skugge

Someone requested a Troubador FAQ so i thought i give it ia try. Of course this is simply what i believe is good tips for a new bard, that doesnt necessarely make
it true. Im no nubcake but im not Dants or Uayem either. Some of the info is taken from Troubadors I think know what they are talking about. Here goes:
Our main stats are INT, STR, STA and AGI. In what order is up to you and your style of play.
AGI - Increases your avoidance and maximum power.
INT - Increases the damage you do with spells and maximum power.
STR - Increases your damage with melee weaponsand weight carry.
STA - Increases your maximum health.
WIS - Improves resist against spell damage.
I leveled my Troubador without combat xp to get as much AA(more about this later on) as possible. This because i wanted to be as good a Troub as possible in group
and as tough for soloing heroics. I favored AGI, INT, STR/STA in that order and it worked out quite well for me. Lots of AGI helped me survive some tough solo encounters.Remember though that when you hit 80 you may want to get more STR and less AGI.

Weapons/Equipment
If you want to be able to solo heroic encounters and instances up to 50ish i strongly recommend going with full mastercrafted gear and upgrade each tier. Either go with the melodic armor or the fighter one(STR/AGI/STA). When it comes to weapons i say dual wield all the way with one piercing and one slashing waepon. I tried going with shield a short while but imo it fucking blows. Stick with dual.

Songs
These are the songs I use frequently:
Aria - All spells and debuffs have % chance of proccing damage. Always play this song. (Solo/group/raid)

STR/STA Song - Good if you have mostly scouts and figthers in your group. (Solo/group sometimes)

Defense song - If you have point spent in your shadow tree Strengthened Links this is a song you want play a lot even in raid if the mobs do aoe damage. (Solo/Group/Raid sometimes)

Health song - I Always use it solo and never in group. Doesnt seem to make a difference in group/raid. (Solo)

Mana song - This is a great song though and will keep your party going without having to stop for power breaks. In raid if you have a Mythical Illy you can drop this song. (Group/Raid*)

Attack speed song - (Solo/Group/Raid) I heard this song becomes pointless when all in raid has mythical or something like that, someone else will have to answer why.

Self buff song - No Concentration cost so use it always.

Magic song - Will increase chance to hit with spells and debuffs. If you have casters in your group and your encounter is higher leveled this song will make a difference.(Group sometimes/Raid sometimes)

Dehate song - This is an important one. Will help your tank maintain aggro a lot! Always play it in group and raid. (Group/Raid)

Other songs:
Elemental and Arcane song - These will only be useful in certain raid situations. (Raid)

Requiem of Reflection - Dont ask me.. Its usefeul in some raids but dont know much about it.

So in a standard setup full group i would most of the time use: Aria, Mana, Attack speed, Defense and Dehate. Pretty much the same in raid but i might swap defense for whatever is needed.
AA
Bard Tree:
AGI 4-4-4-8 Bump is very nice but you want to go here to get the 8 points in poison(it will help your dps).

WIS 4-4-6-8-2 8% faster Casting speed to group and DKTM with 7.5% Crit to everyting!

STA 4-4-4-8 To get the 10% Double Attack group buff. The rest is crap bacuase we should dual wield not use shields!

INT 4-1 To get Rhytm blade. A CA who will increase our chance to hit with weapons.

Note: This is really the only option in Bard Tree. Some get the Bladestrike insteade of Rhytm blade but its pretty useless(read posts on forum). I tried once going all the way down in INT and it seriously deacreased my dps. Just wanted to share that. Dont disgrace yourself like I did!

Troubador Tree:
Sonics - Shrill 5 points - Thunderous 5 points - Painful lamentations 5 points - Perfection of the maestro 5 points - Sonic Interefence 1 point
Calming - Cheap shot 5 points - Stifling Missile or Sonnet 5 points - Mighty bellow 5 points - Peaceful melody 5 points - Harmonization 1 point
Inspiration - Mana song 5 points - Aria 5 points - Health song 3 points - Jesters Cap 5 points - Elemental or Arcane song 5 points . Resonance 1 point
Demoralizers Rebuff 4 points

Note: If your not gonna raid at all skip the Tempo songs. This is just my setup.

Shadow Tree:
Genral Tree - Just spend 10 points on whatever makes you happier. Wont matter much in any case.
Scout Tree - Strenghtened Links 5 points, Quick Strike 5 points, Evasive maneuvers 1 point
Bard Tree - Shrieking Cry 5 points, Flanking chorus 5 points. Dexterous Sonata 1 point
Troubador Tree - Harbinger Chorus 5 points, Court Jester 5 points, Stealthy strike 5 points, UIpbeat tempo 2 points, Lyrical mastery 2 points

Note: Yes thats not all points spend in shadow tree maybe you noticed. Thats because i spent them in a non optimal way if your gonna raid and so on. (I actually spent 5 points in Selos*taking cover*).

This is how i spent and i think its a good setup. The bard tree though is what MOSTLY ALL bards specc. because there really isnt no choice.

Jesters Cap and Perfection Of the Maestro
OKay to properly use these: Cast POTM then directly after use JC on yourself and you will get POTM up again about 30 sec faster.

Jesters Cap, Who should I use it on? You need to know the basics of all classes to use it most effectively.In an aoe encounter you may want to use it on a Warlock or SK. Templar just used Sanctuary? JC him/her.

In raid to increase dps this is the people you want to use it on:
Brigand (Dispatch)
Dirge(if Mythical)
Wizard/Warlock
Assasin/Swashbuckler
Ranger/Dirge(non-mythical)
These are the dps that benefit from it the most. I think most other classes are situational, like Necros would like one when he lifeburns, templar for sancutary and so on.

Casting order
This my casting order when grouped:

Activate auto-attack, snare & vexing verses, rebuff, kias, bellow, shrill, thunderous anthem, bright blade, bump, backstab and after that just mash whatever that is up and priorotize your heavy hitters like shrill, thunderous, bright blade.

Also when you used potm you may want to unleash all your debuffs to get the proc damage. Also try and use your rhytm blade from time to time to get higher hit rate. I found it useful to also have a macro for heroic opportunity>evasion>quick strike which will get you the 5 min buff with increased slashing, piercing and crushing.

Tip: Get Profit UI add-on to more easily make use of Jesters cap.

Having mastercrafted equipment and at least adept3 spells will make levling up your character much more fun! You can pretty much solo instances like Nektropos, Stormhold, Varsoon, Ools etc. Will this make you rich? No but its fun.

If you think you are nothing but a buffbot who can turn on auto-follow in groups i just want to say to you, FUCK YOU! We arent the best dps but with some effort we can make a difference. Stop by the Parses posts and see for yourself.

All written above is not the "one" way to play a troubador. Its just some tips. Try Experimenting and do whatever makes the game fun for you.

Well. Thats all I can think of at the moment. I hope some new troubs find it useful and feel free to update it with whatever i missed.

__________________
"I always liked heading south. Somehow it feels like going downhill."

Heck

I don't have the time or patience to reply to all of this but here's some snippits....


Going back to bed before i wake up enough to reply any further...

skugge

This is mainly a faq for new troubs as requested by one. Seems it didnt get through..

With the proliferation of easily obtainable power regen gear available in game, the proc % enhancer from tier2/3 shard bp/tso x4 5 set bonus, and the fact that at most (with AA's), the power regen value is something like 90/tick, this song is useless. Complete crap imho.

Yes this is correct but the way to tier2/3 armor is pretty fucking long and the mana regen song is damn useful up to that IMHO! This isnt a "how-to-hardcore-raid" guide.

Turnstrike isn't useless. It's a friggin 10 second ae immunity. No jousting and being able to avoid some of the bigger ae's is nothing to scoff at and you can have both of these.

I thought it was broken but if you say it isnt, fine.

WTF are you talking about? Specially with the TSO AA enhanced jcap, having jcap up during potm definitely helps your dps. Put the pipe down.

Whats more important? Your own lame ass dps or all the mages in the raid (since i suspect you have mythical) getting another round of potm proccing all their spells? Take your pipe and stick it.

If the point is to increase dps, how about instead of jcap'ing people because they are class x, you cap the top 3-4 on the parse. Those are the people that are obviously doing something.

This can work out well sure but it would be a waste on classes who has only low recast on their shit. A JC after dispatch will raise the raids dps a whole lot more then capping an illy cause he topped the parse.

Don't use it "from time to time", use it every friggin time it's up. It's duration is a little longer than the recast...who cares. Having it up full time > having it up "from time to time"

yes use it all the time. Was writing fluidly. Any more whine about the faq for beginners? How about adding something to it rather then just bitch about the small things.

__________________
"I always liked heading south. Somehow it feels like going downhill."

Heck

Halandriel

Thanks for the info guys, both of you.

About the Bard AA line, I do hear from quite a few troubies that their secondary AA set still includes Bladedance since it has a bigger range than AoE immunities for other classes. (that's what I was told by other troubies...) But overall DPS does seem to go up with the spec you suggested.

As far as weapons go, any real preference? I know you said one slashing, one piercing (which I what I was already using, but that's mainly so I can level both skills, so I can still decide later on which is better).

Mockingbird

Simply put Bladedance:

For a short duration, the Bladesinger's group is protected against area effect abilities that do not directly target them. The protection breaks on allies that receive damage.

Recast 10 minutes
Duration 30.0 seconds
Effect Radius 25.0 meters

Effects:

* Prevents AOE (except when direct)
* Dispelled when target takes damage

The salient points for me are:

For 22 points in strength, I have an immunity that I can only use every 10 minutes.
Better to Jcap a druid.

Additionally

* The protection breaks on allies that receive any damage.

This means, that if someone either summons or uses a heart or shard, they lose immunity. Additionally, chokers and mob damage shields will drop the immunity. And forget about using mana stone.

* Once you, as the caster take any damage, the spell is dispelled.
This means, as before, your use of a choker or power items, or a mob damage shield hit results in immunity lost for your group.

*25 meter range limits your ability to joust and protect your group, which should be at max range.

Norma

Not only does it increase your own dps while potm is up, it decreases the recast on it by 30 seconds. I think having potm up more often is a pretty good reason to use jcap on yourself when casting potm especially when only running 2 troubs in raid...

skugge

There's nothing hardcore about this suggestion. You can get the RE2 collection item. How's that "hardcore"? Choosing the correct gear is part of knowing what your class needs to suceed. Perhaps you should disregard and future mention of anything mythical related because "the way to it is pretty fucking long"....Fact is, 90 power/tic isn't crap.

Tier2/3 armor i thought you meant shard armor. doesnt even matter. All the way from your first group at level 20 up to 80 and a good way into it i would play this song. I still do it in many groups. But what are you saying here? First you say this song is crap then you say 90 power/tic isnt crap? And i dont suggest you play this song for yourself, i suggest you play it for your group.

It's not. Happy birthday.

Wheres my cake?

My lame ass dps huh? Hardly. And what about using them both at the same time prevents "getting another round of potm proccing"??? In both methods, POTM is still affected by jcap, the difference in mine is that, <gasp> you'll do more dps. Oh dear, I guess that just makes me a selfish troub. The AA enhanced JCAP affects casting, reuse, recovery, AND enhances your crit bonus. Why the hell would you NOT want it up when POTM is up?

POTM recast timer wont start ticking until it is done with its effect. After 32 seconds or whatever. So JC is wasted in the way that your POTM recast timer hasnt even started. And now your immune, have to wait the full length for another potm.

Perhaps I could of made a "common sense" disclaimer to my statement. How bout this sweet cheeks? Jcap the people who are at the top of the parse and other "special" classes at times when they actually use their one jcap worthy ability....ie- dispatch, lifeburn, sanctuary, etc.... happy?

I will be happy when i get my cake.

Is this not adding to it? As for it being whining....welcome to eq2flames. Are you going to be upset at everyone else who posts something that is in opposition of your original post?

Be in opposition, thats fine. I just get the feeling you are really trying to find stuff to discredit. Then again i had been awake for 30 hours when i wrote that post.

__________________
"I always liked heading south. Somehow it feels like going downhill."

skugge

Now 2 ppl say it... Is this changed? Is POTM on recast timer directly after using it all of the sudden?

__________________
"I always liked heading south. Somehow it feels like going downhill."

WarwraithBB

If you cast POTM then cast Jcap on yourself the duration of Jcap includes when POTM goes down and starts its reuse timer.