Rift-Bards

[Lyonheart]

First of all, heres a link to a very detailed Bard 101 post. read that http://forums.riftgame.com/showthrea...ort-Bard-Guide Read that if you want to know the fine details of the spec. i will go over what i think will be an excellent class to box.

The last beta i spent the last day playing a bard, i had played one in beta 5, but had tried so many class combos I forgot what was fun about the bard.

First, they do not have a super speed run buff like bards in other MMOs, its only 15% group speed, that will be useless after you get a mount. However, you can increase it to 20% with points spent, and also make it usable in combat. So a 20% in combat run speed is very useful, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Bards are a rogue class soul. There are many topics on what other rogue souls go well with the bard soul. Ill talk about that later. bards are a support class. In this way, they are much like other bards in other MMOs. They buff and heal, and dps. They need to twist songs to keep all buffs up..FUN!

Ok so just read that linked post to find out the details. The reason i made this post is because i think multi bards will be awesome to box. If you have 5 Bards, you can have every buff up, both the long durations types ( Fanfares and Anthems )
And the short songs called Motifs. One bard can keep all motifs up, but they only last 15 seconds each and 30 seconds with soul points spent. But in a group you can only have one of each type of buff up from bards. So Boxers could have all the motifs up by simply doing one per bard, maybe two with the lead guy. that will make it a lot easier to keep them all up while in combat.

Bards get some nice heals later on. As they spend points they get a few emergency heals on 1-3 minute timers. They heal two ways..DPSing with an ability called cadence http://rift.zam.com/en/ability/1487673667/Cadence. And through finishers called Codas. So multi bards DPSing with Cadence will do 100% of that damage as heals on the entire group OR up to10 raid members( you have to spend soul points to make this happen., and if your a bard. you will ) Cadence is the point builder ability for the bard. when you get 5 combo points you use a Coda. Codas can DPS, buff, debuff or heal.

Bards also get other abilities that are just cool downs and such, depending on how many points you spend in the tree.
They have an PBAoE mez, a single target mez.. a group heal..power source regin.etc. Also, depending on what partner souls you choose. you will have other abilities.

I will choose the abilities that buff what i do as a bard, IE, heal though my DPS ( cadence ) While questing I would use cadence and a DPS finisher ( coda) but in a raid or dungon i would use the buff/heal finishers of course.

I am not 100% sure if this will be viable for dungons, you can duel spec one of the bards to tank ( yes bards have a tanking soul ) And i "think" 4 bards healing via cadence and round robin the other heals could beat bosses in dungons.. only testing will tell. They don't have any targeted heals.. its all group. So it might not work. But this next beta phase is 6 days long!

If you read the thread I linked, the main post and the discussion after, you will know everything you need to know. Like what souls to pick as partner souls.

[defactoman]

Do you know if the anthems stacks? Something tells me 5 boxing for 200+ magic resistance could go a long way to increasing survivability. The ability says "one anthem per rogue" so id imagine that mean it could be technically possible if they didn't just build in the fact it doesn't stack.

[defactoman]

did a little Google on the forums, apparently no similar buffs stack (like wow). Sadface

[Lyonheart]

Right, a group can only have one each of the various buffs up, so a solo bard can only use what buff best fits the situation or group make up. 5x Cadence+ all Anthems, fanfares and Motifs always up is what makes multi bards powerful. The Cadence heals the group for 100% of the DPS it does, ie 5 bards cadence dps= 5 bards healing as they dps. Then they all would have the other big group heals they could use on a round robin for bigger heals, if thats even needed. Or they could just DPS as finishers, when healing was not needed. A single bard, speced right, does pretty damn good passive healing solo. As well as CCs and such. They can also do AE dps.

[jinkobi]

Going to be in the next open beta phase myself. Look forward to finally checking it out! Have to wait until tuesday though

[defactoman]

what about for the 2nd soul, ranger for pets or maybe sabo?

[Lyonheart]

what about for the 2nd soul, ranger for pets or maybe sabo?

If you read that post in the link i put up there, it explains in detail what other souls go great with Bard. But the short and sweet version would be something like this for a pure PvE support build >> http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...dqiqskqz.Vhb.V

The points in Nightblade are things that buff your cadence damage. More cadence damage=more healing. the 3rd soul can be a number of things, ranger is popular for the pet. Ranger pets only level up to 30, so after 30 it might be better to spec into one of the other trees. I would probably have at least one of my bards have saboteur for the baseline ability Adhesive Bomb ( AE 70% snare ) and 15% dex helps our dps as well. All Bard abilities are dex/attack power based.

There are a number of other souls that would work. Also, for questing, you could pick a more mixed spec for more dps and less healing. Read that post in my first post. lots of great info and discussion there.

[Mokoi]

I have 5 bards already, and they do rock. I think they do a lot of passive healing, but their range is only 20 yards, unlike the other ranged classes which can talent up to 40y, which is a huge difference.

I think a marksman or ranger main soul with a Bard off-soul could work. The aoe heal would be really good, since you can ranged DPS from 40y and then if targets get within the 20y of cadence, you can channel that spell away until they are dead, and use your combo points to heal the group up.

[Ualaa]

Have the developers said anything regarding boxing?

[defactoman]

Don't think so, and i wouldn't hold out much hope for an early reply