Cha/Dex and Cleave on Swashbuckler

[Corrupt]

I'm a big fan of cleave on any melee character, it adds a whole lot of damage against packs of mobs, and gives me something to spam while hacking away. I'm also a fan of single classed builds because of my personal autism.

So the ideal Swashbuckler seems to be Drow or Elf, dex based. Using Weapon Finesse and a rapier or shortsword (racial enhancements), Different Tack for Dex to damage, good AC with all the dex, increased max dex, good reflex saves, and swashbucklers get evasion eventually, so all the good things from dex. Also fits thematically as a "dex fighter" - but how would a dex fighter cleave. I wish there was something like in the Pally or Barb tree, that gives you a free, feat-less cleave. There's an useless (long cooldown) cleave at T5 of the Warchanter tree, but that doesn't really work as a spammable generic attack.

But back to Cleave. So, the feat budget is 3xSWF, Weapon Finesse, IC:Piercing (for Rapiers/Shortsword). That actually leaves 2 Feats open, either for Power Attack / Cleave, or something else. Precision + Quicken would seem really good, but not as good as PA/Cleave. And that's where I start thinking.

Instead of Drow/Elf, I could go for Human, use the bonus mark to get the Dragonmark of Finding, and have a Knock and Chest upgrade spell activated in the enhancements. That sounds really useful for me, it triggers the **** out of me when I can't open a chest/door, and conversely, I love it when I can. But then I lose the Dex advantage. I could strictly use Elyd Edge and whatever other CHA-to-attack weapons I can find to still kick some ass in melee. This limits me to very few weapons, that while typically good for bards, aren't necessarily good for a swashbuckler. This also saves a feat slot for Weapon Finesse, so now I could get Great Cleave too.

But then instead, now that it's a CHA build, I could improve on the casting abilities, making it more of a casting swashbuckler. Maybe I could use spells, like Shout/Greater Shout instead of Cleave? This means instead of PA/Cleave/GCleave I could do something like Precision/Spell Focus: Evocation/Greater Spell Focus: Evocation. The problem with shout being that it's an SP hog, it's not a problem if DCs don't stick too hard with Shout. There's an SLA shout in the spellsinger tree, but damage-SLAs are IMO only really worth it when combining them with metamagics such as maximize. So a feat layout like Precision/Maximize/Empower maybe? Now the problem is that the AP are getting scarce, wanting to get 41 points into Swashbuckler and getting to Tier 3 in both Human and Spellsinger (13 and 12 points each). That doesn't leave much, 5 points.

Also, Shout and Greater Shout are fairly uninterruptible IIRC, and thus could make decent Cleave replacements, but if I'm making a more "casty" swashbuckler, Quicken might be a better choice - keeping yourself healed with mobs beating on you while you don't have the extra defenses of a dex build seems sensible.

Then, in the end, a CHA based bard might just invariably be gimped. The only point I'm seeing is as a party supporter for high-skull Reaper, casting Mass Hold + Mass Charm on packs while having the party delivering the actual damage, but not something that gets me through heroics solo or in pugs as I intend.

Any ideas/advice/observations/experiences? Did you try a CHA based bard and it worked? Are there problems with a dex swashbuckler that I haven't noticed yet? Have you used spells to replace Cleave? Yes, I'm aware that 2 levels of Rogue would give me both unlocking capabilities and evasion, and trapping to boot if I pump int. But then I might go right ahead and do an int-based bard (with help from the Harper Tree) but that feels wrong.

[QuantumFX]

There’s nothing preventing you from doing one stat to hit and another stat for damage. I did “Harper: Strategic Combat 1” for the to hit and “Different Tack: Smooth Flourishes” for CHA to damage.

You also have the feat options of Shield Mastery and Improved Shield Mastery if you take the “Skirmisher” enhancement from Swashbuckler.

[Jevern]

Purple Dragon Knights also get cha to damage in T1 of their racial tree. It also adds 1/3 of your cha bonus to damage and tactical feats. It does not *look* great and restricts you to shortswords, but if we're talking 'ideal' I'd probably say PDK cha based is the way to go. Extra damage, extra tactics if you're taking dire charge or single target freeze in the warchanter tree, boosts to perform and other cha based skills, more sp for heals, and the option of extra CC in spells should you ever need it.

I'm mostly basing this off observation of my guildy's bard, who performs very well at endgame. I've made a warchanter rogue splash variant of his build, but haven't leveled it up yet because I got distracted by other things.

Having said that, I don't think a dex based drow or elf is at all a bad idea. It will certainly be a lot easier on the eyes than a PDK =P

[Corrupt]

There’s nothing preventing you from doing one stat to hit and another stat for damage. I did “Harper: Strategic Combat 1” for the to hit and “Different Tack: Smooth Flourishes” for CHA to damage."Multiple Ability Dependency" is the enemy of any good build. If you're doing "Int to Hit" and "Cha to Damage", that now means you have to buff both Int and Cha to the high heavens to be effective in melee. That costs build points, enhancements, and items slots. Why not just take Int to damage as well and leave Cha at 16? Or conversely, if you want high Cha (for spells or Dragonmark usage) why use int for to hit when you could be using dex or even strength for to-hit with more def and less points/feat investment? Or as I suggested, evaluate limiting oneself to using Cha-to-hit weapons.


Purple Dragon Knights also get cha to damage in T1 of their racial tree. It also adds 1/3 of your cha bonus to damage and tactical feats. It does not *look* great and restricts you to shortswords, but if we're talking 'ideal' I'd probably say PDK cha based is the way to go. Extra damage, extra tactics if you're taking dire charge or single target freeze in the warchanter tree, boosts to perform and other cha based skills, more sp for heals, and the option of extra CC in spells should you ever need it.

I'm mostly basing this off observation of my guildy's bard, who performs very well at endgame. I've made a warchanter rogue splash variant of his build, but haven't leveled it up yet because I got distracted by other things.

Having said that, I don't think a dex based drow or elf is at all a bad idea. It will certainly be a lot easier on the eyes than a PDK =P
I know about PDKs Cha thingy, it's just ugly, plus I'm into those low level heroics. The extra tactics is a nice point, but I don't think it'll be enough. Trip alone isn't worth it and Stunning Blow costs another feat. Meanwhile, raging Horc barbarians and WF Fighters struggle to hit the DCs reliably in higher levels / difficulties. So I have difficulties imagining that a Cha bard with the PDK bonus will not soon become useless at tactics as level and difficulty increases.

[Dielzen]

If you're running a pure bard Swash, then you're stuck with Str or Int (via Harper) if you want to be SAD instead of MAD.

In my opinion, neither is the best way to go, but that's what your choices are.

[QuantumFX]

"Multiple Ability Dependency" is the enemy of any good build.
Monks and Paladins are going to absolutely blow your mind.


If you're doing "Int to Hit" and "Cha to Damage", that now means you have to buff both Int and Cha to the high heavens to be effective in melee. That costs build points, enhancements, and items slots. Why not just take Int to damage as well and leave Cha at 16? Or conversely, if you want high Cha (for spells or Dragonmark usage) why use int for to hit when you could be using dex or even strength for to-hit with more def and less points/feat investment? Or as I suggested, evaluate limiting oneself to using Cha-to-hit weapons.

Strategic Combat 1 cost me 2 APs that I needed to spend on my way to Know the Angles. Going beyond would have cost 4 APs that I didn’t have.* Dumping CHA would have cost me DCs on my most effective CC, namely Frozen Fury and Spinning Ice. Also, you should *really* read up on what the bard songs do. There is a reason this class that gives out “to hit” bonuses like candy on Halloween.


I know about PDKs Cha thingy, it's just ugly, plus I'm into those low level heroics. The extra tactics is a nice point, but I don't think it'll be enough. Trip alone isn't worth it and Stunning Blow costs another feat. Meanwhile, raging Horc barbarians and WF Fighters struggle to hit the DCs reliably in higher levels / difficulties. So I have difficulties imagining that a Cha bard with the PDK bonus will not soon become useless at tactics as level and difficulty increases.

Bards don't take tactics bonuses for Trip/Sunder/Stunning Blow. They take them for Frozen Fury and Spinning Ice. You should take the time and read up on the other PrE’s you have available to you as a bard. I think you’ll realize that Warchanter is the natural complement your Swashbuckler build, and why tactics (Stunning) boosts are kinda great.

* FYI: I did CON, INT, CHA for my bard because he was 2 Rogue/18 Bard. In your case, you would probably just want DEX, CON, CHA and roll with Weapon Finesse.

[Hjarki]

I'll make a few observations:

1. Dex is arguably the worst stat for melee right now. If you have to use it, then sure. But it's almost strictly worse than Intelligence (due to Harper tree and Know the Angles) and generally worse than using a DC caster stat. If you're going to throw away your ability to offensively cast as a Bard, going with an Int-based Gnome and Color Spray seems like the next best option.

2. Swashbuckler AC is not terribly important long-term. You just can't get it high enough to matter, so you're changing your odds of getting hit very marginally - your defense is really CC and Displacement.

3. Cleave/Great Cleave do terrible damage for SWF since they gain no benefit from either weapon speed or doublestrike. Certainly it's better than having to kill everything one at a time, but it's a sub-standard technique.

4. Shout/Greater Shout require a significant investment in metamagic feats to be useful - and then falter at higher difficulties where Fortitude saves spike faster than other saves. Unless you're exclusively focused on Evocation DC casting, you'll be doing half damage against most everything.

5. Dividing your hit/damage/dc stats eventually falters. Once you get into Epic Ravenloft, you'll have a lot of trouble hitting things even with a unified stat if you don't have a decent +accuracy item. Likewise, you can't realistically cast offensively unless your DC stat is your primary stat.

6. The best AE option I've found is Fan of Knives. With even modest gear, it does about 10x the damage of a Cleave/Great Cleave, it has a significantly larger AE, and it doesn't require any particular type of weapon. It will require a bit more than 10 AP to access, but most of those AP are well-spent anyway (even for non-knife fighters).

When you look at Swashbuckler, the first three cores and T3 are really strong... and then you're stuck plodding through a lot of fairly mediocre, overpriced abilities. The difficulty of simultaneously raising Dodge and MDB makes Dodge is relatively weak defense for Swashbucklers (compared to what Monk/Rogue-style builds can get wearing Robes) and Evasion, while nice, isn't worth the 20+ AP you have to invest getting there in comparison to the T5/capstone abilities from either Spellsinger or Warchanter.

[Corrupt]

Monks and Paladins are going to absolutely blow your mind.Paladins only have a slight MAD problem, you can just run them STR based as melees with cha acting as bonus saves and slot a +6 wis item to have wis as a dump stat and still cast all the spells, or you do the PDK thing and go nuts with the CHA. Monks on the other hand have some of the worst MAD problems in the game, which is why every build tries to circumvent that and any "fancy" monk build is just a splash of monk.

The warchanter has a similar problem as the monk, insofar its "Tactics" moves (Spinning Ice) are based off charisma, even though charisma is otherwise an useless stat for the warchanter.


Frozen Fury and Spinning Ice. Right. I actually have a Horc STR Warchanter that works well enough, relies on songs for CC and uses the spell slots just for buffing. I also have a spellsinger - which sucks, by comparison. The warchanter is better support and damage. But that then raises the question if all of these even work together, i.e. if tactics bonuses from things like the PDK or Harper even apply. That would require further testing.


Also, you should *really* read up on what the bard songs do. There is a reason this class that gives out “to hit” bonuses like candy on Halloween.Of course the bard songs are one of the ways by which you can mitigate the to hit problems, but you're a 3/4 BAB class to begin with, unless you go deep into Warchanter or pick that one ED that "Monte Christo" picks to get full BAB. The fact is that if you use a to hit stat and don't buff it to the high heavens, you'll have to hit problems, which means you lose damage and you fail your precious tactics more often.


* FYI: I did CON, INT, CHA for my bard because he was 2 Rogue/18 Bard. In your case, you would probably just want DEX, CON, CHA and roll with Weapon Finesse.Yeah, I figured it'd be a rogue splash, otherwise there's just no advantage to int at all.


I'll make a few observations:
1. Dex is arguably the worst stat for melee right now. If you have to use it, then sure. But it's almost strictly worse than Intelligence (due to Harper tree and Know the Angles) and generally worse than using a DC caster stat. If you're going to throw away your ability to offensively cast as a Bard, going with an Int-based Gnome and Color Spray seems like the next best option.Not being able to offensively cast as a bard isn't so bad. You have songs with easily crazy high DCs for CC, and your non-CC-offensive (nuking) spell selection is lacking anyways. Conversely, it takes a huge amount of effort, i.e. a fully dedicated build, to get those spells to work, and this easily gimps your ability to do damage to the point where you're pure party support - Very good one at that, but just not a build that can solo, ever.

The advantage of KtA is that it's a straight up bonus, not a replacement of your tactics or to-dam stat, so even a barbarian with spare SP could use his base 8 int (with a +2 tome and a +2 guild bonus) and use a +10 int item and get +3 to his tactics and damage for 2 minutes. It's not worth spending all the AP just for that, obviously, but any build that for some reason would use even a moderately high int can profit from that.


2. Swashbuckler AC is not terribly important long-term. You just can't get it high enough to matter, so you're changing your odds of getting hit very marginally - your defense is really CC and Displacement.You're only slightly wrong. The "No AC" lie harkens back to before the AC pass (2012 or so?) Every point of AC makes you a few % less likely to get hit nowadays. The same as blur/displacement/ghostly effects, they're just more "% not to get hit" effects, and they all mulitply with each other. You want to get hit as little as possible. Obviously, the AC alone is not worth going dex for, but then there's also reflex saves and evasion, which can be. AC is simply one more defensive perk you get out of a dex build - the main one however being that you have one stat greatly boosting both your offense and your defense, and you can boost that stat further with enhancements if you're a drow/elf swashbuckler.

The point is that the alternative to going full dex build is generally "dumping dex", which means that's a pretty substantial difference in defensive potential you're ignoring.


3. Cleave/Great Cleave do terrible damage for SWF since they gain no benefit from either weapon speed or doublestrike. Certainly it's better than having to kill everything one at a time, but it's a sub-standard technique.GSWF gives you +50% ability stat damage, that is as much as THF. Again the question is if that also works when you're doing "Different Tack" and other Stat-To-Damage enhancements. Swashbuckler greatly increases the crit range and multipliers of your weapons, and with the crit bonuses being the greatest factor to damage in the end, cleave does *more* damage on SWF as it does on THF (perhaps with less range, would have to look it up). The THF line gives you glancing blows, which don't proc on Cleave IIRC. So no, you're wrong again - SWF should make the best use of Cleave.


4. Shout/Greater Shout require a significant investment in metamagic feats to be useful - and then falter at higher difficulties where Fortitude saves spike faster than other saves. Unless you're exclusively focused on Evocation DC casting, you'll be doing half damage against most everything.This is where I believe you are correct, but this is what I alluded to in the OP. That is also why this is only worth contemplating on a more casty, CHA-focused build, which implies also a focus on evo, through gear, enhancements and possibly feats.


5. Dividing your hit/damage/dc stats eventually falters. Once you get into Epic Ravenloft, you'll have a lot of trouble hitting things even with a unified stat if you don't have a decent +accuracy item. Likewise, you can't realistically cast offensively unless your DC stat is your primary stat.Yes, that much is obvious. If you're poking things with a metal stick, you will wear an appropriate +accuracy item, it should go without saying.


6. The best AE option I've found is Fan of Knives. With even modest gear, it does about 10x the damage of a Cleave/Great Cleave, it has a significantly larger AE, and it doesn't require any particular type of weapon. It will require a bit more than 10 AP to access, but most of those AP are well-spent anyway (even for non-knife fighters).I have not looked into Vistani Knife Fighter.


When you look at Swashbuckler, the first three cores and T3 are really strong... and then you're stuck plodding through a lot of fairly mediocre, overpriced abilities. The difficulty of simultaneously raising Dodge and MDB makes Dodge is relatively weak defense for Swashbucklers (compared to what Monk/Rogue-style builds can get wearing Robes) and Evasion, while nice, isn't worth the 20+ AP you have to invest getting there in comparison to the T5/capstone abilities from either Spellsinger or Warchanter.I'm not obsessed with putting 41 points in Swashbuckler, you are right that you can just go T3 and have most of the "swash". Neither T5 of Spellsinger or Warchanter are particularly interesting either, however. Warchanters Level 18 core gives you full BAB and overall the tree makes your inspire courage a great source of +hit and +dam. Spellsingers T5/Capstone are only worth it if you go full caster, and that's sort of the crux of the CHA Swashbuckler build. You want to be a "full caster" that can can also poke mobs with sticks pretty well. But all your feats are going into SWF if you want your fencing to be worth a ****, so you (barely) have feats to support your casting.

So you basically have to choose: You're either a melee with buff spells and CC songs (dex or str build, mixing warchanter with swashbuckler, dex might go full swashbuckler to maximize evasion, str might go full warchanter and just be a singing barbarian) - Or as a CHA-build, you're a mezzer that can also poke stuff pretty decently, with the problems of being somewhat more flimsy than a dex build, less tactical than a STR build, and not as great at casting as a pure caster build. So now you end up with the "Count of Monte Christo", doing everything kinda ok in middling content, and having to rely on absurd gear to do anything in endgame content.

[Jevern]

I am 100% sure that the PDK cha bonus to tactics applies to WC ice attacks, so long as you are using the required weapons. I am also very sure that cha based bards are far from useless in endgame because I play with someone who uses one to excellent effect on a very regular basis. His main tactics are the single target freeze in warchanter and dire charge, both of which are cha based and I think his DC is around 105 or 110, which is extremely workable in all but the most difficult of content.

And... so... are you looking for a *heroic* build or an *endgame* build?

Those two look very different in terms of goals, and thus builds. AC, tactics and feat choices look very different in a build that's meant to do well in heroic as opposed to one that's meant to do well in endgame.

[unbongwah]

but how would a dex fighter cleave
Stat tomes - and maybe some multiclassing - make all things possible. :cool:

There's an useless (long cooldown) cleave at T5 of the Warchanter tree
If you think Spinning Ice is "useless," you obviously haven't seen an Icebreaker (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/446859-The-Icebreaker-A-Freezing-Warchanter-Bard) in action. ;) However, you are partially correct in that the CD is too long in order to spam it; instead it's a DPS multipler to be used in conjunction with other AoE attacks.

Precision + Quicken would seem really good, but not as good as PA/Cleave.
Anyone who wants to cast spells mid-combat needs Quicken, IMO. Precision is a must-have if going for tier-5 Swashbuckler for Thread the Needle; for other SB builds it's a bit iffier.

Honestly your OP reads like "I can't do everything I want on a pure bard!" which is...kinda the point of game balance? Particularly when it comes to classes without bonus feats; you can either specialize in one thing or spread your focus between 2-3 things; but if you try to be good at all the things you end up being good at none of them, IME.

Probably what you really want is a multiclassed bard/ftr/rog build which has PA/CL/GC chain on top of the usual Swashy feats. Of which there are several but apart from Icebreaker also look at the DD Parody (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/444545-The-dwarven-defender-parody): CON-based but easy to adapt to INT (Harper) or DEX (Finesse) if you prefer.

[Selvera]

Some observations from the many swashbucklers that I've built:

- Cleave and greatcleave can work extremely well even if you're not a strength build. It only takes 13 strength and a dead feat to make use of. Fighter levels can help with the feat problems (for some builds).

- En Point is one of the best attacks in the game. Learn about it.

- Shout/Greater Shout take a lot of investment which I've never seem to get done right.

- You can split to-hit stat and damage stat effectively if you wear an accuracy item. You don't need to pump your to-hit stat, but don't ignore it either. Know that augment of gives half as much as a real stat item and fits into a slot which you probably have too many of already? Use that for your to-hit stat.

- You don't need to pump stats to high heavens on melee builds in general. Just think about it as 2 stat = 1.5 deadly and be smart about it.

- Swashbuckler single-target CC has a pretty good DC, no matter which one of the single target CC's you use.

- At mid-high levels a buckler is better then any other "swashbuckling style" in essentially every way. Swashbuckling with orbs is painful, and rune-arms is nearly impossible (They did add a weapon that does work as a swash/arti, but I haven't tried it yet, it's not a great type of weapon).

- AC is useful until it isn't. Typically when it isn't is when you're running reaper without martial pastlives or if you're trying to swashbuckle something that's not a buckler. As a dex build, you can maintain AC being somewhat useful pretty much indefinitely, if you make some tradeoffs to keep your AC relevant (wear Protection and Natural Armor and Parrying gear).

[Fivetigers33]

Corrupt, what are your goals for this build?

There is a lot of useful information in this thread but it's kind of all over the place. Bard is my main class and I've played a variety of them. A level 20 charisma based bard is far from gimped if you know what you are doing. Cleaves definitely work on melee bards, but you should want T5 warchanter even more if you are cleaving because it gives you an extra cleave that rends all enemies helpless, increases your critical multiplier on 19-20 by +1, and a flat +6% melee damage. I would never take T5 in swashbuckler. My last pure bard melee life could crit for over 6k in epics. I didn't have the Harper Tree or it would have been higher, and a multiclass build could have been significantly better.

List your goals, or what you want your build to be able to do, and I think the advice will be a lot more focused and useful.

[Corrupt]

List your goals, or what you want your build to be able to do, and I think the advice will be a lot more focused and useful.The goal is to solo through heroic elite 1-20 and possibly epic hard 20-30 swiftly and painlessly, while not being utterly useless in the odd PUG heroic reaper / epic elite. If stuff becomes too tedious in epic levels, I can just TR. And it should be the build that allows this on a first life character, not a metric ton of heirloom gear, past lives, and ability tomes, which in combination can make the most unsuitable builds seem viable.

I did a dex-fightery bard 1-20 on my main TR, back when swashbuckling, epic levels, and indeed, enhancement trees themselves, weren't a thing yet, back then it was called virtuoso (and wasn't very good) and ever since swashbuckling was introduced, I was tempted to go back with the same thing and try out the new possibilities of the enhancements.

As an experiment, having Veteran 2, I ran 2 builds through Searing Heights, which is my usual benchmark for low-mid-heroic viability of a build. In that situation I usually run a particular, circuitous route from the entrance to the fire cave, killing everything in between, mainly to see if self-heal, SP consumption and damage output suffice, while merely wearing the Vet2 starter gear. No potions, ship buffs, or additional gear. Many builds have not survived this test, running out of SP or HP typically shortly after entering the sulatar camp. I can strongly recommend to people who are interested in builds to develop such a procedure to benchmark different builds.

I ran a dex-focused elf bard 7, and a charisma-focused human bard 7. Both picked Power Attack and Cleave as their first two feats, in addition to Weapon Finesse for the Dex elf, and Single Weapon Attack and Dragonmark of Finding for the Cha human bard. Both started with 14 strength for Power Attack/Cleave, and further 20 dex/12 Charisma on the Dex elf, 10 dex/18 Charisma on the Cha human, with spare points into con and int as would be expected.

The dex bard proved far more resilient, and made it to the end, while the cha bard took too much damage and ran out of SP before reaching the fire caves, and without further self-heal, quickly succumbed. The damage output swashbuckling with the starter rapier was overall about the same, but disadvantaged both characters in certain ways. The vet 2 dex elf was only 2 action points short of being able to get the racial dex-to-damage enhancement, having only 6 points in the Swashbuckling tree, while the Cha bard without substantial racial enhancements had an easy time getting the swashbuckler trees Cha-to-damage enhancement, and thus hit for substantially bigger numbers. However, even with songs and focusing chant and so forth, the human cha bard was missing far more often than the weapon-finesse and racial weapon enhancement-boosted dex elf. A cheap Elyd Edge may again substantially improve the damage output of the Cha bard. What did the human cha bard in, however, was the damage received. Constant spamming of heal and CC-spells drained the SP quickly, where the dex elf dodged and reflex saved against most damage. However, I believe it would be possible, with some careful refinement of enhancements, spell selections and even starting stats, for the Cha build to manage the test.

What I did notice during gameplay was that the dex elf mostly used buff spells, while the cha human had a wide selection of offensive spells for CC and damage dealing. Now while this did not exactly help with the problem of running out of SP, it made fighting substantially more interesting. Instead of simply running up to the mobs and poking them down, the Cha bard would send mobs to sleep, daze them with sonic blast, or fight them in a field of glitter dust. The dex elf, while indubitably stronger, without workable tactical feats or viable offensive spells, was indeed quite dull to play. Also, through the dragonmark, the human cha bard received knock and the chest improvement, a significant boon in my book, provided the character were otherwise viable.

If I could somehow hybridize the two concepts, I would, but I cannot fathom a way that doesn't essentially defeat the point. A human 16dex/16cha bard with the dragonmark would not profit from having enhancements sunk into weapon finesse or X-to-damage, when strength already has to be 14 to make Cleave available. Adding weapon finesse and Swashbuckler's own dex-to-damage, and focussing on increasing dex would render the casting ability too weak to be worth bothering, and focusing on Charisma on the other hand would make Weapon Finesse, and indeed, starting with 16 dex pointless. Now you'll argue, that this past life or starting with 36 points, or that tome or such heirloom will rectify the problems. But that doesn't make the build better, that makes your own starting conditions better. If you can make the build better, then those improved starting conditions can multiply with the improvements of the build.

tl;dr: Dex elf showed to be the stronger build, but proved more tedious to play, and I can't see a sensible way to merge the two concepts.

The closest thing to a merge would be to either make a "dex elf" starting with only 18 dex but 16 cha, and pumping spell DC through enhancements and equipment, there even is one in the elf racial enhancement tree, in addition to the already powerful elf arcanum. Hmm... Wait a minute, let me try something.

Edit: Wisely taking "Magical Studies" (with Echoes of Power), the high dex elf with "improved magics" blows that test out of the water, clearing out the map without resting even after songs ran out. Not many builds do that, battle clerics come to mind, as even wf sorcs tend to struggle with killing things and keeping themselves healed at the same time once they're at 0 SP. Offensive spells weren't too successful, mostly because of the spell resistance of the Sulatar drow, which this build is better equipped to deal with at higher levels. A definite weakness of the build is the low fort save - it's an elf bard.

So tell me how this looks like until 20:

Elf Bard 20
14 Str
18 Dex (+5 levelups, if you get to choose a tome, use it for dex)
12 Con
8 Int
8 Wis
16 Cha

Feats:
Power Attack
Cleave
Weapon Finesse
SWF, ISWF, GSWF
IC: Piercing

Skills: Balance, Concentration, Perform, UMD, + 1 as per taste (Diplomacy, Heal, Spellcraft, Haggle, Tumble etc)

Enhancements:
Elf - ~22 Points (For Grace, Arcanum, rapier damage and 2x Dex, if points to spare, Enchantment Lore for +1 DC)
Spellsinger ~4 Points (for the Magical Studies)

And either: ~41 points into Swashbuckler for capstone (Evasion), rest as needed
or
Swashbuckler -> 12 for Swashbuckling Style (e.g. Buckler) + Core 3 for 12 points, DONT pick "Different Tack", you have the cheaper elven racial enhancement for dex to dam.
And then either ~41 points into either Warchanter or Spellsinger for their respective T5 goodies and capstone

Equipment: You use a rapier and whatever trash you can find.

Post level 20: You figure it out. Depending on equipment and precise build you might need more defense, more offense, better spell DCs, or whatever, I don't know.

[Hjarki]

As an experiment, having Veteran 2, I ran 2 builds through Searing Heights, which is my usual benchmark for low-mid-heroic viability of a build. In that situation I usually run a particular, circuitous route from the entrance to the fire cave, killing everything in between, mainly to see if self-heal, SP consumption and damage output suffice, while merely wearing the Vet2 starter gear. No potions, ship buffs, or additional gear. Many builds have not survived this test, running out of SP or HP typically shortly after entering the sulatar camp. I can strongly recommend to people who are interested in builds to develop such a procedure to benchmark different builds.

Honestly, this sort of experiment isn't remotely informative about anything except how characters perform at level 7. In terms of Bards, it should come as no shock that your find a pure melee-focused Bard more effective - given that a level 7 Bard doesn't have the key control abilities that are the reason why virtually all high-end Bard builds are Charisma-focused.

Or consider what you noticed about SP consumption. At level 7, running out of SP is a big problem for Bards. At level 20+? Not so much. An ability like En Pointe (which costs a whopping 10 SP) is nearly unusable in heroic levels, but players tend to use it on cooldown in Epic levels. Why? Because while the cost of such abilities remains the same (or even gets less), the amount of available SP to use them expands enormously.

I think your best path forward is to simply play your Dex-based Bard. Somewhere in the teens, you'll likely discover that it doesn't work quite as well as you thought it would. Then you can simply use a Lesser Heart of Wood to course-correct.

[Corrupt]

Honestly, this sort of experiment isn't remotely informative about anything except how characters perform at level 7.Of course, if there was a Veteran 3 or 4 status that would let you test things at level 15 or 25 respectively, this would be far superior. However, it DOES tell you how a build performs at level 7, which by itself is far more informative than how a build performs in theoretical forum warfare.


In terms of Bards, it should come as no shock that your find a pure melee-focused Bard more effective - given that a level 7 Bard doesn't have the key control abilities that are the reason why virtually all high-end Bard builds are Charisma-focused.You weren't paying attention. They're both melee-focused. Even the Count of Monte Christo is melee focused. The difference is in how the builds synergize with additional spellcasting capabilities, or additional defenses from having high dex. And as it turns out, at level 7, additional defenses trump additional spellcasting. My goal was finding a build that can sport the additional defense without sacrificing too much spellcasting.


Or consider what you noticed about SP consumption. At level 7, running out of SP is a big problem for Bards. At level 20+? Not so much.At level 20 (10+, really) the main usage for the SP is going to be the disco ball, and the high CHA builds are primarily designed to achieve as high a DC on the disco ball as possible. Disco Ball allows you to lure mobs into a situation where they remain CC'd and you (or your party) can hack them down without opposition. Disco ball is also quite SP intensive. Even as a bard that forfeits offensive spell capability, in a party setting, you're still perfectly capable of blowing most of your SP on buff spells even at higher levels anyways. So I do not know where you get those bards drowning in SP, maybe they're just piking?

The question is, how does the disco ball of a dex elf compare to the disco ball of a cha human? Turns out, there's only a 2 DC difference, with comparable equipment, if you spec the enchantment focus in the elven racial enhancement tree, at a noticeable increase in defense. If we look at the Monte Christo build, and break it down, what we notice is that it compensates for the "lack" of dex-based defense with all sorts of defensive enhancements and epic destiny choices. If we then decide that this much tougher and more survivable dex build does not require as much of this defense, we can focus those same resources into offensive spellcasting (e.g. speccing 41 points into Spellsinger) allowing for disco ball DCs on par or better than Monte Christo, as well as additional songs. At the same time, we have enhancements such as the Elven Arcanum, that even in a ceteris-paribus situation will mean that in practical terms, that at higher levels where lots of mobs have spell resistance, the dex elf will often hit with the Disco Ball when the Cha human will not. This raises the question: What, then, about a hypothetical Cha elf? I in fact have a half-elf spellsinger whose race receives the arcanum, but not the melee capability of a pure elf, and the toon truly focuses on spells. But having by design forfeited most (offensive) melee capability, this toon cannot solo at all, and I used it in the past only to let guildies shine, instead of having them run after me as I solo stuff. That is not a build that most people would enjoy.


I think your best path forward is to simply play your Dex-based Bard. Somewhere in the teens, you'll likely discover that it doesn't work quite as well as you thought it would. Then you can simply use a Lesser Heart of Wood to course-correct.Or, we can analyse ahead of time, how to most efficiently distribute the defensive and offensive capabilities of the build, and figure out where they're invested the most efficient. It's a bard, things never work quite as well as you'd hope they should. Bards aren't zerg-soloing reaper content like warlocks are. And I believe that a dex-focused builds' substantial advantages in defense (and to a lesser degree, offense) can outweigh the rather small increase in spell DC of a Cha-focused build. Or to put it differently: If you believe you should focus in spells while still retaining some melee capability, you should still go dex-elf, and then pick Spellsinger for your capstone enhancement tree. As it turns out, you do not need a Lesser Heart of Wood to respec enhancements.

Indeed, the only reason I can see to go for a human/cha build given this stronger alternative, is not pure power, but to make use of the Dragonmark of Finding. Having access to a high level Knock spell and a Chest buff, is a tremendous boon to any bard, be it soloing or as party support. But from a build perspective, this trades additional utility for a downgrade in power - Maybe one that can be compensated with access to huge numbers of past lives and heirloom equipment - but a downgrade in power none the less.

[Fivetigers33]

The question is, how does the disco ball of a dex elf compare to the disco ball of a cha human? Turns out, there's only a 2 DC difference, with comparable equipment, if you spec the enchantment focus in the elven racial enhancement tree, at a noticeable increase in defense... And I believe that a dex-focused builds' substantial advantages in defense (and to a lesser degree, offense) can outweigh the rather small increase in spell DC of a Cha-focused build.

At level 7 the difference might only be 2, but as you get higher and higher the difference also increases, whereas at cap +7 to the DC of your spells is GREATLY more valuable than +7 to your AC and reflex saves from the extra Dex.



I in fact have a half-elf spellsinger whose race receives the arcanum, but not the melee capability of a pure elf, and the toon truly focuses on spells.

Spending 17 AP in a racial tree for +4 damage is a terrible idea for trying to increase a bard's DPS. Bard melee dps comes from a mix of the swashbuckler and warchanter trees. I can't think of any racial trees (though i'm not an expert in every racial tree) that would be better for adding melee DPS than just sticking with the actual bard trees.




Indeed, the only reason I can see to go for a human/cha build given this stronger alternative, is not pure power, but to make use of the Dragonmark of Finding. Having access to a high level Knock spell and a Chest buff, is a tremendous boon to any bard, be it soloing or as party support. But from a build perspective, this trades additional utility for a downgrade in power - Maybe one that can be compensated with access to huge numbers of past lives and heirloom equipment - but a downgrade in power none the less.

Dragonmarks can be useful but the amount of Racial AP needed to make full use of them SIGNIFICANTLY reduces the the effectiveness of your character in terms of completing quests on higher difficulties. You don't NEED finding or knock to beat quests on Elite. If you want to take them, that's fine, just realize you are making it harder on yourself to complete the difficulties you want to complete and I don't think any gear or past lives can really make up the difference.



You want to focus on melee, so that's fine. Swashbuckler can get pretty much full melee DPS with a mere 22 AP, leaving you with a whopping 58 to make your build even better (put 41 in Warchanter/Spellsinger and you still have 17 AP for your Racial tree). I have played melee bards and caster bards, and yes the melee bards can rip through lower difficulty content faster than caster bards, but as you up the difficulty, caster bard clearly pulls ahead. For your particular goals and playstyle, I think putting 22 AP in Swashbuckler (improved destruction would be your only T4) and then T5/capstone in either Spellsinger or Warchanter would be your best bet. Warchanter would use Spinning Ice (melee freezing cleave), whereas Spellsinger would have a significantly better Disco Ball as well as Hold Monster Mass (even better than disco ball because it makes enemies helpless, meaning they take 50% extra damage).

Now for Heroic Elite/Epic Hard, with with right gear, and being CHA based, you can probably get away with going the Warchanter route and still have a functional Disco Ball.

A few notes about Spellsinger though. They have a HP regen song that can really save a TON of sp from heals if you have decent healing amplification. I literally mean you will barely ever cast a healing spell on yourself. They also have a SP regen song. It gives 2 sp every 1 or 2 seconds, which doesn't sound like much, but over the course of a 10-15 minute quest, that's a ton of extra SP. I personally prefer the Spellsinger Tree, but if you want melee cleaves, you should definitely go Warchanter.


Whichever route you take though, you want Charisma. Spinning Ice, Hold Monster Mass, and Disco Ball all use Charisma to determine their DCs.

[Corrupt]

At level 7 the difference might only be 2, but as you get higher and higher the difference also increases, whereas at cap +7 to the DC of your spells is GREATLY more valuable than +7 to your AC and reflex saves from the extra Dex.The DC difference isn't 7. Dex elf starts and ends with 16 cha, human cha bard starts with 18, gets 5 from levelups, and 1 from race-specific enhancements, for 24. That's a modifier of +3 vs +7, but the elf also has +1 to enchantment DCs and +3 to spell pen in its race tree, making the difference in caster effectiveness even smaller. Meanwhile, the dex elf can enhance its primary stat twice instead of just once, and starts out at 20, so the difference between reflex/AC/tohit/damage naturally ends up larger than the difference between spell DCs.


Spending 17 AP in a racial tree for +4 damage is a terrible idea for trying to increase a bard's DPS. Bard melee dps comes from a mix of the swashbuckler and warchanter trees. I can't think of any racial trees (though i'm not an expert in every racial tree) that would be better for adding melee DPS than just sticking with the actual bard trees.I disagree. The main increase from 12-22 points into swashbuckler is the increase in critical multiplier, which multiplies the base damage. I'm not saying, that if you could put 80 AP into 40 +dam/+attack, you should do it, because putting 10 points into something that increases your critical multiplier by ~15%, such as the Swashbuckling stance enhancement, those remaining 70 AP/35 +dam already work out to 41 damage now, and that's even not taking the effect of weapon damage and ability modifiers into account, which may easily work out that version to about 50. But DPS wise, the racial weapon enhancements are a lot better than filler, which is what you usually need a lot of for all the other goodies. But you can skip them and use the Swashbucklers "Different Tack" for 2 AP instead of the elf racial "Grace" for 1 AP, which do the same thing for the build.


Dragonmarks can be useful but the amount of Racial AP needed to make full use of them SIGNIFICANTLY reduces the the effectiveness of your character in terms of completing quests on higher difficulties. You don't NEED finding or knock to beat quests on Elite. If you want to take them, that's fine, just realize you are making it harder on yourself to complete the difficulties you want to complete and I don't think any gear or past lives can really make up the difference.That's what I wrote. The dragonmark costs you a feat and several AP, thus costing you power. At the same time it gives you utility that is not directly related to how effective you are in combat. You are trading power for utility. Also, "Finding" is useless, what you want is Knock and the Chest buff, which will make you everyone's best friend.


You want to focus on melee, so that's fine. Swashbuckler can get pretty much full melee DPS with a mere 22 AP, leaving you with a whopping 58 to make your build even better (put 41 in Warchanter/Spellsinger and you still have 17 AP for your Racial tree). I have played melee bards and caster bards, and yes the melee bards can rip through lower difficulty content faster than caster bards, but as you up the difficulty, caster bard clearly pulls ahead. For your particular goals and playstyle, I think putting 22 AP in Swashbuckler (improved destruction would be your only T4) and then T5/capstone in either Spellsinger or Warchanter would be your best bet. Warchanter would use Spinning Ice (melee freezing cleave), whereas Spellsinger would have a significantly better Disco Ball as well as Hold Monster Mass (even better than disco ball because it makes enemies helpless, meaning they take 50% extra damage).Remind you again: *Most* bards "focus" in melee - The Monte Christo build is a melee build, even when it is Cha based. Only full blown spellsingers who get the Wail capstone can really pull ahead in terms of pure mob removal. What "middle of the road" bards do is, they get a lot of ways to CC the mobs (Whether fascinate, Disco Ball or even Mass Hold Monster which you mentioned), but they try to have the damage to remove those mobs quickly, because without that personal damage, or a group to capitalize on the CC'd mobs, they'd wear themselves out having to recast those CCs again and again against the higher content HP sponges that just don't die.


Now for Heroic Elite/Epic Hard, with with right gear, and being CHA based, you can probably get away with going the Warchanter route and still have a functional Disco Ball.

A few notes about Spellsinger though. They have a HP regen song that can really save a TON of sp from heals if you have decent healing amplification. I literally mean you will barely ever cast a healing spell on yourself. They also have a SP regen song. It gives 2 sp every 1 or 2 seconds, which doesn't sound like much, but over the course of a 10-15 minute quest, that's a ton of extra SP. I personally prefer the Spellsinger Tree, but if you want melee cleaves, you should definitely go Warchanter.

Whichever route you take though, you want Charisma. Spinning Ice, Hold Monster Mass, and Disco Ball all use Charisma to determine their DCs.To a degree. One alternative for higher heroics is, for example, using paralyzing weapons + Fascinate, allowing you to dump charisma - provided, of course, you are competent enough at melee. Meanwhile, the "Monte Christo" (Human Cha) build fills up the swashbuckler enhancement tree and picks divine crusader to remain relevant at melee into epics. Choices that a dex-based elf bard might not necessarily need to make, and thus could actually fill up spellsinger. The question that's argued isn't simply "Is Cha or Dex the better stat for a bard", but also, "is filling up spellsinger better than filling up swashbuckler", i.e. is it a more efficient use of your action points? Even though I think past 12 or so points, the Swashbuckling tree quickly loses a lot of attractivity, filling up swashbuckler still is cheaper, points wise, because we already have those 12 or 22 points in there. Or, is Divine Crusader a better epic destiny than whatever the alternative is? If we make the argument that Divine Crusader is better for all realistic "meleeing, casty bards", then we should just build a bard around divine crusader, with all that entails (That can mean building for cha, for example). But if Divine Crusader is merely a crutch to patch the problems of a bard build that performs insufficiently in melee, we should look at whether making the bard a dex based elf is a more optimal approach to balance melee and spellcasting. And I'm suggesting that using a dex elf is more optimal than using a cha human, possibly because a dex elf can increase its primary stat, dex, more than a cha human can, and at the same time offers other advantages to a bard that offset the lower casting stat - the arcanum, speccable enchantment DC, cheap weapon damage increases, cheaper racial "different Tack" etc.

Edit: To drive the point home into those incredibly thick heads that aren't getting it even after having this explained several times, it's not "melee vs spell casting", it's "dex vs cha", in fact, if we were to compare dex elf casting with cha human casting, and the human picks swashbuckler and the dex elf picks spellsinger, I wager the dex elf will be better at casting than than the human, while being close to each other in terms of melee prowess. If, on the other hand, the human were to pick Spellsinger, he'd be the superior caster, but comparatively, a complete failure at melee. And the question still remains, "is that the optimal way to go about it"?

[Hjarki]

Now for Heroic Elite/Epic Hard, with with right gear, and being CHA based, you can probably get away with going the Warchanter route and still have a functional Disco Ball.

Maybe. Most Warchanter builds multi-class at least 4 levels, don't have T4+ Spellsinger, don't take an Arcane destiny and don't take the Spell Penetration feat (or twists). So you're looking at -4 + -5 + -5 + -5 = -19 Spell Penetration over a caster-focused build. That's enough of a shortfall that you're into "I just don't cast if they have Spell Resistance" territory.

In terms of DC, Spellsinger provides a whopping +10 DC over Warchanter (4 from cores, 1 from Crown, 1 from Spellsong, 2 from Prodigy, 2 from capstone Charisma). Couple that with the fact that your Warchanter build is unlikely to take Focus feats/School Specialization and you're very likely to have a non-Charisma Destiny - it's probable that anything that isn't completely trivial will simply laugh at your Otto's Sphere.


A few notes about Spellsinger though. They have a HP regen song that can really save a TON of sp from heals if you have decent healing amplification. I literally mean you will barely ever cast a healing spell on yourself. They also have a SP regen song. It gives 2 sp every 1 or 2 seconds, which doesn't sound like much, but over the course of a 10-15 minute quest, that's a ton of extra SP. I personally prefer the Spellsinger Tree, but if you want melee cleaves, you should definitely go Warchanter.

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but if you're looking for AE damage, you really need to try Fan of Knives. I can almost guarantee once you start using it, you'll forget about trying to shoehorn Cleave/Great Cleave into Bard builds. Since Fan of Knives works (slightly) better for Spellsinger than Warchanter (due to the +1 spellpower/AP) and Mass Hold has a much larger radius than Spinning Ice, I'd consider the balance of AE damage the other way around.


Whichever route you take though, you want Charisma. Spinning Ice, Hold Monster Mass, and Disco Ball all use Charisma to determine their DCs.

I'll toss in a caveat: probably my favorite Bard build post-Ravenloft is actually based on Deep Gnome. Color Spray is virtually free, it isn't subject to spell resistance, it stuns anything that can be stunned, blinds anything with eyes and has a much lower cooldown than Mass Hold (as well as not having to stumble over immunities to enchantment). However, it does require playing an Int-based Bard.

Off-hand, I can't think of another primarily Bard build I've played or even seen that shouldn't have Charisma as the primary stat.


Edit: To drive the point home into those incredibly thick heads that aren't getting it even after having this explained several times, it's not "melee vs spell casting", it's "dex vs cha", in fact, if we were to compare dex elf casting with cha human casting, and the human picks swashbuckler and the dex elf picks spellsinger, I wager the dex elf will be better at casting than than the human, while being close to each other in terms of melee prowess. If, on the other hand, the human were to pick Spellsinger, he'd be the superior caster, but comparatively, a complete failure at melee. And the question still remains, "is that the optimal way to go about it"?

I think you've misconstrued the conversation on this thread. It's not a debate. It's experienced players being very patient with an inexperienced player whose comments run the gamut between "ignorant" and "incorrect".

[Hjarki]

So Fan of Knives does 5-8 (6.5) damage per character level. At level 30, this is 195 base damage .

First, Fan of Knives scales of 200% melee power. On a VKF swashbuckler, available melee power is 334:

Per tooltip, it's 100% of ranged power, presumably allowing melee power with Weapon Versatility. While Weapon Versatility is undergoing changes so you can't use it with non-Vistani weapons, I doubt they're (intentionally) going to change it for an ability in the same tree. The 200% of melee power is the additional bleed effect.

In any case, the point is less "let's build a character who does nothing but Fan of Knives" but "how can we effectively do damage on a character who otherwise has extremely weak AE options?".

Cleave/Great Cleave just aren't all that great for SWF with Finesse weapons. If you spend 15 seconds pounding away on Cleave/Great Cleave, you're probably going to do about the same damage as a single Fan of Knives. But:

1. You only need a brief window of helpless with Fan of Knives, while you need a continuous stretch of helpless with Cleave/Great Cleave.
2. Fan of Knives covers a much larger area, meaning you don't need to be standing in the middle of a pack of enemies.
3. Fan of Knives can be used at range, so you can kite with it - especially if you've got other ranged options.
4. Fan of Knives doesn't require you toss points into Strength or find room for 3 feats.
5. Fan of Knives is also a decent attack against a single target while Cleave/Great Cleave are a dps loss against a single target.

It does cost a significant number of AP, but those AP aren't really 'wasted'. Haste Boost is nice for a class that gets otherwise mediocre action boosts. VKF-fueled daggers are about as good as any Finesse weapon - and most of the other Finesse weapons you could argue were comparable would require a similar AP investment (Hand Axe w/Strike with No Thought, Scourge Light Maces, Rapier w/Advanced Sneak Attack, etc.) You can also continue climbing the VKF tree for even more goodies - there's an immunity to Energy Drain in there, +5% more Doublestrike and they might one day fix the +20 Melee Power. I'm not terribly impressed with T5 and above VKF, but it's not unreasonable to imagine taking it (note: I can't think of a good justification for taking it on a Bard because there are too many other places you need those AP).

As I noted above, I've used it on several Bard builds - with Color Spray, Mass Hold and Spinning Ice all occupying the 'AE helpless' category. The Color Spray variant was definitely the most seamless for solo play, but being Int-based means losing Suggestion and Sonic Blast as options while picking up Phantasmal Killer is only situationally useful (I'd speculate that about 80% of the things I PK'd were Air Elementals because they're way too annoying to melee). I found Spinning Ice to be generally the least effective, but there's no arguing that the buffs from Warchanter are far better than the buffs from Spellsinger. And, of course, there's no actual requirement that your enemies be helpless, any more than Cleave/Great Cleave require helpless opponents.

[Corrupt]

Update: I since played a helf cha-based first life pure bard to 20. Still don't have Vistani. To answer the original question: The replacements for Cleave on the Bard are the Sonic Blast, Reverberate, Shout and Horn of Thunder SLAs. That's the stuff you spam in between melee strikes. All of these work off Cha & require points in Spellsinger, which you want anyways because the Sustaining Song (heal over time) is amazing.

However, having been built from the outset as a swashbuckling/spellsinger hybrid, I found that in higher levels, without the pure focus on melee of a dex/str build, melee damage became a non-factor and was always outstripped by the SLAs, and at level 20 after several respecs, I ended up having not a single point in Swashbuckling anymore, despite 4 of the feats still pertaining to that. Couldn'tBA to spend the exceptional Siberys dragonshards, as I was am gonna TR anyways. So for the next life I'm going to make it basically a "sonic sorc" bard with an Evocation focus, and not pick any feats pertaining to melee - or swashbuckling as a whole. Considered briefly picking Necro because Wail is such an efficient killer in epics, but Necro is 1 or 2 spells tops while you're constantly spamming the evocation SLAs.

Also: Very happy with Helf as racial choice, the Arcanum together with some crafted gear and other enhancements made spell resistance a non-issue when levelling in vs FR Drow and demons - outside reaper, of course. Same goes for the paladin dilly bonus saves, very useful. If I had Dragonborn, I'd give a Dragonborn spellbard a shot, and use the breath weapon as an additional damage source, also for the bonus charisma. DCs, while workable, were definitely an issue in the EEs, but there's only so much you can do with a first life char and cheap gear.

Still considering running a "proper" melee bard not based on Cha instead. Found that the warchanters medium armor ability can't be used while swashbuckling, very disappointed.

https://i.imgur.com/Aob2hEn.jpg

[Tilomere]

Weapons on the whole are not very effective in heroics past early levels. Weapons aren't "good" until you can increase their damage on helpless mobs with combat brute, then double their damage again with blitz + enough action boosts from LD + melee power. Basically 1-19 weapons become weaker and weaker and weaker, then they triple in power at 20 in LD.

Soundburst > Dragonborn breath + VKF fan of knives + SS nukes/charms is a way to go through heroics that scales with levels.

Swashbuckling will get you to that point where it all kicks in though.

[Corrupt]

Weapons on the whole are not very effective in heroics past early levels.
My Horc Barbarian would like to have a word with you.

Soundburst > Dragonborn breath + VKF fan of knives + SS nukes/charms is a way to go through heroics that scales with levels.

Swashbuckling will get you to that point where it all kicks in though.I get the sentiment, but what you're essentially doing there is an LR of turning a swashbuckler into a caster, but without the LR I guess? I'm levelling with Evocation + Spell Pen feats here. Also, Soundburst? Is it worth it? I considered the spell, but you basically have to heighten + quicken it and then after 16 it already costs like 45SP for a very brief AoE stun on a DC against Fort that may be lower than what your enchantment spells are at (because a top tier enhancement that you will take only gives you bonus enchantment DC, not evocation) but then I found Mass Hold fairly useless due to the high cooldown while Soundburst is basically spammable and I was drowning in SP that I couldn't get rid of in the high levels anyways.

Also, why is the CD on the Mass Hold SLA so long? Would the bard be OP if he had the same CD on it as a sorc or wizard? It's already not cheaper and it being an SLA doesn't help much either because the only useful metamagic applicable to it is quicken. /rant

[Tilomere]

My Horc Barbarian would like to have a word with you.
I get the sentiment, but what you're essentially doing there is an LR of turning a swashbuckler into a caster, but without the LR I guess? I'm levelling with Evocation + Spell Pen feats here. Also, Soundburst? Is it worth it? I considered the spell, but you basically have to heighten + quicken it and then after 16 it already costs like 45SP for a very brief AoE stun on a DC against Fort that may be lower than what your enchantment spells are at (because a top tier enhancement that you will take only gives you bonus enchantment DC, not evocation) but then I found Mass Hold fairly useless due to the high cooldown while Soundburst is basically spammable and I was drowning in SP that I couldn't get rid of in the high levels anyways.

Ya, LR without the LR. You can alternatively grab heavy repeater feat at 3, and use harper until you feel good swapping to casting, then free feat swap it out.

Also, why is the CD on the Mass Hold SLA so long? Would the bard be OP if he had the same CD on it as a sorc or wizard? It's already not cheaper and it being an SLA doesn't help much either because the only useful metamagic applicable to it is quicken. /rant

I really only quicken SLAs because its free, emergency heals, and high mana cost or long cooldown spells like a maximize/empowered firewall that I don't want interrupted due to a high mana cost.

Anything low mana cost with a short cool down, like soundburst, I don't worry if it gets interrupted.

I really only heighten SLAs on casters, and don't have to worry about spell pen, but base DCs/spell pen are pretty high due to power accumulation on my character, so your mileage may vary. Instead of casting it at 45 sp, spam 3 of them at 15 as you go from target to target. But really, only the one right before dragon's breath/fan of knives is key because of helpless damage and to make them dex 0, which reduces their reflex save on the dragon's breath.