What options do bards have solo against people who prep heavily vs them?

I assume you're not outdamaging many people even with sword/shield, preps and epic set of songs up. So roundhouse, flourish and pugil alone aren't going to cut it.

Do vibrato and piercing check mental saves? Is vibrato's lag chance dependent on it?
What about fiery/frigid doom and fire/iceball from apocalyptic overture?

Use a staff to dispel their preps.

Dove figurine from Weald does this well.

Think of saves mental as helping people against songs based on illusion. The major ones being grand nocturne, symphonic echoes (which once landed save mental does not help- it just makes it harder to land the song I believe) fantasia, laborious lament and languid carol. Can probably through dirge in there too.

Piercing dissonance and vibrato are more physical style attacks (blunt & piercing far as I know) and will not be impacted by people having resist mental for the most part. I've never seen their damage change from anything but DR, otherwise the damage is pretty consistent. (Lag from vibrato you'll need a good instrument and the right rep for it- and I have a suspicion that size might play a part to, that being bigger than your opponent makes you more likely to generate lag- but that is pure speculation based on lots of tragic reps only lagging svirfs & gnomes with vibrato)

Apocalyptic has a mental aspect to it since the lower tier is an illusion, but I'm not sure if having saves mental will make it harder to call the frigid/fiery doom against them, or help with the damage depending on what is called. It would help mitigate the damage of the lower tier illusions though, just as vuln mental folk took more damage than normal from them.

The lower tiers appear to be mental, the middle & upper appear to be fire and ice based damage for the most part (though might have a mental aspect as well)

Saves mental hurts a bard in bringing about other songs, like grand nocturne and most of the maladiction based songs, but the counters are somewhat simple.

For one, most resist mental preps have short timers. If you know they have it, wait to engage and make them burn the preps. Look at them, to see if they are wearing lots of save mental gear, or a certain piece of gear that grants resist mental for a time.

More importantly. Bards have lullaby, and they have talismans. Lullaby for forcing people's timers to run out. Talismans, you can get a dispel magic talisman, as most people who use resist mental preps use it from sources where it won't be high level, so you can dispel it.

You can also play defensive to wait out their timer to fall, if it is really hurting your chances. Flee, get them to chase you, sing a healing song while hje catches up. Keep him interested in the fight but keep control of it. You have a lot of ways to counter people using it generally. In raids where the issue gets forced and it's multiple people against you and they all have it is about the only time it's a problem to deal with. And healers, since they have a mental aegis or something which you won't be able to get rid of.

And keep in mind, resist mental preps do not make it impossible to land songs, just harder. I've put many people to sleep, grand nocturned, distorted and so on that have used it against me.

Lastly, a bard can outmelee people in many circumstances, depending on what they are. Hasted wood elf with a 60+ dam roll, anthem, stoneskin, aura, shield and maybe a few useful gear pieces to stack on damage progs? You'll do just fine in melee. I wouldn't say straight melee bard is really the best method to try playing them, ebcause you'll be more gear dependent, but it is still a very viable option if you know how to pull it off.

Though it's no wonder, I've played only one hero who would even use talismans other than the simple staff.

I've got one other question though...
How much does preferred rep really mean?

I'm torn between epic (I like lagging people!) and tragic (never tried and I'm told they're really great but I'm worried about people with high svm - see that post in Jebaral's thread) and my inability to make a choice keeps me from rolling another bard.

Yep, the other guy posted the specific one most people use.

Well, I made it a habit to never switch my rep from my preferred. Unless someone takes the edge to counter your preferred, or you have a real nice instrument or something suited to another rep and don't have proficient instrumentalist, I usually would say you don't need to change reps from preferred very often. I also find the preferred boost helps bring up your rep to a level not far off from what switching reps would bring. I.e. a small damage boost in tragic so that going epic for more damage does not make a lot of sense because of all that you're giving up by singing those non-damage songs in epic.

Repertoire choice is a matter of what you want to do and how you want to fight, and if you are interested more in PK or PVE, and if it is solo or group PK.
-Comedic is the best at support generally, and decent at damage if you get the killing joke edge. Instruments are usually hardest to find for this rep though. It's probably the best PVE rep, and the worst PK (solo PK at least) rep in my opinion. In a group fight, they have a lot more value because the bonuses spread to the group.

-Romantic is a well rounded rep for the bard that wants to be decent at everything. I'd say decent for PVE, just below comedic and PK is decent but not great. Lots of strong instruments though, and you can vary your tactics up, though straight damage style is probably better suited to epic, or comedic with the edge.

-Epic is a charge in and blast the hell out of people with damage type, probably won't worry about maladiction and other methods of fighting as often since your rep is not well suited to that style. Probably the worst PVE rep since you won't have great serenades or strong healing, but arguably the best PK rep because you have that high damage and the best chances to lag with vibrato. Lag is irrelevant if your opponent out melees you, it's lag in conjunction with better melee/damage output that matters. Area lag is very nice in group fights too. I had a vision of two epic bards perma lagging a group by alternating vibratos, but never got a chance to try it to see if that works.

-Tragic is basically about finesse and timing. It's okay for PVE, and it's decent for PK, if you know how to play it. Tragic probably takes a bit more than epic in terms of learning different tactics to be PK effective with and plays more in line with romantic. Most people these days know how to counter bards and how to fight them, so tragic generally needs to have some variety to win fights. Even a tragic Grand Nocturne doesn't automatically win PKs much these days unless you know how to use it properly.

Hope this helps somewhat.

And keep in mind, I played 1000's of hours of bards so I may be speaking about these things as if they are a bit easier to grasp than they are in practice. A lot of playing a bard I found to be trial and error, and fitting the character's abilities to my specific playstyle. If you like the class, just try a few, mix it up with people without worrying about dying and see what works for you and your style and what doesn't.

I played three bards before I played my first minorly PK successful bard. My first ever bard maybe got 30 pks, but I don't know since the char got wiped. And that was over 400+ hours.

I've only played one bard and it was forever ago, but he was epic preferred. When I had one of the battle songs up, I noticed it gave me a chance for an extra attack. Do you get two extra attacks with haste up or just a higher chance for the one extra?

When you sing battaglia as an epic bard I believe you get an extra chance for an attack that round only, far as I know. I do not recall having it grant the ability to make third attacks so to speak just by having it up.

You can search for logs of Jastyna, who was epic preferred and around maybe a year ago. I read through one and at no time did she ever generate three attacks, so I am guessing if the song ever did that, it doesn't anymore.

With haste, you could get four attacks in that round only though, otherwise just the three.

The only way I know of to generate four melee attacks in a normal round of combat as a bard would be haste + imperial offense. (but as an imperial, unless you go arial, you're more likely using imperial defense) I would probably see that as viable for an arial bard in empire, who goes a more melee oriented route.

It definitely used to, but I think I bug boarded it at the time. Maybe it was only supposed to be doing it when you sang the song. I dunno. I was getting it like once per fight vs. araile bandits at appropriate level to be fighting them. In any case, it was pretty darn rare when it did happen.

Anyway, thanks for info. I've no doubt you are right in most if not all matters bard.

ticks after I heard it.

Without context I don't know what the cause of that would be, but it's not the battaglia.

I remarked on the fact I was getting more attacks than normal to a cabalmate, and that I'd heard a battaglia, and they responded that it must have been an epic one.

In any case, something was giving me an extra chance to attack, and the epic battaglia seemed the most likely explanation, so I went with it.

nt

Wielding a polearm, spamming up slice in order to be able to take the spine of the akragaka edge - that would have allowed me four attacks per round, but I had not taken it at that point, which is why I was spamming with a polearm in the first place.

Maybe it was Bloodthirst?

That could account for it, but I hadn't hit level 34 at that point (not to mention how counterproductive it would be to use that spell to spam on monks).

>Well, I made it a habit to never switch my rep from my
>preferred. Unless someone takes the edge to counter your
>preferred, or you have a real nice instrument or something
>suited to another rep and don't have proficient
>instrumentalist, I usually would say you don't need to change
>reps from preferred very often. I also find the preferred
>boost helps bring up your rep to a level not far off from what
>switching reps would bring. I.e. a small damage boost in
>tragic so that going epic for more damage does not make a lot
>of sense because of all that you're giving up by singing those
>non-damage songs in epic.

For what it's worth, the bonus for singing in your preferred repertoire is a really, really small one. From the perspective of any single song in a vacuum, it's always to your advantage to change to the best repertoire for that song.

But... that's complicated by:

1) In the space of a repertoire change timer, you probably will want to sing a lot of different songs, and

2) Probably, you're carrying an instrument that's pretty good for your preferred repertoire, and you may well not be packing one that's good for your "off" repertoire.

But #1 and #2 aside (which they often, to be clear, won't be), you're always a fair bit better off switching to comedic if all you really really want is healing songs, even if you're preferred tragic.

So I think in theory you're wrong but in practice you're probably right? The instrument factor especially has led me to very rarely change repertoires when I've played a bard, even with "perfect" knowledge of the mechanics.

I usually carry 1 instrument at a time only for purposes of keeping inventory space free & weight low, and prefer to take vocalist & dancer instead of instrumentalist so I have that viable non-instrument fallback in case I lose it or get off handed or something.

Thanks for the info Daev, always happy to learn something new about bards. I never assumed the boost was large, maybe a few levels, but I probably thought it was bigger than it really is. I figured levels were the same when you sing in different repertoires but the potency of the song changed, so lower potential potency but harder to save against because of higher level. I imagine I was incorrect on that view though.

I would like to meet a Daev played bard IC some time so I could learn a few more things about them that I don't know.

I assume you are talking about my posts with Jebaral on his death thread. Good saves vs mental can be a pain in the ass for a bard, especially in certain situations. However, they do not limit you as Lasentia pointed out.

Jebaral was unique in that he could pretty much destroy me with entwine and flurry with dual iron swords. I fought him twice solo and both times went exactly like that. He resisted my songs while flurry raping me when I couldn't flee. It was ugly, hence the chump feeling.

There were other things I could have done that might not have won the fight for me but probably at least let me survive. I knew after that to assume he would probably make the saves and there would be little room for error but I never fought him again to try and employ different tactics.