TLP Bard Basics, Song, and AA Guide (Updated for Planes of Power and Ykesha)

[Anshar2024]

Hi all! For those of you who might not have seen my previous posts, I'm a returning player who came back for Teek after 20 years away from EQ. The Bard has always been my favorite class in any game, but being so rusty, and with so much having changed over the years, I tried to find a good concise guide to try to get back up to speed. While I found a lot of great advice, it was pretty much scattered all over the place, and some of it was obsolete. And so I decided to build my own guide, mainly to help myself if I'm being honest, but also to help any other returning players, or players new to the Bard.

This time around I’ve updated the guide for Planes of Power and Legacy of Ykesha. As before, I'd greatly appreciate any feedback from more experienced Bards. For the sake of transparency, I’ll admit that I haven’t come close to learning all of the AAs yet, so my notes on those are largely based on research.

The first tab discusses some of the fundamental mechanics of the modern Bard (melody, spellsets, instruments, bandolier, performance skills, and melee haste).

The second and subsequent tabs are divided by era, and detail:
-Songs (and Disciplines) by level
-Pertinent game information (courtesy of Allakhazam)
-Location where the song can be found in-era
-Notes about how to use each song, including pertinent stacking information
-Beneath each song list, a list of AAs for that era with similar details and notes

Again, I'd very much appreciate any feedback! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Xf55kKYw3y/edit?gid=1835374332#gid=1835374332

 

[Fluid]

FWIW, when you get around to it after you finish beginning Bard tactics, it would probably be useful to add an example or two of advanced techniques. Up front, I run a lousy Bard because I don't play them enough. That being said advice like ~switch to snare song when the MOB gets to 25% health if you are the only one with that ability in the group, would have value. There's also some oddities like the cancel magic song is only good if you allow for all the debuffs and DOTs to be applied before you start it so it doesn't undo your own groups spells. There's also some techniques like leaving your first spell slot open so and detrimental MOB spells go there and since the cancel magic spells are ~FIFO would grease the wheels.

There's things I do that I'm not sure are in vogue or correct. You mention haste. I find slows are good too if you have a tanking problem i.e. running a Beastlord or Ranger as a tank. Just me but I stick [haste, slow, reconstitution(hps, man)] as for sure in the lineup and hotkey everything else like snare and cancel magic for those special occasions where you need to run them for a few seconds before returning to your SOP lineup. Probably why I don't run a Bard much, to much work to do it right!

 

[Anshar2024]

Thank you so much for the feedback! I'm not sure I want to dive quite so far into the weeds (have to draw a dividing line somewhere )--I wanted to build something that explains the tools in the toolkit, with some tips on their individual use, but not be prescriptive about gameplay. Part of the fun of the Bard for me has been experimentation and communication with my groups about what works and what they need. And, of course, there's the fact that I'm definitely still a noob myself, so I'm leery of getting too far in front of my skis.