>When Tiatan was lying through his teeth to try to get your
>cooperation for the Demon Quest, how much did you suspect?

I suspected about 50% I'd say. It was pretty clear that we were both trying to use each other. I certainly didn't tell you anywhere close to everything I knew. Instead, my goal was to tell you enough that you either trusted me, or at least thought I trusted you. Ultimately it didn't really work out in my favor, but honestly if it weren't for Tiatan I would likely have been even further from success than I was. Most of the time there were no other Scions to help me, so it was me against at least a couple ragers, several fortress and maybe a couple imperials.

Scion is an awesome cabal, and I had a great time in it, but it's very tough to compete in world quests when you're one or two guys and a world quest means everyone (meaning 90% enemies) is congregating in one spot.

>I can't really find any criticism for this character except,

Except...?

> Your RP was
>excellent, though. I loved all the discussions we had, both
>with Aldran and Tiatan.

I liked those two guys too. Aldran was great fun to talk to.

>Your writing was superb, as well.

Thank you. To tell the truth, I've never considered myself much of writer, and I have little interest in poetry, especially mopey, depressing poetry, so that was hard for me. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

> What did you think of Bard combat, anyways? How
>balanced do you think it is?

Well, I was pleased. I went in knowing that I would be prepping minimally, gearing poorly and that just lagging people out and winning in melee is boring for me. Bards are great in that respect, because resistance means you have decent dam redux, and symphonic means you won't get permalagged if you can land it. What would you say some of its drawbacks are?

As for balance, I understand why some people think bards are overpowered. There were a few combos that were very easy to beat, and a few combos that I felt that I really could never hope to beat. And I was able to take down some tough people like Nuekar and Eulinda, on occasion. Given that I am personally very inexperienced in PK, and prepped thinly and rarely, that might point to bards being overpowered. But "powerful" is really more accurate than overpowered I think. The things people complain about, like tune, don't really make that much of a difference.

However, the flip side is that there were plenty of times I got completely run over. A warrior with greeting is basically death for a bard who isn't very lucky or well-prepped. One way to think of a bard is as a mage with no bash protection. Not entirely accurate, but it gives you a picture.

Anyone who prepped mental was nearly impossible for me to beat I found. Unless more people prepped than I thought, but it definitely seemed like some people I could affect at a "normal" sort of level and some people I needed 4-5 attempts at each song to affect, and damage songs did meager damage. Those people I could do very little against. There are also an awful lot of deafening/notalk affects these days. Dagger specs, paladins, APs, thug thiefs, assasins, certain rangers, and some I'm forgetting all have abilities that totally prevent singing.

Many people seem to think that echoes is automatic victory, but it really isn't. Many, many times someone with echoes on them would just beat the crap out of me anyway. Ask Eulinda how much it mattered... most of our fights I got echoes off in one or two tries, but ended up fleeing before getting anywhere near killing her. Any invoker can mess up a bard pretty easily as well.

Like most classes, a really well-played bard is a powerhouse. Aura, shield, stoneskin and resistance is a powerful combo, throw in a good instrument, maybe some progging gear and you have someone that is tough to kill and can quite possibly take out your whole group because they're area-oriented. But against a similarly prepped/skilled invoker, ap or necromancer, my money is not on the bard. Against most matchups I felt pretty well-balanced.