PrE choice for a soloing bard

[Drimsdale]

I've seen a fair bit about how Virtuoso is a good soloer. I was wondering - once you have Music of the Dead and Music of the Makers, what can you not Fascinate? Extra songs, song duration and Perform bonuses seem decent as well.

As against that, the +1 to hit/+2 damage of Warchanter looks handy, as does the +200SP and +4 UMD of the Spellsinger (with Spellsinger II).

How important are the Medium Armour use of Warchanter II and the bonus SP from Spellsinger at high levels?

(And also how important is race? I was thinking either Human for the bonus feat or Drow for the Charisma)

[Darkrok]

If I were to build a bard for soloing I would most likely go with a Half-Orc Virtuoso (assuming Half-Orcs can take healing amp) at this point. Virtuoso loses less than any other PrE by splashing. They're all about the songs and you'll be getting the full songs with a splash as deep as 14/6. You'll have the feats for Maximize/Quicken as well as the entire THF line, Extend, Power Attack, Toughness, Improved Critical: Slashing, and Weapon Specialization. The enhancements will be very tight (need to take Extra Song IV instead of just III for this build) but this would be a very potent soloist. I might actually consider TR'ing my Warforged to this build now that I get a good look at how it lays out. Would be a flat-out sick soloing build - you'd have unrivaled song-based crowd control, great personal dps, and great healing over time. You'd be like a reversed frenzied berserker...you'd be swinging a big axe and getting health back every few seconds instead of losing it.

[Aerendil]

I'd have to vote Warchanter or Spellsinger. Virtuoso has far too many issues, and that HP regen song is hardly a good enough feature to encourage solo play. You could simply go Spellsinger, SP regen yourself, and heal any HP lost *far* more efficiently than a HP regen song.

So choose whichever suits your playstyle, as WC and SS solo slightly differently and each has its pros and cons.
I have one of each, and they each excel at some things and fail miserably at others. But neither one is a pure solo god, so you will hit some rough points, I guarantee.

[Darkrok]

I'd have to vote Warchanter or Spellsinger. Virtuoso has far too many issues, and that HP regen song is hardly a good enough feature to encourage solo play. You could simply go Spellsinger, SP regen yourself, and heal any HP lost *far* more efficiently than a HP regen song.

So choose whichever suits your playstyle, as WC and SS solo slightly differently and each has its pros and cons.
I have one of each, and they each excel at some things and fail miserably at others. But neither one is a pure solo god, so you will hit some rough points, I guarantee.

I absolutely tore up the 1-12 game on a Virtuoso. I'm not sure if that would keep up after then but at least up to that point it was insanely good. And that's without a hp regen song to further trivialize things.

[Aerendil]

Pretty much any Bard can tear up the game from 1-12 But it does depend on your playstyle, IMO, as well as how well geared you are, and what kind of funds you have to work with.

[Aashrym]

I absolutely tore up the 1-12 game on a Virtuoso. I'm not sure if that would keep up after then but at least up to that point it was insanely good. And that's without a hp regen song to further trivialize things.

I found the ironskin chant and combat prereq's handier with the warchanter and the better bonus to damage. It's pretty easy to melee in the earlier levels.

I also found the 100SP bonus and +2 UMD handy for a spellsinger at level going that way.

Personally, I think warchanter solo's the best but any can work.

[Drimsdale]

Thanks for the replies. Opinion appears divided on the subject, which is probably a good sign!

I'm messing around with builds in the Planner now.

How useful are Music of Makers/Dead (regardless of Virtuoso-ness)?

[Darkrok]

Thanks for the replies. Opinion appears divided on the subject, which is probably a good sign!

I'm messing around with builds in the Planner now.

How useful are Music of Makers/Dead (regardless of Virtuoso-ness)?

I'm not sure about end-game but Music of the Dead tears up in Delera's. That requires Virtuoso for those levels but feat respecs are very cheap at level 1-12.

[VveX]

How useful are Music of Makers/Dead (regardless of Virtuoso-ness)?

Must have IMO, up to about level 15-16. Necropolis all the way up to part 4 is where you'll really appreciate them - they make things like soloing Fleshmaker's bonus chest possible (if time-consuming), same with Temple of Vol (if you can open the lock).

At later levels not so useful anymore , but then you can easily respec enhancements if you find you don't need them any more.

[bartosy]

Hmm pure solo wise and if you want to stay as pure as possible i would say a spellsinger when you only focus on lvls where mobs can be charmed. You just pull random 15 mobs and then make that your army then buff them with inspire courage and haste.. (men that bug is great!) and pull the rest of the mobs all through the meatmachine its verry boring but also verry effective and fast !

[Irinis]

Any Bard can solo 1-12 pretty easily with different playstyles and quest selections. After that, Warchanter is hands-down the best to solo because the Devs have made this game rely almost solely on melee DPS above any other tactic. Spellsingers only have charms at their disposal, not any nuking, and especially no targeted instakills. Virtuoso can solo pretty well too, especially if built to melee.

It's kind of silly to build a melee Spellsinger so after about level 14 I'd stick to a group. Or get a DPS hireling.

A melee Virtuoso can solo to cap, and any half-decent Warchanter can solo to cap.

Warchanters are also more popular in raids and epics. The spell regen song in Spellsinger II is cool but not really fun yet because we don't get anything to nuke with, so we're relegated to healbot at the endgame.

EDIT: Heh I get to eat my words. Just wrote up a melee build designed like a Warchanter but using Spellsinger PrE for extra sp and haggle/umd.