Symphonic Master of Blades - Virtuoso bard with a spin

[Kam-Ekaze]

Symphonic Slasher the Level 20 True Neutral ( 14 bard / 6 Fighter )
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Theme:
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There is another explosion in the middle of the night... The forces from Stormreach must be attacking again, this they seem to have breached the main gates and the night sky quickly lights up red as fires begin breaking out through the stronghold and soldiers quickly rally up to arms and exit the barracks.

As they rush out of the main barracks gate they encounter a dark figure, standing idly with a small lute in hit possession, strumming a few strings with a modest smirk. The soldiers stop in confusion at the strange figure standing in their way as the strange figure strums a few more strings of his instrument and comes to a stop.

“Move out of the way, kid” a soldier tries to say, but his voice is oddly muffled and almost seems non-existent over the melodic strumming of the mysterious half elf’s lute.

He puts his lute away by his side and draws two giant blades with a shimmer, rapidly gaining speed and being joined by several others, the soldiers attempt to make a move to counter their attackers only to find themselves unable to concentrate. Notes and melodies clouding their judgement, repeating and reverberating in the back of their heads as the enemy armies approach without a worry.

A lone soldier at the back of the line observes as his comrades are struck down one by one without resistance. The bard heads straight towards him as he desperately attempts to regain his senses and finally breaks free, only to stare in horror at the reflection of a knowing smirk on the bard's khopesh as it heads straight towards him...

Before the battle even started, it was over. The soldier’s body fell limp on the floor at the bard’s feet and the collective of Stormreach adventurers continued along their way, marching to an awe-inspiring tune by their fellow-at-arms.

Aims:
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* Strong melee and CC based Virtuoso bard. By CC I purely refer to perform-based CC (read: enthrall, capering, fascinate and suggestion songs).
* Enough healing amplification to make the sustaining song as effective as possible.
* A high enough perform skill to land perform based CC songs in end-game elite/epic content.
* Built with short-manning and soloing in mind, yet still looking to be viable in a raid, group and epic environment.
* A twist on the many cookie-cutter warchanter battle-bards.

Caveat:
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Inspire courage with my selected enhancements (enhancements are very tight on this build, extremely tight even, so this only allows up to the second tier of inspired attack line). This leaves the build with an inspire courage of +5/+6 (attack/damage). As opposed to the generally splashed warchanter who gets a bonus. Btw, I’m cool with that.

Stats: 36 point build
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STR [38] 17 base +2 tome +5 levels + 6 item +3 excep +1 human +2 fighter +2 rage
DEX [24] 15 base +2 tome +7 item
CON [28] 16 base +2 tome +6 item +2 rage +2 excep
WIS [--] 11 base +2 tome
INT [10] 8 base +2 tome
CHA [20] 10 base +2 tome +6 item +2 bard

Feats, Skills and Level progression:
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1 brd: * Extend, (Monk Dilly) * [ 4 perform, 4 UMD, 4 concentration, 1 tumble, 3 balance ]
2 ftr: * (SF: Perform) * [ 1 jump ]
3 brd: * Toughness * [ 2 perform, 2 UMD, 1 concentration ]
4 brd: [ 1 perform, 1 UMD, 2 concentration, 1 jump ]
5 brd: [ 1 perform, 1 UMD, 1 concentration, 2 balance ]
6 ftr: * TWF, (WF: Slashing) * [ 1 jump ]
7 brd: [ 2 perform, 2 UMD, 1 concentration ]
8 ftr: [ 2 jump ]
9 brd: * iTWF * [ 2 perform, 2 UMD, 2 concentration ]
10 ftr: * (iCrit: Slashing) * [ 2 jump ]
11 brd: [ 2 perform, 2 UMD, 2 concentration ]
12 ftr: * eWP: Khopesh * [ 2 jump ]
13 brd: [ 2 perform, 2 UMD, 2 concentration ]
14 ftr: * (WS: Slashing) * [ 2 jump ]
15 brd: * gTWF * [ 2 perform, 2 UMD, 2 concentraion ]
16 brd: [ 1 perform, 1 UMD, 1 concentration, 1 jump, 2 balance ]
17 brd: [ 1 perform, 1 UMD, 1 concentration, 1 jump, 2 balance ]
18 brd: * Power Attack * [ 1 perform, 1 UMD, 1 concentration, 1 jump, 2 balance ]
19 brd: [ 1 perform, 1 UMD, 1 concentration, 1 jump, 2 balance ]
20 brd: [ 1 perform, 1 UMD, 1 concentration, 1 jump, 2 balance ]

Feat Summary (for ease of reading):
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* Extend
* SF: Perform
* Toughness
* TWF
* WF: Slashing
* iTWF
* iCrit: Slashing
* EWP: Khopesh
* WS: Slashing
* gTWF
* Power attack

Skill Totals:
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[64] perform: 23 ranks +15 item +5 cha mod +5 cha skills +2 enhancement +4 virtuoso +4 GH +2 good luck +1 focusing chant +3 SF: Perform
[43] UMD: 23 ranks +3 item +5 cha mod +5 cha skills +4 GH +2 good luck +1 focusing chant
[53] concentraion: 23 ranks +15 item +8 con mod +4 GH +2 good luck +1 focusing chant
[45] balance: 15 ranks +10 item +7 dex mod +6 dex skills +4 GH +2 good luck +1 focusing chant
[67] jump: 16 ranks +14 str mod +4 GH +2 good luck +1 focusing chant +30 spell

Enhancements:
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[6] Bard Extra Song III
[6] Bard Inspired Attack II
[6] Bard Inspired Damage III
[6] Bard Lingering Song III
[2] Perform II
[6] Bard Charisma II
[3] Wand/Scroll Mastery II
[2] Music of the Makers
[6] Human Healing Amp II
[6] Monk Healing Amp II
[6] Bard Virtuoso I & II
[3] Fighter Attack Boost II
[3] Fighter Critical Accuracy II
[6] Fighter Strength II
[3] Fighter Toughness II
[3] Racial Toughness II
[4] Fighter Kensai I
[2] Human Strength I
[1] Fighter Khopesh Mastery
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Total: 80 APs

Healing Amp:
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10% finger necklace
20% racial enhancement
20% monk dilly enhancements
5% paladin past life
10% insight
20% insight
30% insight
10% ship buff
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314% healing amp

Hit points:
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20 base
10 draconic
30 GFL
45 shroud
84 bard
60 fighter
22 toughness (feat)
20 toughness (fighter)
20 toughness (race)
20 toughness (item)
180 con mod
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511 hp

To-Hit:
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16 BAB
5 morale bonus (inspire courage from self)
2 competence (inspire greatness from self)
14 str mod
5 enhancement (+5 weapon)
4 divine power scroll
1 kensai khopesh mastery
1 weapon focus
-4 oversized twf
-5 power attack
---
39 standing with PA
44 standing without PA

Gear:
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Head: Minos Legens
Neck: Bard amarath neck (sup pot 6, 150 sp) / torc / finger necklace (10% healing amp)
Trinket: Bloodstone
Cloak: Stormsinger cloak (4 resistance, 11 perform, sonic guard) / bard's cloak (or maybe crafted cloak for U9 with 15 perform and something else)
Belt: Knost belt (6 con, GFL)
Ring: dex / buccaneer's
Ring: cha / ToD warchanter band (6 cha, +3 excep str)
Hands: GS 150 sp, +5 cha skills, conc opp, +6 wis
Boots: 30% strider
Bracers: str (until I pick up leviks, then can swap 20% healing amp on DT for something else)
Armor: Dragontouched (10% healing amp, 20% healing amp, earthgrab guard)
Goggles: GS 45 hp ,+5 dex skills, rad guard

* Room for improvement here with more gear *

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As always, feedback, comments et all, are very much appreciated. This is probably the first build I’ve made in a long while which has really spiked my interest as something new and exciting. I hope others feel the same.

Equally important, I always welcome positive and negative feedback as it allows me to improve on builds before they are rolled and also learn more as a player and a builder.

Hope you guys liked it

[elujin]

i would advocate beeing pure soly for more dmg on songs and more songs

but it will rock soloing and shortmanning

[Kam-Ekaze]

i would advocate beeing pure soly for more dmg on songs and more songs

but it will rock soloing and shortmanning

Thanks for the feedback, it's much appreciated!

I understand what you are advocating, and if you read through the build notes you may notice that disclaimer under the caveat heading. I am cool with the subpar songs and lower song count (about 22 instead of 35 for full virt).

However, the build was designed with short-manning and soloing as a priority and raiding as a second option. The toon, at least in my opinion is still a viable asset to a raid or party, even without the maximized songs.

Perhaps I'm wrong in this train of thought, but I very much appreciate the comments

[elujin]

in raids its fine if your the only bard but virtuoso isn't optimal for raids even pure vs a wc or a ss.
epics are a blast though and beeing thougher there will pay off.

as far as i can tell from your feats you still have the option to go wc for raids by resetting enchantments my bard has that option too but honestly once he went virt he never looked back

[Kam-Ekaze]

in raids its fine if your the only bard but virtuoso isn't optimal for raids even pure vs a wc or a ss.
epics are a blast though and beeing thougher there will pay off.

as far as i can tell from your feats you still have the option to go wc for raids by resetting enchantments my bard has that option too but honestly once he went virt he never looked back

Yes, that's something I left out from the description. It had all the required feats also to be a warchanter. Although I already have a caped Warchanter 14 bard / 4 fighter /2 barb which I can bring out raiding if I really wanted to.

Oh yes here's the gear I have mostly ready for the TR

head: minos
neck: bard neck / torc / finger necklace
trinket: bloodstone
cloak: stormsinger cloak (4 resistance, 11 perform, sonic guard) until I pull bard's cloak (or maybe crafted cloak for U9 with 15 perform and something else)
belt: knost belt (6 con, GFL)
ring1: str
ring2: cha
hands: spectral gloves (hoping to epic these one day for the much needed extra to-hit)
boots: 30% strider
bracers: GS 150 sp, +5 cha skills, conc opp, +6 wis
armor: Dragontouched
goggles: GS 45 hp ,+5 dex skills, rad guard

No ToD rings yet since this is a TR of a toon which was mostly scrapped and unplayed for months which never got boots made. Although might look at getting boots made before I TR.

[Kam-Ekaze]

/bump

I apologize for bumping my own thread. Still looking for some feedback in regards to this build as I come closer to true reincarnating into it for a third life. Thoughts on the split, and how people would make it better.

Real life is looking to get pretty busy soon and this pet project will probably consume a lot if not all of my game time and I'd like to ensure the build is viable and not just "a dps which lacks dps and a bard which lacks more song-power", so to speak.

I can't level a TR in a couple weeks like some people can so I really don't want to be stuck with a gimp for close to 5 million xpees