Bard
From EQ KnowledgePit
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[edit] General Information
Bards are the "jack of all trades" of EverQuest. One of the classes that were included in the Old_World, the only races that could originally be Bards were Humans, Half Elves and Wood Elves. Since then, Vah Shir and Drakkin can also be Bards. Each race has their pros and cons, outlined below. Bards are limited to 1H Blunt, 1H Slashing, Piercing and Hand to Hand weapon skills.
The main benefit of a Bard comes from the utility they add to others around them, with numerous tools at their disposal, a Bard is welcome in almost any group or raid.
As a side note, Bards are the only class that can worship Veeshan.
[edit] Races
| Race | Pros | Cons |
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| Human |
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| Wood Elf |
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| Half Elf |
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| Vah Shir |
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| Drakkin |
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[edit] Combat
Bards can not use any 2-handed weapons (with few All/All exceptions) and are restricted to 1H Blunt, 1H Slashing, Piercing and Hand to Hand combat, plus Throwing for ranged attacks. While Bards have no skill in Archery there are several Bard equippable bows and at least one Bard equippable arrow.
[edit] Passive Skills
- 1H Blunt (level 1) - this measures your ability to hit and deal damage with one-handed blunt weapons, such as maces and small staves.
- 1H Slashing (level 1) - this measures your ability to hit and deal damage with one-handed slashing weapons, such as swords.
- Piercing (level 1) - this measures your ability to hit and deal damage piercing weapons, such as rapiers and daggers.
- Hand to Hand (level 1) - this measures your ability to hit and deal damage in hand-to-hand combat, such as unarmed fighting (there are no Bard-equippable Hand to Hand weapons).
- Throwing (level 1) - this measures your ability to hit and deal damage with thrown weapons, such as shurikens or throwing knives.
- Dodge (level ??) - this measures your ability to move out of the way of an incoming attack, that would normally hit you.
- Dual Wield (level 17) - this measures your ability to attack with a weapon in each hand, with both hands at once. Monks are the only class to get this skill at level one.
- Defense (level 1) - this measures your ability to mitigate incoming melee damage.
- Offense (level 1) - this measures your ability to deal increased melee damage.
- Parry (level ??) - this skill grants you the ability to push an incoming melee attack out of the way with your limbs.
- Double Attack (level 71) - this skill allows you to attack twice with a single swing.
- Riposte (level ??) - this skill allows you to completely avoid an incoming melee attack (as with Dodge or Parry), then use the momentum of that attack to strike back at your opponent with your mainhand weapon.
[edit] Special Attacks
Most Bard special attacks come from their AA and can be found in that section.
[edit] Instruments
There are five instrument skills Bards learn. Equipping an instrument or any gear with an Instrument modifier will increase the effectiveness of songs using that discipline. For example, equipping a drum will make your level 5 song Selo's Accelerando cause you to run even faster. The higher your skill in a given instrument type, the less chance you have to miss a note, higher skill will not make the song more powerful.
Some songs (Harmony of Sound for instance) require you to have the appropriate instrument equipped in order to play the song.
- Singing (level 1) - your ability to perform songs based on the voice.
- Percussion (level 5) - your ability to perform songs based on percussion.
- String (level 6) - your ability to perform songs based on stringed instruments.
- Brass (level 18) - your ability to perform songs based on brass instruments.
- Wind (level 20) - your ability to perform songs based on wind instruments.
[edit] Stealth
Similar to Rogues, Monks, and several other classes, Bards get the Sneak skill at level ??. Like Rogues, Bards also get Hide to go with it; Hide combined with Sneak makes a player invisible from all angles. Sneak will make a player invisible to any mobs that player is behind. With the Fading Memories ability and invisibility songs, stealth skills aren't that valuable to a Bard. Hide can be used to break charm if the player is successful in hiding.
[edit] Other Skills
- Sense Heading (level 1) - this skill has been deprecated considerably over the years. Originally, players with a high enough skill could reliably use this skill as a sort of compass, as it would tell the player to some extent what direction they were facing if successful (always successful above 100 skill). However, with the addition of the in-game compass (whose accuracy was dependent upon your Sense Heading skill) and in-game map (on which your character's icon was a correctly-oriented arrow rather than a + if your Sense Heading skill was sufficient), Sony eventually just set all new characters' Sense Heading skill levels to 200 by default.
- Safe Fall (level ??) - this skill allows a player to negate some or all of the damage (the amount is directly dependent upon the character's Safe Fall skill level) taken from falling.
[edit] History
- When the Bard Epic 1.0 is introduced, it is the first non-instrument which can be used as an instrument, starting a trend which is continued in Planes of Power and beyond.
- With the release of the Shadows of Luclin, Vah Shir are now able to be Bards
- With the release of the Planes of Power, Mastery of the Past AA line is introduced allowing Bards to completely eliminate missed notes.
- With the release of the Planes of Power, the instrument cap can be raised from 3.6 to 3.9 with AA.
- With the release of the Gates of Discord, the instrument cap can be raised from 3.9 to 4.2 with AA.
- With the release of The Serpent's Spine, Drakkin are now able to be Bards.
- (Date needed) - The "/melody" command is introduced allowing a bard to play a medly (not melody) of songs together.
- May ??, 2007 - The "Mastery of the Past bug" is fixed causing Bards to fizzle again.
- June 6, 2007 - Bard fizzle rates are again adjusted eliminating fizzles on most songs and reducing special use songs (mez, charm, etc) fizzle rate to 2%.
[edit] Instrument Lists
