Bard Stats

Ganston · 02-28-2007, 10:54 PM

So i have a bard and was trying to figure out a unique approach at the build. Of course you want dex con and str, those are obvious, but i was thinking a main stat in VIT.

1) Increases run speed so you will run faster than the other bards that dont use it

2) increases health regen and HEALING of your heal song
3) MOST important...increases mana regen....When it comes to composing songs at higher levels, you will depend strongly on your rests to be efficient with your mana, but if you have a really high vitality, you can make songs with higher energy/second because you regen higher energy per second. I was thinking that this would be a great way to approach a bard, especially in end game grouping /group pvp

Also, another idea is to carry around two sets of gear, one that has vitality heavily and another for dps...that way if you ever do 'find' yourself sitting in the back playing an instrument( or even just running your ass across the continent with a 2 minute timer) you can just plop on your VIT gear and it'll help ya out.

rabb1t · 03-01-2007, 01:32 AM

Not sure I'd agree with Vit being "unique". I built making Vit and Dex high with Str below them.

Course, post-change I think peeps will be de-emphasizing Dex now that it plays more of a roll in ranged things and less of a melee roll.

(Not sure where you got that it boosted the regen ability in the song though.)

Good luck finding 2 sets of gear. No offense, but I really don't think Bard is itemized yet. You'll be hard pressed to find 1 good set of gear, let alone 'extra' bits to swap out.

Charnas · 03-01-2007, 09:55 AM

From what I understand, there are a considerable amount of bards that use vit in their builds. Personally I use Dex/Vit - 5, Str - 4 for my build. My reasoning is dex for crits/evasion to fire off chains, and vit for energy regen and to reduce the amount of rests needed in my songs. I think alot of bards have this same rationalization

Nordh · 03-01-2007, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charnas

From what I understand, there are a considerable amount of bards that use vit in their builds. Personally I use Dex/Vit - 5, Str - 4 for my build. My reasoning is dex for crits/evasion to fire off chains, and vit for energy regen and to reduce the amount of rests needed in my songs. I think alot of bards have this same rationalization

I started out with putting points into VIT. Wasn't too impressed and now I'm pressing str, con and dex mainly. Same with gear bonuses. Perhaps it will be viable in later levels but right now I'm not impressed by the energy regen gain from VIT.

Nostalgix · 03-01-2007, 11:04 AM

I'm going for DEX first, then STR and finally VIT for the remaining points.
Our DPS depends a lot on our ability to deal crits (and the finishers tied to them) so I wouldn't let DEX become a subpar attribute to get some more HP or energy regen.

Something that worries me more though is the many resists I get from mobs when using the "lullaby" skill (can't remember name). Not that it happens 99% of time but sometimes it seems to make mobs to aggro me

The problem is that I need DEX and STR to get as high as possible, I can't keep WIS and INT high too ...

Ganston · 03-01-2007, 11:28 AM

well it may not be unique after all, the only reason i say that is because i have talked to many bards on my server and none of them seem to do VIT as a main stat. And I agree about vit not showing anything great at the moment, right now if i have a 0 vitality i would be just as well off, especially considering a 140vit or so only gives less than 3% run speed.

variation · 03-01-2007, 12:29 PM

I go Vit/Wis for mana regen/pool size, then dex/str.

Strike Anywhere · 03-01-2007, 01:29 PM

I max my VIT first, and then DEX. After that my leftover points go into STR and INT.

A maxed Vitality will give you better energy regen in the long term. 20-30 points might not make much of a difference in the here and now, but in your 40's 200-300 extra points of VIT will mean the option of using an extra component or two instead of rests, which to me is worth the trade off.

Hackworth · 03-01-2007, 02:10 PM

I max DEX, then CON (cause I'm a sucker for HP/Resists). I haven't gotten charm yet though... I might end up needing to respec for energy regen a bit.

Niko · 03-01-2007, 04:27 PM

I've been putting points into Streangth/Dex/Constiution. Constitution looks kinda weak at first, but I figure those resistances will add up once you get to higher level and help keep you alive.

Spyer · 03-02-2007, 11:57 AM

In my opinion this is going to depend on the type of bard you are planning on playing. Are you looking at going for swords drawn, battle dances, DPS character? In that case you are looking at STR, DEX and VIT/CON.

Strenght helps determine your damage totals, Dexterity affects your ranged and your crit totals as well as dodge and parry, Vitality will adjust your run speed, and energy regen (your songs will us energy and your vitality will provide you a buffer so your songs don't have to quite equal zero) and Con will affect how much damage you can take.

If you are looking to go inspirationalist, boosting moral, buffer with instruments. You'll want to look at Wisdom to increase your energy pool, Vitality to increase your regenrate, and probably Dexterity for the added range bonuses. Why dex? because your going to be using an instrument so your primary form of damange besides shouts is going to be a bow or crossbow.

Spyer

Nahte · 03-02-2007, 12:08 PM

IMO (as well as others) the gains from CON are not worth the points spent in them. You gain more HPS from direct HP gear and better resists from wearing one necklace.

As a Wood Elf I already get 2dex/2vit so I add my 4/4/2 to Dex/Str/Vit giving me +7dex/+5Str/+5Vit every level.

At 22 its pretty sexy getting 3 crits in a 4-dot group fight and being able to hit Hew/Cleave. A LOT of the time I'll get a crit on Cleave and can come right back to Hew.

I D/W daggers BTW

Cacophony · 03-05-2007, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ganston

So i have a bard and was trying to figure out a unique approach at the build. Of course you want dex con and str, those are obvious, but i was thinking a main stat in VIT.

1) Increases run speed so you will run faster than the other bards that dont use it

2) increases health regen and HEALING of your heal song
3) MOST important...increases mana regen....When it comes to composing songs at higher levels, you will depend strongly on your rests to be efficient with your mana, but if you have a really high vitality, you can make songs with higher energy/second because you regen higher energy per second. I was thinking that this would be a great way to approach a bard, especially in end game grouping /group pvp

I have gone max VIT + WIS for 17 levels now, and there is a serious bug with Bard Vitality. Comparing my wife's BMG to my BRD, we both have identical unbuffed VIT (94):
1. Healing Averages are identical (100.1%)
2. In-combat health regen are identical (61%)
4. Bonus to unmounted movement are identical (1.88%)
But we have one huge problem:
3. Provides x.xx energy regen per second. (5.25 my BRD, 9.27 her BMG)

What is even worse, a level 1 bard with 35 VIT, has 5.34 energy regen. I've put all of my point cap-able allocations (5 per level as a Kojani) into VIT, and have LESS regen than an un-allocated level 1?!?!?

What this means is we either have no mod, or a highly constrained mod to the energy regen benefit from VIT. I consider this a FLAW, as it completely nullifies a valid alternative to dex/str oriented bards.

Strike Anywhere · 03-05-2007, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cacophony

What this means is we either have no mod, or a highly constrained mod to the energy regen benefit from VIT. I consider this a FLAW, as it completely nullifies a valid alternative to dex/str oriented bards.

You can't compare directly to a level 1 character. Sigil didn't want newbies to have to deal with much downtime while they are getting the hang of the game and their class, so they built in a bonus for the first few levels that basically equates to turbo regen. This applies to both HP and Energy regen.

I'm not 100% sure when that wears off, but I would assume it is somewhere around level 7 when you get hit with the death penalty. Then you get the actual benifits of your stats instead of the inflated ones.

I do find it odd that at the same VIT the blood mage is nearly double the regen. I'll do some comparisons tonight between a couple classes and see what I see... maybe it's a bug that needs to be looked at.

Aak · 03-06-2007, 08:23 AM

Constitution and Vitality both seem to give very disappointing results. So far, I've maxed Str & Dex and I have something like 30 points waiting. I can't decide.

Strike Anywhere · 03-06-2007, 01:27 PM

Alright, here's what I've discovered. I was talking with a friend of mine last night who plays a sorcerer and aparently there were some serious issues in beta with sorcerer energy regen. He didn't say if this was a problem for all caster classes or not, but seeing as how most (if not all) healers and some of the offensive casters get energy regen buffs I have to assume it didn't affect all of them... Near the end of beta they fixed it by applying a bigger mod to energy regen for all casters, which is probably one of the reasons why the healing classes seem invincible now and why all casters vitality does more than ours.

He has 77 vitality as a 25 sorcerer and is getting >12 energy/tick regen. I have roughly 150 vitality as a 24 bard and am getting ~6.6 energy per tick... this doesn't seem totally fair to me but it just might be intended.