Ok Bard players need some advice!

[Crystalizer]

...Basically, for CC/buffs/healing, go pure. For DPS/Traps, get a heavy splash. I haven't done too much research on builds but I'm not seeing anyway to get sizeable DPS and CC, since the cap gives +3 DC's and you won't get any free feats with that.

technically you can choose the dps & cc road but you wont have an impressive dps. but most melee bards, warchanter based, are not so powerful anyway about dps, they are decent but definitively under melee classes with the same gears. anyway in ddo your gears are more & more important about everything. your +5 str from leveling helps your dps but wont be the magic answer to dps. with the sp song spellsingers are now much more demanded for raids, with the prestige enhancements 2 virtuoso & spellsingers are not anymore "singular" builds but have some solid arguments to offer.

so CC & dps :
drow pure bard
stats : 14/10/12/10/8/20
feats : toughness, power attack, extend, heighten, spell focus enchantement, greater spell focus enchantement, maximize or empower healing
enhancements : full healing line, spell penetration a bit, max songs damage, duration, tohit
items : you must farm item for having max hp boost, minos + min2 item, min2 GA or GS or falchion or maul, get divine power clickies, and madstone boots when you dont need to heal and decide to charge, get torc and concordant opposition item to regen sp & hp while fighting

with the new enhancements spellsingers should be much more asked for pug raids since the warchanter 2 songs are gimps

[Stitch78]

As it stands, if i do decide on this particular build i'm probably going to go human then for the extra feat. Quick question, though. If i don't want to TWF what would the exchanges be for THF? Just higher str? Weapon focus slashing still but maybe GTWF? I'm curious as to your thoughts on that.

Thanks again!

That's a really big change - two weapons to one weapon. First off, if you raise your STR by lowering your DEX, you are essentially sacrificing the benefits of Evasion (you first need to save on the DEX roll to get the benefit of zero damage vs. half damage). Also, all else being equal, TWF does more DPS than THF. And by lowering your DEX, you decrease your Open Lock and Disable Device scores (although probably not by more than 1 or 2 points).

There are definite benefits to going a THF route (giving up on evasion you can wear medium armor, for example), but this build isn't really designed for it and I don't want to give advice on something I haven't really tought through.

[Stitch78]

technically you can choose the dps & cc road but you wont have an impressive dps. but most melee bards, warchanter based, are not so powerful anyway about dps, they are decent but definitively under melee classes with the same gears. anyway in ddo your gears are more & more important about everything. your +5 str from leveling helps your dps but wont be the magic answer to dps. with the sp song spellsingers are now much more demanded for raids, with the prestige enhancements 2 virtuoso & spellsingers are not anymore "singular" builds but have some solid arguments to offer.

so CC & dps :
drow pure bard
stats : 14/10/12/10/8/20
feats : toughness, power attack, extend, heighten, spell focus enchantement, greater spell focus enchantement, maximize or empower healing
enhancements : full healing line, spell penetration a bit, max songs damage, duration, tohit
items : you must farm item for having max hp boost, minos + min2 item, min2 GA or GS or falchion or maul, get divine power clickies, and madstone boots when you dont need to heal and decide to charge, get torc and concordant opposition item to regen sp & hp while fighting

with the new enhancements spellsingers should be much more asked for pug raids since the warchanter 2 songs are gimps

There's nothing really wrong with this build idea, IMO, other than Power Attack being unnecessary. Your to-hit will rarely be high enough to make turning it on be worthwile. This type of build will CC and heal acceptably well, and will shine at higher levels I suppose. But it more of a one-trick pony, whereas I wanted something far more versatile.

However, I have to disagree about the DPS claim - it will never be more than "meh" on this kind of a build. As for what kind of bards are desired in raids, only time will tell but any type of bard, regardless of how gimpy, will be able to boost the party's DPS and give other useful buffs. Time will tell if people start begging for Spellsingers and Virts. The raging debate regarding the Song of Recklessness is well documented elsewhere.

[Crystalizer]

There's nothing really wrong with this build idea, IMO, other than Power Attack being unnecessary. Your to-hit will rarely be high enough to make turning it on be worthwile. This type of build will CC and heal acceptably well, and will shine at higher levels I suppose. But it more of a one-trick pony, whereas I wanted something far more versatile.

However, I have to disagree about the DPS claim - it will never be more than "meh" on this kind of a build. As for what kind of bards are desired in raids, only time will tell but any type of bard, regardless of how gimpy, will be able to boost the party's DPS and give other useful buffs...

mm versatile.. i would then go with 2 rogue levels, use a 2 handed weapon to save feats but go for the str road to have some decent melee skills, probably virtuoso to rely on cc from songs, and also some melee splash for more melee abilities. if you dont go pure i dont think that spellsinger is so interesting, or for the sp song, which lets you 8 levels for whatever you want, 14 bard levels are good for songs efficiency, then you reach the classic builds you can find in the bard section, a classic is 2ftr/2rog/16bard

...Time will tell if people start begging for Spellsingers and Virts. The raging debate regarding the Song of Recklessness is well documented elsewhere.

i play much bards, my main is since a long time a bard. what i can see now is that most of the time if i sing the song of recklessness either i am asked to not sing it if there is no warforged, or the party is surprised by the dps but sometimes you wipe. and i start to get asked in pugs the sp song now.

[Irinis]

That's a really big change - two weapons to one weapon. First off, if you raise your STR by lowering your DEX, you are essentially sacrificing the benefits of Evasion (you first need to save on the DEX roll to get the benefit of zero damage vs. half damage). Also, all else being equal, TWF does more DPS than THF. And by lowering your DEX, you decrease your Open Lock and Disable Device scores (although probably not by more than 1 or 2 points).

There are definite benefits to going a THF route (giving up on evasion you can wear medium armor, for example), but this build isn't really designed for it and I don't want to give advice on something I haven't really tought through.

Actually, going THF, burning a feat on Insightful Reflexes, and upping INT can be quite viable for keeping Evasion as well as maintaining trapskills. I went that route on my WF Bard Trapmonkey to make up for the lack of Human skillpoints/level. With the right gear he'll be fine even on epic traps.

[Stitch78]

Actually, going THF, burning a feat on Insightful Reflexes, and upping INT can be quite viable for keeping Evasion as well as maintaining trapskills. I went that route on my WF Bard Trapmonkey to make up for the lack of Human skillpoints/level. With the right gear he'll be fine even on epic traps.

Interesting! I would not have considered doing that. How high do you have to get your INT to make Insightful Reflexes worth it?

[Aashrym]

The Inspire Heroics song you get at 15, not 16. Did you mean something else?

My guess would be he was thinking of lvl6 spells. Otto's IR in particular. It's pretty handy.

Inspire heroics is only really good for ppl who want the AC bonus, or if the save bonus from greater heroism might get dispelled. With the war chanter greater heroism group buff inspire heroics is less useful regarding the save bonus for that pre.

[Aashrym]

I'm currently at lvl 12 with a bard/rog/fighter Warchanter. And I am STILL not sure whether it will be 15/3/2 or 16/2/2. It is a beast. If the main melee in the party isn't geared out, doens't play his toon well or doesn't know the quest, I'll probably lead in kills. (Yah, yea, yea, means nothing, I know. It means something to me when the kills leader is a bard or FVS.)

Here's what you need to know:

1) traps:take the first level as rogue, and max the rogue skills, UMD. You will have plenty left over, so dump it into perform. You will still have left over, so go nuts (balance, jump, concentration, sneak). With decent intelligence, you can keep search and disable device maxed and get enough open lock levels that you won't fail often. Take the second rogue level around 7-8, because that's when you will start appreciating evasion. And with only two rogue levels, you can get every trap in the game (maybe 2-3 exceptions) if you just dont vendor the items you loot without checking their stats first.

2) melee: much like a pally, to be effective in melee you must be clicking and pre-clicking things - heroism/greater, focusing chant, songs, action boosts, haste, blur, displacement, rage. But once you're buffed, you'll have the to-hit to leave Power Attack (warchanter feat prerequisite) all the time. The rogue level 1 gets you sneak attack, so avoid getting aggro whenever possible for the DPS boost.

3) casting: buffs only, no real offensive casting (until certain things are fixed at least - AOE spells like shout now need hard targets?!? yuk). But the buffs are amazing. By your 9th bard level, 3 song buffs (plus one for the other rogue in the party) Eagle's Splendor (save a gear slot) haste, blur, displace, GH, rage, inviz PLUS all the things you can easily UMD like fire shield, stoneskin, protection/resist energy, dimension door, etc.

4) emergency: when everything has gone down hill, swap to your best Perform item and hit the Fascinate button. Then use your somewhat meager healing abilities (carry a greater efficacy/devotion item) and UMD scroll/wand abilities to get people up. Or, run away while everything is fascinated. Or charm the fascinated mobs to help you out.

Basically, you can play every role the party needs. You can improve your healing a lot by tweaking your enhancements and carrying wands. So, um, that's my vote.

I thought I might throw a couple tips on this one

3) I wouldn't even consider shout regardless of targetting. You're damage from melee will be a better option than using a spell slot on it.

4) Superior ardor clickies for healing. 75% bonus.

I ran the dwarven axesinger 15/3/2 and the damage was nice, but I chose to skip out on AC personally. 14bard/4fighter/2rogue still gives traps and evasion and another feat.

If I did the build again I would go for the 16/2/2 build for 6th lvl spells and grab mass cure moderate and otto's IR. Just a thought.

[Aashrym]

Interesting! I would not have considered doing that. How high do you have to get your INT to make Insightful Reflexes worth it?

If your INT is at least 6 pts higher than your Dex insightful reflexes might be worth it. Otherwise just taking lightning reflexes improves the bonus by 2.

A person could always go bard 14 / rogue 5 / barbarian 1 for the evasion, sneak attack, and trapskills; war chanter for the better inspire courage and more hp; half elf paladin dilettante for the save bonuses; two handed fighting to save on stat allocation and feats, twitching. Would even have fast movement and 3 rages per day. Fascinate for CC if needed.

There are a lot of options with splashing. For the first bard I recommend the classic rocker really. It's simple and effective. Then move into more complicated builds and playstyles after that.

Edit: Bard 16 / rogue 3 / barb 1 would give up a die of sneak attack for 1 better bab and lvl 6 spells and it would be better. I may have been a bit too much off the top of my head on the first split above.

[Sethus]

Some really fantastic ideas and food for thought on here guys. Glad you all are debating things the way you are. Though it really is tearing me between the pure 20 SS and the 16/2/2 WC split. I'm going to have to consider what i would prefer doing i suppose.