Squishy bards

[der_kluge]

I'm liable to ramble in this thread a bit, so bear with me.

A while back, I'm doing a guild Shroud run, and our leader is playing his bard. We had 11 in the party, with 4 healers. I was playing one of the clerics.

In the Harry fight, the guild leader decided he would attempt to melee Harry along with the rest of the tanks in the center. He died in about 1 second - before any healer had a chance to heal him.

Now, I don't know what kind of gear he wore, or what his stats are - but I do know that if my bard were to attempt to do the same, the result would probably be the same.

My bard can dish out a *fair* amount of damage. I took Improved Crit: longsword, and she uses longswords as her primary weapon. I have quite a few of them for various situations, and she seems to crit fairly often. Now, my damage is pathetic compared to what a fighter or barb is able to produce, but I'm happy meleeing right alongside them during quests. Now, if I get too much aggro - it's not a pretty sight. I have to run away, or else I'll die pretty quickly. So, in some ways it's like I'm pretending to be a tank, but I'm not really fooling anyone.


So, I guess where I'm heading with this - if tanking and DPS are not really viable options for a Bard - what is? Sure, I can crowd control, but most groups just run ahead, and kill everything. Even mobs that I manage to fascinate, all quickly get attacked en masse negating any real fascinate benefits. When left to my own devices, I can charm monster, and Mass Suggestion to GREAT effect. But most groups don't leave me to my own devices, so I have to resort to being a buffer/spellsinger who can stab at things occasionally.

Am I missing something here?

[EKKM]

There are quite few bards with 400+ hp. These obviously have a lot of gear on them but even without a shroud items they should be able to hit 350 pretty easily . You should be able to melee with Harry at that level easily (lose 60 hp at level 15). Not sure I'd go in on Horoth though without a shroud item.

20 base
10 GH
120 levels
120 CON (14 start +2 tome +6 item)
22 Toughness
20 toughness enhance
20 minos legens
20 rage
--
352
65 shroud HP item
20 exceptional con
30 GFL
--
467

Add yugo pots, airship, higher tomes, or more base CON and racial enhancements to get even higher.

[Freeman]

If you are trying to melee Harry in part 4 or 5 of the Shroud, I'd say you need around 350hp minimum. If you have Evasion, you can get by with a little less in part 4, but not part 5. I generally feel much more comfortable around the 400hp+ range. This is on Normal, of course. Add a few more for higher difficulties. If you can't hit those numbers, then you are likely to either die quickly or drain the cleric's sp much faster.(A good cleric will quickly determine that they are better off letting you die)

While it is very tough for a bard to tank raid bosses, you can still add DPS and handle non-raid mobs very easily with a combination of Displacement, Stoneskin, and sufficient HP. Check out some of the builds on these forums for some ideas of how they do it, then work those ideas into your own build and playstyle.

[rest]

My bard has an unbuffed 601 hp

If you build a bard to be right up in a raid boss' face, he'll do just fine. That's exactly what I built for. He also has 60 self buffed intim. I <3 him.

[GATORZ]

My bard is an axesinger 527 unbuffed duel weilding green steel dwarven axes.... I can get 52 ac w/ song and rangers bark so I have no problem goin in side side w/ the bigboys

[taurean430]

I agree that you should review your hp situation. My squishtastic bard has 392 hp and it goes over the 400 mark with rage active. He'll have more of a cushion when I finish tier 3 on his hp item as that will add another 45hp.

There isn't a whole lot of room to work with because of the hit die bard's get, but it is certainly achievable without too much effort. What I did before crossing the 375hp mark was stay on the outside and help heal (even though I am not heal specced). When I got to my last bit of mana, I'd cast rage and jump in ala leroy jenkins. Beating on his tail helps as well.

[Irinis]

Yeah 382 HP on a Drow bard here, without any Shroud HP item. I don't really like meleeing Shroud elite, but normal is fine and even hard is ok.

[Darkrok]

Some things that help regardless of build:
Firestorm Greaves (not a given)
Fireshield Scrolls (if you die and aren't using these you're doing it wrong)
Rage
Fire Resist 30 (if no one will buff you UMD it yourself)

So the bard should always be taking at most 50% damage from fire after the resist 30. And you should have 20 extra hp's from the Rage spell. Even better if you can get the Firestorm Greaves to take some more off the top.

As far as build goes it really depends on your goals. Toughness is not optional though. 14 con is the floor. And all Toughness enhancements you can take should be taken. Now I've got a Warforged that is level 19 and easily hitting 450+ hp's pre-buffs and without a shroud hp item. But that's a bit unfair in that I'm going THF (dex dumped) on a 32-point build and can afford an 18 con. I also took Racial Toughness IV and Warforged Constitution II (Con I & II being a pre-req for Toughness III & IV). But any race should have at least two toughness AP's so you'd only be down 80hp's from that (370+ at level 19 from missing Toughness III&IV, ConII, and the +2 from racial bonus) on a 32-point build and 100hp's from that (down two more con) on a 28-point build. 350hp's is a tad squishy, but that's at level 19 and it's before Rage or a Shroud hp item.

Honestly though, the biggest foul would be not using a Fireshield Scroll if you don't have the hp's to survive without it. They're cheap, easy to UMD (level 4 spell), and take away half of the fire damage you would have taken. What's not to like?