Duoing with a Bard

[Citik]

On the old Magician's Tower there was a great post about what a bard brought to the table for high level magicians.

I think it may have been by Mendix, but i'm not sure.

I know it's a bit of a longshot but does anyone happen to have a copy of it?

Failing that can anyone please offer any advice on what songs/auras a level 85 bard should have up to benefit a level 85 magician?

I've looked at the Concert Hall etc, but i'm only really looking for specific advice pertaining to what will benefit magicians the most.

Thank you.

[IblisTheMage]

Hi, I can't give you what you asked for, but I can give you my experience: Bard does not duo well with mage. The Bard cannot use the part of his dps that is Melee, and the Bards merc is not adding anything either.

In general, melee classes are bad duos with mages.

[Dadani]

I duo with my wifes bard on a daily basis. Bards work extremely well with a mage, but to work best, the mage pet needs Pet Affinity.
The bard can pull anything single. Can mez adds with songs or an AA, damage shields, songs to improve spell damage, AA's to improve spell damage, haste for the pet, 53% slow, snare and probably a couple of others I am not thinking of right now.

Can kite mobs while you let the rogue pet tear it up and the mage nukes.

I have duo'ed with many classes and well the bard may not be the best, the bard definitely ranks up there.

With a healer merc, there isn't much we can't take down.

Your 85 songs and even some below that are still useful.
85 - Aura of the Poet - We use for the spell damage increase
84 - War March of Brekt - but mainly for the DS, STR and ATK - don't use it as much, depends on if we use a merc and my wife melee's with her bard
84 - Druzzil's Psalm of Potency - Magic nuke focus
84 - Dance of the Dragorn - AC and some spell/DS mitigation and chance to resist spells - specific to use when they are casters nuking you and pet
83 - Talendor's Aria - Fire nuke focus
83 - Aura of Rodcet - Adds a little dps to melee attacks
82 - Dirge of the Fallen Rathe - Spell/melee mitigation
81 - Aria of the Poet - overhaste, spell damage increase
81 - Cantata of Rodcet - health/mana regen song - best in down time

Those are some of the songs we use daily depending on the mobs and their makeup.

There are also a whole bunch of AA's that are highly beneficial to a mage or the group itself.
Fierce Eye - increase chance for melee/spell critical
Dirge of the Sleepwalker - 1 minute mez every 10 minutes roughly, can stack mobs waiting to be killed
Cacaphony - can interrupt spell casting of the mob, great for those healing mobs
Funeral Dirge - weakens the mob, increases damage the mob takes, after 30 sec it does some decent damage to the mob
Song of Stone - summons up to 6 pets, good for Shock/Jolt line

That is just a brief run down and I am sure others with bard experience can elaborate on the topic.
The bard can add so much versatility and can help you adapt to different mobs.

My wife is no uber bard gear wise, but it is really the songs and AA's that make the bard as with most classes.
find someone on your sever who is a bard and go hang with em. Test of the song combination's.

Don't tell, but I love the fact we can run anywhere invis and bard speed!!

With creative usage of the bandoleer and /melody command, you can adapt to changes in the battle very quickly.

My wife's bard so you can see what she is at and can use to compare maybe?
http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1149066

[Darkenr]

Hi, I can't give you what you asked for, but I can give you my experience: Bard does not duo well with mage. The Bard cannot use the part of his dps that is Melee, and the Bards merc is not adding anything either.

In general, melee classes are bad duos with mages.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree. Bards are arguably the king/queens of utility. All bard songs also transfer to our pets which can be a huge benefit to our pets, especially considering things like their haste with overhaste (which also works on our Raging Servant line as well). Bards also have a song that gives us a strong fire focus, and they can also augment our mana regeneration fairly well. With a good song modifier item they can also add noticeable dps through their DoTs, and they can also slow. The slow is only 50%, but all mobs nowadays mitigate slow anyway, so that's really a moot point that it's only 50%. They also can snare runners which in close quarters can be very deadly, and there currently isn't a class that is better at pulling than a bard save a monk, but a monk would be a bad choice for a duo with a mage heh. Can't forget their ability to mez as well.

My friend on eq is a bard, probably the best bard I know, and her and I have duo'd content that would be only a wet dream with any other partner with a mage because of the kind of utility, and indirect DPS they can provide.

Unfortunately I can't provide you with what songs my bard friend used when we would duo together, but a bard duo can bring a LOT to the table as a duo partner as long as the bard understands that they need to sit back and play a pure utility role with maybe an added DoT here and there to add their own DPS. They may not add much DPS directly themselves, but they can augment your own DPS to a pretty large degree which is only icing on the cake to the amount of utility they can bring.

So what they can bring to the table in a more readable list is..

1. Augmented DPS through overhaste/focuses, proc buffs, mana regen, etc.

2. They're arguably the best pullers in the game, so nearly no group content is out of the question because of ease of single pulls.

3. They can be crowd control via mezes/charms.

4. They can snare which will take care of any runners.

5. They can slow.

6. There are probably other things that I can't think of atm, but I'm at work and my break is done for now hehe.

[Falino-Luclin]

I box a bard and can duo any named in SoD other than the shadowstep/memblur guy in Korafax with a merc. My bard is entirely group geared but is full Tier 5 and is something like 10th on eqplayers on Luclin and has something like 1300 AA, but suffers from the usual grouper problems - low shielding, avoidance, etc. Despite that, he can tank anything up to tier 4 quite easily. Tier 5 stuff I use pet to tank and have bard just slow/play songs and use AAs.

My normal song lineup with boxing is:

Aura of Rodcet

Talendor's Aria
Aria of the Poet
Arcane Arietta
War March of Brekt

Other songs I have up are slow, mez, pacify, ac.

Overall I think bard + mage is a great combo, even if your bard isn't up to tanking. Just twisting the above songs will increase your DPS by a large amount, and a bard's pulling abilities helps greatly where a mage lacks.

[Jedis]

The problem with a bard is if you have any songs going while pulling, the incoming mobs squish the bard in short order.

They're awesome to have, so long as you remember to turn off songs before every pull.

[Falino-Luclin]

I think it can be assumed the bard will be pulling, not the mage, in which case you only have to shut off songs when pulling if you have to fade and don't want the invis to drop or if you need to mez/pacify something on a pull.