Kinetic Spellsinger - Pure 36 pt Bard Build V2

[Ganak]

20 Human Spellsinger Bard - True Neutral - 36 point build


Concept:

A high end healing/buffing/CC Spellsinger. Add a caster and four melee, and this Bard will transform the group's potential energy into a Kinetic Steamroller. Time is loot.


Build Goals:

• High End Healing - Able to solo heal run of the mill epics. Able to be a full out healer in raids/epic raids for extended periods.
• Buffing - Yes Sir (or Ma'am), I will be pleased to satisfy all of your buffing needs from start to finish of a quest. You will never be without songs or any necessary buff I promise. To have someone have to ask for haste or songs is a failure on my part.
• CC - Epic viable DC's.

This will be a TR of my current Spellsinger. I've done (1) Bard past life and (1) Wizard past life, with no more TR plans for this character. I also have a Warchanter BattleBard Kensei, so this is a polar opposite build. This build is not melee focused.

This is V2. Posted V1 a number of months back and got terrific feedback.



Starting Stats - 36 Point Human:

Str: 16
Dex: 8
Con: 16
Int: 8
Wis: 8
Chr: 18

+2 tomes accross board with level ups into Chr.



Feats:

1) Toughness, Maximize
3) Past Life: Wizard
6) Extend
9) Past Life: Bard
12) Spell Pen
15) Heighten
18) Quicken


Going with Quicken for healing aspect; but Greater Spell Pen or SF:E are a temptation. Toughness is a candidate to go, but I have it on all my characters as a rule.



Skills:

Max Perform
Max UMD
Max Haggle
Max Concentration
Max Diplo
Max Bluff


I am tempted to take a point out of strength to raise my int to 10 to allow me to max balance. Thoughts on this?

The purpose of max diplo and bluff is to have just in case. Never know when it will be needed for future content. I build my characters with the long haul in mind and not necessarily flavor of the day.


Please all feedback and questions are welcome! Thank you!

[Emizand]

I am tempted to take a point out of strength to raise my int to 10 to allow me to max balance. Thoughts on this?

The purpose of max diplo and bluff is to have just in case. Never know when it will be needed for future content. I build my characters with the long haul in mind and not necessarily flavor of the day.

Strength depends on tomes and items you have.

Diplo and bluff may be useful in the future, balance IS useful now.

Other than that I like it. What would you advise if you didnt have Wiz plf?

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

Love it. I would seriously consider keeping STR at 16 (dps), scratch bluff, and max balance. Balance never goes out of style. A level 20 bard on his back will heal as good as a level 1 barbarian on his back!

Diplo on the type of spellsinger you plan to build and play is very useful... I would not nerf or scratch it.

Which ever way you go, this bard will kick a$$, so good luck with it & enjoy it!!!

[rendet]

What is your reasoning for going with maximize instead of empower healing? Thanks

[maddmatt70]

Dump spell penetration and toughness or extend and pick up power attack icrit slash and throw on an epic SOS on the character.

Edit: Go ahead and list your gear as well. I am disheartened atm with cc barding, but I thought about making this build which would be passable I guess:
1. spell focus enchant. human bonus: power attack
3. greater spell focus enchant
6. Wiz past life
9. Bard past life
12. maximize
15. Icrit slash
18. Heighten
36 pt.
16 str
18 cha (all level ups cha)
16 con

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

Dump spell penetration and toughness or extend and pick up power attack icrit slash and throw on an epic SOS on the character.

This is poor advice for someone who has mentioned how he'd like to play HIS bard.

High End Healing, Buffing, CC

He even bolded it for ya Matt!

[Ganak]

What would you advise if you didnt have Wiz plf?

Spell Focus: Enchantment.

My understanding is that the Wiz PL feat will provied +1 to all spell DC's, plus I get the magic missile clickie.

[Ganak]

What is your reasoning for going with maximize instead of empower healing? Thanks

Maximize will boost healing more than empower healing.

With Bards only going up to Mass Cure Moderate, my bard's healing spells will need all the help they can to achieve the goal of healing in the nastiest fights.

My first version of the build was EH, but I was given the above advice.

[bartosy]

I wouldnt drop toughness thats 52 hp you loose by just 1 feat and some aps..

I would like to see your ap enh and gear you have on this character with the +2 spellpen from wizard and the +2 from enh + item probably +3 and some ap enh into it and a possible +2 spell pen from greater spell pen it might be your heading for overkill spellpen wise.. and your better off trying to raise dc

+20 level
+2 capstone
+3 spell pen item
+2 feat possible +4
+1~+3 spell pen from enh
+2 wiz past life feat
+1 song
---------------------------
31 ~35 +1d20 your looking at 32~55 spell pen wich is pretty high
if not overkill in most situations if i were you i wouldn't invest in more spell
pen and invest in dc instead if i had the choice.

But it will be tough featwise you'll give up important things for that +1 to your enchant dcs..

I think this is a good build and will do exactly what you says it does you even got some extra inspire courage songs wich will be welcome if you play all the time and make good use of your past lifes.

[Brennie]

Buffing - Yes Sir (or Ma'am), I will be pleased to satisfy all of your buffing needs from start to finish of a quest. You will never be without songs or any necessary buff I promise. To have someone have to ask for haste or songs is a failure on my part.

Resist Energy plz?

Hehe, j/k Excellent build, however i do wonder why you are maxing bluff. Bluff has just recently been altered to function as a 6 second "everyone counts as flanking for sneak attack purposes, regardless of aggro" debuff on enemies. Seeing as how it has recently been changed, i doubt it will be "improved" much in the near future.

As it is now, bluff's only function is to allow a sneak-attack capable character to get in some bonus sneak damage while they have aggro. And how often does that happen (And more importantly, how often does that happen where you can notice that it is happening to someone else, react quickly enough to make a difference, and not have something better in your arsenal to deal with the situation or something more pressing happening elsewhere in combat that requires your attention)?

TL;DR - I question the usefulness of bluff, and agree with above posters that Balance is a far better skill choice. Heck, even a point (or 2, if you don't plan on getting any dex gear) into tumble, a small smattering in jump (that is, if its possible for you to end up with less than 10 jump, allowing for 40 with a friendly +30 from a ranger/wiz/sorc. Hitting 10 exactly while fully self buffed would be perfect, and could be entirely possible with some good strength gear and self buffs for all i know) and then the rest into balance may be the optimal spread.

Just my two cents

[TheDearLeader]

Hobadash is a similar 34-point build to this. He's fun to play, and it's neat being able to perform equally well in a party that has many other blue bars, or no other blur bars at all.

[Aashrym]

The feats look pretty standard for a traditional spellsinger with the past life upgrades for spell focus. Stats are standard. I'm on the balance not bluff bandwagon too.

The spell penetration might not be necessary depending on how many past lives you have or what enhancements you want to devote.

I don't know which enhancements or spells you are planning on picking up but it looks fine to me.


I think what Matt posted had merit too. It might not be up there with what the OP wants but it is something similar to one I was planning. Strong DC's with some melee feats and past lives can make it easy give up on spell penetration feats.

I opted against that one because it was still tight on enhancements and I'm still less than satisfied with bard casting in general. I also don't like giving up extend or toughness, I could maybe but don't like to.


It wouldn't hurt the feat list in the OP to take IC or PA for a bit more damage instead of spell pen given the wizzie past life, it just might be a bit on a tangent.

Of course, then I decided to TR and maybe start grinding out some more past life feat benefits while I wait and see where bards are heading. Depending on how long that takes a person could grab a lot of caster PL freebies.

[Ganak]

Thanks so much everyone for wonderful feedback.

I'm going to go balance over bluff for sure. After a +2 Int tome at 7, will put those extra skill points into jump the rest of the way. Forgot to add that.

[mobilemuppet]

Anyone got any ideas on how this would pan out as a H-Elf? Pros/Cons...

[Ganak]

Anyone got any ideas on how this would pan out as a H-Elf? Pros/Cons...

V1 of this build was a Half-Elf. Mine wasn't pretty. Changed to Human for extra feat and the half elf Diliante (sp?) feats weren't doing doing alot for my build, but for a more melee focused bard could see the rogue half elf Diliante being beneficial. But I can let others speak to that.

[Ganak]

Enhancements I have not planned out in detail. I play around and tweak enchancements as I level.

Gearwise, heh, with 11 toons this one has been near the bottom of the list the last year or so. This bard's gear is "bard uber" as of pre-epic, but needs a gear makeover. However, I will not make any definite gear changes until I see what loot the new U11 raid brings and also more of the epic item overpass looks like.

I've got a ton of less popular epic items I can make, and this toon may get many of these, also dependent on the results of the epic item overpass.

Today (or pre-TR into wiz) bard gear that I use includes a triple positive gs spell point goggles (I love the +6 chr skills). A triple earth hp item helmet (which could be replaced by a SFL, +15 perform pirate hat I made). I still have a bards cloak lol for perform, but may move perform to helm or see if it's put on more epics. Spellsinger ToD set (hoping tier 3 bonus will be worth it when they final get to spellsinger III). I have DT armor currently with +5 resistance, +6 con and Greater Spell Pen 8 (only need 6 so this has always been overkill). I still use a Electric Haze lol (have been since mod 5 days lol).

I've got a bunch of **** epic items or epics I couldnt fit on other toons on this character (epic timeblade, epic golden greaves, etc). Will wait and see what U11 and epic overpass is doing before really committing to the gear makeover on this toon.

[TheDearLeader]

V1 of this build was a Half-Elf. Mine wasn't pretty. Changed to Human for extra feat and the half elf Diliante (sp?) feats weren't doing doing alot for my build, but for a more melee focused bard could see the rogue half elf Diliante being beneficial. But I can let others speak to that.

Hobadash (linked up in my first post) is Half-Elf. Paladin Dilettante.

Having +2 to Saves is nice, and twice as powerful as Luck of Heroes... but if I could go back and do it again without having a Third Life involved (still 34 point), I'd go human.

It might be cooler if there was room in the Enhancements for the improved bonus to saves, and/or if the enhancements didn't cap out at five, and rather went 3/4/Max Charisma bonus.

[amoraenk]

I'm playing the same build (36 pts human spellsinger with these stats)
But i have Power attack instead of spell penetration. i din't loot yet epic SOS, so with a GS great sword minII, i dont need ICS.

And my max skills are:
Perform
UMD Haggle
Concentration
Balance
Jump.

I like this build. He is very efficient. ^^

Priority:

With an Arcane Caster in the group without healer :
1/ healing
2/ CC
3/ minor damage dealer

With a Healer in the group without arcane caster:
1/ CC
2/ minor damage dealer
3/ healer

With an arcane caster and a healer:
1/ minor damage dealer, CC & heal (situational)


The DC is nice
Charisma : 18 + (tome+2) + 5 + 4 (enhancement) +6 (charisma item) +3 (exceptional charisma) + 2 (capstone) + 2 buff guild + 2 (yugoloth potion) + 2 = 44 (+17 DC)

enchantment DC: 10 + 17 (charisma bonus) +6 (highten) + 2 (2 Past lifes) + 2 (capstone) + 2 (Spell focus item) + 1 (song) : 40 ( realy enough with debuff spell if needed)

Spell penetration 20 + 2 (capstone) + 2 (wiz past life) + 1 (song) +3 (item spell penetration) : 28 (not enough for drows)
-> for a drow with a 45 SR: need to roll > 16
-> for a tieflings with 30 SR: need to roll > 1
-> for a devil/abishai with 33 SR: need to roll > 4


The damage isn't very wonderfull but can contribute for the team.
str.: 16 +2 (tome +2) +2 (buff guild) + 6 (str. item) + 3 (exceptional (warchanter set)) + 2 rage + 1 (human enhancement) = 32
can be nice with PA, and buffs like madstone rage, titan grip clickie, divine power clickies, and destruction on dt armor...

healing :
With maximise, quicken and ardor clickies (or superior potency from warchanter set + major healing lore or arcane lore item) the healing work is good.
For the sp management:
Sp song, +150 sp GS item , con Op GS item, bauble, warchanter set (-4 sp on maximise), and lesser maximise clickies from epic ornamented dagger for the maximise healing burst without the cost of maximise .

The SP pool is good for the primary healing role or the primary CC role, but not for both at the same time.