Bards: Explain it like I'm five

[dunklezhan]

Again, what has your experience been with this kind of build? I find it hard to believe the DPS could be competitive with that of a melee bard.

Not touching the rest of your post, but just to say - ranged 'DPS' isn't always about the, uh, DPS. (Tautology club is a club about tautology).

For me it's more about staying alive by using ranged attacks, and making those ranged attacks sufficiently powerful to be worth it - which does not necessarily mean they have to be up there even close to comparable to melee DPS. My arcane archer for example is quite often 1st or 2nd on the kills in Vale. But I'm still massively jealous of the artificer's damage output... When one of them beats me on the kill count (my AA and rogue are the only toons I pay attention to the kill count. I'm not sure why. Maybe its an inferiority complex from all the big bad barbarians i tend to be surrounded by on those characters) I get this little pang of shame. But when a melee beats me 7 ways from sunday (which is what happens when I'm 2nd on the list, its usually because I've been beated by an order of magnitude), I just chalk it up to the fact that Melee is simply more DPS and they must have been good or conversely I must have been terrible.

Point being unless you can carry a repeater or let off multishot with IPS now and again, I wouldnt' bother - and when you've got other things to spend your feats on you're practically gimping yourself to acheive a playstyle that really only two classes in the game can easily build for.

And, by the way, dashing in and getting beat up, then repositioning to shoot and likely drawing aggro of anything you don't kill is a tricky thing to pull off without annoying your party to the point where you'll actually be an unpopular bard. And that is Wrong, and the Bards Guild will hunt you down and make you pay double tithes. So I wouldn't recommend it. A ranged bard build can work, I'm sure. But for a new player I really wouldn't. It'll teach you some very bad habits unless you've got someone edumacating you most of the time.

[wolfy42]

"Only"? 16 is a high starting charisma for a bard. If you're speccing for DPS (be it melee or ranged), 12 starting charisma is adequate.
Any chance you could share your personal experiences with such a build? My own experience is that they can't hold a candle to a good melee build. This seems to hold true both on paper and in practice.

Those damage buffs apply to any weapon you use.

"He wasn't speccing for DPS...or he'd be a Warchanter. He's speccing for CC...and that requires a high cha. As far as damage buffs apply to any weapon...thats true...but ranged weapons let you attack ....from range..which means you often take less damage"

Fascinate was the topic of discussion, and it's usable by all bards, whatever spellcasting style they employ. That style can include hypnotism and soundburst, but generally not back-to-back, and especially not with soundburst coming after hypnotism (your wording could be interpreted a couple ways). Also, crowd control doesn't empower you to solo; it just supplements whatever DPS and survivability you already have by reducing how much monsters hit you.

Um. No. Survival is good, but your tactical insights are awful. There's nothing inherently wrong with being in the thick of things. On the contrary, Fascinate works best if you're designed to handle being in the thick of things, while your mass cure spells will only heal the entire party if the entire party is actually together. Same thing goes for many of your buffs.

It's tempting to think that you'll take less damage if you hang behind the party with a ranged weapon, but this is not automatically the case. You WILL get aggro wherever you stand, and you're better off being able to go toe-to-toe with your opponent in melee when that happens. Being in the thick of it doesn't automatically get you more aggro, anyway. The more important factors seem to be whether someone else is in front of you and whether someone else is hitting a monster.
Actually, fascinate conflicts with ranged combat. Both are actions you perform while the distance between you and the monster is shrinking. You can only do one at a time. Also, after you finish Fascinating, you'll be at melee range if you did it right. You waste even more time if you have to re-maneuver so you can range effectively after Fascinating.

"Bog...why the heck would you move out of melee range....you want to be in melee range to get the bonus of PBS. As far as fascinate conflicting with ranged attacks, not at all. Fascinate lets you take a group of enemies and only have to fight one at a time...in point blank shot range...without any worries of hitting one of the other enemies and knocking them out of hypno/fascinate etc. And I have played a similar build.....with arti levels tossed in. The great thing about the build is you have great ranged damage and then can use CC abilities if enemies get near you. You do not in any way have to be outside of melee range to use ranged attacks.....and to still make great use of your buffs, heals and CC abilities"

Um. What? Why would other ranged builds need dexterity, other than to improve their attack bonus (a benefit bards get anyway)? It can't be an AC issue-- there's no reason to go to the trouble of speccing a ranged build for endgame AC.
Again, what has your experience been with this kind of build? I find it hard to believe the DPS could be competitive with that of a melee bard.

I said getting improved precise shot is not as important as other builds since you can at least fight the enemies one on one (takes away the ability to hit a whole line of enemies etc though...but the point stands...you get less out of it then other builds who don't have the CC abilities you do).

If you do not think it's better to have clerics/bards hang back a bit while fighting that is fine...but I have found it gives them a better ability to play a tactical game. Healing as needed, using CC as needed and throwing in additional damage as needed. I've played many battle clerics who throw down in melee and it's a blast...but as far as playing with other people....I usually prefer the clerics who stay back in the battle since it's less likely for them to die and more likely for them to be ready with heals when needed. Same goes with bards. Their buffs are not usually done mid-combat.....your CC abilities are all either ranged or something you can time and ranged damage while not as high as melee....is quite decent (especially with an arti/bard combo) and very selective.

Like I said there are tons of ways to play a bard. I just think if your going CC primary "which it sounds like he wants" then going ranged is probably the best bet as it compliments your focus more.

[Gorbadoc]

Not touching the rest of your post, but just to say - ranged 'DPS' isn't always about the, uh, DPS. (Tautology club is a club about tautology).

For me it's more about staying alive by using ranged attacks, and making those ranged attacks sufficiently powerful to be worth it - which does not necessarily mean they have to be up there even close to comparable to melee DPS.

But for a new player I really wouldn't. It'll teach you some very bad habits unless you've got someone edumacating you most of the time.

Yeah, though I find I'm able to manipulate aggro with as little as a throwing dagger and a shield, even on my melee bard with the dump-stat dex. Would repeater skills be better? Depends on the situation-- when grabbing aggro, shield blocking is nice.

I don't know if I've seen a top-notch ranged bard in action. That's the only reason I didn't condemn Wolfy's post outright; I suspect he doesn't know what he's talking about, but I'm still entertaining the possibility that there's a play style here I just don't know about.

I HAVE seen multiple ranged bards, both on the drawing board and in the game. My impression is that melee bards are better at handling almost every kind of problem or situation. The only exception is those occasions where a monster needs to be DPSed down from a distance, and those are pretty rare.

If you do not think it's better to have clerics/bards hang back a bit while fighting that is fine...but I have found it gives them a better ability to play a tactical game. Healing as needed, using CC as needed and throwing in additional damage as needed.

Lines like these don't inspire confidence in Wolfy's philosophy. Hanging back makes a bard WORSE at healing, using CC, and unloading "additional damage as needed".

[wolfy42]

As I mentioned above the changes to PBS have changed ranged DPS drastically. I also said you would stay within PBS range which allows for full healing of party members and full CC abilities.

I've played ranged based bards and clerics for years before the current changes that have made DPS significantly better for them and it worked just fine. Melee damage is great...and at least was significantly better, but it reduces your ability to monitor the situation as well, target specific enemies (Spellcasters etc) and many CC abilities are directional which means it's best to have all or most of the enemies in front of you if possible.


Repeating xbows always had fairly decent ranged damage in the past. Some builds would switch between bows for manyshot and repeating xbows for optimum ranged DPS. Today with PBS's damage bonus repeating xbows with decent buffs etc are a very decent damage source with the advantage of versatility (you can still use them at longer ranges after all).

I know the change to PBS is fairly recent...but honestly it's a huge difference in DPS possible with ranged weapons and especially works well with CC builds.

Honestly if you have VET status it takes a few minutes to try it out with a new bard (Human lets you get xbow/rapid reload and PBS by level 4). Obviously things change drastically as you level up....but your damage with such a build is quite decent while letting you focus mostly on your CC abilities.

Anyway I'm certainly not saying ranged bards are better, but I do think they have their uses and if your focusing on CC (which the TC sounded like he was) then it's a very good option.

[Aashrym]

Going ranged on a bard, if that's the direction the thread is going, I can see with:

bard 14/arti6
bard 14/ranger6
bard 14/ftr4/ranger2
bard 16/ftr2/ranger2

I'm sure there are other fancy builders out there with others. My thoughts on splashing fighter and ranger is going for an arcane archer. My thoughts on bard14/arti6 is the warchanter/engineer build. My thought on bard14/ranger6 is free many shot, bow strength, rapid shot, and a tier I PrE, which in this case is actually deepwood sniper just for the PBS range boost. That has more value with the PBS changes.

What I do not think is a good idea is range on pure bard because bards do not have a lot of feats and a focus on range tends to eat those right up. The splits all have bonus feats and bard 14 still gets respectable IC.

I think a ranged bard is entirely doable. I wouldn't recommend it on a pure bard, however, and I would recommend new bards post builds for feedback before getting ahead of themselves.

[CanuckWisdom]

Ive noticed the biggest flaw to the awesome success power that is fascinate/enthrall is other players. Unless your fighting teleporting mobs fascinate can make almost any battle against non-named mobs about 90% (rough success rate) easier, but PuGs dont usually get that or dont care.

[wolfy42]

Ive noticed the biggest flaw to the awesome success power that is fascinate/enthrall is other players. Unless your fighting teleporting mobs fascinate can make almost any battle against non-named mobs about 90% (rough success rate) easier, but PuGs dont usually get that or dont care.

Yeah, Fascinate and CC spells in general have that flaw. Even if you are soloing if you use hirelings or a pet/summon it can mess things up. You can use careful tactics to prevent that though, but it's often not worth it. If you fascinate a group of enemies then have any member of your party use ranged attacks to draw them one at a time into the group etc that works great. You can have your pets/hirelings stand their ground and pull the enemy into their range as well etc.

If you do go with a fascinate setup it works very well indeed with endless fusalige since the long wind up time is no longer a factor. The 14 bard/6 arti and 12 bard/6 arti/2 rogue builds are really alot of fun in my opinion and make strong use of both ranged attacks and CC spells while having excellent trap skills, UMD and great buffs.

14 bard/6 arti is probably one of the highest...if not highest ranged damage builds in the game...and has great buffs for a party as well. It can still get quite decent CC abilities as well. With flame arrows/elemental weapon/personal augmentation/inspired courage/arti PRE (+2 attack and damage) all going...at point blank range your doing more damage then most melee builds easily.

As far as bard PRE...Virtuoso I think is the best bet because it only requires you to use AP after level 10 (take SF Perform before that, then switch it out so you can get music of the dead early on). Going warchanter requires you to take 2 non-ranged/spell feats...and it's just not worth it in my opinion. More songs + longer duration is preferable and almost free. Spellsinger is an option though since you can still get Music of the dead/maker without going Virtuoso. Main problem is the huge AP cost to both qualify for spellsinger PRE's and get Extra song IV along with dead/maker.

[CanuckWisdom]

Perhaps the issue is that the reward for doing very challenging quest, or questing above your level is too low to really require common use of such efficient tactics (besides of course new content etc).

Playing Dark Age of Camelot years ago, even against other players, everything was about establishing the best way to maximize damage output per resource cost and minimize damage intake. I.e. Pull one from ranged, stun, kill. Or gather group, stun group, use close range high damage point blank area of effect spells etc.