Bard's Melody

[Lance Berg]

Right around when I returned, I saw a patch message describing some
changes to the Melody command. I was intrigued, but didn't do anything
further other than joke around a little with a guild bard about how easy
she had it, when I was a bard I had to 1 2 3 4 5 uphill, in the snow,
both ways, that sort of thing.

Something happened on the Combine server a couple days ago, though, the
top guild on the server completed the big kill that opens the next
expansion, DON. I never bought that one, nor the expansions after
except for some reason I don't recall, POR. On Combine, where we
started out with just the original three continents, and have been
slowly unlocking one expansion after another, I didn't need the new ones
anyway.

I could download DON for 9.99, but looking ahead, I'm missing 4 more at
9.99 each. Instead, I went out and bought the Anniversary Edition,
which is all expansions up to and including Buried Sea.

Well, curiousity got the better of me, so this morning I went to a
random "normal" server, and rolled up a Drakkin. For class, I
remembered the Melody changes, and went with a bard. Spent an hour in
the tutorial getting up to level 5, and then left, planning to tour
Crescent Reach a little... but also to finally try out the final
question I had about Melody. I'd already answered most of my question,
but needed an outdoor zone for the final bit.

Basics: Melody is a socials command, you need to open your action
window and click the socials page tab, then go to page 2, click on a
blank button, write a name for the button in the social name window, and
then enter your command text in one of the slots underneath. In this
case the syntax is simple, /melody followed by some numbers from 1 to 8
(well 9 but not till much later). Each number corresponds to one of
your spell gems, from the top down.

Melody then starts one song, and when it completes casting, stops that
one and starts the next, until it reaches the end of your command, then
it goes back and repeats.

In the past, Melody would stop completely if you missed a note or
otherwise became interrupted.

The big change is a simple one, now, if you miss a note, the command
repeats its attempt to play the song you missed.

I also found, in the past, that I couldn't get Melody to reliably run
more than three songs simultaneously. Song one would fade before it was
repeated.

Now, I was able to run not just 3 songs, but 4.

The reason I needed to get level 5, and outdoors, is that I wanted to
check on a 5 song twist; something I can accomplish when I'm really on
top of my game as a bard (played one for 57 levels a couple years back)

Melody will accept 5 song lists, but its not managing to keep them all
active simultaneously. Now if I recall correctly, some of that had to
do with WHICH songs were selected, in what order, I couldn't necessarily
keep any 5 random songs going, in fact even at best I could only mostly
keep 5 running, one or another would drop every now and then. So
possibly there's some fine tuning that would let some 5 song melodies
linger on as well as they would for a "real" twisting bard.

The bigger concern, for me, is that in some cases some songs are more
important than others. The current system keeps plugging away at a song
that misses, instead of skipping it and moving on to the next. Really
twisting, if I'm kiting for example, I could make sure Selos is always
running, and just keep as many DOTs going as I can manage. With Melody
now, if I'm trying to run 3 chants and selos, and I skip the beat on a
chant, I'll retry it, meaning Selos will drop before I get back to
singing it.

More amusing, trying my 5 song melody out indoors, it went 1 2 3 4 5 5 5
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 because selos can't be cast indoors, so it kept retrying!

I'm interested in this because the reason I stopped playing my bard was
that I developed wrist and elbow pain; part of that is from my real
world job as a swordsmith, but the constant repetitive clicking was a
serious contributing factor. When they introduced Melody, I thought
about going back to bard, but on reflection it looked like most of the
time I wouldn't use it, it would be too crippling what with the stops,
and the 3 song twist limit.

With a 4 song limit, and no more stopping, I think perhaps 90% of the
time I could just leave a melody running and be 90% as effective as a
real twisting bard. In fact, it looks like there would be -less-
clicking than on many of my other toons!

Just out of interest, I just made an 8 song melody, and its running
those songs in order. Of course they don't all stay up, at all, but if
there's some reason I'd want to stretch out the twist to sometimes
include a heal or some such, apparantly thats an option too. Or with
the longer lasting selos, I guess I could go 1 2 3 4 5 2 3 4 5 2 3 4 5
repeat, and keep selos up without singing it constantly. Counted it
out, I can do 7 repetitions of 2 3 4 5 after that first 1. Still
singing Selos more often than once a minute, but not bad.

Also, (and I think this was always in place) clicking on a melody social
works as a stopsong, to switch to a new social (or restart the one
you're singing) you double click the social.

I just drank a potion and didn't interrupt the melody I was singing. It
was celestial regen 1, which seems to be insta cast, probably that makes
a difference... but maybe not.

I wonder if its also possible to click on items like Singing Steel Helm
while mid melody without stopping it beforehand... perhaps it treats
these things like a missed note now. More experimentation is in order.

I'm not too excited at the moment with my Drakkin. Admittedly, its
interesting to see a new race, but so far this one looks like a human
with tattoes and a little body art. Have other stuff to do today, so I
won't get around to doing that exploring till later I guess.

Lance
Tiune, 5 bard, some server or other. (xenogy? I forget! Ah, I just
ignored a random person, because it gives me a
SOE.EQ.Povar.nameofperson, which tells me the server is Povar.)

[Richard Carpenter]

Post by Lance Berg
Basics: Melody is a socials command, you need to open your action
window and click the socials page tab, then go to page 2, click on a
blank button, write a name for the button in the social name window,
and then enter your command text in one of the slots underneath. In
this case the syntax is simple, /melody followed by some numbers from
1 to 8 (well 9 but not till much later). Each number corresponds to
one of your spell gems, from the top down.
Melody then starts one song, and when it completes casting, stops that
one and starts the next, until it reaches the end of your command,
then it goes back and repeats.
In the past, Melody would stop completely if you missed a note or
otherwise became interrupted.
The big change is a simple one, now, if you miss a note, the command
repeats its attempt to play the song you missed.
I also found, in the past, that I couldn't get Melody to reliably run
more than three songs simultaneously. Song one would fade before it
was repeated.
Now, I was able to run not just 3 songs, but 4.

As a retired 60 bard on Firiona Vie, I recently tried rolling up a new
bard on Stromm and checking out the /melody feature. When singing 4
songs, I am able to keep them all up for the most part, but one does
occasionally drop. The auto-restart is a godsend, though.

Post by Lance Berg
The reason I needed to get level 5, and outdoors, is that I wanted to
check on a 5 song twist; something I can accomplish when I'm really on
top of my game as a bard (played one for 57 levels a couple years back)

Short of twisting in a long-term buff, I could never get more than 4 to
stay up at a time. I'm attributing this to network latency rather than
any sort of deficiency in my own skills, of course. ;)

Post by Lance Berg
The bigger concern, for me, is that in some cases some songs are more
important than others. The current system keeps plugging away at a
song that misses, instead of skipping it and moving on to the next.
Really twisting, if I'm kiting for example, I could make sure Selos is
always running, and just keep as many DOTs going as I can manage.
With Melody now, if I'm trying to run 3 chants and selos, and I skip
the beat on a chant, I'll retry it, meaning Selos will drop before I
get back to singing it.
More amusing, trying my 5 song melody out indoors, it went 1 2 3 4 5 5
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 because selos can't be cast indoors, so it kept
retrying!

Hmm. Hadn't considered that. One would think it simple enough for them
to tweak it so that only "You have missed a note..." type occurances
trigger a re-try. Then again, this *is* the bard class, after all, where
no class modifications - no matter how minor - can be veiwed as safe. :P

Post by Lance Berg
Just out of interest, I just made an 8 song melody, and its running
those songs in order. Of course they don't all stay up, at all, but
if there's some reason I'd want to stretch out the twist to sometimes
include a heal or some such, apparantly thats an option too. Or with
the longer lasting selos, I guess I could go 1 2 3 4 5 2 3 4 5 2 3 4 5
repeat, and keep selos up without singing it constantly. Counted it
out, I can do 7 repetitions of 2 3 4 5 after that first 1. Still
singing Selos more often than once a minute, but not bad.

That's very interesting. I hadn't considered that approach. I guess I
can finally forego SoW potions and rely, instead, on good ol' Song of
Travel. :)

Post by Lance Berg
Also, (and I think this was always in place) clicking on a melody
social works as a stopsong, to switch to a new social (or restart the
one you're singing) you double click the social.

An old familiar mechanism with which I doubt too many bard vets would
find fault. After all this time, double-tapping to initiate another song
or twist just seems the natural action.

Post by Lance Berg
I just drank a potion and didn't interrupt the melody I was singing.
It was celestial regen 1, which seems to be insta cast, probably that
makes a difference... but maybe not.
I wonder if its also possible to click on items like Singing Steel
Helm while mid melody without stopping it beforehand... perhaps it
treats these things like a missed note now. More experimentation is
in order.

Here is where my experience has been different. While /melody was
running - and in the middle of a fight - I drank a potion and noticed
that, while all spell gems were grayed out, no more songs were being
sung, and they eventually dropped from my song buffs window, though I
could not "stop" the melody or start anything else manually. I was just
stuck in a singing-but-not-really-singing state. I had to zone to
correct it. I have not tried any clickies. They could be more reliable
in that respect, as they aren't necessarily tied to normal spell/song
recast timers and such.

Post by Lance Berg
I'm not too excited at the moment with my Drakkin. Admittedly, its
interesting to see a new race, but so far this one looks like a human
with tattoes and a little body art. Have other stuff to do today, so
I won't get around to doing that exploring till later I guess.

I've never been a fan of the Drakkin. They just don't look like they
belong in EQ. Plus, among other things, the face spikes look glued on or
superimposed, with no protrusion marks or shading of any sort on the
skin around them, and the animations are just plain amateurish and
silly. The way they short-step when turning in place always reminds me
of the way the magician earth pet runs - waaay too many steps involved.
Lastly, are they supposed to look so emaciated and emo?

[Lance Berg]

Post by Richard Carpenter
As a retired 60 bard on Firiona Vie, I recently tried rolling up a new
bard on Stromm and checking out the /melody feature. When singing 4
songs, I am able to keep them all up for the most part, but one does
occasionally drop. The auto-restart is a godsend, though.

I suspect latency may be at work there, or maybe its restarts. At any
rate, four for the most part is still a very viable bard; the best can
lay down five some of the time.... but most I observed seemed to have a
hard time with three!

Post by Richard Carpenter

Post by Lance Berg
The reason I needed to get level 5, and outdoors, is that I wanted to
check on a 5 song twist; something I can accomplish when I'm really on
top of my game as a bard (played one for 57 levels a couple years back)

Short of twisting in a long-term buff, I could never get more than 4 to
stay up at a time. I'm attributing this to network latency rather than
any sort of deficiency in my own skills, of course. ;)

Five is a matter of very tight timing, plus picking the right songs,
some last slightly longer than others. Its been a while, I probably
couldn't do it now on a bet, but I seem to recall in particular that I
could average 4 and a half chants for a half hour straight; course
there's no juggling, just running in a circle and following the rythm

Latency destroys any chance of that, of course.

Post by Richard Carpenter

Post by Lance Berg
Just out of interest, I just made an 8 song melody, and its running
those songs in order. Of course they don't all stay up, at all, but
if there's some reason I'd want to stretch out the twist to sometimes
include a heal or some such, apparantly thats an option too. Or with
the longer lasting selos, I guess I could go 1 2 3 4 5 2 3 4 5 2 3 4 5
repeat, and keep selos up without singing it constantly. Counted it
out, I can do 7 repetitions of 2 3 4 5 after that first 1. Still
singing Selos more often than once a minute, but not bad.

That's very interesting. I hadn't considered that approach. I guess I
can finally forego SoW potions and rely, instead, on good ol' Song of
Travel. :)

I thought of it only because I was experimenting with twists as I
leveled up, 1, 1 2, 1 2 3, and so on... it occurred to me that although
the system wasn't successful at a 5 twist it was willing to try, and I
wondered about 6. And from there, well, the 29 twist was obvious!

Post by Richard Carpenter

Post by Lance Berg
Also, (and I think this was always in place) clicking on a melody
social works as a stopsong, to switch to a new social (or restart the
one you're singing) you double click the social.

An old familiar mechanism with which I doubt too many bard vets would
find fault. After all this time, double-tapping to initiate another song
or twist just seems the natural action.

Yep, perfectly comfortable, and in fact its handy because you don't have
to build a separate stopsong button

Post by Richard Carpenter

Post by Lance Berg
I just drank a potion and didn't interrupt the melody I was singing.
It was celestial regen 1, which seems to be insta cast, probably that
makes a difference... but maybe not.
I wonder if its also possible to click on items like Singing Steel
Helm while mid melody without stopping it beforehand... perhaps it
treats these things like a missed note now. More experimentation is
in order.

Here is where my experience has been different. While /melody was
running - and in the middle of a fight - I drank a potion and noticed
that, while all spell gems were grayed out, no more songs were being
sung, and they eventually dropped from my song buffs window, though I
could not "stop" the melody or start anything else manually. I was just
stuck in a singing-but-not-really-singing state. I had to zone to
correct it. I have not tried any clickies. They could be more reliable
in that respect, as they aren't necessarily tied to normal spell/song
recast timers and such.

I only tried this once and in a secure environment, no mobs near me just
standing and singing. Was the potion you drank insta or did it have a
cast duration? More testing is in order.

Berg, 68 SK, Combine

[Richard Carpenter]

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Richard Carpenter

Post by Lance Berg
I just drank a potion and didn't interrupt the melody I was singing.
It was celestial regen 1, which seems to be insta cast, probably
that makes a difference... but maybe not.
I wonder if its also possible to click on items like Singing Steel
Helm while mid melody without stopping it beforehand... perhaps it
treats these things like a missed note now. More experimentation is
in order.

Here is where my experience has been different. While /melody was
running - and in the middle of a fight - I drank a potion and noticed
that, while all spell gems were grayed out, no more songs were being
sung, and they eventually dropped from my song buffs window, though I
could not "stop" the melody or start anything else manually. I was
just stuck in a singing-but-not-really-singing state. I had to zone
to correct it. I have not tried any clickies. They could be more
reliable in that respect, as they aren't necessarily tied to normal
spell/song recast timers and such.

I only tried this once and in a secure environment, no mobs near me
just standing and singing. Was the potion you drank insta or did it
have a cast duration? More testing is in order.

It had a 2-3 sec cast duration. It only happened once, as I was careful to
avoid the problem afterward by stopping the melody, drinking, and then
restarting.

[Lance Berg]

Post by Richard Carpenter

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Richard Carpenter

Post by Lance Berg
I just drank a potion and didn't interrupt the melody I was singing.
It was celestial regen 1, which seems to be insta cast, probably
that makes a difference... but maybe not.
I wonder if its also possible to click on items like Singing Steel
Helm while mid melody without stopping it beforehand... perhaps it
treats these things like a missed note now. More experimentation is
in order.

Here is where my experience has been different. While /melody was
running - and in the middle of a fight - I drank a potion and noticed
that, while all spell gems were grayed out, no more songs were being
sung, and they eventually dropped from my song buffs window, though I
could not "stop" the melody or start anything else manually. I was
just stuck in a singing-but-not-really-singing state. I had to zone
to correct it. I have not tried any clickies. They could be more
reliable in that respect, as they aren't necessarily tied to normal
spell/song recast timers and such.

I only tried this once and in a secure environment, no mobs near me
just standing and singing. Was the potion you drank insta or did it
have a cast duration? More testing is in order.

It had a 2-3 sec cast duration. It only happened once, as I was careful to
avoid the problem afterward by stopping the melody, drinking, and then
restarting.

Got some Skinspike potions, which have a 1.5 sec cast duration.
Drinking one of these while mid melody stops the melody, and you can't
restart it or start a single song for a little while afterwards; I was
getting the same message that a normal caster will if he clicks a spell
during the 2 second greyed out period you get when you can't cast a new
spell just yet.

Insta click potions don't seem to have this effect, I tried several.
Hmm, I'll have to get my old Spyglass out of deep storage and try that.

[Lance Berg]

Got some Skinspike potions, which have a 1.5 sec cast duration. Drinking
one of these while mid melody stops the melody, and you can't restart it
or start a single song for a little while afterwards; I was getting the
same message that a normal caster will if he clicks a spell during the 2
second greyed out period you get when you can't cast a new spell just yet.
Insta click potions don't seem to have this effect, I tried several.
Hmm, I'll have to get my old Spyglass out of deep storage and try that.

Tried running a single song, Hymn, and clicking 1.5 cast time Skinspike.
It stopped my song running, but immediately after casting the potion I
was able to restart and to stop that and start melody

[Lance Berg]

Helping out on one of the 1.5 epics (rogue? Bard? ranger? I wasn't
clear) we had to kill a pair of Marsingers at the GFay Nexus portal.
Fun fight, one of the pair runs at selos speed, and apparantly will flee
if melee'd (we didn't confirm this), so he has to be killed by pets. At
any rate he does have a 750 a tic DOT and a 1500 DD. So we used pets
and ranged attacks to take him out. Funny thing was, he drops some
temporary gear, Stefan's, all magic, temporary, no trade, bard only, all
bard races. I couldn't resist making up a wood elf bard quick and
running him down to loot up. Actually, 23 minute timer on the body,
quick wasn't really necessary.

Stefan's Breastplate AC 54
Stefan's Vambraces AC 29
Stefan's Bracer AC 21
Stefan's Bracer AC 21
Stefan's Greaves AC 36
Stefan's Gauntlets AC 21
Stefan's Boots AC 25

Its a coppery red in appearance, plate look.

Camped out, reentered into the Tutorial, and punched out 6 levels,
bleary as I was, so I could AE Dot a guard and die, leaving a good
looking corpse.

Then I went out to POK, took the GFay book, and went and bought a hand
drum, lute, wooden flute, and horn. At 6 I don't have any wind or brass
songs yet, but what the heck, I was there. I left the comp overnight
with me standing there drumming selos, came back in the morning with
that maxed at 35/35.

Camped out, back in to the tutorial, off to have some fun. My body is
indeed still there, with its mix of uber no rent and crappy quest
burlap, funny. I set up my next melody bar. Now I'm playing a 3 twist,
chant, COD, Hymn... I'm a real bard, buffing, DOTTing and healing, thats
the basics. Of course this presents a dilemna, as it means I need a
group or I need to start juggling, or I'll have to use sing only; from
long experience I know that although the instruments go in secondary
slot, they prevent using the primary slot. But HOLD THE PHONE

My weapon, which I looted, is in my primary slot, while my drum is still
in my secondary. I swap in the lute, no problem.

WOW what a huge change.

Some brief experiemtnts prove to me that yes, the instruments function,
my heal size goes up when the lute is in, DoT size too, my stats go up
more when the drum is in.

I build a simple juggle setup; drag secondary slot and one inventory
slot to my hotbar. Now I can pick an instrument up on my cursor, and
drop it in to my hand on the beat, and back for the next beat. Of
course in all honesty, I'm too lazy to do that for the slight benefit
for most fights, chant of battle isn't making that much of a difference
when soloing. But the ease with which its accomplished, and the fact
that I don't need to worry about giving up some weapon damage while
doing it, is fantastic. Heck, the fact that I can just leave an
instrument in and use a weapon is astonishing on its own. Big upgrade
to the class, can't think why nobody has mentioned it. Probably years old.

The addition of instruments and hymn is a big improvement, I solo the
Queen without going below 95% hp,while at level 5 she killed me before I
got her to 60%.

Completing the spider quests I move on to Kobolds which are no more
challenging. I do get interupted in some fights, a stun breaks my
melody so I keep having to restart it. No big deal at first, but I
level up to 7 and go after the Captains, they interrupt me a lot more.
I'm using a 4 part melody, but I'm now considering making a three part,
dropping Chant of Battle, because the restarts are making it hard to
keep Hymn running, which is the most important part. Wait, simple
solution, twist should be hymn warsong COD Chant. This way, restarts
will go first with my priority song, and only get around to chant if I'm
not interrupted at all.

I develop a rudimentary strategy; I watch my melody run around, and make
my attack as my COD is about to land. This way the fight starts with
the DOT going on right away, the buffs are all constantly there anyway.

ANother discovery, I try sitting down with melody playing... when the
melody finishes the song it was on when I sat, I autostand back up to
start the next. Funny. OK, thats fair, I make a button for just
Hymn... cause the Captains are tougher than the Queen, and after 4 of
them plus some sundry warriors, I'm at 25%. OOC med plus hymn takes
care of that quicker than I can type it.

My earlier bard was a Vah Shir, this one is a wood elf... another
discovery, I can forage while melody is playing. Not while attacking,
but I can click off attack, forage, click it back on. Not that this is
a huge deal, since the skill is capped at 50, but I will probably tie
forage to my left turn arrow so as to pick up rare junk or just keep
myself fed while I play.

Strings go up slow. Despite playing them constantly, I'm about to ding
8 and still only at 19. Overlord Gnikan plus one warrior kicks my
woodelf butt, in part by chain interrupting my melody, I keep having to
restart, he's rarely got a DOT on and I can't even keep Hymn running
reliably.

Here's some fun, unrelated to bard as such. I respawn at the default
bind spot.. unable to move. Someone else is standing there, afk, and
I'm trapped. Ducking, jumping, nothing seems to work. I hit Rewind and
boom, I'm back at the Overlord, getting killed again! Naked it doesn't
take long, and I'm back stuck again. Luckily I can sit, so I log out
and use enter tutorial button to log back in. That puts me in a
different spot, and I'm free to move. This doesn't normally happen
because soulbinders and PC's casting bind affinity will bind you where
you stand, and odds are very low thats exactly the same spot as someone
else who happens to be dead and standing where you are. I use the
Soulbinder to prevent this happening again. Corpse Summoner, I'm back
in business.

Ding 8, the song for this level is lull, no need to build a new melody.
Thus far, no need to worry about the inability of the system to pull
off a 5 twist, since there's still no more than 4 songs I'll want to
sing at once. No thats not true, outdoors I guess I might want to twist
in selos for some reason, maybe if fear kiting with an SK buddy or
something. I try out lull, and find it works about 2/3rds of the time.
On tutorial mobs, when it works it works amazingly well, I can walk so
close I think our shoulders are touching; I use it principaly as invis
light, there aren't many spots where I'm worried about getting more than
one mob.

Ding 9, two spells, one that lets me turn melee weapons into magical
ones for the purposes of wisps and ghouls et al. I won't mem that much.
The other is Elemental Rhythms, which is a resist booster... and which I
also won't mem much, don't expect I'll be hitting mobs with spells I
care about for quite some time to come. Only 8 slots in the lineup, I
don't even bother unmemming one and subbing one of these in, and I'm
still relying on 6 7 2 1 for my combat purposes; hymn, warsong, COD, Chant

I experiment again with potions; both the celestial heal and the HOT
ones at this level are insta cast, and definitely do not interrupt my
melody.

Ding 10, now I get Anthem de Arms, thats group haste and strength. I
kill Jig o Vigor, which has no known use at this time (it used to
refresh stamina, but apparantly doesn't do so for the Endurance bar that
replaced it. I should experiment to see if thats true) Its sung,
rather than instruments, I get more str out of it than I do Chant of
Battle without a drum, but the haste doesn't stack with warsong, and
Chant buffs dex and AC in addition to Str, plus if I do juggle in the
drum it is actually a bigger increase in Str. Anthem and CoB don't
stack. I make a new melody button which doesn't have CoB and does have
Anthem, switching the order around to 6 3 2 7 as hasting the group
should be more important than hasting me. Solo, I'm still better off
with my first mix.

Experimenting, I find that I can get skill ups in both Strings and
Singing by putting on a melody of hymn and anthem with strings in hand.
Since Anthem is singing, this counts as using that "instrument".

I get a partner to kill the Overlord, along with adds cause I'm sloppy.
I notice something interesting, when I'm stunned at one point, I get
not one but 4 messages saying I can't cast while stunned. Excited, I
later make a new melody to experiment with, 6 7 2 1 6 7 2 1 6 7 2 1 all
the way across the line. My hope is that since the stun interrupts are
very brief, if I'm hit early in a melody, perhaps the melody will skip
11 attempts and kick back in. Another indicator that this might work is
that I've successfully looted bodies, if I do it quickly enough, without
interrupting my melody, while if I linger over the looting, it stops.
Doesn't work though, sadly, I never get stunned messages and continue
melody.

Finish up all the quests, my shaman partner leaves. Still buffed for
Pit Fiend, I go back and try overlord again. Lull one warrior, lull
overlord, run past Spiritweaver to aggro him and into the chest room.
Sadly, the overlord comes along, so much for my perfect plan. But the
spiritweaver dies fairly rapidly, and the overlord, while still tough,
isn't that bad alone. I take him down while dropping only to 50%. He
drops the 10% haste ranged item for me, so I'm a happy camper.

Finish up this note, and I'm going to leave the bard running with Chant
playing and a drum in hand, to max out my Percussion skill which has
sadly not progressed for several levels, as I'm too lazy to juggle the
drum in for the slight benefit of boosted chant stats on all but the
hardest fights. Strings literally doubles my hymn and COD effects...
but adding an extra 3 points of str and sundry other stats doesn't mean
so much to me.

Songberg, 10 Bard, Combine

[Lich]

Hmmm this gives me a great Idea for good starting bard gear to create
my bard.... Think a 75 necro can solo Stefan ?

[Lance Berg]

Post by Lich
Hmmm this gives me a great Idea for good starting bard gear to create
my bard.... Think a 75 necro can solo Stefan ?

A group, and not a very well constructed one for that matter, in our
60s, took him out. I suspect a 75 necro would have no trouble. Trick
is his sister is standing right next to him, both at once is tougher.
Tough enough that we wiped... she died from DOT when we were all out of
the zone so no body when we got back! But then we were able to take him
out alone, and a couple hours later took her out before he repopped.
Yeah, our Leet split strat.

[Lance Berg]

Feeling my oats, I decided to make a run to Katta Castelum to pick up
some Combine instruments tonight before I log out. Admittedly, knowing
that A) I have to die each night I play anyway, and B) I can summon my
body to the Guild Lobby for peanuts adds to my bravery

But its a scary trip, and I'd like to succede.

Among my gear there was a potion of invisibility, reward for one of the
tutorial quests. Its insta cast like the others I've tried so far.

On a hunch, I started singing selos only, then clicked the invis potion.
Sure enough it did not interrupt my song, and since I wasn't starting
a new song, my singing didn't break the invis!

Naturally its worn off while I type this, but then again the sonic
wolves in TM see invis anyway.

Here I go.

The hills on this run are killing me, moving at bardspeed with no safe fall.

Well that was fun, actually didn't take any fall damage here, but ate a
bunch in Hollowshade and Grimling Forest

Combine instruments are all 2 points better than the basic ones sold in
GFay et al. Expensive though, up to 65pp each. Just for fun, I buy a
spare of each to sell in the bazaar, we'll see if people will pay not to
make that run, or maybe don't know where the instruments are found.

Now for the run back. Combine hand drum isn't feeling noticably faster
on selos, but it does give me a boost to my chant. I take some damage
again on hills in GF, try the strings out, bah, no change, 4 hp regen a
sec with them or with the regular lute. Back in Shadeweaver, I fire up
COD on some Nuisances... 8 damage a tic just like before. Seems like a
wasted trip perhaps, or maybe it will be a small improvement when the
numbers get bigger.

Time to go die.

Songberg, 10 bard, Combine

[sanjian]

Post by Lance Berg
Combine instruments are all 2 points better than the basic ones sold
in GFay et al. Expensive though, up to 65pp each. Just for fun, I
buy a spare of each to sell in the bazaar, we'll see if people will
pay not to make that run, or maybe don't know where the instruments
are found.
Now for the run back. Combine hand drum isn't feeling noticably faster
on selos, but it does give me a boost to my chant. I take some damage

Without a speedometer, a little bit faster is hard to judge with selo's.
You only notice the difference over many levels.

[Prelgor]

Post by Lance Berg
Feeling my oats, I decided to make a run to Katta Castelum to pick up
some Combine instruments tonight before I log out.
Now for the run back. Combine hand drum isn't feeling noticably faster
on selos, but it does give me a boost to my chant. I take some damage
again on hills in GF, try the strings out, bah, no change, 4 hp regen a
sec with them or with the regular lute. Back in Shadeweaver, I fire up
COD on some Nuisances... 8 damage a tic just like before.

The numbers listed on instruments are 10 times the multiplier on the
base power of your song. Without any instrument equipped, you
essentially have a modifier of 10 (which means, multiply by 1.0). A
regular hand drum, with "Percussion 18" means that your percussion
songs are 1.8 times as powerful. So, a hypothetical 10 damage/tick
chant would do 18 damage per tick with that drum equipped. The
Combine drum, with "Percussion 20", means percussion songs are 2.0
times as effective. That same hypothetical chant would now do 2.0*10
= 20 damage per tick, instead of the 18 you were getting with the base
model drum. So, your shiny new Combine drum is about 10% more
effective than your old one.

Post by Lance Berg
or maybe it will be a small improvement when the
numbers get bigger.

That is likely true. The improvement was probably too small to escape
EQ's rounding down of fractions.

- Prelgor