Question - New to boxing a Bard- instruments & Epic 1.0

[Wildaan12332]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to understand the best way to gear and play a boxed bard. Some songs require instruments, but if I have the instruments out then the KA dps auto attack stuff is essentially pointless. I've heard the bard epic helps this issue, or there may be macros to swap instruments on for a song cast and then back to dual wield.

Whenever I use a song that requires an instrument it stops my MQ2Twist and generally screws up the KA playstyle.

How do other folks handle this, or does everyone just go directly for the bard epic?

I mained a Rogue back in PoP and just came back to the game a few weeks ago, so I am still catching up.

Thanks!

 

[Redbot]

A plugin was made for this quite awhile ago, MQ2BardSwap

https://www.redguides.com/docs/projects/mq2bardswap/

Just enter what instrument you want and it'll get to work. Example:

[CODE lang="ini" title="MQ2BardSwap_character_server.ini"][Settings]
Drum=/exchange "Illdaera's Steel Drum" mainhand[/CODE]

It will swap that item for all percussion songs.

 

[Knightly]

Are you on emu or on Live? If you're on live, don't worry about it -- the defiant style gear will all have instrument mods. Otherwise, the bard epic isn't really that big of an upgrade even from basic instruments. For example, Selo's Drums of the March is percussion resonance 14 whereas your Bard Epic 1.0 is only 8. So you'd still be "swapping out" even with the epic 1.0 if you were looking to maximize. Epic 2.0 is is Performance Resonance 19 for comparison -- but you can skip all of that just by leveling up and getting the random gear.

 

[naamloseeen]

Knightly said it right if you're on a live server. The defiant gear (and subsequent gear sets at later levels) will have all of the instrument mods that you need.

If you're new to barding though, I'd also point out that, in most cases, instruments with high mods aren't really needed. They do not affect most of the things you care about from the bard (mez, haste/overhaste, mana regen, melee procs, etc.). So, while a few songs may require an instrument (Composition of Ervaj, for instance), you don't always get the improvement you expect by having a better instrument mod. There are some exceptions, especially if you're playing on EMU where you still care about resists.

Also, there are some easy-to-get weapons in PoP with instrument mods (Troubadour's Mace and Battle Drummer's Main-Gauche). The mace has brass resonance, which is usually the one that gets people. The epic 1.0 can fix all that, but it's a pain in the ass in-era and not worth it out of era (just go straight for 1.5/2.0).

My approach is generally just to forget about instruments altogether while leveling. The benefits of a few extra points in strength or ac are rarely worth it. It all depends on what type of server you're playing on, though.

 

[Wildaan12332]

I am playing Live on Cazic-Thule. Luckily I had two old lvl 71's fully decked out in Potime raid gear from 2004 so I've been able to have an easy time lvling up the new crew. I will check on my defiant gear, that might be great. I'll check to see for sure if any of the songs I am attempting to use require an instrument.

I will try Mq2BardSwap for sure! Thank you all. This community has been the only reason I've been able to get back into playing EverQuest.