomes less useful as difficulty increases. At Epic Hard I find this very short lived; at Epic Elite it seems pretty much worthless.

Even though I have Hold Person, I never seem to actually use it, so can't really comment on how that scales. I guess I just like to see them dance!

Songs-wise, Fascinate/Enthrallment still hold their own: stonking high DC's if your Perform is up there (and it should be), and literally a life saver when things go pear-shaped. I've also had good mileage from the Fatesinger enhancement Siren's Song. This even works on some mobs that seem to laugh off Otto's Irresitable (orange bosses but not reds? not checked), and if further improved with Chord of Disruption can serve as something like a fire-and-forget as the mob is held and pretty heftily damaged.

Edit: to put all this in context, I'm not totally CC-centric as this is on a bardcher (elven AA, 16 bard/2 ranger/2 rogue base), but I still get this to work often enough to be useful.