I found this on EQ Diva a long time ago. It has a ton of good information. Read all of it!
(written for the non-bard)
First of all, bards are different from every other class in that the majority of the way we contribute is limited by who we are grouped with: an enchanter can be in any kind of makeup and still buff and mez, a cleric can be in any kind of group makeup and still heal, but some of a bard's most valuable assets are in how he makes HIS group a great deal more effective than they could be without him.
THINGS A BARD CAN DO WITHOUT A GROUP
First of all, the things that bards can do no matter what group they are in:
1) Mezzing. Bards can mez for only 18 seconds per shot, up to about 4 mobs at a time without a bad string of resists. In a raid, their mezzing provides immesurable aid through teamwork with the chanters. Bard mez has the advantage of casting while running, as well as being a plate class. When a chanter gets resisted on mez, and aggroed, he has to stand still and channel while getting pounded on and hope it is mezzed before he dies. Bards can just run around and not get hit till it gets mezzed. I often designate a bard when I can to pre-mez big pulls, to make it easy for the chanter to tash and mez without risk of death. On very resistant mobs, a chanter would HAVE to tash first, which can lead to a very short lifespan while mezzing, bards have a song called Harmony of Sound (HoS) which is similar to tash, but is a shorter duration, easy to sing first before mezzing, but without the getting beaten on part. On a side note, Overwhelming Splendor is an overlooked buff, every bard should have this buff if they don't have max charisma, to facilitate mezzing.
2) Debuffing. Debuffs are always employed on raid mobs. Bards can debuff MR, FR, CR, DR, and PR. These are all single target debuffs, and the bard can only debuff so many at a time. HoS debuffs MR, FR, AND CR all in one go and is usually a top choice. Other debuffs only affect a single resist each. If a bard is singing HoS (MR, FR, CR), they can FURTHER debuff these resists, say, CR, for instance, with an additional song. Bard debuffs do not stack with each other, for the most part the bard with the highest level (including an AA called Jam Fest) will overwrite. The degree to which the resists are lowered are based on the drum they are using and their instrument modifier. (This is important because a higher level bard may overwrite the more effective debuff of a lower level bard, this is information the bards should work out amongst themselves and report to the raid leader). Personally, when there is a mob that constantly resists slow, for example, I have a bard sing HoS, and maybe Fufil's (additional MR debuff) until slow lands, which is usually right away with those songs playing. Note that all these debuffs except for HoS inflict damage.
Bottom line: Bards use debuffs to make other casters's spells land. This allows other debuffs to land earlier, an early slow saves cleric mana and perhaps aggro, prevents wasted mana on nukes and dots, and allows these damage spells to land for more damage, increasing dps while preserving mana, very important on many raids.
3) Pulling, Bards can do some AMAZING things as a puller, and I won't go into this too much. Like a monk, they are able to fade, but not be limited by a Feign Death. they can mez OUT OF CAMP, on their pull, then fade, to limit the amount of in camp mezzing needed. They can preslow. They have some very unique tools I won't even mention. Bards make great pullers, nuff said.
4) Mana Song! This is pretty obvious, but there's a few things I would like to mention. One is that based on AA, mana song has different ranges for different bards. Even with max extended range, there are some places where a single bard can cover the entire raid, and other times, where you will need to spread them out for coverage. This is true of the AE resist songs as well. It is extremely helpful, when more than one bard is needed to cover the raid with AE songs, that he is grouped with people who will be in range to him, ideally, all melee, or all casters, to get maximum effect out of his group songs at the same time (more on that to come). Finally, a bard should be one of the first rezed. This is often overlooked, but while a chanter needs to med to Clair people, bards can start singing mana song to help the raid quickly recover from a wipe, even before they loot their corpse. This will allow the chanter to med faster to buff Clair, and hasten the recovery time.
5) AE resists, similar to above with mana song for physical coverage of the raid. There are exactly two AE resist songs available, Elemental Chorus (EC) and Purifying Chorus (PC). They do not stack, and only one may be on at any given time. Both increase Magic resist. EC also increases Fire and Cold, PC also increases Disease and Poison. VERY important to note here though, is the complex nature of higher level bards overwriting a lower level bard with a more effective resist song. Best to ask the bards to figure out amongst themselves who has the best drum + best instrument mastery AA and report to the raid leader.
6) PBAE slows and PBAE'ing in general. When large numbers of mobs are pulled, or when they spawn during a fight....bards have a pbae slow. This may get them some instant aggro, but won't last very long. Most importantly, you have the mobs immediately slowed while the tanks peel them off the healers. Also when pbae'ing trash, having them all slowed always helps me breathe a little better till it's over. There are two basic kinds of pbae slows, one inflicts damage, and one does not, obviously, useful for different situations.......
There is another very useful little known pbae song called Denon's Bereavement. This is a pbae magic resist debuff, debuffs everything it lands on, and is "amplified" by the use of a string instrument. Keep in mind it has a built in dot, so it's not something for mezzing, but a wonderful debuff to use when AE'ing.
7) A word about KITING....
Bards have a reputation as being wonderful kiters. While this is true, it has limited applications. A bard really has no way of generating aggro. Yet bards are often asked to kite mobs from in camp, which they can't do because they can never compete with anyone else's aggro. The mob simply won't follow the bard anywhere. If a bard can charm a mob, and lead them out of camp, they should be able to kite them then, as long as they aren't close to the raid. Bards can kite outside the raid just fine, before a mob gets to the raid, but once a mob reaches the raid, they shouldn't be expected to "kite it away."
Cool High Sun. High Sunning is a special song that "gates" a mob back to its spawn point. It will not clear aggro, and unless it is cleared by being very very far away, you can expect it to return, but then it can just get high sunned again, repeatedly, until the raid is ready to deal with it. This is very handy in select situations. The range on high sun is practically melee range, so a bard often hits it with HoS on incoming, so that it will be high sunned on the very first try.
9) Positioining. Bards have a discipline similar to Weaponshield, that ripostes all attacks until their endurance runs out. The refresh time is about an hour. Of course, unlike a ranger, they can fade afterwards, and since bards don't have any capability for snap aggro like rangers seem to be able to pull off, it can be handy to save the ranger WS for when a tank goes down, to buy time to get a new tank on the mob.
10) RGC. Bards get RGC at 52. With a 3 second cast time and no mana cost, they can make ideal RGC'ers, especially against a mana draining curse. Where there is only one bard, and resists/mana song, or anything else is needed, it's fairly easy to "twist" it in after the resists are sung. It's a single target RGC, and for encounters where curing the main tank is a high priority, they can spam sing the main tank, greatly reducing the amount of time it takes to cure him. If a large number of curse counters need to be removed, bard rgc reduces the number of casts it will take other rgc'ers to do. Also there is a remove poison/disease song that can be handy for curing group member's ae effects.
11) Mana Drain. Sometimes draining mana is a key element to an event. Bards use their big horns to drain mana.
THINGS A BARD CAN DO IN A GROUP
A bard's abilities are defined by who is in his group. Believe it or not, which group has a bard and which doesn't can make or break a raid. The raid leader should take care when forming groups, and always have a plan for where the bards will be placed to maximize the raid's effectiveness. Some ideas follow...
1) Main Tank Bard. In many raids, the main tank(s) is central to the raid's success against the target, and his survival is a top priority. A bard contributes a number of special buffs to the main tank when grouped with him, which can be provided by no other class.
A) Max Resists: using Psalm of Veesah, singing mods, singing AA's, and possibly amplification song, a bard can provide maximum resists for his group. These resists are not available in the AE Resist songs. Mobs often will try to land DD's on the MT, having bard group resists versus AE resists make a world of difference here. Many times, when an effect is listed as being unresistable, part of it CAN be resisted, for example, when it says unresistable, -200 MR check, this means there is a component that is resistable, and one that is not.
B) Max DS. DS can add up to a lot, which is why we buff tanks with DS's. Unlike many spell caster DS's, bard DS stacks with all others. By singing PoV and Warmarch with a brass instrument, I can generate a DS of about 170, that stacks with all others. My brass instrument is fairly weak, other bards will contribute a higher DS. Again, more DS allows the fight to end faster. Note that there are times when no DS is preferable (to avoid adds spawning at a certain percentage).
C) Damage Mitigation. Verse of Vesagran mitigates both melee and spell damage, and can be handy to play for the main tank. How much mitigation is affected by the power of the wind instrument plus the bard. Due to the nature of the song, it is impossible to have it up all the time. You can have it up, I believe, a maximum of 12 seconds out of every 15 seconds, but this would be at the expense of other songs. I typically have it up for 50% of the fight off and on.
(BARDS NOTE: I still like using amp to max the DS on PoV, so my twist looks like this: amp, pov, warmarch, fourth song, VoV, pov, warmarch fourth song. This allows me to have VoV up 50% of the time, mitigating damage, without breaking the continuity of my twist, only a suggestion.)
Although outdated, it's still worth mentioning Niv's Harmonic, which can usually be twisted into a MT twist. This gives an AC bonus (60 or 80 or so iirc), I don't find it useful in my raids anymore, but I have in the past, and others may as well. It will still be useful to tanks who have not reached their AC softcap.
In my own raids, when I have a "tank lineup" I will have as many of these tanks as possible in one group with a bard, so they all can get the benefits of these songs without the hassle of switching groups around in an emergency. I find this a wonderful group makeup that allows a single bard to cover multiple tanks.
2) Melee DPS Bard. The melee dps of a bard is not that great, but the overall dps of a group with a bard in it can be HUGE. Take your highest melee dps'ers, and put them in a group with a bard. They will hear the bard's overhaste song. The haste cap is 100%, and is easily reached in a raid. The only person who can raise haste above 100% is a bard. At level 69 a bard donates 30% overhaste to his grouped melee companions, achieving the drool worthy 130% haste. The thought of five rogues hearing overhaste makes a raid leader very happy, and the increase in overall dps will be tremendous. Don't have five rogues? top five melee dps'ers ideally get a bard. Additionally, the DoN song, depending on bought or quested, gives each melee a chance to proc 75 or 150 DD, and it procs quite often, adding up for some nice extra kick. Warmarch, besides adding regular haste, also includes an increase in Str, and more importantly a very nice boost to ATK. These all contribute to taking a raid's top dps, and multiplying it.
3) Caster DPS Bard. Similar to the melee dps bard, the caster dps bard is the source of many wizzy big fish tales. This song will add up to 30% EXTRA damage to nukes from casters hearing the song. Wait, wait, it's not just nukes though! This song adds up to 30% damage to dots too. Every tick, the damage of the tick will vary, but it will be enhanced by the nature of this song. Tick upon tick of extra damage, lots of dps. Take your top caster dps'ers, Wizzys, Necros, etc, in this group, they reach their highest damage outputs. If they HAVE to be in someone's group, why not the bard's? heh. Also, pet classes with the pet affinity AA (necro, bst, mage) will have pets that hear bard song, whether it be overhaste or nuke focus (overhaste and nuke focus is actually the same song, it does both). Rangers using their bows can often be considered caster dps, as they will be in the same "area" (hence in song buff range) as the casters, and benefit from the overhaste effect of this song.
The Caster DPS Bard typically has the most extra spare songs space for things like mana song, debuffing, ae resists, and the effects of overhaste/nuke/dot-focus are not affected by instruments or AAs in any way. As long as they own the song, all bards are equal here.
4) Dedicated Resists Bard. There are some times when a raid's success is enhanced by max resists to certain classes. In an AE mana drain, for example, where the mana of a particular class is most vital to the raid, you might like to group 5 of your clerics with a bard for max resists to the manadrain. You are making the most out of your bard's unique ability to give them super resists. In this example, the bard would sing PoV and maybe Amp, giving them at least two extra songs to sing, probably they would be on mana song and AE resists as well. Your healers will have more mana and be easier to twitch if need be.
5) Group Divine Aura. While not a dedicated group function, this has a number of very special circumstance applications. The first that comes to mind is in Uqua, since I was just there, to save a rezer from the gas chamber. Second, for getting the group through a 20k fall with no damage. Third, to help a cleric camp out by firing it in the middle of his sit. Remember, DA can be clicked off at any time to cast spells or attack if needed. Fourth, if stuck somewhere with limited druids and no wizzie, it can be used as a ghetto TL.....druid starts port, towards the end bard fires off DA, anyone who wants to be ported clicks off DA to port, if DA is up when the port lands, you don't port, hence a druid can do multiple ports.
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Bards enhance the abilities of a raid's star players, and makes the whole raid run smoother, yet they are often some of the most underused classes. When selecting the group makeups, a raid leader should always keep their bards in mind. How they use the bard depends on the nature of the event. Everyone knows about mana song and AE resists, I hope that some of these other abilities find a way into a raid's every day life. Unless a bard is specifically dedicated to tanks or specific roles, it never hurts to put dps'ers with bards. There is usually room for overhaste/nuke/dot focus, and if you have to put your dps'ers somewhere why not put them with the bard, who can only enhance their abilities by being grouped. Having "caster" and "melee" dps'ers separate isn't always practical, the reason I pointed it out that way is two fold: being able to have the entire group in range to hear the song (instead of spread out and not all hearing it) and to free up more songs for other uses (such as not having to play ATK and proc song by being in a caster group and able to play other important songs, instead of playing both in a mixed group). Learning how to use your bards is an easy habit to get into, and will create a better equipped raid force, above and beyond what the individual members bring to the table.
