Is a Spellsinger Caster Bard still solo viable & decent for a racial life?

[charlieman]

Hello, I have wanted to play a caster bard for a while (run around spamming shout & sonic blasts at everything) but I'd rather not have to rely on waiting for a group to do quests all the time. I don't plan on running anything over r2 (probably only r1) does anyone know if a caster bard (dragonborn) would be viable?

[Hjarki]

I'm on record as disliking the term 'viable'.

That being said, Sonic damage is horrible. Bards receive six total Sonic damage effects:

Sonic Blast: This is a CC effect that incidentally does nearly meaningless amounts of damage.
Sound Burst: This is a CC effect that does trivial damage.
Reverberate: This isn't bad for a single target DoT, but it's not as good as other more conventional arcane versions.
Shout: This is 30% less damage than Fireball, you get it 4+ levels later than a caster gets Fireball and you have to cast it in melee range.
Greater Shout: This is 60% less damage than Delayed Blast Fireball and, again, you have to cast it in melee range.
Horn of Thunder: Precludes taking the far better Mass Hold Monster and deals 50% less damage than Delayed Blast Fireball. Also uses a secondary spell school that you almost don't have the spell power (or spell critical) to support.

Of these, the only spell worth casting for the purposes of damage is Reverberate - and if you're trying to clear a dungeon with Reverberate, you need the patience of a saint.

Dragonborn also isn't a particularly good race for Bards.

That being said, if you want to do this, I'd give up on your dreams of Sonic nuking and just build a pure support caster out of Spellsinger/Warchanter. Then bring hirelings along and heal them.

[BoBoDaClown]

Perhaps.

I played it some years bk - worked fine. Mobs wilted under Horn of Thunder up until around Level 20 - I can't remember the exact level that it became 'non-viable', but it was in the 20s.

This was prior to reaper - so take that into account (hence the 'perhaps'). Also, I was well geared etc.

edit: I ran with one today. Note, it was only 1 chain, and it was on a Level 15, running Level 13s R1. Stuff melted.

[cru121]

Evoker spell singer is so-so in heroics. Don't even look at mass hold monster, you need Horn. Work on getting your Soundburst DC sky-high. Keep your suggestion/mass suggestion DC high as well. Some content where Soundburst won't work (that's a lot of content) or DPS race against a self healing boss, can be problematic.

Obviously works a lot better in groups.

Dragonborn could be decent if you have many racial AP. One more nuke is always welcome. However, spell singer T5 are very expensive, and you probably want 21+ in Warchanter as well for the temporary HP, so AP is generally tight.

[cru121]

I'm on record as disliking the term 'viable'.

That being said, Sonic damage is horrible. Bards receive six total Sonic damage effects:

Sonic Blast: This is a CC effect that incidentally does nearly meaningless amounts of damage.
Sound Burst: This is a CC effect that does trivial damage.
Reverberate: This isn't bad for a single target DoT, but it's not as good as other more conventional arcane versions.
Shout: This is 30% less damage than Fireball, you get it 4+ levels later than a caster gets Fireball and you have to cast it in melee range.
Greater Shout: This is 60% less damage than Delayed Blast Fireball and, again, you have to cast it in melee range.
Horn of Thunder: Precludes taking the far better Mass Hold Monster and deals 50% less damage than Delayed Blast Fireball. Also uses a secondary spell school that you almost don't have the spell power (or spell critical) to support.

Of these, the only spell worth casting for the purposes of damage is Reverberate - and if you're trying to clear a dungeon with Reverberate, you need the patience of a saint.

Dragonborn also isn't a particularly good race for Bards.

That being said, if you want to do this, I'd give up on your dreams of Sonic nuking and just build a pure support caster out of Spellsinger/Warchanter. Then bring hirelings along and heal them.

The spells and SLAs that you dismissed are your only DPS options as an evoker bard, so dismissing them is rough :)
On the other hand, I never take reverberate, it just deals abysmal damage.

Why Shout was excluded from arcane dps spell pass I just can't understand.