Question - Swapping bard to enchanter and shaman to beastlord

[Deflo]

Hello,

I had a team consisting of a War,Clr,Brd,Berz,Rog, Shm. All ran with CWTN/Sic plugins except the Brd.

Controlling the bard even with the ini of Sic never satisfied me. I guess I was spoiled by the CWTN/Sic plugins.

I had the idea to swap the Brd for an Ench and the Shm for a Beastlord.
Is there any experience with such a swap or has anyone done such a swap ? I think that on the one hand the group could gain dps by the Bst but on the other hand could lose dps by the missing Brd.

I know that there is an older post, but since then 2 expansions have come out.

Thanks in advance

I forgot to mention that I played on Live, and want to play current content.

 

[ChatWithThisName]

I mostly use an enchanter for my groups.
Bst makes logical sense for the group imho.

 

[naamloseeen]

I run a bard, but I feel your pain on controlling them. I sometimes swap in a less-geared chanter when I don't feel like dealing with the bard doing bard things.

Depending on how well your tank is doing, you could consider dropping the cleric for a beastlord. Shaman gives great adps for melee groups, so if they can keep up with heals on your tank you'd see a big dps boost with the addition of the beastlord. That's basically the group I usually run and it's great.

 

[RangerDanger13]

I think the swap would be fine, it really boils down to your personal play experience. You may miss out on some bard ADPS with a predominant melee group, and some over heals changing, but you gain some CC strength, ease with CWTN plugins and BST synergy. For tougher spots you can also turn mending on BST as back-up oh shit patch, I've done that before.

 

[Chibz]

I am in the process of changing out my bard for an enchanter for the same reason. I am happy with the switch so far! CC is better, melee dps has dropped a bit, but overall I feel the group has more survivability. You will miss bard invis though. My bard was never setup as a dps build, but I am now seeing my enchanter dps match or surpass my bard dps. I also switched from a warrior to an SK and then dropped the cleric for a beastlord and am very happy with that change. I am not sure how well the warrior will do without cleric heals, as the SK lifetaps are overpowered IMO.

The combinations are endless of course, so make sure you keep the classes you enjoy the most and build around them!

 

[Mishka]

I love the bard. I drive with SK, then Broadcast to the bard what do. With hotkeys for mezzing target, AoE mezz, selo+inv, epic, burns, song swap etc

Perhaps it is not optimal, but I feel with an EQBC with mq2melee you can control most group/toons adequately. however, you need to know how to set up hotkeys in the game to use this efficiently.

You can also beat mission mechanics with this kind of setup like Kael mission etc (Duck emotes and whatnot.)

I tried the enchanter CTWN during opening of Rizlona, but I wanted to stun lock mobs, and I ended up doing it manually through a EQBC. =P

 

[an_image]

Hello,

I had a team consisting of a War,Clr,Brd,Berz,Rog, Shm. All ran with CWTN/Sic plugins except the Brd.

Controlling the bard even with the ini of Sic never satisfied me. I guess I was spoiled by the CWTN/Sic plugins.

I had the idea to swap the Brd for an Ench and the Shm for a Beastlord.
Is there any experience with such a swap or has anyone done such a swap ? I think that on the one hand the group could gain dps by the Bst but on the other hand could lose dps by the missing Brd.

I know that there is an older post, but since then 2 expansions have come out.

Thanks in advance

I forgot to mention that I played on Live, and want to play current content.

war/cler/enc are just great quality of life all around. I'd drop the sham add an enc and keep the bard actually...the shaman's healing/dps/procs are ok...but bard songs benefit the group altogether and you can actually use it for chain pulling if you change that in your kissassist

 

[Dobber123]

Lots of great info here. Enc and bst would be cool but i would want to know what were you doing with bard and sham first. Really i don't see your dps going down considering how much your attack can be buffed by those 2. Not sure about stacking but with a glance it seems at 100ish you should be able to buff 1200atk 50ish to double attack ... As for over haste i just noticed this .

Burning Salad

Potion

0

0

25

0.18s

2m

8: Increase ATK by 10 9: Increase Melee Haste by 25% (v119)

Quest: Baking in TDS Tradeskills

 

[Sum1]

My bard and beastlord were the two toons out of my group that got hit in the recent suspension wave... for the bard, it was strike 2, so he was out 14 days versus 7.

My group's dps with a enchanter in for the bard and a rogue in for the beastlord was ABYSMAL. I usually run with a shaman healer.

Getting the beastlord back helped quite a bit, but it still felt slow.

Then I got the bard back.

Holy shitballs... things melt again.

If you can go shaman as main healer, run the bard using a semi-decent kissassist.ini, throw in a beastlord, and then leverage the Chat/Sic plugins, you're doing REALLY well.

 

[an_image]

My bard and beastlord were the two toons out of my group that got hit in the recent suspension wave... for the bard, it was strike 2, so he was out 14 days versus 7.

My group's dps with a enchanter in for the bard and a rogue in for the beastlord was ABYSMAL. I usually run with a shaman healer.

Getting the beastlord back helped quite a bit, but it still felt slow.

Then I got the bard back.

Holy shitballs... things melt again.

If you can go shaman as main healer, run the bard using a semi-decent kissassist.ini, throw in a beastlord, and then leverage the Chat/Sic plugins, you're doing REALLY well.

Man that sucks...sorry your bard box got flagged. I do enjoy seeing things melt, not agaisn't bundling up a sk/zerk/zerkbst/bard/shammie partie from time to time. My concern with that approach is how it looks if you're rolling with a crew like that ... sure sticks out like a sore thumb to have a sea of corpses all around your crew or in your wake.

In my totem pole:

1. Peace of mind
2. Ease of play
3. Fly under the radar
4. DPS

This is usually why for longer camping engagements I slow things down a bit in terms of reaction time and dps output. People don't usually whine about an average or slightly above average little team hanging around for a few hours but they'll bitch and whine when my war/sk kills half of GD every 10 mins...lol

 

[Sum1]

Man that sucks...sorry your bard box got flagged. I do enjoy seeing things melt, not agaisn't bundling up a sk/zerk/zerkbst/bard/shammie partie from time to time. My concern with that approach is how it looks if you're rolling with a crew like that ... sure sticks out like a sore thumb to have a sea of corpses all around your crew or in your wake.

In my totem pole:

1. Peace of mind
2. Ease of play
3. Fly under the radar
4. DPS

This is usually why for longer camping engagements I slow things down a bit in terms of reaction time and dps output. People don't usually whine about an average or slightly above average little team hanging around for a few hours but they'll bitch and whine when my war/sk kills half of GD every 10 mins...lol

I don’t roll two zerks, but I get your point. I don’t think people really look all that closely at the classes in a group when they’re looking for botters … I sure don’t.

 

[an_image]

I don’t roll two zerks, but I get your point. I don’t think people really look all that closely at the classes in a group when they’re looking for botters … I sure don’t.

I get that perspective. Back when I didn't know or use RG some things seemed fishy sometimes...but I've always been a live and let live kind of guy. Now that I'm strong on the dark side of the force (hehehe couldn't resist) it's super easy to figure out who's running what.

I think that's in part some of what we're seeing with these recent ban suspension waves. DBG and asshats from the no 3rd party camp have gotten savvier about how we do what we do. In the spirit of keeping my life stress-free and my little bots less noticeable I pro-actively try to make some things less effective to reduce the likelihood of being spotted by said asshats

 

[Sum1]

I get that perspective. Back when I didn't know or use RG some things seemed fishy sometimes...but I've always been a live and let live kind of guy. Now that I'm strong on the dark side of the force (hehehe couldn't resist) it's super easy to figure out who's running what.

I think that's in part some of what we're seeing with these recent ban waves. DBG and asshats from the no 3rd party camp have gotten savvier about how we do what we do. In the spirit of keeping my life stress-free and my little bots less noticeable I pro-actively try to make some things less effective to reduce the likelihood of being spotted by said asshats

Only way to do that is roll with a caster group. Even one melee toon not controlled by you is really obvious to anyone who knows what to look for.

 

[an_image]

Only way to do that is roll with a caster group. Even one melee toon not controlled by you is really obvious to anyone who knows what to look for.

You're not wrong. It really depends on where you are and what you're doing. Rangers chain pulling with bow can make this a lot easier and keeps things in character...mobs usually just aggro the tank, merc, and or pet with several mobs on it. Having an enchanter or bard aoe slowing/aoe mezzing is a great way to keep sanity to that approach and it doens't look too crazy.

Dungeons are another great way to keep onlookers at bay...after all smacking something or running back is exactly what you'd expect to see. Works even better with pet pulling in those instances because then you avoid a lot of pathing.

 

[Sum1]

You're not wrong. It really depends on where you are and what you're doing. Rangers chain pulling with bow can make this a lot easier and keeps things in character...mobs usually just aggro the tank, merc, and or pet with several mobs on it. Having an enchanter or bard aoe slowing/aoe mezzing is a great way to keep sanity to that approach and it doens't look too crazy.

Dungeons are another great way to keep onlookers at bay...after all smacking something or running back is exactly what you'd expect to see. Works even better with pet pulling in those instances because then you avoid a lot of pathing.

Only thing I don't like about dungeons (well, maybe this is less dungeons and more applicable to caves) is a lot of the modern content requires people to traverse hard-to-get-to spots deep in cavern systems for quests. Often you're more likely to have someone roll up on your bot group in a cave where you thought you were out of the way because there's only one way in and one way out. There are, of course, a few exceptions to this, but not many in the last few expansions.

 

[Turaj Steelfist]

I am in the process of changing out my bard for an enchanter for the same reason. I am happy with the switch so far! CC is better, melee dps has dropped a bit, but overall I feel the group has more survivability. You will miss bard invis though. My bard was never setup as a dps build, but I am now seeing my enchanter dps match or surpass my bard dps. I also switched from a warrior to an SK and then dropped the cleric for a beastlord and am very happy with that change. I am not sure how well the warrior will do without cleric heals, as the SK lifetaps are overpowered IMO.

The combinations are endless of course, so make sure you keep the classes you enjoy the most and build around them!

If you run toons that can cast IVU and invis (two separate toons that is) you can just make a hotkey that will tell each toon to cast their version and wallah you have double invis. I am not in game atm so I can't provide you my hotkey. The only thing I miss about my bard since going full time to enc is the run speed. Is my group dps lower heck yeah it is but I do fine with enc and if I do a fight where I need that dps boost I can always log in the bard for that fight. I know there are people out there that are hard core bard fanatics, but until the great CWTN makes bard easymode I will stick with enchanter. I had to create a hotkey to turn off bard's kissassist every time I want to move because he would not stop singing when I invised the group and I spent more time either recovering from the death or killing his mobs. I just want to play and not have to worry about the little things.

 

[Chibz]

I have the ability to cast IVU and invis on different toons, but as far I know whoever casts the spell lasts end up only with that version of invis, correct? So they are missing either invis or IVU, I can't remember what the order of casting the two is...

 

[Lockney1972]

I have tried both the combos myself. I just can't deal with the loss in dps and run speed from losing the bard. I end up missing the beastlords dps also. For me I rarely do missions that require a chanty...have had a few and it is in my alts that I keep lvled for just such an occasion. I do replace the cleric with the shaman when the content is easier...I don't trust the shaman quite in the tougher zones although am sure he could do it. I am a dps ho though....I really should make an all caster group in these times of suspensions but a couple mages is all i have mustered....wizard sucks ....wish they were unnerfed they are an easy box....I think it just depends on the player sadly...not much more to tell I guess

 

[Turaj Steelfist]

So the hotkey i use is as follows:

/bct enchanter //alt activate 1210
/alt activate 1212

Obviously you substitute your toon's name where it says enchanter.
This hotkey is pressed from my Pally. So long as your enc is not casting a spell this will give all party members both IVU and Invis.

Hope this helps.