Dragonmarked Bard?

[Faent]

I'm struggling with what to do with my bard. I really wanted this feat list:

Toughness
Extend
Heighten
Empower Healing
Maximize
Spell Focus: Enchant
Quicken
Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Penetration
Inspire Excellence

This would give me a very, very capable Spell Singer. Not a great Epic Elite Spell Singer, but great for everything else. However, now I'm toying with picking up the Dragonmarks of Finding. It looks to me like I'd want to revise the above feat list as follows:

Toughness
Extend --> Dragonmark 1
Heighten
Empower Healing
Maximize
Spell Focus: Enchant --> Dragonmark 2
Quicken
Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Penetration
Inspire Excellence --> Dragonmark 3

This costs me lovely extended haste/rage/displacement. Parties will be mad that I'm not extending those. It costs me a nice Magister twist, but you don't need that for Epic Hard content. And it costs me that lovely Inspire Excellence. CC and Heals will still be top-notch in content up through Epic Hard, however. And buffs will be almost ideal (save for the loss of Inspire Excellence). The party, of course, trades all of this for a lovely +2 loot boost. What do you think? Worth it?

[Myrrae]

I'm not sure that the CC focus is really worth keeping if you're going for the dragonmarks. I have a bard with all 3 finding dragonmarks and at that point your fascinate is far more potent then your disco ball of dance, especially since you can never heighten it to level 9 so you're behind what a wiz/sorc could do already.

I made mine more melee/healing focused (still spellsinger) because the offensive & CC spells just don't seem as effective as fascinate for a bard (although disco ball is still fun when it works). One big difference is that you're talking about dropping SF:Enchant which means you wouldn't be eligible for several of the DC boosters from epic destinies any more.

I ended up ditching Quicken and picking up Power Attack while still keeping Extend. My damage is ... not impressive even with a 2-hander and Power Attack, but healing capability is not bad, and extended haste/rage/displacement is very handy. I don't have spell pen at all, but only having recently hit 20 it hasn't been a factor one way or another. Even with starting 18 charisma and all level ups in charisma (chest blessing is based solely on charisma btw) things still save.

I don't really love the character though, and mostly have her because I was able to stone her on a second account and bring her in when I want loot blessing, or to give the still helpful buffs & songs. However, part of that comes from the fact that I was duoing her with a low damage tank specced paladin and it made quests go quite slow to have neither character very damage capable.

In any event, I hope this helps you!

[Anthios888]

I was really happy on my treasure bard as a human 2-handed fighting bard by going with 18 str, 16 con, 14 cha.

toughness
power attack
improved critical
3 dragonmarks
maximize
empower healing/extend
quicken

I used epic sword of shadows and operated primarily in a healing role, but did not have much trouble in melee with the good healing amplification and to-hit.

[Enoach]

personally if I was going to give up Feats to fit in the Finding Dragon marks I would put the following up on the chopping block for consideration

Maximize
Quicken
Greater Spell Penetration

And here is why:

Maximize - Great Enhancement for Spell Damage or boosting Cures, but not a Cost Effective method of boosting these spells. As many bard spells are Sonic based and have secondary effects which when used appropriately can boost the DPS of follow-up damage methods, such as Melee or other spell damage - Having Heighten can increase the frequency of the secondary effects.

Quicken - Great for mass heal and self healing, however, the most effective self healing from a bard is through UMD on a Heal scroll. An argument against this could be made for the emergency CC, but my experience is Fascinate is much more reliable in emergency.

Greater Spell Penetration - Fascinate is the CC you can turn to when you do not have enough Spell Penetration.

In my opinion I think the 3 you choose to give up would take too much away from your CC abilities and your party buffs - Extend being more valuable to the Short Buffs as there are very few quests where 40+ minutes are needed between shrines/completions.

[Faent]

I'm not sure that the CC focus is really worth keeping if you're going for the dragonmarks. I have a bard with all 3 finding dragonmarks and at that point your fascinate is far more potent then your disco ball of dance, especially since you can never heighten it to level 9 so you're behind what a wiz/sorc could do already.

My Discoballs work on everything in Epic Hard content. I'd like to keep that. (My bard's CHA is 56.)

I made mine more melee/healing focused (still spellsinger) because the offensive & CC spells just don't seem as effective as fascinate for a bard (although disco ball is still fun when it works).

CC works fine up through Epic Hard (on a first life toon) if you get your DC's up there. I'd work on your CHA. You can achieve a 58 CHA on a first life toon. If something does break out of it, you always have OID and Fascinate.

One big difference is that you're talking about dropping SF:Enchant which means you wouldn't be eligible for several of the DC boosters from epic destinies any more.

This is true. But again, CC already works fine up through Epic Hard. (I suppose one might point out that it's not even needed in Epic Hard.... fair enough, but I like to see everything dance.) CC won't work in Epic Elite due to Spell Pen issues there (I am so not putting multiple past lives on my bard). So given that it's not needed in Epic Hard, I suppose I might think more about giving it up.

I ended up ditching Quicken and picking up Power Attack while still keeping Extend.

I doubt I will ditch Quicken. I want emergency heals to reliably land. I'm a big fan of being able to keep myself up in any situation.

My damage is ... not impressive even with a 2-hander and Power Attack, but healing capability is not bad, and extended haste/rage/displacement is very handy. I don't have spell pen at all, but only having recently hit 20 it hasn't been a factor one way or another. Even with starting 18 charisma and all level ups in charisma (chest blessing is based solely on charisma btw) things still save.

I use dual Epic Elyd edges when I feel like doing some damage. With a CHA of 56, they get the job done in a pinch and add some so-so DPS when I have nothing else to do. I plan to stick with them.

[NovaNZ]

Hail Faent.

Based on your feat list I would drop empowered healing, SF enchant and Quicken in order to get your chest blesser.

Thats based on my experince as a SS16/ftr2/rog2 (lvl25) with either TWF or cleave/greater cleave.

I only use maximise, devotion item and scrolls for healing. Though with U16 the effectivess of healing with mass cure scrolls has been reduced back to what it should have been (bugger )

I use mainly fascinate.

[karl_k0ch]

I was really happy on my treasure bard as a human 2-handed fighting bard by going with 18 str, 16 con, 14 cha.

toughness
power attack
improved critical
3 dragonmarks
maximize
empower healing/extend
quicken

The feats above are 9, but as a human bard, you have 7 regular + 1 human + 2 Epic, i.e. access to one more feat. Coincidentally, you did not list Inspire Excellence, which fills the last (or penultimate) slot pretty nicely.

This is probably what I'm going to do with my 18 Bard/2 Rogue haggle/craft bot as well, where I'd dump Str by 2 for more Dex, i.e. more Reflex save.

[Faent]

I opted to drop:

SF: Enchant
Quicken
Empower Healing