Advice on crowd control spells

[Slapphappy]

What mix of spells provides efective crowd control at low, mid and high levels?

(I am posting this question on the wizard forum too.)

thanks,
Slapphappy, (on behalf of Mezmer)

[~Jules921]

My bards love:
Glitterdust
Soundburst
Otto's Dance (all versions)
Hypnotize
Daze Monster
Hold Person/Monster

Jules

[CSFurious]

my capped sor can just do it better

i think bards help their fellow players best as buffers &, for me, as warchanters

fascinate is the bard's best cc

[Avonwey]

Hogwash that a sorcerer can do it better because I have both. :P

On my bard about 90% of my CC (other than fascinate) is a heightened hypnotize, with a few others (charm monster) thrown in.

[CSFurious]

i used to take heighten on my dead bards as well

wasted feat on a feat-starved class IMO

sors cast about twice as fast & have at minimum 50% more mana then bards

so if your bard can enchant as effectively as your sor, i would reroll your sor

Hogwash that a sorcerer can do it better because I have both. :P

On my bard about 90% of my CC (other than fascinate) is a heightened hypnotize, with a few others (charm monster) thrown in.

[Avonwey]

so if your bard can enchant as effectively as your sor, i would reroll your sor

The Charisma on my Bard (32) is almost as same as the Charisma on my Sorc (34). So I give up 1 on my dc. But other than that I don't get how a hypnotize from a Bard is any less effective than a hypnotize from my sorcerer.

Yes, my Sorcerer is able to enchant more quickly than my Bard. And my Sorcerer can cast more hypnotizes than my bard. But since I never run out of SP, and you don't need to spam cast CC spells, I still dispute your claim that there's any noticeable difference.

[EinarMal]

my capped sor can just do it better

i think bards help their fellow players best as buffers &, for me, as warchanters

fascinate is the bard's best cc

Battle Bards work fine without the warchanter enhancement. A pure Bard is usually about even with a warchanter because most of them MC and end up with about the same song power as a Pure Bard.

Even with two pure 14 level Bards 8/6 versus 9/8 is hardly the end of the world.

Plus there are lots of other very useful Bard builds...

[EinarMal]

The only other spell that I would add to Jules list is mass suggestion which is very effective and also a crowd control spell of sorts.

[CSFurious]

if you just want to buff & stand in the back & watch & maybe throw in a heal now & then

Plus there are lots of other very useful Bard builds...

[CSFurious]

there are only so many things that you can do in a fight

i would think that a battle bard would let the squishy sor or wiz enchant & just wade right into battle

but, if you have great fast-twitch skills & drink lots of mountain dew (i love diet code red), enchant away

also, calling yourself a battle-bard without the warchanter enhancement is sort of like buying a porsche with an automatic transmission

Battle Bards work fine without the warchanter enhancement. A pure Bard is usually about even with a warchanter because most of them MC and end up with about the same song power as a Pure Bard.

Even with two pure 14 level Bards 8/6 versus 9/8 is hardly the end of the world.

Plus there are lots of other very useful Bard builds...

[nbhs275]

there are only so many things that you can do in a fight

i would think that a battle bard would let the squishy sor or wiz enchant & just wade right into battle

but, if you have great fast-twitch skills & drink lots of mountain dew (i love diet code red), enchant away

also, calling yourself a battle-bard without the warchanter enhancement is sort of like buying a porsche with an automatic transmission

lol why? they get a total of +1 damage over a bards maxed songs if they arent pure bard, and even if they are pure its still a neglegible difference except in the rarest of situations.

Thats like saying a melee without a shield cant have ac.

[Schmackdown]

i would think that a battle bard would let the squishy sor or wiz enchant & just wade right into battle

Yeah, and I would think that a battle bard would use his ephn brain and fascinate everything before he started swinging. But the above is likely the outer limits of the confines of your toon- if you're a casting bard, cast. If you're a fighting bard, fight. Unga-bung.

also, calling yourself a battle-bard without the warchanter enhancement is sort of like buying a porsche with an automatic transmission

Massively, massively cramped thinking. It will be nice when someone comes along to feed you something intelligent to parrot, but until then comments like this are tiresome and serve only to demonstrate your complete lack of creativity.

[EinarMal]

also, calling yourself a battle-bard without the warchanter enhancement is sort of like buying a porsche with an automatic transmission

Yeah because prior to that existing no Bard could actually fight without that additional +1/+2 to inspire courage

It's not worth commenting further than that as you have shown time and again how narrow minded you are when it comes to anything that is not cookie cutter flavor of the month...

[Samadhi]

also, calling yourself a battle-bard without the warchanter enhancement is sort of like buying a porsche with an automatic transmission

I must disagree with that one. Both my "standard" bard and battle bard are spellsingers and I would not change it. The best part of the warchanter is the DR 5 on the song - but you can get DR 3 pretty easily with standard equipment. Meanwhile your spellsinger has an extra 100 mana to keep himself displaced throughout the mission (not even counting the 10% benefit from the spellsinging itself). It's arguable, I will admit, but even given no equipment considerations for "close DR" constant displacement should outshine the benefits of DR. Self-displacement is where the battle bard can really shine; give me the spellsinger.

Now, does the DR 5 effect everyone? Yes, but... most barbarians will get no benefit from it because their personal DR is already higher. These bonuses do not stack. Your average WF or fighter will get some benefit, but not a lot. While a common choice, warchanter is far from the only choice and is extremely arguable about whether it is the best.