Bard vs Wizard to box with Mage

[Lore]

Starting anew, after many years away, and narrowed it down to these 3 classes since I have never played any of them before. I just can't decide on the better combo.

With the wizard, I would love the ports/evac and the ease to which I could go sell or whatever and CoH back to the camp spot. Also, of course, love the added burst dps and also that with a mag/wiz combo I wouldn't have to move very much which is a bonus since I'll have a steep learning curve just returning and this will be my first time boxing. I'm mostly worried about pulling, since I've never CoH pulled before and don't know it's limitations or whether a wizard makes CoH pulling easier/harder. Also worried about if I want to do some old raid mobs that summon, seems like mag/wiz combo would make this difficult.

With the bard, I would love the run speed, actually having CC, tracking, all the buff utility, and I hear they are the best pullers now. I'm worried about the fact would I be able to DPS as a bard or would that force him to tank instead of the pet? I simply don't know how bards are used now days, whether their dps is melee or songs in which case would I be able to just park the bard, play the mage, then flip back to the bard to pull, rinse and repeat unless theirs adds?

I guess the 3rd option would be BRD/WIZ but then I'd lose the pet to tank and that seems like that would seriously gimp what I could possibly do with a mage and either one of the other 2.

Any advice and experiences with any of these combos would be great, however I don't want to play an ench since all I can remember is how brittle they were and the difficulty of playing them might be better suited for my 2nd time through instead of my first time back after so many years.

[Goranothos]

Like you, I have never played either a bard or wizzy, but I believe most people here are going to tell you to box the bard, no contest. I am also considering starting a box account, but mine is either going to be a shammy or another mage.

[svenalo]

If you are wanting the pet to be the tank, then the bard can't melee'ing on the mob - if he is, the mob will beat on the bard and not the pet. However all other things aside, if the choice is wiz or bard to duo with a mage, the choice falls heavily onthe bard side of things.

[Roridgar]

Another really cool benefit to running the bard is overhaste. The bard songs will land on raging, so as long as the song is on overhast for all swarm pets.

[Failcon]

If you are dead set on these classes - Bard.


Wizzy/Mage combo can pull any mob, anywhere in a zone with perfection. That is the only advantage though, nuking with both is not much of an option unless you are using hotkey macros.

Bard/Mage on the other hand can pull, can off tank if in dire need (bards wear plate, but light tanking), and you get tons of buffs, slows, cc, and even auto ranged DPS (though not alot).

Personally I would suggest a ranger. With a ranger you get pulls, buffs, cc, off tanking (still low), and a ton of ranged DPS.

[Jedis]

Personally I would suggest a ranger. With a ranger you get pulls, buffs, cc, off tanking (still low), and a ton of ranged DPS.

Ranger? I've never heard that one suggested before.

I box a druid and enchanter with my mage. With a tank merc, 2 cleric mercs, or 3 cleric mercs, there's nothing that you can't really do.

But, if I were solely picking from Bard or Wizard, I would pick the bard.

[Merlaina]

I have a chanter that I often box with my mage, and even so I decided to roll up a bard to box instead. Got him up to 68 now, but looks like my hopes of getting him to 85 before HoT comes out are shot.

The big reason for the reroll is the chanter is my wife's, not mine, so I didn't feel comfortable with things like spending her AA, switching her guild, etc, since the toon wasn't really mine (even though she hasn't played her in 6 months). I still think chanters are great to box with mages, it just seemed silly to have two chanters on the same account.

[Jedis]

I have a chanter that I often box with my mage, and even so I decided to roll up a bard to box instead. Got him up to 68 now, but looks like my hopes of getting him to 85 before HoT comes out are shot.

I tried making a bard once, but didn't get him leveled up very far at all.

A mage I was once guilded with was terrible at boxing a bard with his mage though. He would forget to turn off the bard's songs and when he pulled (with the mage...) the bard would be smashed into a pulp... every.single.pull. It was kind of funny, but sad.

Enchanter is definitely fun to play with my mage. At times I've considered switching mains... but always come back to the Mage. It's the most fun out of all of the classes, imo! Jedis was born March, 1999 and is still going strong. Just wish I had time to raid to enjoy the higher-end part of the game.

[Merlaina]

It's funny you say that because I'm still getting used to pulling with the bard. Up until now he's been largely power leveled (I consider using the war merc at low levels power leveling. I mean they do unreal damage and are practically invincible near their own level) and I just got fade. So I tried pulling some in mechamatic guardian. I would hit the snare song while targeting the back mob in a pack so that he would stay far back while the closer ones ran at me faster. Once the nearer ones were almost in aggro range I'd fade and say to myself "good job self. Nicely split". Then the next tick of snare would go off because bard songs autorepeat until you actively turn them off, and everything would run at my bard again and I'd go splat. This seriously happened at least 5 times last night. This is going to take some practice...

[Jedis]

I just snare and then pull with the druid, use CoH and then pick off the singles.

Of course this scenario fails with snare-immune mobs, but for the most part, it works great. When I was camping the T5 SoD bp gem in Korafax, that's how I would split up the vulture room. Snare with druid, run out the door, up the ramp towards the kyv's and start CoH as soon as I made it out the door. Yay for autorun. Not fun when I got stuck running into the wall switching screens