Wed May 4 22:20:15 2011

At 2 o'clock AM, Day of the Bull, 15th of the Month of the Dark Shades
on the Theran calendar Filosof perished, never to return.

Race:	human
Class:	bard
Level:	43
Alignment:	Evil
Ethos:	Orderly
Cabal:	EMPIRE, the Empire
Age:	29
Hours:	80

Unimpressed with my own RP and PK. I had no idea where to go with this character. Someone told me that Empire is essentially a mark of death, and they were right. I could not stop dying (normally this doesn't bother me, but I couldn't make up for it with RP seeing as how I had no idea what I wanted to RP).

As far as goodbyes go,

Sivyh - Awesome emperor as far as I'm concerned. Thank you for putting up with my newbieness without demoting or anathema'ing me.

Roberval - Hurry up and hero so you can make sure everyone gets their butts kicked. Thanks for letting me know about preps, and taking me to get them.

Anjee - Favorite character of mine. You were very very very helpful, and I/Filo thoroughly enjoyed your company. Stick in there and finish up with that quest of yours.

Empire was not a fun cabal for me in terms of me dying 14 times per log in, but I did enjoy watching sects fight as well as everyone putting up with my newbieness.

I tried to avoid going out of my way to really scour and hunt you down, mostly because I knew you had it tough to begin with and being stuck at the low end of hero range is no fun. You did a very good job on taking the beatings though, if it's any consolation.

Good job sticking with it for that long and good luck with the next!

I noticed a couple people who tended to stay away from me, even though they were enemies, presumably because they saw how often I died and figured I was a newb. There were also people who multikilled me (booo)

Thanks to you and the others who didn't beat up on me too hard, and I believe I saw that you got a leader spot. If that was you, congratulations

I could tell you were new so I didn't come down on you as hard as I probably should have. Who knew donations could go negative? Not me.

As far as dying goes you did seem to have it pretty rough. But I'm not sure it would have been much easier if you hadn't decided to join Empire.

Anyway, good luck with whatever you choose next. Hopefully you learned something from Filosof you can carry over to your next character.

And I do think I would have not died as much if I went uncaballed, but who knows

Bards are a pretty good class to learn how to play CF with. Probably just not an evil one in empire where you have so many enemies going for you all the time. Uncaballed, or nexus/fort probably would have meant far fewer deaths, since they don't have as many going for them and tend to be pretty friendly/helpful cabals.

But I am sure you picked some things up, and remember each character played tends to help you with your next, so good luck with whatever you come back as.

From Hanord's PBF:

Total PK Wins 212 (210 at level 51)

Yeah that's right. 2 PKwins prior to 51. That's how bad Hanord was while I worked on figuring out the class. I don't know how many times I had someone convulsing, but was convulsing myself, and I'd sing a song that would for sure kill them only to have them flee right before I sang it, then run back in and bash me. Ugh.

So I wouldn't feel too bad about Filosof, I imagine you were probably doing just as well as I was (probably better) at that level.

nt

Imperial offensse/defense also make a huge difference on an imperial bard.

In retrospect, and I should have thought about this, it would have been better not to delete and just keep Filo on the side for a couple weeks. Maybe I could come back with a fresh idea for him.

I would have stayed through all of the dying if I knew what I wanted to RP. If I am not getting any kills and/or I have no RP direction, then the character is completely unsuccessful to me. My role was absolutely ridiculous, unsure how I was supposed to follow up the second set of entries.

As far as Hanord, to be fair, I wouldn't have even touched the 210 at hero. I haven't even hit more than 10 on any character yet :) Out of what I have played, I very much like bards. They are a lot of fun, and everyone in your cabal seems to want to travel with you (which I do not mind at all). I will be revisiting the bard class after I get a better handle of the map in general, as well as preps and a bit more mechanical knowledge.

Heck, I might just roll a neut/neut herald bard sometime soon and forget about PK entirely.

I want to do a religion but I have absolutely no idea where to start, and I fear that the god I pick to worship will just laugh me out of their shrine (I was going to try and worship the dead god Nashyr as Filo, but, again, had no idea how to go about doing that). I had the same fear when I joined empire that I would immediately get kicked out, as I hardly knew the politics behind the cabal (I understood imperial law, at least. I almost grouped with a rager before finding out that rager + empire = no).

I have just finished bard that sucked very very badly but as i remember I didnt pk really anyone. I did pk good enough with another bard at 51 i dont know what changes or why but it is a HUGE change when you hero a bard

Solo is pretty tough pre 40/45. Distortion allows you to evade moves and stay alive longer, and fiend is great for kill sealing, and dirge can help make people stat in a fight they should leave. But singing people up just causes them to flee. And bards have a huge vuln to bashing which distort really helps to negate.

The thing is, it's not that a bard can't fight pre hero, it's that they generally can't seal those fights unless they hit a high damage song like a doom apocalyptic (maybe lagging vibrato with epic would be effective at mid ranks). At real low ranks piercing dissonance with trips can work to get a kill or two, maybe to get applicant status. But I tried an elf bard villager, and sealing a mage kill in mid ranks was impossible for me. I got applicant at 45 because of grand nocturne.

Your songs are also much more potent on people of lower ranks, or tend to be. A hero powerful fiend can kill a lot of level 45 people of any race. With the new pbf stats, you will be able to see how bards really land their kills. I'd guess 85% will be fiend/vibrato/apocalyptic for the killing blow. And really, most bards do not put up Hanord numbers. A bard with 100 pks is pretty rare. There are 15 out of 115 pbfs that got to 100, and most all of them were 300+ hours.

Having just played a herald bard not long ago, I will say it's a great design to really learn the class and learn CF. Probably better than fort or nexus.

> But I tried an elf
>bard villager, and sealing a mage kill in mid ranks was
>impossible for me. I got applicant at 45 because of grand
>nocturne.

IMHO, it's a lot lot easier at low/mid with a lower XP penalty.

I mean, 800 pen and no magic, ow.

I tried an elf bard villager once before, too, very very very briefly. I couldn't seal a kill at all. Maybe that has to do with differences in our playstyle

If I were going to play a bard I think I'd do it like a necro. Sleep and maledict. Make heavy use of scrolls and a dispel talisman.

Problem with this is people calling for help. All that singing and reciting takes time, and at hero most people are caballed.

If you look at Hanord's pbf you'll see he was a pretty miserable gank-ho. And that he got ganked a lot. Constant raid/retrieval nights for hours on end will do that.

It is also where a bard can really rack up pkwins in short order. That group of 3 headless ragers (for instance) trying to retrieve at centurions against even 2 Imperials, if one is a bard, is pretty screwed. Same deal for Fortress/Outlander - yes they can word out, but often they don't want to leave an ally behind so they'll stay longer than normal.

Send in the first guy (Shaman ideally for incredible damage soak) and have the bard follow with nightmare and then reverb reverb reverb apoc. Shaman might land one of the three kills with demonfire there, but most likely all 3 die within 1 or 2 songs of each other.

Some classes can excel in solo combat, and hang with any char in the mud. Some classes were just designed to excel in raiding and groups. Bards, Shamans, Healers, most thieves, all tend to be group fighters. Warriors, Paladins, Assassins, Druids, etc, they can all hang on their own. And everywhere and everywhat combination inbetween. Sure, one on one, a bard is tough, but usually managable if youre smart/prep for it. A bard with say, a competent warrior and/or shaman? You better run your ass off if your group doesn't have complete confidence in themselves.

nt

That's what drove me nuts w/ the one bard I played. In my case they'd flee, and I'd reflexively put in "{direction};sing {whatever}", then by the time I got into the room they'd have already left.

By "reflextively" I don't mean "via trigger". Just by habit. I'm too used to "{dir};trip {dude}". Doesn't map well to bards.

Bards do alright in solo at staying alive and driving people off, but not too effective at sealing kills for the reason you mentioned. They flee when you hit them with a high damage song, and are gone before you can follow in to do anything else. I do think epic with lagging vibratos might be a viable option for solo though. Or timing songs and trying to trip them down and end with one high damage hit.

Doing the maladict bard with scrolls and all you still get the same thing with people flee teleport as soon as you kill them (unless it's a villager, which bards tend to do very well against). If you scourge, poison, place all the songs, and fiend, you might land the kill when they teleport. Of course, you need to spend time gathering those scrolls/talismans, all for things which may not land and even if do still might not land you the kill. Bards just tend to require a fair amount of down time gathering defensive preps, and offensive as well if you play that way.

However, a bard + any who can lag is almost overkilll against most people. I really think bards are a class designed to travel with people to maximize their effectiveness.

that comes from one of the greatest RP-ers - me :P

I am not sure if this has been mentioned, but Imperial bards really get better with imperial training. So you have to work your way to it, then it get noticeably easier, imo.

GL and HF

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