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Post by lala on Sept 25, 2007 0:03:14 GMT
Just an observation here. The point was made earlier though I dont think it realy played out. Lala your druid was not the in-druid of the time however it could be a tank and thus was never refused a spot in a party. I feel that dexer bards are dexer tanks and my dexer bard can tank as well as an sd or rogue cc class dexer if not better. I may not have the epics but my song and the song of a caster bard have a negligble difference. I can cast healing circle almost as well as a caster bard too. But we dexer bards are being excluded from parties while your druid never was. This is wrong as the dexer bard actually can cover two postions in the party pretty dang well. Amicus I for one would never exclude a dexer bard, it still a tank with versatility, and it sure sucks if players are doing that. The only time I know of potential exclusion is when your down to that last spot that you need to fill with a cleric or mage, and then that applies to everyone being turned down including Zilla. If it is happening then it is silly. Cheers Lala
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Post by tyranlthixis on Sept 25, 2007 1:06:23 GMT
Ummm Cath is that all you remember? Do you recall how much more unprepared we were. Perhaps you forgot the first successful Stygia run where YOU playing your shifter in dragon form was the party's only tank....or that our main tanks on the Nessus run were a planewalker dwarf and a Kurai wearing RARES and URs.... or that our bard wasn't a cheese dex bard at all but Funky's WM bard. and that we didn't wipe in the coil at all. We wiped where every single party has wiped when they have played a virgin party in Nessus. I'll have you know that each of those party's that wiped where we did did have a caster bard. Infact one of the parties wiped where we wiped with a caster bard multiple times. That and things really haven't changed all that much. The new difficulty features were only added to compensate for all the new gear and class features to keep the area appropriately challenging.
Personally I'd much rather have Sabre, Funky, or Mish barding with their dex bards than any caster bard I've played with just because they're the best bard players on HG hands down. Its a shame a bunch of know nothing players had to call a hells run and turn Mish's bard away. Its what ultimately pushed him away from HG. Not that his bard had become obsolete but that playing here you have to play with people like that.
Tyran
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Post by stonewarrior on Sept 25, 2007 20:42:15 GMT
Personally I'd much rather have Sabre, Funky, or Mish barding with their dex bards than any caster bard I've played with just because they're the best bard players on HG hands down. I would love to have had any of the above mentioned show up to Bard for any of the dozens of Hell parties that never got started because no Bard was "available"... Epics are nice and can certainly make runs easier....but ultimately you want a Bard who can sing and curse. Sabre brought her Dexer Bard on the last Cania run I did and I thought it went very well. Did I miss the Epics of a Caster Bard? Yeah, for about 1 spawn. Then I adjusted and and did just fine. I think to often we tend to over rely on Caster Bards Epics to cover sloppy play. My Str Fighter does not have Crit Immunity and has a pretty low Parry score so I know when I play him I need to play smart or I will get critted to death. Does it still happen? Sure, but no where near as often as I see some players die from Crits. When I play my Caster Bards I probably do not rest anywhere near as often as other Caster Bards and routinely have 6-7 rests left after a run. I try and gauge the situation and the spawn to determine if I want to use my Epics. The lone exception if Possum...I always cast it upon resting. Otherwise I spend most of the time running around cursing, singing, healing and rezzing. The only time I usually use GS is if I've died a few times or if the party is in trouble and needs a lot of rezzing. This is obviously not glamour or even exciting at times. However, my curse and song are essential to the parties success. By casting Healing Circles the Cleric can focus on Implodes or other spells to benefit the party. The Druid can cast some of the sweet spells they have at their disposal if I am healing. Know your role and do it well. Just don't cast Cry to the Heavens with Machines around. It is dumb. Very dumb. Good news? You will probably only do it once. LOL In the end I do not care if the Bard in our party is a Dexer or a "Caster". The simple truth is you are a fool to enter Hell without a Bard. Peace, John.
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Post by Yomi on Sept 25, 2007 23:54:05 GMT
(All of this my opinion, and it may be total rubbish, but I have played two dexer bards to 60 and two caster bards to 60, and have done first few levels of Hells with both)
My caster bard seems to have done well on the runs she's done so far -- the AC is nowhere close to a dex bard (~100 vs. ~124-130), but 80-85% conceal vs. typically 70% for a dexer bard. Mainly she just isn't targeted as much and isn't on the sharp end of things all the time. I rarely use GS, though I imagine I'd want it more as one goes deeper in Hells. Fortunately I've not played with parties that rely on bard epics. They're there and certainly useful, but it's more like Druid Invul than Shunt. You use it strategically in a few cases (similar to how KD epic can be used when spawning Dis minions) and occasionally to save things from going bad, not like the crutch I'm hearing people say they are.
As sabre pointed out, the differences in song are mostly minor (17 vs. 20 skills, 13 vs. 15 AC, 1 will save -- assuming 35+/x/x dexer vs. either pure bard or splash with Artist) -- with two exceptions. One exception is, given a pure level 60 bard, you do get +15/30 stoneskin on song (though almost nobody does pure bard, and assuming the stoneskin follows the documentation and uses casterlevels instead of song levels, meaning artist doesn't help your stoneskin, SR, or EV -- but with reincarnation ending soon I'm left uncertain which it is). The other exception is caster bards can drop SR on curse -- that's -5 or -6 to SR all the time. It's often a big help.
Personally, I feel I add more to my team when playing my caster bards rather than dexers. I've got epics, of which Possum's really is a huge help. I've got oodles more healing circles than my dexer bard along with a ton more heal skill to make them work properly. I have a bunch of displacement spells to cast on str tanks (hello, any other casters listening? str tanks LOVE this). Balagorn's may not work in Hells, but it's lots of fun in Ssith and Thids. But a lot of it is just how I play -- as a caster bard my job is to support the team -- that means making sure people have song, things are cursed, healing circles when needed, restores on the shifters if possible, rezzing, etc. When playing the dexer bard I'll curse of course, but mainly I'm concerned about being a dex tank. I don't recall any dexer bard doing very many healing circles (and I've partied with the ones listed above) -- certainly not like caster bards do (mainly since there's often not much else to do and we have freaking 60+ of them per rest).
That kind of goes back to the start of this conversation a few screens ago. A good caster bard can help the team stay up longer. Assuming they're actually good and not just a walking epic/song-bot. A dexer bard will add some damage, and may or may not be rezzing others (with 119 AC I'd say your time in Hells will be painful -- mine with 123 AC was slammed around all over the place and spent far more time getting rezzed than anything else; with 130+AC I hear it's quite pleasant). I didn't feel the damage output of my dexer bard in hells was close to the str tanks at all -- that's ok if you're also doing all the bard duties, but not so good if you're just taking the spot of a better tank. Your mileage will vary.
All that said, I'll take good players any day. Heck, I'd take Mish playing a Pariah or Slinger for goodness sake, just because it'd be fun to watch what he managed to do with it. As for bards, Mish, Sabre, Funky, et al. bring a wealth of playing experience, well built toons, and above average survivability via equipment. Just like I don't care how awesome your mage is, if you won't grapple the Raks and machines, then it's moot.
Also, my opinions have changed slightly in the last two months. Even just two months ago, finding a caster bard was pretty much limited to certain hells runs. Nowadays you'll typically get two caster bards wanting to join any party (from Beetles, East Road, Drow, Desert, Thids, Hells -- it's been that way for me). In the past, any dexer bard was a huge help to the party, even though very very few players noticed. When I made my str bard (all of 18 bard levels) she was almost always the only bard on the server at the time, and that included her Hells runs. Now everyone finally gets what bards bring to the table, so they're everywhere.
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Post by Scotty the Man on Sept 26, 2007 3:05:31 GMT
Oh btw, any suggestions what weapons I should dual wield for my pixie dex bard? Or, can I dual wield rapiers, even when I'm small?
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Post by stonewarrior on Sept 26, 2007 3:36:22 GMT
A Pixie can not dual weild rapiers. In fact, if they use a rapier I believe it would be two handed.
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Post by Scotty the Man on Sept 26, 2007 12:32:36 GMT
Scotty this is what I would do to this build to get sf/gsf trans and esf enchant on the pixie subby. Replace the 2handed weapon feats with sf/gsf trans....move wep focus from epic to pre-epic. fill in the epic spot with lasting inspiriation. the 2 free freats in ll would then be llwf and ll enchant, after having used the book for enchant. This will net you your goal of gsf trans and a +14 gmw. Also note you may take esf trans in place of llwf. You would be very hard pressed to get ll trans due to the fact you then would have to drop 2 con to get it, and with your ave health as is, I'm not sure that is wise. Amicus Just making sure, the 2handed weapon feats are ambidexterity and TWF, right? And also, I think you only need ESF trans to get that keen, dont really nd LL sf trans though.
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Post by zerragon on Sept 26, 2007 14:14:49 GMT
A Pixie can not dual weild rapiers. In fact, if they use a rapier I believe it would be two handed. Correct, pixie is tiny. Have to use small/shield or tiny/tiny. A dwarf could use medium/shield, or small/small.
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Post by Scotty the Man on Oct 9, 2007 18:25:06 GMT
Ive found a better way by using kukris instead of daggers. Since kukris are slashing, i don't hav to get SF and GSF trans!! But, i nd to take weapon prof exotic to wield kukris first, which makes me get one free feat left. Anyone disagree with this kind of idea?
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Post by FunkySwerve on Oct 9, 2007 20:49:32 GMT
I went kamas. The extra pen is easily offset by the altered attack progression and the extra attacks. Have 128 or so Dualing as demi in Nessus, would be 130 or more with added wis. Funky
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Post by Scotty the Man on Oct 9, 2007 21:56:30 GMT
Wait, so what's so good of using kamas. You can get deflect arrow to work, what else?
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Post by Bakchuda on Oct 9, 2007 22:36:09 GMT
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Post by gruntgruntson on Oct 9, 2007 23:23:10 GMT
On top of the extra attack, you get the unarmed progression: Each successive attack per round is it -3AB, instead of the normal -5AB. 0, -3, -6, -9, -12 rather than 0, -5, -10, -15,
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Post by Scotty the Man on Oct 10, 2007 1:23:25 GMT
Hmmmm, is it worth it? Like, is it worth dual wielding kukris with good crit range, or dual wielding kamas and get the -3 attk progression and an extra attk but get a crit range with 17-20? And another question, since I wanted to use a pixie for Mish's dex bard build, can it still use kamas to dual wield?
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Post by the1kobra on Oct 10, 2007 2:16:28 GMT
I don't think you can dual kamas if you're a pixie, I don't know for sure though, assuming you can. The attacks you will get with kuks/kamas respectively are, including haste: Kukri: (12-20X2) 0/0/0/-5/-5/-10 Kama: (18-20X2) 0/0/0/-3/-3/-6/-9/-12 Kama:(Flurry mode) -2/-2/-2/-2/-5/-5/-8/-11/-13 Kamas will get you two more attacks, and more accurate intermediate attacks, however the Kukris will crit hit much more often. I don't really know how much the difference will be, with all the damage resistance/immunity out there, but I think the kamas, if you can use them, are a better bet. After all, with a crit multiplier of only X2, your crits won't be very spectacular anyway. Please note if you're small (assuming non pixie now), the kamas will have a further -2 AB when dual wielding, making kukris a much more pretty choice.
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