Oh the ignorance!

[Strakeln]

A cleric would, at best, be a match for melee vs. a bard. A bard's songs + haste, etc. would overwhelm a cleric with divine power, aid, etc.. Offensive casting is easily on the cleric's side. So I'd rule it 3/2 in favor of the bard actually.

I'll agree that it's up for debate. I'd consider a cleric to have the advantage, but I've never seen a cleric-vs-bard fight where casting wasn't allowed.

[Lithic]

Yes I think bards suck. It's my opinion, it isn't wrong. I've played a bard to 14 recently and the experience was hardly rewarding.

Sure I crowdcontrolled well...but not as well as my caster. Nor did I have the versitility of my wizard, nor the power of my sorcerer.

Sure I could heal, better than my UMD rogue, but nowhere near a decent cleric (At endgame especially, CSW barely puts a dent in most melee's HP pool these days)

Sure I could fight, but no-where near as well as my battlemage, nor my 2weapon fighter.

Jack of all trades? Sure. Makes soloing decently easy for the most part, but I play in groups. I'd rather be a master of one or two aspects of the game rather than dabble in everything.

I will personally never build another bard, and the one I have has been converted to a hagglebot to be taken out only when I need to buy things, or sell things. For THAT, bards are awesome at least.

Feel free to disagree (Vehemently if need be, though do not blame me for the no-no points you may accrue). And just because I don't care for bards doesnt mean I wouldn't take one if I was party leader.

[Strakeln]

Says the poster who doesn't play a Bard but has to run his mouth in the Bard class forum....

Now you're just being silly.

[maddmatt70]

I honestly don't think he runs with good bards. The good bards on my server are in isolated packets - most of whom tend to only run with guildies - that is just the way of it. A part of his goal by this flaming post is just to have the opportunity to run with some good bards...

[Caelan]

Aldan... to answer this one point (where to begin educating other players), you can educate your sorc by asking him how long his buffs remain when faced with a beholder. who instantly dispells them. but doesn't dispell the bard songs. it's just one example. there are many times. how about when that spellsong trance saves casters 10% sp? there's another good place to start. it helps some players to see how you directly impact their game, so try to identify with the person asking.

every class has a contribution. some are better at certain things than others. i do not have a battle bard. i do mostly buffing and cc. i have a ton of scrolls i can cast (rez, heal, grtr restore, firewall, ddoor, grtr teleport, etc etc) so i also try to help save casters sp. the other night we were running the titan and another guildie and i basically raced through. i was on cc and he killed. no, i didn't get some super kill count - that was HIS job. MY job was to make his job easier. and guess what? it was (i know this is a bad word on the forums but i can't help it) FUN! same bard has done other raids and helps out with the healing. sure, i have to use scrolls, but with 100+% chance, it's the same as the cleric. and if you need more, you are the one who needs to improve, not me. try getting some AC and maybe ask a bard for some buffs so you stop getting hit so hard so quickly.

another poster mentioned his bard was horrible and is now a haggle bot. good choice. don't make another bard. some players just aren't meant for some classes. my first try at cleric was over a year ago and i've only recently revisited because it was so horrible i wasn't having fun. it is egotistical to think that just because YOU couldn't make a good bard that it means it isn't possible.

my name is Mayve, I am a level 14 bard and I am proud of my single digit kill counts!

[EinarMal]

Sure I could fight, but no-where near as well as my battlemage

I will leave the rest alone but if this is true then you seriously screwed up your Bard build....If you want to make a battle Bard you should look at the forums and use a decent build.

There is no way a battle mage will be a better fighter than a well built battle Bard. DPS wise it is not even close....

The only defensive buff that Bards are missing are resists, everything else is the same. On the plus side are song buffs +9 to hit and +8 damage for a warchanter over a battle mage PER SWING which is a huge increase in DPS. Now if you are talking about using spells and fighting that is another thing.

Battle Bards, if built well, are also ahead of fighters as well self buffed....

My guess is that you tried to make a mini-wizard out of your build by maxing your casting stat and taking a bunch of casting feats (and maybe some dex and weapon finesse?). Bards are tough to build well, to just try one build and then say the class stinks is kind of funny to me. Bards are very versatile and two Bards will play completely differently depending on what you focus on.

You can't be a great caster and great fighter at the same time (just like clerics btw or your battle wizard versus a more standard build). You can be good at both though if you build it correctly.

[Strakeln]

I honestly don't think he runs with good bards. The good bards on my server are in isolated packets - most of whom tend to only run with guildies - that is just the way of it. A part of his goal by this flaming post is just to have the opportunity to run with some good bards...

If you'd like to name some, I'm guessing I have run with them many times (Hangover included). (Not sure if it's okay to name them though).

I've seen plenty of good bards... but like I said, their accomplishments fall into the "meh" category. Maybe that's the thing - a bard is really good at doing everything with some proficiency - so they're not going to amaze/"wow" me in one particular area, and I'm not particularly impressed by a generalist-type build.

Let me try to further clarify through example - I remember waaay back when, when the level cap was 10 - seeing a ranger pretty much drag a group through invaders. It was more or less a solo operation, and he was DOMINATING the quest. While not very impressive in today's setting, at the time this was quite amazing. I can't think of any single time where a bard impressed me to anywhere near this degree - even when played by some of the best players in the game.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, regarding whether my posts were flaming... a post that disagrees with someone is not automatically a flame. I found a pretty good definition for flaming on Wiki: "the act of posting deliberately hostile messages on the Internet." Looking back through the thread, the first "deliberately hostile" post I see would be #12...

Really, if a person doesn't like others disagreeing with their OPINIONS, they probably shouldn't be posting on a public forum.

[EinarMal]

"the act of posting deliberately hostile messages on the Internet."

Well I disagree... Had this thread been in general discussion your posts would have been fine. Posting about Bards being "wastes of space" etc... in the BARD CLASS FORUM from someone who does not even play Bard characters is a flame.

You really think anyone who plays a Bard is going to agree with you, or even feel the need to argue or debate whether or not their class (in their own class forum) is a waste of space and "almost any other class" would be better for your group?

BTW rather than name calling (troll etc...) if you find my post offensive then report it otherwise....

[Strakeln]

Well I disagree... Had this thread been in general discussion your posts would have been fine. Posting about Bards being "wastes of space" etc... in the BARD CLASS FORUM from someone who does not even play Bard characters is a flame.

You really think anyone who plays a Bard is going to agree with you, or even feel the need to argue or debate whether or not their class (in their own class forum) is a waste of space and "almost any other class" would be better for your group?

BTW rather than name calling (troll etc...) if you find my post offensive then report it otherwise....

Since you're so familiar with my characters and which ones I play, I was wondering if maybe you could tell me the classes and levels of my characters listed below.

Until you can, I think you should be quiet and stop making foolish and untrue statements about things you obviously have no clue about.

Finally, I think you will find that there is a big difference between "deliberately hostile" and "offensive". For example: You can be deliberately hostile, but it doesn't mean I'm offended. On the flip side, you can be offended when I'm not deliberately hostile.

I know you're just looking for a fight - one of these days you're going to have to accept that not everyone agrees with you.

[EinarMal]

I know you're just looking for a fight - one of these days you're going to have to accept that not everyone agrees with you.

Right back at you

[Strakeln]

Right back at you

Here's some examples of discussion and acceptance of other's ideas. Let's see yours.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...37#post1482437
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...76#post1482576

Edit: Ah-ha! Stumbled across a few examples of your thin-skinned indignant form of "discussion": http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=130071

[Zenako]

For a point of reference or two (Your brief Ranger mention was kinda there) what sorts of things would "Wow" you about a character in game?

Does a Sorceror doing a 500 WoF Wow you? Nothing too special about that from my eyes.

Are you looking for great feats like a melee solo killing the Reaver to impress?

Perhaps some more insight will help us understand what it would take to "wow" you in game. Perhaps it is not possible. Perhaps your playstyle and the playstyle that would let bards shine are dissimilar. I know my bard was able to "drag groups" through Stormcleave, Redwillow, etc some time ago (back when those were a challenge). That no save CC becomes very important when surrounded by a lot of giants and no one has IK spells yet. Helos without all his allies helping is a lot easier to take down for example.

[Strakeln]

For a point of reference or two (Your brief Ranger mention was kinda there) what sorts of things would "Wow" you about a character in game?

There's a wide variety of what it takes to impress me - things like dragging groups through SC/etc (when they were a challenge) would probably qualify. Solo/shortman accomplishments can be impressive (but aren't always). Oftentimes, these things are not really something you can plan on - things like one party member somehow managing to do everything right and save the party from what seemed to be an inevitable wipe (like in Shade's recent thread).

Perhaps your playstyle and the playstyle that would let bards shine are dissimilar.

There is probably quite a bit of truth to this statement. And it's certainly reasonable to point out that the threshold for "wowing" me is not stable. Soloing Butcher's Path was pretty impressive to me at one time, as was soloing the DQ, short-manning the dragon, so on and so forth. None of these are particularly impressive anymore, from my point of view.

It is certainly fair to say that my playstyle or inflated standards may make it hard/impossible for a bard to shine (in my eyes).

[Zenako]

Fair enough.

I was asking because in game I am always kinda perplexed by the amount of attention some people pay to simple luck.

Like "WOW, I just got a Crit on that HARM spell for XXXX points." Well yah, probably some fixed but small percentage of all of your HARM spells do just exactly that everytime you cast the spell.

Or the favorite melee shout out of, I just hit that mob X for XXX damage in one shot, WOW. Again, nothing too special about that, just a little luck it happened when it was noticed by you.

Random luck or dice rolls might yield impressive results, but I would not be impressed that they happened, in fact they better happen some percentage of the time or the dice are crooked.

Player skill comes into play with luck when you put yourself into a position where a little luck, combined with clever play, will turn the table in a battle or quest. Getting "Lucky" and one shotting the kobold minion while the Boss runs around unharmed does not help, while getting "lucky" in attacking the boss from an advantage can be a ticket to the Winners circle.

[skraus1]

The one thing people frequently forget is that Bard is the most versatile class in DDO. As a result, bard builds vary to a tremendous amount. So much so that you can't really say something about bards in general without referring to a common type of bard build, except for the usefulness of bard song. Because people tend to notice outstanding specialties and not all around goodness or buffs for that matter, you need to be specialized and either be in a very hard quest and/or completely outclass your compatriots to be noticed. The most common bard builds are generalists or spellcasters, neither of which shine amazingly as a result, but they are influencing everything.

When I'm on my Bard, I'm sometimes yelled at because I don't do normal "I'm a gimp" stuff that people obviously are expecting. I run at the front of the party without armor with a giant axe and kill things quickly...and easily live to tell the tale. The only class that never has yelled at me are clerics.

I remember a while back when a fighter was yelling about me waiting for the melee to show up and to try not to die because mobs in this quest "hit really hard"....when the cleric kindly explained that 1) he should have hurried if he wanted in on the action because we did wait for 5 minutes and 2) the two of us were waiting for him (and the rest of the party) at the boss.

[Hadrian]

Bards are excellent in groups that have a large focus on melee damage, and sort of useless in groups that have a large focus on arcane and divine casters. Also, Bards were far better when we could only be level 10 because the gaps in their abilities did not separate them so far from the classes who are specialized in those roles.

The addition of Heal and mass cure spells put them clearly behind clerics in healing. Before that they were very close in healing ability. In fact, only spell point pools separated them since their spells and ability to enhance those spells matched clerics exactly before the enhancement changes.

Their CC is the best in the game, yet with the damage output of casters being adjusted to be more useful, CC is less useful. Why fascinate everything if someone is just going to firewall or cone of cold them all to death in a few seconds, or run them around through a blade barrier?

Bard songs do not get dispelled by a beholder, but arcane caster buffs don't either if the arcane uses finger of death to kill the beholder before it can aggro the group. The same sort of argument goes for comparing cleric melee to bard melee. The cleric has other options to kill so much more efficiently and quickly that the melee comparison doesn't really mean anything.

However, if you have mostly melee specialized classes, bards add a huge amount of damage to a group and can either use their great CC to make things go smoothly or play the role of a healer well enough to function if you can't find a cleric. Again, with the raise in level cap this style of group has become much less common.

[Strakeln]

The above two posts are interesting and spot-on. A bard's strength is in his "all around goodness", and it's hard to hog the spotlight when your strength is in enhancing the ability of others to do so.

[Blind_Skwerl]

Their CC is the best in the game, yet with the damage output of casters being adjusted to be more useful, CC is less useful. Why fascinate everything if someone is just going to firewall or cone of cold them all to death in a few seconds, or run them around through a blade barrier?

Because sometimse there isn't an arcane in the group.

4 man PoP runs last night actually. Everyone was ransacked on their casters. 1 fighter, 1 pally, 1 cleric, 1 battlebard. Done.

[Zenako]

Because sometimse there isn't an arcane in the group.

4 man PoP runs last night actually. Everyone was ransacked on their casters. 1 fighter, 1 pally, 1 cleric, 1 battlebard. Done.

Who let that Blue Bar gimped Fighter into the group, was he the mule pulling the levers

[skraus1]

Bards are excellent in groups that have a large focus on melee damage, and sort of useless in groups that have a large focus on arcane and divine casters.

Although I agreed with almost everything you had to say, I just wanted to point out that this also is primarily talking about typical jack-of-all-trades bard builds. For melee focused bard builds, like Taal, Zhaffy and Icy, this is only true to the extent that it is true of all melee classes. For spell singers, their spell songs augment casters so they fit in better in caster heavy parties.